by Gerald A. Honigman

Reports have surfaced that “someone” in or connected to the Trump Whitehouse has labelled Israel’s necessary attempt to finally finish the job of hunting down the butchers of its innocents in Gaza and elsewhere a  “pointless war.”

At the same time, while Israel was deliberately left out of the President ‘s “deal” with the Houthis to end their attacks on America and others, Israel was getting blasted by Houthi ballistic missiles—one hitting Ben Gurion Airport, resulting in numerous airlines ending flights to Israel, and all the  extra economic damage that will cause besides the cost of fighting multiple proxies of Iran and having to deal with an increasingly hostile Egypt as well. The latter just completed major war games with the Communist Chinese, and have moved large numbers of tanks into the no go area in the Sinai Peninsula according to the arrangement made when Israel voluntarily withdrew for the sake of peace after being viciously attacked by Egypt and Syria on Yom Kippur in 1973…

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Norman Berdichevsky

Yuval Raphael, representing Israel, performing at Eurovision 2025 (Photo by Quejaytee – Own work, CC BY 4.0)

The remarkable achievement of the  Eurovision public vote awarding second place to the Israeli entry New Day Will Rise, performed by Yuval Raphael, a survivor of the atrocities committed by Hammas demolishes the widely held but erroneous view that Israelis have suffered a fatal loss of confidence and a dramatic loss of heart among their European supporters.

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Peloni:  The regime in Tehran is completely antithetical to Western ideology, and has a mutually exclusive focus upon the conquest of the West.  Negotiating with one’s own executioner is what faces the West in its near obsession with pretending that negotiations might possibly lead to anything other than its own demise.

Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger | “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative” | May 21, 2025

The China-Iran-Russia Axis

*The 2025 Threat Assessments issued by the US Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and the Director of National Intelligence state: “China, Russia and Iran will remain the most pressing foreign threats to our critical infrastructure…. We expect [non-nuclear] Iran to remain the primary sponsor of terrorism and continue its efforts to advance plots against individuals – including current and former US officials – in the United States…. China, Iran, and Russia will use a blend of subversive, criminal, and coercive tactics to undermine confidence in US democratic institutions….”

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Peloni:  Jennifer offers important insights into Trump’s Iran policy, which, as she notes, offers a more optimistic perspective.

Trump plays his own game.

J.E. Dyer, a retired Naval Intelligence officer, blogs as The Optimistic Conservative, May 18, 2025

An update is due on Trump’s pathbreaking movements in divers places over the past couple of weeks.  As noted in the previous article on Trump and Qatar, the “Trump and Qatar” dynamic is coming in for heavy criticism.  It isn’t my project to talk through what others are very competently treating from the complaints side, so I’ll confine this discussion, which I hope to keep abbreviated, to laying out more optimistic considerations.

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Peloni:  Another example of failing attempts of peace thru strength in the face of Arab impudence.  Making demands which are not met requires immediate and strong responses, this is the very kernel of what might be described as peace thru strength.  Failing to respond to such demands as releasing all of the hostages on day one of his term, or on holding Iran directly responsible for Houthi attacks which persisted nonetheless, have led to regional actors taking Trump’s threats as being insincere, and finding that their presumptions, thus far at least, are correct, as is the situation with Al Jolani who has a 6 month reprieve during which he will will continue to receive sanction relief while ignoring Trump’s demands to rid Syria of foreign fighters.  At the same time, Israel is reported to being pushed to make peace with Syria and abandon the Druze, thus giving this Turkish proxy all the benefits he needs to consolidate power during the six month period of US impotence.  As Sharawi noted, Trump should reimpose the sanctions due to Jolani’s insolence, but in addition he should simultaneously have the Israelis withdraw from any peace talks as well.  Bringing pressure to bear is the strength aspect thru which peace might be pursued.  Otherwise it is just rhetorical bluster from which only allies might have to fear any serious consequences.

Ahmad Sharawi | May 20, 2025

President Donald Trump with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and President of Syria Ahmed al-Sharaa during Donald Trump’s state visit to Saudi Arabia. (Photo by White House – Karoline Leavitt in X, Public Domain)

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Establishing peace in Ukraine demands addressing the longstanding historical injustice

Alexander G. Markovsky

The lodestar of President Donald J. Trump’s foreign policy, “America First,” is reminiscent of the concept of raison d’état —the national interests—originated by Cardinal Richelieu, which prioritizes practicality and national interests and has been the basis of international relations for the last three centuries. No president since Theodore Roosevelt has so comprehensively defined America’s position in global affairs through the lens of national interests as Donald Trump.

From the perspective of geopolitical realism, the United States stands nothing to gain, and has no constructive future in perpetuating the conflict in Ukraine.

