Being “in between” is never comfortable. The nebulous, indeterminate space between one place and another, one time zone and the next, one period and a new era, one approach and a wholly different policy – often is marked by hesitation, confusion, and blunder.

In Jewish tradition and religious law, this is called bein hashemashot (literally, between the suns or between days), meaning the “twilight” period between sundown and full nightfall, which is marked by the clear emergence of stars in the sky. It is a time where halachic decision-making is indeterminate and confusing. Things can go any which way.

The State of Israel finds itself in such a strategic moment: In a murky twilight zone with critical security clocks ticking on all fronts, from Gaza to Iran. And political clocks in Washington and Jerusalem, too. A time where things might go in one or more of several directions, with ferociously clashing and contrary implications.

Israel stands at a crossroads between renewed full-scale warfare and complete cessation of warfare in Gaza; between decent and disastrous ends to the hostage saga; between massive military assault on Iran’s nuclear bomb infrastructure and diplomatic dealing that once again lets the terrorism sponsor off the hook; between solidification and disintegration of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government; and between cold and hot civil war in Israeli politics.

The muddied situation cannot hold for too long on any of these fronts. If forceful foreign decision-making, force majeure, or forced errors do not sort things out, Israel will have to determine its fortunes by bold action. Indeed, the entire strategic balance of the region for decades going forward is on the scales, making this an even more acute inflexion point.

Holding the most influential and simultaneously ambiguous set of cards is US President Donald Trump. He is resupplying Israel with colossal amounts of needed weaponry with which to annihilate Hamas, supporting depopulation of Gaza (“humanitarian resettlement” of Gazans), and urging Israel to “get the job done.”

Conversely and contradictorily, he wants “all hostages released immediately” and the war “to be over fast” – and the only way to do this is to lose the war and let Hamas live on to fight another day.

He swears that he will bring a swift end to Iran’s hegemonic ambitions and abilities with military demolition of Iran in the offing. Then he backpedals to “nice” negotiations with the Islamic Republic toward a deal that may preserve Iran’s latent nuclear weapons capabilities, which will facilitate simple reconstitution of its bomb program in the future, and which may not push back against the other elements of Iranian power (missiles, proxies, terror networks).

Such juggling or perhaps purposeful opacity of policy is fine for a while. It may even be crafty for a truly short while. But it is not clear to me that Trump fully comprehends the urgency of the moment and the very brief window of opportunity that exists for definitive action.

Does he understand that enemy strategy, from Khan Yunis to Tehran to Moscow, is to drag things out while strengthening its own offensive abilities and disordering American-Western-Israeli systems?

This is my greatest fear: That overextension of the current bein hashemashot period, this imprecise twilight zone, will drive further fragmentation on the strategic and political levels. That hesitation in confronting enemies and hubris in coddling enemies will lead to collapse in US-Israel ties and to breakdown in Israeli society and politics – which of course is exactly what the enemy is hoping for.

In the meantime, there are signs of dissolution everywhere. In Washington, pro-Iranian and isolationist forces are disseminating lies about the “disaster” that would result from US military action against Iran (Tucker Carlson: “Thousands of Americans would almost certainly be killed at bases throughout the Middle East.”) This eats away at Trump’s maneuvering room versus Iran.

Trump’s negotiator Steve Witkoff talks about namby-pamby interim deals and many months of talks ahead, and retracts America’s redlines regarding Iranian uranium enrichment every time he opens his mouth. This gives Iran what it most wants – more time to “break out” toward a nuclear bomb – as well as a shot of confidence that it once again can bamboozle over-eager American envoys.

What happened to Trump’s declared two-month deadline for a deal with Iran “or else there will be bombing, and it will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before,” or his warning to hold Iran responsible for Houthi attacks from Yemen?

And thus underway is a dangerous decaying of America’s deterrent power.

Protests against Netanyahu continue

In Tel Aviv, anti-Netanyahu protesters are calling for an end to his “war criminal” leadership and “illegal” wars, and are demanding that the legal system usurp power from the Israeli government by declaring the prime minister “unfit” for office. Any next decisions Netanyahu might take in war and peace already have been deemed illegitimate by the increasingly (rhetorically) violent opposition campaigns.

The government is again pushing controversial legal reforms, it could fall this summer over the haredi draft issue, and it anyway only has one year on the clock until mandatory elections.

The IDF finds itself trapped between the contradictory goals of freeing hostages, crushing Hamas, facilitating food supply in Gaza, and facilitating the exit of Gazans. It must keep many reserve troops at high-level for Gaza deployment and to handle an all-front escalation in case of fuller confrontation with Iran. But it has no clear instructions about unleashing its full force.

And thus underway is a dangerous decomposing of Israel’s political stability and military coherence.

It is true that in grand strategic perspective, Israel is in a much better place now than it was 19 months ago – with Hamas on the defensive, Hezbollah decapitated, Iranian air defenses eviscerated, the IDF bulking up, and so on.

And it is also true that with a little more patience, Israel could yet emerge even more strategically ascendant in the region. And that preserving Israel’s strategic alliance with America and delicate relationship with Trump may demand additional forbearance.

But it is hard to be patient with any degree of comfort in the twilight zone. Indecision is unnerving, vacillation is disheartening, and dillydallying is destructive, especially on the home front. Daybreak or nightfall will soon be upon us, and willy-nilly it will be time for forthright, audacious moves.

Published in The Jerusalem Post, April  26, 2025.

Beware the Western diplomatic discourse developing in New York, Paris, and elsewhere that views Israel as a global problem because it has grown too strong, too “hegemonic” in its ambitions, too “aggressive” in its military actions, too “dominant” in resetting the regional strategic situation. Too successful in defending itself.

Instead, Israel ought to “reckoned with” by the West, i.e., restrained, constrained, hemmed-in, humbled. All this to redress the “current asymmetry of power” in the Middle East (again, meaning too much Israeli power, as opposed to say, Iranian and Turkish power) – a situation that “sooner or later will lead to more confrontation, violence and terror.”

In other words, Israel must not be allowed to win so much. This would be bad for American and Western interests.

President Emmanuel Macron of France said so most succinctly this week by averring that Israel “has the right to defend itself, but within proportion” (whatever limited proportions he is comfortable with, one assumes.)

His officials then went swiftly on to reassert the necessity of strengthening the Palestinian Authority, rebuilding Gaza, and driving toward Palestinian statehood, while urging Israeli military withdrawals from Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza.

And the EU announced $1.8 billion in new funding over the next three years for the PA.

The fact that Macron and the political Left in the West has learned nothing from the attacks on Israel of October 7, 2023 (and Mahmoud Abbas’s support for them) is disappointing but not surprising.

What is more discouraging and indeed infuriating is the attempt to delegitimize Israel’s re-asserted defense doctrine of preventively and preemptively downgrading enemy capabilities and threats. This includes IDF operations against Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, various jihadist and Iranian forces in Syria, and terrorist enclaves in Judea and Samaria, including a long-term Israeli military presence over the previous borders. Striking at Iran, too.

But no, that is not acceptable to Macron and other oh-so-concerned Western minders of regional security. Israel cannot be so powerful and controlling, so “provocative.” It must be brought to heel, under a “responsible” Western thumb.

