Erdogan directly challenged the geopolitical status of the Israeli capital by explicitly telling the Turkish parliament that “Jerusalem is our city, a city from us.”

By Hezy Laing

Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen warns of Erdogan’s ambitions to renew dominance in the Middle East, including control of Jerusalem.

In an in-depth strategic analysis with the TOV Hebrew media network, Hacohen warns of broad regional trends that threaten Israel.

Turkey aspires to revive the days of the Ottoman Empire, an aspiration that includes renewed dominance in the Syrian and maritime spheres and even control over Jerusalem.

Hacohen emphasizes that the Turks are working to establish a “Blue Homeland” in the Mediterranean Sea, claiming vast waters with huge economic resources as their own and using the Turkish navy to demonstrate their presence.

This can also be seen in the occupation of northern Cyprus.

Modern Turkey’s pursuit of a “Neo-Ottoman” empire marks a significant departure from the isolationist framework established during the founding of the modern republic.

By leveraging cross-border military actions, sweeping maritime doctrines, and highly symbolic cultural reversals, the state systematically projects power well beyond its borders.

As Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself has said, “Turkey is larger than Turkey,” and “The borders of our hearts are elsewhere,” referencing former Ottoman lands such as Mosul and Kirkuk.

Turkey projects heavy military power directly into former Ottoman domains, establishing operational bases in Syria, Libya, and Somalia, as outlined by Arab News.

The government also explicitly invoked the legacy of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II when reverting the historic Hagia Sophia from a secular museum back to a functioning mosque.

Erdogan also systematically uses highly charged historical and religious rhetoric to claim a Turkish right of ownership over the Jewish city of Jerusalem.

He frequently leverages the 400-year legacy of the Ottoman Empire (1516–1917) to challenge Israeli sovereignty and rally regional support.

Erdogan directly challenged the geopolitical status of the Israeli capital by telling the Turkish Parliament that “Jerusalem is our city, a city from us,” referencing the Ottoman retreat during World War I “in tears” and pointing to standing Ottoman architecture, including the Old City walls.

In a direct public spat with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding ancient relics, Erdogan claimed that “Turkey will not give even a single pebble belonging to Jerusalem to Israel,” defining the city as a sacred trust for all humanity.

Following the 2017 United States decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Erdogan organized an extraordinary summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, declaring the American move “against ethics, history, and consciousness and completely null and void.”

The post Turkey’s grand plan to rebuild the Ottoman Empire, including Jerusalem appeared first on World Israel News.

The extreme proximity to an active war zone suggests he may have been targeted by foreign intelligence operatives abroad.

By Hezy Laing

The unexpected death of U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham on July 11, 2026, from an aortic dissection (a tear in his main artery), has led many to suspect foul play.

The sudden death of a leading politician, prominent on the world stage, is a highly unusual event—especially one as outspoken as Lindsey Graham.

His unabashed support for Israel and Ukraine upset many very powerful people.

The rapidity with which the media establishment declared the death “natural,” despite the fact that Graham was otherwise completely healthy, also shocked many.

At the same time, the media dismissed any suggestion of foul play as crazy “conspiracy” theories.

This despite the fact that various substances, including certain illicit drugs, medications, and environmental toxins, can have severe adverse effects on the cardiovascular system, leading to acute myocardial infarction (heart attack).

One expert not afraid to speak up is historian Michael Yigal Maimon, who raised the possibility of assassination by poison to settle political scores.

In a conversation on the TOV News channel, Maimon draws disturbing similarities between the current case and past events that have stirred up the region and raises the possibility that this was not a natural death.

According to Maimon, Graham’s background as a sworn enemy of the Iranian regime and his clear support for Ukraine vis-à-vis Russia constitute a solid basis for suspicions of poisoning.

However, for him, the main trigger for the suspicion was the surprising similarity to the death of Faisal Husseini in 2001.

Husseini, who was a healthy and strong man, died suddenly in Kuwait immediately after arriving on a flight from Beirut, an event that left many in the media and the Arab world stunned.

As part of his analysis, Maimon reveals details of his conversations with sources close to the Muqata’a in Ramallah at the time.

The information he received from these sources directly pointed to Yasser Arafat’s involvement in Husseini’s death.

The link between the deaths of perfectly healthy key figures immediately after sensitive flights or diplomatic visits raises once again the issue of the use of poisons as a means of settling political scores in the Middle East and beyond.

Following the sudden death of prominent Palestinian leader Faisal Husseini on May 31, 2001, from a heart attack in Kuwait, widespread assassination theories emerged across the Arab world.

While official medical records claim that Palestinian leader Faisal Husseini died of a natural heart attack on May 31, 2001, a specific subset of political analysts have long argued that PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat had a distinct motive to orchestrate his elimination.

By 2001, the international community was increasingly frustrated with Arafat’s handling of the Second Intifada and was openly searching for a more moderate alternative.

Husseini—popular, internationally respected, and hailing from the elite, historic Husseini clan—was widely viewed as a prime candidate to succeed or sideline Arafat.

Husseini was an advocate for diplomatic engagement and peaceful civil disobedience, famously warning that violent armed conflict would destroy the Palestinian cause internationally.

In contrast, Arafat was actively steering the Second Intifada into an armed conflict.

Arafat was notorious for maintaining absolute financial control over Palestinian institutions to build personal dependency.

In the years leading up to 2001, Arafat systematically choked the funding of Husseini’s East Jerusalem headquarters, the Orient House, to undercut Husseini’s independence.

Husseini suffered his fatal heart attack in Kuwait, a nation that had completely banned Yasser Arafat and top PLO officials following Arafat’s public alignment with Saddam Hussein during the 1990–1991 Gulf War.

Husseini’s 2001 visit was the very first official diplomatic breakthrough with Kuwait since the war.

The PLO has a history where prominent internal critics or figures who gained too much autonomous popularity occasionally met suspicious or violent ends.

Because Arafat immediately and publicly blamed Israel for Husseini’s death—using it to rally anger for the Intifada—theorists argue the tragedy served as a convenient dual-purpose political tool for Arafat.

Graham died at his Capitol Hill residence just hours after returning from an official diplomatic visit to Ukraine.

The extreme proximity to an active war zone suggests he may have been targeted by foreign intelligence operatives abroad.

During his final trip, Graham announced a new bipartisan agreement with the Trump administration to impose severe sanctions on buyers of Russian oil.

The timing made him an immediate target for Moscow’s state-sponsored retaliation.

Russia is widely assumed to be behind the killing of dozens of journalists and politicians critical of the Putin regime.

Graham had inspected a Ukrainian drone factory during his visit. Russia reportedly targeted and bombed that specific facility shortly after his departure.

Alexander Dugin, a prominent Russian ultra-nationalist ideologue, frequently described as an advisor or close ally to Vladimir Putin, previously called for the assassination of U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham.

Prior to Graham’s sudden passing, Dugin published statements advocating for the senator to be “flattened,” writing on social media: “Better to kill this guy. He is the problem for Trump. The world will be better without him.”

Political commentators, including former White House speechwriter Marc Thiessen, publicly noted that Russian intelligence services have a documented history of using hard-to-detect poisons against high-profile political adversaries, making an assassination “entirely possible.”

Just days before his death, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) also publicly called for Graham’s assassination.

Because Graham was a vocal hawk advocating for aggressive military action against Tehran, there is also a possibility he was targeted by Iran.

While the preliminary report pointed to cardiovascular disease, the D.C. Medical Examiner’s office stated that the official death certificate remains “pending” until complete toxicological and microscopic testing is finalized.

Natural causes cannot be determined until poisoning is definitively disproven.

FBI Director Kash Patel publicly stated that the bureau was actively “assisting local authorities” with the investigation—an unusual move.

Russian state media and figures like retired CIA officer Larry Johnson insisted that Graham actually died while still on the ground in Kyiv.

They argued that the official timeline of his return to Washington, D.C., was fabricated to avoid a massive international crisis.

The post Graham’s sudden death sparks historical assassination comparisons appeared first on World Israel News.

The good news is that for the first time in almost half a century, the idea of regime change is gaining traction inside Iran, even within the regime’s core support base.

By Amir Taheri, Gatestone Institute

After more than a year of war, albeit with on-and-off fighting spells, it is perhaps time for US President Donald Trump to take stock of what has happened so far as a guide to what he might do next.

But before he does that, he needs to ponder the key question: is this a war of choice or of necessity?

Wars of choice seldom produce the results desired by those who start them. One example was the US war in Vietnam, later expanded to Cambodia and Laos.

Another was the 1956 British-led war against Egypt. The Soviet involvement in Afghanistan was another example of wars of choice, as was President Bill Clinton’s decision to intervene in Somalia.

Currently the most glaring example is the war that Russian President Vladimir Putin started against Ukraine. In wars of choice, even if you emerge as victor, which is seldom the case, the reward you get is often less than the price you paid in blood and treasure.

Wars of choice are children of jingoistic minds. The disastrous Crimean War began in 1853 with the chant: “We don’t want war—but by jingo if we do. We’ve the men, the ships, and the money too!”

In contrast, a war of necessity happens because the status quo you find yourself confronted with has become intolerable on a medium- to long-term basis or because you have been attacked and you have no choice but to respond.

