The War Tehran Believes Is Coming

Iran believes the U.S. and Israel may strike before the midterms. Top security official Gen. Mohsen Rezaei tells Drop Site Iran has new targets in its sights.

Jeremy Scahill, Peiman Salehi, and Ryan Grim

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/iran-war-israel-netanyahu-trump-hormuz-mohsen-rezaei

The U.S. and Israel are preparing to resume attacks on Iran, according to senior Iranian officials and a U.S. official, and may even launch operations before next week’s Israeli elections. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is fighting for his political life, and the Israeli press is rife with reports that he is looking for a way to exploit the Iran standoff to his advantage. In the U.S., President Donald Trump’s approval ratings are at historic lows, and the midterm elections are less than two weeks away.

Iran’s top security official, Gen. Mohsen Rezaei, the Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and personal representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, told Drop Site that, in the event of an attack, Iran still has capacity to continue launching missiles and drones at various U.S. assets across the region in retaliation and that it would expand its range of targets.

“If the question is whether Iran still has the ability to continue missile and drone operations, the answer is yes,” Rezaei said in an exclusive written interview. “The United States has valuable assets in the region. In the event of war, cables, data centers and artificial intelligence facilities could also come within range. If the conflict begins again, we will have a broader plan.”

“Everyone must understand that action against Iran carries a cost,” he added. “If diplomacy can bring about that understanding, we prefer diplomacy. But if the war continues, Iran has the tools it needs to keep responding.”

A senior Iranian official told Drop Site that Tehran’s current internal intelligence assessment indicates a high likelihood that large-scale bombing may even begin before Tuesday’s Israeli elections. “Trump has sat on Iran’s proposed package for ending the war, and negotiations have stalled,” said the official, who is not authorized to speak publicly. “Contrary to the show he is putting on, Trump has no clear or actionable plan for [ending] the war with Iran. This has been the cause of a diplomatic deadlock.” He warned that Iran should not be underestimated, claiming, “Should another war against Iran begin, given our knowledge of the patterns of American force deployment in the countries of the region, their casualty figures will be ten times higher.”

The White House denied it was planning to strike Iran in the next two weeks. “The United States will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the midterm elections,” White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement to Drop Site.

Tehran believes Israel would be tasked with firing the first shots, the senior Iranian official said, aimed at “destroying Iran’s newly deployed air defense systems, in order to open the path for American bombers.” The U.S., he said, would likely focus on attacking Iran’s southern defense systems along the Strait of Hormuz and potentially attempt to seize one of the islands off the Iranian mainland after heavy bombing. Trump, he said, is continuing his quest for a notable action that he can use to proclaim victory, adding that Iran believes he may seek to launch a “token” attack on one of Iran’s underground nuclear sites, such as Pickaxe Mountain, and subsequently portray it as a definitive blow. “Trump is flat-out lying about Iran’s nuclear program,” the official said.

A U.S. official confirmed to Drop Site that military assets are being moved rapidly into place in preparation for an expected green light from Trump. Among the American officials pushing for renewed attacks is U.S. Central Command chief Gen. Bradley Cooper, the official said. “CENTCOM is putting all the pieces into place to renew major combat operations,” added the official, who is not authorized to discuss war plans. He was skeptical the war would resume before the Israeli elections, but conceded, “We did start Epic Fury without all our assets in place.”

The USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier and the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit are heading to the Middle East, bringing approximately 10,000 additional sailors and Marines to the region. The Roosevelt, which departed Japan on Monday, could reach the region by the end of next week ahead of its initially expected deployment slated for late November. It will join the USS George H.W. Bush and USS George Washington, both currently in the Arabian Sea.

While the U.S. official said the likelihood of new U.S.-Israeli attacks was high, he acknowledged that Trump has gone to the brink of military action and pulled back more times than is publicly known. “Trump has backed off major combat operations against Iran or the Houthis seven times since July,” the U.S. official said, referring to Ansarallah, who launched a major offensive against Saudi-backed groups in Yemen. “At the last minute, he calls it off.”

Netanyahu, who is behind in the polls, claimed Wednesday without evidence that Iran was actively working on the development of a nuclear weapon and said he had ordered the Israeli military to prepare for preemptive action. “The Iranian regime still has not learned its lesson. Mojtaba Khamenei decided to follow in his father’s footsteps. He has taken off the safety, and Iran is once again trying to develop its weapons of death,” Netanyahu said. “There is only one way to remove this threat once and for all, to topple the regime in Iran, and that is my directive to the IDF, the Mossad and the security agencies.”

Analysts say that Trump is continuing to pursue an elusive clean victory narrative, while Netanyahu understands this may be his last chance at continuing the war he has agitated for his entire political career.

“This is Netanyahu’s last chance to do so. And he’s not going to leave until he turns every stone to be able to achieve it. Particularly knowing that either his career is going to end or the United States is going to go in a direction in which this no longer will be an option,” said Trita Parsi, a leading Iran expert and the executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute. “Trump, I suspect, has already made a decision that he’s going to go to war,” he added. “The Israelis have been very successful playing to his psychology, which is that he’s willing to take massive risks as long as he has the belief that it can get him a victory so that he avoids accepting defeat, which is so crucial for him. But it is a massive miscalculation that will make the situation 100 times worse.”

