The Social World

Category: Middle East

Why Trump’s Muslim Brotherhood crackdown is long overdue

Donald Trump has begun the process of banning the Muslim Brotherhood. The President asked his officials last week to investigate whether certain chapters of the group should be classed as foreign terrorist organizations, which would result in economic and travel sanctions.

Some are portraying this as a reckless lurch into Islamophobia. In fact, it is overdue by at least a decade. The Muslim Brotherhood is not a benign religious association. It is a disciplined ideological movement with a century-long record of exploiting political systems. Its explicit objective is to work towards the establishment of a global caliphate – only by gradualist means, rather than the reckless confrontation and brutality favored by its distant offshoot, ISIS.

Its approach varies by setting, not by moral principle. Where the environment is permissive – in fractured states, or in countries with weak institutions or sympathetic governments – it behaves like a revolutionary vanguard. Where the environment is rules-bound and resistant, it burrows into student groups, charities, interfaith organizations, academic centers and even government institutions, steadily strengthening its influence. But wherever it operates it has the same ultimate aim.

The Brotherhood’s modus operandi has been understood by intelligence services for years. Trump’s move is less a policy innovation than an admission of reality.

There are several reasons why Trump is acting now. One is legislative: the “Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act of 2025” was introduced in Congress in July, championed in the House by Representative Mario Díaz-Balart and in the Senate by Ted Cruz. The Act’s progress created a political incentive for Trump to get ahead of Congress and demonstrate leadership on the issue. The MuslimBrotherhood has piqued Republican anxieties about national security for two years now, ever since Hamas’s attack on Israel unleashed near-constant Islamist-flavored protests on American streets and campuses.

The battle against progressive academia, where such protests have often turned outright anti-Semitic, has become a mainstay of Trump’s political platforms. Pro-Hamas encampments, faculty statements whitewashing Hamas’s atrocities, and the open collaboration between progressive student groups and Islamist-aligned organizations shocked even those who thought they had become accustomed to the intellectual decay of American academia.

For Republicans, the protests confirmed what they have long suspected: that American universities have been significantly penetrated by an unholy alliance of the progressive left and Islamist networks, each using the other’s grievances for its own ends.

For decades, university administrators, civil-rights bureaucracies and even parts of the intelligence community have tiptoed around clear signs of Islamist organizing on campus. They have convinced themselves that confronting Islamist activism would lend credence to the narrative of a persecuted minority and so make radicalization worse.

In fact, the opposite happened: the vacuum left by institutions gave ample room for Brotherhood-affiliated groups to pose as authentic voices of Muslim America, even when their aims bore little resemblance to the concerns of ordinary Muslims. This appeasement occurred in many other civic spaces besides academia.

Targeting the Brotherhood abroad allows Republicans to confront it where it is vulnerable. The Executive Order sensibly says that three foreign branches of the Brotherhood – in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon – should be investigated, with reports due on them in mid-December and decisions to be made on their fate by the end of January.

This approach gives the new policy a good chance of success. Investigators can now follow financial and organizational trails they previously might have considered too politically sensitive to pursue. Brotherhood-linked institutions will be subjected to a level of scrutiny they have long avoided. Intelligence agencies have long claimed they are too busy to address “non-violent Islamism,” even when states like Egypt and the UAE have provided information about the Brotherhood’s malign activity. Trump’s Executive Order puts a stop to that “not my department” approach. It will be fascinating to see what kind of terrorist activity this sudden beam of light will reveal.

The one point Trump appears not to have fully considered is the contradiction between this ban and his warm relations with Qatar and Turkey, the two most prominent state sponsors of the Muslim Brotherhood. The two countries were left off the proscription list. Doha bankrolls Brotherhood-aligned groups across the region and hosts the Hamas leadership; Ankara sees the Brotherhood as a natural extension of its regional ambitions.

It may be Trump’s view that some contradictions are simply the cost of doing business in the Middle East. If the ban is to have lasting credibility, however, Washington will have to square its antipathy to the Brotherhood with a foreign policy that still treats key Brotherhood sponsors as indispensable partners. Laura Loomer, the influential but controversial right-wing commentator, has already complained loudly about Qatar and Turkey being left out of the scope of the Executive Order.

Loomer is impatient for these countries to be held to account. But of course intelligence about the activities of Egyptian, Jordanian and Lebanese Islamists will rapidly implicate Qatar and Turkey as the Brotherhood’s key international sponsors. Likewise, accumulating information about foreign infiltration of the US education sector will yield damning information about hostile Qatari activity that Trump will find it difficult to ignore.

The significance of this goes beyond American borders. Other Western democracies have also spent years tying themselves in knots over how to approach the Brotherhood.

European governments, in particular, have long worried that their cautious approach to Islamist activism has created precisely the conditions that the Brotherhood exploits best: permissive legal frameworks, weak enforcement, and a political class anxious to avoid accusations of prejudice. Trump’s designation should embolden them to follow the example of Austria, the one European country that has proscribed the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. The Austrian ban has not caused community relations to collapse. Many Muslims hate the Brotherhood as false representatives of their views and interests, and bullies bent on suppressing their freedom.

For all the unanswered questions around Trump’s decision, its core logic is sound. The Muslim Brotherhood has thrived on western hesitation, on the belief that ambiguity is safer than clarity. The Brotherhood’s furious online response to last week’s policy shift shows how much it values that hesitation and wants to encourage it. The Executive Order is a belated correction. Whether it is the beginning of a sustained shift, or simply another false dawn of resolution in the face of Islamist infiltration, subversion and intimidation, will depend on what Washington and its allies choose to do next.

December 3, 2025
Israel is turning the screws on Hezbollah

The killing of Lebanese Hezbollah military chief Haytham Ali Tababtabai by Israel this week reflects how much the balance of power between Jerusalem and the Iran-backed Shia Islamist group has shifted since the year-long war between the two in 2023 and 2024. Yet, paradoxically, Tabatabai’s killing also shows that nothing has been finally settled between the two enemies.

