“We were exposed,” she told JNS. “Not because of a lack of bravery or technology, but because the pipeline between innovation and operational reality was broken.”

That gap between what Israel's defense establishment could build and what it could actually deploy in a crisis had been widening for years. Israel's high-tech border fence surrounding Gaza served as both a physical and electronic barrier, standing as the embodiment of Israel's technology-first security doctrine.

But in reality, the result was merely an illusion of control with a hidden single point of failure. In the early hours of Oct. 7, Hamas terrorists used bulldozers and bombs to breach the barriers in several areas, having first used drones to destroy the communication towers that connected the sensors to the control centers.

When technology became doctrine

Israel's increased reliance on world-leading technical intelligence capabilities, including AI associated with Unit 8200, had seemingly created a sense of security that reduced reliance on human intelligence. The assumption that Hamas was deterred had almost become a doctrine. This shift in priorities from traditional intelligence analysis to market-ready technological solutions came at a cost, as some Israeli military officials have since acknowledged, “makes you forget the traditional intelligence methods.”

What’s more, when female soldiers monitoring border cameras reported unusual Hamas training activity in the months before the attack, their warnings were dismissed by senior commanders who believed deterrence was holding.

What followed on Oct. 7 was a fundamental rewiring of how Israel builds, funds, and deploys technology.

An Israeli defense official who spoke to JNS on the condition of anonymity described the scale of the institutional shift. Before the war, the Ministry worked with approximately 130 startups. Today, that number exceeds 300. In all of 2025, roughly $1 billion in private capital flowed into startups working with the Ministry of Defense —and so far in 2026, that figure was already approaching $3 billion.

“We were working to open up the market for competition and for newcomers that might have advantages in human talent and in bringing innovation faster to the battlefield,” the Israeli defense official said. “That really started happening after Oct. 7.”

The return of operational experience 

Startup Nation Central began mapping Israel's defense-tech sector around 18 months ago, starting with approximately 150 companies, with the number rising to almost 350 today. In other cases, existing startups pivoted into defense, repurposing civilian technologies for real-time military use. In 2025, Israel's defense-tech sector transitioned from a niche field into an emerging industry regarded as a strategic asset.

Two companies illustrate the shift. Kela Technologies, a counter-UAS startup founded after the war, has raised more than $200 million and secured significant MoD contracts in drone detection and early warning using AI-driven sensor fusion to minimize false detections in real time.

The second firm, eyesAtop, addresses a different gap: autonomous drone deployment for battlefield situational awareness. The defense official described both as emblematic of a compressed feedback loop that didn't exist before Oct. 7.

“It used to be that for an entrepreneur to know what was needed in the battlefield, he had to sit through long discussions to better understand operational needs,” the official told JNS. “Currently, these people are coming back from the battlefield, and they know better than anyone what is needed.”

The capital behind the doctrine 

That shift has not been lost on investors. Lital Leshem and her co-founder Lee Moser started Protego Ventures three months after Oct. 7, while still on reserve duty with the Gaza Division, following an advocacy trip to Washington with a survivor from Kibbutz Nir Am. What they heard from senior American officials was a strategic interest in Israel and its technologies.

“This wasn't about charity,” Leshem told JNS. “This was a structural opportunity that no one was properly organized to capture.”

Protego invests in early-growth Israeli defense-tech companies across AI, autonomous systems, sensors, robotics, and what Leshem calls the ‘cognitive war space’ that refers to decision-making, information battles, and automation for when humans get overwhelmed.

“Our LPs understood this. They weren't just writing checks to donate. They wanted to future-proof Israel and the West. That's a very different investor psychology than traditional VC,” she explained.

New defense VCs, led by former generals and intelligence veterans, are betting that October 7 created the conditions for Israel to become the R&D arm of Western defense technology. A new venture fund, Stratos Ventures, has raised $50 million to invest in early-stage defense-tech companies and has already completed five investments.

The IDF's new five-year plan, dubbed “Hoshen,” covers 2026–2030 and will draw on a 350 billion-shekel ($117 billion) national budget aimed at restoring military readiness by focusing heavily on AI, robotics, autonomous systems, and strengthening ground combat forces.