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Peloni:  Jerusalem is the eternal capital of Israel, the ancient seat of the Jewish people, free, united, and strong, may it ever remain.

The term is not in the Torah because it is a modern political invention.

Moshe Phillips

Jom Jeruschalajim. (Photo by Hoheit, to commons uploaded Daniel.baranek 11:10, 6 May 2007 (UTC) – de-wiki, CC BY-SA 2.0 de)

Yom Yerushalayim, or Jerusalem Day, is observed this year from Sunday evening, May 25, through Monday night, May 26. It celebrates the 68th anniversary of the reunification of Judaism’s holiest city.

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By Victor Sharpe

Israel today is in a war of images with the Arab world. Sometimes these images are still or moving pictures, but more frequently they’re images painted by words.

Words have become the new battleground on which the legitimacy of Israel is contested before the eyes of the world. Logically, this ought to be good news for Jews who are by nature wordsmiths, having created the greatest book ever: the Bible. And yet it seems that around the world they are losing this war and I’d like to offer a few reasons for why this is so. However, I warn you that the truth is often not pretty.

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Peloni:  Europe would have Israel choose how it would prefer to see itself destroyed, by voluntary or imposed actions.  Bibi’s must continue to oppose the pressure being placed upon him to capitulate, no matter from where it stems.

Leaders threaten to recognize ‘Palestine,’ impose sanctions against Israel

All Israel News Staff | Published: May 20, 2025

Israel’s Foreign Policy Priorities, 3 November 2017 (Photo by Chatham House – Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister, State of Israel, CC BY 2.0)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued an unusually sharp rebuke on Monday evening after a statement by the leaders of the UK, France, and Canada, who threatened to recognize a Palestinian state and to issue sanctions if Israel didn’t stop the Gaza offensive and restore aid to the enclave.

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May 18:

Detailing the deranged malevolence of the utterly misinformed, smug and self-righteous sensationalist peddling a discredited 60 year-old conspiracy theory to profit from clickbait…

Peloni:  Mike Doran and Gadi Taub discuss the recent turmoil in the wake of Trump’s Gulf tour.  Mike makes the case that the manner in which Trump has been pursuing its America First policies has effectively undermined his own stated goals in pursuing this policy, eg making threats against the terrorists and Iran while failing to make good on those threats.  He also argues to consider that Trump’s team is still forming its agenda, and learning as they go, and that this past week was just a bad week which should not necessarily be taken to indicate Trump’s agenda.   He also argues that Trump wanted credible victories to herald from his first overseas trip, and that Israel had no such victories to hand him, suggesting that this should not be taken to indicate that Trump is no longer prioritizing Israel in his Middle East policies.  Notably, while Mike is entirely correct in suggesting Trump wanted tangible victories from this trip, he gave the Islamists a tangible victory in separating Israel from his deal with the Saudis, while growing closer to Qatar, and promoting the canard that Gazans are starving.   Are any of these actions likely to be revised in the coming weeks or months?  I would be happy to find the answer is yes, but I suspect the answer is actually no.  But of course we will see.

by Khaled Abu Toameh  •  Gatestone Institute  •  May 19, 2025

President Donald Trump’s visit to Qatar — Hamas’s major sponsor and funder — is seen by many Palestinians and Arabs as a victory for the Palestinian terror group. If Trump wants real peace and prosperity, he must, unfortunately, act against Iran and its terror proxies, and distance himself from jihadists and their sponsors, especially Qatar. Pictured: President Donald Trump participates in a receiving line with Amir of Qatar Sheikh Tamin bin Hamad Al Thani and his wife, Sheikha Jawaher, at an official State Dinner at Lusail Palace in Doha, Qatar, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (By The White House – Flickr, Public Domain)

• In the eyes of Iran and the Houthis, Trump’s separate peace deal that excluded Israel is a captivating green light to continue their attacks on “The Little Satan”, while obligingly halting their assaults on vessels in the Red Sea.

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Not all speech is protected under the First Amendment. Thus, for example, speech that is directed towards inciting or producing lawless action and is likely to do so is not protected speech, even if both Left and Right use it.

Leonard Grunstein | May 20, 2025

United States Supreme Court Building at dusk in Washington, D.C (Photo by Joe Ravi, CC BY-SA 3.0)

There have been many documented links between leaders of the far left and far right over the years.

Historically, there was the Hitler-Stalin pact that divided up Poland. Some of the more modern iterations include flirtations between Elijah Muhammad of the Nation of Islam and George Lincoln Rockwell of the Nazi party, as well as Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam and Tom Metzger of the KKK. Then there is the phenomenon of extremists like David Duke of the KKK, Farrakhan and their ilk sharing each other’s poisonous antisemitic views.

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