While Hezbollah has now been shown to be much weaker than Israel, it nevertheless remains stronger than any internal faction in Lebanon, including the official Lebanese government. The practical consequence of this is escalation: Hezbollah is seeking to repair and rebuild its capacities, no force in Lebanon is willing or able to stop this, and Israel, aware of Hezbollah’s intentions towards it, is determined to keep the organization weak and possesses the capacity to do so.

This dynamic reflects how much has changed in the Middle East over the last two years. Prior to last year, Lebanese Hezbollah was often referred to as the world’s most powerful non-state military actor. Pundits on sundry television channels would gravely intone that the organization’s capacities outweighed those of many states. This is true: before 2024, Iran’s first and still primary proxy political-military group had enjoyed a three-decade run of near-constant forward motion.

Hezbollah in its first iteration struck telling blows against US, French and Israeli forces in central Lebanon in the early 1980s. It then fought a successful 15-year insurgency against Israel, which resulted in the unilateral withdrawal of Jerusalem’s forces from southern Lebanon in 2000. In 2006, having declined to end its war following the withdrawal six years earlier, Hezbollah again fought an inconclusive but bloody three-week conflict against Israel. This followed a murderous cross-border incursion by the organization.

In 2008, Hezbollah brushed aside efforts by its domestic opponents to curtail its authority within Lebanon. The precipitating factor was the official government’s efforts to assert itself regarding security arrangements at Rafik Hariri International Airport, but the matter soon escalated to a test as to whose word was final in the country.

Supporters of Hezbollah and their allies, the Amal movement, quickly occupied west Beirut. The supporters of the rival, pro-western March 14 movement were brushed aside. The matter was settled in Hezbollah’s favor. It still remains settled: witness the frightened official government’s determination to avoid any confrontation with the movement.

Its ascendancy in Lebanon assured, and its enemy to the south apparently locked into a pattern of mutual deterrence, Hezbollah was free to engage in campaigns further afield. Between 2013 and 2018 period, its fighters played a central role in defending the Assad regime in Syria.

It’s worth noting that by this time, Hezbollah had, at least among many western observers, acquired the mythical status alluded to at the beginning. I remember a European diplomat at a conference in 2015 asking me how it was that the Syrian rebels had until then managed to avoid comprehensive defeat, given that Hezbollah was engaged against them.

This long run of success has now been broken. The persons who Hezbollah supporters should hold accountable for this are no longer available for reprimand. They are, firstly, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who chose to launch an assault on Israel from Gaza on October 7, 2023 without informing his various allies in the Iran-led regional axis. In so doing, he obligated them to come to his assistance at a time when they neither desired nor were ready for all-out war against Israel. And secondly, Hezbollah’s historic leader Hassan Nasrallah, who chose on October 8 to open a support front against Israel on Hamas’s behalf.

Nasrallah, it appeared, had not understood that the rules had changed. He believed his own propaganda regarding Israel’s hesitancy and its fears of losses. He assumed that this would mean that Jerusalem would avoid an all out confrontation with his movement. He was wrong.

Both Sinwar and Nasrallah died at Israel’s hands in the subsequent war. Israel focused on Hamas and responded only defensively against Hezbollah until the late summer of 2024, then moved on to the offensive. The extent to which intelligence was used to penetrate the organization was revealed in the weaponization of Hezbollah’s electronic devices, which decimated the movement’s mid-level leadership cadre, and in the targeted killings of its top leadership, including Nasrallah. An air campaign destroyed Hezbollah’s long-range missile capacity. A ground maneuver drove it away from the border. Battered, Hezbollah reversed the late Nasrallah’s expressed decision and agreed to a separate ceasefire with Israel in November last year.

Since the ceasefire, a three-way stand-off has been under way. Hezbollah, like the rest of the Iran-led regional axis is, with the exception of the late Assad regime in Syria, down but not out. Massively weakened by the war, the organization is trying to get back on its feet. There are cash injections from Iran and efforts to replace anti-tank weaponry and missile capacity.

Hezbollah’s new leader is Sheikh Naim Qassem. Qassem was in the past the lead intellectual and theorist of the movement. He used to be the man tasked with meeting western delegations and explaining the inevitability of Hezbollah’s victory to them. As leader, he is, until now at least, judged to have put in only a lackluster performance. Much of the Iranian monies are going toward compensating the families of dead Hezbollah fighters. Around 5,000 men from the organization are reckoned to have died in these two years of war. Still, the movement’s intention is clear, and it is to rebuild its lost strength.

Israel is determined to prevent this by all available means. A central lesson of October 7 for the Jewish state is that seeking to achieve quiet through mutual deterrence with the armed Islamist militias on its borders is a fool’s errand. These organizations adhere to a religious and ideological outlook which trumps self-interest and pragmatism. They must therefore be kept physically weak. Since its achievements in the last months of 2024, Israel has been engaged in an active campaign to disrupt Hezbollah’s ability to rebuild its capacities. Around 350 of the organization’s men have been killed in this process. Ali Haytham Tabatabai was the latest of them.

The final and least consequential side of the triangle is the Lebanese government of President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam. Since August of this year, the government of Lebanon has been committed to disarming Hezbollah. Some progress has been made south of the Litani river. Hezbollah has made clear that it will not allow itself to be disarmed north of the river. No one seriously expects the government in Beirut to confront the organization. Which means that as of now, the largely two-way contest between Israel and Iran’s proxy in Lebanon is set to continue.

The ball is currently in Hezbollah’s court. But the movement faces a dilemma. Respond forcefully, and it runs the risk of bringing down a further heavy Israeli retribution before it has had time to prepare adequately. Fail to respond, and it faces the further loss of its prestige, both in the eyes of its own Shia constituency and beyond it. As of now, it looks likely that Hezbollah will bide its time and seek to continue to rebuild. But the contest between Israel and Hezbollah is far from over. Another round of high-intensity combat at some stage remains a probability.

November 29, 2025
Will Israel bring back the death penalty for terrorists?

For years, there was a broad consensus in Israel that there was no benefit to reintroducing the death penalty. But now, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is reportedly considering supporting a bill which would bring back capital punishment for convicted terrorists.

The bill, which has passed its first reading in the Knesset, would introduce the death penalty for those who murder Jews – specifically, Palestinian terrorists. It would not apply to Jews who commit acts of terrorism and murder Palestinians. And it would not apply if Israeli Arabs, who are full citizens, are murdered.

