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In-Depth Issues:
Israeli Officials Warn Iran Could Rebuild Missile Arsenal within Months - Dudi Kogan ( Israel Hayom)
An Israeli source told CNN that Jerusalem remains skeptical about the chances of the emerging U.S.-Iran talks but is working to ensure its interests are safeguarded, including preserving Israel's freedom of military action under any future agreement.
"Israel is concerned about Iran's progress in restoring its ballistic missile stockpiles and capabilities to their pre-12-day war levels," an official said.
Iron Dome Air Defense System Implementing Lessons Learned during Iran War - Yoav Zitun ( Ynet News)
As the U.S. military continues to amass forces in the Persian Gulf and across the Middle East, the Israeli Air Force remains on high alert across all air defense layers.
Major N., a battery commander in an Iron Dome battalion, told Ynet, "The current versions of Iron Dome are not what they were during Operation Rising Lion [the June 2025 conflict with Iran]. In this arms race with Iran, we've changed quite a bit in recent months through the constant implementation of many lessons learned."
Hamas Facing Financial Crisis - Einav Halabi ( Ynet News)
According to local reports, Hamas is grappling with an unprecedented financial crisis due to a dramatic reduction in funding sources, disruptions to money transfer routes, tighter international oversight, and the devastating impact of the prolonged war on Gaza's economy.
Some Hamas operatives have not been receiving salaries regularly and, at times, have not been paid at all.
Iranian Diplomats Ferry Millions in Cash to Hizbullah - Mojtaba Pourmohsen ( Iran International)
Senior Iranian diplomats transported large amounts of cash to Beirut in recent months, using diplomatic passports to move funds to Hizbullah.
At least six Iranian diplomats carried suitcases filled with U.S. dollars on commercial flights to Lebanon.
Those involved include Mohammad Ebrahim Taherianfard, a former ambassador to Turkey; Mohammad Reza Shirkhodaei, former consul general in Pakistan; his brother Hamidreza Shirkhodaei; Reza Nedaei; Abbas Asgari; and Amir-Hamzeh Shiranirad, a former Iranian embassy employee in Canada.
Taherianfard traveled to Beirut in January alongside Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, carrying a suitcase filled with dollars.
Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, traveled to Beirut in October and carried hundreds of millions of dollars in cash.
Follow the Jerusalem Center on:
Israel Refutes NGO Claims of Impending Water Crisis in Gaza ( TPS-Jerusalem Post)
The NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF) released a video claiming that if it's forced to cease activities in Gaza, then "hundreds of thousands of people will lose access to drinking water."
The Israel Defense Ministry's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) responded: "There is no need to manufacture fake crises that do not exist."
"Gaza is receiving enough water, well above the humanitarian threshold, and adequate medical care, and will continue to do so in the future, even without your involvement."
"Attempts to disseminate false claims, fake positioning yourself as a crucial organization instead of engaging with a transparent and fair registration mechanism, only shows how your organization is driven by political motives rather than genuine humanitarian work."
Human Rights Watch's Frankenstein Moment - Danielle Haas ( Times of Israel)
Human Rights Watch has long tolerated - even rewarded - toxic behavior, flexible limits, and negotiable standards when they advanced approved narratives. I saw those habits take hold firsthand.
In 2019 and 2021, I raised concerns with multiple senior staff members about what I saw as a growing "lack of proportionality, context, and balance" in work.
I warned that internal discourse was drifting away from HRW's stated values and that published work "in structure, content, and tone does not meet basic standards of balance and professionalism."
The writer was senior editor at Human Rights Watch from 2009 to 2023.
Why I'm Optimistic about the Jewish Future - Natan Sharansky interviewed by Mathilda Heller ( Jerusalem Post)
"Jewish children have to be reminded how much strength the Jewish people have; you will not find anything like the story of the Jewish people," Natan Sharansky, who served 9 years in a Soviet prison, told the Jerusalem Post on Monday.
After the Six-Day War, when Jews in the Soviet Union began to connect to Israel and learn about their identity, "You discover that there is a great history that you want to be a part of. There are great people, there is a great country."
