Peloni: Rabbi Pesach Wolicki reviews remarks made by Victor David Hanson’s description comparing US allies in Europe with Israel. More importantly, however, is Rabbi Wolicki’s insightful reflection on the relevance of what is described as US aid to Israel in comparison to US Defense spending spent on the creation and development of bases in the surrounding Arab nation.
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Peloni: Another insightful, informative and engaging conversation with JPC’s Shoshana Bryen. This time it is with David M. Weinberg, senior fellow at the Misgav Institute for National Security & Zionist Strategy. Among the topics discussed is the toll of the war on Israeli society, the evolving political changes in the region and the possible end points of the war amid Pres. Trump’s longtime opposition for the Iranian regime. He also addresses the potential for ground forces securing the nuclear sites as they have yet to become targets of largescale aerial assaults thus far.
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By Sha’i ben-Tekoa
Iranian missile strike in Beit Shemesh. Screengrab via Youtube
On Sunday, 1 March in Bet Shemesh, a missile built and launched in Iran by the gentiles there crashed down not on an enemy’s military camp or installation but randomly in a residential area, slamming into a synagogue with an air raid shelter built beneath it. The synagogue was destroyed and 9 of the 30 Jews within the shelter were murdered.
Peloni: Must read article
By Joan Swirsky
In the 1960s, the Russian KGB and Yasir Arafat literally invented the entire concept––or should I say fiction––of a “Palestinian people,” you know, those perpetual “victims” who have received billions —more likely trillions — in “aid” from the world’s bleeding hearts, but after over 50 years, have become famous for a few things only:
Federal Security Grants are Blocked by DHS Funds cutoff
Temple Israel has great security and we should all be grateful that its armed security guards were able to neutralize the armed intruder who crashed his explosives-filled vehicle into the synagogue. The guards saved many lives, especially children attending a preschool in the synagogue, the location of the attack.
Too many times churches and synagogues make excuses for not having security. Some are ideological: we don’t want armed guards or guns near our religious place. Others are willing to have guards but not with guns (consider what that would have meant for Temple Israel with over 140 lives at risk). Some are financial: we don’t have money to put in security. Some are denial: it will never happen to us.
Peloni: There is a particular foulness about Patinkin having chosen to voice his support for Mamdani, a modern day promoter of the Jew Hatred, during the very celebration which marked the defeat of those who sought the annihilation of our ancestors during the age of the Maccabees.
How Mandy Patinkin helped whitewash Zohran Mamdani’s Anti Jewish Ideology with a Hanukkah cameo
Michel Benchimol
![Mandy Patinkin at the premiere of Life Itself, 2018 Toronto Film Festival. Photo bBy GabboT - Life Itself 05, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=73121898 [Cropped]](https://www.israpundit.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Screenshot-2026-03-13-113742.png)
Mandy Patinkin at the premiere of Life Itself, 2018 Toronto Film Festival. Photo by GabboT – Life Itself 05, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikipedia [Cropped]
Mandy Patinkin’s Hanukkah Cameo For Zohran Mamdani Is A Moral Collapse
Mandy Patinkin has spent a lifetime as one of the most visible Jewish figures in American culture, trading on stories of Holocaust trauma, Jewish conscience, and the moral obligations that come with them.
Western sources, always careful not to offend, describe Ramadan as “a month of intense spiritual renewal, focused on devotion,” while Islamic clerics offer a completely opposite directive.
Am Thinker | March 13, 2026
Western sources, always careful not to offend, describe Ramadan as “a month of intense spiritual renewal, focused on devotion.” In contrast, Islamic sources and clerics instruct devout Muslims to view it as a time for jihad, conquest, and martyrdom. This message is spread by madrasas (religious schools), school systems in Muslim countries, and mosques worldwide.
Peloni: Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger provides an important update on Israel’s commanding Jewish demography. Very good news.
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger | “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative” | March 13, 2026
Here’s how demography is fueling Israel’s future!
*The number of annual Jewish births in Israel surged by 74% from 1995 (80,400) to 2025 (139,676), compared to a 21% increase of annual Arab births in Israel during the same period (from 36,500 to 44,029), as reported by the February 2026Monthly Bulletin of Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS).
*The2025 Jewish births (139,676) were 76% of total births (183,705), compared to 69% in 1995.
| Published: March 13, 2026
18:22 – WATCH: “Cleared, 10 seconds, Alpha”: Israeli Air Force strikes missile launcher
The IDF published footage of an Israeli Air Force fighter pilot and combat navigator dismantling a missile launcher belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organization yesterday in southern Lebanon.
“Listen to these female IAF combat navigator and fighter pilots as they coordinate a strike on a Hezbollah missile launcher in southern Lebanon. That’s teamwork,” commented Lt.-Col. Nadav Shoshani, the IDF’s International Spokesman.
Peloni: The status of the Strait of Hormuz is an vital and credible threat to any prolonged US campaign in Iran.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is repeating history. Including its own mistakes.
Behnam Ben Taleblu
This week Iran claimed to have formally closed the Strait of Hormuz, the 21-mile-wide chokepoint through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil flows every single day. Three more ships – the Thai-flagged Mayuree Naree, the Japanese ONE Majesty, and the Marshall Islands-flagged Star Gwyneth – were struck by “unknown projectiles,” which is almost certainly reporter-speak for Iranian missiles and drones on Wednesday. This brings the total number of vessels attacked since February 28 to at least 14.