The bill is being promoted by Itamar Ben-Gvir, the minister of national security, who in 2007 was convicted of incitement to racism for chanting “Death to Arabs.” Since becoming a minister more than three years ago, he has moderated his language and now urges his supporters to chant “Death to terrorists” instead.

The bill has also been backed by the Shin Bet, Israel’s security service, which for the first time has said it supports the death penalty in principle. Six weeks ago David Zini, its new chief, was appointed after being nominated by Netanyahu.

In the death penalty bill’s draft presented by Zvika Fogel (of Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party), it states that the death sentence would be carried out within 90 days, with no possibility of appeal, for “anyone who murders a Jew solely because they are Jewish – including those who planned or dispatched the attack.” It also specifies that “the execution will be carried out by the prison service through lethal injection.”

If passed, it would not be the first time Israel has had the death penalty. From the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 until 1954, it was in force under the British Mandate’s 1936 Criminal Ordinance. During those six years, courts issued death sentences to several murderers – both Arabs and Jews – and to a Jewish Kapo accused of crimes against humanity during the Holocaust. But state presidents Chaim Weizmann and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, who opposed the death penalty on moral grounds, pardoned every one of those convicted and commuted their sentences to life imprisonment.

The only exception was IDF major Meir Tobianski, who, during the war of independence, was hastily and unjustly convicted for treason and spying for Britain and executed by firing squad in the Jerusalem hills. Months later, in 1949, military advocate general Aharon Hoter-Yishai ordered a review of the case and ultimately recommended that the conviction be annulled. Tobianski’s name was cleared, his rank was restored and an apology was made to his widow and son.

In 1954, the Knesset abolished the death penalty altogether for murder. The debates were not partisan, and the arguments for abolition were rooted in Jewish tradition – that human beings are created in the image of God, and only a divine decree can take away that right to life – as well as universal moral principles and the fact that capital punishment does not deter crime.

Although the death penalty was abolished for ordinary murder, Israeli law still permits it in rare cases: treason, treason during wartime, crimes against humanity, crimes against the Jewish people (such as Nazis), or extremely severe wartime offenses. In the occupied territories, where military law often applies, there are also provisions that permit death sentences for severe security offenses.

Over the years, military courts have occasionally handed down death sentences to terrorists, but these were always overturned and commuted to life imprisonment. The only civil death sentence ever carried out in Israel was for Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi official who was responsible for implementing the Final Solution.

For years, there were occasional calls – mostly from right-wing politicians – to impose the death penalty on terrorists in particularly heinous cases. But most parties in Israel, along with human rights organizations, strongly opposed it on security, moral and practical grounds – as well as concerns about Israel’s international image.

The Shin Bet also always opposed it. Over the years, various internal discussions took place within the agency, always concluding that the death penalty would not deter potential terrorists. The arguments against the death penalty were particularly well articulated by the late Yitzhak Ilan, former deputy director of the Shin Bet. In conversations I had with him, and in documents he wrote, he explained that the only possible justification for the death penalty would be deterrence. But based on his 31 years of fighting terrorism, “the disadvantages far outweigh any potential deterrent effect.”

He noted that between sentencing and execution, terrorist organizations would likely attempt to carry out kidnappings or bargaining attacks to prevent executions – just as the Jewish underground groups did under British rule. “In such a case,” Ilan emphasized, “we would suffer a double loss: instead of a terrorist sitting in prison for life, he might be released as part of a deal triggered by the death sentence.”

Ilan also warned that executions could lead to revenge attacks by terror groups or even by the condemned person’s relatives. In addition, wanted terrorists would refuse to surrender, choosing to fight to the death – putting security forces at greater risk. And perhaps most significantly, those sentenced to death would become martyrs and role models. “Islamic culture glorifies martyrs,” he said, “and those who face execution would quickly become revered cultural heroes.” In Israel today, public streets, parks and institutions are named after members of the underground organizations executed by the British.

The Shin Bet strongly denies that its change of position is tied to Zini’s appointment, claiming that its stance was formed independently by professional officials over a long period, influenced by the horrendous acts of murder, rape and burning by Hamas on October 7, 2023, and by the fact that Hamas no longer holds any live hostages. The Shin Bet has stated that although it supports the death penalty in principle, it opposes its automatic and blanket application. In other words, it believes each case must be evaluated individually. This approach sharply contrasts with the demands of Ben-Gvir and his allies, who want courts to apply the law automatically, without judicial discretion.

There is still a long way to go before the bill passes its second and third readings. But given Israel’s security situation and with the 2026 elections approaching, Netanyahu appears more willing to advance the bill than ever before. Some reports suggest he tried to halt the passage of the bill behind the scenes. But the legislation is gaining momentum – and if passed, could reshape Israeli society forever.

November 25, 2025
Why Trump and Israel differ on Turkey’s involvement in Gaza

As the Gaza ceasefire struggles into its second month, a significant difference between the position of Israel and that of its chief ally, the United States, on the way forward is emerging. This difference reflects broader gaps in perception in Jerusalem and Washington regarding the nature and motivations of the current forces engaged in the Middle East. The subject of that difference is Turkey.

The Turks have expressed a desire to play a role in the “international stabilization force” (ISF), which, according to President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan, is supposed to take over ground security control of Gaza from the IDF (and Hamas) in the framework of the plan’s implementation. Ankara appears to have played a significant role in securing the 1October 10 ceasefire between Israel and the Gaza Islamists. Now, Turkey wants a major role in future arrangements on the ground in Gaza, in both the military and civilian sectors.

Israel is absolutely opposed to any Turkish role in future security arrangements in Gaza. Jerusalem appears to grudgingly accept Turkish civil involvement. Here also, however, given the background and orientation of the Muslim Brotherhood-associated Turkish IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, which is currently engaged in relief work in the Strip, there is extreme suspicion in Jerusalem. The IHH was the sponsor of the 2010 “flotilla” to Gaza, in which a number of Islamist activists and their allies sought unsuccessfully to break Israel’s naval blockade on the territory. But while a Turkish civil role is probably unavoidable, Israel draws the line at a Turkish troop presence.