The intersection of Trump’s and Netanyahu’s political interests increases the chances that the war will resume, argues former senior U.S. Iran negotiator Robert Malley. “Netanyahu may want a longer campaign with broader objectives. Trump may want something shorter that he could quickly get out of. The overlap between the two might well be an intensive campaign that doesn’t last too long,” said Malley, a key figure in brokering the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. “President Trump may want a victory lap and an exit ramp. But as has been proven time and time again, the exit is not decided by him alone,” said Malley, who currently directs the Middle East Program at the International Crisis Group. “There is every reason to believe the Iranians are preparing all kinds of steps, whether by them or by their regional partners, whether in or out of theater, to ensure that however much he wants a victory lap and an exit ramp, he is deprived of both.”

Gen. Rezaei is one of the most prominent military figures in modern Iranian history. A former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, he was tapped to serve as the top military advisor to Khamenei in August. His comments are often viewed as reflecting the consensus at the top of Iran’s power structure. He told Drop Site that despite U.S. claims to have “obliterated” or “decimated” Iran’s military infrastructure, Iran spent decades preparing for a broader war waged by the U.S.

“Iran has invested for years in building redundancy into these capabilities: dispersed production, underground facilities, different launch systems and the ability to repair damage and replace losses,” Rezaei told Drop Site. “More importantly, you should not assess our capacity solely by asking how many missiles remain in storage. In a prolonged war, the central question is whether a country can sustain a continuous cycle of production, deployment and response. We have shown that, even months after the war began, we can still impose costs on the other side.”

Rezaei also indicated that Tehran would deploy new capabilities in its retaliatory response. “We did not deploy all our capabilities in the previous stages. We brought more capabilities into operation in proportion to the intensity of the war, and we are also prepared for the next stage,” Rezaei said.

During the war, Iran carried out at least 135 drone and missile strikes on 84 critical infrastructure sites across seven countries—Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and Bahrain, according to a Reuters investigation. While Gulf governments repeatedly attributed the damage to falling debris from intercepted Iranian missiles and drones, the investigation found evidence of deliberate, precision strikes targeting critical equipment. The attacks demonstrated “precision, targeting expertise, and patience,” Ryan Stevens, a former U.S. Marine Corps special operations airstrike coordinator, told Reuters.

Echoing Rezaei’s warning about communications infrastructure, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps spokesperson, Hossein Mohebi, also threatened to target internet cables passing through the Strait of Hormuz if the U.S. launched renewed attacks. Mohebi further warned Monday that another U.S. military operation would trigger a global energy crisis. “If America takes a new action—even a limited one—the world will face a serious energy crisis,” he told the Tehran Times.

Rezaei did not rule out targeting energy infrastructure in Gulf states as a retaliatory measure. “If the U.S. strategy is to prolong the war while using neighboring countries’ energy infrastructure to offset the pressure arising from Hormuz and maintain the blockade of Iran, those governments should not assume they can participate in economic warfare against Iran without putting themselves at risk,” he said. “The message is not that Iran wants to destroy the Persian Gulf’s energy system. The message is that there can be no arrangement in which Iran’s economic lifelines come under attack while the economic architecture enabling those attacks is considered untouched and immune.”

The senior Iranian official said Trump’s approach to Iran has been focused on short-term objectives that are often disconnected from geopolitical realities or core U.S. interests, likening him to a day trader. “The wartime secrecy surrounding military operations has given him and his family exclusive and extraordinary access to information regarding forthcoming actions and the state of the markets—access that benefits only those closest to him,” he said. “Perpetuating the current situation will carry strategic consequences, not least that the energy markets will not find calm for the next three years. The continuation of this war has shifted the dynamics of relations in Iran’s favor, as the littoral states of the Persian Gulf are rapidly redefining their relationship with Iran, having become convinced that the U.S. military is incapable of defending its own bases, this at a time when those same states had expected America to defend their countries.”

Iranian officials have said repeatedly that Iran will not back away from its red lines in any negotiations, consistently pointing to Tehran’s acceptance of the June 17 Memorandum of Understanding, which was swiftly violated by the U.S., leading to a breakdown in the diplomatic process in early July.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he presented a “Seven-Day Plan” to the U.S. through mediators at last month’s UN General Assembly, outlining steps for an end to the war and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. “Under this proposal, the U.S. would not be expected to do anything that it has not already agreed to,” Araghchi wrote in an op-ed for the Financial Times on Wednesday. He said the framework’s steps and outcome were clear: “The Strait would reopen on Day 6, with the resumption of talks for a final deal commencing on Day 7.” Araghchi claimed in an interview with Iraqi television that the U.S. had accepted the seven-day proposal but requested the addition of a “few more clauses,” adding that diplomatic contacts through mediators remain ongoing.

“As President Trump stated, Iran is in very bad condition, both economically and militarily, and the blockade will remain in full force and effect, with oil flowing in record numbers of barrels through the Hormuz Strait,” Kelly told Drop Site in a statement.

Rezaei told Drop Site that Iran’s negotiating strategy has evolved as a result of Trump’s unreliability. “We will not return to our previous approach to diplomacy, but we will not abandon diplomacy either. We have presented seven new conditions through intermediaries. Until those conditions are fulfilled, Iran will neither reopen the strait nor return to negotiations,” Rezaei said. “The first memorandum failed because the commitments were implemented in the wrong order. We opened the strait and maritime traffic resumed, but the other side’s political and economic commitments were not implemented in a way that could sustain the agreement. Once the United States obtained what it immediately needed, the balance of leverage shifted. That experience matters to us.