‘Too much Israeli power’

The dangerous discourse that warns of too much Israeli power was given most prominent expression this week in a New York Times op-ed article by two Mideast experts from the Oslo era who served in Democratic administrations: Aaron David Miller and Steven Simon.

These American experts are well known in Israel and are not among Israel’s fiercest critics. And yet they now choose to disparage Israel as a problematic “hegemon” in the Mideast that must be “reckoned with,” that must be pressured by Washington to back down and back off. Israel, they insinuate, must put aside its narrow interests in order to achieve an American “balance of interests.”

To restore a healthy “symmetry of power” in the Middle East (whatever the heck that means), pressure must “particularly” be placed on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “and his far-right coalition.” Netanyahu (and Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, etc.) must be forced to “strike deals” such as re-embracing the PA and withdrawing on all battlefronts, in order to “convert Israeli military dominance” into supposedly “more stable arrangements and agreements.”

Miller and Simon grant that Israel’s response to the Hamas terror attacks of 2023 “has fundamentally altered the Middle East balance of power in a way not seen since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War,” and at first, they almost appreciate what a fine achievement this is.

“The Israelis have broken the Hamas-Hezbollah ring of opposition and revealed the vulnerability and weakness of their patron in Tehran while also degrading Iran’s air defenses and missile production.”

But then they immediately proceed to explain that such Israeli “hegemony” (a pejorative term!) is awkward and clashes with American interests. To do so, they blame Israel for everything bad happening in the Middle East from Lebanese, Syrian, and Iraqi internal rivalries to America’s difficulties in cutting grand agreements with Saudi Arabia and Iran.

FOR EXAMPLE, they accuse Israel of “favoring a weak and divided Syria… permeated by foreign forces with conflicting agendas” over a “stable, united, and effective” Syrian government that will align with American interests in countering ISIS and disposing of chemical weapons.

Aside from this being an absolute canard, Miller and Simon have not a word to say about ending Iranian and other threats from Syria against Israel or about stopping Iranian weapons smuggling to Hezbollah through Syria.

Nor do they have anything to say about the threats to destroy Israel coming from the radical Islamist and openly antisemitic leader Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, whose ambitions include gobbling up Syria and launching strikes on Israel from there. Did somebody say “hegemonic”?

You get the sense that these two experts prioritize the return of Syria to its towering military bases – on the Hermon Mountain heights on the previous border with Israel – than they care about long-term security and peace for Israel. You get the sense that they prefer a region led by “East-West bridges” like Turkey, Qatar, and Egypt than a region stabilized by overwhelming Israeli military power and led by Israel and its Abraham Accord partner countries.

The common sentiment expressed by these old-guard European and American denizens is a hankering for a return to the good old days of “sensible strategies as mapped out by former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to foster security, effective governance and reconstruction.”

The scent coming from these old-guard European and American denizens is antipathy toward Israel. They simply cannot stomach a strong Israel.

Instead of embracing Israel – the only democracy in the Middle East, the only country that constantly has compromised for peace in the Middle East, and the only true American ally in the Middle East – as a positive, proactive regional power reshaping the Middle East for the better, they slander it as a troublemaker, or worse.

HERE IS THE place to explain why Israel no longer considers “effective government and reconstruction” (involving for example the lavishing of additional billions of dollars and euros on the PA) or feeble diplomatic agreements (such as soft deals with Syria and Iran or a deal with Saudi Arabia on civilian nuclear power – which Miller and Simon endorse) to be sufficient security policy.

Forty or so years of Oslo-style arrangements, in which the West cajoled and pressured Israel into territorial withdrawals and a policy of restraint against emerging enemy threats, has proven to be an utter failure. “Containment” policy, which prioritized diplomacy over decisive military triumphs, has failed. It all blew up in Israel’s face, with terror and invasion from the West Bank and Gaza and Syria and Lebanon, and the march of Iran’s nuclear bomb program to near completion.

This was accompanied by decades of willful Western blindness to the jihadist nature of Israel’s enemies, to the threat of the jihadis to other countries in the region, and to infiltration of jihadist influences in – and jihadi-minded migrant populations to – the West itself.

Consequently, over the past 18 months, Israel has necessarily moved to a better balance between diplomacy and the use of force to prevent and scuttle enemy threats. Israel must and will continue to employ fierce, overwhelming, and surprising strikes against enemy assets and strongholds. It needs to keep its enemies off base with beeper blasts and bunker-busting airstrikes, even on hospitals and schools where the enemy burrows its arms arsenals and terrorist headquarters.

Israel wants to be feared – and yes, militarily “dominant” – not loved. And Israel also knows that its neighbors will seek true partnership with Israel only when it is strong.

Thus, Israel can no longer accept policies that emphasize “quiet for quiet” or “restraint” because this allows the enemy to develop its attack capabilities under the cover of diplomatic breathing time; what Miller and Simon wrongly call “stability.”

In this new era, Israel intends to project its strength to definitively neutralize adversaries, and in so doing to lead the region – to gather a coalition of truly peace-seeking nations. Yes, to truly “stabilize” the region, but not through reliance on hackneyed diplomatic templates and failed formulas that ooze weakness.

It is sad and so destructive that politicians like Macron and analysts like Miller and Simon think that the way to peace in the Middle East is, once again, ho-hum, to pressure Israel into restraint, to “show good faith” in diplomacy, to bend to Arab demands and agree to withdrawals that supposedly will “satisfy” the enemy bloodlust.

It is ugly that they stoop to demonizing Israel as the threat, rather than the greatest asset for the West, in resetting the strategic table and helping win the war against the Russia-China-Iran axis.

Published in The Jerusalem Post 18.04.2025

This third installment of my trilogy on Iran examines the minimum threshold for an American nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic, and American and Israeli options in the likely case that such a deal is not achievable.

In previous weeks, we reviewed the treacherous Iranian record (its overarching revolutionary ambitions to dominate the region, its proxy wars, and nuclear and missile programs), and President Donald Trump’s strategic worldview.

I argued that Trump’s plans for winning in the global struggle against China and his hope for a reset in relations with Russia depend on proving his mettle in confrontation with Iran.

I furthermore argued that if Trump’s threats against Iran amount to no more than another Obama-style soft deal that kicks the Iranian nuclear can down the road – then Trump’s presidency will be over, at least in international affairs. He will never be the “transformational” president with “historic” achievements that he so explicitly wants to be.

The key to getting a “good deal” with Iran is to differentiate between arms control and nuclear disarmament. President Barack Obama settled for arms control in 2015, restricting Iran’s nuclear program but leaving it intact, legitimized, and primed to accelerate as soon as temporary restrictions expired. And he freed tens of billions of dollars of frozen funds to fuel Iran’s military march forward.

Obama aimed low and ultimately paved the way for Iran’s emergence as a nuclear threshold state.

South Africa, by contrast, initiated nuclear disarmament in 1990, as Libya did after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. This path leaves no enrichment and weaponization infrastructure hanging around for the regime to change its mind.

That is exactly what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Trump this week: Libya is the model. US National Security Advisor Mike Walz specified that Iran must “hand over and give up” all elements of its nuclear program, including missiles, weaponization, and uranium enrichment.