"Then, there suddenly appear values in your life which are bigger than survival, than political career, professional career, and then you have enough strength to say publicly that you want to go to Israel; that you want to be Jewish."
While working as Israel's interior minister, he realized that the "Free World" was not as free as he thought.
"In 2003, I had my trip as a minister of Israel to certain different universities; it was the time of the Second Intifada. I discovered that there are more and more Jews in the best universities in America - at Harvard, in Columbia, in Berkeley - who want very much to express their solidarity with Israel, but they're afraid that it will condemn their careers."
Sharansky then wrote an article published in Maariv called "Traveling to Occupied Territory," referring to the American universities.
This was "the most important battle for the future of the Jewish people, because our survival depends on whether we have a proud, strong Jewish identity."
"I believe that our history, our very tragic history, is very optimistic. You will not find anything like this. Not in terms of survival of a people, not in terms of rebuilding after thousands of years and gathering in exiles and rebuilding the state. So yes, I am optimistic."
Search the Recent History of Israel and the Middle East
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
- Netanyahu Meets Trump in Washington - Aaron Boxerman
President Trump said he told Prime Minister Netanyahu on Wednesday that he "insisted that negotiations with Iran continue" over a possible deal over the country's nuclear program. While Trump has mostly emphasized that Iran must agree to "no nuclear weapons," Israel is also concerned about Iran's stockpiles of ballistic missiles. Following the meeting, Netanyahu said he had "emphasized Israel's security needs in the context of the negotiations." (New York Times)
See also In the Wake of the Netanyahu-Trump Meeting - Ariel Kahana
Based on the administration's public and leaked messages, the recurring conclusion is that U.S. action against the Islamic Republic of Iran is not a question of if, but when. A diplomatic agreement between the two countries appears impossible.
The Iranians are spoiling for confrontation. During rallies in Tehran marking the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, demonstrators symbolically threw Trump's messages into the trash, displayed coffins representing senior American generals, and signaled an unwillingness to compromise on the issues Trump and his team insist must be addressed. "We have to deal with the missiles and everything else," Trump told Fox News. For the regime, however, those subjects are nonstarters.
One knowledgeable Western diplomat said the meeting marked Netanyahu's seventh encounter with Trump since January 2025 and amounted to another session of a "war council." (Israel Hayom)
- U.S. Forces Withdraw from Syria's Al-Tanf Base
U.S. forces have withdrawn to Jordan from the Al-Tanf base in southeastern Syria near the borders with Jordan and Iraq, where they had been deployed as part of the international coalition against ISIS, Syrian military sources said Wednesday.
Syrian forces were deployed to replace them. U.S. troops in Syria are mainly now based at the Qasrak base in Hasakeh in the Kurdish northeast.
(AFP-Al Arabiya)
- France Condemns UN Rapporteur over Remarks on Israel
French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noel Barrot responded Wednesday to comments by the UN special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories on Saturday in Doha which referred to Israel as a "common enemy" that enabled "genocide" in Gaza.
"France unreservedly condemns the outrageous and reprehensible remarks made by Francesca Albanese, which are directed not at the Israeli government, whose policies may be criticized, but at Israel as a people and as a nation, which is absolutely unacceptable," he said.
Barrot said Albanese's comments added "to a long list of scandalous positions," accusing her of "justifying" the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks against Israel and "comparing Israel to the Third Reich. She is a political activist who stirs up hate speech that does a disservice to the cause of the Palestinian people."
(AFP-Le Monde-France)
- Former Miss California Ousted from White House Commission following Antisemitic Claims - Grace Gilson
"Carrie Prejean Boller has been removed from President Trump's Religious Liberty Commission. No member of the Commission has the right to hijack a hearing for their own personal and political agenda on any issue," said Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, chair of the commission established by President Donald Trump last year.
At a hearing on antisemitism in America, Prejean Boller, who wore a pin depicting the American and Palestinian flags, argued that anti-Zionism is not antisemitic and said her Catholic faith prohibits her from supporting Israel. She said later that Patrick's actions "reflect a Zionist political agenda." (JTA-AP)
See also A White House Commissioner Assails "Zionist Supremacy" -
Editorial
At a hearing of the White House Religious Liberty Commission on Monday, Commissioner Carrie Prejean Boller, who converted to Catholicism in April, lectured witnesses, including a priest, as well as fellow Catholic commissioners, on their faith. She said her Catholic faith precludes her from supporting Zionism and tells her the Jews killed Jesus.