The doctrine shift the Ministry official described has a name: “Blue-White Strategy”. It is the MoD's formal commitment to producing critical components like munitions, missiles, and interceptors domestically without dependence on foreign suppliers. The lesson came from experience after the country faced weapons embargoes by European states and friction from the Biden administration over arms transfers. “We need to have both the critical raw materials and the ability to produce all relevant components for our munitions, against weapons of all types - missiles, munitions, interceptors - within our industries here in Israel,” the official said.

Exporting Oct. 7 lessons to the West

For Leshem, the stakes are personal in a way she finds difficult to articulate cleanly. “When I say I want to make sure Israel is never caught unprepared again, that's not a pitch line,” she said. “That's what I think about every day.” She expressed a belief that the enemies Israel has been fighting are not unique to Israel. “They are enemies of the West, liberal ideals, and the rule of law,” arguing that the technology being built from battlefield experience is directly applicable to what Western militaries will face.

And the message has found an audience: the defense official described an American entrepreneur who relocated to Israel after October 7 specifically to recruit post-reserve talent and build solutions for Israeli state security, driven, in the official's words, by “basic Zionist thinking” and to build something “worthwhile to help and better defend the Israeli country.”

The IDF and policymakers have begun reframing their doctrine from ‘tech-first’ to ‘tech-enabled,’ where human intelligence, decentralized command, and real-time adaptability sit alongside digital tools.

The country’s Iron Dome system has undergone more than 30 software updates during the conflict. Israel's weapons, the official believes, should no longer be described as "combat-proven"—the correct term is "combat-improved."

“They've been improved by the friction and lessons learned during the war,” the official said.

The phrase captures something true about what Oct. 7 set in motion. Israel did not abandon its technological confidence, per se. But it did have to reacquire it on harder terms, with clearer eyes, and among a generation of founders who learned what was missing from real-life experience following one of Israel’s darkest days.

“Throughout my career, I was always told that venture capital and defense are two parallel lines doomed never to meet,” Leshem concluded.

“What Oct. 7 made undeniable is that they have to meet… You know exactly why you're doing it and its importance. That part doesn't change.”

What can already be asserted with worrying certainty, however, is that the case being made for the urgency in signing the MoU is in itself quite dangerous. It did not take long for the IRGC regime in Tehran to conclude that if the Americans were overtly driven by the fear of an economic crisis—and by their declared inability to open the Strait of Hormuz by any other means—then it could use its whip hand to impose its will in Lebanon and drive a deeper wedge between Washington and Jerusalem.

If allowed to stand, this Iranian conclusion is bound to create a slippery slope leading to further demands, in Gaza and beyond. In response, Israel must develop a balanced strategy—as distinct from hot-headed verbiage—to avert this outcome.

In the short term, as evidenced by events in Lebanon, it may have no choice but to accept some temporary restraints. At the same time, Israel must engage key players in Washington, the United States administration and Congress to make it clear that we are standing on the edge of a slippery slope.

Clearly, no Israeli government can accept a forced retreat from Lebanon, placing the entire north under threat, without proven active steps to disarm Hezbollah; nor can it tolerate a broader pattern in which Tehran can use its newly established leverage to demand further concessions.

What is—and what is not—in the MoU?

The U.S. administration, with Vice President JD Vance in the lead, has gone on the offensive in the public domain to make the case for the MoU and the urgent manner in which it was reached. They describe it as being in line with the primary goal of bringing an end to the Iranian military nuclear project and creating the conditions for stability and prosperity in the region.

Systematic attempts are being made to hint at unannounced understandings holding the promise of Iranian compliance with American expectations, and to suggest that it was Iran’s leadership that caved in under pressure from the American blockade and covert operations against its infrastructure.

The increasingly sharp criticism heard from key Republicans in Congress only serves to intensify efforts to justify the deal. It is perhaps fair to say that the ultimate judgment on the validity of such claims can be fully rendered only after the next phase of negotiations firmly demonstrates whether Iran is indeed acting under pressure, or that the opposite is true.