In 1939, despite its comparative weakness in men and materiel, Britain couldn’t have thrown in the towel without at least testing the first rounds of combat.

Back to the current war: judged by six different administrations in Washington, the status quo that existed between the unsavory Khomeinist regime in Tehran and the United States had not morphed into a clear and present danger to either side.

Based on that judgment, the US administrations tried a number of schemes to prevent the Islamic Republic from becoming a clear and present danger in the future.

They imagined that down the line, Tehran’s rulers, besotted by a deadly ideology, would develop intercontinental ballistic missiles, fit them with nuclear warheads, and threaten to hit New York.

But even if that assumption were right, you already have North Korea, which has the missiles and the nuclear warheads. The difference is that Kim Jong Un threatens to hit San Francisco.

Seen from the US and many other countries, especially in the region, the Islamic Republic is a deadly threat.

Iran is a large country, rich in natural and human resources, that, if mobilized for doing mischief, could do a great deal of harm.

From that angle, it is not just a competitor, rival, or mere adversary. Nor is it just another classical enemy or foe.

It has shown it will massacre its own citizens by the thousands and deprive them of daily bread to finance the killing of Syrians and Lebanese, among many other nations.

Faced with such a foe, or hostis humani generis, as the old Latin phrase says, the worst thing to do is wound him but let him live.

With such a foe, you either kill him or transform him into a friend. Successive US administrations never managed to decide which of the two options to seriously pursue.

President George W. Bush spoke of “goodwill breeding goodwill” only to see more Americans being seized as hostages by the Khomeinists.

Clinton’s shibboleth was “containment” plus cuddling the mullahs. He was rewarded by attacks on US embassies and bases in the region.

Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden bought into Tehran’s narrative and forged the disastrous JCPOA “nuclear deal” based on a non-existent fatwa by Ali Khamenei.

This gave that expert in Madison Street-style self-promotion, General Qassem Soleimani, the ability to build an empire that at one point controlled four Arab capitals.

After almost half a century, it must now be clear to all that the Khomeinist regime is incapable of reforming itself unless it is for the worse.

The current war has shown that short of a full military invasion of Iran, there is little chance of the truncated leadership in Tehran substantially changing its behavior.

Right now, almost all options seem unattractive. Bombing the same targets in Iran again and again achieves little even in military terms. Even taking control of the Omani side of the Strait of Hormuz by the US won’t restore normal navigation.

The “nuclear threat” from Iran is more remote than ever. Almost the whole nuclear industry has been shut for at least the past six months.

The “targeted killing” of Iran’s top 23 nuclear scientists has produced a gap that could take years to bridge.

The negotiating process that, in the absence of grown-ups, that is to say, professional diplomats from the US, produced the shambolic “memorandum of misunderstanding” is at a dead end.

Those in Tehran who might want a deal don’t have the power to do so. And those who have the power don’t want a deal.

The good news is that for the first time in almost half a century, the idea of regime change is gaining traction inside Iran, even within the regime’s core support base.

For obvious reasons, the war halted that traction but didn’t end it. If Trump cannot change the regime in Tehran, it doesn’t mean that Iranians can’t either.

Despite the brouhahas prompted by Trumpophobia, the Islamic Republic has been defeated in this war and knows it. And defeat in war is often a prelude to regime change.

The regime is clearly indicating its fear that a halt to bombing by the US while “maximum pressure” measures continue could encourage its many opponents inside Iran, including sections of the Khomeinist constituency, to restart the revolts that shook it last winter.

The “Iran problem” is a multifaceted challenge that cannot be met solely by bombing. It requires political spadework with elements within the regime and its peripheries that fear the loss of their wealth or even lives.

Contact is also needed with opposition forces inside Iran and diplomatic efforts to persuade regional and European nations to sing from the same hymn sheet on Iran.

The ultimate aim would be to translate military victory into a political one. There are times when war is the continuation of politics by other means.

But there are also times that politics is the means of cashing the chips won in war. That strategy, however, requires patience and persistence, not yapping from one tweet to another.

The post Iran: Cashing chips won in war – analysis appeared first on World Israel News.

With Turkey desperately jockeying to replace Iran as the region’s dominant power, such a prospect cannot be dismissed lightly.

By Con Coughlin, Gatestone Institute

US President Donald Trump must abandon his plans to sell Turkey highly sophisticated F-35 stealth fighters because of the deeply duplicitous conduct Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan displayed during efforts to end hostilities between the US and Iran.

Trump’s willingness to even consider lifting the F-35 ban is being seen in the context of his charm offensive to forge closer ties with Erdogan, an initiative the American leader has undertaken despite the Turkish leader’s well-documented support for radical Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

Trump’s courtship of Erdogan, moreover, is continuing despite concerns being raised about Turkey’s duplicitous involvement in peace talks to end the Iran war.

While, in public, Ankara has said its main objective is to end hostilities in the Gulf, it has also been working quietly behind the scenes to provide support for the beleaguered ayatollahs.

The latest evidence highlighting Erdogan’s continued support for the Iranian regime is contained in reports that Turkey actively thwarted a joint military operation backed by the US and Israel to launch a Kurdish-led incursion of Iran in the early stages of the war aimed at overthrowing the Islamic regime.

According to the report published by Israel’s i24News, Kurdish militias were preparing to launch an attack on Iran with the aim of instigating a nationwide rebellion against the ayatollahs’ tyrannical rule when the US halted the operation due to pressure from Erdogan.

Erdogan’s openly Islamist agenda certainly also makes a compelling argument for Trump to give serious consideration to reversing his decision to lift the ban preventing Ankara’s acquisition of F-35 warplanes.

Apart from Erdogan’s long-held support for the Islamist ideology espoused by the expansionist Muslim Brotherhood and its allies, the Turkish leader has also been accused of actively thwarting the Trump administration’s attempts to disarm Hamas terrorists in Gaza as part of its peace initiative in the enclave.

The requirement for Hamas to fully surrender all of its weapons was a key demand of Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan.

Efforts to pressure Hamas’s terrorist leadership into fulfilling its disarmament obligations have, though, been stymied by the interventions of Turkey and Qatar, the Gulf state that also supports a variety of Islamist groups, which have actively used their influence to delay the disarmament process.

Turkey’s obstructive approach to the disarmament issue in Gaza follows a series of public statements in which Erdogan has explicitly stated that he regards Israel as a potential enemy and that the two countries could soon find themselves involved in a direct military confrontation.

With Turkey desperately jockeying to replace Iran as the region’s dominant power, such a prospect cannot be dismissed lightly.

Erdogan also seems to have initiated a charm offensive, most likely with at least a partial view to prying loose those F-35s.

Despite Erdogan’s professed Islamist sympathies and his deepening antagonism towards Israel, Trump has nevertheless expressed his intention to sell the F-35s to Ankara after meeting with Erdogan at the start of the recent NATO summit in Ankara.

Trump previously blocked Turkey’s participation in the F-35 program during his first term in the White House, following Ankara’s decision to purchase Russia’s S-400 air defense system.

Erdogan is arguing that he has not yet unpacked the S-400s, which were built for one reason: to target and defeat the F-35s. Presumably he will unpack them after the F-35s have been safely delivered.

The move prompted fears within the Pentagon that allowing Turkey access to the top-secret F-35 program would enable the Russians, who have close ties with Ankara, to gain access to the warplane’s stealth technology, thereby compromising its ability to evade Russian anti-aircraft systems.

Despite these well-documented objections to Turkey’s participation in the F-35 program, with Ankara said to be lobbying to purchase up to 100 of the stealth fighters, Trump now appears minded to ease the ban he imposed during his first term and allow the sale of the aircraft to Turkey to proceed.

When asked at the NATO summit about lifting the ban on Turkey buying the warplanes, Trump replied, “That’s a decision we’re going to make… it’s a great plane, the best plane by far, and it’s certainly something we will consider.”

Trump’s change of heart on the F-35 issue has already prompted widespread criticism from numerous quarters.

Greece, which historically remains at odds with Turkey on a number of regional issues, such as Turkey’s continued occupation of northern Cyprus, has indicated its dismay at the decision.

Trump’s move should also attract strong opposition from Israel, the other country most immediately threatened by a frequently bellicose Turkey.

Israel has already successfully integrated the F-35 into its air force, with the stealth warplane playing a pivotal role in the recent military campaigns against Iran.

The Israel Air Force has been so impressed with the F-35’s performance that the Israeli government recently announced its intention to purchase a further 50 of the planes, a move deemed to be vital to maintaining Israel’s all-important air superiority in the Middle East.

Any move by the US to sell F-35s to Ankara could compromise Israel’s air supremacy by providing the Turks with the ability to analyze the top-secret technology that gives the Israel Air Force a decisive advantage in air combat.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already voiced his opposition to the proposed deal, warning in an interview with CNN that the sale of America’s most advanced fighter aircraft “doesn’t make Turkey a friendly state to the United States.”

In part of an escalating dispute with Erdogan, Netanyahu described Ankara as “a regime that’s infected with the Muslim Brotherhood, which hates the United States.”