However, the Catholic Church itself condemns the use, in discussions of Israel, of Christ-killer and blood-libel imagery.
Zionism entails no theological commitment, only an acceptance of the Jewish state, an established fact. To try to undo that now is dorm-room theorizing that would deliver half the world's Jews into the hands of the death squads of Oct. 7, 2023.
(Wall Street Journal)
News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
- Iran Secretly Executed Thousands despite Promise to U.S. - Danny Zaken
During the first weeks of January, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and President Masoud Pezeshkian pledged that there would be no executions, and President Trump presented this as an achievement on Jan. 14 that led to postponing the decision to launch a strike. "We were told that the killing in Iran has stopped and there is no plan for executions...that's what I was told based on reliable authority."
However, according to information that reached intelligence agencies in the West, including the Mossad and the British and German agencies, the executions continued but efforts were made to conceal them. Instead of hanging protesters in city squares, they were shot or strangled in custody. This resulted in thousands of executions, separate from the tens of thousands killed during the dispersal of protests. The West is continuously receiving reports about the ongoing suppression of protests and demonstrations breaking out in rural cities, and about mass arrests.
During a preliminary round of talks last Friday in Oman, the Americans discovered that Araghchi had not been authorized to discuss issues other than the nuclear one, and that even on this, the Iranian position was hardening. The Americans conditioned the continuation of talks on bringing all issues to the table, but so far, Iran has not agreed to this. Diplomatic sources say the refusal of hawkish leaders in Iran to discuss any other issues greatly diminishes the chance of resuming talks and increases the likelihood of extensive American action against the regime.
Most countries in the region have announced they will not allow the Americans to attack Iran from their territory, but if convinced, they might participate in defensive operations. In June 2025, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and Jordan participated in intercepting missiles and drones launched from Iran toward Israel. (Israel Hayom)
- U.S. Official Says Hamas Disarmament Plan Moving Ahead - Itamar Eichner
Efforts to dismantle Hamas's military capabilities in Gaza are progressing according to plan, a senior official involved in President Trump's Board of Peace initiative said Wednesday. The official said the focus now is on finalizing the details of Hamas's disarmament, with the process set to begin in March.
Addressing a report by the New York Times that the U.S. is considering allowing Hamas to retain light weapons, the official said disarmament would proceed in stages and that small arms would be the last category addressed.
According to the official, the process would begin with the dismantling of tunnels, followed by weapons manufacturing facilities, then rocket-propelled grenades and mortars, and finally small arms.
(Ynet News)
See also below Observations: U.S. Rejects British Pleas to Allow Hamas to Keep Weapons - Melanie Swan (Telegraph-UK)
- IDF Readying New Gaza Offensive to Disarm Hamas by Force - Emanuel Fabian
Four months into the Gaza ceasefire, the Israeli military is drawing up plans for a renewed offensive to disarm Hamas by force. The U.S.-brokered ceasefire plan reached in October foresees the disarmament of Hamas. However, Israeli officials increasingly believing that stripping Hamas of its weapons will be impossible without the Israel Defense Forces taking action.
Should hostilities renew, fighting is liable to be more intense and widespread, since Israeli forces will no longer be constrained by the presence of hostages in Gaza. Until Hamas disarms, Israel is not expected to withdraw its troops from Gaza or approve any rebuilding efforts.
On Monday, IDF commanders in Gaza said Hamas was continuing to test Israeli forces by sending operatives across the ceasefire line to attack troops. Since the start of the ceasefire, the IDF has killed dozens of terror operatives who have crossed the Yellow Line and approached troops on a near-daily basis.
(Times of Israel)
- IDF Captures Senior Muslim Brotherhood Official in Lebanon - Emanuel Fabian
The IDF announced Monday the capture of Atwi Atwi, a high-ranking operative of al-Jamaa al-Islamiya - part of the Muslim Brotherhood. The group cooperates closely with Hizbullah and Hamas. It maintains military sites in southern Lebanon and infrastructure along the Syria-Lebanon border and in southern Syria.
