Walter E. Block and Oded J.K. Faran
Photo by Oleg Yunakov – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikipedia
On October 13th, 2025, 21 Tishrei 5786, during the festival of Sukkot, after 738 agonizing days in captivity, 20 living hostages were returned to Israeli soil. In Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, hundreds of thousands gathered. Across the country, traffic halted. Strangers embraced. A Monday morning transformed into something resembling a national holiday celebrating life itself.
Peloni: Rabbi Goldfeder, who is founder and director of National Jewish Advocacy Center and a professor at Touro Law School, explains that despite concerns surrounding NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s response to antisemitic incidents in NYC, the NY City’s Jewish community has strong legal protections in place to deal with Mamdani’s support of antisemitism.
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Peloni: Channel 12 reports that Israeli forces in Gaza have discovered official Hamas documents indicating extensive planning for multiple attacks on Israeli towns in Judea and Samaria along the seam line border. The documents show detailed planning for a potential October 7-style invasion of Jewish communities, though specific targets weren’t identified. Following the discovery of these documents, Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered the IDF’s Central Command to prepare operational plans to seize and hold additional refugee camps in Samaria, similar to operations in Tulkarem, Jenin, and Nur Shams, aiming for permanent occupation rather than temporary incursions. The IDF confirmed it takes the threat seriously, conducting a major drill two months ago and implementing lessons from October 7 through ongoing situational assessments and approved reference scenarios practiced across multiple exercises.
Peloni: The criticism in this article is fairly stated, but what goes unexplained here is that it is remotely possible for the US to bring down the regime in Tehran thru airstrikes alone. It will take public support, massive regime authority defections, alongside the external force brought to bear against the regime. The US can only effect one of these cornerstones of regime change and without the other two in place, very little will likely change in Iran. This is likely why Trump provided himself with a potential side plot in calling for a “change in leadership” in Iran, something which is likewise being echoed by Sen. Cruz. The change in leadership is not remotely the same as regime change, and only calls for a different head on the snake which will keep the long established oppressive regime in power over the Iranian people. Hence, while Trump has a promise to fulfill to the Iranian people, it is truly only in the hands of the Iranians themselves to choose regime change over a change in leadership, and it will require a union of both the general public and regime authority figures. Without this domestic Iranian coalition, a change in leadership is likely all that we will see in Iran.
by Pierre Rehov • Gatestone Institute • January 18, 2026
Peloni: Since this report was posted, the Kurds have effectively surrendered, signing an agreement with the Syrian govt which requires the vacating of Kurdish forces to the far side of the Euphrates while committing to the individual recruitment of Kurdish members into the Syrian armed forces. So the largest force capable of facing the threat to the Syrian minorities in Syria has been overcome, making the Turkish allied threat to the remaining Syrian minorities and Israel all the more significant and all the more threatening.
Ahmad Sharawi |Jan 16, 2025
Flag of Syrian Democratic Forces. Image by TentingZones1, Public Domain, Wikipedia
In the wake of intense fighting between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Syrian government forces, SDF commander Mazloum Abdi ordered the withdrawal of his personnel from contested areas of Aleppo province.
Peloni: Mark’s comments here denote the sense of moral, political, and ideological outrage which leaves Trump with no alternative but to respond to the slaughter in Iran. I previously mentioned the similarity of this moment with that Tank Man’s silent protest just before being whisked away following the slaughter in Militiamen Square back in 1989. The question of an American response is not if it will come, but when it will come, and what scale the response will entail. Will it be significant enough to draw the Iranians towards securing their own future, or will it simply be a symbolic formative gesture, used to excuse the final abandonment of the Iranian masses to the clutches of their Mullah overlords. The Abraham Lincoln is about 5 days from the Middle Eastern theater, so nothing will take place before that point.
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Update: After Israel’s objections to the rogue gallery of Islamists being on Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’, Netanyahu has been extended an invitation to sit alongside his adversaries on this board.
By Paul Schnee |
If Netanyahu was not informed, then it is an enormous insult not only to Israel but also to the men & women of the IDF whose sacrifices made these talks and arrangements a possibility.
Turkey’s president, the determined Islamist Recep Erdogan, will be undermining Israel and DT’s 20-point peace plan while the Qataris will continue to play arsonist and firefighter depending on their perceived interests. Together, Kushner, Witkoff and Vance are no match for Arab Palestinian duplicity or the treachery of Qatar and Turkey. Unlike the Israelis they don’t really understand with whom they are dealing or the nature of the beast. It’s tragic.
Peloni: The reports of the use of foreign fighters to put down the protests began several days before the crackdown.
It’s possible Iran has used foreign groups to suppress protesters. Because they are foreigners, they have no allegiance to average Iranians and likely don’t mind harming them.
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN |
New accounts from Iran appear to increasingly indicate that Iranian-backed militias in Iraq may be helping Iran’s regime suppress protests in Iran.
In the past, these groups, called Hashd al-Shaabi or Popular Mobilization Forces, have suppressed protests in Iran.