In Trump’s shorthand: “Supervise, check it, inspect it, and then blow it up or just make sure that there [are] no more nuclear facilities.” Last week he said that he is pursuing a deal “that would be just as good as if you won militarily.”

Three experts from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) in Washington DC this week laid out in detail what such a win would be, what complete disarmament must entail. It means “full, permanent, and verifiable dismantlement, export, or in-place destruction” of Iran’s uranium and plutonium production assets; “anytime, anywhere” inspections; and an end to nuclear weapons R&D.

It also means termination of Iran’s ballistic missile, cruise missile, and drone arsenals; an end to Iran’s illicit nuclear and missile imports and exports; and especially to its nuclear, missile, and arms agreements with Russia, China, and North Korea. And oh yeah, also an end to Tehran’s longtime support for Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and other proxy forces.

All this would require super-invasive American or International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) monitoring of Iran’s bank accounts, uranium mines, mills, ore processing facilities, military and missile bases, ports and airfields, along with total destruction of Iran’s underground bunkers for nuclear activities and weapons storage.

IN MY VIEW, the likelihood that Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei will agree to anything remotely resembling such a dismantlement of Iranian power, such an evisceration of Iranian sovereignty and supremacy – is nil.

I think it more likely that Israeli Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and General Security Service Director Ronen Bar will vote for Netanyahu in the next Israeli election than Ali Hosseini Khamenei bowing nicely before Trump and presiding over disembowelment of the Islamic Revolution.

Remember: Tehran has spent four decades and hundreds of billions of dollars developing its military power and regional ascendancy, accompanied by considerable suffering (“sacrifice”) of the Iranian people to this end. All this, based on deep ideological-religious conviction, on a dark eschatological vision that involves genocide against Israel and West and downright destruction of enemy civilization.

So, it is much more likely that in this weekend’s talks, Iran will do what is does best: – delay, offer reversible concessions, and deflect US power. Previous American administrations have even rewarded Iran with sanctions relief simply for staying at the negotiating table! As FDD director Mark Dubowitz notes, Iran is a master at rope-a-doping American presidents.

The difference – for Trump, Netanyahu, and the West – is that this time, there is no time. Iran is minutes or months away from unveiling its first nuclear bomb.

According to a biennial report published Tuesday by international nuclear watchdogs IAEA and NEA, known as the Red Book, Iran’s uranium reserves are much larger than previously estimated, and it is set to increase production of uranium ore from 21 to 71 tons this year. No country in the world has enriched uranium to 60 percent, as Iran has, without building nuclear weapons – so Iran’s intentions are clear.

THIS LEAVES the Trump Administration with three choices. The first option is to capitulate; to cut a weak, watered-down, wishy-washy deal with Iran that pretends to check Iranian nuclear and other power while vapidly claiming that it is a “HUGE” victory for Washington.

You have to wonder who will prevail: Trump’s ego or Khamenei’s tenacity?

I would like to believe that Trump will not fall into this hole, but given his unpredictable nature, self-regard as the greatest global dealmaker, and oft-expressed desire to be recognized as world class peacemaker – this cannot be ruled out.

Israel must do everything in its power to prevent such an American collapse. Selling out to Iran would be ghastlier than bowing to Russia (regarding Ukraine), and far more devastating to Israel’s security.

Trump’s second option is to bomb Iran to kingdom come – not only its military and oil facilities but also regime loci of power. This would be an attempt to eliminate Iran’s military threat for decades, to strip Iran of the economic ability to swiftly rebuild its military, and to decapitate the current leadership and hopefully effect regime change.

Trump’s third option is to let Israel do the job or at least start the job of destroying Iran’s frontline nuclear and missile bases, with Washington kicking-in with auxiliary offensive and defensive moves to back-up Israel and demonstrate to Tehran that its hegemonic gig is up.

If and when Iran is stupid enough to make good on its threats to retaliate by lashing-out at Israel, at US troops and facilities in the Arabian Gulf, and at American allies in the region – Trump will have no choice but unleash America’s military might against Iran too.

In this scenario, nasty wags assuredly will accuse Israel of “dragging” the US into war but so be it. In the absence of Iranian nuclear capitulation to the US, there will be no choice. I think this to be the most responsible and most likely scenario.

After all, twice over the past year Iran assaulted Israel with ballistic missiles, and Iran holds deep responsibility for the 2023 Hamas and 2024 Hezbollah assaults on Israel too. Israelis have learned the hard way to take seriously Iran’s further genocidal threats.

According to the text of the Passover Haggadah read in Jewish homes this weekend, “in every generation enemies arise seeking the elimination of the Jewish People” (bechol dor vador omdim aleinu lechaloteinu), “but G-d gives the National of Israel strength to overcome, survive, and thrive” (veHakadosh Baruch Hu matzileinu miyadam). It surely will be so in the impending mega-confrontation with Iran, too.

Published in The Jerusalem Post, 11.04.2025.

On March 27, 2025, Israel’s High Court of Justice, led by Chief Justice Yitzhak Amit, delivered a measured, fact-driven and deeply legal judgment, reaffirming that Israel’s decision to halt aid to Gaza, following Hamas’s rejection of the U.S. proposal to continue the hostage-ceasefire negotiations, was fully compliant with international law. The ruling should send a powerful signal to international bodies like the International Criminal Court (ICC) and International Court of Justice (ICJ), which have rushed to indict and accuse with politically charged narratives untethered from operational facts and legal substance.

The High Court found that Israel is not in violation of international humanitarian law in its decision to halt the facilitation of aid to Gaza and—critically—is not an occupying power in the Strip. This rebuke, coming from Israel’s own top court—widely regarded as one of the most independent in the world—matters immensely. It is everything the ICC and ICJ have failed to be: rooted in evidence, guided by law and aware of the real-world consequences of war against terrorist enemies who embed themselves within civilian populations.

This was no rubber stamp. Israel’s Supreme Court has a longstanding history of challenging its own government, particularly on national security policy. The idea that this court would serve as a political puppet is laughable to anyone familiar with Israel’s democratic and judicial culture.

What the High Court did was what international tribunals have refused to do: look at the facts. After reviewing extensive classified materials, multiple hearings and actual data—not rhetoric—the court ruled that Israel has met and continues to meet its obligations under both international and domestic law. It confirmed that Israel facilitates humanitarian aid to civilians, with no quantitative restrictions, and has taken extensive steps to coordinate with international aid groups—even amid a complex war against a terrorist army that systematically steals that same aid.

The court also addressed allegations that Israel was using starvation as a method of warfare. Citing the entry of 25,000 aid trucks carrying over 57,000 tons of food since Jan. 19—during the first phase of the hostage-ceasefire agreement—it found no violation of the prohibitions on starvation or collective punishment, “not even remotely.” The court emphasized that international law only obliges a state to facilitate the passage of humanitarian supplies when there is no reason to believe they are being diverted for hostile use. Given overwhelming evidence that Hamas has been systematically stealing aid and repurposing it for military operations, including hostage captivity, the court concluded that Israel acted within the bounds of international law when it halted certain aid flows.

This legal conclusion echoes longstanding principles under the Fourth Geneva Convention, specifically Article 23, as well as similar provisions in the U.S. Defense Department Law of War Manual and customary international law: Aid is not unconditional when it risks empowering a belligerent force. Even U.S. President Joe Biden underscored this in Oct. 2023, saying that if Hamas diverted aid, the assistance would—and should—stop.

