U.S. Military Objectives in a New Iran Strike - Ron Ben-Yishai (Ynet News)
    U.S. and Israeli forces could be ready within days to launch major strikes against Iran in an operation intended to be short, lasting only a few days, but highly intensive.
    CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper presented President Trump on Thursday with operational options that he and his staff developed jointly with the Israel Defense Forces.
    There is a strong likelihood the IDF would be a full partner in any American strike.
    Trump wants to use a military strike to bring Iran to compromise on U.S. demands concerning its military nuclear program and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to international shipping.
    The strike is intended to weaken the Iranian regime and the Revolutionary Guards. If they still refused, the continuing economic blockade would leave the regime considerably weaker and more vulnerable internally.
    The U.S. military objectives include preventing Iran from attacking vessels sailing through the Strait of Hormuz.
    The Iranians have begun using speedboats to magnetically attach small naval mines to the hulls of ships that U.S. forces are escorting. The mines do not necessarily sink the vessels but can damage and disable them.
    Another objective is to strike Iran's ballistic missile and drone production and launch capabilities on a large scale to prevent Iran from attacking American forces and allies.
    An additional objective is to inflict more extensive damage on Iran's nuclear facilities, preventing it from resuming uranium enrichment and nuclear warhead development for many years.
    The Americans and Israelis would likely seek to disable the tunnels at Pickaxe Mountain and bury the uranium enriched to 60% even deeper underground.
    That material is located at Isfahan, Fordow, and an underground facility near Natanz. Other secret nuclear facilities recently uncovered by intelligence agencies would also be targeted.

U.S. Reinforcing Its Mideast Allies - Aaron Glick (Jerusalem Post)
    Ten U.S. Air Force transport aircraft carrying military equipment arrived at air force bases in Israel as part of a larger Middle East air convoy, Israel's Channel 11 reported Thursday.
    Other U.S. aircraft landed in Jordan, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.
    See also U.S. Military Movements Don't Signal a Decision to Strike - Elisha Ben Kimon (Ynet News)

Hizbullah Unlikely to Join Renewed War unless Iran Faces Existential Threat - Vanessa Ghanem (The National-UAE)
    Hizbullah is unlikely to join a renewed war between the U.S. and Iran unless Tehran's leadership faces an existential threat, a senior Lebanese official has told The National.

Islamic Warfare and the October 7th Massacre: An Ancient Doctrine Marches On - Dr. Harold Rhode (Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs)
    Hamas's Oct. 7 massacre manifested the Islamic categorization of territory into the House of Islam and the House of War, and the imperative of reconquering formerly Muslim-controlled territory.
    Hamas also murdered fellow Muslims that day whom they considered traitors to Islam.
    Today's Islamic civilization seeks to eventually subjugate and Islamize non-Muslim societies through any means possible, among which are mass immigration, information warfare, and the spreading of Islam in the educational and cultural spheres.
    Western governments and officials who relentlessly seek permanent peaceful solutions with Muslim-majority countries do so at their peril.
    Westerners continue to ignore the fact that the values and objectives of Islam differ from those of the West. Muslims understand the Western concept of compromise as a form of defeat.
    The writer, a fellow of the Jerusalem Center, served as an adviser on the Islamic world for the U.S. Department of Defense for 28 years.

Israeli-Chartered Cargo Ship Sinks in Black Sea after Drone Attack - Hayley Cregor (Jewish Chronicle-UK)
    The Liberian-flagged Contship Jet, operating under charter to Israeli shipping company ZIM, has sunk in the Black Sea after being struck by three maritime drones while traveling from Haifa to Romania on Oct. 28.
    All 18 crew members, 14 Filipinos and four Ukrainians, were rescued unharmed, but all 421 containers aboard were lost.

Why My Anti-Zionism Didn't Survive a Houthi Missile - Taryn Thomas (Times of Israel)
    "On the ground. Now." I dropped. Face down on the stones near a Ramle market, hands locked behind my neck. Somewhere above me, a piece of technology was trying to intercept a missile from Yemen.
    I had spent two years calling for the divestment of the very system I was now praying would work. The missile had not read my posts.
    13 days after Oct. 7, Israel hadn't launched its ground invasion, yet somehow, Stanford students had become genocide scholars overnight. And I was one of them.
    Only one question mattered: Were you against genocide or not? Nothing recruits faster than the promise of being on the right side of history.
    I was marching for a Palestinian state. The one time I mentioned two states, my new friends from the campus encampment corrected me, gently, the way you correct someone embarrassing themselves: believing Israel should exist made me a Zionist. A slur. Next day, I was an anti-Zionist.
    Months later, someone sent me an email about an exhibit in LA about the Nova Music Festival massacre. I decided to go. Somebody had to fact-check it. I stayed longer than I meant to. I realized I was fluent in the state's sins but illiterate in its people. So I went to meet them.
    In Ramle, all I could think was: will it hit, will it hit, will it hit? I turned my head and saw it: a thin white line climbing to meet another one.
    Ramle has mosques and synagogues a few streets apart. Whoever fired it was aiming at both. Then the interception. The boom.
    Then everyone just kept walking. The marketplace reopened almost immediately.