But even at this point, it is safe to say that the MoU is highly problematic, regardless of whether the talks in Switzerland lead to progress and the narrowing of gaps on the nuclear issue. The latter can legitimately be described as the overriding Israeli, regional and global purpose of the war to begin with. The problems are evident both in terms of what is (and is not) in the MoU, and because of the argumentation being made in support of its rapid endorsement.

There are, indeed, several aspects in the MoU that give rise to serious concern, and not only in Israel. To begin with, it openly commits the U.S. to accept the legitimacy of the (murderous) Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps regime in Tehran, and to abstain from intervention in Iran’s internal affairs.

That is a far cry from U.S. President Donald Trump’s statement that “help is on the way” in the wake of the slaughter of anti-regime protesters in January 2026. In this respect, it already betrays the fervent hopes of those in Iran and beyond who wanted to see the regime fatally weakened. In the realm of public propaganda, Iran’s new leaders are openly speaking of an American surrender.

Moreover, the MoU has already made it possible for Tehran to resume oil exports, removing an economic lever that could have helped destabilize the regime. More sanctions relief is on its way. The reference to a $300 billion investment fund—even if hedged and dependent upon the future overall agreement—is almost by definition an awkward invitation to the Gulf states to buy off Iranian enmity, after nearly four months of being exposed to Tehran’s strikes.

What is missing from the text is no less alarming. There is no reference to the ballistic missile program—indeed, Trump has dismissed this as irrelevant—as he put it, “after all, others in the region have missiles too …”

Given the Israeli rationale for "Operation Roaring Lion/Epic Fury," which focused on Iran’s missile threat (whereas its nuclear capabilities were the main target of "Operation Rising Lion" in June 2025), this is a troubling omission, even if there are reasons to believe that serious damage has been done to Iran’s capability to resume mass missile production in the near future.

The same may be said for the question of support and funding for Iran’s proxies across the region: By allowing Iran to bring Lebanon into the equation (to protect Hezbollah from the consequences of its own decision to join the war), the MoU has lent legitimacy to the regime’s system of patronage over its regional clients.

Even more damaging, in terms of its immediate as well as long-term strategic consequences, is the manner in which the MoU is being justified as an urgent necessity. In effect, what Iran has been told (albeit side by side with the repeated warning that the U.S. would attack it again if the negotiations fail) is that its closure of the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a victorious tool of statecraft:

1. The American military found itself powerless to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by force—not in weeks or even in years. This amounts to a harsh indictment of America’s conventional naval, air and ground capabilities, built at a cost of trillions of dollars and perhaps the one deterrent restraining the aggression of other parties in the CRINK (China, Russia, Iran, North Korea) grouping against their neighbors. It is Washington’s determination not to put “boots on the ground” driven by fear of casualties, and because it judged the risks unjustified, that led to this result.

2. Iran has thus found itself in a position to continuously disrupt the entire global economy, and, potentially, to bring about a crisis akin to that of 1929. Trump, by his own admission, has no wish to be remembered in the same breath as U.S. President Herbert Hoover, often blamed for failing to avert America’s economic meltdown.

While the validity of both claims can be questioned, what is certain is that they were read in Tehran as evidence that it now holds the whip hand. Almost immediately, it used this newfound leverage to demand American action to coerce Israel in Lebanon.

On June 20, after hours of intense strikes against Hezbollah targets in South Lebanon, Iran extracted from Israel a willingness to hold IDF fire (or rather, to confine it to a response to local challenges). The overarching problem is that, given the messages it has received on its current advantage, the IRGC regime may well push further down the slippery slope, on the assumption that the American administration would be willing to impose its will on Israel to keep the strait open.

In Lebanon, this could lead to a demand for a full Israeli withdrawal, and from there, Iran’s influence could spread to Gaza and beyond. Slippery slopes are dangerous by definition. Trump’s change of tune, and his warning to Iran on 21 June, apparently following a prolonged consultation with U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, seem to reflect an understanding of this point.

What can Israel do?

