A Mid-East Journal

Lebanon and Syria – deals with Israel are possible

2026-04-15T05:48:00.007+01:00

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 15 April 2026

Israel is technically at war with both Lebanon and Syria – and has been for the past 78 years, ever since the attack in 1948 by the joint Arab armies on the new-born state of Israel. Although Israel concluded peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, none have been negotiated with neighboring Lebanon or Syria. Yet both have recently been seeking to hold discussions with Israel.

On March 9 Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun, outlined a four‑point plan aimed at controlling Hezbollah and bringing peace to his country. In addition to calling for a “total ceasefire,” Hezbollah’s disarmament, and international support to strengthen the Lebanese Armed Forces, to universal surprise he proposed direct Lebanese‑Israeli talks under international auspices. And on April 11 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that his cabinet would begin ceasefire and Hezbollah disarmament talks with Lebanon “as soon as possible.” The first round took place in Washington on April 14 and have led to a short-term ceasefire, a harbinger of more permanent arrangements.

As for Syria, it was in July 1949 that the Syrian-Israeli conflict was brought to an end by means of an armistice concluded under UN Security Council auspices. It was not a peace treaty. Following the 1973 Yom Kippur war, in which Syria joined Egypt in a joint attack on Israel, the 1974 Agreement on Disengagement similarly states that it “is not a peace agreement”, and provides only for a ceasefire supervised by the UN.

The position was not affected by the overthrow of the Assad regime in December 2024. Syria and Israel still have no diplomatic relationship and remain formally at war. Potentially Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa – once closely associated with al-Qaeda – is a major threat to Israel’s security. And yet, from the moment he was appointed on January 29, 2025, he has been asserting his intention to normalize relations with Israel.

His first major decision was to suspend the Assad-era constitution. Since then, as interim president, Sharaa seems to have made every effort to distance himself from his al-Qaeda connection, and to present himself as moderate and pragmatic.

On July 12, following conflict between Druze and Bedouin armed groups, the Druze-majority region of Sweida in southern Syria was engulfed in armed sectarian clashes. The violence involved extrajudicial executions, massacres, burning of villages, and looting. Over 1,500 people were killed, and militias affiliated with the new regime in Damascus joined in the attacks.

In reaction Israel honored the promise it had made to the Druze community following an earlier incident. It mounted air strikes, targeting Syrian tanks and an airfield in southwestern Syria. On July 15 Netanyahu and defense minister Israel Katz issued a joint statement: “Israel is committed to preventing harm being inflicted on the Druze in Syria, owing to the deep covenant of blood with our Druze citizens in Israel and their historical and familial link to the Druze in Syria. We are acting to prevent the Syrian regime from harming them...”

Even so, in a statement on July 16, 2025, Sharaa sought conciliation with Israel. The nation did not fear war, he said, but in reaching out to Israel “we have put the interests of the Syrians before chaos and destruction.”

He was as good as his word. Over the past year, Israel and Syria have held a series of low‑profile, US‑mediated negotiations that have gradually taken on a more structured character. The talks have covered security issues and also updating the 1974 disengagement framework in light of Israel’s post‑Assad military push beyond the Golan Heights.

Syria has been represented by its new foreign minister, Asaad al‑Shaibani, while Israel’s interests have been in the hands of strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer.

After at least one early, largely unpublicized encounter in Paris in mid‑2025, Dermer and al‑Shaibani met again in Baku on July 31, 2025, in a high‑level session devoted to the deteriorating situation in southern Syria. Subsequent rounds convened in Paris in late summer 2025, and then on 5–6 January 2026, with US envoy Tom Barrack mediating and French officials acting as hosts. Some media reports also refer to additional working meetings, including at least one five‑hour session in London in September 2025.

On September 17, during a media briefing to reporters in Damascus, Sharaa described a security pact with Israel as a “necessity” for Syria. Such an agreement, he added, would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity. He said that Syria is seeking “something like” the 1974 Israel-Syria Disengagement Agreement concluded after the Yom Kippur War. It established a formal ceasefire, and separated opposing forces by creating a demilitarized zone and a UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights. He did not categorize such a pact as normalization, since Syria’s position is that the Golan Heights and related issues would first need to be resolved.

Sharaa also mentioned that in July a Syria-Israel deal had been “four to five days” away, but the outbreak of violence in Sweida had derailed it.

The US was deeply involved in the agreement known as the Sweida roadmap, publicly announced on September 16 in Damascus. The negotiations leading to it were one reason for delaying the broader Israel-Syria security pact that was on the table at the time. Now the US is playing a mediating role in the current round of Syria-Israel security discussions.

These on-going Syria–Israel contacts embody real potential to reduce the risk of a wider regional war. They can clarify rules of engagement in southern Syria, and establish channels for crisis management. Even a modest security arrangement could create a platform for more substantive diplomacy over time. The problem is that they are fragile, and could easily crumble.

By contrast, the Lebanon–Israel talks were built on more substantial foundations. Both parties seek to bring Hezbollah under control. There is, moreover, the recent precedent of successful, US‑mediated technical bargaining over maritime boundaries. They focused on a clearly defined, border‑and‑security agenda that officials on both sides see as “solvable”.

In fact, the two tracks are linked. The tangible progress made in the Lebanon-Israel talks provide the cooperative atmosphere necessary for Syrian-Israeli negotiations to succeed. Suddenly a glimmer of hope for a restoration of peace along Israel’s northern borders is appearing. It needs to be fostered assiduously.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled "Are deals with Lebanon and Syria possible for Israel?", 16 April 2026 :
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-892708

Neutralizing Hezbollah

2026-04-07T20:27:00.007+01:00

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 9 April 2026

The Lebanese government, under its president Joseph Aoun, has been making a determined effort to assert its authority over the rogue Iranian-backed terrorist Hezbollah organization that once operated inside Lebanon as a virtual “state within a state”. Although much weakened by Israel’s military and other more covert operations, Hezbollah is still too powerful to be controlled by the government. Since it entered the war on March 2 in support of Iran, it has been launching an average of 150 rockets a day into northern Israel, some coordinated with Iranian missile attacks.

The Lebanese presidency and cabinet have declared Hezbollah’s cross‑border attacks “unlawful” and not authorized by the state, stressing that no non‑state actor has the right to drag Lebanon into war.

On March 9 Aoun outlined a four‑point plan calling for a “total ceasefire,” Hezbollah’s disarmament, and international support to strengthen the Lebanese Armed Forces, coupled with direct Lebanese‑Israeli talks under international auspices. In an online conference with senior EU officials, Aoun described the plan as a path towards "permanent security and stability arrangements on our borders", but declared it was conditional on a halt to Israeli strikes inside Lebanon.

Perhaps as a sign of the sincerity of his intentions, on March 24 Aoun declared Iran’s ambassador-designate Mohammad Reza Sheibani persona non grata, and gave him five days to leave the country. Lebanon objects to the close connection between Hezbollah and Iran’s hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, accusing the IRGC of “commanding Hezbollah’s operations” in the current conflict.

On March 30 it emerged that Sheibani, backed by Iran and its Hezbollah supporters, had refused to leave. Iran has stated unequivocally that its ambassador to Lebanon would remain in post. A standoff between the Lebanese government, in its efforts to control Hezbollah, and Iran – which regards Lebanon as its colony – has developed. Lebanon has not enforced its own decision – for example by closing the Iranian embassy, or attempting an arrest of Sheibani. In fact the situation has settled into a symbolic but revealing deadlock.

Israel and Lebanon are similarly in a state of frozen animation, and have been for nearly 80 years. The two countries are still technically at war – the war launched on the nascent state of Israel in 1948 by the joint Arab armies. In all that time no peace treaty or armistice has been negotiated between them, and there have been no diplomatic relations or official channels of communication. Any interchanges have been indirect, via the UN, international mediators, and back‑channel contacts. Only UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and subsequent arrangements have provided a formal framework for the cessation of hostilities along the border.

All of which makes Aoun’s recent apparent overture the more unusual. Whether it can lead to direct negotiations is highly unlikely, given the current situation. Israel is establishing a security buffer zone inside southern Lebanon, which it describes as a temporary defense measure rather than a permanent occupation. At the same time it is undertaking extensive airstrikes against Hezbollah infrastructure and fighters, including in Beirut.

Even so, on March 13 the Qatar-funded Caliber news medium reported that Aoun had proposed a one-month truce with Israel, pledging to use the period to achieve the disarmament of Hezbollah. This proposal was communicated to Israel through US Ambassador to Lebanon, Michael Issa, but like so many emanating from the Lebanese government, has simply withered on the vine.

The official Israeli position is that the Lebanese government, in accordance with a number of prior agreements and commitments, is responsible for disarming Hezbollah. If it cannot achieve that, Israeli officials have argued that the war will end only when Hezbollah no longer poses a threat to Israel from Lebanese territory.

In short, Israel has not signaled any readiness to enter political talks with Beirut a long as its relationship with Lebanon is dominated by active hostilities. But the door is not shut fast. Even though Lebanon’s infrastructure is affected by the ongoing military offensive, and civilian deaths and displacements continue to mount, Israel does not describe current operations as a conflict with the Lebanese state, but as self‑defense against Hezbollah.

The political gap between the Lebanese and Israeli governments is wide, but not unbridgeable. From Israel’s perspective Hezbollah is lodged firmly within the Lebanese arena, and it holds the Lebanese state responsible for its disarmament. The Lebanese administration does not disagree, for it is trying to distance the state from Hezbollah’s actions, is openly seeking help to bring the terrorist organization under state control, and has signaled its readiness to negotiate.

On March 31 the EU’s Diplomatic Service issued a statement on behalf of 10 states, including the UK, asserting that the responsibility for the current conflict in Lebanon “lies with Hezbollah,” adding “We strongly condemn Hezbollah’s attacks in support of Iran against Israel, which must cease immediately.” They expressed their “full support to the government and people of Lebanon,” and called for “direct political negotiation between Lebanon and Israel, that can contribute to putting a durable end to this conflict and set the conditions for peaceful regional coexistence.”

There is another factor at play. Lebanon’s next parliamentary elections, originally scheduled for May 2026 but now delayed until 2028, could consolidate Hezbollah’s strength, or signal its decline. Aoun has managed to achieve a breathing space of two years in which to ensure that the state gains the upper hand in its struggle with Hezbollah. It is because he acknowledges that the government is not powerful enough to achieve this without help, that he has floated the idea of direct Lebanese‑Israeli talks under international auspices.

Negotiations, perhaps leading to joint military operations, could eliminate Hezbollah’s constant onslaught on Israel’s northern border, and would justify Israel’s withdrawal from the buffer zone it is establishing in southern Lebanon. If such talks were ever to be arranged, Hezbollah would undoubtedly attempt to disrupt them, so Israel's participation would have to be dependent on firm security guarantees, perhaps underwritten by international enforcement.

Unlikely the possibility of face-to-face talks may seem, but should the potential, however remote, of a collaborative Lebanese-Israeli effort to strike down Hezbollah – with Israel for once in lockstep with international opinion – be rejected out of hand?

Published in the Jerusalem Post on 9 April 2026, and in the Jerusalem post online titled: "Lebanon vs Hezbollah: A standoff between state sovereignty and Iranian influence" on 7 April 2026:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-892224

Kurds: Iran won’t fall without a ground offensive

2026-03-31T05:52:00.005+01:00

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 31 March 2026

Putting to one side, just for the moment, President Donald Trump’s talk of highly promising ceasefire negotiations involving an unnamed senior Iranian leader, media outlets report that some 50,000 US troops are already in the Middle East, with the Pentagon bringing in a further 5,000 Marines, and some 2,000 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division, some of whom have already sailed or are being flown in. A further surge of 10,000 ground troops is under consideration.

On March 19 the UK’s Daily Telegraph quoted the leader of one of the main Kurdish armed groups, Babasheikh Hosseini, saying that the Iranian regime will not fall without a ground offensive which must involve Kurdish forces.

“If we are not on this battlefield,” he said, “the end of the regime will either not occur, or be delayed by a lot.”

Hosseini is the general secretary of the Khabat Organization of Iranian Kurdistan, a long‑standing Iranian Kurdish opposition party, based in exile in Iraqi Kurdistan. On February 22 Khabat became one of five founding members of a new “Coalition of Political Forces of Iranian Kurdistan” (CPFIK). A number of think tanks and commentators now adjudge the CPFIK a significant new factor in the Iranian opposition. The coalition’s objectives include overthrowing the Islamic Republic and creating a democratic Kurdish entity in Iranian Kurdistan, on the lines of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq.

In practice these twin aims are only partly viable. The coalition can certainly coordinate opposition and support protest, but its most ambitious goals – toppling the Islamic Republic and securing Kurdish self-determination – could be achieved only as part of some larger initiative, and with substantial military support.

There is, of course, a long and distinguished history of close military collaboration between the US and Kurdish fighters. Together they defeated ISIS both in Iraq and in Syria.

In Iraq, Peshmerga forces were key in the 2017 defeat of ISIS. In Syria the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), with its major Kurdish element, became the main US-backed ground partner in 2015. The territorial defeat of ISIS in Syria was announced in March 2019.

The CPFIK has unified five major Kurdish parties after years of internal fragmentation. A firm and clearly defined Kurdish stance is a strength in a situation where the various Iranian opposition entities are fragmented. Kurdish unity is an example of disciplined coordination that other opposition elements could emulate.

As the price for their cooperation, the Kurds require support for Kurdish autonomy within a restructured Iran. Cooperation will be fragile if opposition figures regard Kurdish demands as a separatist threat. It would be politic to accept them as part of a post-regime settlement.

A major player on the scene is Reza Pahlavi, the son of the late Shah, who has been living in exile since leaving Iran in 1979 in the wake of the Islamic Revolution.

In 2013 he launched an umbrella movement – the Iran National Council – and has since worked hard attempting to unite monarchists, secular democrats, and defectors around a post-Islamic Republic transition.

Presenting himself as a figure recognized and respected by the vast majority of the Iranian people, Pahlavi is offering to lead the nation into a new, post-revolutionary future. He specifically does not seek a restoration of the monarchy above any other form of constitutional democracy, but advocates a referendum of the Iranian people through which they would select the form of constitution they prefer.

As an instrument for regime change, however, Pahlavi’s network is not by itself a realistic mechanism for toppling the Islamic Republic. His strongest asset is symbolic: he is in his very person a link to Iran’s past – and nostalgia for the pre-revolutionary past has been a feature in the vast popular demonstrations in recent years. Pahlavi could serve as a rallying point and a unifying force holding disparate opposition forces together.

There is a snag. At the moment Pahlavi’s published roadmap and public messaging do not accord with Kurdish aspirations. He promises equal individual rights and non‑discrimination for Kurds and other minorities, but stops short of endorsing a federal “Iranian Kurdistan” on the Iraqi model. In fact he stresses territorial integrity over any ethnically defined region with self‑rule. Moreover he has urged Kurds and other minorities not to use the present conflict “to press for separation”. But Kurdish alliance statements in 2026 explicitly reaffirm Kurdish rights and federal‑style autonomy “within a unified Iran.” A failure to reach some form of compromise could rule out a collaboration between the Pahlavi organization and the CPFIK – and that means the formidable Kurdish fighting force.

How much might that matter? Pahlavi has never received a positive endorsement from US President Donald Trump. The furthest Trump would go is to say that he would be fine with Pahlavi if Iranians themselves accepted him, but on March 3 Trump is reported as saying: “It seems to me that somebody from within maybe would be more appropriate.” On March 22 he said the US had held talks with a “top person” in Iran and had identified “major points of agreement”. On March 23 he told reporters that Washington was in contact with the “right people” in Iran and that the US and Iran were “in negotiations right now.”

Tehran has consistently denied that talks were in progress.

America’s natural allies on the Iranian scene are clearly the Kurds, and in particular the formidable Kurdish Peshmerga fighting force. It had been thought that Trump had more or less ruled out US boots on Iranian soil, but the facts seem to point to a build-up of American forces in the region.