“If Washington honors its commitments, there is a path to reopening the Strait of Hormuz and continuing diplomacy,” he continued. “But Iran will not first give up the leverage that brought the other side to the negotiating table and then wait to see whether its promises are fulfilled.”

Parsi said that Iran is not eager to resume the war but has recognized that the diplomatic track has been treated by the U.S. as an ultimatum operation masquerading as negotiations. “Their conclusion—based on extensive experience with Trump now—is that he simply won’t back off unless his policy is reaching a cost to him that is intolerable. And that it’s not concessions or face-saving exits that will get Trump to back off, but simply that the policy becomes too costly.”

Attacks on ships in and around the Strait of Hormuz have surged to a record high in recent weeks, with more than two dozen vessels reporting attacks so far in October, according to data released Friday by the UK Maritime Trade Operations agency. The agency said the actual number was likely far higher, as the “majority of vessels attacked” were refusing to report incidents.

The IRGC reported further attacks over the weekend and into Tuesday, including a supertanker carrying two million barrels of oil struck Saturday, another tanker hit Sunday, and two tankers that it said caught fire Tuesday after striking naval mines south of the Strait. Iran says it is targeting vessels violating its maritime restrictions or using unauthorized shipping routes.

“Over the past two or three months, we have struck an average of five vessels belonging to these smugglers every night,” Rezaei said. “Smuggling is taking place along the southern edge of the strait at enormous cost and with considerable risk. Trump then says the Strait of Hormuz is open.”

Despite the escalating attacks, oil exports from the Middle East appear to have rebounded past prewar levels, primarily through tanker-to-tanker transfers in the Gulf of Oman, and expanded use of Saudi and Emirati pipelines bypassing the Strait of Hormuz. However, oil prices remain high, hovering well above $100 per barrel of Brent crude amid fears of the ongoing attacks and diminishing U.S. fuel stockpiles. “The current price of oil reflects the reality,” Rezaei said.

“The management of Hormuz is a national asset for us, and this is not simply about collecting tolls. The main issue is security,” he continued. “Charges can also be collected for security, insurance and environmental costs, but the importance of managing the strait goes far beyond the revenue it generates,” he said. “We will continue managing it to maintain peace and security in the region, and we will not back down from this position.”

The senior Iranian official said that the standoff over the Strait of Hormuz “has become the new pretext—the nuclear issue, previously, was a lie upon which the war was launched—for the United States to prolong the war.” Trump, he charged, “has fallen into the trap of prolonging what was advertised as the shortest of wars.” A “war of attrition,” he said, “will work to Iran’s advantage and to America’s detriment.”

The war has had a devastating impact on Iran’s economy. As part of its escalation over the summer, the U.S. reimposed a blockade on Iran’s southern ports and launched a new campaign of sanctions dubbed Operation Economic Outcast. The Iranian rial subsequently collapsed, falling to record lows, making imports dramatically more expensive and imposing even more scarcity on people in Iran.

“Iran will suffer from a prolonged blockade; anyone who says otherwise is not being realistic. Families will bear the costs, investment will suffer, and sustaining some sectors of the economy will become more difficult. But economic pain and strategic collapse are not the same thing,” Rezaei said. “Washington has repeatedly made the mistake of assuming that, if it can make life inside Iran difficult enough, Iran’s political system will consequently accept America’s strategic demands. These are two different calculations.”

“Our goal is not to make it to 2029. Our goal is to end the war on terms that reduce the likelihood of another war.”

Netanyahu Says He Discussed ‘Eliminating’ the Iranian Government With Trump

by Dave DeCamp | October 20, 2026

https://news.antiwar.com/2026/10/20/netanyahu-says-he-discussed-eliminating-the-iranian-government-with-trump/

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israel was “committed” to “eliminating” the Iranian government and that he spoke about the idea in his recent conversation with President Trump.

According to The Times of Israel, Netanyahu made the comments at the Tel Hai University in Kiryat Shmona near Israel’s border with Lebanon. “I am committed to finishing the job,” he said, referring to Israel’s war in Lebanon.

“Finishing the job means bringing down the terrorist regime in Iran. It is the head of this poisonous octopus. You cut it off, and it will fall. We will also have peace with Lebanon,” he said. “We must complete the elimination of the Iranian regime — that is the primary objective. I have spoken about this with President Trump more than once, including the day before yesterday.”

A day earlier, Netanyahu released part of a phone call he had with President Trump on Sunday, where he thanked the US leader for endorsing him in the upcoming Israeli elections. In Trump’s endorsement message, he suggested that the US may have to “finish the job” against Iran without the help of Israel if Netanyahu doesn’t remain prime minister.

In his conversation with Trump, Netanyahu said that the US and Israel have a “job to finish,” and his comments on Tuesday suggest that means regime change.

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth made an unannounced visit to Israel on Monday and met with Netanyahu. The US and Israel have been coordinating closely in the lead-up to the Israeli elections and the US midterm elections, and according to recent reporting from Axios, they have been discussing the possibility of resuming the full-scale bombing campaign against Iran.