Trump’s proposal to sell F-35s to Turkey should provoke fierce opposition in the US Congress, which one hopes will be unwilling to lift the ban imposed on Turkey because of its close ties with Russia and Iran, as well as its ongoing, if temporarily subdued, hostility to Israel and Greece and expanding its hold on occupied Cyprus.

The first public move against a possible policy change on the F-35 issues has come from US Representative Dina Titus (D-NV), who has gathered the signatures of 18 members on a letter to the leadership of the House of Representatives.

The lawmakers are calling for guarantees that current US law will be upheld and that Congress will be ready to intervene if the administration attempts to move ahead with Turkey’s return to the program.

With opposition mounting on all sides to the proposed deal, Trump would be well-advised to take heed of his critics and abandon his plan to provide the world’s most sophisticated warplanes to Turkey’s openly pro-Islamist, charming but ruthless leader—who thinks nothing of decimating his country’s military, disabling any political opposition, and imprisoning, torturing, and deporting journalists; and persecuting Christians, Kurds, Alevis, and other perceived dissidents.

The post Trump must abandon his dangerous plan to sell F-35s to Turkey – opinion appeared first on World Israel News.

The Jewish state must adopt an “Israel First” doctrine.

By Jonathan Pollard – Special to World Israel News

According to Israeli intelligence sources, Israel would only enter the current conflict between the US and Iran under two conditions: (1) it was hit first, or (2) the US “asked” us to enter the war.

Personally, I don’t see the logic of letting someone hit us first. That’s just plain foolish. I also don’t like the Americans essentially ordering us to commit our forces to help them, as if we’re some tribal levy called up to serve their colonial overlords in a border dispute with a rival colonial power.

In light of my opposition to these two conditions for our entering the American war against Iran, I propose a third option based on what I call an “Israel First” doctrine.

What does this involve? Simply put, instead of waiting like some pawn to get hit first or politely awaiting an order from the US to start fighting the Iranians on its behalf, we should initiate our own independent campaign against Iran – without asking the Americans for permission to do so.

As you can imagine, our entry would be a surprise to both the US and Iran. And, as most military strategists know, surprise can be an incredible force multiplier if implemented properly.

First, the objective of our campaign should be to totally destroy Iran’s missile production plants, its main electrical generators, and its oil and gas industry. Transportation fuel storage facilities and bridges, in particular, should also be targeted, which would severely limit the IRGC’s ability to move units and equipment around the country.

The Americans are currently doing this in southern Iran to prevent the IRGC from reinforcing the area, and we should do the same in western and central Iran. This would be of critical importance if the Kurds decide to join the war.

As far as major airfields are concerned, while many were hit during our last campaign, the cratering damage to runways was quickly repaired. However, there might be a way to permanently destroy the runways if some of the bombs used were filled with a liquid chemical agent that actually dissolved the concrete.

This would essentially require the Iranians to completely rebuild the targeted runways, which would take an enormous amount of time and resources.

Of course, if Iran’s major concrete and steel manufacturing plants were destroyed, it’s likely that the targeted airfields would be closed indefinitely.

To ensure maximum destruction, each target should be hit by enough aircraft to completely destroy it.

Looking at after-action satellite imagery of those Iranian facilities that were hit during our last attacks, it was clear that relatively few buildings were destroyed. This was because we had limited numbers of aircraft and weapons with which to hit the targeted facilities.

We therefore concentrated on what we thought were the key buildings in any given complex. Since the Iranians had stockpiled replacement equipment for what was lost, all they had to do was rebuild a relatively small part of a much larger production plant.

We shouldn’t allow that to happen again. The next time around, we must take out an entire targeted facility – not just part of it.

If that means the campaign will take longer to complete, then we’ll have to accept this as the cost of not having invested in unmanned Collaborative Combat Aircraft, ballistic and HGV missiles and high-Mach, long-range cruise missiles, all of which could have significantly multiplied the destruction wrought by our manned fighter-bombers.

One out-of-the-box idea to compensate for our lack of bomb capacity involves asking the UAE whether we could borrow its fleet of 18 C-17 Globemaster III transports. These planes can lift about 85 tons and are equipped with a rear ramp that can be lowered while the plane is in the air.

If we load around 50 rocket-assisted 1-ton bombs that have been fitted with wings and inertial navigation systems on an ejection rack system, all the C-17s have to do is lower their rear ramps, slightly tilt their noses, and let the bombs slide out the back. Once out of the plane, the bombs can deploy their wings, fire their rocket boosters and glide 100-200 kilometers to their targets.

If adequately guarded by Israeli escorts, this type of jury-rigged heavy bomber force would likely shorten our campaign to less than a week.

This use of transports as bombers is not hypothetical. It has been tested and validated.

Let’s not delude ourselves

Assuming we were successful in destroying Iran’s war-making ability and reducing its overall industrial capacity to that of the Stone Age, what would become of the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps? Even if it survived when the dust settled, it wouldn’t be able to build or import anything of value.

In the meantime, Iran’s proxy network, consisting of Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis, could finally be decisively destroyed without the possibility of being resupplied by Iran. And there would also be a chance of regime change if the Kurds managed to assist a popular uprising.

But let’s not delude ourselves about the success of such an insurrection. There is a better-than-even chance that an uprising would be crushed by an IRGC equipped with only tanks and machine guns.

If the outcome of that confrontation left the IRGC in control of Iran, we would have to ensure that it remained unable to threaten us ever again. This would require constant, comprehensive surveillance of the country involving both ground- and space-based assets.

We would also have to develop what’s called “prompt strike” weapons, such as hypersonic glide vehicles, ballistic missiles with multiple maneuvering warheads, and unmanned strike aircraft capable of carrying medium-bomber payloads. This force would have to be ready at all times to destroy any effort by the IRGC to rebuild its military capability.

Of course, whether the Air Force would ever allow such weapons is an open question. Its insistence on employing manned long-range strike assets has taken on the nature of an obsession, even though we cannot afford to lose any pilots in such dangerous missions so far from home.

The only alternative might very well involve the use of weapons most Israelis are not yet ready to even contemplate using, let alone actually authorizing.

I have a feeling, though, that given our impending two-front war with Turkey and Egypt, our people will have no choice but to drop their squeamishness about the preventive use of such weapons.

Granted, the consequences of employing them could end up being a diplomatic nightmare.

But dealing with that would be far preferable to having to bury an entire generation of our soldier children.

The post Jonathan Pollard: Israel’s third option for Iran appeared first on World Israel News.

One rarely sees robust UN condemnations or widespread mainstream media outrage when Iranian attacks and plots against synagogues are carried out or disrupted.

By Majid Rafizadeh, Gatestone Institute

Despite sanctions and military setbacks, Tehran’s ideological commitment to the destruction of Israel and targeting Jewish, Christian, Baha’i and other worldwide minority communities remains a core pillar of its foreign policy and proxy strategies.

In Iran, far from being “just” rhetoric, this antagonism is daily seen in a pattern of terrorist operations, including plots against synagogues, Jewish sites, Christians, Baha’is, and other “infidels,” which exposes the regime’s transnational reach.

When, however, anyone says that Iran is doing this, the so-called international community and United Nations are completely silent.

Recent incidents highlight a horrific wave of attacks and foiled plots targeting Jewish, Christian, and other minority institutions.

In the United Kingdom and across Europe, Iranian-linked actors, often operating through proxies or networks of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), have been tied to intimidation, arson and shooting attacks on synagogues and Jewish schools, stabbings of Jewish individuals, and threats against community sites.

These operations demonstrate the regime’s determination to export its antisemitic and anti-“infidel” ideology and use diaspora networks or recruited proxies to strike at Jewish, Christian, and other “infidel” targets far from the Middle East.

Authorities in the UK and other countries have documented multiple Iran-backed attacks and plots, especially against Jewish communities.

In response, the UK has taken a strong and rightful step by designating the IRGC a terrorist organization. Under new national security powers, providing any assistance to the group — or expressing support — can now result in severe penalties, up to 14 years in prison.

Similarly, the EU added the IRGC to its terrorist list in February 2026, a significant policy shift that acknowledges the group’s role in repression and international terrorism.

These developments make clear that the Iranian regime’s ideological goals — annihilating Israel and targeting Jews globally — persist and are still being actively pursued.

The Islamic Republic of Iran, since its 1979 Islamic Revolution, has operated as a terrorist state, using the IRGC and proxies such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis to advance its aims.

No diplomatic deal or agreement has ever permanently halted these activities: the regime views such pacts as temporary opportunities for enrichment and rearmament.

Under the 2015 JCPOA “nuclear deal” reached between Iran and the Obama administration, funds and sanctions relief flowed to Iran, benefiting the IRGC and its proxies.

This empowerment directly contributed to heightened aggression, culminating in the horrific Hamas-led massacre in Israel on October 7, 2023.

The regime’s foundational goal of “wiping” Israel off the map remains unchanged, rooted in revolutionary ideology, based on a genocidal Islamic hadith that rejects Jews and Jewish self-determination within any borders:

Allah’s Messenger said, “The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say, “O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.” — Sahih al-Bukhari 2926, Book 56, Hadith 139.