Welcome back to the Persian Gulf, circa 1987. Back then, Iran targeted tankers carrying oil from countries supplying Saddam’s Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War, forcing the Reagan Administration to escort re-flagged Kuwaiti vessels under U.S. Navy protection — a confrontation that ended with American warships sinking a significant chunk of Iran’s fleet in a single day.
Another 2 last week. Total of 4 attacks this month.
by | Mar 13, 2026
Temple Israel Synogogue. Screengrab via X
This sort of thing is a milestone. We’ve had 3 Islamic terrorist attacks in two weeks and 2 in 1 day alone.
So far we’ve had 4 Islamic terrorist attacks in America in March.
New diplomatic ties could strengthen regional security cooperation and enhance monitoring of threats near the Gulf of Aden.
Israfan | Mar 13, 2026
Screengrab via X
Israel has carried out another precision strike against infrastructure tied to Iran’s nuclear weapons development program, targeting a sensitive facility near Tehran as part of ongoing operations aimed at weakening the regime’s strategic capabilities.
For years, Iranian-backed militias and terror groups attacked countries, and Iran carried out attacks directly, but the regime never seemed to face any censure.
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN |
United Nations Security Council 6. Photo by The White House – https://www.flickr.com/photos/202101414@N05/55128178997/, Public Domain, Wikipedia
The UN Security Council on Wednesday voted in favor of a resolution condemning Iran. This is highly unusual for Tehran. Previously, Iran’s regime has been able to spread havoc all over the Middle East, and around the world, without facing consequences.
By: Fern Sidman | TJV | Mar 12, 2026
A growing diplomatic controversy between Israel and Spain has sparked an unexpected backlash among Jewish advocacy organizations in the United States, with one prominent pro-Israel group now urging American Jews to cancel travel plans to Spain in protest of Madrid’s decision to permanently withdraw its ambassador from Israel.
Peloni: Opening statement [auto-dubbed] at the top, with full press conference at the bottom [subtitled]
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Peloni: More on the Spy Affair, but this is still not the full story.
Yossi Baum | X | Jan 22, 2026
Translation by Peloni
Mandatory reading: There is a huge effort to silence the spy affair. And not just from the left. I’ll simply present the facts, and the public can judge. It will be shocking.
1. On October 8, as part of the critical intelligence Shmuelevitz obtained, he knew the suspected location of Sinwar, later also the locations of hostages. He passed the information on (later we’ll try to understand — to whom), and according to the claims, he “burned” the information, causing the cancellation of operational plans prepared for hostage rescue and for the elimination of Sinwar.*
Peloni: It seems that Rabbi Herzog’s recent warning about Mojtaba’s incapacitation if not death is being supported by nothing less significant than Iranian’s regime’s choice to promote this cardboard replacement for the latest Supreme Leader.
By
Iran’s supreme leaders used to be made of stronger stuff.
Screenshot
With so much AI material circulating nowadays, it was easy to assume that the photos were fake, but they apparently were real. Only Mojtaba Khamenei, the new head of Iran’s Islamic regime, was slightly less than real. Photos began circulating Tuesday of Iranians straight-facedly presenting a large cardboard cutout of Mojtaba at a ceremony celebrating his appointment as the country’s supreme leader.
Peloni: This should be read as Netanyahu hedging his bets as Trump looks for the IRGC to take over in Iran. This is a colossal mistake for Israel, the region, America and the world…and the Iranian people who just recently saw 30-50K of their friends and neighbors murdered after being so badly betrayed when Trump called for them to protest and gave them no support. Then again, perhaps there is no real fight left in the Iranian people, but I would argue against this being true.
By | Mar 11, 2026
Israeli tank and soldiers of Operation Defensive Shield, in Nablus, Israel Defense Forces, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0
The IDF has now said that Israel’s goal was never to change the regime in Tehran itself, but to so weaken the regime’s power to repress its citizens as to create the conditions for the Iranians themselves to change the regime. There is a difference. More on Israel’s goal can be found here: “Senior Israeli defense sources: Iran regime change not military goal, creating conditions for it is,” by Yonah Jeremy Bob, Jerusalem Post, March 11, 2026:
Peloni: In an important article, Daniel Winston argues that the routine responses to antisemitism fail to be effective because they treat antisemitism as if it were based upon simple misapprehension or a PR problem, rather than being the consequence of a deeply rooted hatred. Winston explains that antisemitism is not about ignorance but is instead a consequence of psychological and social functions which act like group identity, scapegoating and moral simplification. Hence, simply informing people won’t succeed in stopping it.
Winston explains that mainstream efforts to combat antisemitism often feel like symbolic theater which are not without purpose but fail to address the issue of the fact that describing hatred being weaponized against the Jews does not eliminate the threat from those who instinctively and actively hate the Jews. And so the threat against the Jews persists despite the animated attempts to explain away the hatred held by those who are not swayed by such explanations. Instead, Jewish communities and institutions need physical security (guards, vetted access, protective measures), law enforcement readiness, serious policing, and clear consequences for violent or hateful acts. Education and history matter, but they are not sufficient by themselves to stem the hatred against the Jews.
Update: The vehicle involved in attack on Temple Israel Synagogue is reported to be registered to naturalized U.S. citizen from Lebanon now residing in Dearborn, Michigan.
Peloni: The largest Reform Synagogue in all of North America attacked with gunfire and ramming by truck filled with explosive devices. See additional coverage below Daily Caller article.
Temple Israel Synagogue. Screengrab via X
A man armed with weapons was shot and killed by security officers at a Michigan synagogue on Thursday after ramming his explosives-laden truck through the front doors.