Critically, the court also rejected claims that Israel is subject to the legal obligations of an occupying power. Based on an in-depth factual analysis—including Hamas’s continued control in large areas of Gaza, reestablishment of its administrative functions and Israel’s lack of effective governmental authority—the court concluded that the laws of belligerent occupation simply do not apply. In doing so, it directly rebutted the ICJ’s 2024 advisory opinion, which took a broader, speculative view of Israeli authority without full access to facts, participants, or classified military intelligence.

Let’s be clear: No court on Earth scrutinizes its own military in wartime the way Israel’s does. No other democracy has fought such sustained urban combat against a genocidal enemy hiding in homes, schools, hospitals and mosques, while remaining under the microscope of its own judiciary. And yet, Israel’s legal system not only holds to—but exceeds—the standards expected by the international community.

Contrast this with the ICC, which has moved with stunning speed toward possible indictments of Israeli officials, all while ignoring Hamas’s brutalities or pretending that Oct. 7 never happened. Contrast it, too, with the ICJ, which entertained South Africa’s politicized genocide charges without addressing the deeply asymmetric reality of this war: that Israel is fighting a defensive campaign against a terrorist group that openly vows to repeat the massacre of its civilians.

Israel’s High Court recognized what the world must not forget: the “Iron Swords” war was forced upon Israel after one of the most horrific terrorist attacks in modern history. It was also, as the court stated, “forced on the uninvolved civilians of Gaza” by Hamas and its allies, who embed themselves among civilians, steal aid and carry out military operations from protected civilian infrastructure.

The court acknowledged the humanitarian suffering in Gaza. It also acknowledged the limits of what Israel can control in a warzone, especially when international organizations operate in Gaza without coordinating with Israeli forces. And yet, even with these challenges, the court documented how Israel has improved aid flows, opened more crossing points, coordinated access and constantly evaluated the humanitarian situation—without violating its legal obligations.

This ruling is a judicial firewall against politicized attacks on Israel’s legitimacy. It is an affirmation—by a court rooted in the rule of law—that international law is not a weapon to be used selectively against democracies defending themselves.

The truth matters. The law matters. And what Israel’s Supreme Court just showed is that even in the fog of war, when politics runs hot and justice often runs cold, there is still room for reasoned, moral and lawful adjudication.

That’s more than can be said for the tribunals in The Hague.

The article was written by Arsen Ostrovsky in collaboration with John Spencer Jthat he is chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute (MWI) at West Point, codirector of MWI’s Urban Warfare Project and host of the “Urban Warfare Project Podcast.”

Published in JNS, April  10, 2025.

For 14 months, the Biden administration let the Houthis savage international shipping lanes through the Red Sea and Suez Canal and attack Israel and Saudi Arabia without sufficient response. So it is good that America is finally acting, under US President Donald Trump’s leadership, to eliminate Houthi missiles and air bases in Yemen.

More importantly, Trump said this week that he would hold Iran responsible for any attacks conducted by its Houthi proxy regime.

“Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of IRAN, and IRAN will be held responsible and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire!” the president wrote on his Truth Social platform.

He then sent a letter (via the Emiratis) to “Supreme Leader” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran with a two-month deadline for a deal to end Iran’s nuclear bomb and ballistic missile programs. US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz specified that the Islamic Republic must “hand over and give up” on all elements of its nuclear program, including missiles, weaponization, and uranium enrichment.

Iran’s response? Khamenei said that Tehran would not be bullied into talks by “excessive demands and threats” from the US. He called Trump’s offer for talks “a deception aimed at misleading public opinion.” To boot, he once again called the Holocaust a “myth” and a “fictitious event” – a theme to which he frequently, obsessively returns – something that exposes his annihilationist-toward-Israel mindset.

I find that foreign leaders and officials, even those who specialize in the Middle East, truly are not aware of the scope of Iranian muckraking and troublemaking in the region. Generally, they know that there are bad actors at play out there, from al-Qaeda and ISIS to Hezbollah, but they don’t have a comprehensive picture of Iranian belligerence and ambition.

They often wrongly assume that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, then-president Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, is still in place, shunting concerns about Tehran to the backburner. Nor do they know that this October, Obama’s “snapback” mechanism for sanctions on Iran expires, giving the Islamic Republic a “legitimate” path to a nuclear bomb.

Some North American and European leaders prefer to pretend that Israel is exaggerating the menace of Iran. Therefore, instead of investing thought and effort in confronting Iran’s tectonic threat to Middle Eastern and global stability, they focus on a range of secondary regional issues.

These range from humanitarian relief for Palestinians in Gaza to settlements in Judea and Samaria and stabilization of the new regime in Syria. In pursuit of a bit of “balance” in their foreign policies, they might even feign some interest in the fate of Israeli hostages held by Hamas.

These are important issues but a sideshow to the urgency of halting Iran’s aggressive march across the Middle East. In fact, pushing back against Tehran is the linchpin of a necessary regional reset, the fulcrum for ameliorating most flashpoints in the region.

So, for those who have not been paying sufficient attention (or, again, for those who allege that Israel is exaggerating the Iranian threat), here is a summary of the treacherous Iranian record.

Iran’s overarching revolutionary ambitions

Iran does not hide its overarching revolutionary ambitions: to destroy Israel, to subdue any pro-Western states in the Middle East and dominate the region, and to export its brand of radical Islamism globally. Tehran constantly threatens Jerusalem with war and eventual destruction.

Khamenei regularly refers to the Jewish state as a “cancerous tumor” in the Middle East that must be removed and speaks of the complete liberation of Palestine (meaning the destruction of Israel) through holy jihad.Iran has sought to carve out a corridor of control – a Shi’ite land bridge – stretching from the Arabian (“Persian”) Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea, including major parts of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, under the control of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and its Quds Force, various Shi’ite militias, and Hezbollah.

This corridor has given Iran a broad strategic base for aggression across the region and has deterred Israel from operating against Iran.

Iran equipped Hezbollah with an arsenal of over 150,000 missiles and rockets aimed at Israel and supplied Hamas with the arms and rockets that fueled four significant military confrontations with Israel over the past decade.Fortunately, over the past year, much has changed.

Israel has operated to significantly defang and decapitate Hezbollah. The fall of the Assad regime in Syria to Sunni forces has weakened Iran’s Shi’ite arc across the region, too. And in the wake of Hamas’s October 2023 invasion of southern Israel, the IDF has moved to destroy the terror group’s military capabilities and end its rule in Gaza, a difficult campaign that is still underway and probably won’t be completed unless and until Tehran is subdued.

Iran is fomenting subversion in Middle Eastern countries that are Western allies, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan. It is particularly focused on destabilizing the Hashemite regime in Jordan to gain access to Israel’s longest border and, from there, to penetrate Israel’s heartland.

The mullahs of Tehran are behind the radical Islamic groups in Judea and Samaria and terrorist infrastructure with tons of weaponry and cash that are fueling violence against Israel – an infrastructure currently being exposed and destroyed by the IDF.