Meanwhile accounts have appeared in the media of limited desertions and refusals to obey orders by both the Iranian police and the regular army. These reports, if accurate, could be taken as an indication that, given large-scale anti-government demonstrations, a neutralized IRGC, or some form of direct attack, defections to the popular cause from within both forces is not out of the question.

A military defeat of the Iranian regime backed by popular support is not, perhaps, entirely beyond the bounds of possibility.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Iranian regime faces pressure as Kurds, US strengthen cooperation", 31 March 2026:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-891658

How Iran aims to win the war

2026-03-23T22:14:00.005+00:00

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 24 March 2026

The success or failure of the US-Israeli military operation in Iran hangs in the balance. It is very largely dependent upon how "success" is finally adjudged.

Since February 28 the Iranian regime has sustained a massive armed offensive, and as a result its resources and its infrastructure have been substantially depleted. US President Donald Trump has on several occasions detailed the vast losses Iran has incurred, and hinted that he is on the verge of declaring victory. At other times he has indicated that he has considerably more in reserve by way of military power, including the possible use of American troops, to be used in loosening Iran’s grip on international shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, and ensuring the unconditional surrender of the regime.

Trump has been criticized for the apparent inconsistency of his various statements, which to some seem ill considered. They are, however, just as likely to be a deliberate strategy aimed at keeping the enemy, and perhaps the world at large, guessing as to his calculated and detailed plans for the end-game.

Meanwhile Iran, far from seeking as early an end to the war as possible – on the face of it the obvious course to follow – is continuing to attack states that host Western military bases and to disrupt international shipping and thus the global oil market. On March 15 foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran had “never asked for a ceasefire”.

In fact the regime seems to be conducting what Eric Mandel, writing in the Jerusalem Post on March 16, calls “a war of attrition”. The loss of its current leadership through targeted assassination is unlikely to affect this survival strategy.

The March issue of Foreign Affairs carries an article by Robert Pape, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, entitled: “Why Escalation Favors Iran”.

In it Pape explains why Iran, despite its weaker conventional military power, paradoxically benefits from broadening and extending the current conflict. The core of his argument is that Iran is pursuing a strategy he calls “horizontal escalation” — namely, expanding the scope, geography, and duration of the conflict, in order to shift it from direct military contest toward political endurance and strategic costs.

Pape contends that Iran knows it cannot defeat a US-Israel alliance in a direct military confrontation. Instead, it is changing the nature of the conflict. By using regional proxies, attacking economic targets and disrupting international commerce, Iran can vastly increase the political and economic costs borne by its stronger adversaries and their allies.

The strategy draws on historic precedents. One example is the Vietnam war. The North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces out-maneuvered the US by escalating the war “horizontally” into the towns and cities in the south. The US won every battle over 11 bloody years, but lost the war.

Another is the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, and America’s in 2001. Both operations ended as classic “wars of attrition”, where the insurgent side wore down the occupier over time until domestic political support and strategic patience eroded.

The Soviets entered Afghanistan expecting a short stabilization mission, but were drawn into a decade-long counter-insurgency that Gorbachev later called a “bleeding wound,” with mounting casualties, economic strain, and political embarrassment. The mujahideen, backed by Pakistan, the US, and others, used sanctuary, terrain, and time to ensure the conflict was prolonged and costly, rather than decisive.

The later US campaign similarly morphed into an open-ended effort against an adaptive insurgency – in this case the Taliban and its allies – that aimed to outlast Western domestic will and unity, rather than to defeat US forces tactically in set-piece battles.

Finally both the Soviets and the US acknowledged defeat and withdrew their forces.

According to Pape, Iran’s current actions – rapid retaliatory strikes, disruption of regional infrastructure, and resilience even after leadership losses – are meant to demonstrate to their opponents and to the world in general that the regime can sustain a long conflict.

This strategy transforms the confrontation into a test of political will rather than battlefield superiority, a test the Iranian regime may believe it is capable of winning. The longer it drags on, the more it works in Iran’s favor. It disrupts energy markets, strains host-country tolerance for US bases, and erodes domestic and allied political support for an open-ended campaign. Unless Washington adjusts its strategy to account for these dynamics, Pape warns, the US and Israel may have “bitten off more than they can chew” and risk losing control of the war they initiated.

What is the slowly accumulating danger for the US-Israel alliance? By broadening and prolonging the conflict, Iran could impose mounting costs and heavy political pressure on the alliance, and gradually wrest control of the war’s trajectory from its stronger opponents. In short, continued escalation risks putting the US and Israel into a strategic trap.

For example, the longer the conflict continues, the harder it becomes for rulers in the Gulf – and particularly Abraham Accord partners – to sustain their relationship with Israel without sacrificing legitimacy at home.

A protracted war would also reshape American politics. Sizable elements of Trump’s political coalition have been wary of Middle Eastern entanglements, and have accused the administration of simply following Israel’s lead. The longer US military operations continue, the greater the danger of fractures widening within Trump’s political supportive base – as exemplified by the resignation on May 17 of Joe Kent, Director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

Transatlantic strains could also follow. The US could be in difficulties if, faced with the dangers of a prolonged and economically disastrous war, European states decided to limit their support or constrain the use of their territory. US strategists would also obviously be factoring into their calculations the danger of the conflict escalating beyond the confines of the Middle East.

Out of this complex military, political and economic maelstrom, there is a real danger that the US-Israel alliance could end by plucking defeat from the jaws of victory. It would be a hollow victory indeed if, in the final analysis, the revolutionary regime remained in power in Iran. It has to be swept away.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Political, economic pressures mount as US-Israel war with Iran continues", 24 March 2026:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-890897

Published in Eurasia Review, 27 March 2026:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/27032026-how-iran-aims-to-win-the-war-oped/

Revolutionary Iran must be toppled

2026-03-16T18:02:00.002+00:00

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 17 March 2026

On March 8 Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Ali Khamenei who was killed in a targeted strike on February 28, was announced as Iran’s new Supreme Leader. He has not been seen in public from that day to this, and the speculation is he may have been badly wounded in that strike. His first address to the people was read for him by a TV news anchor.

If US President Donald Trump had been hoping that Iran’s new leader would be open to negotiate a better future for its people, he has been sadly disappointed. Mojtaba Khamenei is very much his father’s son. He is generally viewed as hardline and anti-West politically, and strongly aligned with the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps).

In short the regime’s elite has done its best to reconstitute itself and proceed on its quest to achieve the basic purposes of the Islamic revolution that, half a century ago, swept away Iran’s Pahlavi dynasty. Ever since, most world leaders have been unable, or perhaps unwilling, to acknowledge the underlying motivation of its instigator, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. They have also refused to accept that the same objectives have driven the regime ever since.

In his writings before the revolution, and in his speeches after, Khomeini affirmed repeatedly that the foundation stone of his philosophy was to impose Shiite Islam on the whole world by destroying Western-style democracy and its way of life. To achieve this aim, he identified Israel and the United States (and also, at one time, Soviet Russia) as his prime targets.

“We wish to cause the corrupt roots of Zionism, Capitalism and Communism to wither throughout the world,” said Khomeini. “We wish, as does God almighty, to destroy the systems which are based on these three foundations, and to promote the Islamic order of the Prophet.”

By this he meant his strict Shiite interpretation of Islam, for elsewhere he had declared that the holy city of Mecca, situated in the heart of Sunni Saudi Arabia, was in the hands of “a band of heretics”.

Ever since 1979 the world could have recognized, if it had had a mind to, that the Iranian regime has been engaged in a focused pursuit of these related objectives – the destruction of democracy and the global imposition of Shiite Islam – quite impervious to any other considerations. Instead, wishful thinking has governed the approach to Iran of many of the world’s leaders.

The administration of then US President Joe Biden maintained the tradition, inherited from his years as vice-president to Barack Obama, of seeking an accommodation with the regime.

A clear-eyed look at the facts would have shown that the Iranian regime did not intend to become one of the comity of civilized nations. To do so would have negated the revolution’s fundamental purposes, to which the ayatollahs remained unshakably committed.

In the words of Khomeini, its founder: “We shall export our revolution to the whole world. Until the cry 'There is no God but Allah' resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle.”

His successor, the recently deceased Khamenei, was a devout disciple. Like Khomeini, he considered the revolutionary objectives so supremely desirable – even, perhaps, divinely approved – that any means were justified in furthering them, regardless of the human or political consequences. Accordingly both leaders authorized a continuous succession of terrorist operations, most carried out by proxies to maintain the fiction of Iranian deniability.

Immediately following the revolution Iranian militants seized the US embassy in Tehran and held more than 50 people hostage for 444 days. This was followed in 1983 by the bombing of the US embassy in Beirut, resulting in 63 deaths. Later that same year Hezbollah bombed the US Marine Barracks in Beirut resulting in the deaths of 241 US and 58 French troops.

Bombing campaigns and hostage taking continued in the Middle East and Europe during the 1980s, and in the early 1990s Iran-inspired terror operations expanded to South America. In 1992 Hezbollah bombed the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires causing 29 deaths, following this two years later by bombing the city’s AMIA Jewish Community Center, which killed some 85 people. Meanwhile Iran continued to supply funding, weapons, training, and operational guidance to sustain continuous Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthi and militia attacks against Israel, Iraq, Syria, and Gulf states.

As Hamas’s primary sponsor, the Iranian regime was undoubtedly complicit in its bloodthirsty attack into Israel on October 7, 2023.

What explains the palpable failure by most of the world’s leaders to perceive what was plainly discernible? The mistake was the same as the world made in the case of Adolf Hitler. Few who read his Mein Kampf, first published in 1925, thought he meant what he said.

But the philosophy underlying Hitler’s political beliefs was there, in black and white, for years before he was in a position to implement it. If politicians, or opinion formers, had taken it seriously, his rise to supreme power could have been thwarted. He could have been prevented from maneuvering his way into becoming Germany’s Chancellor in 1933.

In the same way not enough scholars and political leaders bothered to look into the philosophy underlying Iran’s 1979 revolutionary leader, Khomeini, or to take seriously the burning religious conviction that motivated him, and subsequently the policies of the Islamic Republic. The regime’s unceasing effort to acquire a nuclear arsenal was integral to its underlying purpose. Whatever other strategic or political advantages nuclear arms might confer, it was only as a nuclear power that Iran could achieve its basic aim of eliminating Israel and confronting the Great Satan, America.

If the Iranian regime is permitted to remodel itself under a new Supreme Leader, no amount of negotiation will dislodge it from its fundamental revolutionary purpose, as first propounded by Ayatollah Khomeini. Nothing will induce it to reject the deluded vision of an Israel-free Middle East and an entire world subject to Shiite Sharia law. That is why the future peace of the Middle East depends on Iran’s governing structure crumbling in the coming weeks under the sustained US-Israel aerial bombardment. Trump has demanded “unconditional surrender”. He cannot declare total victory while Iran remains a theocratic dictatorship under the ayatollahs, led by a Khamenei.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Mojtaba Khamenei’s rise means Iran’s revolution is far from over," 17 March 2026:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-890086

Published in Eurasia Review, 31 March 2026

https://www.eurasiareview.com/20032026-revolutionary-iran-must-be-toppled-oped/

Iran’s tactical blunder

2026-03-10T06:19:00.005+00:00

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 10 March 2026

Justifiable though the February 28 US-Israeli pre-emptive strike on Iran may have been on moral, humanitarian, strategic and political grounds, it was arguably not so strong in terms of international law. France has criticized it as illegal, while Spain has explicitly declared it a breach of that law.

Which international law is the action presumed to violate?

The UN Charter, binding on all member states, is generally regarded as the central component of international law. Article 2(4) bars a state from using force “against the territorial integrity or political independence” of another state, but elsewhere the Charter specifies two accepted routes to its legal application: Security Council authorization, and self-defense.

The US-Israel strike did not receive Security Council authorization, and self-defense under Article 51 is permitted only “if an armed attack occurs.”

When the US and Israel struck, therefore, Iranian strategists could have reasoned that their two great enemies had breached international law and laid themselves open to universal condemnation in the UN and in the court of world opinion.

But blinded by their long‑standing doctrine of regarding US forward bases and regional hosts as part of the hostile “system,” they ignored the political potential of the situation. They sanctioned the launching of missiles and drones at Israel and at US bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Inevitably some hit civilian areas.

Iranian officials framed this onslaught as a “legitimate right and duty” of self‑defense and revenge. They explicitly declared “all US resources in the vicinity” to be lawful targets, warning that the operation would continue until the US and Israel were “definitively defeated.”

The decision to strike US bases regardless of their location was a tactical error of major proportions. It could also, in the long run, prove existential for the regime. By attacking states that were not direct participants in planning or carrying out the February 28 strike, Iran has pushed them toward tighter alignment with the US and Israel, solidifying a broad anti‑Iran coalition.

Joint statements by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, Jordan, Kuwait and the US have explicitly denounced Iran’s strikes. They “reaffirm our right to self‑defense,” signaling a willingness to treat Iran as a common threat and to act accordingly. The Gulf monarchies in particular host critical US infrastructure and missile defense networks. Having framed Iran’s attacks as aggression against their own territory and civilians, they can justify far‑reaching cooperation in a prolonged campaign against Iran’s military and economic base.

By striking a range of Middle East states, Iran has turned Charter Article 51 – the “self-defense” justification for military action – against itself. Host states whose territory or US bases were attacked now clearly have their own self‑defense claims against Iran. Many of those governments publicly condemned Iran’s strikes as “blatant aggression” and “flagrant violations” of sovereignty. The UAE has severed diplomatic relations with Iran, closed its embassy in Tehran and withdrawn its ambassador and staff.

For Western states with facilities and military personnel in those countries, Iran’s attacks strengthen the argument for continued, or even expanded, defensive action against Iranian launches. Even experts who were highly critical of the original US–Israeli raid affirm that once Iran widened the battlefield to third‑state territory not directly involved in the February 28 attack, its own self‑defense claim was weakened, and those of third states became correspondingly stronger.

Iran’s broad regional retaliation has done a good deal of Washington’s coalition‑building work for it.

Tehran has realized the magnitude of its tactical mistake too late. Speaking on Iranian state TV on March 7, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian apologized “on my own behalf and on behalf of Iran to the neighboring countries that were attacked by Iran… no more attacks will be made on neighboring countries, and no missiles will be fired, unless an attack on Iran originates from those countries."

The eminent British lawyer Geoffrey Robertson conducted the inquiry into “arguably the worst crime since the Second World War” – the mass murder by the Iranian regime in 1988 of many thousands of political prisoners. Writing on March 5, he has suggested how the UN could act to provide some justification for the US-Israeli strike.

He points out that just two weeks before the invasion the state of Iran “murdered at least 15,000, and possibly upward of 35,000, of its own peacefully protesting citizens.”

Many more, he reports, were crippled by a new form of torture carried out by Islamic revolutionary guards, namely shooting them in the face. This barbarism, he claims, was ordered by Ali Larijani, Supreme Head of Iran’s National Security Council, and came after government newspapers had urged a return to the “spirit of 1988”.

Robertson suggests that the UN, without condoning or condemning a war that has divided its members, could act under Chapter VII of its charter. This gives it power – used before for wars in the Balkans, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone – to set up a war crimes court to investigate and indict those responsible for crimes against humanity prior to the war in question.

“The work,” he writes, “could begin immediately in The Hague and the indictments made available to a new government when it emerges.”

Agreeing with President Donald Trump that UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, “is not Winston Churchill”, Robertson says that Starmer at least respects international law. He suggests that Starmer could urge the UN to establish an international criminal court for Iran, to prepare indictments against those officials and military officers who over the past 47 years have committed international crimes against political prisoners and peaceful protestors.

What of the immediate future? While Trump has clarified his war aim as “unconditional surrender”, the Iranian regime is struggling to reconstitute itself after the death of its Supreme Leader. Effective governance in Iran could be bombed out of existence. Russia could act to prevent regime collapse - media reports indicate that Russia is currently providing Iran with targeting intelligence on US forces and assets. Meanwhile a coalition of those states attacked by Iran is possible, but not assured.

As for Iran’s tactical blunder, whether it actually becomes existential for the regime only time will tell.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Iran's tactical blunder: Strikes on third-party states give the US, Israel more allies", 10 March 2026:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-889311

If Iran falls, what follows?