Netanyahu map shows RSF 'friendly' to Israel and UAE, backing for separatist movements

Israeli leader broke the Middle East into competing blocks in new security presentation showing Ethiopia and Greece as 'friendly' states

MEE staff

Published date: 19 October 2026

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/netanyahu-map-shows-rsf-friendly-israel-and-uae-backing-separatist-movements

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unveiled a map of the wider Middle East showing his country and the UAE aligned with a paramilitary in Sudan, accused of committing genocide, and separatists in Libya, Yemen and Somaliland.

The map, which carried the logo of Germany's Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Institute, will not surprise regional watchers, but it could prove awkward for some of Israel’s regional partners and cement suspicions among Arab states.

Israel and the UAE were shown as part of a “Hexagon Alliance”. The map showed Greece, Ethiopia and parts of India aligned with them. But it also showed a swath of southwestern Sudan as friendly to the UAE and Israel.

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) control southwestern Sudan. United Nations experts and dozens of media reports, including from Middle East Eye, have revealed extensive Emirati support for the Sudanese paramilitary, which is led by former Janjaweed leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and has been widely accused of committing genocide in Darfur. The UAE has officially denied backing the RSF.

The map was part of Netanyahu’s unveiling on Sunday of a new security doctrine that emphasises preemptive strikes and the establishment of "buffer zones" on Israel’s borders.

“The War of Redemption necessitated an upgrade of fundamental principles within the traditional national security doctrine, among them: giving priority to prevention and offense over containment and defense, including launching preemptive strikes to thwart evolving threats; strengthening home front defense against new threats; cementing Israel's status as a regional power,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on Sunday.

“Opportunities have been created for forging new alliances in our region and beyond,” the statement added.

'Sunni Diamond Alliance'

The map Netanyahu shared shows Israel aligned with secessionist groups while framing its oldest Arab treaty partners as countries not considered friendly to Israel. The map did not show Egypt and Jordan as aligned with Israel.

Instead, it marked Egypt as part of a “Sunni diamond alliance” with Pakistan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia; it showed Jordan, whose peace treaty with Israel dates back to 1994, as “friendly” to the alliance.

Netanyahu’s public presentation is likely to raise concerns among critics about Israel’s support for secessionist groups and the partition of fragile states. He showed a government in eastern Libya controlled by Khalifa Haftar to be aligned with Israel. 

Yemen's Southern Transitional Council, a UAE-backed separatist movement that dissolved in January 2026 and re-emerged as the Transitional Council of South Arabia, was also shown on the map as being friendly towards Israel and the UAE

Israel became the first country to recognise Somaliland earlier this year. Somaliland is a breakaway republic of Somalia where Israel and the UAE have been expanding their military presence, according to multiple media reports.

Netanyahu’s map showed how Israel sees its security as part of a broader region extending well beyond the Arab world.

He showed Greece and Ethiopia as “friendly” states. The latter is on the verge of a full-scale war with Eritrea, where Israel has long coveted a Red Sea military base, MEE has reported.

Netanyahu's map also reaffirmed the longstanding ties between Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran as part of an "Axis of Resistance". 

The Israel Lobby’s Changing Fortunes

A follow-up to Mearsheimer and Walt shows a project in flux.

Scott McConnell

Oct 17, 2026

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-israel-lobbys-changing-fortunes/

A natural question to ask about Eli Clifton and Ian Lustick’s Israel’s Lobby is how it differs from the magisterial work of similar name published by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt nearly 20 years ago. Certainly its entry into the American debate is less dramatic: Mearsheimer and Walt’s work had behind it the force of taboo-breaking, taking on a subject which had been more whispered about than debated for two generations. Despite a massive campaign to denigrate their work by the lobby’s many allies in the mainstream media (I believe The American Conservative was the only American print publication to give it a positive review), Mearsheimer and Walt’s book became not only a best-seller but a genuine international publishing sensation. 

Though it wasn’t obvious at the time, Mearsheimer and Walt’s book appeared at a moment when there was still a clear open path towards a moderate future, sanctioned by a strong international consensus. This was true both for the American-Israeli relationship (they urged that America treat Israel like a normal country, while maintaining a moral commitment to defend it) and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict (they favored a two-state solution). The Iraq War, pushed relentlessly by Benjamin Netanhayu and other Israeli officials, and in great part the project of small group of passionately pro-Israel neoconservatives in American journalism and government, was already in the rearview mirror. The two authors cheered the birth of new liberal Zionist institutions like J Street, created to encourage United States support for a more moderate Israel at peace with its neighbors. 

Clifton and Lustick’s impressive follow-up does not, to say the least,  arrive at such a propitious time. Lustick is an accomplished Ivy-League political scientist who has produced important work on how ethnically driven conflicts can be managed or resolved. Clifton is a Quincy Institute co-founder and journalist who belongs to the cohort of American millennials who grew up when it was no longer outlandish to question the moral correctness of Zionism. Their book arrives as an erratic American president has started, at Israel’s behest, a war against the largest and most highly educated country in the Mideast, and oscillates between uttering threats of genocide and claims that the war is already won. On the home front it has become almost shockingly commonplace for entertainers and college students alike to shout slogans that call implicitly or explicitly for the destruction of Israel, something unimaginable 20 years ago.  Meanwhile Israel, in response to the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, has conducted a brutal campaign against Gaza’s defenseless civilians that is often described as a genocide and is indisputably a project of ethnic cleansing. Israel’s lobby today is both similar and quite different from the one Walt and Mearsheimer described. Is it stronger or weaker? Some of both certainly, and while it may be weaker overall, it is clearly dangerous the way all wounded creatures are. 