Iran is sponsoring terrorism against Western, Israeli, and Jewish targets around the world, including unambiguous funding, logistical support, planning, and personnel for terrorist attacks that span the globe, from Buenos Aires to Burgas. The Islamic Republic maintains an active terrorist network of proxies, agents, and sleeper cells worldwide.

Tehran is rapidly approaching full nuclear military status, with uranium enrichment and bomb-assembly facilities buried in near-impenetrable deep underground bunkers.

According to the IAEA, Iran has enriched uranium to almost-bomb-ready levels (60% and 84%, which are very close to the 90% level necessary for a nuclear weapon), with its stock of refined uranium hexafluoride growing by 92.5 kg. in the past quarter alone to 274.8 kg. By IAEA standards, this is sufficient for an estimated six nuclear weapons, with the final sprint achievable within months.

The past six US presidents all pledged that Iran would never be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon. But Obama cut a rotten, soft deal with Tehran that legitimized the nuclear program and afforded the Islamic Republic tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief and cash aid. President Joe Biden continued on this path.

Worse still, Biden’s top military man, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, dialed back America’s commitment to stopping Tehran by saying that the US only “remains committed [to ensuring that] Iran will not have a fielded nuclear weapon.” This suggested that the Biden administration was prepared to tolerate developed nuclear weapons in the Islamic Republic’s hands, provided the weapons were not “fielded,” in other words, deployed.

Iran has developed a formidable long-range missile arsenal of great technological variability, including solid and liquid propellant ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and ICBMs. The entire Iranian ballistic missile program is in violation of United Nations Security Council prohibitions.

Tehran has fired its ballistic missiles at US troops in Iraq, at targets in Iraqi Kurdistan, and twice over the past year into Israel. Fortunately, Israeli air defenses, alongside a coalition of Western forces, successfully intercepted most of the incoming Iranian missiles aimed at the Jewish state, which were not (yet) nuclear-tipped. The latest Iranian ICBM seems to be based on the North Korean BM25 missile with a range of 3,500 km., meaning it could reach deep into Europe.

Iran has provided Russia with thousands of armed attack drones for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine. Experts are concerned that, in return, Tehran will be getting sophisticated Russian military technologies such as new aerial defense systems – especially after Israel destroyed much of its Russian-supplied air defense systems (known as S-300 and S-400) in a retaliatory operation last October.

And where is all Iran’s money coming from? Well, in addition to the payouts from Obama and Biden, Iran’s Quds Force and Hezbollah are invested heavily in drug production and distribution (Captagon pills and more) across the Middle East and Europe and in money-laundering cryptocurrency schemes – as revealed two years ago by the Israeli Defense and Foreign Affairs ministries. And in violation of all international sanction regimes, Iran sells roughly $2 billion a month of oil to China.

This accounting is particularly important as America and Israel move closer – I hope and believe – to an essential, decisive military strike on Iran’s nuclear bomb facilities and missile bases.

Published in The Jerusalem Post, March 21, 2025.

Even though it is Purim, a Jewish holiday based on the biblical Book of Esther where drinking predominates, I am a bit hesitant to write about wine because of the ongoing war.

My boys are still on the IDF front lines, so many Israeli families have been ravaged by death and injury, and Israeli hostages are still held captive.

In fact, my last full column celebrating the Israeli wine industry (“Drink the fine wines of Israel and defy its detractors”) was published in this newspaper on Friday, October 6, 2023 – the eve of Simchat Torah 5783 and what has become known as the “Black Shabbat” – when Hamas invaded southern Israel and massacred and kidnapped more than a thousand Israelis.

By the next morning, it was inappropriate and even embarrassing to read my soaring, celebratory, enthusiastic poetry about Israeli wine wonders.

Since then, I have dared to write only about meaningful wine projects that memorialize fallen Israeli soldiers with personalized barrels and bottles of wine. (See “Toasting IDF heroes,” February 9, 2024.)
But with the downfall of Haman’s ten modern-day sons – Israel’s enemies in Gaza, Beirut, and Tehran: Al-Aruri, Aqil, Deif, Haniyeh, Issa, Kaouk, Nasrallah, Qubaisi, Shukr, and Sinwar – it is fine to again celebrate Jewish redemption and Zionist renaissance by focusing on good (and kosher) Israeli wine.

At the very least, we can drown our enemies in drink – the Hamans of this world who alas exist also in Western intellectual circles and university campuses, not only in the Middle East.

May even greater Israeli victories in the immediate future blot out the memory of the evil men mentioned above as well as the horrible traumas visited upon our brave nation!

IN MY VIEW, the internationally acclaimed Israeli wine sector is much more than yet another “Start-Up Nation” success. Rather, the Israeli wine world is a deep profession of faith. It is a celebration of the People, Land, and God of Israel reunified.

Wine’s unique status in Judaism

Indeed, the fruit of the vine holds unique status in Jewish thought, beyond the elevated status of wine that pertains across civilizations. The reason for this lies in the traverse between Jewish theology and mysticism.

First, the bond between God and the Jewish People is akin to that of the viticulturist and his vine, a relationship of nurturing and enduring love. (See Psalms 80:15 and many more places in scripture.)

Second, Ezekiel prophesized (36:8) that in the days of redemption,the mountains of Israel would be commanded to “shoot forth branches and yield fruit to My People Israel; for they will soon come.” Rabbi Abba subsequently taught in the Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 98a) that “there is no greater revealed sign of redemption than the agricultural re-blooming of the Land of Israel.” So there are Biblical and Zionist echoes in every glass of modern Israeli wine.

Third, the perfumed alcoholic properties of wine can either clarify or cloud one’s judgment. They can catapult one’s consciousness to a pure world where only God’s will reigns supreme (like the world before the rebellion against God in the Garden of Eden) or drag a person into stupor and sin.

In a world where morality and evil are intermingled, and confusion reigns in discerning Godly from earthly, the great challenge is to choose good. “Behold I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19).

Thus, Jews drink wine with lofty goals, especially on Purim when the Amalekite mix of malevolence threatened to obliterate all boundaries of morality and annihilate the Jewish People.

We reject the Shushanite world of wild drunkenness, bloodthirsty passion, and atheistic creed, and instead elevate our thoughts towards a perfected world where God’s presence is overwhelmingly dominant.

This is the unusual Purim concept of ad delo yada, to drink to the point where the arrogance of supposedly superior knowledge – which today is sometimes called “enlightenment” although in extreme it can be Fascist or Marxist – is tempered by mind-bending drink.

The idea is erasure of the insidious gap between good and evil that distances us from God. The idea is an effacement of Amalekite influences and ideologies in our world. Then it is possible to connect to whispers of Divine communion that run all through the universe.

AND SO, we raise a glass (or many glasses) of good wine to say LeChaim, to life; expressing our determination to drive towards the good, articulating our desire to reveal the Divine values embedded in Torah and the eternal ideals latent in Jewish history.

Remember: Judaism is not ascetic. Jewish life is meant to be lived through beauty, bounty, and joy. And if delight is channeled through the right spiritual principles, it can lead to true cleavage with the Almighty.

Halacha, Jewish law, seeks to channel our behavior through correct kavanot – thoughts and intentions. One path to this is mandatory blessings over food, with wine accorded special status.