2026-03-04T08:43:00.006+00:00

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 5 March 2026:

Speaking to reporters at Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina on February 13, US President Donald Trump said, unambiguously for the first time perhaps, that regime change in Iran is "the best thing that could happen".

Ever since late January the US administration has been building up a massive naval and military presence in the region, nominally to pressure Iran over its nuclear program, ballistic missiles, regional proxies, and internal repression. Trump has consistently tied the US military build-up to his insistence that Iran must never acquire nuclear weapons.

In his remarks at Fort Bragg Trump declined to specify whom he wanted to take over in Iran, but noted "there are people" who could. One such, of course, is the late Shah’s son and heir, Reza Pahlavi, who has acquired significant support both within the country and among the Iranian diaspora as a potential future leader.

US special envoy Steve Witkoff is reported to have met with Pahlavi at least once, but probably more often, in the past few weeks.

At the inaugural meeting of Gaza’s Board of Peace on February 19, Trump said that if the regime did not accept stricter limits “within days,” unspecified but “very bad” consequences might follow. The latest round of US-Iranian negotiations in Geneva ended on February 26. Unsatisfied with Iran’s delaying tactics, Trump ordered a military strike on the morning of February 28.

Speaking via his Truth Social medium, Trump was crystal clear about one major objective of the joint US-Israeli attack. Addressing the Iranian people direct, he said:

“For many years, you have asked for America’s help. But you never got it. No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want. So let’s see how you respond. America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force. Now is the time to seize control of your destiny and to unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach. This is the moment for action. Do not let it pass.”

Trump has no plan for large‑scale US ground involvement or occupation. He anticipates an internal uprising that would topple the government. It is not an impossible scenario. With the Iranian economy on life support, and the regime struggling to contain prolonged and persistent anti-government demonstrations, targeted military action by the US could cause the Islamic theocratic dictatorship to implode.

On February 25 AOL, the American web portal formerly known as “America Online,” published an article which stated “…the US has reportedly drawn up a target list of key regime stalwarts, such as the Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his son, to be eliminated as part of a decapitation strategy aimed at achieving regime change in Tehran.” This objective was achieved in the first strike on February 28.

The Iranian people, having endured nearly five decades of despotic rule, have made it abundantly plain over the past month or more that the sooner they see the back of the ayatollahs, the better. However, the fall of the Iranian regime would have repercussions well beyond Iran – many of them highly desirable.

For example, the widespread network of terrorist groups created and sustained by the Islamic Republic would suddenly find themselves without the financial and logistical support that has sustained their jihadist activities for decades.

Shiite Hezbollah, a creature of the Iranian regime, would be critically weakened by its demise. The Houthis’ ability to act at sea and against distant targets is very largely dependent on Iranian military supplies. Sunni Hamas could look to Qatar and perhaps Turkey for some degree of support, but without Iran at its back could it withstand Trump’s demand that it disarms and dismantles its terrorist infrastructure?

Wider afield, Russia and China, which have forged trade and military partnerships with Iran in recent years, would see their global standing seriously diminished.

Iran has been supporting Vladimir Putin’s war effort in Ukraine by providing constant supplies of drones and ballistic missiles. The sudden loss of this flow of vital ordnance would undoubtedly weaken Putin’s military capabilities in Ukraine and could hasten some sort of ceasefire.

China would also feel the pinch, since 90% of Iran’s discounted oil exports go to Beijing. A sudden loss of cheap Iranian oil would have a significant effect on China’s economy. Moreover, bearing in mind the 2021 Iran-China partnership pact, any leadership change in Tehran could have a negative impact on China’s strategically ambitious world-wide Belt and Road initiative, already signed by some 150 countries.

The first and only serious attempt to overthrow the Iranian regime occurred just eighteen months after the February 1979 Islamic revolution. In September 1980 the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, fearing that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s revolutionary Shia Islamism would destabilize Iraq’s Sunni‑dominated Ba’athist regime, invaded.

He hoped that a quick attack into Iran’s oil‑rich province of Khuzestan would trigger internal unrest and possibly a collapse of the new Islamic Republic.

A range of Western and Arab states, including the US, the UK, France, and Gulf monarchies, provided him with significant military, economic, and diplomatic support. Iran’s revolutionary regime was seen by them as a greater threat to stability and Western oil interests than Saddam’s Iraq. History had a different story to tell.

By mid‑1982 Iran had reversed Iraq’s initial gains, and for the next five years Iraq was largely on the defensive. A series of successful Iraqi offensives in 1988, however, diminished Iran's hope for victory and induced a change of heart. In August 1988 both sides accepted a UN-brokered ceasefire and truce.

This time has Iran’s revolutionary regime reached the end of the road? On February 28 Pahlavi issued his own video message to the Iranian people:

“In these sensitive hours and days, more than ever we must remain focused on our ultimate goal: reclaiming Iran…Stay alert and ready to return to the streets for the final action at the appropriate time, which I shall communicate to you. Follow my messages through social media… We are very close to final victory. I hope to be with you as soon as possible, so that together we may reclaim Iran and rebuild it.”

Will the dream eventually become reality?

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "What follows the fall of Iran? A look at the widespread repercussions", 4 March 2026:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-888758

Published in Eurasia Review, 11 March 2026:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/06032026-if-iran-falls-what-follows-oped/

Will Maliki return?

2026-02-25T05:32:00.002+00:00

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 25 February 2026

On January 27 US President Donald Trump declared on his Truth Social media platform that Iraq would be making a “disastrous mistake” if Nouri al‑Maliki was re-installed as prime minister. He argued that “last time Maliki was in power, the country descended into poverty and total chaos” and that this “should not be allowed to happen again.”

Trump, typically riding roughshod over accepted practice, was openly seeking to influence the election of Iraq’s future prime minister. To whom was he offering his advice?

Iraq’s constitution specifies that following parliamentary elections, the parliament – known as the Council of Representatives – elects the president of the republic. Within 15 days of his election, the president appoints as prime minister‑designate the candidate nominated by the parliamentary bloc with the largest number of seats. The prime minister‑designate then has 30 days to propose a cabinet and present it to parliament. He becomes prime minister only if parliament grants him and his government a vote of confidence.

Trump was therefore speaking directly to the 329 parliamentarians elected to the Council of Representatives in the poll held on November 11, and especially to the Shia parties which took nearly 200 seats in those elections and form the majority bloc that will nominate the prime minister-designate.

Since the elections were held in November and the prime minister is not yet in post, the constitutional timetable has clearly slipped. But the blockage is further up the line. Parliament has not yet been able to elect a president. The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) have repeatedly failed to agree on a consensus Kurdish candidate for the presidency (a post traditionally held by a Kurd), and they have formally asked for more time.

Assuming the logjam is eventually cleared, Trump has warned Iraq’s parliamentarians that if Maliki were to be elected prime minister the US will no longer help the nation, “and without our support Iraq has zero chance of success, prosperity, or freedom.” US officials believe Maliki is too closely aligned with the Iranian regime, and regard his possible return as an attempt to bolster Iran’s Shiite Crescent in the Middle East.

Maliki and his allies have, of course, condemned Trump’s comments as unwarranted American interference in Iraq’s internal political process. Nouri al-Maliki was indeed proposed in January as candidate for prime minister by the Shia Coordination Framework and allied lists. His election is not a foregone conclusion, though. Some Shia figures (for example, leading Iraqi cleric and politician Ammar al‑Hakim) have not endorsed the nomination,

while parts of the Sunni and Kurdish camps are openly opposed to Maliki. These negative factors, allied to Trump’s warning, might be sufficient to swing majority opinion against him, so at the moment it is uncertain whether his nomination will survive the government‑formation bargaining.

A return to power by Maliki would not, on the evidence, augur well for Iraq.

From 2006 till 2014 he served two four-year terms as Iraq’s prime minister. His performance over that period is generally considered to have deeply damaged Iraq’s stability, institutions, and social cohesion. His second tenure of office, from 2010-2014, was especially marked by internal instability and increasing authoritarianism. He began accumulating power in his own hands. By personally holding a number of key security and economic portfolios, he was able to evade scrutiny. He was also widely criticized for using the security forces and state institutions to support his political allies, marginalizing and antagonizing many Sunni and some Kurdish groups.

His fall from power resulted from his inability to combat the forces of ISIS and its allied militias as they overran Iraqi army units and, as government forces withdrew in disarray, seize control first of Fallujah and then of Nineveh and surrounding areas.

On June 10, 2014 Mosul, Iraq’s second city, fell after large numbers of Iraqi troops abandoned their positions – around 1,500 ISIS fighters routed an estimated 60,000 government soldiers and police, leaving vast stocks of weapons and equipment in ISIS hands.

The same offensive saw ISIS and allied insurgents seize Tikrit and other towns along the Tigris corridor, while Iraq simultaneously lost control of border crossings with Syria and Jordan.

These catastrophic defeats at the hands of ISIS were unsustainable politically, and on August 14, 2014 Maliki was pressured to resign.

According to Iraqi and international reports, his years in power saw politically sanctioned corruption flourish. Human rights groups and policy institutes link his period in office to dishonest practices such as ghost soldiers on payrolls and fictitious contracts.

In a speech to the Iraqi parliament reported on October 28, 2015 Iraq’s Commission of Integrity spokesman Adil Nouri claimed that roughly half of reconstruction funds and a similar share of oil revenues – some hundreds of billions of dollars – had, in effect, been stolen. He said explicitly that the money went missing “during the 8‑year period of office of former prime minister Nouri Maliki,” noting that Iraq’s oil income “between 2006 and 2014 alone was only 822 billion dollars.” The presumption is that it should have been double that.

While Maliki initially pledged to reconcile Sunnis and Shias, his later approach relied heavily on Shia‑dominated security forces and militias, deepening Sunni grievances. His crackdown on Sunni protest movements in 2012–2013, and his dictatorial style, helped foster the unstable internal situation that led to the collapse of Iraqi army units in 2014, enabling ISIS’s rapid expansion.

Publicly Maliki emphasizes Iraqi sovereignty but, especially worrying in present circumstances, he maintains a very close relationship with the Iranian regime.

"Since leaving office," the trustworthy policy forum Chatham House notes, “Maliki has kept close relations with Iran”. Iran backed his return as a prime‑ministerial candidate in 2026, it says, because it sees him as a “trusted figure” who can impose order on Iraq’s fragmented security landscape. Moreover, Iraq “serves as a critical security buffer closely entwined with Iran’s own domestic stability.”

Given Maliki’s record in office, his close Shiite connections, and his strong association with the Iranian regime, Trump’s opposition to his return to power makes sense. Will Maliki succeed in out-maneuvering him?

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and in the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Trump warns Iraq of the dangers of Nouri al-Maliki returning, but will he be out-maneuvered?", 25 February 2026:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-887737

Help? What help?

2026-02-17T05:24:00.002+00:00

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 16 February 2026

On January 12, when riots and violent protests had been wreaking havoc across Iran for more than two weeks, US President Donald Trump posted a message on his social media platform, Truth Social. “Iranian patriots,” he wrote. “Keep protesting. Take over your institutions. I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian officials until the senseless killing of protesters stops. Help is on its way.”

This was not his first message of encouragement to the hundreds of thousands who had taken to the streets of Iran’s cities and towns protesting against the regime and the hardships it was inflicting on the people. In a Truth Social post in the early hours of Friday, January 2 he had already posted that if Iran “violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue,” adding: “We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”

The nationwide insurrection can be dated back to December 28, when a sudden currency collapse, coming on top of already severe inflation and falling purchasing power, led to bazaar strikes and street demonstrations in Tehran.

The Iranian rial had plunged to a historic low of around 1.42 million per dollar, destroying price stability for import‑dependent traders, and making normal bazaar commerce impossible. Rapid exchange‑rate swings and rising costs meant that shopkeepers could not set or honor prices. Facing possible bankruptcy, they closed their shops and struck in protest at what they saw as regime mismanagement of the economy.

The uprising moved quickly from economic dissatisfaction by the trading community to an open challenge to the entire Islamic Republic by large numbers of the public. By the first week of January, protests had expanded to cities and towns in nearly all 31 provinces. It is still in progress and according to diplomatic and media estimates, the numbers of people participating nationwide could possibly be in the millions.

The use of live fire by the security forces escalated sharply around 8–10 January. Reports speak of thousands killed over a 48‑hour period and describe this phase as the deadliest repression since 1979. So by the time of Trump’s January 13 message, the unrest had moved from an economic‑triggered protest to a nationwide, highly lethal confrontation.

The many slogans chanted by protesters include calls for the overthrow of the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, demands for an Iranian republic, and nostalgia for the deposed monarchy (“Reza Shah, may your soul be blessed”, which honored the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty). “This is the final battle, Pahlavi will return” is chanted in places, explicitly calling for Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi to lead a reborn Iran.

These monarchist slogans do, however, coexist with strong anti‑monarchical and republican currents, and the insurrection’s center of gravity is essentially anti‑Islamic Republic.

In the light of Trump’s own words, Iranians who are risking life and liberty by challenging their oppressive government might reasonably believe that the US president is preparing to intervene on their behalf and help them overthrow the regime. But that is not likely to happen.

From the US perspective there are, in addition to the regime’s violent crackdown on protesters, three pressing issues in the Iran file: the nuclear program, the ballistic missile program, and Iran’s regional proxies. These seem to have taken precedence over any practical support for the popular uprising against the regime.

To justify Trump’s visible military buildup around Iran in late January, Washington did cite Iran’s ruthless crackdown and soaring protester death toll, but also mentioned broader concerns about Tehran’s regional and nuclear behavior. The marked increase in US air, naval, and missile‑defense deployments across the Middle East, notably the deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group and accompanying forces to the region, were explicitly framed as deterrence and preparation for possible strikes on Iran.

Preliminary US–Iran talks in the first week of February were fruitful enough for a further round to be tabled, and Prime Minister Netanyahu flew to Washington to coordinate with Trump the line to be taken. Talks not action emerged as Trump’s priority. Meanwhile confused commentators are asking why Iran’s nuclear program is once again a central concern. Didn’t Trump himself say Iran’s nuclear capabilities had been “completely and fully obliterated” during the 12-day war in June?

Herb Keinon, writing in the Jerusalem Post, put the issue in a nutshell: “The return to negotiations – reviving the nuclear file while setting aside what has taken place on Iran’s streets – gives the impression that a moment of great regime vulnerability has been squandered. All of a sudden, the two sides are talking about centrifuges and enrichment levels, when many assumed the focus had shifted decisively to the awful nature of the regime and its violent suppression of its own people.”

As regards the nuclear issue, the current US position is a demand that Iran completely halts its nuclear program and ships its stock of enriched uranium, estimated at some 450 kg, out of the country – presumably to Russia. If serious negotiations actually start, several months of talks would probably be needed to finalize agreement on the nuclear issue, which is the only one the Iranians have so far agreed to consider.

But there is no evading the harsh truth. Trump explicitly urged Iranians to “keep protesting” and “take over” institutions, telling them that “help is on its way.” He then held back from intervention while the regime's crackdown on the protesters escalated, and now US policy has shifted toward nuclear talks and military deterrence, leaving Iranians facing mass killings, detentions, and collective punishment without the external backing they thought had been promised.

According to Reza Pahlavi’s media office the regime has killed at least 43,000 Iranians since the current protests began. On February 10 the family of 20-year-old Ali Heydari, arrested by regime forces on January 8, reported that he had been executed without facing trial.

For protesters, Trump’s combination of rhetorical encouragement and minimal practical support must be a bitter disappointment. Anger against the regime will doubtless persist, but what has happened may well be perceived by the people of Iran as a form of betrayal by Trump and the US.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Donald Trump promised to help the Iranians - when is that help coming?", 17 February 2026:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-886674

Published in Eurasia Review, 20 February 2026:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/20022026-iran-help-what-help-oped/

Syria’s enigmatic al-Sharaa

2026-02-10T06:00:00.005+00:00

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 10 February 2026

Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has become something of a puzzle. His words increasingly appear at odds with his actions.