Israel’s actions in defending itself are therefore not only justified but essential, not just for itself but for broader regional and global stability.

Iran maintains terrorist cells and influence operations in numerous countries. While the United States and Israel have confronted this threat head-on through sanctions, intelligence, and military measures, much of the international community has been slower or indifferent in response.

One rarely sees robust UN condemnations or widespread mainstream media outrage when Iranian attacks and plots against synagogues are carried out or disrupted.

Yet, when Israel defends its citizens against attacks by Iran-backed Hezbollah, the volume of criticism and calls for restraint are immediate and intense.

This double standard emboldens terrorists and isolates the one democracy in the region, which actively counters a threat to Western civilization.

Israel maintains strong and peaceful relations with all nations that do not seek its destruction. It has every right — and indeed the duty — to defend itself against an ideologically driven regime that is working for its obliteration.

The international system’s bias against the tiny state of Israel that is fighting to defend these sanctimonious ingrates Iran-backed undermines security, freedom, and peace and—in ostentatious displays of cowardice, such as pleas to create a terrorist Palestinian state—actually rewards Iran’s aggression against the West by showing the terrorists that terrorism works.

The IRGC’s banning by the UK and resignation by the EU are positive steps, but without deeper action, they remain symbolic—actually, its affiliates operate on European and Western soil, endangering citizens through plots to harm locals.

Mere listing or banning is insufficient. Governments need to close Iranian embassies where IRGC influence is suspected, expel connected diplomats, impose crippling sanctions that halt all trade, and fully cut economic ties.

Iran’s diplomatic missions have long served as hubs for intelligence and proxy coordination.

Fully supporting American and Israeli efforts against Iran is also crucial to neutralizing the threat.

The EU should also abandon its outdated distinction between Hezbollah’s so-called “military” and “political” wings.

As with Hamas or the Houthis, Hezbollah functions as a unified proxy of Iran. Its political activities fund and legitimize its terror apparatus.

Treating the “wings” separately allows continued financing and influence under the guise of social or political work. Full designation is necessary for consistency against the IRGC’s death grip.

The UN and the international community must stop turning away from this clear and present danger.

The Iranian regime’s pursuit of the annihilation of Israel, Jews, the United States, and the West is an ongoing operational reality.

Foiled plots against the West—including against President Donald J. Trump and other senior officials, journalists, dissidents, and diplomats—underscore the urgency.

Symbolic measures—bans and designations—while welcome, urgently need to evolve into comprehensive isolation: severed diplomatic ties, airtight sanctions, and unwavering support for those on the front lines.

Only by treating the Iranian regime and its proxies as the terrorist networks they are—without illusions of “moderation”—can the world curb their threat.

Israel’s defense is not merely self-preservation; it protects the principle that no nation can live under the shadow of genocidal intent.

The post Iranian regime’s insatiable drive to wipe out Jews and other minorities while the world turns a blind eye appeared first on World Israel News.

Iran’s rulers appear to be acting as though they have little left to lose, while Islamist extremist voices advocating more confrontational policies have gained the upper hand in Tehran.

By Wahied Wahdat-Hagh, Middle East Forum

Ebrahim Rezaei, spokesman for the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee in the Islamic Republic’s parliament, said on July 8, 2026, that Tehran was weighing possible responses should the United States attack again.

Among the options under consideration, he said, were withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a change in Iran’s nuclear doctrine, and the closure of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, along with the Strait of Hormuz.

His statement did not come in isolation. Iran’s rulers increasingly are relying on revolutionary extremist Islamist figures aligned with the Paydari Front and the political camp of Expediency Council member Saeed Jalili.

In October 2024, Iranian newspapers reported that 39 members of Iran’s pseudo-parliament had called on the Supreme National Security Council to reconsider the Islamic Republic’s “defense doctrine,” arguing that Tehran’s strategy should be reassessed because Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons.

Hossein Shariatmadari, a political analyst and managing editor of Kayhan, said on July 8 that technology no longer constrains Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon; political will is the major factor. He argued there is no reason for negotiations as the United States understands only “the language of power.”

Shariatmadari’s argument follows the logic of a seasoned hostage-taker: The Islamic Republic should use its ability to disrupt global energy routes as a lever of pressure. “War has its own requirements,” he said, “and each side uses the tools at its disposal to advance its objectives.”

Iran’s rulers appear to be acting as though they have little left to lose, while Islamist extremist voices advocating more confrontational policies have gained the upper hand in Tehran.

Iranian authorities apparently have dismissed the models embraced by neighbors and allies like Pakistan, China, and North Korea.

Pakistan pragmatically cooperates with the United States and Western institutions for security, financial support, International Monetary Fund access, and diplomatic legitimacy.

China built its authoritarianism upon economic expansion, state capacity, and controlled prosperity. North Korea survives through extreme isolation.

Iran cannot replicate that model. Its people have access to the outside world, memories of cultural openness, and deep ties to a diaspora.

The question, as per Shariatmadari, is no longer whether Iran can build a bomb, but rather, what type of regime a bomb would protect?

Iran is not simply another authoritarian state seeking power. It is the revolutionary epicenter and principal state patron of Islamist terrorism, a regime that has turned the sponsorship of armed proxies and the destruction of Israel into pillars of state doctrine.

That ideology leaves Tehran little room to maneuver. The Islamic Republic cannot easily abandon the very instruments that have defined its power since 1979.

It has also targeted Arab states, because Iran’s Islamist revolutionaries sought from the beginning to claim leadership over the Muslim world through intimidation, subversion, and terror.

This is why the regime continues to rely on its proxies, even when they have been weakened or defeated.

With the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and most hardline Islamist factions at the center of power, terrorism is not merely a tool of foreign policy but instead part of the regime’s identity.

A nuclear bomb in the hands of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps would not produce stability in the logic of mutually assured destruction; it would give Islamic terrorism a nuclear shield.

It would detonate the regional order. Arab states and Turkey almost certainly would seek their own nuclear deterrents. Decades of efforts to regulate and contain global armament would collapse.

Rather than constrain itself beyond a perceived deterrent, a nuclear Iran would become more menacing, a totalitarian terror state shielded by the bomb.

The post If Iran goes nuclear, the Middle East enters its most dangerous era appeared first on World Israel News.

Governments generally engage militants because prolonged conflicts present circumstances that military action alone cannot resolve.

By Aaron J. Schuster, Middle East Forum

Governments have negotiated with armed movements throughout modern history.

Some negotiations helped end conflicts; others elevated organizations that retained both their military capabilities and their political ambitions.

Therefore, the question is not whether governments should engage terrorist organizations but, rather, what conditions have distinguished diplomacy that encouraged political transformation from diplomacy that merely conferred political legitimacy?

The experience of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) illustrates one model.

During the Oslo process, the PLO gained diplomatic recognition while undertaking formal commitments to recognize Israel, renounce terrorism, and pursue negotiations.

Whether those commitments were fully implemented remains debated, but engagement rested upon declared political obligations. Recognition was linked, at least formally, to a process intended to replace violence with diplomacy.

Northern Ireland followed a different course. Dialogue with Sinn Féin unfolded alongside ceasefires, painstaking negotiations, and the constitutional framework that culminated in the Good Friday Agreement.

Engagement formed part of a broader effort to move the conflict from armed confrontation into democratic institutions.

Political participation did not arise in isolation; it developed within a negotiated settlement designed to end sustained violence.

Colombia sharpened that principle. International support for the peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) accompanied a comprehensive program of disarmament, demobilization, reintegration, and international verification.

Combatants surrendered thousands of weapons before the organization entered electoral politics. Diplomatic acceptance followed measurable institutional change rather than hopeful expectation.

Hezbollah presents a different example because it participates in Lebanon’s political system while retaining an independent military structure supported by Iran.

Unlike the Irish Republican Army (IRA) or FARC, its political role has not been accompanied by disarmament or the consolidation of the state’s exclusive control over force.

Hezbollah demonstrates that electoral participation alone does not necessarily resolve the question of political legitimacy when an organization continues to operate as an armed proxy of a foreign government.

That distinction should militate against treating all cases of political participation as equivalent.

These experiences show that governments have not applied a single standard when engaging armed movements.

Some negotiations were tied to ceasefires, constitutional politics, or internationally verified disarmament. Others tolerated continuing ambiguity over an organization’s military capacity.

The historical record is, therefore, equivocal on the proposition that engagement itself produces moderation. The conditions attached to engagement matter at least as much as engagement itself.

Governments generally engage militants because prolonged conflicts present circumstances that military action alone cannot resolve.

Negotiations may seek to secure ceasefires, facilitate humanitarian access, recover hostages, reduce violence, or establish the conditions for a durable political settlement.

History offers neither absolute prohibition nor an unqualified endorsement of engagement; instead, it suggests that diplomacy succeeds when participation in the political process is accompanied by demonstrable changes in the armed movement’s conduct, structure, or objectives.

That historical framework is relevant because Hamas reportedly has agreed to dissolve its civilian governing bodies in Gaza and transfer administrative responsibilities to a technocratic committee as discussions continue over the territory’s future.

At the same time, reports indicate that Hamas has not accepted disarmament, leaving the central security question unresolved. Dissolving a civilian body does not constitute political transformation.