In past years, there have also been claims that Iraqi militias entered Iran to help the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) suppress protests.
IDF warns that Qatari money could again fund rehabilitation of Hamas terror infrastructure
U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday announced the members of the Board of Peace, which is intended to oversee efforts to rebuild the Gaza Strip. He also announced an interim body, the Gaza Executive Board, which will operate between the Board of Peace and the Palestinian technocrat committee.
The new board includes representatives from Turkey and Qatar, particularly Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, and Qatari diplomat Ali Al-Thawadi.
By Amil Imani | Jan 18, 2025
Screengrab via X
The current uprising in Iran is no longer a cycle of episodic unrest; it is a structural rupture. As of January 2026, the Iranian security apparatus – comprising the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Basij, and FARAJA – has effectively moved from “crowd control” to “urban warfare.” The regime’s survival now rests entirely on a “death grip” maintained through a centralized surveillance architecture and physical hubs of command and control.
by Gerald A. Honigman
Since President Trump encouraged Iranians to rise up against their oppressive government, upwards of 12,000 innocent people have been murdered by the mullahs and their military.
Many observers have a serious problem with this.
Don’t encourage people to risk their lives, with the hope that America will actually intervene bigtime if you’re not serious about the promise. I’ll return to this in an important link below in which the legendary Pulitzer Prize winning syndicated columnist, William Safire, wrote a series of articles related to the “Sellout of the Kurds” decades ago.
Arlene Kushner | January 17, 2026
X
When Shabbat ended, I had intended to write about what is happening with Iran – and I will come back to that. But the news that has broken with regard to what Trump is doing in Gaza is duplicitous and infuriating.
NEW ?
Israel said the Gaza Executive Board announcement was not coordinated and contradicts its policy.
Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed the foreign minister to raise the matter directly with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
(I’m sure having Turkey, a state sponsor of… pic.twitter.com/5OhnwClFN9
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) January 17, 2026
Text: Read more…
by | Jan 16, 2025
Screengrab via X
When the Iranian people rose up against their oppressors in 2009, Barack Obama looked the other way. When the Iranian people rose up against their oppressors in 2022, Old Joe Biden sent their oppressors billions of dollars. But Donald Trump was different.
Peloni: Time will tell to what degree Iran has been betrayed. To be certain, the protestors have paid a terrible price for any victory which might come in the coming hours, days, weeks or months. It is difficult to grasp the horror and sacrifice they have made in the past days. Hopefully it will not have been made in vain.
Peloni: The mistake of having placed the oversight of Gaza into the hands of an international hive mind has just been made worse by the inclusion of the notoriously antisemitic Mark Carney whose support of a non-existent Palestinian state and false claims of Gazan genocide are only balanced by his support for ICC arrest warrants of Israel’s PM and its former Defense Minister. His failure to address Islamic extremism has led to an unprecedented rise in antisemitism at home which have only been bolstered by his own efforts to undermine and deligitimize Israel from abroad. Yet, this is the character of a man that Trump has chosen to join those who will be overseeing the governance in Gaza???
Mark Carney’s acceptance of a role on a proposed Gaza body underscores the risks of moral equivalence and premature diplomacy.
Ron East | The J.ca | Jan 17, 2025
By The White House – Flickr, Public Domain, Wikipedia
WINNIPEG — U.S. President Donald Trump’s reported invitation to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to join a proposed Gaza “Board of Peace,” and Carney’s acceptance of that role, has triggered deep concern among pro-Israel observers and security experts. At a time when Israel remains engaged in an existential struggle following the October 7 Hamas massacre, the move risks projecting an image of moral equivalence and diplomatic impatience that history has shown to be both naïve and dangerous.
Trump, after being read a series of hostile X posts from Iran’s supreme leader, said the ayatollah is guilty of “the complete destruction of his country.”
By Sophia Cai | Politico | Jan 17, 2025
President Donald Trump on Saturday called for an end to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s 37-year reign.
“It’s time to look for new leadership in Iran,” Trump told POLITICO, as widespread protests calling for an end to the regime appear to have waned.
The Blue State Hegemony and the Systematic Siphoning of America
By Amil Imani | News With Views | January 13th, 2026
The American political landscape is not shifting by accident; it is being terraformed. While mainstream media pundits discuss “swing voters” and “campaign strategies,” a much more calculated and cold-blooded operation is underway. Every major Blue State stronghold – from the decaying urban cores of the Northeast to the Pacific coast – has secured a permanent Democratic hegemony through a two-pronged assault: the strategic importation of millions of foreigners and the systematic siphoning of billions in taxpayer wealth to fund them.
Mudar Zahran
JORDAN’S “KING” THINKS HE CAN OUTSMART TRUMP AND SAVE THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD. HERE’S HOW WASHINGTON CAN STRAIGHTEN HIM OUT AND CRUSH JORDAN’S MOST DANGEROUS MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD CHAPTER…
@realDonaldTrump @POTUS @marcorubio @StateDept @USTreasury @secome @Sec_Noem