Of the many elements which have changed since 2007, three stand out. The main institutions of the lobby, always wealthy relative to their opponents and competitors, are far richer. Israel itself has changed. Its commitment to peace with the Palestinians, if in the past more advertised than actual, has been completely submerged; no Israeli leader of consequence even pretends to want a settlement with the people who inhabit the land Israel now controls, and the country’s policy of seeking outright military domination of its entire region, though challenged by many Israeli former officials and scholars, faces no substantial political opposition. And finally, in a point emphasized by Clifton and Lustick, its lobby has more or less abandoned efforts to explain or justify Israeli policies, to convince Americans of their necessity and appropriateness. Instead increasingly Israel’s supporters in the United States seek to conflate any opposition to Israel and American support for it with antisemitism. 

That is to say, to challenge seriously  Washington’s special relationship with Israel is presented as a major moral failing, the kind of mark which would place one beyond the pale of respectable discourse. And while these three developments make Israel as influential as ever in  Washington and particularly within the Trump administration, its actual popularity among voters, particularly among Democrats and the young of both parties, has sunk like a stone.  

In a key section, the authors document how in the last generation America has seen  the greater concentration of wealth in the hands of the super-rich. The percentage share of national wealth held by the top 0.1 percent rose by two-thirds. Meanwhile, two court decisions from 2010 have made it much easier for billionaires to buy national policies to their liking. 

As pro-Israel think tank and advocacy money rose, so did Israel-related campaign and advocacy group contributions. When Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission was decided in 2010, no one anticipated it would weigh critically on American Mideast policy. The decision struck down limitations on campaign spending by unions and corporations, and in conjunction with the consequences of the SpeechNow.org v. FEC decision, opened the gates for increased spending by the super rich. Individual campaign spending limitations, $1,000 until 2003, later raised to roughly $3,000, suddenly became almost irrelevant as ultra wealthy individual donors began to dispense virtually unlimited funds to support or oppose  candidates through so-called superPACs. 

In principle this enhanced capacity of billionaires to buy policies of their choosing was available to anyone; in practice those passionate about supporting Israel used it the most effectively. Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, virtually unknown before 2012, became the most important donors in the Republican Party. They spent more than $100 million on mostly losing candidates in 2012, but “forced the relatively niche issue of Israel into the Republican primary and general election discourse and normalized the idea of political megadonors across party lines, no longer restricted by campaign finance laws, largely underwriting campaigns.” 

It wasn’t just the Adelsons of course; scores of Israel-First billionaires joined them with more power to shape American policy than ever before. As Clifton and Lustick put it, “These donors form the backbone of an Israel First movement which crosses party lines…. The donors are funding both the election of politicians as well as shaping the world view of these same elected officials, creating an echo chamber of pro-Israel talking points and policy recommendations for politicians already indebted to pro-Israel donors.” To give a sense of the rising volume of the echo chamber, the authors track the exponential rise in the budgets of pro-Israel advocacy groups. AIPAC had $19.5 million in assets in 2000, nine times that amount in 2023. Similar advances were made by the Washington Institute for Mideast Policy and the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the most influential Beltway group pushing for war with Iran, increased its revenues 16-fold from 2011 to 2022. 

As its American lobby has grown richer, Israel too has changed considerably. Until the last 15 years, most Israeli leaders at least paid lip-service to making a durable peace with the Palestinians, and some believed peace as necessary for Israel’s own flourishing. But no Israeli prime minister since Ehud Olmert has breathed a word about trying to accommodate Palestinian national aspirations. The authors consider this a profound shift; Israel, they claim with a borrowed phrase from an Israeli political scientist, has become a “crazy state,” increasingly dismissive of the legitimate interests and opinions of other countries. 

Along the way they  provide an unexpected, quite complimentary digression about  Vladimir Jabotinsky, an early right-wing Zionist leader and popularizer of the so-called Iron Wall strategy; its point was to win battles so forcefully as make Arabs realize they had no hope of destroying Israel and would have to accept it in the region. But such acceptance by Arabs was actually a goal, and a corollary of the Iron Wall doctrine was that Israel should not go out of its way to kill Arab civilians. Many times ignored, such scruples did exist in principle. 

Today they do not. Replacing them is a near hysteric view of Palestinian resistance. As Clifton and Lustick put it, “Palestinian resistance was understood as illegitimate, evidence of intransigence, and often as akin to Nazi antisemitism.” This justified a ramp-up in the brutality of Israeli tactics, as Palestinian enmity came to be understood as “pathological and ineradicable” and such Israeli measures as mass imprisonment, breaking the bones of protesting children, and torture of prisoners became commonplace.

This transformation in Israel had a parallel shift in the lobby’s accelerating efforts to police Israel-related discourse in the United States. In the early 2000s, the former Soviet dissident and right wing Israeli politician Natan Sharansky began to push the idea of a “new antisemitism” which would include any statement which “demonized” or “delegitimized” Israel or held it to a “double standard.” Activists following his lead soon persuaded a minor organization, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, to adopt a definition of antisemitism incorporating these notions, and then pressed governments and institutions to embrace the “widely accepted” IHRA working definition. In a campaign that unfolded over years, Israel advocates eventually got the Obama State Department to incorporate the definition in an annual report. By 2018 the Trump Department of Education had adopted it, and would eventually use it as a weapon to punish pro-Palestinian academics and students at American universities. The authors provide a detailed account of the new definition’s rise and codification, a fascinating window into the nuts and bolts and high stakes of what might at first glance have seemed a somewhat niche academic debate. 