While this development alters Gaza’s prospective administration, it does not resolve the question raised by earlier precedents.

Unlike the Colombian peace process, no internationally verified program of disarmament accompanies the proposed transition.

And, unlike Northern Ireland, no negotiated constitutional settlement has redirected the movement from armed struggle into exclusively political competition.

Administrative authority may change hands while military capability remains intact.

That distinction is hardly academic because discussions over Gaza’s future involve governments, international organizations, and regional mediators seeking a durable settlement.

Military interdiction can degrade armed organizations, yet history suggests that lasting political settlements depend upon more than changes in governance.

They require institutions capable of ensuring that commitments become more than temporary expedients.

No historical appraisal is perfect. The PLO, the IRA, FARC, Hezbollah, and Hamas emerged from different conflicts and pursued different objectives.

Nevertheless, their experiences illuminate a common principle: Diplomatic engagement has proven to be most durable where legitimacy followed demonstrable political transformation—through negotiated commitments, constitutional participation, or verified disarmament.

Where armed power remained inviolate, political recognition alone seldom resolved the underlying conflict.

The post When does engagement with terrorists become legitimization? appeared first on World Israel News.

Historically, Iran relied on its regional proxies to dictate the tempo of escalation, while keeping hostilities away from its own borders.

By Hezy Laing

In the past week, Iran shattered a fragile detente by launching a massive wave of missile and drone attacks targeting US military bases and facilities across the Gulf, including in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Oman, and Jordan.

These strikes have triggered air raid sirens, caused material damage, and resulted in injuries from falling debris during interceptions.

Simultaneously, the IRGC has intensified its campaign in the Strait of Hormuz, attacking commercial vessels, declaring the waterway closed to navigation, and threatening to halt all regional energy exports.

This dual-front assault represents a severe escalation, directly attacking the US military and global energy security by combining kinetic strikes on sovereign Gulf states with asymmetric naval warfare in the critical shipping lane.

Incredibly, during this entire time, Iran has not shot a single missile at Israel, perhaps its most hated enemy, as it has in the past.

Why?

Defense analysts note several main reasons for Tehran’s operational caution:

Failure and Degradation of Its Proxies

Historically, Iran relied on its regional proxies to dictate the tempo of escalation, while keeping hostilities away from its own borders.

Geopolitical assessments from The Heritage Foundation and the Alma Research Center point out that this buffer has been permanently disrupted.

With Hamas dismantled and Hezbollah’s leadership and infrastructure severely degraded, Iran can no longer hide behind its proxies.

Following intense IDF operations that eliminated over 5,000 terrorists and shattered their capabilities, Iran’s Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah has been left “begging for a ceasefire”.

Their Iranian patrons are panicking because “their threats have no actual backing in reality” once their primary operational weapon on Israel’s border was crushed.

Meanwhile Hamas has suffered catastrophic losses and has little access to new armaments.

Israeli experts argues that Iran is afraid to escalate its attacks on Israel because Tehran’s aggressive rhetoric has no actual backing in reality, its proxy network has been severely crippled, and it is terrified of devastating retaliation from both Israel and a heavily armed United States.

Asymmetry in Air Defense and Air Superiority

Military analysts at the RAND Corporation highlight a severe technological and operational mismatch between the two nations.

Despite the heavy volume of missile and drone salvos fired by Iran, Israel’s advanced Arrow, David’s Sling, and Iron Dome frameworks regularly intercept the vast majority of incoming threats, minimizing structural damage. In contrast, Iran’s domestic air defenses are today almost non-existent.

Defense experts at the Atlantic Council note that Israel possesses the intelligence and stealth capabilities to systematically penetrate Iranian airspace to strike critical infrastructure, including energy grids, refinement plants, and hardened nuclear enrichment facilities like Natanz.

Tehran has learned that distance no longer guarantees immunity. Any major attack means the war will be taken directly to Iran’s doorstep, exposing its home front to immediate retaliation.

Economic Devastation and Regional Blowback

The Iranian regime is bleeding cash after a brutal air war.

Despite being handed a lenient “soft landing” through international diplomatic ceasefires and temporary sanctions relief, Iran cannot risk an all-out war with Israel that would completely vaporize its economy, trigger domestic regime instability, or cause the permanent loss of its vital energy corridors.

Risk of Total Regime Collapse

But the ultimate driver behind Iranian strategic calculation is the survival of the Islamic Republic.

Analysts from the Deakin University Centre for Middle East Politics note that while Tehran relies heavily on aggressive rhetoric, the leadership “does not have a death wish.”

Experts from the Stimson Center and the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) emphasize that an all-out, uncalibrated attack would give Israel and the U.S. the ultimate justification to launch devastating decapitation strikes targeting Iran’s political command hierarchy and internal security apparatus, potentially triggering an uncontrollable domestic uprising.

The post Why Iran has avoided attacking Israel – analysis appeared first on World Israel News.

The stigma associated with foreign powers sponsoring separatist movements still overshadows political discourse 80 years on.

By Michael Rubin, Middle East Forum

When I worked as a Defense Department desk officer two decades ago, you could set a clock by it: Every few months, someone newly assigned to the Iran file, whether in the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the Central Intelligence Agency, would read somewhere that Iran was a multiethnic country and suggest supporting ethnic separatism in Iran to fragment the country.

There should be a rule of thumb in Washington, and in diplomacy more broadly: Magic formulas do not exist.

They reflect both American policy arrogance and ignorance, but they always lead to failure. President Barack Obama embraced the fiction that Israeli settlements were the real impediment to diplomatic progress.

His subsequent promotion of the issue let Hamas and other corrupt Palestinian leaders off the hook and froze diplomacy for nearly his entire administration.

The quest for a magic formula was also behind Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s ill-fated “reset policy” with Russia, as well as Obama’s and President Joe Biden’s subsequent Saudi-bashing over Yemen.

In Iran’s case, promotion of ethnic federalism would backfire. Iran is multiethnic—Persians, Azeris, Kurds, Armenians, Baluch, Gilakis, Arabs, and more- but its sense of nationhood predates the ethno-nationalism around which European states began to organize in the 19th century.

While there is an element of mythology, Iranians see a near-contiguous history dating back to the Persian Empire of millennia past.

That late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was Azeri was not an issue for his followers. Iranians do not consider Safavid or Qajar-era shahs non-Iranian simply because they were ethnic Turks.

Nor are Iranians alone: While Gamal Abdel Nasser overthrew the Egyptian monarchy in 1952, Egyptians still honor their khedives, even if their court language was Turkish.

A Short History of Iranian Separatism

Instead, Iranians associate ethnic separatism with imperialism. While in the 19th-century Great Game, the British and Russian Empires both coveted Persia, neither formally colonized it. Nevertheless, they considered it.

During the later 19th century, the British Empire flirted with the idea of supporting a separatist project centered on the Qajar Prince Zill as-Sultan.

In the early 20th century, the British supported Sheikh Khazal, who led a separatist Arab state centered around the oil-rich Iranian town of Khorramshahr.

The Russians, too, sponsored ethnic separatist movements: The Kurdish “Mahabad Republic” in 1946 and the contemporaneous Azerbaijan People’s Government, which sparked the first real crisis of the Cold War.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s 1980 invasion of Iran was a gift to Revolutionary Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini because he rallied Iranians around the flag and promised the ethnic dissolution of Iran based on the idea of a “free Arabistan.”

When Iranians realized Saddam wanted to destroy their country rather than simply end the Islamic Republic, they rallied around the flag even at the cost of enabling Khomeini to entrench himself.

Under the Islamic Republic, Kurds and Baluch have suffered disproportionately because they are double minorities, both ethnic and sectarian.

Still, the stigma associated with foreign powers sponsoring separatist movements still overshadows political discourse 80 years on, with many Iranian nationalists, including Crown Prince Reza Pahavi, equating any talk of federalism with a conspiracy to dismantle Iran.

Why Ethnic Separatism Would Backfire

As the ceasefire ends and military clashes resume, the danger Iranians must face is an increasing desire in White House circles for a magic formula to end the war and its inflationary pressures.

For better or worse, President Donald Trump refuses to adhere to diplomatic precedent and often displays impatience.

This leaves him open to those, be they sponsored by outside governments like Azerbaijan or Saudi Arabia, lobbyists, or simply career analysts rotating into positions but operating with a superficial understanding of Iran, who will urge Trump to play the ethnic card.

If the Pentagon fears taking Kharg Island because Iranians occupying the high ground on the mainland could fire drones and missiles at them, some analysts might argue that supporting Arab separatism could solve the problem by making the southern Zagros mountains part of a new Arab emirate.

Ditto the oil fields of Khuzestan, the same region Saddam sought to annex, and American oil firms may covet.

Already, proponents of “South Azerbaijan” appear louder on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, than they do in Tabriz, the capital of Iranian Azerbaijan.

Kurds also have a formidable lobby, though their actual demands are far more nuanced than Iranian nationalists believe.

For Trump, however, seeking a shortcut or magic formula out of frustration would backfire.

Should the United States associate itself with the call for Iran’s destruction rather than the end of a hated regime, the same Iranians who have marched on the streets against the regime will hold their nose and support it, if only to save their country.