For example, he repeatedly emphasizes that his overriding aim is to unify the nation while recognizing the basic rights of its minorities. Yet here he is in deadly conflict with both the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the administrative body of Rojava, the Kurds’ semi-autonomous region in the north-east.

Sharaa probably regards the offensive as consistent with his unification agenda: he is seeking to bring Kurdish-controlled areas fully under state authority. But since the campaign marginalizes Kurdish political representation, undermines local self-administration, and results in collective harm to Kurdish civilians, it breaches his commitment to protecting minority rights.

In December 2024, with a militant Sunni Islamist career behind him, Sharaa emerged at the head of a professional fighting force to overthrow the dictatorship of Shia-aligned Bashar al-Assad. Since then he has consistently declared that his aim is to construct a Syria that unites its disparate elements into a unified democratic state. He has been just as clear in insisting that the future Syria will be rooted in Sunni‑Islamic moral and legal principles. He clearly does not believe his twin aspirations are mutually incompatible, though they may be. Where is an Islamic state that is truly democratic?

He may be looking as a model toward Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey, which retains a few democratic elements in its constitution.

In fact it is Erdogan who is eyeing Syria as a future sphere of influence – and Turkey already has a foot firmly planted there. Large areas of Syrian territory adjacent to the Turkish border have been under de facto Turkish military occupation and administration since 2016.

The Kurds have long been a domestic political nightmare for Erdogan with their constant demands for autonomy, and he has been engaged for years in ensuring that his Turkish Kurds get no military support from their Syrian co-ethnics lodged in their autonomous administration just across the border.

Current analysis suggests Erdogan is seeking to consolidate and, where possible, expand the partial security zones he has seized inside Syria along the Syrian-Turkish border. Turkish officials consistently proclaim their goal to be a 30‑km wide buffer zone.

In August 2025, Syria and Turkey signed a military cooperation agreement. The text presents Turkish involvement as supporting, not dismembering, Syria. By early 2026, official statements emanating from Ankara were increasingly framing Turkey’s entrenched military presence in northern Syria as part of a cooperative security and state‑building process during Syria’s transition from the Assad regime.

There has as yet been no ultimatum, demand or even request from Sharaa that Turkey evacuate the northern zones it occupies. It is however implicit, in Sharaa’s long‑term aim of recovering full sovereignty, that once security threats are removed, foreign forces, including Turkey’s, should ultimately leave. Erdogan may have different ideas.

Given Sharaa’s jihadist past, many of his statements as he took control of Syria surprised world opinion. From the start he repeatedly emphasized unity, reconstruction, transitional governance and “a new era” for Syria, including democratic elections and a truly representative parliament.

In his first televised address as interim president on January 30, 2025 he said: “We will work on an inclusive transitional government that reflects Syria’s diversity.” This government, he added, would “build institutions and run the country until it can hold free and fair elections.”

He went on to announce that he would shortly form a committee to prepare for a national dialogue conference, described as “a platform for Syrians to discuss the future political program of the nation.” The committee was indeed set up by presidential decree early in February 2025, and has been at work ever since. Some commentators criticize it for being dominated by Islamists close to Sharaa, and as excluding key Kurdish, Alawite and Druze figures.

Druze exclusion from the constitutional committee reflects Sharaa’s ambiguous relationship with this minority community. As with the Kurds, while his words emphasize his intention to include them within the fabric of a unified Syria, what he does appears to negate what he says.

For example, government forces were certainly involved in the armed attacks on the Druze community over the four months April-to-July 2025. The immediate triggers were a combination of long‑standing grievances between Druze communities and the new Syrian authorities over perceived discrimination and security control, and local provocations by Bedouins.

In July, Sweida – a city where Druze form about 90% of the population – became the site of intense conflict.

Syrian government forces were deployed to suppress the violence, but multiple independent reports document government troops and allied fighters looting and burning homes and shops, humiliating Druze clerics and residents, and in some cases executing civilians hiding in their houses. Human rights groups put the death toll at over a thousand, mostly Druze civilians.

Before the mid-July ceasefire between Syrian government representatives and Druze leaders, Sharaa declared in a televised address: “Protecting our Druze community is a top priority… We will do everything in our power to protect the lives and dignity of every Druze citizen.”

After the ceasefire, in the course of a speech on TV he said: “Sweida remains an integral part of the Syrian state, and the Druze constitute a fundamental pillar of the Syrian national fabric”, adding a vow “to protect all minorities in Syria.”

Israel, of course, intervened militarily and politically in July 2025, first striking Syrian army positions around Sweida, and then key military sites in Damascus. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other ministers told both the Syrian Druze community and Israel’s own Druze citizens that the IDF was “acting to protect our Druze brothers.”

The Syrian leadership rejects any Israeli claim to a protective role over Syrian Druze, portraying it as cover for reinforcing a demilitarized belt along the Golan to Israel’s advantage. Sharaa insists that reasserting central control is integral to his policy of unifying the nation.

Will he eventually bring his disparate minority interests, such as the Kurds and the Druze, within the overall control of a unified national government that represents a democratic, albeit Islamic, state? That is the conundrum he currently represents.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Syria's future: "Can Ahmed al-Sharaa reconcile democracy, Islam and minority rights?", 10 February 2026:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-886054

Published in Eurasia Review, 14 February 2026:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/13022026-syrias-enigmatic-al-sharaa-oped/

A pro-Israel bookshelf

2026-02-08T12:28:00.003+00:00

Published in the Jerusalem Post Weekend Magazine, 6 February 2026

I talk about the book on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/GYd0nyAnoNU

I have been reviewing books for The Jerusalem Post and its sibling, the bi-monthly Jerusalem Report, for a good many years. One day, looking through the ever expanding “Reviews” folder on my computer, I was struck by just how many good books and eminent authors the Post and Report have allowed me to bring to the attention of their readers. A quick tot-up showed that I had well over 100 reviews stored online.

Dedicated readers, I thought, might welcome the chance to learn about books and authors they could have overlooked, while occasional book buyers or people seeking a suitable present could surely find something to their taste in such a wide selection of titles. So, the idea was born of bringing 100 of my book reviews together in one volume.

What would I call such a volume? My first thought was “Your Middle East Bookshelf,” but I realized almost immediately that potential readers might be misled into believing that the contents would cover the whole regional spectrum, whereas the books I have been reviewing all these years were selected to appeal specifically to a Jewish readership. Honesty is always the best policy, so I decided on Your Pro-Israel Bookshelf: 100 titles reviewed.

With that issue settled, the next problem was how to present the material. The reviews covered a very wide range of genres. Among the hundred were biographies, political and personal memoirs, novels, thrillers; works on morals, religion and psychology; and poetry, humor, children’s books, even a cookbook and a graphic novel (that is, a book conceived as drawings accompanied by words). Should all the biographies be listed together, all the short stories, and so forth?

That possibility was rejected for good reasons, as were several others. Finally, the best solution, from the point of view of the potential reader, seemed to be to present the hundred volumes alphabetically by title. Anyone reading through the book would never be aware of what type of volume the next review would be dealing with and would, it was hoped, be pleasantly surprised by the variety of subject matter and the range of authors – some of them very eminent – whose works are represented.

Among them are Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Douglas Murray, leading historian Lord Andrew Roberts, political journalist Melanie Phillips and Alan Dershowitz. The memoirs represented include those of Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, and Zalman Shoval who was Israel’s ambassador to the US.

Thrillers with an Israeli theme include A Death in Jerusalem, Jonathan Dunsky’s seventh novel featuring his Israeli hero-detective Adam Lapid, and Khaled Talib’s fast-paced thriller Smokescreen.

I also reviewed a fair selection of short stories. Notable are those of Michael Oren and Jennifer Anne Moses.

My hope in putting together this collection of reviews was to whet readers’ appetite, and lead them perhaps to purchase a volume or two that particularly catches their interest. To help potential book buyers, each review is preceded by the book’s publisher.

Published in the Jerusalem Post Weekend Magazine and the Jerusalem Post online, 8 February 2026:

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-885615#google_vignette

The ISIS prisoner dilemma

2026-02-03T05:31:00.002+00:00

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 3 February 2026

The first week of 2026 witnessed a significant turnaround in US policy in the Middle East.

A key factor was the visit of Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, to US President Donald Trump in the White House on 10 November, 2025. Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump said of Sharaa: “We aspire to see Syria evolve into a prosperous nation, and I believe this leader has the potential to achieve it…”

By December 2025, the US was publicly expressing satisfaction with “steps being taken by the Syrian interim government.”

For more than a decade, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) had maintained effective governance in Rojava, the extensive region in north and north-east Syria where Kurds form the largest community alongside other minority populations.

But on January 6, Sharaa launched an intensive campaign across the SDF‑held areas in the north-east aimed at absorbing the SDF into the Syrian army. Washington pressed the SDF to accept integration and focused on mediating ceasefires and withdrawals.

On January 18, a US‑mediated ceasefire was announced, setting out terms for SDF integration into the Syrian army. In reports of a late‑January phone call between Trump and Sharaa, Trump is quoted as supporting “the aspirations of the Syrian people to build a unified and strong state” and welcoming “the understandings related to the integration of military forces, including the SDF, into official state institutions.”

So what began as Trump’s full military and political backing for the SDF as the central anti‑ISIS instrument has evolved into a policy where the SDF is treated as a problem to be solved through subordination to Sharaa’s forces. His support has moved from arming and shielding the SDF to endorsing a unified Syrian state under al‑Sharaa and accepting, even facilitating, a Syrian military campaign that directly targets SDF forces.

The SDF ran 29 prisons and detention facilities containing some 10,000 men and about 40,000 women and children captured during the anti-ISIS campaigns. The largest prison was Hasakah; other prisons included al‑Shaddadi and al‑Aqtan. In addition, the al‑Hol family camp held around 24,000 women and children; the smaller al‑Roj camp held around 16,000.

“Two tumultuous weeks,” as ABC News put it in a report on January 21: “saw the fall from power in Syria of the Kurdish-led force that was once the main US partner there, as Washington shifts its backing to the country’s nascent government.”

Having toppled the Assad regime in December 2024, Sharaa was appointed interim president, committed to unifying the nation while recognizing the basic rights of its minorities. In pursuit of his policy to reestablish a sovereign Syria, he and SDF leader Mazloum Abdi agreed in March 2025 that the tens of thousands of SDF fighters would be integrated into Syria’s national army. The government would take over key institutions in north-east Syria, such as border crossings and oil fields, but also include the prison facilities and camps.

The deal failed to stick. US-brokered negotiations aimed at finalizing the agreement petered out. If the SDF believed that after so long an alliance, the US would support them in holding out for the autonomy they had won in Rojava, they miscalculated.

When attacked by Sharaa’s Syrian Armed Forces (SAF) on January 6, the Kurdish-led force lost most of its territory in north-east Syria, and Washington did not intervene. It focused on mediating a ceasefire.

By January 21, the ceasefire was holding, and the SDF had signed a deal that would effectively dissolve it as a separate fighting force, merging it instead into Syria’s national army. The agreement also triggered a rapid reshuffling of control over prisons and camps. Custody shifted from the SDF to a mix of Syrian state control and Iraqi-run facilities backed by US logistical and financial support.

The ceasefire allowed US forces to begin transferring up to some 7,000 ISIS detainees from SDF‑run prisons in Syria to facilities in Iraq, a process that US Central Command (CENTCOM) and Iraqi officials say will continue in phases.

A few ISIS and ISIS‑linked detainees, formerly held by the SDF, escaped during the conflict.

According to Syria’s Interior Ministry, about 120 ISIS detainees got out of al‑Shaddadi prison, of whom 81 were recaptured in subsequent sweep operations. Some 39 are still believed to be at large.

Under the 14‑point ceasefire deal with the SDF, the Syrian government formally assumed full responsibility for the “ISIS file,” including running ISIS prisons and camps. On 23 January, Syrian authorities took control of al‑Aqtan prison in Raqqa, and Syrian forces have also moved into the so-called “family camp” at al‑Hol, replacing the former SDF guards. Syria now formally runs al-Hol with its thousands of women and children, and faces major humanitarian and security challenges.

The prisoner issue, with which the SDF grappled and which now falls into the lap of Syria and the US, is a hot potato. Between 2012 and 2020, a fair number of foreigners traveled to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS and live under the so-called caliphate.

Following the defeat of ISIS in 2019, very large numbers of ISIS militants and supporters were captured and imprisoned. The SDF soon came to realize that it held a large, diverse foreign population without the legal authority, resources, or diplomatic recognition to resolve their status.

Roughly 8,500 of the 40,000 women and children held in al‑Hol and Roj were third‑country nationals from about 60 states. Some 38 countries took back a few nationals, but many refused to do so, thus effectively exporting the legal, humanitarian, and security burdens to north-east Syria for the indefinite future.

The UK repatriated a small number of children without their mothers, and a handful of orphans, while in the classic case of Shamima Begum, she was stripped of her British citizenship.

It is estimated that only a couple of thousand of these foreign women and children been repatriated so far. Thousands more remained confined.

The SDF/Rojava administration lacked recognized statehood and formal diplomatic relations, so it could not negotiate repatriations through normal consular channels. With the change of responsibility to Sharaa’s Syria, formal diplomacy might succeed in alleviating the problem.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and in the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Why Washington shifts from Syria's Kurds to Sharaa", 3 February 2026:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-885205

Published in Eurasia Review, 15 February 2026
https://www.eurasiareview.com/06022026-the-isis-prisoner-dilemma-oped/

Israel’s Somaliland initiative

2026-01-27T17:22:00.004+00:00

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 28 January 2026

It is ironic, to say the least, for the UK or the UN to censure Israel for recognizing Somaliland’s independence – as both have done – considering that Britain, its colonial ruler, itself granted sovereign independence to the State of Somaliland more than 65 years ago on June 26, 1960.

Immediately congratulatory messages from some 35 countries, including all five permanent members of the UN Security Council, poured into the Somaliland government, in what was then the standard practice for newly decolonized states.

Even though just five days later, on July 1, the new state voluntarily united with Italian Somaliland to form the ill-fated Somali Republic, the fact remains that Britain and the UN had welcomed the sovereign independence of Somaliland.

In short, they acknowledged that the newly independent country fulfilled the four criteria set out in Article 1 of the 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States: that a state in international law should possess a permanent population, a defined territory, a government exercising effective political authority over the population and territory, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states.

The Montevideo Convention also states that “the political existence of the state is independent of recognition by the other states.” In other words, an entity is a state if it meets the Montevideo criteria alone; recognition by others merely acknowledges an existing situation. Therefore, whatever the UK or the UN now say, Somaliland is a sovereign state according to their own reckoning.

On December 26, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would officially recognize Somaliland’s independence. Pledging extensive cooperation on health, technology and economic development, he invited Somaliland’s president, Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, to visit Israel for his first trip abroad as a recognized head of state.

Since the announcement, there have been days of rejoicing in the capital, Hargeisa. Somaliland’s six million people see Israel’s recognition as a long-overdue reward for decades of successful state-building. The nation has enjoyed an extended period of successful elections, with terrorism, militias, and piracy kept well in check.

In adjacent Somalia, meanwhile, large swathes of territory are controlled by al-Shabab, a Taliban-style Islamist group affiliated with al-Qaeda, and the country is struggling with endless feuding among its clan-based elites.

As Netanyahu’s recognition statement hit the headlines, US President Donald Trump happened to be playing golf at his course in West Palm Beach, Florida. Reporters flocked around him asking whether America would follow Israel’s lead. Trump bluntly replied “No,” adding: “Does anyone know what Somaliland is, really?”

Somaliland, located on what is known as the Horn of Africa, sits at the base of the Red Sea, directly facing southern Yemen across the Gulf of Aden. It is a classic product of European colonialism. In the 1880s, Britain, by signing protection treaties with northern Somali clans, created the British Somaliland Protectorate. Its primary purpose was to secure imperial sea lanes through that gulf and sea.

At the same time, Italy, France, and Britain divided the wider Somali-inhabited region among themselves. Anglo‑Italian boundary agreements fixed a frontier between British and Italian Somaliland.