Dramatic posturing and hot-headed bravado are of little use at this stage. Indeed, reckless statements have already caused damage, serving Iran’s interest in driving a wedge between Israel and the U.S. What is needed is a sober and carefully balanced combination of two seemingly contradictory responses:

1. On the one hand, Israel should demonstrate to an angry and impatient administration that it is prepared to take Washington’s short-term needs into account, to the extent possible and without unduly risking the safety of soldiers or civilians in northern Israel, so long as this does not require irreversible concessions on the ground.

2. On the other, considering what transpired between Trump and Graham, Israel should pursue a systematic effort in Washington—as discreetly as possible, given the extreme sensitivity of the administration to any open criticism—to alert senior administration officials and key congressional players to the danger inherent in the slippery-slope dynamics, and not only to Israeli interests.

3. This effort should aim to coordinate, to the greatest extent possible, a strategy to “gain a foothold” and dispel Tehran’s assumption that it can now impose its will and its narrative on Israel and the region.

Originally published by the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security.

While the Gazan terror organization continuously prepared for a final war of annihilation against Israel, the rapid progression of diplomatic negotiations between Jerusalem and Riyadh prompted the Hamas military wing to accelerate its timetable, according to the researchers.

The resulting assault was designed to shatter the regional integration of the Jewish state while simultaneously triggering a multi-front conflict across the Middle East, they found.

According to a June 15, 2026, report published by Avishai Karo, a senior researcher and Middle East scholar at the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, internal Hamas documents recovered by the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza demonstrate that the group's leadership viewed the impending Saudi normalization as a massive threat to their strategic objectives.

“Hamas regarded the process of normalization as a fatal blow to the Palestinian cause which would weaken the movement and diminish its role in the ‘resistance axis,’” Karo wrote in his report. Hamas first attempted to thwart the normalization process by igniting “the situation on the ground and using the narrative of a ‘threat to al-Aqsa’ as an accelerant," the report states.

However, as time passed, Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza, concluded that the only alternative was to undertake an unconventional course of action to halt the normalization process, which he believed was approaching maturation.

"Hamas closely followed the progress of the normalization process between Saudi Arabia and Israel from the exploratory phase," Karo told JNS.

He outlined the severe strategic implications the organization attached to a peace treaty between Jerusalem and Riyadh.

"It saw the realization of normalization as nothing less than a strategic threat for the entire Palestinian issue, and for Hamas's role as part of the ‘resistance axis’ in particular," Karo explained.

"The fact that Saudi Arabia, the leader of the Sunni Arab world, was prepared to normalize relations with Israel was considered from Hamas's perspective as a crushing blow," he stated. "This would lead to what it termed a regional collapse, in light of the fact that additional countries would follow in Saudi Arabia's footsteps, and the axis of resistance would be dramatically weakened."

Before resorting to a full-scale invasion, the organization attempted to derail the diplomatic track through localized escalations, Karo noted. He assessed that the terror group sought to utilize religious flash points to ignite violence in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, hoping to rally the masses and disrupt the diplomatic trajectory without forcing a direct, devastating confrontation with the IDF in Gaza.

"It is important to note that Hamas formulated a comprehensive plan to struggle against normalization out of a belief that it might succeed in thwarting the move, delaying or disrupting it," Karo detailed. "Hamas even tried to thwart the normalization through a plan to ignite the territories of Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem through the 'Al-Aqsa in Danger' campaign."

He explained the historical precedent that inspired this incitement strategy.

"Hamas conceived this move based on the lessons of the Second Intifada in 2002, which led to the halting of the Arab Peace Initiative," Karo said. "The leadership emphasized in internal circles that they must act to thwart normalization, but at the same time, avoid political suicide or harming relations with Saudi Arabia."

Yet, he said, the decision to launch the attack stemmed, among other things, from the understanding of Hamas and its leader that the normalization train with Saudi Arabia was racing toward its destination despite everything and could not be stopped.

He pointed to specific public milestones, including the 2022 opening of Saudi airspace to Israeli flights and a September 2023 media interview by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, that signaled the inevitability of an agreement to the terror leadership.

The destruction of Israel

This urgency of blocking the Saudi diplomatic breakthrough dovetailed seamlessly with the terror group's overarching jihadist objective of destroying Israel.