Wine is the only beverage with a special blessing, boreh pri hagefen: Blessed is God who creates fruit of the vine. Before drinking Israeli wine specifically, an additional blessing can be made (in certain circumstances), known as hatov ve-hametiv: Blessed is God, the Good Lord who does good.

And after drinking Israeli wine (again, specifically Israeli-made wine) there is another special blessing, al haaretz ve-al pri gafna: Blessed is God, the Lord who gives us the Land of Israel and the fruit of its vines.

Properly refracted in this way, pointing to God, wine becomes the preferred drink with which to mark Jewish life-cycle events and holy days, from circumcisions to weddings, and the Sabbath, Purim, and Passover.

Halachic masters have also worked overtime throughout the centuries to insist on “distinctions” when drinking wine, especially to keep Jews and non-Jews from mingling over too much drink, then intermarrying and worshiping foreign gods.

This is the background to Jewish law strictures relating to “kosher” wine, which forbids the consumption of wine produced and poured by non-Jews. (Full explication of halachic sociology in this matter goes far beyond the confines of this article.)

WHICH LEADS me to a Purim and Passover wine suggestion.

Try newer varieties of grape now being grown in Israel like Dolcetto and Barbera, black wine grapes native to Piedmont in northwest Italy.

Tura Winery of Samaria and Teperberg Winery of the Samson Plains recently have vinified fantastic wines from these grapes. The wines are light and fresh, juicy and aromatic, perfectly matched for drinking in hot Israeli summers.

Other early and outstanding Barbera wines are made by the Lueria and Ramat Naftaly wineries of the upper Galilee.

Overall, to get into the Israeli wine industry, move away from core French varietals like Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Chardonnay and toward “Mediterranean” varietals like Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre, Marselan, Carignan, Sangiovese, Roussanne, and Viognier.

These grapes are typical of the hot climates that pertain in the Rhone Valley and southern France, and Spain and Italy.

Try the Mediterranean-trend wines made by Domaine Netofa, Tulip-MAIA, Kishor, and Jezreel wineries of the lower Galilee; Recanati, Dalton, and Lueria wineries of the upper Galilee; Raziel Winery of the Judean Hills; Vitkin Winery of the Central Plains; and the micro-producers Bazak, Eviatar, Lahat, Maresha, Munitz, Oryah, Shiran, and Telem.

Published in The Jerusalem Post, March 14, 2025.

The Trump administration seeks to expand the Abraham Accords, first and foremost with Saudi Arabia, however, the current reality on the ground does not encourage such moves in the near future. Saudi Arabia has declared that it will not establish relations with Israel without significant political progress with the Palestinians—an unacceptable demand from Israel’s perspective. While moderate Arab leaders do recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization, they still harshly condemn Israel for its war in Gaza, portraying it as a war criminal, and the majority of the Arab public, influenced by extremely biased local media, shares this view.

The Arab plan for Gaza released last week reflects this attitude, calling for an end to the war and an “independent, sovereign Palestinian state” without even mentioning Hamas. In this sense, Hamas has, in the meantime, succeeded in achieving one of its main goals of this war, to prevent Israeli-Saudi conciliation. With Israel on the brink of renewing its military effort to oust Hamas, this situation is unlikely to change in the coming months, and we must recognize this fact.

However, despite bringing emotional sympathy and commitment to Palestinians across the Arab world to a relative peak, at no point in recent decades has Israel been more important for Arab security and geopolitical interests, whereas support for the Palestinian cause does nothing to assist Arab’s many internal challenges; in fact, it may worsen them.

For example, Jordan faces internal pressure from Islamists emboldened by the fall of the Assad regime and is experiencing a severe economic crisis, while relying on Israel for energy and water. Syria is devastated and fragmented along ethnic-religious lines, and its Islamist leader is willing to act with restraint to stabilize the regime—though it is important to note that any hope for rebuilding the country after 14 years of war is largely due to Israel’s military campaign against Hezbollah and Iran.

Lebanon, which for the first time in decades has a government capable of countering Hezbollah’s dominance, is in this position only because Israeli actions weakened the Shi’ite organization and opened a window for restoring national sovereignty.

Similarly, Egypt is dealing with economic collapse due to declining Suez Canal revenues caused by Houthi attacks in the Red Sea—attacks that only Israel has shown a willingness to counter effectively.

The Gulf states that signed peace agreements with Israel maintain their relations despite their critical diplomatic rhetoric. They understand that their economies remain one-dimensional, dependent on energy exports, and that they must cooperate with innovative and creative partners—Israel being exactly such a partner.

Saudi Arabia is at a critical juncture: despite its wealth, half of its GDP still comes from the energy sector. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 faces many challenges and depends largely on importing innovation to make Saudi Arabia relevant in the era of artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, the kingdom faces internal threats to the crown prince’s life due to his controversial policies, which could be entirely reversed if someone else were to take over. Beyond this, like many countries in the region, Saudi Arabia benefits greatly from the reduction in Iranian influence across the region—a direct result of Israel’s actions in recent months.

In this context, any demand for the establishment of a Palestinian state as a price for peace with Saudi Arabia is baseless. It will not help Arab states address their challenges; rather, it may destabilize what little stability they have.

Somewhat counterintuitively, if Israel were to pursue the Egyptian-led plan by pursuing a ceasefire without first eliminating Hamas, this would actually remove any incentive the Arab states have for advancing relations with Israel as it would mean Israel is too weak to follow through on its war aims. This would translate into a windfall for Islamists across the region. Therefore, Israel must reject the idea that diplomatic relations are contingent on concessions to the Palestinians.

Saudi Arabia will not extend a hand to a weak partner incapable of defeating their mutual enemies, of which Hamas is the smaller and Iran the larger. The only way to reshape the regional landscape is for Israel to achieve a swift and decisive victory in Gaza through a combination of fully conquering the territory and creating a passageway to allow Gazans who seek to leave the Strip to do so, unpopular as both of these might be with many states in the region. At the same time, Israel must carry out a large-scale attack on Iran’s nuclear program to complete the shift in the Middle East’s balance of power. Only afterward can Israel return to discussing peace with Saudi Arabia and other countries—but this time from a position of strength.

Published in JNS, March 12, 2025.

Not enough attention was given this week to the passing of Dr. Dore Gold, who served as a strategic adviser to Israeli prime ministers and as Israeli ambassador to the United Nations. Dore’s contribution to Israel’s diplomacy was outsized and his oeuvre is instructive. He uniquely knew to zero in on the most important issues of the day.

Earlier in his career as an American academic, he focused on radical Islam and the terrorism it spawned, which was then flowing freely out of Saudi Arabia. His doctoral dissertation on this formed the basis for his 2003 book, Hatred’s Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism. (In more recent years, he acknowledged the deep and positive changes in Riyadh under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.)

In the 1980s at Tel Aviv University (which is when I met him and learned to rely on him as a wise observer of emerging trends), he focused on US defense policy relating to the Middle East. Gold developed the discourse that eventually was broadly adopted by Jerusalem and its advocates abroad regarding Israel’s strategic value to the United States and the importance of anchoring US-Israel relations in close security and intelligence coordination.

Twenty-five years ago, he became an early proponent of Israel’s formal designation as an American non-NATO ally, and of the association of Israel to CENTCOM, the US military’s Central Command structure covering the Middle East, something that finally happened in 2021.