The 1960s was a period of rapid decolonization by Britain. By mid-decade, the UK’s imperial power had virtually collapsed. In May 1960, the British government stated it would be prepared to grant independence to British Somaliland “with the intention that the territory would unite with the Trust Territory of Somaliland.” So only five days after becoming independent, what had been British Somaliland voluntarily united with the former Italian Trust Territory to form the Somali Republic. The aim was to transcend the colonial borders that had divided the Somalis.

It was an unhappy, ill-fated merger. Somalia’s leader, Siad Barre, turned out to be a ruthless dictator whose regime bore down heavily on the northern Somalis previously administered by the British. Finally, in 1981, the Somali National Movement took up arms against Barre. The ensuing conflict lasted ten years.

By early 1991, SNM forces had taken full control of north‑western Somalia, including the capital Hargeisa, and the war petered out in political negotiation. In May 1991, northern clan leaders and SNM figures formally revoked the 1960 union, and proclaimed the Republic of Somaliland specifically “within the borders of the former British Somaliland Protectorate.” Their declaration was framed not as a secession from Somalia, but rather as a restoration of the pre‑union state.

Since then, Somaliland has built separate institutions, held multiple competitive elections and maintained relative internal stability and security. In October 1994, it even introduced its own currency. The new Somaliland shilling replaced the Somali one, which had been the legal currency in the united Somali Republic. At launch, one Somaliland shilling could buy 100 Somali shillings.

Today, Somaliland's economy is small, resilient, and growing moderately, but it remains structurally fragile. The annual inflation rate, at a peak of 9.4% in 2024, fell in 2025 to 8.6%.

Israeli–Somaliland relations before recognition were limited. There had been no formal agreements, but some commentators suggested there had been low‑visibility contacts as part of Israel’s Red Sea intelligence and security interests.

Netanyahu’s announcement that Israel and Somaliland had signed a joint declaration establishing full diplomatic relations referred explicitly to “the spirit of the Abraham Accords.”

The declaration included mutual recognition, plans to exchange ambassadors and open embassies, and cooperation in security, trade, agriculture, and technology.

Israel's Foreign Minister, Gideon Saar, visits Somaliland's President Abdirahman Abdullahi, January 6, 2026

Somaliland’s leadership hailed the move as a “historic moment” and a strategic partnership, hoping it would break the long‑standing international taboo over recognition and open doors to wider international acceptance and investment.

From Israel’s point of view, recognition entrenches its presence in a key maritime location, complementing its security partnerships with the Abraham Accords states and enabling the monitoring of hostile Houthi activity in the Red Sea and Yemen.

Criticism of Israel’s recognition has partly turned on what is painted as an apparent inconsistency: how can Israel champion statehood, independence, and self-determination for Somaliland while opposing the same for the Palestinians?

Some voices, however, point out the inconsistency of the UK, France, Australia, and other Western nations recognizing the non-existent state of Palestine, while condemning Israel for recognizing what is clearly the functioning state of Somaliland – and what is more, a state that Britain and the UN have previously recognized.

Israel will stick to its guns, and eventually global opinion will fall into line.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 28 January 2026 and in the Jerusalem Post online on 27 January 2026 titled: "Why Israel was right to recognize Somaliland":

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-884581

Published in the Eurasia Review, 30 January 2026:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/30012026-israels-somaliland-initiative-oped/#google_vignette

Britain’s new Holocaust Memorial

2026-01-26T16:37:00.005+00:00

Updated version of article published in the Jerusalem Report, issue dated 12 January, 2026

On January 22, 2026 King Charles gave his Royal Assent to The Holocaust Memorial Bill, which automatically converted it into an Act of Parliament. In a few years the UK government hopes to unveil a striking new Holocaust Memorial close to the Houses of Parliament. After more than a decade of setbacks, delay and frustration, the project has passed its last hurdle. Now all that is left is to build it.

It was back in January 2014 that then UK prime minister, David Cameron, feeling that the UK had not done enough to memorialise the unique horrors of the Holocaust, set up a Holocaust Commission.

“The Holocaust is unique in man’s inhumanity to man,” ran its remit. “…As the events of the Holocaust become ever more distant, they will feel increasingly remote to current and future generations. The Holocaust Commission will investigate what further measures should be taken to ensure Britain has a permanent and fitting memorial to the Holocaust...”

It was not as though Britain had failed to commemorate the Shoah. A Holocaust Memorial was established in 1983 in Hyde Park, in the very centre of London. Conceived as a garden of boulders surrounded by white-stemmed birch trees, the largest boulder is inscribed with this text from the Book of Lamentations: "For these I weep. Streams of tears flow from my eyes because of the destruction of my people."

Remembrance services are held there every year, the most recent on July 7, 2025, when Prince William joined survivors and bereaved families, together with key figures from the Jewish community and British public life, to honor the victims of the Holocaust.

There is also a permanent Holocaust exhibition in the Imperial War Museum in South London, designed to connect the Holocaust to the broader events of the Second World War. Following a multi-million redevelopment in 2021, the exhibition now extends over two gallery floors, presenting a detailed account of the Holocaust and its impact.

In January 2015 Cameron’s Holocaust Commission issued its report and recommendations which were instantly accepted in full by the government, and endorsed by the Opposition.

It recommended there should be a “striking and prominent” new memorial, located in central London, to serve as the focal point of the nation’s commemoration of the Holocaust. In addition a world-class Learning Centre, to be located together with the Memorial, should become the hub for Holocaust education in every part of the country.

To help carry the project forward, the government set up a UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation composed of eminent establishment figures including the Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis. The Foundation quickly embarked on a dual search – for a suitable location and a winning design.

The decisions it reached on both instantly plunged the whole project into a whirlpool of objections. Dispute and dissension have pursued it ever since.

The site selected for the new memorial, and included in the terms of the international design competition that the Foundation also announced, was a small park adjacent to the Victoria Tower, which stands at the far end of the Palace of Westminster, the seat of the UK parliament. At less than five acres, Victoria Tower Gardens is about the size of three football pitches.

The announcement was no sooner published than it was followed by a flood of objections. Victoria Tower Gardens, it was argued, is too small to absorb a large memorial. Much of its green open space and amenity for everyday public recreation would be destroyed. The scheme would harm the setting of the Palace of Westminster World Heritage Site, as well as existing listed monuments in the gardens. Security, crowding, traffic, and flooding risk were additional problems. Siting it within the Imperial War Museum would be more appropriate. Finally it was pointed out that an Act of 1900 protected the gardens as public open space.

It was on this issue that objectors sought a legal ruling. In 2022 they took their case to the High Court, and won. The legal determination was that the Holocaust Memorial would breach the 1900 Act, which restricts the use of Victoria Tower Gardens to that of a public garden.

To overcome this legal barrier, the then Conservative government introduced a new piece of legislation – the Holocaust Memorial Bill – to disapply certain provisions of the 1900 Act, so as to allow the project to proceed as planned. This parliamentary strategy enabled the project to remain “up and running”. Some objectors, however, signalled their intention to pursue further legal action.

The international design competition attracted 92 entries. In October 2017 the Foundation announced that the British-Ghanaian architect Sir David Adjaye, leading a team that included Israeli designer Ron Arad, had submitted the winning design.

Their memorial building features 23 bronze fins, with the gaps between the fins representing the 22 countries where the Holocaust destroyed Jewish communities. Each gap acts as a separate path down to a hall leading into the Learning Center.

The design was immediately subject to a torrent of criticism. The row of tall bronzed fins and sunken courtyard was, it was asserted, visually harsh and out of sympathy with both the subject matter and its surroundings. Some contended that combining an underground learning centre with a memorial would result in a cramped, didactic experience that risks oversimplifying the Holocaust. Others that the design would create a “theme‑park” style procession and potential security target, subordinating contemplative remembrance to spectacle and crowd management.

All these, and a multitude of other objections have been thoroughly and meticulously addressed during the passage of the Bill through the House of Lords. And now the Bill has become an Act of Parliament. This means the groundbreaking ceremony could take place before the end of 2026.

Official project literature suggests that the construction phase would take around three years. So Britain’s new Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre, envisioned way back in 2014, could finally become a reality some time in 2029.

Updated version of article published in the Jerusalem Report, issue dated 12 January, 2026:
https://www.jpost.com/jerusalem-report/article-881760

Yemen in chaos

2026-01-21T06:44:00.002+00:00

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 21 January 2026

The people of Yemen are living through one of the world’s worst humanitarian and economic crises. Yemen, long a tangle of competing interests, has become a battlefield. Not only are three major entities, each wielding armed force, competing for power, but two Gulf states have been close to war with each other over Yemen-related issues.

The three main combatants are the internationally recognized government, mainly operating out of Riyadh in Saudi Arabia; the Southern Transitional Council (STC) until recently based in Aden, but now dispersed; and the Houthis, entrenched in the capital Sanaa. Poverty, food insecurity and collapsed public services are affecting the populations of all three.

In 2025 over 19 million people – roughly half the population – were assessed as needing humanitarian assistance, while more than 80% of Yemenis were found to be living in poverty, many unable to meet basic food needs.

Yemen’s internationally acknowledged sovereign authority resides in the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), established in 2022 after the previous unified republic disintegrated in the aftermath of the so-called “Arab Spring”. The then-president ceded his powers and the governance of Yemen to the PLC, which is now led by Rashid Muhammad al-Alimi. He holds the powers of the presidency, and is backed by Saudi Arabia.

The Southern Transitional Council (STC) was formed in May 2017. It is an attempt, backed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), to restore the independent South Yemen that had existed before the unification of north and south in 1990. The movement is headed by Aidarus al‑Zoubaidi, once governor of Aden, who serves as its president. Paradoxically al-Zoubadi, who is in armed conflict with the government, simultaneously serves as a vice-president in the PLC.

The STC’s political leadership was based in Aden, which it dubbed the capital of a future South Yemen, but its fortunes have recently undergone a dramatic reversal.

On December 2 al-Zoubaidi launched a major offensive across southern and eastern Yemen. Within a week STC forces controlled most of the former South Yemen’s territory, including almost all of the southern coastline.

One month later, on January 2, PLC president al‑Alimi ordered a counter-offensive. Backed by Saudi forces and airstrikes the PLC retook the towns captured by the STC, pushed its forces out of key positions, and assumed control of Aden, its main security sites and institutions. By January 9 most of the STC’s December territorial gains had been reversed, and the PLC had re‑established its authority over the non‑Houthi south and east.

Al-Zoubaidi fled to the UAE capital Abu Dhabi. Even so, the UAE, without formally renouncing its support for the STC, has announced its “counter-terrorism mission” is at an end, and declared it intended to pull its remaining forces from Yemen.

The present unhappy position stems back to 2011, when popular forces within Yemen, imbued with the intoxicating zeal of the Arab Spring, forced President Ali Abdullah Saleh from power. He abdicated in favor of his deputy, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

Hoping for a return to power, Saleh allied himself with the Houthis, who swept down from the north in a bid to overthrow the government. Funded and supplied by Iran, and with Saleh’s help, during 2014-2015 the Houthis seized over 30% of the country including the capital, Sanaa.

In March 2015 Saudi Arabia, alarmed at the prospect of Iran gaining a foothold on the Arabian peninsular, formed an international coalition to support the government, and attacked the Houthis. Since then the Houthis have entrenched themselves into their substantial tract of west Yemen from where, supported by Iran, they have been striking not only Israel, but international shipping which often had little or no direct connection to Israel.

Until December 30 Saudi Arabia and the UAE had never attacked each other directly. On that day Saudi aircraft bombed the southern port of Mukalla, claiming they were targeting a UAE weapons shipment destined for the STC’s anti-government campaign. The Mukalla strike, an unprecedented escalation, was followed by the PLC’s successful counterattack on the STC.

The international community continues to fail Yemen. Despite President Donald Trump’s peace-making aspirations and close relations with the leaders of both the UAE and Saudi Arabia, the US has not pressured either to de-escalate the political tensions.

The US has not intervened in Yemen’s internal civil war, nor sought regime change in Sanaa. What the US concentrated on was degrading the Houthis’ ability to attack shipping. US naval forces have taken the lead in coalition interception operations, shooting down Houthi missiles, drones and unmanned surface vessels aimed at merchant shipping and warships in and around the Red Sea. The US directly linked these defensive actions at sea to targeted on‑shore strikes, since many of the radars and launchers destroyed were enabling the attacks on international shipping lanes.

On May 6, 2025 a US-Houthi ceasefire arrangement brokered by Oman took effect, ending the US air campaign in exchange for a halt to attacks on US vessels. The Houthis explicitly stated that this did not apply to Israel, and that they would continue to attack vessels in the Red Sea. The ceasefire has held.

As for the UN, it has long had the Yemen situation under review, although its efforts have not succeeded in resolving its conflicts, either political or military.

It was on September 5, 2021 that Hans Grundberg took up the post of UN Special Envoy for Yemen. He currently works under a Security Council mandate to mediate an end to the conflict in Yemen. His remit is to facilitate a Yemeni‑owned political process leading to an inclusive political settlement.

This is not entirely a “pie in the sky” aspiration, since in April 2022 Grundberg actually secured a nationwide two-month truce between the Houthis and the government. He secured two renewals of the truce (to early August and then to October 2, 2022), providing roughly six months of relative calm. Even though the truce later lapsed, Grundberg was able to use it to open some limited political and economic space for a time.

The UN is now reduced to issuing ineffective, if well-intentioned, aspirations for Yemen’s future. On December 22 the Security Council published a statement reaffirming its support for the efforts of the UN Special Envoy, and its…”strong commitment to the unity, sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Yemen, and to the Presidential Leadership Council and the Government of Yemen.”

Small comfort to the struggling, poverty-stricken and battle-weary Yemenis.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Yemen's fractured power struggle deepens its humanitarian, political crisis," 21 January 2026:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-883829

Published in Eurasia Review, 23 January 2026:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/23012026-yemen-in-chaos-oped/

The BBC and the Israel connection

2026-01-17T16:07:00.013+00:00

Published in the Jerusalem Post Weekend Magazine, 16 Jan 2026

In terms of weekly audience reach and reputation, the BBC is the world’s leading international broadcasting organization. As well as serving the UK, it transmits entertainment, information, news and current events via TV, radio and the internet to audiences measured in hundreds of millions around the world. Yet it is perpetually struggling with the obligation, built into its very DNA, to operate to the highest standards of objectivity, impartiality and lack of bias.

This problem, which has haunted it for more than half its existence, recently reached crisis point. It has resulted in the resignations of the BBC’s director general, its head of news, and a member of the Board, and the threat by US President Donald Trump to sue the corporation for up to $5 billion. In fact he has filed a lawsuit in a federal court for $10 billion.

Launched in November 1922, the BBC was defined from its start by the high moral tone set by its first Director General, John Reith. Reith summarized the nascent BBC's purpose as to “inform, educate and entertain”. The order of priority was deliberate. To his way of thinking, entertainment was far from broadcasting’s main purpose. Informing and educating the public was of far greater importance.

His principles live on to this day in the BBC’s mission statement, which runs: "to act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain.”

From its earliest days Reith successfully established and maintained the independence of the BBC from political interference, and by 1939, when the UK went to war with Germany, the BBC’s reputation for accuracy, objectivity and impartiality was firmly established.

Throughout World War II the BBC broadcast in a multiplicity of languages to Nazi-occupied Europe. People all over the continent literally risked their lives to hear the truth from London. Listening to foreign broadcasts could result in the death penalty.

The BBC’s shortwave transmissions also covered the world. At its peak the corporation was broadcasting across the globe in some 80 languages. The wartime reputation that the BBC acquired of honesty, objectivity, and lack of bias is the bedrock on which today’s BBC stands. Regrettably, in the more recent past the structure has wobbled badly on its foundations.

There is no doubt that, at some point during the 1960s-1970s, something began to go very wrong within the BBC. Not a deliberate policy, perhaps, but reflecting a general shift to the left among the opinion-forming élite, the BBC’s editorial standards came to be dominated by what became known as “political correctness” – an unspoken consensus of ultra left-leaning views.