According to a March 2025 report published by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, authored by Dr. Uri Rosset, a lecturer at Sapir Academic College and a researcher at the Meir Amit Center, captured documents illustrate how the organization transitioned its long-standing ideological theories regarding the destruction of Israel into concrete operational plans.

Karo said there was no contradiction between the various goals.

“On the contrary, Hamas certainly holds a religious ideology seeking the destruction of Israel, but not at the cost of ‘suicide,’” he stated. “Hamas never gave up on its ambition to destroy Israel, even when it spoke of a hudna—a prolonged ceasefire. From Hamas’s perspective, it was always about timing and the fruition of capabilities and conditions,” he said, adding that Hamas also noted the internal divisions rocking Israel at the time of the attack, as well as Israel’s tendency toward containment and lack of will for a full-fledged confrontation.

Rosset, who authored the paper detailing how Hamas operationalized its jihadist ideology, agreed.

"I certainly view this as two sides of the same coin," he told JNS.

"From their perspective, Saudi normalization would establish Israel's status in the region, so it needed to be destroyed, and of course, the supreme goal is the destruction of Israel," Rosset explained.

Examining the operational documents drafted by Sinwar, Rosset revealed the scale of the strategic vision.

"There were three alternatives that he presented, three options, of which only the first, in his view, was liable to bring about the destruction of Israel, which is that everyone [in the jihadist axis] joins in," said Rosset.

He described the ultimate execution of the plan as a calculated gamble designed to force the hand of Hamas’s regional allies.

"Ultimately, he [Sinwar] went with the more minor option, in which Hamas leads, and expected that others [Hezbollah and Iran] would join," said Rosset.

The expectation of a multi-front war was explicit in the immediate aftermath of the initial breach of the border in southern Israel, according to the recovered documents. Captured correspondence reveals that on the morning of the attack, senior Hamas commanders dispatched urgent communications anticipating the immediate entry of Hezbollah into the fray, he explained.

"There is the famous letter that Sinwar, Marwan Issa [the eliminated deputy Hamas commander], and Mohammad Deif [the eliminated head of Hamas’s military wing] sent exactly at 6:30 in the morning" of Oct 7, 2023, said Rosset. "The letter in which he expected that Hezbollah would join did not succeed for him, but broadly speaking we are talking about the same coin, there is no contradiction between these goals, on the contrary."

Addressing the selection of the Oct. 7 date, Rosset argued that the timing was dictated by tactical opportunity rather than a specific diplomatic deadline in Riyadh.

"Sinwar explicitly said they wanted to do it in a specific time frame, during Passover," Rosset recalled. "He spoke about Passover, and apparently, it did not work out."

He assessed that the Jewish holiday calendar ultimately provided the necessary conditions for the assault.

"Therefore, I believe this specific timing was more of an operational opportunity, and Passover and Simchat Torah [which fell on Oct. 7, 2023], it seems to me that this determined the timing," said Rosset.

Yet beneath the surface of this diplomatic achievement lies a profound strategic crisis for Jerusalem. By explicitly incorporating Lebanon into the framework’s halt to hostilities, the agreement fundamentally constrains Israeli national security. It freezes a conflict that Israel was working hard to keep separate from broader international diplomacy, leaving a battle-hardened Hezbollah firmly planted on its northern border and straining the foundations of the U.S.-Israel alliance.

For months, the Israel Defense Forces has carried out a wide-ranging offensive in Southern Lebanon, occupying a strategic buffer zone intended to ensure the safe return of displaced northern residents. Israel’s military strategy depended on the freedom to continue operations until Hezbollah was decisively and permanently neutralized.

The framework agreement dismantles this strategy. By placing strict limitations on Israeli military activity in Lebanon, Washington is in effect protecting Hezbollah’s core military capabilities. Critically, Iran’s theocratic government remains in place, its stockpile of highly enriched uranium has not been surrendered, its ballistic missile capabilities have not been destroyed, and it has not ended its support for anti-Israel militias such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Pushed into an unwanted and premature ceasefire, Israel faces a worst-case containment scenario: Its freedom of action has been curtailed by its closest ally, while its most immediate existential threat remains intact, actively rearming and shielded by an international agreement.