For Trump or anyone around him to support the ethnic card would be the ultimate gift to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and could preserve a regime rather than hasten its end.

The post There’s one move that could keep Iran’s hated regime in power—and Washington insiders keep pushing for it appeared first on World Israel News.

Decisive action now could prevent a prolonged cycle of conflict with Iran, argues Israeli security expert Zvi Yehezkeli.

By World Israel News Staff

A prominent Israeli security analyst is urging the United States to significantly intensify its military campaign against Iran, arguing that only a sustained and decisive victory will deter Tehran and prevent a prolonged cycle of conflict.

Zvi Yehezkeli, an Arab affairs analyst and veteran commentator on Middle Eastern affairs, said recent U.S. strikes on Iranian targets demonstrate that Washington is still exercising restraint rather than applying overwhelming military pressure.

Speaking to i24NEWS, Yehezkeli argued that the United States has deliberately limited both the scope of its operations and the types of targets it is willing to hit in an effort to avoid triggering a broader regional escalation.

“The United States is choosing not to strike targets that would provoke a disproportionate response from Iran, and that’s a shame,” Yehezkeli said.

“Precisely now, when the Iranians obviously believe they ‘have the upper hand,’ it’s possible to strike them through the leadership, the media, through channels that are painful to the Revolutionary Guards — especially those related to their control and the appearance of control. Not to mention cyber operations, which can be carried out covertly and inflict great pain,” he added.

Yehezkeli argued that Washington should avoid repeating what he described as Israel’s mistakes in dealing with Hamas over many years. He pointed to Israel’s previous strategy of conducting periodic, limited military operations against the terror group—a policy commonly referred to within Israel’s security establishment as “mowing the grass.”

Numerous rounds of limited conflict with Hamas, he said, allowed the terror group to recover between wars rather than permanently degrading its capabilities.

After the mini-wars, Hamas “only emerged stronger, especially in the eyes of its own public,” Yehezkeli stressed.

“Iran feels the same way, and it’s important for the United States to make them understand that they’re mistaken.”

Yehezkeli maintained that the current American approach is not producing the level of deterrence necessary to change Tehran’s strategic calculations.

“This period should be used for much harsher strikes,” he emphasized.

The post Israeli analyst to US: ‘Go all the way to defeat Iran’ appeared first on World Israel News.

Right now we face four levels of power in Iran that partly overlap and partly diverge.

By Amir Taheri, Gatestone Institute

Is the 60-day ceasefire with Iran declared by President Donald Trump last month over? As is often the case with what the mercurial leader of the world’s only superpower says, the answer is yes—but not quite.

In his tongue-lashing of Iran on the margin of the NATO summit in Ankara, Trump compared the present regime in Tehran to cancer that has to be cut off and thrown away.

He labeled Tehran’s leader as “liars” and claimed to have halted negotiations with them.

So, where do we go from here?

A good piece of advice comes from NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, acknowledged as the best Trumpologist around: Always take what Trump says seriously but not literally!

We have witnessed the soundness of that advice since June 2025, when Trump, with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in tandem, launched the 12-day war against Iran.

In the past 13 months, Trump has gamboled from one ceasefire to another, culminating in the 60-day “truce,” which is now in peril.

The 60-day scheme could be described as a “hostile truce,” a new category in the lexicon of international bellicosity. In it, you are supposed to silence your guns and talk to the foe but also keep the option of opening fire when and where you wish.

The 60-day “hostile truce” was designed to suit Trump’s packed early summer agenda, starting with his visit to Beijing, his birthday, the 250th anniversary of American Independence, the FIFA World Cup, the NATO summit, and the Republican Party primaries.

The same “hostile truce” also helped bring down oil prices, tame inflation somewhat, and open space for a new “reds-under-the-bed” campaign at home.

Well, all that is now beyond us. So the question is, where do we go from here?

One easy option is more bombing. But Pentagon data show that US warplanes are forced to hit targets they have already struck several times before.

The other day, a dairy factory in Bandar Abbas was hit for the second time and a radar site in Bushehr for the third. Tehran retaliated by attacking Bahrain and Kuwait, neither of which is a party to the conflict.

Call it gesticulations if you like, but the fact remains that the latest exchanges indicate how clueless both sides are when it comes to a way out of the maze they are caught in.

Trump knows that Tehran will not indeed be forced to submit by merely more bombing.

For its part, Tehran knows that launching missiles and drones at Iran’s Arab neighbors won’t end bombings by Trump. We have a zugzwang that defies even the Mission Impossible squad.

Trump’s description of the Khomeinist regime as a form of cancer is misleading. Cancer cells have a way of spreading and multiplying while destroying healthy ones.

The Khomeinist ideology hasn’t spread beyond Iran’s borders except in the form of paid-for proxies. In fact, the Middle East has made a historic leap away from all such ideologies to embark on a new path to modernity, freedom, and prosperity.

But even if we accept the cancer diagnosis, Trump should know that these days cancers are treated with chemotherapy rather than “cutting off and throwing away.”

There is no doubt that the “Iran problem” could have a military solution.

Theoretically, the US has the power to invade Iran, march on Tehran, bring the leftover Khomeinist leadership to a Nuremberg-style trial, and recruit new leaders as it did in Germany, Italy, Japan, and later in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In practice, however, that option is too risk-ridden to become policy.

But that does not mean that the option of “regime change,” through a mixture of proximity pressure, political spadework, and diplomacy, should be shelved forever.

Right now we face four levels of power in Iran that partly overlap and partly diverge.

The first is Iran’s strong bureaucratic structure with a history of at least five centuries. With Ali Khamenei gone, it is now reasserting its claim for a seat at the high table.

Over more than a year of war, it has shown that it can manage the paraphernalia of statehood without Khamenei’s North Korean-style control.

The second layer consists of political and military figures that have always been keen on rapprochement with the “Great Satan.”

Many of them are US-educated; these are the ones who send their children to the US. In 2015, the Iranian parliament reported that children of some 1,500 senior officials were in the US, while numerous senior officials had Canadian residency permits.

The third layer is represented by several dozen ultra-rich oligarchs, many of them retired one-star generals in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), clerics, or strawmen for senior ayatollahs.

Though not necessarily pro-West, all three above-mentioned groups tend to desire an end to the conflict with the outside world and a return to normality, something Khamenei adamantly rejected.

Finally, we have the hardcore Khomeinist constituency that consists of Mafia-style fraternities linked to the IRGC and the other paramilitary and security services.

Their rivals within the system call them “merchants of sanctions.” Accounting for 10 to 15 percent of the population, they control the street base of the regime, the so-called “dispossessed” masses that are now calling for revenge rather than accommodation with it.

A letter by a number of former diplomats attached to this group sent to Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reminds him of the fate of Walther Rathenau, the German foreign minister who signed the Versailles Treaty and was assassinated as a traitor.

The snag in Iran is that those who wish to make a deal dare not do so because they lack a popular street base within the Khomeinist movement.

And those who can make a deal because they have such a base won’t do so because if they do, they risk losing not only that support but also the wealth and position they have illegally acquired.

In Iran today, the management of uncertainty is the name of the game. More bombing will strengthen the bitter-enders who have fed on raw anti-Americanism for half a century.

Paradoxically, doing nothing may also strengthen them and discredit the accommodationists who are already blamed for having kowtowed to the “Great Satan” and obtained nothing in return.

Not a single dollar of frozen assets has reached Tehran, while huge amounts of sanction-free Iranian oil remain unsold in tankers in the Indian Ocean.

Beyond the stretchable 60-day “hostile truce,” what is needed is a Plan B for Iran that takes into account the realities on the ground and the opportunity for positive change.

The post Iran: Management of uncertainty – analysis appeared first on World Israel News.

The last four months were the exhaustion of a method rather than a failure of nerve.

By Pierre Rehov, Gatestone Institute

The West has long nurtured the conviction that a regime dies with its ruler.

On February 28, American and Israeli aircraft, in a joint operation prepared over months, killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei together with the chief of staff of the armed forces, the commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the defense minister, and Khamenei’s closest adviser, thereby erasing the command structure of the Islamic Republic in a single morning.

US President Donald Trump promised to “annihilate their navy” and level Iran’s missile industry.

Across the West, and among Iranians whose January uprising had been drowned in blood only weeks earlier, an immense hope took hold. The theocracy, at last, seemed gone.

Ten days later, the Assembly of Experts installed Mojtaba Khamenei—who was severely wounded or possibly “eliminated” as well—in his father’s chair.

Since February 28, he has not been seen in public. The Islamic Republic, for its part, had transmitted itself like a monarchy, dynastically, while the missiles were still in the air.

This week, as his father’s coffin crossed Iran and Iraq in a six-day state funeral, with Mojtaba Khamenei still nowhere to be seen, crowds chanted for revenge and hanged the American president in effigy.

The clerics always knew what Washington seems to have taken four months to accept: the regime was never lodged in one man but rather in a clergy, a security apparatus, and a doctrine, and all three came through the bombs intact.

What followed inside Iran removed any remaining doubt. In June alone, 141 executions were recorded, the overwhelming majority carried out in silence, without announcement, without due process, and without notice to families or lawyers.