Despite these efforts, the lobby has clearly become less able to police the American discourse than it was 20 or 40 years ago. Israel’s poll numbers are bad, particularly among younger Americans. The lobby hopes that by gaining control of such internet platforms as TikTok, such opinion shifts can be reversed. (Oracle’s CEO is quoted in a hacked email telling an Israeli leader, “We have to embed the love and respect for Israel in American culture.”) It is difficult to see that happening; a great part of pro-Israeli argument now increasingly rests on such claims as “God Gave Us This Land,” which is likely to be less persuasive to a diverse and fairly secular America than snappy catchphrases popular in the 1950s like “a land without a people for a people without a land.” 

Meanwhile, in genuinely stunning political developments, candidates far more anti-Zionist than Walt and Mearsheimer have been able to win major elections in New York City and potentially in Michigan. 

At the same time, the last several months have been a very cold shower for people who thought the Israel lobby was no longer an extremely consequential voice when Washington decided matters of war and peace. No one seriously expected that President Donald Trump would try to deliver a peace settlement between Israelis and Palestinians, which he clearly had no real interest in, and which relatively few Palestinians or Israelis seemed ready for. But it was also assumed that assuring, with American military might, Israel’s  complete dominance of the Mideast was not part of an America First agenda. Trump had displayed a great deal of bravado in 2015, mocking the Adelsons’ lavish support of Marco Rubio while boasting that he didn’t need their money. In 2024, it turned out that he did. 

The man who had famously denounced the Iraq war in a Republican debate and campaigned explicitly against more stupid wars would, in office a second time, turn to Benjamin Netanyahu as his most consequential foreign policy advisor and satisfy the yearnings for an American war against Iran which Netanyahu—and all the voices in the Israel lobby echo chamber—had sought for a generation. It is this unexpected and calamitous development, this demonstration that even an America First candidate could be maneuvered into a costly war by Israel and its lobby, that has rendered the more extreme slogans of the anti-Israel left—“Free Palestine” etc.—less noxious than they seemed a  generation ago. 

Clifton and Lustick have written an important, extremely well-researched book, which tries to capture in motion a vast and complex phenomenon which is very much in flux, and whose fortunes are changing nearly month to month. They are to some degree men of the left, and some of their formulations—putting “woke” in scare quotes or describing the AfD, the German anti-immigration party that is one of the largest antiwar parties in Europe,  as “Nazi adjacent”—will seem lazy, at best, to most TAC readers. And perhaps a less progressive treatment would have noted the irony of both the lobby and the Trump administration borrowing heavily from tropes of the woke era in their efforts to portray Jewish college students as made to “feel uncomfortable” and “unsafe” by student protests against Israeli brutalities. 

But it cannot be denied that it is the American Left, not the Right, that has taken the lead in trying to free the United States from, as the authors call it in their book’s subtitle, “the grip of a foreign power.”  For that  it, and the authors, deserve commendation.

US Ambassador Holds Secret Opposition Meeting as Poll Shows Netanyahu Trailing

October 15, 2026

https://www.palestinechronicle.com/us-ambassador-holds-secret-opposition-meeting-as-poll-shows-netanyahu-trailing/

Secret Meeting With Eisenkot

US Ambassador Mike Huckabee held a previously undisclosed meeting with Israeli opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot in the run-up to the October 27 Knesset elections, Israel’s public broadcaster reported Thursday.

The meeting took place in recent days and was the first and only encounter between Huckabee and the Yashar party leader, according to the broadcaster. It did not disclose the location or date.

Citing a source familiar with the discussion, the report said the two addressed security issues, including tensions in the occupied West Bank, violence by illegal Israeli Jewish settlers and the situation in Gaza.

Neither Huckabee nor Eisenkot’s office publicly announced the meeting. Yashar declined to comment, according to the broadcaster.

Netanyahu Meeting Canceled

The broadcaster separately reported that a scheduled meeting between Huckabee and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was canceled at the last minute.

An informed source attributed the cancellation to Netanyahu but provided no explanation. No new date has been set.

The disclosures come amid scrutiny of Washington’s position ahead of the closely contested election.

Netanyahu has repeatedly promoted his relationship with President Donald Trump, who has praised him over the years. Trump, however, had not announced support for either Netanyahu or Eisenkot in the upcoming vote.

Poll Shows Opposition Ahead

A Channel 12 poll published Monday projected 67 seats for the opposition bloc in the 120-member Knesset, compared with 49 for Netanyahu’s governing coalition.

A minimum of 61 seats is needed to form a government.

Eisenkot’s Yashar party led the poll with 23 projected seats, ahead of Likud’s 20. Asked whom they preferred as prime minister, 45% chose Eisenkot and 35% chose Netanyahu.

Netanyahu has led the current government since December 2022, heading a coalition widely described as the most right-wing in Israel’s history.

He also faces a domestic trial involving charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust.

Separately, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in 2024 over suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

More than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s genocide in Gaza since October 2023, according to Palestinian figures cited in the report.