The Lebanon dimension of this accord is especially contentious. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi declared that any continued occupation of Lebanese territory would be regarded as a violation of the Memorandum of Understanding, and that, in Iran’s view, the two parties to the agreement are the United States and Israel on one side, and Iran and Hezbollah on the other. Washington has pushed back sharply.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee stated that Secretary of State Marco Rubio made clear that the nuclear deal and the question of Israel’s presence in Lebanon are entirely separate issues. Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter was equally blunt, stating that Israel would not withdraw from Southern Lebanon and that Tehran had no business inserting itself into that question. Nevertheless, the contradictory interpretations of the deal’s terms have created dangerous ambiguity on the ground.

The tensions between Washington and Jerusalem have already surfaced publicly. Prime Minister Netanyahu held a tense phone call with Vice President JD Vance, in which Vance asked Israel to scale back IDF presence in Lebanon, a request Netanyahu refused. Trump said at the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains that he was “not happy” with the way Israel had handled itself in Lebanon, adding pointedly: “Without us, without the United States, there would be no Israel.” Trump went further still, suggesting that Syria should take over from Israel in the fight against Hezbollah, arguing that Israel’s campaign had been too prolonged and indiscriminate.

$24 billion before negotiations

Beyond the border, this accord functions as a significant political windfall for Hezbollah within Lebanon’s domestic arena. The group will portray the new framework as a resounding victory for the “Axis of Resistance,” claiming it withstood the combined military pressure of the West and Israel. This triumphalism poses serious problems for the fragile Lebanese caretaker government in Beirut.

For years, sovereign Lebanese political factions had quietly hoped that international pressure would lead to enforcement of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 and effective disarmament of the militia. Instead, the G7 leaders’ call for Hezbollah’s disarmament remains aspirational at best, with the group undefeated and Iran securing both a ceasefire umbrella and access to billions in previously frozen assets.

Iran’s central bank head confirmed that under the agreement, the country is set to receive half of its roughly $24 billion in long-frozen funds before final negotiations even begin. Armed with this financial windfall and its surviving missile stockpile, Hezbollah will cement a powerful veto over Lebanon’s political and military future, reducing the Lebanese government to little more than a diplomatic facade.

This situation places Israel in a position where the U.S. administration, anxious to protect its broader regional deal with Iran, is already applying visible pressure on Jerusalem to stand down. Israel was entirely excluded from the U.S.-Iran peace negotiations, and while Israeli officials previously said they would support an agreement, they have expressed serious reservations about its terms.

Should Israel continue to refuse an IDF withdrawal, Washington could take more drastic steps, including withholding diplomatic cover at the United Nations or slowing the delivery of precision-guided munitions. Stripped of conventional options, Israel’s defense posture would likely shift toward radical survivalism, leaning heavily on maximum strategic deterrence through highly disproportionate preemptive strikes to forestall a multi-front attack.

In a scenario of growing American disengagement, Hezbollah’s next moves would be deliberate and opportunistic. Rather than launching an immediate all-out assault, the group’s first phase would be a highly public, triumphalist return to the border, reclaiming vacated territory as proof of its resistance. Regional officials with direct knowledge of the interim deal have said it would require Israel to leave nearly all the territory it currently occupies in Lebanon, minus a few hilltop positions along the border.

Under the protection of a U.S.-Iran-mandated ceasefire, Hezbollah would swiftly rebuild its underground attack infrastructure along the Blue Line international border. Once a reliable logistics corridor through Syria and Iraq is secured using the financial windfall from Iranian sanctions relief, Hezbollah would wait for the right moment of internal Israeli political weakness before launching a large-scale saturation assault.

The U.S.-Iran agreement is expected to launch negotiations toward a final settlement to end the war. Yet by treating Lebanon as a secondary concern to global energy markets, the framework accord may inadvertently set the stage for the very catastrophic conflict it claims to be preventing.

Originally published by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.

A center-right politician from the former Soviet republic of Estonia, her appointment to the post promised a break from her vocally anti-Israel predecessor, the Spanish Socialist Josep Borrell, who accused Israel of starving Gaza.