(Times of Israel)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:
Palestinian Arabs
- Hamas and Fatah: Different Paths, Same Destination - Sagiv Steinberg
In January 2026, Rawhi Fattouh, chairman of the Palestinian National Council, presented an honorary shield to the outgoing Chinese ambassador to the Palestinian Authority. On the shield appeared a map of a single "Palestine" encompassing all of the State of Israel, alongside an embroidered "key of return" - the symbol of the demand for millions of Palestinians to return to cities and towns within sovereign Israel. Above the map, a single word was written in English: Palestine.
The incident was a consistent expression of official Palestinian ideology. Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority and head of the Fatah faction, wears a key pin on his suit. The official Fatah website says:
"Final victory will not be achieved until the flag of Palestine flies over the minarets, churches, and walls of Jerusalem...and the return of the refugees." The emblem of Fatah displays a map of "complete Palestine," without any trace of the State of Israel, and two crossed rifles above it.
Both the Hamas charter and the Fatah website share the same strategic goal. Complete liberation of "historic Palestine," establishment of one state from the river to the sea, Jerusalem as the capital, and an absolute refusal to recognize the legitimacy of any Jewish state. For both, the 1967 lines are but a temporary formula, a stage on the path to the final goal.
One of the most painful lessons from the Oct. 7 attack is the need to listen to what the enemy says in its own voice, not through interpretation with Western glasses. The term "two states for two peoples" is a Western-Israeli invention. It has never been stated by an official Palestinian leader. The Palestinian national movement, in all its shades, has one clear goal: the end of the State of Israel. It is time we look truth in the eye.
The writer is CEO and director of communications at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs. (Jerusalem Post)
- A Small and Unnecessary Stamp that Embodies Enormous Significance - Lt.-Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch
At the reopened Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, the travel documents of those entering and exiting are being stamped with a seal bearing the inscription "State of Palestine," alongside a Palestinian flag. Through this stamp, the Palestinians operating the crossing are attempting to create a false reality, that those entering and leaving Gaza are doing so from a state that does not exist.
Together with the use of the Palestinian Authority emblem as the symbol of the new National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), this is meant to reinforce the narrative that the Palestinian Authority (PA) controls the crossing in the name of the "State of Palestine." There is no reason for the State of Israel to agree to this.
Following the Oct. 7 massacre, and in light of the recognition that the PA promotes terrorism, incites terrorism, rewards terrorism, calls for the destruction of Israel, and perpetuates the "right of return" narrative, a broad understanding emerged that the PA must not be given any future role in Gaza's administration. President Trump's ceasefire plan explicitly states that the PA will have no role in Gaza's administration until it completes a comprehensive reform program.
In the current era of computerized border systems, a physical stamp carries no real operational significance. Its meaning is symbolic and declarative - it reflects who controls the territory. Ideally, as an expression of Israeli control, travel documents should be stamped by the State of Israel. However, given international sensitivities, alternative solutions are possible.
The writer, former director of the Military Prosecution in Judea and Samaria, is director of the Palestinian Authority Accountability Initiative at the Jerusalem Center.
(Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs)
Iran
- Many Iranians See Regime Change as the Only Acceptable Outcome - Dr. Fariba Parsa
The Islamic Republic defines itself through an ideological mission rooted in a specific interpretation of political Islam and revolutionary identity. Many Iranians, by contrast, understand their identity in civilizational terms: as heirs to a long, pluralistic cultural tradition that predates and transcends any single ideology. The conflict is therefore not simply about governance. It is about meaning - about who has the authority to define Iran's identity and future.
Religion, often assumed to be the regime's strongest source of legitimacy, has become a ground of alienation. After more than four decades of state-enforced religiosity, large segments of Iranian society have moved toward open disaffection with religion as it has been practiced within the political system. Independent surveys indicate that many Iranians today do not identify with Islam as enforced by the state. The regime has achieved the opposite of what it intended.