This is because Israel identifies Turkey in its current form as something very close to an enemy state. The reasons aren’t mysterious. Jerusalem has alleged that Ankara allows Hamas to maintain a large office in Istanbul, from which they claim the organization has planned both military and terror activities and political and media campaigns.

Israel has also claimed that Turkey facilitates the unimpeded travel of Hamas officials across the Middle East by supplying them with Turkish passports. Turkish President Recep Tayipp Erdoğan has never condemned the massacres of October 7, 2023. Rather, the Turkish leader describes Hamas as “not a terrorist organization, it is a liberation group, ‘mujahideen’ waging a battle to protect its lands and people.”

The Turkish leader is somewhat less complimentary in his view of Israel’s leaders. A few days ago, Ankara issued arrest warrants for alleged “genocide” against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and 36 other Israeli officials.

In May 2024, against the background of the Gaza war, Erdoğan announced that “relations with Israel have been severed.” Later, it became clear that he had been referring specifically to trade relations. Still, the statement reflected that the state of affairs between Jerusalem and Ankara had reached their lowest ebb.

The Israeli system considers that Turkey’s consistent pattern of anti-Israel activities forms part of a larger, assertive and expansive regional strategy. It fits comfortably with Turkey’s military incursions into Iraq and Syria over the last half decade, its deployment of drones and proxy fighters in Azerbaijan and Libya in support of allies’ wars, its efforts to build influence in Lebanon, the West Bank and Jerusalem, its burgeoning alliance with Qatar, and its “mavi vatan” (blue homeland) strategy in the Mediterranean, in which it seeks to lay claim to expanded exclusive economic zones (EEZs) in the eastern Mediterranean, Aegean and Black Seas.

In all this, Israel sees a combination of political Islam and Neo-Ottoman revanchism, exemplified by a statement by Erdogan earlier this year that Turkey’s “spiritual geography” extends to “from Syria to Gaza, From Aleppo to Tabriz, From Mosul to Jerusalem.”

Israel suspects that Turkey wishes to make use of the ISF in Gaza as a platform by which it can reinsert Turkish troops into the Israeli-Palestinian context and use their presence in turn to leverage influence, probably through tacit cooperation with its Hamas ally.

The Trump administration shares little or none of Israel’s perception of Turkey. Rather, it sees Ankara as a strong, stable and welcome partner, able and willing to play an important role in securing the region. President Trump describes Erdoğan as a “great leader.” The White House has rushed to embrace the new Sunni Islamist president of Syria. As Trump has noted, the victory of Ahmed al-Sharaa and his rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in the Syrian civil war was equally an achievement for Turkey, which created the conditions for the Sunni Islamist fighters to prepare before they marched on Damascus late last year.

The administration appears to have taken Turkey as a kind of guide on regional matters, accepting the notion that Turkish power can guarantee Syria and continue to prevent an ISIS resurgence. In a recent briefing to the Middle East Forum think tank, Turkish researcher Sinan Ciddi also noted that, during his September visit to the White House, Erdogan committed to giving the US access to Turkey’s deposits of lithium and other critical mineral deposits in the country.

The combination of strong, authoritarian rule, an apparent ability to achieve goals and a willingness to make available natural resources appear to have won Trump’s favor. Turkey’s close alliance with Qatar, which similarly backs Sunni political Islam across the region, forms part of the same general orientation.

US Middle East envoy Tom Barrack on Thursday paid tribute to the Turkish role in Syria, describing “Turkey’s tireless role… a testament to the quiet, steadfast diplomacy that builds bridges where walls once stood.” In all this, one can detect Trump’s famously transactional view of relations with foreign powers. These are forces with power and money that can get things done. They claim to want stability. They offer potential tempting material inducements. What’s not to like?

In this, there is a key difference between the US and its allies in Jerusalem. The view of Middle Eastern affairs diplomacy as a real estate deal so prevalent in Trump’s White House is programmed to regard such elements as politicized religion or nationalist revanchism as surely verbiage only, perhaps to be used to fire up the base, but hardly likely to motivate or direct behavior at the state level. Here is the gap in understanding. Prior to October 7, many in Israel also dismissed these elements, convinced that the shared motivation of self-interest would solidly undergird relations and that, therefore, for example, the Hamas leaders in Gaza could be bought off with money and material inducement.

For now at least, in Israel, no one believes that any more. But that is the principle that appears to be underlying much of the current US orientation in the pivotal Middle East region. The problem is that the Middle East is notably different from the real estate world in a number of key details. Recent experience suggests that those who try to ignore this may eventually learn it through bitter experience.

November 17, 2025
The Israel-Lebanon ceasefire is in danger of shattering

It’s been almost a year since Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia that arguably held more power in Lebanon than the government itself, signed a ceasefire to end a ferocious two-month long war. The deal couldn’t have come at a better time; thousands of Israeli air and artillery strikes had pulverized southern Lebanon, Hezbollah’s traditional base of operations, leading to a displacement crisis and killing close to 4,000 Lebanese. Whole swaths of northern Israel had been vacated due to Hezbollah missile attacks, forcing the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to spend money on tens of thousands of civilians bunking in hotel rooms. But the agreement is wearing thin. The ceasefire is really a ceasefire in name only. Will it hold?

Israel continues to strike targets in Lebanon, both in the south and above the Litani River, in what it claims is a self-defense measure to prevent Hezbollah from rearming. Last weekend, four people were killed in the southern Lebanese town of Kfarsir. Before that strike, the UN Human Rights office stated that more than 100 Lebanese civilians have died in Israeli attacks since the November 2024 deal was signed. The situation is getting intolerable for Lebanese politicians. President Joseph Aoun, a former army chief himself, went so far as to order the Lebanese army to confront Israel in the event of similar events in the future. The fact that Lebanon’s military capacity couldn’t possibly match up to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is beside the point. The larger issue is that Israel’s military actions are alienating a Lebanese government that is, if not friendly, than at least not adversarial.