But last week, amid a months-long effort by Kallas to promote sanctions on Israel, reports said she called the Jewish state an “apartheid” regime, triggering Thursday’s unprecedented move by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar. He said Israel would “sever all contact with Ms. Kallas until she retracts the blood libel.”

Madam,

With all due respect, even in your remarks here you refrain from denying or condemning what has been attributed to you and published publicly. That speaks for itself.

To the best of my knowledge, the statements attributed to you regarding “apartheid” do not reflect the… https://t.co/kETNPXTZK8

— Gideon Sa'ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) June 18, 2026

Analysts of E.U.-Israel relations identified several factors that led to the current crisis, including a power struggle in Brussels, the upcoming elections in Israel, and the diplomatic toxicity of the terminology that Kallas is said to have used.

“Once the ‘apartheid’ accusation is put on the table, Israel’s Foreign Ministry will react very forcefully, up to and including shutting out the accuser unless they retract. A strong rebuke would’ve happened under any government,” Maya Sion-Tzidkiyahu, a lecturer at the European Forum of the Hebrew University, told JNS.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry is operating under the assumption that it can afford to suspend relations with Kallas because it has independent levers within the E.U. in friendly members states, Sion-Tzidkiyahu said. Those allies have so far proven effective in blocking E.U.-wide sanctions.

The report attributing the apartheid term to Kallas appeared on June 12 in Euractiv. It did not offer direct quotes of what she allegedly said, saying only that it was about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, and that it was said during a closed meeting in Mexico City last month. Kallas’s office neither confirmed or denied the reports, answering a JNS query with a text that only outlined the E.U. position in favor of a Palestinian state.

Kallas replied to Sa’ar’s announcement generally and without addressing his allegations, writing to him on X that “Dialogue is the foundation of diplomacy,” and that the E.U. supports the two-state solution.

Calling Israel an apartheid state is “antisemitic and exceeds legitimate criticism on policy, so suspending ties with her was the right move, if that’s indeed what she said,” Yitzhak Eldan, a former Israeli ambassador to Denmark and ex-head of protocol for the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, told JNS. He added that suspension should have happened only after Kallas had time to retract and clarify her words.

A former Estonian prime minister with a neutral record on Israel, Kallas in 2024 looked like a certain improvement over her Borrell. That year, then-Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz called Borrell “an antisemite and Israel-hater who consistently tries to pass resolutions and sanctions against Israel in the E.U. only to be blocked by most member states."

Though he doesn’t appear to have leveled the apartheid accusation publicly, Borrell accused Israel of committing war crimes, promoted sanctions against Israel and claimed it appeared to be using starvation as a weapon in Gaza. Borrell also accused Israel of perpetrating genocide, but only after Kallas had replaced him as the E.U. top diplomat. Israel condemned Borrell and refused to arrange meetings with him at several occasions, but had never announced a break in relations with Borrell while he was in office.

The “apartheid” label followed months in which Kallas promoted sanctions against Israel, mainly in connection with its policies of increasing the Jewish-Israeli population of Judea and Samaria. In his statement of a break in relations, Sa’ar said Kallas has “been acting obsessively and with blatant unfairness” toward Israel.

This week alone, Kallas said she would promote trade restrictions with Israel over “illegal settlements,” shortly after a bid she presented at the European Council to pass E.U.-wide sanctions against Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir failed due to opposition by the Czech Republic.

Sion-Tzidkiyahu, who is also the director of the Israel-Europe Relations Program at Mitvim—The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies, said that whereas Kallas has been consistent in advancing sanctions against Israel, this was the result of political necessity rather than an ideological directive.

“I believe that Kallas’s policy on Israel is mostly realpolitik,” Sion-Tzidkiyahu said, noting that Israel as an issue is currently eclipsed in the E.U. by the conflict with Russia.

Kallas, a centrist liberal, gradually became a political rival of Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, who belongs to the more conservative Christian Democratic Union of Germany and is generally viewed as an ally of Israel.