In 2010 Mark Thompson, one-time Director General of the BBC, admitted: "In the BBC I joined 30 years ago there was, in much of current affairs…a massive bias to the left. The organization did struggle then with impartiality."

This shift to the left permeated the BBC’s output across many types of programming including domestic political comment and even comedy. The philosophy that finally dominated left-wing thinking was termed “intersectionality”. It asserted that victimhood was interrelated, and that all victims in whatever context – ethnic, sexual, economic, political – were to be supported. Opposition to one form of discrimination, the doctrine ran, demanded opposition to all. Palestinians were perceived to be victims of Israeli oppression, so it became de rigueur for left-wing activists to carry the Palestinian flag and chant pro-Palestinian slogans in mass demonstrations on a whole variety of topics, many having no connection with the Middle East.

Reflecting this, the BBC’s editorial stance began to shift significantly into the politically correct pro-Palestinian mode. Eventually it became obvious that the corporation was no longer adhering to its much vaunted high standards of impartiality.

In April 2004 the Israeli government wrote to the BBC accusing its Middle East correspondent, Orla Guerin, of antisemitism and "total identification with the goals and methods of the Palestinian terror groups" over a report on a 16-year-old would-be suicide bomber.

That protest followed numerous examples of anti-Israel bias broadcast by the BBC. Three years before, a British lawyer, Trevor Asserson, had become increasingly incensed with what appeared to be the BBC’s obvious departure from its declared principles. Asserting that “the BBC’s coverage of the Middle East is infected by an apparent widespread antipathy toward Israel,” Asserson commissioned a series of in-depth studies. For a seven-week period in 2001, his team recorded the bulk of the BBC’s Middle East news output on TV and radio, and for comparison they simultaneously recorded reports from a variety of other sources. Their conclusion: the BBC was in frequent breach of its obligations to be unbiased and impartial.

Trevor Asserson's report, matched by vociferous Palestinian claims of pro-Israel bias in the BBC, finally led the corporation to commission an investigation and report from one of its senior journalists, Malcolm Balen.

Balen examined hundreds of hours of broadcast material, both TV and radio, analyzing the content in minute detail. This exhaustive study resulted in a 20,000-word report. At the end of 2004 it was given highly restricted circulation within the top echelons of the BBC, but thereafter it was treated as Top Secret and locked away. Although no details of its findings were released to the media, Keith Dovkants, a journalist working for the London Evening Standard, later claimed that elements of the report had been leaked, “including Balen's conclusion that the BBC's Middle East coverage had been biased against Israel”.

After repeated legal applications for its release under the UK Freedom of Information Act – actions defended by the corporation at a cost of over £330,000 – in 2012 the House of Lords, then the UK’s supreme court, ruled that as “a document held for journalistic purposes”, the report was explicitly excluded from the requirements of the Act. So the Balen report remains under lock and key, but calls to the BBC to release it continue to this day.

Then came Hamas’s bloodlust assault on Israel on October 7, 2023, followed by the Israel-Gaza war. It was feared that the mindset within the BBC and its left-orientated, London-centric, news staff was too unshakably established to result in even-handed, unbiased reporting of the conflict.

And so it proved. The BBC’s consistent anti-Israel bias in its news reports and comment became too outrageously partisan to be allowed to continue without protest.

Once again Trevor Asserson, now senior partner of an international law firm centered in Tel Aviv, gathered together a team of some 20 lawyers and 20 data scientists, and on a pro bono basis undertook a meticulous research programme analyzing how the BBC was reporting the Gaza conflict.

Their report, published on September 6, 2024, presented a detailed analysis of the BBC’s news coverage during a four-month period beginning October 7, 2023.

The BBC’s editorial guidelines demand impartiality, accuracy and adherence to editorial values and the public interest. The Asserson report identified no less than 1,553 breaches.

“The findings,” said the report, “reveal a deeply worrying pattern of bias and multiple breaches by the BBC of its own editorial guidelines.”

It also found that the BBC repeatedly downplayed Hamas terrorism, while presenting Israel as aggressive and militaristic. It also revealed that some journalists used by the BBC in its coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict had previously expressed sympathy for Hamas and even celebrated its acts of terror.

A week into the war came the explosion in the parking lot of the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City. In reporting it, the BBC’s correspondent, speaking live from Gaza, said "it is hard to see what else this could be, really, given the size of the explosion, other than an Israeli airstrike or several airstrikes." The BBC’s Arabic service repeated this assessment, and anti-Israel protests immediate broke out in both the Arab world and the West.

It did not take long for the truth to emerge, but by then the damage had been done. The explosion was the result of a misfired rocket by Islamic Jihad. In its mealy-mouthed apology days later, the BBC still failed to make clear that the evidence showed conclusively that the explosion had not been an Israeli attack.

The hasty and unverified assertion that Israel must be responsible for the explosion at the Al-Ahli Hospital was followed by a further example a few weeks later. On that occasion the BBC reported that IDF troops had entered Gaza’s Shifa Hospital, "targeting medical teams and Arab speakers." This was either a willful or an unprofessional mis-reading of an IDF release, which stated that the troops had entered the hospital "accompanied by Arabic speakers and medical teams" to assist patients. The BBC did broadcast an adequate apology, but the report demonstrated the ingrained tendency for the BBC to rush to judgement against Israel.

As Hamas’s vast network of tunnels criss-crossing the Gaza Strip was slowly revealed, the BBC appeared to be doing its best to undermine the IDF’s discovery of a Hamas military command post directly underneath a hospital.

In his report Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s International Editor, seemed to suggest that Kalashnikov assault rifles found beneath the hospital might have nothing to do with Hamas, but be part of its own security.

Examples of anti-Israel bias or inaccuracy by Bowen in reporting the Gaza conflict took up no less than 16 pages of the new Asserson Report. It also singled out the BBC’s Arabic service as one of the most biased of all global media outlets, identifying eleven news and comment programmes that featured reporters who, it showed, had previously made public statements in support of Hamas – something viewers were never informed of.

The BBC promised to respond to Asserson. After a few weeks it issued a short dismissive statement, questioning the methodology used in compiling and analyzing the data.

The current furore surrounding the BBC arises from the publication by the UK’s Daily Telegraph of a 19-page whistle-blowing memo written by a respected journalist named Michael Prescott, who served as an independent adviser to the BBC’s Editorial Standards Committee for three years.

When Prescott found that his repeated concerns about the corporation’s failings were ignored by top BBC management, he left his post. He then wrote his memorandum and distributed it to every member of the BBC’s Board.

His report accuses the BBC of persistent and serious breaches of impartiality, alleging a chronic failure by senior management to uphold editorial standards or to correct errors.

The most high-profile case cited involves the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme Panorama, which aired just ahead of the US 2024 presidential election. Prescott reported that the programme doctored Donald Trump’s January 6, 2021 speech, making it appear Trump had incited the Capitol Hill riot.

Prescott also pointed to issues with BBC Arabic’s coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict, demonstrating that it used known Hamas supporters in its programmes, minimized Israeli suffering, used unverified casualty figures, and ran a fundamentally biased narrative consistently portraying Israel as the aggressor.

In September the parliamentary Culture, Media and Sports Committee summoned the BBC chairman, Samir Shah and the BBC director general, Tim Davie, to answer allegations of bias, editorial failures, and recent scandals, including how the BBC had come to transmit a TV programme about the Gaza war that turned out to have been narrated by the son of a Hamas official.

Shortly afterwards, the broadcasting regulator Ofcom found that the film was "materially misleading". It ordered the BBC to inform its audience of its finding and remove it from the BBC’s streaming service.

To get a handle on the current turmoil, the Committee subjected both Shah and Prescott to intense questioning on November 24. Although the corporation has doughty champions among political figures and opinion formers who appreciate much of its output, there is a widespread and growing conviction that its news and political comment departments are, as Prescott seemed to tell the Committee, systemically warped. Speculation is already rife about who might be appointed as the next BBC director general.

Most hope that a new broom will indeed sweep clean.

On International Holocaust Day, 27 January, BBC radio news bulletins and BBC television's BBC Breakfast failed to mention that the six million people industrially slaughtered by the Nazis were Jewish. The BBC issued the following:

"In the news bulletins on Today and in the introduction to the story on BBC Breakfast there were references to Holocaust Memorial Day which were incorrectly worded, and for which we apologise. Both should have referred to ‘six million Jewish people’ and we will be issuing a correction on our website.”

Published in the Jerusalem Post Weekend Magazine, 16 January 2026:
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-883445

Stalemate in Gaza

2026-01-14T06:32:00.002+00:00

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 14 January 2026

President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan would appear to be stuck. Whatever covert preparations may be in hand to implement its later stages, the clock seems to have stopped.

The first stages of the 20-point “Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict”, signed by Israel and Hamas in Sharm el‑Sheikh on October 9, 2025, required an immediate ceasefire, the return of all the hostages both alive and dead, the transfer of Palestinian prisoners in exchange, and a substantial increase in the flow of humanitarian aid. Having released the live hostages, Hamas chose to eke out the return of the dead over a period of six weeks, and still holds on to the remains of Ran Gvili.

So the first stage has not been completed and Gaza is effectively trapped. A fragile ceasefire is in place, the IDF have withdrawn to the “yellow line,” there is increased humanitarian access – but all are subject to ongoing violations.

As for conditions in the Strip, most media reports suggest that, rather than advancing the peace process, the ceasefire has reduced Gaza’s significance on the world scene. It has changed little on the ground. Large parts of Gaza remain in ruins, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are still displaced, and aid distribution is even more difficult because of new restrictions placed by Israel on some 37 humanitarian agencies that refuse to reveal whether their staff are connected to Hamas.

The 20‑point Trump plan was not originally issued as “three phases”. It was first presented essentially as a single 20‑point framework, and the text adopted as Annex 1 to UN Resolution 2803 is also structured as 20 numbered points. It was media and policy coverage that quickly reframed the 20‑point scheme into three phases:

Phase 1: immediate ceasefire, hostage–prisoner exchanges, front‑line freeze, humanitarian surge.

Phase 2: demilitarization, destruction of Hamas’s offensive infrastructure, progressive Israeli withdrawal and deployment of the International Stabilization Force.

Phase 3: governance transition and reconstruction, including the Board of Peace and multi‑year rebuilding of Gaza. Finally, “when the PA reform program is faithfully carried out, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.”

Any sort of progress is blocked by unfinished business from Phase One. The unresolved issue of hostage Ran Gvili’s missing body has become a precondition for any further Israeli withdrawals, for changes at the Rafah crossing, or for movement to the next stage. In practice, this traffic jam maintains the territorial “yellow line”– in other words, the continued presence of the IDF in eastern Gaza.

In any case implementation of Phase Two is beset with obstacles. It seems obvious that the bargaining positions of Hamas and Israel are mutually incompatible. Hamas has declared that any disarmament on its part is tied to the prior achievement of Palestinian statehood and a restoration of Palestinian control over Gaza. Israel rejects Hamas disarmament on that basis, or indeed any outcome that concedes Palestinian statehood under pressure.

Hamas’s position is, of course, quite at odds with the Trump plan which it has signed. That places the issue of Palestinian self-determination at point 19 of the 20-point plan, namely well after the total disarmament of Gaza in general and Hamas in particular. The result of Hamas’s intransigence is deadlock as regards further progress. Hamas will not voluntarily disarm and Israel cannot realistically force full disarmament without collapsing the ceasefire.

On the face of it the Trump peace plan is at an impasse. Despite reports of negotiations in hand, there is as yet no agreed path to the demilitarization, international force deployment, or new governance that would mark a genuine implementation of Phase Two.

Trump, however, is unlikely to sit idly by while Hamas plays fast and loose with a peace agreement it has signed. The president has repeatedly coupled the Gaza peace plan with threats that if Hamas does not comply, “all hell” or direct military action will follow. Trump’s Venezuela operation is no blueprint for what is likely in Gaza; US or allied operations against Hamas are not currently in prospect. The characteristic Trump ambiguity, however, is deliberate, and designed to coerce Hamas while keeping options open.

What is more relevant, perhaps is Trump’s warning as he unveiled the 20‑point plan. If Hamas rejected it, he said, “Israel would have the full backing of the US to proceed with any actions it sees fit.”

In subsequent posts and remarks, he repeatedly referred to his peace proposal as Hamas’s “one last chance” and warned that if agreement was not reached “all hell, like no one has ever seen before, will break out against Hamas.” In short, his consistent core message has been that refusal to comply with the plan and disarm will bring severe, potentially direct, force against Hamas.

Several forms of action are more plausible than a dramatic new US‑led offensive. The most credible is Trump’s repeated assurances that, if Hamas blocks key steps like disarmament or the transfer of authority, Israel will enjoy “full backing” to intensify targeted operations against remaining Hamas infrastructure and leadership. He has publicly pledged his “complete support” to Israel to “finish the job” and “do what you need to do” against Hamas.

An alternative scenario could involve incremental coercive measures applied to Hamas, short of invasion. These could include tighter financial and travel sanctions on Hamas leadership, increased pressure on Qatar and other mediators to curtail Hamas’s external operations, and further restrictions or conditioning of reconstruction money and crossings on verifiable disarmament steps.

Trump observers will be aware that the language about “all hell” functions as strategic ambiguity. Without any specified timelines or specific troop deployments (both of which would be resisted by allies and Congress), it is designed to convince Hamas that the US and its partners might ultimately enforce disarmament militarily.

Taken together, these factors suggest that Trump’s recent threats are best read as signaling, designed to push Hamas toward implementing its disarmament, ahead of a greenlight to the IDF to “finish the job” with Washington’s backing.

Hamas, well aware that world opinion would castigate the US and Israel if the Gaza war was resumed, might calculate its best course is to maintain the stalemate.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Hamas, Israel deadlock leaves Trump's Gaza plan in deadlock", 14 January 2026:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-883080

Published in Eurasia Review, 17 January 2026:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/17012026-stalemate-in-gaza-oped/

Iran and Russia – too close for comfort

2026-01-05T11:30:00.005+00:00

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 6 January 2026

When Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian met at the Kremlin on January 17, 2025 to sign a new treaty, the media were not much interested. The world’s attention was focused on other matters. The war in Ukraine was in its third year, the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza was still unresolved.

Yet the Iran–Russia Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty, which came into force on October 2, has significant implications for the Western alliance. The new treaty, developed out of years of ever-tighter Western sanctions on both parties, aims to deepen cooperation between Russia and Iran over the next 20 years across a wide range of fields including political, military‑technical, economic, energy, and financial issues.

On December 17, eleven months to the day after the treaty was signed, Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi visited his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, and together they signed a new cooperation program aimed at putting flesh on its bones.

They agreed to set up a three-year program of regular consultations between the two foreign ministries, framed explicitly as a “roadmap” for cooperation. The agenda specifies coordination on a wide range of matters – political, economic, cultural, defense and security – but also includes regional and international questions. That could imply future joint action in the Middle East or beyond. Both sides described the collaboration plan, which is aimed at implementing the treaty’s 20‑year strategic approach, as the first such formalized program between their foreign ministries.

Despite the widespread anti-government riots currently shaking Iran, and Russia's problematic situation in Ukraine, this formal consolidation of the Russo-Iranian relationship gives cause for concern, because it strengthens the rapidly expanding structures that have emerged in the past few years aimed at countering Western power and influence.

This Russo-Iranian entente is no flash in the pan. It grew out of a long-term relationship between them. Back in 2001 Russia and Iran had signed a treaty aimed at strengthening mutual relations and cooperation, and it was still in effect. Negotiations to revise their "marriage of convenience" started in 2020, but progress was slow. By supplying Russia with drones and ballistic missiles for its conflict in Ukraine, Iran acquired significant leverage in Moscow. That was one of the factors leading to the signing of the new understanding.

Another was the collapse in late 2024 of the Assad regime in Syria. Both nations had supported Assad, and now, shorn of their main regional foothold, they felt the need to strengthen their ties in order to prevent further erosion of their influence in the Middle East.

One example is the developing Tehran–Moscow–Beijing “triangle” linking Iran, Russia, and China through overlapping energy, arms, and sanctions‑evasion networks. Although not a formal alliance, the triangle poses a significant and growing challenge to Western interests.