What Hezbollah and Lebanese officials call violations of the ceasefire, Israel calls self-defense. Despite Israeli troops pulling out of the small portions of southern Lebanon they briefly controlled during the war, the IDF still holds five separate points on the Lebanese side of the UN-demarcated Blue Line, which is technically a breach of the terms. The Israelis, however, are tying a full withdrawal from Lebanon to the Lebanese government’s demobilization of Hezbollah. And Israel has no intention of stopping the airstrikes as long as Hezbollah is holding weapons.

“The Lebanese government’s commitment to disarm Hezbollah and remove it from southern Lebanon must be implemented,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Sunday. “Maximum enforcement will continue and even intensify – we will not allow any threat to the residents of the north.”

The Trump administration, which inherited the Joe Biden-era ceasefire agreement, finds itself in a vice. Tom Barrack, the US Ambassador to Turkey who doubles as Donald Trump’s special envoy for Syria and Lebanon, warns that Hezbollah still has a stockpile of at least 15,000 rockets and is replacing some of the arms it lost during last year’s war. During a conference last week, Barrack advised the Lebanese government to sit down with Israel and work on a normalization pact, as if establishing normal diplomatic relations would magically fix all the problems between these two states. It also happens to be a recommendation that is borderline pointless, since Lebanese officials will find it hard to rationalize normalization talks as long as Israeli bombs are killing Lebanese citizens on Lebanese territory. To do anything less would be to jeopardize the credibility of the relatively new administration in the eyes of the people it’s supposed to represent.

It’s difficult to see what Washington can do fix things. Hezbollah has no incentive to part with their small arms, rockets, launchers and explosives if Israel continues to attack. Israel, in turn, has no incentive to stop treating Lebanon as its own personal piñata as long as Hezbollah refuses to disarm and transition strictly into a non-violent political party (and that’s even assuming Israel would support Hezbollah participating in Lebanese politics to begin with). The maelstrom is further complicated by the Gulf states, who would normally be called upon to fundraise Lebanon’s reconstruction but aren’t likely to write any checks if they don’t feel comfortable that the war is truly over.

This is not to say the situation isn’t entirely negative. The resumption of full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah, which many observers assumed would occur shortly after the agreement came into force, hasn’t come to pass. Northern Israel has seen a total of one rocket attack from Lebanon. The Israeli population that left for the country’s major cities during hostilities is starting to come back to the farms and small villages that populate Israel’s northern communities. Hezbollah has cooperated far more than previously assessed, and the Lebanese army, constantly strapped for cash and dealing with resource constraints, has proven itself to be a committed enforcer of the deal’s provisions. The writ of the Lebanese state has expanded, and Lebanese troops who previously viewed the southern portion of the country as a no-go zone are now regularly deployed there. Last but not least, the Lebanese government is no longer acting in an interim capacity; its president is a leading promoter of demobilizing Hezbollah and bringing all arms under the state’s control.

But these glimmers of hope can’t hide the fact that the situation risks spinning out of control. It’s the geopolitical equivalent of the chicken-and-egg problem. Except this time, the answer will determine whether Lebanon stays in a gray zone between war and peace, descends into another cycle of violence or gets the opportunity to rebuild.

November 4, 2025
Who deserves credit for the Gaza ceasefire?

Since the Gaza ceasefire was announced last week, two distinct narratives have emerged. The first gives President Donald Trump the lion’s share of credit. The second, mostly pushed by former Biden officials, is trying to share the glory. Both are wrong and for the same reason: they give the United States unrealistic credit and ignore the obvious fact that it is the belligerents who decide the fate of a war. More than any world leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu deserves credit.

After the return of the living hostages, Biden-administration Secretary of State Antony Blinken posted on X to explain the ceasefire’s emergence: “It’s good that President Trump adopted and built on the plan the Biden Administration developed after months of discussion with Arab partners, Israel and the Palestinian Authority.”

Blinken is correct that Biden and Trump plans are similar, but there’s a big difference between devising and implementing a plan. The Biden administration had an uneasy relationship with Israel. This led to Israeli distrust of any American proposal on the one hand and Hamas’s hopes that, by exploiting the tensions, it could get more favorable terms or even a unilateral Israeli withdrawal.

More important is the fact that the Biden plan contained clauses that doomed it to failure. The initial stages of that plan saw Hamas agree to release the living hostages drip by drip. Israel was wary of this as it would have potentially allowed the terrorist group to leverage hostages even after a ceasefire had been reached. The only plan Israel could expect – given Hamas’s habit of “playing games” with hostages – was one that saw a simultaneous liberation. By March, it became clear that the drip-feed Biden framework would not secure an ending to the war, and Israel resumed fighting. As the Persian proverb goes, if the mason lays the first stone crooked, the wall will be crooked all the way up to the stars.

The Trump plan made sure to plant the first stone straight: it ensured the initial stages were acceptable to Israel. It made Hamas responsible for starting the ceasefire by releasing all the living hostages at once and then returning the dead bodies.

Even so, Trump can’t really take credit for this. As the Israeli journalist Amit Segal wrote, “Every Trump plan [for] the Middle East is a plan written by Ron Dermer (senior adviser to Netanyahu) and just wrapped in this shining bright gift package to President Trump.” Avi Shavit further reports that Dermer, former U.K. prime minister Tony Blair, and Emirati president Mohamed bin Zayed had been working on this plan since December 2023. This proved mutually beneficial for Israel and Trump. Any plan that seemed to come obviously from Israel would have been rejected by Hamas and Arab states, so by allowing Trump to take credit for a framework, the Israelis increased the likelihood of its acceptance. And by putting his name on it, of course, Trump got to be the peacemaker. The genius of the so-called Trump plan is that it was conceived in Jerusalem then slapped with a “Made in America” label.

Many of the talking heads who Trump deserves most of the credit for ending the war argue – without evidence – that he did so by exerting pressure on Netanyahu to wrap things up. There is no evidence that he did so. In fact, all evidence points to the opposite. The attitude of the Trump administration toward Israel behind closed doors has been to ask, “What do you need from us?” This was a reversal of Biden-administration policy, which berated Israel and frequently withheld arms deliveries.

In other words, the Trump administration applied pressure not to Israel, but to Hamas. And they did so primarily by getting out of Israel’s way. After the President chose not to resist Israel’s invasion of Gaza City, Hamas’s last stronghold, the terrorist group realized it could not drive a wedge between the US and the IDF.