Nationwide protests were met with the widespread use of lethal force by security forces, with some estimates indicating that the number of people killed may exceed 40,000. There is a shared sense that those killings were expressions of the regime's willingness to slaughter its own citizens to maintain power. Trauma on this scale reinforces an uncompromising rejection of the existing system. For many, the regime is no longer seen as a legitimate representative of the nation.
The durability of the Iranian opposition should not be underestimated. The divide between state and society has reached a level where many Iranians see fundamental regime change as the only acceptable outcome.
The writer is the author of Fighting for Change in Iran: The Women, Life, Freedom Philosophy against Political Islam. (RealClearWorld)
Antisemitism
- The "Pro-Palestinian" Protests Against Israeli President Herzog in Australia - David Horovitz
President Isaac Herzog's visit to Australia is being met with protests by "pro-Palestinian" activists falsely alleging Israeli genocide in Gaza. "Pro-Palestinian" activists pretty much everywhere on the planet have been demonstrating against Israel's resort to war after Hamas invaded Israel from Jew-free Gaza, massacred 1,200 people amid unspeakable brutality, abducted 251 to Gaza, and vowed to keep on killing Israelis until the world's only Jewish-majority state is destroyed.
These are not demonstrations by activists genuinely concerned for the well-being of non-terrorist Palestinians and noncombatants. Rather, these are concerted protests designed to demonize and delegitimize Israel and Israel alone, in its entirety and its essence - to render Israel a pariah state with which no decent country should interact, to deny it not only the right to defend itself but the weaponry and practical capacity to defend itself, and thus to aid Hamas, Hizbullah and the Iranian regime in their declared mission to wipe us out.
27 months of orchestrated global activism have relentlessly spread a narrative in which the Jewish state, uniquely, can do no right, and calculatedly created a bedrock of empathy and support for regimes, terrorist groups, and individuals who seek to murder and maim Israelis and Jews wherever we are found.
On Dec. 14, 2025, father and son Islamic extremists Sajid and Naveed Akram massacred 15 people at a Hanukkah party on Bondi Beach. You might have wanted to believe that this would have given Australia's "pro-Palestinian" activists pause. Fellow Australians were gunned down on the beach for being Jewish. Now, the president of the nation-state of the Jewish people is visiting to try to bring the devastated Jewish community a little solace and comfort. And the protests are targeting him?
For that matter, those "pro-Palestinian" activists who purport to care for innocent lives should also have been out on the streets demonstrating on behalf of the people of Iran, who have been risking their lives - and losing them in the tens of thousands - to try to bring down their repressive Islamic death cult leadership. (Times of Israel)
Observations:
- U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has rejected lobbying efforts by Jonathan Powell, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's national security adviser, to allow Hamas to keep its small arms as part of the Gaza peace process. He told the Telegraph the terror group could not be trusted to retain AK-47s and other personal weapons. Huckabee also dismissed proposals to store Hamas's other weapons in secured facilities in Gaza, saying it would not work and the weapons could easily fall into the wrong hands.
- Huckabee said: "I don't think Hamas will have any role in the security structure, any role in governing - the president has been very clear about that. To leave Hamas in charge of running anything in Gaza would be like leaving some of the Nazis in place to help govern Germany after World War Two. Nobody would think that's a good idea."
- He insisted that any Hamas claims of disarmament "would have to be observable and provable.
Nobody's going to take Hamas's word for it, because Hamas is not trustworthy. They proved themselves to not be civilized people. They don't do things in a civilized way. Nobody would expect that whatever they say could be taken at face value. It'll have to be verified."
- Huckabee pointed to the example of the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon that failed to curtail Hizbullah as "a good model to say what we don't want."
- He added, "President Trump is President Trump, not President Chump, so people shouldn't think [the Iranians] can string him along without progress being made....We'll soon find out if they learned anything from the 12-day war."
- He warned: "Americans probably see Iran and the threat as something so far away. It's a huge mistake. For 47 years, Iran has said 'death to America.' So, should Iran be able to develop long-range ballistic missile capability, supersonic missile capability, it would be incredibly naive for the citizens of the United States to think that somehow they're just immune, that they're not a target. Because they are a target - a stated target repeatedly - of the Iranian regime."
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