After the Oslo Accords were signed, Gold was dragged unenthusiastically by Benjamin Netanyahu into talks with the Palestinians in the UK and Jordan (even before he became prime minister in 1996), meeting with Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, as well as Jordanian and American leaders.

Dr. Gold was always skeptical of Palestinian intentions and the Palestinian Authority’s capacity to pursue true peace. Thus, he sought to ensure that security parameters for Judea and Samaria (and the Golan Heights) were adhered to, as set out by prime minister Yitzchak Rabin before his assassination.

When Dore assumed the presidency of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs in 2000, he parlayed this security focus into one of the most important and influential think tank ventures in Israel’s history: the Defensible Borders for Israel project.

Leading a broad range of military generals and defense experts, he sketched out the rationale for Israeli security control of West Bank mountain ridges and the Jordan Valley plus a broad east-west Jerusalem corridor – with detailed maps – and he outlined the key elements of the necessary “demilitarization” of the Palestinian government.

This was a revival of Gen. Yigal Alon’s defensible border paradigms from the 1970s (and which were the mainstay of Rabin’s security worldview, even as he signed the iffy Oslo Accords).

For over a decade, Gold presented the study at every think tank and parliament around the world, with the study and its video versions translated into half a dozen languages. To a certain extent, this document is still the basis for Israel’s security-based diplomacy, more salient than ever following the failure of the Oslo peace process and the annihilationist-toward-Israel turn of the Palestinian national movement.

In the late nineties (during Netanyahu’s first term as prime minister), Gold served for two years as Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, and this exposed him to a different, troubling facet of the Arab-Israeli conflict: denialism of the Jewish People’s historic and fundamental rights in Jerusalem and Israel altogether.

Gold was shocked by Arab (and European) denial of Israel’s profound, centuries-old, national connections to the Land of Israel. He witnessed Palestinian rhetorical violence against Israeli/Jewish indigenousness in the Land of Israel, something meant to savage the core identity of Jews and Israelis.

He understood, long before the globally-woke assault on Israel post-October 7, that the Jewish state’s enemies sought to strip justice and authenticity from Israel’s very existence, and to upend Israel’s alliance with the human-rights-supporting, democratic world. He understood that “they want Jerusalem and want us out of Israel, period,” as he told colleagues back then.

Gold feared, alas correctly, that the denialism juggernaut could one day lead to violent antisemitic battering of Jews and Jewish institutions around the world – as we indeed have seen over the past 18 months.

Consequently, he became convinced that in addition to a security-based discourse, Israel must augment its diplomacy with a rights-based one. He decided that it was essential to reengage in the fight for Israel with historical truths and convictions rooted in faith, not only with security arguments.

‘The fight for Jerusalem’

In 2007, he wrote a book called The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City, which took-up the fight against Arab denialism. He turned this into a series of graphic presentations about the Jewish people’s indigenous rights in Israel – videos and presentations that have been broadcast around the world.

Gold even hosted an event at the UN that showed Israel’s millennia of archaeological history with artifacts from the First and Second Temple periods, proving the Jewish people’s overwhelming connection to the Land of Israel since antiquity.

In his short stint as director-general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry (2015-2016), he sought to make pushback against Arab denialism a central focus of Israeli diplomacy. At the time, Mahmoud Abbas of the PA in particular had taken to denying the historical existence of the Temples in Jerusalem, driving a series of UN resolutions that declared Jerusalem an exclusively Muslim heritage city and criminalizing Israel’s custodianship of holy sites.

TWENTY YEARS ago, Gold also started an international effort to criminalize the genocidal-against-Israel threats of Iranian leaders, especially then-Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He authored a best-selling book in 2009 entitled The Rise of Nuclear Iran: How Tehran Defies the West. Western leaders may again want to look this book up as Israel today readies to finally destroy Iran’s nuclear bomb and ballistic missile programs.

The Middle East strategist played a behind-the-scenes role in developing the Trump administration’s Mideast peace plan in 2020: ‘Peace to Prosperity,’ dubbed by President Trump as the ‘Deal of the Century’” Not surprisingly and very appropriately, this plan combined the security-based and rights-based principles that marked his career, thus ensuring Israeli military and civilian control of critical areas and its sovereign rights over unified Jerusalem.

All the while, Jews and friends of Israel around the world came to know and appreciate Ambassador Gold through his bold interviews on every global media platform no matter how unfriendly to Israel, as well as his fearless debates in public forums with Israel’s foes. I recall with appreciation his decisive takedown at Brandeis University of Richard Goldstone (of the infamous eponymously named 2009 UN report on Israeli human rights “crimes” in Gaza).

In many ways, the American-born and American-accented author and Israel advocate paved the way for other American olim (immigrants) in Israeli diplomacy, including my late father, Prof. Henry (Zvi) Weinberg – an MK for the Israel Ba’Aliyah Party in the late 90s – and ambassadors Michael Oren and Ron Dermer.

(I hold a wonderful photo of my father in discussion at Blair House in Washington in 1998 with Gold, Netanyahu, ambassador of Israel Eliyahu Ben-Elissar, former Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief David Bar-Illan, who was then the prime minister’s Director of Communications and Policy Planning, and others.)

Securing Israel’s borders while battling delegitimization of Israel: This is Dore Gold’s vital and admirable legacy. He deserves a collective memorial salute from Israel and the wider Jewish world.

Published in The Jerusalem Post, March 7, 2025.

“No Other Land” won Best Documentary Feature Film at the Academy Awards on Monday. The film follows one of its directors, Basel Adra, as his village Masafer Yatta, near Hebron, is set to be demolished by the IDF.

The film is partly made up of videos that Masafer Yatta residents collected over the course of 20 years, and is in part about the growing friendship between Adra and another director of the film, an Israeli journalist named Yuval Avraham. The film depicts most Israelis and the IDF as unnecessarily cruel and violent, while presenting Palestinian violence against Israelis as justified resistance.

Adra and Avraham claimed in their acceptance speeches that Israel is an apartheid state that is ethnically cleansing Palestinians and starving the residents of Gaza. It is unsurprising that they would blatantly lie on the Oscars stage, because their film is based on a long list of falsehoods.

The residents of Masafer Yatta have claimed that it is a village with deep, longstanding roots. But the truth is that it is an invention of the past quarter-century, built illegally on land that was designated as remaining under Israeli control in the Oslo Accords, an agreement signed by the Palestinian leadership.

Before 1980, caves in the Masafer Yatta area were used by Arab shepherds residing in nearby towns as a seasonal refuge during rainy winters, but not as a full-fledged village. The Ottoman Empire, British Mandate and Jordanian occupation declared the land uninhabited, and aerial photo evidence backs up the claim.

In 1980 and 1981, Israel designated different parts of the Masafer Yatta area a live-fire training zone and declared it state land. The IDF gave Arab shepherds from the nearby town of Yatta grazing access during breaks in training, usually on the weekends and Jewish holidays, and during specific annual grazing periods.

In 1995, as part of the Oslo Accords, Masafer Yatta was designated as part of Area C, over which Israel has military and civil control – meaning that any construction in the area required permits from the Israeli authorities. Between 1981 and 1999, Palestinians illegally built dozens of structures in Masafer Yatta, which the IDF repeatedly demolished.