What this means is that the majority of the credit must go not to Trump – and certainly not to Biden – but to Benjamin Netanyahu and the strength of Israeli soldiers. This is not a criticism of Trump, who did everything right, but a simple fact that the belligerents are the primary drivers of change.

Non-belligerents can only do so much to end a conflict. This war only ended when the US decided to get out of Israel’s way. As our nation’s policymakers again turn their full attention to Russia and Ukraine, they would be wise to remember this fact.

October 16, 2025
Donald Trump’s finest hour

This is Donald Trump’s finest hour. Speaking in the Knesset on Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called him Israel’s “greatest friend” and nominated him for the Israel Prize,” the nation’s “highest award.” Trump himself was greeted rapturously by the parliamentarians for securing a breakthrough peace deal in Gaza. Trump basked in the applause for his months-long diplomatic effort, declaring that “this is the historic dawn of a new Middle East.” But can one truly emerge? Or is this simply a temporary truce between the warring parties?

Trump’s immediate accomplishment was to arrange for the release of the remaining 20 living Israeli hostages held by Hamas since its attack on October 7, 2023, when more than 1,200 Israelis were murdered. The plight of the hostages upended Israeli society, leading to weekly demonstrations against Netanyahu whom his detractors accused of needlessly prolonging the conflict to maintain his own hold on power. When Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff appeared in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, they were cheered by the crowd but a mere mention of Netanyahu’s name drew loud boos.

Netanyahu is also in bad odor among Trump’s America First followers. They are construing the peace deal as a defeat for Netanyahu. On his show Real America’s Voice, Steve Bannon remarked, “This is a catastrophic defeat for the Israel America First crowd… because they overreached, pushed this greater Israel project, and it came crashing down around them.” Still, Trump called upon Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, to “give him a pardon” for the criminal allegations that he faces.

Trump’s ambitions clearly exceed simply overseeing a deal between Israel and Hamas. He has fortified American relations with the Gulf States who played a pivotal role in nudging Hamas to accede to the agreement. Pilots from Qatar will soon be training in Idaho, a move that has triggered hysteria among some of Trump’s MAGA followers who see it as an opening wedge to introduce Sharia law into America. In his Knesset address, Trump vowed that the ceasefire deal would result in “a very exciting time for Israel and for the entire Middle East, because all across the Middle East, the forces of chaos, terror and ruin that have plagued the region for decades now stand weakened, isolated and totally defeated.”

Well. The forces of disruption and hatred and violence will not be uprooted as easily as Trump’s exuberant language might suggest. His exuberance is understandable. It may even be understood as a form of exhortation. But Iran and its terrorist allies are unlikely to surrender their ambitions overnight. The isolation and defeat that Trump alluded to has not yet occurred. Rather, these malignant forces are working overtime to regroup. Already Hamas is seeking to reestablish control in the Gaza strip, which could easily lurch back into warfare. Nor do Iran’s nuclear ambitions do appear to be in a state of inanition.

For now, Trump can revel in his accomplishment. But the first test of his vision of a new Middle East will come on Monday afternoon at the “Summit for Peace” in Egypt, where 20 world leaders are gathering, including Trump. Netanyahu, however, will not be in attendance.

October 13, 2025
Israel and Iran come full circle

On September 28, the UN again imposed wide-ranging economic sanctions on Iran. Earlier in the summer, European powers had notified the UN Security Council of their intention to trigger the snapback mechanism within the original nuclear deal, the JCPOA, citing Iranian non-compliance with the terms of the original deal – specifically, the eye-watering percentages to which Iran is enriching uranium. And without a new resolution being agreed upon, the same sanctions that crippled the Iranian economy from 2013 to 2015, effectively dragging Tehran to the table in the first place, will have a devastating effect on ordinary Iranians who will see the value of their currency plummet and the price of daily goods skyrocket. The Iranian Ministry for Finance is considering reintroducing ration cards, albeit on smartphones. Yet for those elements of the IRGC and regime-linked oligarchy which have benefited from a thriving black-market economy, it might just be business as usual. Likewise for China, which will continue to enjoy cheap Iranian energy products.

The Islamic Republic today is a markedly different entity from that of ten years ago

In many ways, we have come full circle from the pre-JCPOA days: Iran under sanctions, with no solution to the nuclear issue in sight. And yet, the Islamic Republic of today is a markedly different entity from that of ten years ago. Team Trump’s decision to blow up the nuclear facilities at Fordow and elsewhere may have been brilliantly executed by America’s Air Force. But it has not fundamentally altered the dynamics of the region.

Tehran is still a significant power – and has the energy potential to be an extremely rich one – but it is immeasurably weaker, having seen protests, war and economic collapse in the past decade. The old idea that Iran projected fear and influence through its dreaded proxies has been ruthlessly stripped away by repeated failures on the battlefield and within its intelligence agencies.

There is a whiff of the delusional in the rhetoric of the regime, which insists it won the 12-day war with Israel and continues to vow to destroy Tel Aviv, and so on. Esmaeil Khatib, Iran’s Minster for Intelligence, put on his best poker face as he proudly showed the world a documentary about how the Iranian intelligence services had successfully infiltrated Israel’s sensitive nuclear sites.

But before long, the joke was on him. It turned out that none of the photos or videos were from secret Israeli nuclear facilities, and nothing revealed in the video was more secret than the first page of a Google search. All very “Comical Ali,” though it’s no laughing matter for the many dozens of Iranians currently being executed for supposed links to Israeli intelligence.

The debate in Iran over the summer has broadly been split between two positions. One is to compromise on the nuclear issue and come to an agreement with the West that avoids another conflict with Israel. This, it is argued, would pave the way for Iran to return to the global economy as well as ushering in a measure of stability. Those we would label “moderates” or “reformists,” all of whom believe in the Islamic Republic, trumpet this position because they fear a revolution could follow the present situation.

The other position, adopted by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, is to choose the path of resistance and trust that the Iranian people could absorb the consequences of sanctions and that the state could accept the increased risk of conflict with Israel and yet more diplomatic isolation.