Another example is the emerging economic system known as BRICS (the acronym is formed from the initial letters of the original five members - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). There are now 11 members, among whom Iran features.

BRICS – a loose grouping of major emerging economies cooperating on economic, political, and financial issues – is specifically designed to act as a counterweight to Western‑led institutions. It has growing significance, because its enlarged membership now represents a large share of global population and output.

The implications for Israel of this newly bolstered Russo-Iranian relationship are not precisely in line with those of the West generally. Israel has a special interest in its relations with Russia, tied to the need to avoid provoking Russian retaliation when the Israe;li Air Force takes military action in Syria aimed at disrupting Iran’s supply of armaments to Hezbollah. As a result, Israel has avoided joining Western sanctions on Russia, and has severely limited military aid to Ukraine.

During the Assad era, Syria was used by Iran not only as a military arsenal, but as a key corridor for transporting military hardware to Lebanon. Following the collapse of the Assad regime, Iran’s ability to use Syria has been sharply reduced, but it is not eliminated. Smuggling continues in more limited, covert, and higher‑risk forms. Iran and Hezbollah still exploit pockets of Syrian territory, especially where state control is weak, using covert overland smuggling from areas such as Homs and rural Damascus into Lebanon and also drawing on weapons stockpiles left in Syria.

Consequently Israel has conducted repeated airstrikes on Syria-Lebanon border crossings, roads, and other infrastructure – for example Arida and other crossings in the al‑Qusayr area – that are used to move weapons to Hezbollah.

When Russia intervened militarily in the Syrian civil war in 2015, it became the key external power controlling Syrian airspace and propping up Assad. At the same time Israel was intensifying its strikes against Iranian and Hezbollah assets on Syrian territory. To avoid accidental clashes, the two sides created a formal deconfliction mechanism, allowing Israel to continue its anti-Iran campaign as long as it coordinated with Russia and avoided striking its assets.

Continuous hotline and other procedures between the IDF and Russian forces in Syria enable Israel to notify Russia of forthcoming air operations, so preserving its strike capacity against Iran‑linked targets.

As long as Russia maintains a concentrated but still significant military presence in Syria (principally at Khmeimim air base, with associated access to its naval facilities at Tartus), Israel will continue to operate a separate, interest-based channel with Moscow that often diverges from Western preferences.

Since the new Russo-Iranian treaty notably lacks a mutual defense clause, neither side is obligated to come to the other’s aid militarily if attacked. Russia’s main obligation under the treaty is effectively not to side with Israel, something that was unlikely anyway. Accordingly space remains for Israel to keep its compartmentalized cooperation with Russia.

As a result, Israel maintains its back channel with Moscow while, together with the Western world as whole, prepares for the less favorable environment emerging from the ever-strengthening forces ranged against it, exemplified by this renewed Russo-Iranian accord.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 6 January 2026, and the Jerusalem Post online, 5 January 2026, titled "Moscow and Tehran's new partnership is bad news for the West":

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-882233

Published in Eurasia Review, 14 January 2026:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/09012026-iran-and-russia-too-close-for-comfort-oped/

Gaza protection force stymied

2025-12-29T08:33:00.002+00:00

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 30 December 2025

Since coming to power Erdogan has demonstrated deep hostility toward Israel...

On December 16, US Central Command convened a multi-nation conference in Doha, the capital of Qatar. Its purpose was to set up the International Stabilization Force (ISF) that is an essential element in Phase Two of President Donald Trump’s Gaza ceasefire/peace plan. The enterprise was a failure. As painfully emerged after the conference, not a single unequivocal commitment was forthcoming from the multitude of nations attending. Media reports indicate that offers of troops, police or finance remained at the level of “interest” or conditional willingness, pending domestic legal reviews and a clearer mandate, or a UN or treaty framework.

For some reason no complete list of the nations participating in the conference has yet been provided in official media releases. Published reports of the number of states present vary wildly from “approximately 25” as reported by The Media Line, to 45 according to Ynet Global. Among the states that did attend though, there were two notable absentees: Israel and Turkey. Neither had been invited.

As for Israel, most political analysts agree that since Washington was trying to convince Arab, Muslim and other states to send forces or support to Gaza, Israel's presence would have made their participation more difficult. In the absence of Israel, moreover, it would be easier to keep the focus on the prospective multinational force rather than on Israel’s security demands.

Turkey, it is generally agreed, was not invited because Israel specifically requested its exclusion. Israel has consistently objected to any Turkish security role in post‑war Gaza. One commentator likens the idea of allowing Turkish troops into Gaza to welcoming in a Trojan horse. The people of Troy, an ancient city in modern-day Turkey, were tricked into bringing a giant wooden horse inside their walls. Once inside, Greek soldiers emerged to sack the city.

The purpose of the ISF is to help disarm Hamas, thus preventing Gaza from again becoming a launchpad for attacks on Israel. But Turkey under its President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has for years supported Hamas. Senior Hamas leaders have been allowed to take up residence in Istanbul and Ankara, and maintain offices and networks, including political and operational hubs. Some, like Ismail Haniyeh and his deputy, Saleh al-Arouri, have been granted Turkish citizenship.

Since he came to power Erdogan, with his Muslim Brotherhood origins, has time and again demonstrated a deep hostility toward Israel. Two weeks after Hamas’s barbaric assault on Israel on October 7, 2023, he described Hamas as a “liberation” movement, adding: “Hamas is not a terrorist organization, it is a group of mujahideen defending their lands and citizens.”

In March 2024 he said: “No one can make us qualify Hamas as a terrorist organization…Turkey is a country that speaks openly with Hamas leaders and firmly backs them.”

Erdogan has said he is willing to contribute forces immediately to the projected ISF, but it is pretty obvious that to allow Turkish forces to participate would be to undermine the whole purpose of the enterprise from the start.

Just prior to the Doha conference, on December 15, President Trump – anticipating a successful outcome – said in the White House that the ISF was “already running…More and more countries are coming into it. They’re already in but they’ll send any number of troops that I ask them to send.”

Clearly Doha failed to deliver the result that Washington had envisaged.

As regards the major Arab states – Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Jordan – reports prior to the Doha conference indicated all as potential troop contributors. Moreover Saudi Arabia and the UAE were reported to be “working with the US to secure funding for the deployment of troops to Gaza.”

In the event none of these states committed soldiers or resources. They and the other Arab governments remained cautious, fearful of risking clashes with Hamas, to say nothing of domestic opposition at policing or disarming Palestinians. Even Qatar as host, while backing the ISF concept, did not pledge troops or funding.

As for the non-Arab Muslim states and the European nations that have expressed support for the ISF – among others Indonesia, Italy, France and the UK – although some accounts say Indonesia has “signaled readiness” to send troops, and that Italy “may be the only European country to contribute forces,” expressions of intent have not been converted into formal commitments.

UN and diplomatic reports reveal that, though the UK and France expressed strong support for the rapid deployment of an ISF in principle, neither government used the Doha conference to earmark budgets or announce specific troop numbers. Other invited states (including Pakistan, Azerbaijan and various Western and Asian allies) appear in lists of those expressing willingness to assist in some way, but none converted willingness to actual commitment.

The failure to generate firm troop or funding pledges suggests that setting up the ISF will be a more protracted undertaking than initially envisaged. US officials have now acknowledged that, even under optimistic assumptions, building the force could take most of 2026. They have spoken about a target of around 10,000 troops.

Phase Two of the Trump peace plan rests on four interlocking elements: disarming Hamas; further withdrawal of the IDF; transfer of security to the ISF operating alongside vetted Palestinian police; and the establishment of an interim technocratic Palestinian governing committee under a Board of Peace, with an eventual handover to a reformed Palestinian Authority and a pathway to Palestinian self‑determination.

All four depend on the ISF actually deploying in meaningful strength, with a clear mandate, rules of engagement and reliable financing. Following Doha, however, it seems likely that the ISF will emerge later, smaller and in a more cautious manner than envisaged in the Trump peace plan and UN Resolution 2803,which gave the plan international legitimacy.

Some commentators are now warning that in the absence of clear national commitments, Phase Two itself risks remaining “largely a blueprint on paper rather than an actionable plan,” with a danger of drifting into a “permanent Phase One” in which the IDF would, of necessity, have to remain in Gaza to maintain security.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Trump's Phase two hits wall: Why the Gaza ISF is already unraveling", 30 December 2025:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-881651

Published in Eurasia Review, 15 January 2026:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/03012026-gaza-protection-force-stymied-oped/

Your Pro-Israel Bookshelf

2025-12-25T09:33:00.010+00:00

My new book "Your Pro-Israel Bookshelf: 100 titles reviewed", published on 10 February 2026, is available both as paperback and ebook.

Why the title? Not to be provocative, but to make quite sure that potential readers were not misled. Calling it "A Middle East Bookshelf" could have done just that. This book is likely to appeal most to readers not unsympathetic to Israel.

This collection of exactly 100 book reviews is intended to be both a useful and a pleasurable guide for dedicated readers who have a special interest in the Middle East in general and Israel in particular. Originally published by the Jerusalem Post, they are selected to cover a wide range of genres. Among the 100 are biographies, political and personal memoirs, novels, thrillers, works on morals, religion and psychology, poetry, humour, children's books, even a graphic novel (that is, a book conceived as drawings accompanied by words).

Presented alphabetically by title, anyone reading through this volume will never be aware of what type of book the next review will be dealing with, and will be pleasantly surprised by the variety of subject matter.

I do hope readers might be moved to acquire one or two of the volumes reviewed as a result.

"Your Pro-Israel Bookshelf" can be purchased in either form NOW through the publisher at:

https://store.bookbaby.com/book/your-pro-israel-bookshelf?srsltid=AfmBOop9HcSn42BgrrbXw6TKqPSBtTE4yn5FXzCHT7tp6wOz-TG47JSH

Gaza: why the delay?

2025-12-22T05:34:00.002+00:00

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 23 December 2025

On September 30, the day after President Trump’s ceasefire plan for Gaza was launched, a report in the National – the English language journal published in the United Arab Emirates – described the plan as “booby-trapped” because “every provision in the plan is kind of tied to other provisions.” That observation is true enough, but the 20-point plan embodies a further weakness – the omission of a timetable for completing each of the three stages envisaged.

The interdependence between the various provisions of the plan, together with the lack of a clear deadline for the achievement of each stage, have together resulted in its progress being slowed to a snail’s pace.

Under the plan, the first phase required a cessation of hostilities and then, over the next 72 hours, the release by Hamas of all living hostages together with the remains of the deceased. Meanwhile Israel would free Palestinian prisoners, aid and relief would flow into Gaza under international supervision, and most IDF troops would withdraw to an agreed “yellow line”.

This yellow line refers to a non-physical demarcation boundary, drawn on a map of the region, marking the initial phase of Israel's partial withdrawal from parts of the enclave. This line divides Gaza into two roughly equal zones – Hamas to the west; the IDF to the east. In some areas Israeli forces have marked the line with yellow concrete blocks, but because the blocks do not precisely align with the agreed demarcation, a certain amount of confusion reigns on the ground.

Unfortunately, without a built-in requirement to complete the various stages of phase one within a given period, or sanctions against failure to comply, the plan as a whole has simply lost impetus. Nor is there any incentive for either Hamas or the Israeli government to remedy the situation. Both are using ambiguity over these conditions to preserve leverage ahead of talks on stage two, where the core disputes over Hamas disarmament, the interim governance of Gaza, deployment of an international armed force, and further IDF withdrawal are featured.

Hamas decided to maintain its bargaining power by spreading the release of the deceased hostages over several weeks. It still holds the remains of Ran Givili, the Israeli police officer who reportedly eliminated 14 terrorists before he was killed and his body taken to Gaza. While it does so, stage one of the ceasefire is not completed.

At the same time, Hamas continues to tell the world about civilian deaths – “civilians” or “women and children” is how they classify those killed in Gaza, never enumerating the deaths of fighters as such. Fighters aged 17 or under are classed as children. Israel, for its part, continues to report daily clashes with Hamas.

The targeted killing of senior Hamas leader Ra'ad Sa'ad on December 13 aroused Trump's ire, but in the event it did not deter him from declaring on December 17 that, after 3000 years, he had brought peace to the Middle East.

Meanwhile difficulties are emerging which threaten the success of later stages of the plan.

Phase two envisages the creation of a council of independent Palestinian technocrats to run the day-to-day affairs of Gaza under international supervision. It also provides for the creation of an International Stabilization Force (ISF) made up of US, Arab and European personnel to oversee demilitarization and maintain security.

To take the last matter first, as of now many countries asked to contribute troops or personnel have failed to respond or are hesitating, citing concerns about an unclear mandate, or the risk of confrontations with Hamas fighters.

On November 29, the Washington Post reported that Azerbaijan, which had been among the countries expected to contribute troops, is now tying any participation to a complete halt in fighting and a clear mandate. Indonesia, which had earlier indicated it could provide up to 20,000 peacekeeping personnel, has clarified that this figure represented overall capacity rather than a firm commitment and is now considering a very much reduced initial contribution.

Meanwhile, despite the force being described diplomatically as “Arab-led,” to date not a single Arab government has formally committed troops. Several Arab countries previously mentioned as potential contributors, including the UAE and Saudi Arabia, have either declined or expressed increased reluctance to deploy forces, citing political sensitivities. Even for states keen to win favor with the US administration, the Post reports, many uncertainties remain, including the thorny question of how the force would go about de-weaponizing Hamas, which has sent mixed signals about its willingness to disarm.

The US “want the international stabilizing force to come into Gaza,” said a senior official in Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “and restore, quote unquote, “law and order”, and disarm any resistance. So that’s the problem. Nobody wants to do that.”

So while Trump’s ceasefire plan has broad regional and international backing, especially from the mediators Qatar, Egypt and Turkey, its long-term prospects remain uncertain. The situation was not improved by the disappointing and inconclusive results of the large US‑led planning conference, held on December 16 under US Central Command auspices, on the International Stabilization Force for post‑war Gaza. More than 25 nations were represented, but it ended without firm decisions on the force’s mandate or concrete troop pledges. In addition to that issue, many of the most controversial or sensitive components of phase two, including the disarmament of Hamas, transitional governance, the future status of Gaza and wider Palestinian political questions, also remain unresolved and contentious.

If the international force never deploys, or deploys in a limited, ineffective way, there is a real danger the ceasefire becomes a “frozen conflict” — and Gaza is subjected to a prolonged stalemate, a hark back to the “managed instability” that marked the pre-October 7 period. History has already demonstrated what that situation finally leads to.

If Hamas refuses or delays disarmament, or Israel is unwilling to withdraw fully, the underlying structural problems – the vacuum in governance and security, and the humanitarian crisis– will remain, and the truce could collapse. In those circumstances, the ceasefire may only delay, not end, the conflict.

Published in the Jerusalem Post 23 December 2025, and in the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Why Trump's Gaza plan is losing momentum," 22 December 2025:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-880885

Published in Eurasia Review, 26 December 2025:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/26122025-gaza-why-the-delay-oped/

Disarming Hamas – does the IRA point the way?

2025-12-16T05:33:00.002+00:00

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 16 December 2025

On December 8 the London Daily Telegraph reported that, as part of the emerging Gaza peace framework, the US is considering a two‑year, IRA‑style “decommissioning” scheme for the disarmament of Hamas.

Other media sources had already reported that the idea of disarming Hamas gradually was being proposed by Turkey and Qatar (neither of them noted friends of Israel), and that Bassem Naim, a Hamas political bureau member, had said that the group would be open to discussing “freezing or storing” its arsenal.

Israeli officials were reported to believe that this slow disarmament idea is simply a ploy to keep Hamas weaponized as long as possible, and maybe to by-pass the decommissioning of its arsenal altogether. Moreover, weapons “stored” (which does not feature in IRA decommissioning) are weapons re-accessible.

On the face of it the history of the IRA’s disarmament seems to offer a blueprint for how a violent, insurgent movement can be disempowered and made the instrument of a durable peace. But in fact the differences in context with Hamas are so deep that the IRA experience can offer only indicators not a template.