When Israel once again sought to demolish structures in 1999, a legal battle began that lasted for over two decades. The first petition by Palestinians to the Israeli High Court of Justice against Israeli action in the village was submitted in 2000, bringing about an injunction stopping the IDF from training in most of the area and from razing the village for 12 years.

The injunction was also meant to stop building by the area’s Arab residents, yet, during those 12 years, illegal construction continued in Masafer Yatta. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, representing the village’s residents, petitioned the High Court to require Israel to legalize the structures and cancel the area’s firing zone status.

Subsequently, about a dozen more residential clusters, which the Palestinians called villages, plus schools, mosques, roads and more, were illegally built in the firing zone on Israeli state land. Adra’s family owns an illegal gas station in the area, shown in the film. Some of the structures in the Masafer Yatta area were built with funding from the European Union, which blatantly disregarded the land’s status under the Oslo Accords as under Israeli control.

In 2022, the High Court finally rejected the petition from Masafer Yatta’s residents. The judges accused the petitioners of violating the injunction by continuing to build up the area over the previous 22 years. In addition, the court pointed out that many of the appellants owned homes in nearby Yatta.

The judges cited aerial photos from before Israel declared the area a firing zone as evidence that there were no permanent residences in Masafer Yatta before 1980, and that the Israeli Air Force was able to conduct live-fire exercises in the area until 1993.

Judge David Mintz said in his ruling in 2022 that “at the core of the dispute between the sides is the appellants’ claim that there was a traditional agricultural settlement with public and residential villages established in this place, despite the declaration of a firing zone as a closed military zone, are a direct continuation of that traditional settlement… The appellants were unable to prove their claim of permanent residence before the declaration of a firing zone.”

Citing photos and documents provided by the state, Mintz added: “The clear conclusion arising from all of the materials put before us is that on the eve of the declaration of a firing zone, there were no permanent residences within its borders.”

“No Other Land” does not mention any of this. As far as the filmmakers are concerned, the Israelis want to throw the poor Palestinians off of their land out of bloodlust, racism or greed. Anyone watching the film without prior knowledge comes away thinking there is no legitimate Israeli claim and there is no agreement to which the Palestinians’ own government is a party.

One may feel sympathy for Adra, who lived in Masafer Yatta most of his life and is now raising a family of his own in the area, and may face the demolition of his home. His film certainly makes apparent the challenges he and his neighbors face. Yet, while Adra did not choose where his family would live when he was a child, he is now the tip of the spear of over two decades of propaganda based on lies about victimhood and indigeneity.

The trailer for “No Other Land” claims that “Masafer Yatta exists for one reason: people who hold onto life.” Yet, no amount of glitzy Hollywood events and awards can change the facts. There is a preponderance of evidence that Masafer Yatta is a relatively recent invention built upon by activists, NGOs and eventually foreign governments who have used it as a battering ram against Israel. This has allowed them to claim, as the website for “No Other Land” does, that they are acting in “resistance to apartheid.” In reality, they are playing the victim while squatting and demonizing Israel.

The IDF’s code of ethics, known as “Ruach Tzahal – Spirit of the IDF,” was compiled in 1994 by a committee chaired by Asa Kasher. In 2000, Brigadier General Elazar Stern, then the Chief Education Officer, led another committee composed of professors of Philosophy of Ethics to revise the first version. The manifest is divided into four fundamental values: Defense of the State of Israel and its residents, Patriotism and loyalty to Israel, Human Dignity, and Statehood. There are ten values derived from these fundamental values: Perseverance in the Mission and Pursuit of Victory, Responsibility, Reliability and Trustworthiness, Personal Example, Human Life, Purity of Arms, Professionalism, Discipline, Camaraderie, and a Sense of Mission. In the original document, these values are in alphabetical order except for the first value, considered the most essential of any army – victory!

The first draft generated much controversy from those who claimed that the Ethical Code had no trace of any Jewish or Zionist substance. As a result of this criticism, the fundamental value of Patriotism and loyalty to Israel (ahavat haMoledet veNe’emanut laMedina) was added as a fundamental value. A more “Jewish” translation would use “Love of the Homeland” instead of the parve word “patriotism” used in the IDF’s official translation. The second version also included four sources of inspiration for the Code, one being “The tradition of the Jewish people throughout their history,” which precedes the fourth source, “Universal moral values based on the value and dignity of human life.”

Controversy continued after the second version. Opponents of the second version claimed that most of the authors, especially Asa Kasher, are identified with the extreme left of the Israeli political spectrum. Many of the committee members were on record justifying their refusal to serve in the IDF as a morally valid method of political protest. The opponents claim there is a need for a different, more Jewish creed that better represents the fighting spirit of soldiers who fought in the Swords of Iron War and were faced with exceptional ethical challenges in a prolonged war in an urban theater of operations against a sub-conventional terrorist army.

In the current social climate, trying to change the code of ethics would be a mistake. But I also believe that changes are not necessary. A deeper look reveals terms that carry great significance in Jewish thought.

The first value, “Perseverance in the Mission and Pursuit of Victory,” is a translation of deveikut ba’mesima ve’chatira l’nitzachon. The word deveikut is translated as perseverance, which does not capture its meaning. Deveikut epitomizes the most profound connection between a man and his wife (Bereishit 2:24) and the aspiration to have the same relationship with G-d (Devarim 13:18). The Tanya describes it as “the cleaving of spirit to spirit – the ultimate attachment and union as a result of love” (Iggeret HaTeshuva 9). Nitzachon, Hebrew for “victory,” also derives from netzach, “eternity.”

This value teaches two key lessons for modern warfare: Fighting spirit matters more than technology and weapons, particularly against enemies who spread fear and doubt. Additionally, mission planning must focus on netzach, on eternal objectives, rather than short-term gains.

The final value, Shlichut, goes deeper than its translations of “sense of mission,” “loyalty,” or “representativeness.” In Jewish thought, shlichut describes a relationship between an emissary (shaliach) and their sender (meshalaiach). When I ask soldiers “Who is your sender?” their answers vary: active personnel typically name their commanding officer, while reservists say “my country.” I suggest a broader view: our sender is our nation across all generations – past, present, and future. While soldiers do take orders from commanders and the IDF follows government directives, the Jewish concept of shlichut sees the emissary as the “extended hand” (yada arichta) of the sender. This creates a more profound connection than the U.S. Army’s concept of “selfless service.”

I’ve analyzed many IDF values rooted in Jewish thought beyond the examples discussed above. While a full analysis of each value exceeds this article’s scope, consider the value “Purity of Arms” (Tohar haNeshek). This phrase appears contradictory in Jewish thought, which is why I prefer the traditional rabbinic term “Holiness of the Camp” (Kedushat haMachaneh).

This discussion extends beyond theory. While most After-Action Reviews focus on technical and operational aspects, I use the IDF values (Erkei Tzahal) to evaluate the ethical and behavioral dimensions – what Jewish tradition calls middot – of military operations. Understanding these values through their Jewish context elevates soldiers beyond mere tactical considerations, fostering a deeper sense of purpose and resilience.

Published in HaMizrachi Magazine, Vol. 7:7, February 2025.