Khamenei’s decision to reject a compromise on uranium enrichment and Iran’s ballistic missiles program was understandable if one sees it from his perspective; without a nuclear program and ballistic missiles, Iran would be more reduced in stature. Any compromise with the hated West, Khamenei knows, would be a fatal sign of weakness that could lead to turmoil for the regime. The Islamic Republic is built on resistance to foreign “tyranny,” obsessed with its independence and morbidly afraid of enemies within and without, real or imagined. Just look at what happened to Colonel Gaddafi when he caved in to western demands and abandoned his nuclear dreams, they argue in the Iranian parliament. Dead in a ditch.

Khamenei’s choice to pursue the path of rejection is not without risks. Put simply, Iran’s refusal to talk about its nuclear program, to decrease the percentages to which it enriches uranium and to pursue dialogue makes another war with Israel a matter of time, as certain Israeli politicians have said publicly and privately at that great diplomatic jamboree in New York that is the United Nations General Assembly. It sets these two adversaries on a collision course as Iran isolates itself from the world and Israel continues its rampage around the region’s sovereign nations.

The rhetoric in the Iranian parliament has been bombastic, with MPs in their dozens claiming that Iran must withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty, ban official weapons inspectors and review their nuclear doctrine that forbids the creation of bombs. Much of this rhetoric calls to mind similar threats at the height of the 12-day war over the summer, when those same parliamentarians voted to close the Strait of Hormuz. Alas, the vote wasn’t ratified by the Supreme National Security Council. Khamenei has sensibly distanced himself from talk of specifics, preferring to remain in the realm of vague threats and adherence to a tired revolutionary ideology of resistance to the West.

It’s fashionable to ask, “What should be done?” at times like this, particularly in the pages of serious publications. But perhaps a more sensible question is, “What can be done?” The lines of communication appear to be closed. Khamenei has repeatedly ruled out dialogue as the West is asking concessions of Tehran it is simply unwilling to consider. Once able to choose where and how it operates in the region and strong enough to absorb sanctions and their social consequences, it seems that Tehran’s choices are between “bad” and “a bit worse.” This all feels like an impasse, beyond which there are few positive outcomes.

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s October 13, 2025 World edition.

October 7, 2025
Has Israel won?

The deliberate slaughter of Israeli Jews on October 7, 2023, was the most consequential event in the modern Middle East. It sent powerful reverberations across the region and well beyond it to the United States, the UK, Europe and Russia. Those tremors, like the war begun by the massacre, continue to this day.

On that fateful day, Hamas terrorists left Gaza, crossed into Israel in a carefully-planned attack, designed to kill as many Jews as possible and take others captive for negotiating leverage. The terrorists attacked young, unarmed concert-goers at an Israeli music festival and the residents of a nearby town. The attack killed 1,195 innocents. Approximately 250 more were taken hostage, dragged back to Gaza and held for ransom by their kidnappers. Some hostages remain there, living and dead, held for political ransom. Among those killed were 38 children, some of whom were beheaded. It was theatrical depravity.

The next day, October 8, Islamists in Lebanon launched a second attack, this one on Israel’s northern border. (Gaza is on Israel’s southern, Mediterranean border, next to Egypt.) The northern assault was conducted by Hezbollah, the heavily-armed terror organization in control of Southern Lebanon and a powerful actor in the rest of the country. The goal of this second attack, approved and funded by Hezbollah’s patron and financier, Iran, was to open a second front in the war, divide the resources of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), and inflict still more civilian casualties.

As Israel mourned its dead and grieved for its hostages, they also witnessed another shocking sequence of events: the most virulent anti-Semitic demonstrations in Europe since the Holocaust. The celebrations in some European capitals and a few American cities complemented those by Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Significantly, all these celebrations began before the Israelis responded militarily to the attack. They were full-throated endorsements of the terrorist attack in New York, London and Paris, not a response to Israel’s counter-attack, which had not yet happened.

Israel was, of course, determined to respond to this unprovoked slaughter, just as America was after Pearl Harbor. And, just like America, the goal was not to engage in some minimal tit-for-tat rejoinder. Israel had more consequential, strategic goals, just as America did.

Israel’s primary goal was (and still is) to end its encirclement by Iran’s proxy forces (known as the “ring of fire”) and to end their constant attacks on Israel, which gave cover to Iran as it secretly finished developing nuclear weapons, which could exterminate Israel’s entire population and wipe the Jewish State off the map.

It is these larger, strategic goals – entirely “negative” ones of wiping out imminent threats – that Israel has implemented systematically in the two years since the October 7 attacks.

This comprehensive response has been led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with strong backing, at least initially, from his Cabinet and the public. Over time, however, that strong backing has eroded for four reasons. The first is war weariness, which always occurs in protracted conflicts. Second is the desire for the return of all hostages, living and dead, and the fear that continued military action in Gaza will lead Hamas to slaughter the remaining hostages and keep all of them as negotiating leverage. Third, some key IDF leaders are worried about rising casualties among their troops if door-to-door fighting continues in Gaza. Hamas has continued to fight because of its extreme ideology and continued to hold hostages because Hamas fighters fear they will be killed if they give up the hostages without clear commitments from Israel, backed by the US. Fourth, and most difficult of all, support within Israel for the war has decline because there is no clear, achievable goal for Gaza after the war ends.

The problem of post-war Gaza is not just the enormous cost of reconstruction, which will be borne, at least in part, by rich Western nations and Arab Gulf states. There are two even deeper problems.

· Who governs? There is no clear, benign successor to Hamas as Gaza’s governing authority; and

· Will the Jew-hatred in Gaza ever stop? Most Gazans endorse the same anti-Israel, anti-Semitic ideology as that terrorist organization. If that doesn’t change, then future Gazan governments will have public support for a staunch, anti-Israel stand.

True, Gazans are sick of the war and sick of Hamas, but that doesn’t mean that they have given up their hate for Israel and for Jews. It was their votes in an election demanded by the George W. Bush administration that gave Hamas the power to govern Gaza after Israel withdrew completely. Hamas could have used that new-found “democratic authority” to build a state that lived in peace with the Jewish state. Instead, they built a terror state in partnership with Iran and significant funding from Qatar. Hamas consolidated its control by killing all its local opponents, eliminating alternative governance possibilities, aside from tribal groupings. The absence of those alternatives is a major problem for the future of Gaza.