The struggle for Irish independence from Britain has a long history. The historic conflict was intensified by the presence of a large Protestant minority, mainly resident in the north-east of the island, loyal to the British monarchy and opposed to rule from Dublin. Intensive political activity finally resulted in the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which created Northern Ireland as a separate six-county devolved entity within the United Kingdom. The rest of the island passed through several phases of increasing sovereignty before becoming the Republic of Ireland in 1948–49.

The partition compromise did not suit those whose dream was a united Ireland. Starting in 1968, the IRA (Irish Republican Army) and then the Provisional IRA used armed violence to try to force an end to British rule in Northern Ireland. The strategy escalated from attacks on security forces in the six northern counties to indiscriminate bombings and shootings in mainland Britain. Their campaign ended when a mix of military containment, diplomatic engagement, political inclusion and changing public attitudes convinced the republican movement that it could pursue its goals more effectively through negotiation than armed struggle.

The IRA’s disarmament was a protracted and politically choreographed process that ran from discussions in the mid‑1990s to the verified destruction of its arsenal in September 2005, under international supervision. To manage this, the British and Irish governments set up the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD) in 1997, while the Good Friday Agreement, signed in 1998, ended the armed struggle and envisaged the decommissioning of all paramilitary weapons within two years.

The first key step was symbolic rather than destructive. In June 2000 the IICD was allowed to inspect IRA arms dumps, confirming that weapons were being secured under agreed arrangements but not yet destroyed. The IRA then announced in October 2001 that it had begun actual decommissioning, and the IICD reported that an initial quantity of IRA arms had been put beyond use – though, to protect republican sensitivities, without publishing an inventory.

It was a slow process. Crises over alleged IRA activity, and other political problems, repeatedly interrupted momentum and limited the confidence‑building impact of these partial moves. Finally, on July 28, 2005, the IRA leadership publicly ordered an end to the armed campaign, instructed all units to dump arms, and authorized its representative to work with the IICD to finish putting weapons beyond use, with two witnesses invited to increase public confidence.

Between late July and September 2005 the IRA carried out what the IICD described as several decommissioning acts, culminating on September 24–26, 2005 in the final verified destruction of all arms under its control.

To identify the IRA and its history with Hamas in any but the most superficial terms is totally unrealistic.

The fundamental and decisive difference is that all parties in what became known as The Troubles in Northern Ireland were nominally Christian. The IRA’s purpose was to dislodge Britain from the six counties, not to eliminate its Protestant minority. When the armed struggle became more trouble than it was worth, the IRA was prepared to hammer out a deal with people with whom, in the final analysis, they shared deep cultural ties. Only a few years later Queen Elizabeth was able to shake hands with ex-IRA leaders.

Hamas, on the other hand, is a Sunni Muslim organization so viscerally antisemitic that it actually includes in its charter an obligation to kill Jews. Its oft-stated objective is to eliminate the state of Israel and its Jewish inhabitants. Reasoned dialogue in such circumstances is well-nigh impossible.

By the late 1990s the IRA’s political vehicle, Sinn Féin, was fully inside an internationally underwritten peace process, with a seat at multi‑party talks, prisoner releases, institutional reforms, and a clear route into power‑sharing government in Belfast and influence in Dublin. The Good Friday Agreement created a consensual framework in which republican disarmament was explicitly linked to new institutions, cross‑border bodies, and gradual demilitarization of the British presence, giving the IRA leadership something concrete to trade weapons for.

Hamas, by contrast, currently clings on to a portion of a devastated Gaza, is still designated a terrorist organization by key external actors, and has no place in final status negotiations. On the contrary, it is specifically excluded by all the main players from any participation in the final governance of Gaza.

The IRA entered the ceasefire and decommissioning period as an undefeated insurgent force. It presented its disarmament as a voluntary, phased choice rather than capitulation.

Hamas, after two years of intense war, has suffered severe military attrition. Although it remains operational and still dominates security and administrative structures in part of the Strip, its damaged and weakened situation mean its negotiating position is fragile.

Phase two of the ceasefire deal requires the disarmament of Hamas as a pre-requisite for establishing appropriate security and governance mechanisms in Gaza. Allowing Hamas to spread the decommissioning process over two years allows it the chance to retain some sort of involvement in Gaza’s future. The idea should be vigorously resisted.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Could Hamas be disarmed by an IRA decommissioning scheme?", 16 December 2025:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-880373

Atrocity at Bondi Beach

2025-12-15T06:12:00.001+00:00

This letter appears in the Daily Telegraph today,15 December:

Sir

The horrific incident on Bondi beach at the start of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, and the attack at the Manchester Synagogue on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, came amid biased media portrayals of Israel's fight against the terrorist organisation Hamas. Ignorant philosophies, which persist in viewing Israel as a colonialist incursion into the Middle East and capable of any monstrosity including genocide, have unleashed a wave of global anti-Semitism and, in some deranged minds, justified the taking of innocent Jewish lives.

Neville Teller

The Axis of Resistance is crumbling

2025-12-08T05:49:00.006+00:00

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 8 December 2025

On November 25 Afshin Madadi, a journalist attached to the UK’s Daily Telegraph, reported on conversations he had held recently with senior Iranian officials in Tehran. His account was both unexpected and truly surprising.

They told him that Iran has lost control of the Houthis – that the fighters in Yemen who regularly attack global shipping lanes have stopped taking orders from Tehran.

“The Houthis have gone rogue,” one senior Iranian official told Madadi, “…and are now really rebels.” Then he added: “It’s not just the Houthis. Some groups in Iraq are also acting as if we never had any contact with them.”

The revelations went even further. Between them the officials maintained that the Iranian leadership is struggling to hold together what is left of its “axis of resistance” forces all around the Middle East – in other words that the regime is also losing control in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria.

The Institute for the Study of War analyzed Madadi’s report. In its evaluation it described his contacts as "unspecified Iranian officials", the suggestion being that limited credence should therefore be placed on what they said. The Telegraph article, however, strongly suggests that these were senior confidential sources speaking on the very condition they remained anonymous and unidentifiable.

Given the situation within Iran, no whistle-blower or informant could allow their identity to be revealed. The regime treats unauthorized communication with foreign media, particularly Western outlets, as treasonable offenses liable to the death penalty.

Madadi provides no information about how contact was made with these officials or why they agreed to talk to him, but despite the known dangers, Iranian officials do reach out to Western journalists and also to anti-regime organizations sited abroad.

GAMAAN (Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran) is an independent Netherlands-based research foundation. In June 2024, it conducted a survey to measure support within Iran for regime change. It found that more than 80% of those polled were in favor.

It is not, therefore, surprising that internal politics can result in moderates leaking information damaging to hardliners, especially those aligned with the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps). Moreover some officials cultivate Western media contacts as insurance in case they need to flee Iran or seek asylum in the future. Given Iran's systematic persecution of anyone suspected of providing information to Western media, the personal courage required for these officials to talk to the outside world, even if under the cloak of anonymity, should be recognized.

As for the revelations passed on to Madadi, available evidence suggests there is indeed some substance to them.

The Houthis’ rift with Iran goes back to April, when the ayatollahs, fearful of being drawn into direct conflict with America, failed to come to their aid during heavy US strikes. Ever since the Houthis, by broadening alliances and augmenting supply lines, have been trying to wean themselves off full blown Iranian support.

In response, Iran dispatched a senior IRGC commander, Abdolreza Shahlaei of the Quds Force, to Sana'a in mid-November in a bid to restore Iranian influence.

According to the Telegraph report, an Iranian official told journalist Madadi that Shahlaei was tasked with encouraging the Houthis to "cooperate more than before, as they are the only operational group left" in Iran's weakened proxy network. The fact that Tehran felt compelled to send such a high-ranking commander to Yemen highlights both the strained relationship and Iran's desperate attempt to maintain influence over its last major functioning proxy.

The Iranian officials who told Madadi about Houthi defiance also revealed that Iraqi militia groups are increasingly ignoring Tehran's directives. These militias, according to recent reports, are being subjected to ever greater control by Iraq’s prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, backed by an Iraqi electorate increasingly favoring sovereignty over Iranian patronage. To prevent Iraq from being drawn into the Israel-Iran conflict in June, Sudani reportedly blocked dozens of attempted attacks on Israel by his Iran-backed militias.

Hezbollah, once the steel spine of Iran’s Axis of Resistance, is still reeling from Israel's September 2024 escalation which decimated its command structure and weapons stockpiles. The group lost its leader Hassan Nasrallah (killed September 2024), his presumed successor Hashem Safieddine, military commanders Ibrahim Akil and Ali Karaki, and most recently chief military commander Haitham Ali Tabatabai (killed November 23, 2025). Hezbollah, which retains a fair amount of political power in Lebanon, is attempting to counter the Lebanese government’s plan to disarm the organization altogether.

Syria under its once-president Bashir Al Assad was often described as the lynch pin of the Axis of Resistance. As well as serving as a base for IRGC operations, it provided Iran's essential land corridor for supplying weapons and materiel to Hezbollah in Lebanon. After investing massive military support and billions of dollars to prop up Assad since 2011, Iran's abrupt withdrawal from Syria exposed Tehran's strategic and military weakness.

In Gaza, the long-term viability of Hamas remains an open question. There is evidence of attempts by the remaining leadership to re-establish control in the areas vacated by the IDF, but the organization as a whole has nominally signed up to the Trump 20-point peace plan which requires them to abandon any attempt to have a say in the governance of Gaza, and to disarm.

The Gaza ceasefire has effectively cut off what remains of Hamas from operational coordination with Iran.

Finally, and perhaps most telling of all, the 12-day Israel-Iran war in June 2025 fully exposed the disintegration of the Axis. Israel conducted approximately 360 airstrikes across 27 Iranian provinces, targeting military installations, air defense systems and nuclear facilities, and killing at least 30 senior IRGC commanders and 11 nuclear scientists.

Throughout this direct assault on Iranian territory, Iran's proxy network was nowhere to be seen. Despite decades of rhetoric about the Axis providing "forward defense" and deterrence, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraqi militias, and the Houthis took virtually no offensive action against Israel or the US throughout the period Iran's nuclear facilities were under attack.

What was once a relatively coherent strategic network under Iranian guidance seems to have devolved, for the moment at least, into a collection of entities pursuing parochial interests, while maintaining loose ideological and material ties to Tehran.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and in the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Iran's axis of resistance is crumbling", 8 December 2025:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-879462

Hezbollah disarmament falters

2025-12-01T05:25:00.002+00:00

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 1 December 2025

Back in September Lebanon’s army chief Rodolphe Haykal presented the government with a plan to ensure that, by the end of 2025, Hezbollah would be fully disarmed and military hardware would be held exclusively by Lebanon’s state forces. The cabinet authorized the army to begin implementing it immediately.

Various leaks to the media gradually revealed that the army’s plan is called “Homeland Shield”, and that its strategy is to confiscate Hezbollah’s weapons in five phases, starting south of the Litani River.

It also emerged that President Joseph Aoun has rejected the idea of replicating Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, where Iran-backed paramilitary groups have been integrated into Iraq’s security forces. He is opposed to creating a distinct Hezbollah entity within the army. He wants Hezbollah fighters to be recruited into Lebanon’s armed forces only if they meet the same criteria as all other applicants – academic qualifications, entrance exams, and training.

According to the US military, the Lebanese Army has cleared away nearly 10,000 Hezbollah rockets and 400 missiles since the ceasefire in late November 2024. Aoun has claimed that up to 85% of the area south of the Litani River is now free of Hezbollah weapons.

On October 22, 2025, prime minister Nawaf Salam said that ultimately Hezbollah “will need to return to being a regular political party without a military arm.” Hezbollah leaders, however, have made it clear that they oppose being wholly disarmed. Assuming that Lebanon will be permanently in conflict with Israel, they regard themselves as essential to the national effort.

The Meir Amit intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC) was founded in 2001 to specialize in matters related to terrorism and intelligence. In a report published on October 30, ITIC said it believed the Lebanese Army will aim to complete its operations south of the Litani by the end of 2025, but that in Hezbollah’s strongholds north of the Litani, in the Beqaa and Beirut, it will be hindered from acting because the government is shying away from a confrontation with Hezbollah that could escalate into civil war.

In short, ITIC believes that the original army plan was far too ambitious in assessing that Hezbollah’s disarmament could be accomplished by the year’s end, and that instead of all five phases, only phase one is likely to have been achieved.

ITIC believes Hezbollah may agree in principle to partial disarmament, mainly in the region south of the Litani, but in exchange for guarantees. These would include protection against Israeli targeted assassinations, and the integration of the organization’s operatives into the security functions of the state. The ITIC says it believes the Lebanese government, in an effort to show flexibility, will indeed try to persuade the international community, especially the US, to increase pressure on Israel to reduce its attacks and withdraw its forces from positions in southern Lebanon.

Rumours abound in the Arab media about the uneasy standoff between Lebanon’s leaders and Hezbollah. “Sources” assert that although the Army knows about many Hezbollah military stockpiles, it desists from raiding them because the offices of the President, the Prime Minister, and the Speaker of Parliament have agreed that any direct confrontation with Hezbollah could plunge the country into civil war.

The US has shown growing impatience with the Lebanese government’s velvet glove approach to carrying through Hezbollah’s disarmament. General Haykal was scheduled to travel to Washington on November 18 for high-level meetings with US officials regarding military assistance, border security, and efforts to bring all armed groups in Lebanon under state authority. Just before Haykal’s planned departure, the trip was abruptly canceled.

The immediate trigger was a public statement by the Lebanese army on November 16 condemning Israeli attacks near the southern border. Notably avoiding any reference to Hezbollah’s significant armed presence independent of the state, the statement referred to Israel as "the enemy."

Understandably, US officials interpreted the army statement as aligning with Hezbollah's narrative. US policymakers and members of Congress criticized the Lebanese army. Senator Lindsey Graham publicly condemning Haykal’s leadership, calling the rhetoric a setback for efforts at regional stabilization.

This episode seems to have galvanized President Aoun and prime minister Salam into action.

On November 20 Salam said at a governmental press briefing at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon: “Lebanon is currently open to engaging with Israel in a partnership for disempowering Hezbollah.” He added that Lebanon would seek US help in advancing negotiations in the context of escalating Israeli strikes on Hezbollah positions.

The next day in a televised speech, President Aoun is reported by international media as saying that Lebanon is “ready for negotiations” with Israel, focused on “ending Israeli strikes” and “Israeli withdrawal from five outposts in Lebanese territory”.

So what is the current position?

Open-source maps show that parts of southern Lebanon previously strongly associated with Hezbollah are now increasingly coming under the Lebanese Army’s control. According to one source, out of some 265 identified Hezbollah positions in that zone, around 190 have been ceded to the Lebanese Army.

Meanwhile Hezbollah’s infrastructure has been significantly degraded. In particular, Hezbollah’s elite unit, the Radwan Force, has taken a serious hit: reports indicate that up to 80% of its weapons systems and tunnel infrastructure have been damaged or lost. Moreover it is estimated that some 4,500 of its operatives have been killed and about 9,000 wounded. representing a very large chunk of its active force.

And yet, despite losses, Hezbollah is not defunct. Analysts argue that though it is undoubtedly weaker, it remains resilient. Its survival depends on achieving a balance between the pressure to disarm, financial constraints, and its role in Lebanese politics.

To do so, it is attempting a “reset”. By acceding to a partial disarmament, it may be able to retain a reduced but still meaningful arsenal — enough to deter, survive, and remain politically relevant.

On the other hand Israel is not letting up. Israel continues targeting Hezbollah’s attempts to rebuild, and on November 23 eliminated its senior commander, Haytham Tabatabai.

The English poet Alexander Pope catches the position of the Lebanese government in a nutshell: "Willing to wound, yet afraid to strike." Its equivocation means that Hezbollah could yet survive in perhaps a more limited, but still highly dangerous, form.

Published in the Jerusalem Report, and in the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Lebanon 'reset': Hezbollah may survive in more limited, but dangerous, form", 1 December 2025:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-876711