Between mid-March and late April, at least 22 political prisoners were hanged, ten of them protesters seized during the January uprising, at a speed of one execution every two days, with 17-year-olds now on death row in addition to them.

Since February 28, more than 6,000 people have been arbitrarily arrested under the official cover of “wartime conditions,” while the population endured an 88-day internet shutdown, the longest ever recorded anywhere. Decapitated, the regime kills more than before.

Militarily, the Islamic Republic of Iran lost almost everything it was possible to lose: its leadership, its air defenses, its nuclear installations, and its navy ships.

Its answer was neither surrender nor counteroffensive but the clock.

Tehran closed the Strait of Hormuz, mined it, installed “tolls” and fees—for “protection”—attacked shipping, then settled in to wait, reading the American calendar with more attention than Washington was reading Iran.

Trump wanted a deal, said so openly, and for four months gave Tehran every chance a negotiating partner has ever been given.

Deadlines were set for March 21, then March 23, then April 7, and each time extended. Talks in Islamabad collapsed. A naval blockade followed, then an escort operation, announced and suspended within days.

Tehran had learned to read the expiration date stamped on every American threat.

The non-binding Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, signed on June 17 — the American signature added during a dinner at Versailles—reads less like terms imposed on a defeated enemy than like the wish list of a victorious Iran.

Its 14 points commit the United States to lifting its naval blockade within 30 days, ending sanctions, releasing frozen Iranian assets, and assembling with regional partners a reconstruction plan worth at least $300 billion.

Iran, in exchange, reaffirmed that it would not develop nuclear weapons and agreed to leave its nuclear program exactly as it stands—meaning with its nuclear installations and centrifuges to enrich uranium safely under Pickaxe Mountain.

Dismantling Iran’s nuclear program appears nowhere in the text. In addition, 440 kg (970 lbs) of uranium enriched to 60%—nearly at weapons grade—are to be “blended down,” presumably later to be enriched again.

Enrichment was deferred to a final agreement to be negotiated within 60 days. The enforcement mechanism was summarized by the president himself: “If it doesn’t get done in 60 days… we go back to bombing.”

The ink was barely dry before the violations resumed. Three days after the signing, Iran, citing Israeli operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, declared the Strait of Hormuz closed once more.

The follow-up talks in Switzerland were postponed. When they finally opened, Iranian negotiators conceded nothing on enrichment.

Hezbollah, which entered the war two days after Khamenei’s death, kept attacking Israeli forces in Lebanon, thereby handing Tehran a permanent pretext to shut the strait whenever the negotiations required pressure.

Last week, the pattern ran its course. Iran asked the US for a special week of quiet for the funeral of Khamenei—then began firing missiles at commercial ships in the strait.

On June 6, Washington reimposed the oil sanctions it had waived. Iran launched missiles at American bases in Bahrain and Kuwait.

At the NATO summit in Turkey, Trump finally said, “I think it’s over. I don’t want to deal with them anymore. They’re scum.”

The Iranian foreign minister had spent the previous day invoking paragraph 13 of the MOU and demanding that Washington honor its signature: an arsonist quoting the fire code while the tankers burned.

The last four months were the exhaustion of a method rather than a failure of nerve.

The Trump method flattered the adversary, let him believe he had won, dragged him to the table under threat of force, changed course without warning and staged unpredictability as strategy.

All that might work remarkably well in the West, where leaders answer to electorates, markets, and quarterly reports. It presupposes, however, an interlocutor who counts costs the way Washington counts costs.

The Islamic Republic counts by another arithmetic, drawn from its revolutionary jurisprudence. Time costs nothing, and survival itself, especially against a “Great Satan,” the US, is a triumph.

Deceiving the enemy across a negotiating table carries doctrinal sanction, not shame. Honor and pride outrank comfort, prosperity, and the future itself, and above every calculation sits religion and a commitment to take down the West.

A power such as the US that cries wolf on Tuesday and extends the deadline on Thursday teaches a system such as Iran’s exactly one lesson: that the wolf does not exist.

Iran’s rulers read the American desire for a deal, especially before a midterm election, as weakness, which, by that arithmetic, it was.

Trump, who kept repeating that he wanted a deal—in that way raising the price for one—seemed genuinely trying to test ways not to destroy more of Iran. Last week, he gave up on that.

The return to peace through strength comes as a relief. Israel absorbed Trump’s and Vice President JD Vance’s insults while Washington negotiated. Each time Tehran wanted to make a point, Gulf capitals were struck.

Thousands of sailors are still stranded aboard ships trapped in the Gulf. Brave Iranians who rose in January went to the gallows while the world discussed sanctions relief.

The Strait of Hormuz and no nuclear weapons for Iran—ever—remain key. The Pentagon has held the answer since March: plans to seize Kharg Island, the terminal through which 90% of Iranian crude oil passes.

Marine expeditionary units were moved into the region seemingly for such operations, and the decision so long deferred is now the only card left.

Round three has begun. After Khamenei, nothing has changed in Iran, where the doctrine, the gallows, and the wager on Western fatigue are those of February. What finally changed, last week, is Washington.

The post After Khamenei, nothing has changed – but it might appeared first on World Israel News.

Publicizing verified cases of senior figures or their relatives relying on Israeli hospitals undercuts enemy propaganda and exposes the gap between their rhetoric and their private choices.

By Jose Lee Alvarez, Middle East Forum

A former Ichilov Hospital spokesman recently revealed that years ago, at Mossad’s request and with prime ministerial approval, an Israeli physician traveled to Turkey and saved President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s life by treating his cancer.

This follows the documented record of Israeli surgeons at Soroka Medical Center removing a brain tumor from Yahya Sinwar while he was imprisoned.

Sinwar survived and later became the leader of Hamas in Gaza before masterminding the October 7 massacre.

The pattern extends across multiple fronts. During the Syrian civil war, Israel treated more than 4,000 Syrians—wounded fighters and civilians—in its hospitals and border facilities, including hundreds of children, providing advanced care at no cost.

After the 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquakes, an Israeli field hospital treated 470 patients, among them 150 children. Reports also document Israeli hospital treatment for the daughter of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in 2014 and other close relatives.

The State of Israel has repeatedly extended life-saving medical intervention to declared adversaries and their families. Yet our enemies have responded with rockets, tunnels, and the murder of Israeli civilians.

International forums and regional actors acknowledge none of this. They condemn Israel’s defensive operations while remaining silent about a humanitarian record that runs only one way.

This trend reflects a distinct Israeli inheritance rooted in Jewish ethical tradition. These standards treat the preservation of human life as a binding obligation, even toward enemies who reject any reciprocal restraint.

Such conduct is neither weakness nor naivety but a civilizational choice that stands in direct contrast to the deliberate slaughter of Israeli civilians and the systematic militarization of hospitals by groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.

Geostrategically, unilateral compassion has produced no measurable return. Adversaries treat Israeli medical access as an entitlement while pursuing unchanged objectives.

The Sinwar precedent shows that saving one high-value individual can later impose costs measured in thousands of Israeli deaths. The Syrian and Turkish cases demonstrate volume without any moderation in hostile policy.

These gestures have at times bolstered Israel’s international image and internal moral consensus, yet they have failed to moderate enemy behavior or reduce attacks.

The Jewish state has subsidized its enemies’ survival without extracting strategic value from the debt.

Two adjustments follow directly from the record.

First, Jerusalem should formalize coordination between medical personnel and intelligence elements whenever high-value adversaries or their immediate family members require treatment.

Past interventions have already generated useful access and insight. Institutionalizing this channel under clear protocols would convert episodic contact into systematic human intelligence and potential back-channel utility.

Second, in future conflicts, Israel should link offers of medical treatment for wounded enemies to information operations that publicly document leadership’s dependence on Israeli capabilities.

Publicizing verified cases of senior figures or their relatives relying on Israeli hospitals undercuts enemy propaganda and exposes the gap between their rhetoric and their private choices.

Finally, Israel should establish a doctrine of strategic medical patronage.

Using intelligence indicators, Israel would identify competing power centers, rival factions, and rising figures inside adversarial organizations and proactively extend offers of advanced care to them and their families through appropriate channels.

All clinical decisions would remain unconditional and strictly bioethical; treatment would never be granted or withheld for political reasons.

What needs to change is Israel’s willingness to initiate contact and cultivate influence through existing medical channels.

The deterrent effect would come from creating internal competition inside enemy groups for access to Israeli medical care. Beneficiaries would come to see that their own and their families’ health security depends on not destroying the source of that care.

This converts episodic mercy into a proactive instrument that fragments adversary cohesion from within, builds influence over rising figures, and aligns the survival interests of key actors inside hostile organizations with Israel’s medical preeminence—a form of statecraft no other nation can match.

The State of Israel has given its enemies the continued gift of life. The time has come to treat that gift as a strategic asset and collect interest on it rather than repeat the same one-sided transaction.

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Israel knows Iran intimately; for nearly five decades, Israel has lived on the front lines, watching Iranian leaders repeatedly vow to “wipe” it off the map.