International support for Israel, which was strong in Western capitals in the months after October 7, has ebbed significantly as the destruction of Gaza has continued. The clearest indication of that erosion is the decision by France and the UK to recognize an imaginary Palestinian state that lacks clear borders or a unified government. The US has rejected that move, so far, but polls show declining support for Israel, especially among young people.

Despite these strains, the long war has not been all bad news for Israel. The good news is that Israel’s tough, consistent military strategy has extinguished the “ring of fire” and delayed Iran’s nuclear program by years. The Jewish State has clearly emerged as the strong horse in the region and done so without permanently ending the chances for renewing ties with Arab-Muslim states, embodied in the Abraham Accords. It has sustained its stunning economic growth, grounded in high technology, despite calling up huge numbers of reserves from the civilian workforce. This combination of economic and military power is why Persian Gulf states want closer ties with Israel.

But Gulf Arab states cannot take the next step until the Gaza War is finished. For Israel, that means Hamas must be crushed and the hostages returned.

Those are the continuing obstacles of a war that began on October 7, with the Hamas slaughter of innocents, and expanded the next day when Hezbollah, backed and funded by Iran, attacked northern Israel. The dark shadow of those acts lingers over Israel, the Middle East, and the western world on this, the anniversary of that unprovoked terror.

October 7, 2025
Trump pitches Gaza peace plan

Donald Trump is perhaps one of the world’s most gifted salesman. But as he was speaking at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today, even he had trouble selling his 20-point peace plan to end the war in Gaza.

This wasn’t for a lack of trying. “Today is an historic day for peace,” Trump told the assembled press corps. Calling today “a beautiful day, potentially one of the great days ever in civilization,” Trump went on to outline in broad strokes his diplomatic initiative, which aimed to thread the needle between Netanyahu’s vocal objections to a Palestinian state and the Arab world’s demand that any plan put forth provide the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank with an opportunity to take control of their own future. Trump earned Netanyahu’s support and received buy-in from the Arab states, but the positions of those two actors will eventually clash. And that even assumes Hamas, which wasn’t given a copy of the White House’s draft agreement and is now only digesting the material, agrees to play along.

There is some good in Trump’s 20-point plan. For instance, it stresses that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) will pull out of Gaza in a staged fashion as Palestinian police officers and their international supporters, presumably led by the Arab states, stabilize the enclave. Hamas will demilitarize and hand over its weapons, and those who renounce violence will be allowed to leave Gaza for a third-country. The hostages still in Hamas’s grasp will be released 72 hours after the accord comes into force, and humanitarian supplies will surge into the territory. Gaza, meanwhile, won’t be annexed by Israel; instead, it will be ruled by a consortium of Palestinian technocrats and international figures, where they will preside over a reconstruction and rehabilitation process until a reformed Palestinian Authority is up to the task.

But even if Hamas agrees to such a scheme – and given the plan’s call for what is in effect Hamas’s complete and total surrender, it’s hard to picture the militant group doing so – the implementation problems will be gargantuan. The plan is loose on timelines and execution mechanisms. Although the so-called International Stabilization Force will cooperate with vetted Palestinian police officers to dismantle the tunnels and terrorist infrastructure that still exist in the enclave, the criteria for what is considered adequate demilitarization – and which party determines whether demilitarization has succeeded or failed – is a big red flag. If Netanyahu holds veto power over this decision, then the phased troop withdrawals the Israeli military signed onto will be delayed for as long as possible. We can say this with a reasonable degree of certainty because Netanyahu was very reticent to pull the Israeli military back during the January truce. The reticence has thinned out with age.

Trump doesn’t want Israel to annex Gaza, and he made that position clear in his plan. Commentators will refer to this item as a big deal. In reality it’s the definition of low-hanging fruit. First, rejecting Israeli annexation is simply a reiteration of decades of bipartisan U.S. foreign policy on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Second, Trump has a personal interest in kicking the annexation can down the road because whatever hopes he may have of expanding the 2020 Abraham Accords will be extinguished the moment Israel goes down that path. He can kiss an Israeli-Saudi normalization agreement goodbye in such a scenario, and you can bet that somebody in the president’s orbit – perhaps his son-in-law Jared Kushner – brought this to Trump’s attention.

Netanyahu, however, isn’t following Trump’s schedule. As important as retaining Trump’s support is, it’s not the be-all, end-all in the Israeli premier’s calculations. The people who hold this honor continue to be the hardliners, nationalists and extremists in the Israeli cabinet, including Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich and Israel Katz, who could destroy Netanyahu’s career by imploding his government. The first two men continue to harbor the dream of kicking out all of Gaza’s more than two million Palestinians, formally annexing it into the State of Israel and rebuilding – and expanding – the very Jewish settlements that were torn down back in 2005. Yes, Netanyahu accepted Trump’s plan and everything in it, but he’s a canny political operator and knows how to throw wrenches into a diplomatic process. It’s likely Netanyahu will play a similar game, as he’s done repeatedly when other Gaza peace negotiations were nearing the finish line.

The biggest error in Trump’s scheme, however, was something that wasn’t even written into the plan. In essence, Netanyahu was gifted an escape clause. Trump stressed that Israel would have Washington’s full support for continuing the war if Hamas rejected the agreement.

Many won’t find this comment objectionable. Yet for a guy who is supposedly a master negotiator and understands the power of leverage, Trump effectively killed whatever leverage he held over Netanyahu by giving the Israeli premier an incentive to do anything in his power to push Hamas into saying “no.” Even if Hamas accepts the deal with reservations, Netanyahu can now claim to Trump that the terrorist group is an intransigent party that can’t be reasoned with. The only alternative, the logic goes, is a resumption of the war.

Sharing a stage with Trump in Washington, DC, Netanyahu laid it on thick and claimed that peace was just around the corner. But mark these words: once he lands back in Israel, Netanyahu will tell his coalition allies that the deal he agreed to is merely a general framework whose details are still to be negotiated. Trump will then have a decision to make: tether the United States even closer to Israel’s war in Gaza, try diplomacy again or wash his hands of the conflict.

September 29, 2025