How the Red Sea came to the brink of a new regional war

A war between Ethiopia and Eritrea would not be isolated this time, and would likely draw in regional powers

Sean Mathews

Published date: 9 October 2026

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/how-red-sea-came-brink-new-regional-war

Overconfident.

That is how best to describe the mood in the capitals of Ethiopia and Eritrea as the two neighbours slide to the verge of an all-out war that risks dragging in outside powers and destabilising the Red Sea, which is already convulsed by wars in Sudan and Yemen. 

The chances of a regional war are higher than containing the conflict because people close to decision-makers on both sides are making calculations based on their foes' perceived weaknesses and discounting their own vulnerabilities. 

“All the leaders in the region say ‘we don’t want a regional war’, but that doesn’t prevent us from walking backwards into one,” Cameron Hudson, an Africa analyst and former CIA official, told Middle East Eye.

There are three levels to this conflict: Ethiopia's internal fissures, historic tensions with Eritrea, and the enabling role Middle Eastern powers are playing. 

From Ethiopia, to Eritrea and the Middle East

The core issue is a fight among Ethiopia’s ethnic groups over their country’s government. This is complex because Ethiopia has 80 ethnic groups. The main ones are Oromo, Amhara, Tigrayan, Somali, and Afar. Some of them have their own well-armed militias.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is trying to change Ethiopia's government from one based on ethnic federalism to a more centralised system of rule. 

The hostilities began after the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), an Ethiopian rebel group, went on the offensive in September, vowing to topple Prime Minister Ahmed's government. TPLF’s early gains included taking control of the Tigray capital Mekelle. But they were quickly reversed by Ethiopia's government forces. 

The second level of the conflict is a longstanding rivalry between Eritrea and Ethiopia.

After WWII, Eritrea, once an Italian colony, was federated with Ethiopia, and in 1962, it was unilaterally annexed by Addis Ababa. After a three-decade-long insurgency, Eritrea became independent in 1993 under a United Nations referendum.

The two neighbours actually joined forces to fight against the TPLF in Ethiopia’s 2020-2022 civil war, but have generally had hostile relations. Ethiopia has made revisionist claims about acquiring Eritrea’s Red Sea coast, and Eritrea has supported militias inside Ethiopia opposed to the federal government.

Addis Ababa this week accused Eritrea of sending thousands of troops across the border to support the TPLF.

Multiple current and former US, EU and African officials tell MEE that Eritrean troops have entered Tigray where they are partaking in fighting. Ethiopia launched drone strikes on the Eritrean troops on Wednesday and Thursday, according to monitoring group ACLED.

Eritrea and Ethiopia last fought a war from 1998 to 2000. The conflict was bloody but largely contained. Now, a war between the two would likely pull in regional powers that did not have a stake in the fighting two decades ago.

Ethiopia is close to the United Arab Emirates and Israel. Addis Ababa has received drones and weapons systems from the UAE. Eritrea suspects Israel and the UAE would back a push by Addis Ababa to take its Red Sea coastline, hoping to gain access to a strategic sliver of that territory.

Eritrea has forged close ties with Somalia, Egypt and the Sudanese Armed Forces. All these countries oppose Abiy Ahmed’s government. Eritrea has also been moving closer to Saudi Arabia, which has diverged with the UAE over African hotspots such as Sudan and Somaliland.

Formal declaration of war anticipated 

Ethiopia and Eritrea have shuttered their respective embassies this week.

Ethiopia may issue a formal declaration of war against Eritrea in the coming days, a former senior European official with knowledge of the matter told MEE.

In a letter sent to the UN on Thursday, Ethiopia accused Eritrea of “a blatant act of aggression that engages Ethiopia’s inherent right to self-defense”.

“Eritrea is the aggressor, Ethiopia is the victim. Eritrea is violating Ethiopia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Addis Ababa said.

For its part, Eritrea has shot back.

“Ethiopia has in essence declared a war of aggression against Eritrea when its prime minister announced to his Parliament on 13 October 2023 that his regime will acquire ‘sovereign access to the sea’, through negotiations if possible and by force if necessary,” Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel said on Friday.

Tekeda Alemu, a career Ethiopian diplomat and former ambassador to the UN, told MEE that the two countries were already effectively at war.

“It’s very clear Eritreans have penetrated deep into Ethiopian territory. We are in the midst of war, even though it hasn’t been declared. The war is going on,” he said.

So far, Ethiopian Federal troops have performed well in the conflict. But the TPLF has shown it has the ability to regenerate, as it effectively forced federal forces out of Tigray in 2020 after being driven into the mountains by them. 

'Formidable alliance'

One twist to the conflict is the internal situation in Ethiopia. In September, the TPLF announced an alliance with six other armed Ethiopian groups that say their goal is to overthrow Abiy’s Ahmed government.

This alliance includes Fano, a militia made up of Amharas. This group has long seen themselves as the custodians of Ethiopia’s multi-ethnic state. The last emperor of Ethiopia, US-ally Haile Selassie, was Amhara, as were the main leaders of the Derg, the Soviet Union-backed Marxist junta that ruled Ethiopia from 1975-1991. The TPLF ruled Ethiopia from the collapse of the Derg until 2018, when Abiy Ahmed took office. 