By Majid Rafizadeh, Gatestone Institute

For decades, Israel has stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the United States against the Iranian regime, a hostile power that threatens regional stability, global security, and the very existence of democratic values in the world.

Whether facing direct threats or terrorist groups and proxy militias, Israel has demonstrated unwavering and steadfast resolve and a willingness to act when others in the world hesitated.

This alliance has proven critical time and again; Israel has been with the U.S. in moments of need, from intelligence sharing to coordinated responses against Iranian aggression.

This partnership is not one of convenience but of shared strategic interests and mutual defense against a common foe. The Iranian regime itself acknowledges this reality in its rhetoric.

It labels the United States the “Great Satan” and Israel the “Little Satan,” viewing both as existential enemies to its revolutionary ideology. Israel is the only truly dependable Middle Eastern ally of the West and bastion of democratic values.

Iran’s hatred of both Israel and the United States only underscores why deepening the U.S.-Israel alliance is essential in any strategy to counter the “sick,” Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) now ruling the country with a toxicity that should be as unacceptable to everyone as it is to its neighbors and its own brutalized citizens.

The Iranian regime’s ambitions—for nuclear weapons, intercontinental ballistic missiles, control of international waterways, regional dominance through proxies, and the spread of its theocratic influence—directly target both the U.S. and Israel, as well as Europe and Iran’s Gulf neighbors.

As a result, strengthening coordination between Washington and Jerusalem is a strategic imperative.

A recent assessment highlighted in reports from the Jerusalem Post and Israeli officials reveals that Iran has no interest in drawing Israel into broader regional conflicts.

According to multiple Israeli sources, including those cited by the Jerusalem Post, Tehran is currently refraining from direct attacks on Israel precisely to avoid escalating involvement that could pull Israel fully into the fray.

Israeli officials assess that Iran would only face strikes if Iran or its proxies directly attacked it or if Israel were requested by the U.S. to attack.

Why this caution from Tehran? Iran deeply fears the power of Israel. Israel’s intelligence capabilities inside Iran, Lebanon, and Gaza have been dramatically demonstrated in recent operations.

In June 2025, during the twelve-day war, Israel conducted precise strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, military sites, and leadership targets while showcasing sophisticated infiltration and real-time intelligence.

Similar effectiveness was evident in follow-on actions, including the first few hours of February 28, when, in sixty seconds, Israel successfully decapitated virtually the entire leadership of Iran’s regime.

Mossad operations, combined with precision capabilities, exposed vulnerabilities deep within the Iranian regime.

Israel knows Iran intimately. For nearly five decades, Israel has lived on the front lines, watching Iranian leaders repeatedly vow to “wipe” it off the map.

Iranian Supreme Leaders and IRGC commanders have made threats of elimination a cornerstone of their ideology. Through funding and arming proxies such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, Iran has pursued a strategy of encirclement and attrition.

These groups serve as Tehran’s forward operating arms, launching attacks designed to bleed Israel while providing Iran plausible deniability.

The brutal massacre by Hamas on October 7, 2023 — enabled and emboldened by Iranian support — represented a horrific escalation.

Though the attackers failed in their ultimate goals, the event highlighted the regime’s genocidal intent and the resilience required to counter it.

Israel has consistently demonstrated not only military superiority but also the intelligence and determination to disrupt these networks. From thwarting plots to striking high-value targets, Israel’s actions have repeatedly set back Iran’s timelines.

This proximity and lived experience give Israel unparalleled insight. No other nation in the region matches Israel’s understanding of Iranian tactics, decision-making, and weaknesses.

Israel is the party most directly affected by any development involving Iran — whether diplomatic negotiations, sanctions relief, or military action.

Its security is daily on the line. Israel therefore must be included in every discussion, every operation, and every strategic decision concerning Iran.

Excluding or sidelining Israel creates the risk of flawed policies that ignore ground realities and endanger shared interests. When the United States and Israel work in close coordination, their combined strength is formidable.

Joint intelligence, technological edge, and operational synergy amplify effectiveness far beyond what either could achieve alone. Israel’s advice aligns inherently with U.S. interests: both nations face the same determined adversary.

Most of all, the Islamic Republic of Iran fears this unity—the regime knows that a tightly aligned U.S.-Israel front severely constrains its options and raises the costs of aggression.

The Islamic Republic, for all of its 47-year existence, has pursued the destruction of Israel and the United States as a core ideological goal, using proxies, terrorism, and the development of nuclear weapons to advance it.

Israel, in turn, has proven its value as a partner through resilience and deep knowledge of the Iranian threat. It is the ally we can trust most in this theater—the one whose interests, capabilities, and willingness converge perfectly with America’s.

The U.S. must maintain the closest possible coordination with Israel, including it fully in all talks, operations, and strategies regarding Iran.

When America and Israel stand together, they can deter aggression, protect shared values, and safeguard democracy, peace, and stability more effectively than any alternative approach.

Iran knows this — and that is precisely why it seeks to divide them. In the best interests of the United States, its alliance with Israel must remain unbreakable.

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Not only is it clear that the new supreme leader no longer holds the same authority as his father, but Mojtaba’s complete public absence has only deepened the power vacuum.

By Saeid Golkar, Kasra Aarabi, Middle East Forum

The Iranian regime’s oligarchic clans are at war with each other—and this conflict may soon spiral beyond control.

This fight is not over ideology or the future direction of the Islamic Republic: all the oligarchic clans are Islamist; some wear turbans, others wear military uniforms, and some wear suits.

In other words, they all subscribe to the core tenets of Shia Islamism in Iran: the forceful imposition of Sharia law domestically, support for the so-called Axis of Resistance militia network, anti-Americanism, and the goal of eradicating Israel (driven by innate anti-Semitism).

But they are competing to protect and advance their power and economic interests amid the vacuum that emerged after the elimination of Ali Khamenei, the former supreme leader, who had operated as the godfather of these clans.

The latest manifestation of this infighting has erupted in the most unlikely of places: the Assembly of Experts—a body of 88 clerics who, in theory, appoint and oversee the authority of the supreme leader.

Last week, 73 members of the normally silent assembly made an unusual public intervention in the form of a statement on the ongoing negotiations with the United States and the recently-signed Memorandum of Understanding

The statement de facto criticized Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) over its conduct of the negotiations with Washington, suggesting the officials had moved beyond the “red lines” of the supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei.

It said in Farsi, “All officials should respect that, in the system of Velayat-e Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist), the opinion and directives of the Supreme Leader are decisive. Once informed of the Leader’s definitive view, no official may act contrary to it.”

After its publication, Ayatollah Hashem Hosseini Busheri, chairman of the Assembly of Experts’ secretariat and spokesperson, immediately stated that he was completely unaware of the statement and that, while he did not oppose its content, its signatories had broken convention and published it without coordination with him.

Remarkably, however, senior members of the secretariat—including Ayatollah Movahedi Kermani, Ayatollah Arafi, Ayatollah Araki, and Ayatollah Rajavi—were amongst the signatories of the statement. In fact, only three members of the secretariat had not signed the statement, including Hosseini Busheri.

The very fact that such elite infighting is now unfolding openly within the regime’s most important clerical body is particularly telling.

The Assembly of Experts is effectively representative of the regime’s clerical class. First and foremost, it shields and advances the interests of the clergy, which have long been guaranteed by the supremacy of the position of the supreme leader.

When Ali Khamenei was alive, this power was beyond dispute. But the same cannot be said of Mojtaba, his son and successor, in charge.

Not only is it clear that the new supreme leader no longer holds the same authority as his father, but Mojtaba’s complete public absence has only deepened the power vacuum that has emerged after his predecessor’s death.

This has heightened the anxiety of the Assembly of Experts, which fears its political and economic interests would be at risk should the supreme leader’s position be undermined.

Their statement, therefore, reveals not only infighting between the different oligarch clans of the Islamist regime but also that the clerical class is scrambling to preserve its political and economic privileges in the face of an increasingly uncertain succession.

For now, these divisions over power and money have been managed and contained in the name of Mojtaba.

His name still serves as a form of political glue. Even in his absence, different factions can invoke his authority to discipline rivals, justify decisions, and avoid a more open confrontation over the regime’s leadership.

But this arrangement is fragile because authority that is not visibly embodied cannot hold for long, particularly in a regime where the leader’s personal presence has historically been central to elite management.

If Mojtaba fails to appear at his father’s funeral, it will dramatically intensify speculation about his physical condition and could accelerate factional efforts to prepare for a second succession crisis.

Such a moment would not merely raise questions about one man’s fate.

It could expose the deeper structural crisis facing the Islamic Republic: that a regime built around the absolute authority of one man may no longer have a leader capable of imposing order on the very factions that depend on his authority for their own survival.

The Assembly of Experts’ intervention is therefore more than an isolated episode; it is a sign that the Islamic Republic’s internal balance of power is shifting.

The clerical class, the IRGC-linked networks, the security bureaucracy, and political-economic factions are all maneuvering to protect their interests in a system whose central source of authority has been weakened.

While these rivalries may remain contained in the short term, the post-Ali Khamenei order is increasingly vulnerable to open elite conflict.

What appears today as a dispute over negotiations may soon become a broader struggle over who truly rules the Islamic Republic.

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