Not all members of these ethnic groups back the alliance to overthrow Abiy Ahmed, who has tapped into Oromo nationalism, his own ethnic group. But Oromos also oppose Abiy Ahmed. The Oromo Liberation Army is part of the alliance to topple his government.

Alemu said that this alliance can’t be discounted.

“What is not clear is what the alliance is intending to do. They haven’t begun to start a full-scale war. The alliance can not be brushed aside. It is formidable, as is the government side,” he told MEE.

Addis Ababa has accused Eritrea of orchestrating the alliance to oust Abiy Ahmed. While Asmara denies this, Eritrean officials who spoke to MEE warned of the dangers the alliance poses to Abiy Ahmed.

But analysts say the alliance might be over-hyped.

“The TPLF has overestimated themselves. They also overestimated the support they’d receive from Amharas and Oromos in this alliance,” an analyst in Addis Ababa, who spoke with MEE on condition of anonymity, said.

The former senior western official told MEE that Abiy Ahmed may have welcomed the TPLF’s uprising in September because it brought simmering tensions with Eritrea to a head, giving him the opportunity to finally push towards the Red Sea. A US official in the region familiar with the decision-making in the Horn of Africa concurred with that assessment.

“The Eritreans have moved preemptively. The question is, have they fallen into a trap?” The former western official said. “Ethiopia will not only confront the Eritreans with ground forces, but they will launch aerial attacks on Eritrea. If the Ethiopian army moves, it will be in order to go to Asmara and Assab. They will not stop at the frontier."

Sirak Kifle, an Eritrean analyst who regularly speaks with officials in Asmara, told MEE that Ethiopia has long wanted an excuse to push towards the Red Sea. “Abiy is aiming at the ports of Eritrea,” he told MEE.

He added that the TPLF was still an effective fighting force that can’t be discounted. “Addis Ababa has brought around 400,000 soldiers into Tigray. So, it’s not difficult to fight the TPLF in the short term but is that sustainable?” he asked.

Cameron Hudson said Ethiopian federal forces are in better condition now than they were during the last conflict.

“Ethiopia has a ripping economy, a ton of money and deep-pocketed allies in the UAE and Israel. Abiy Ahmed has learned from the last war in Tigray and the numbers are on his side,” he said.

The regional actors

This is where the regional alliances come back into play. If Ethiopia moves out of Tigray and attempts to capture Eritrea’s Red Sea coastline, it will hit the Horn of Africa like a tsunami. 

Ethiopia and Egypt are long-time rivals. Cairo has grown more concerned about Ethiopia since it completed the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. Addis Ababa is now moving to build new dams on the Nile River that Cairo says threaten its national security. Egypt is also wary of Ethiopia acquiring a naval presence in the Red Sea.

Somalia and Ethiopia also have a difficult relationship. Mogadishu was unnerved by Ethiopia’s flirtation with recognising the Republic of Somaliland, a breakaway state acknowledged only by Israel.

Ethiopia is also deeply intertwined in Sudan’s civil war. Addis Ababa supports the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a militia backed by the UAE that has been accused of committing genocide. Eritrea and Ethiopia both back the Sudanese Armed Forces. The TPLF is also fighting alongside the Sudanese army against the RSF.

The network of states that would oppose an Ethiopian advance towards the Red Sea - Egypt, Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea - all met in the Egyptian city of El Alamein on Sunday. The countries agreed to coordinate military and intelligence efforts if the war in Tigray expands, Reuters reported.

“This war is still a tussle over Tigray. It is one step away from becoming a war over the Red Sea,” the former senior western official said.

Thousands rally across Colombia against West Jerusalem embassy move

Students and activists marched through Bogota waving Palestinian flags, condemning President Abelardo de la Espriella's decision to restore diplomatic ties with Israel.

October 14, 2026

https://www.trtworld.com/article/df1376201369

Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets across Colombia to condemn Israel's genocidal war in Gaza and the government's decision to open an embassy in West Jerusalem, marking a major shift in the country's foreign policy.

In the capital, Bogota, hundreds of students, social movement activists and other demonstrators marched through the streets waving Palestinian flags and denouncing President Abelardo de la Espriella's decision to restore diplomatic relations with Israel.

The demonstrations were part of a nationwide mobilisation against the conservative president's foreign and domestic policies, particularly his efforts to strengthen ties with Israel.

Protesters carried banners reading "We are not your backyard" and chanted slogans including "Zionists out, Abelardo out."

The protests coincided with the official opening of Colombia's embassy in West Jerusalem on Wednesday, reversing the previous administration's decision to sever diplomatic relations with Israel.

De la Espriella, who took office in August, restored ties that former President Gustavo Petro had cut in 2024 over Israel's genocidal war in Gaza.

His administration also reinstated a free trade agreement with Israel that had been suspended under Petro.

Colombian Foreign Minister Omar Bula attended the embassy's inauguration ceremony in West Jerusalem, describing the move as a step towards strengthening bilateral relations.

Bula said diplomatic relations between the two countries "should never have been broken."

"Israel is a strategic partner. It always has been, and from now on, it will be an even stronger one," he said.

The embassy opening represented "a concrete step towards fully restoring bilateral relations," he added.

Palestinian officials condemned the inauguration, warning that the decision undermined international law and damaged Colombia's longstanding diplomatic position on the Palestinian cause.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry also condemned the move, calling it a “blatant violation of international law and relevant international resolutions.”