Both women are staunchly opposed to Russian expansion, but going also after Israel when it is deeply unpopular among European elites helps distinguish Kallas from von der Leyen and rally support for Kallas in Europe, Sion-Tzidkiyahu said.

Kallas is facing pressure from Spain, France, Ireland and other member states with anti-Israel governments, and acquiescing to their demands adds to her political capital, Sion-Tzidkiyahu continued.

Israel’s allies in Europe have protested Kallas’s alleged apartheid slur. MEP Hildegard Bentele, chief whip of the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union faction within the European Parliament and chair of the parliament's Delegation for relations with Israel, wrote on X, “Comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa is not only factually wrong, but also completely unacceptable for someone speaking on behalf of the EU,” adding that it “further undermine[s] trust in Europe’s foreign policy apparatus.”

As for Sa’ar’s announcement of a break in relations with Kallas, “this is an election year [in Israel],” Sion-Tzidkiyahu said. “As foreign minister, Sa’ar has always taken a firm line, sometimes crossing over to abrasiveness. Kallas’s alleged ‘apartheid’ accusation gave him an opportunity to flex. He took it.”

The plan is contingent on the P.A. carrying out widespread reforms—reforms Saudi Arabia is heavily invested in moving along. A P.A. official told The Times of Israel that the Saudis view the reforms “as essential for establishing a pathway to the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

Washington backs the Saudi efforts as they harmonize with its broader goal of growing the circle of countries joining the Abraham Accords, the normalization agreements signed between Israel and several Muslim states. The Saudis have said they will only normalize relations with Israel if an “irreversible pathway” to Palestinian statehood is established.

The Trump administration’s 20-point plan, unveiled in September 2025, to end the Gaza war, also provides a path for “Palestinian self-determination and statehood” once reforms are “faithfully carried out.”

However, the P.A., despite repeated promises to reform, supports terrorism through its "pay-for-slay" program and glorifies violence against Israel and Jews in its official media and school curriculum. Its school books have been likened to those produced under the regime of Nazi Germany.

Maurice Hirsch, director of the Initiative for Palestinian Authority Accountability and Reform at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, told JNS that while he is concerned by the report, he found it difficult to believe that anyone in the Trump administration would look to the P.A. as a viable partner.

That said, U.S. President Donald Trump is eager to expand the Abraham Accords, Hirsch conceded, and he may be willing to signal his willingness to make a declaration to the effect that once reforms are in place he will recognize a Palestinian state.

It would be a repeat of the position he already set forward in his January 2020 “Deal of the Century” proposal.

A key question for Hirsch is to whom in the P.A. does the U.S. turn, given the unpopularity of the P.A.'s leadership among Palestinians. P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas, 90, became president in 2005 in an election boycotted by Hamas, meaning only half of eligible voters took part. And of those who did, less than half voted for him.

Or does the U.S. instead go to one of Abbas’s cronies, such as P.A. Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa, or Vice President Hussein al-Sheikh?

Promises to Macron

Reforms in the P.A. never materialize. It has been a year since Abbas sent a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron promising far-reaching reforms, Hirsch said.

They included a “curriculum that is free from incitement,” “the organization of presidential and general elections within a year to be conducted under international auspices” and “revoking the law on payments to families of prisoners and martyrs.”

The curriculum continues to incite to violence. IMPACT-se, a group that examines school texts for extremist content, found “recurring patterns across subjects: promotion of jihad and martyrdom, glorification of terrorism, incitement of antisemitism, rejection of peacemaking and the two-state solution, and erasure of Israel from maps.”

Abbas claimed just this week that presidential elections are to be held in November 2027, already a year later than the date promised to Macron. The P.A. has promised to hold elections, only to renege, many times. If elections do take place, it would be the first time since 2005.

Terror payments to prisoners and families continue, though the P.A. has made efforts to disguise the fact, as documented by Palestinian Media Watch. Abbas famously said on P.A. TV in July 2018, “By Allah, even if we have only a penny left it will only be spent on the families of the Martyrs and the prisoners, and only afterwards will it be spent on the rest of the people.”

The P.A. is putting on a “good performance” of implementing various reforms, though in reality it is doing nothing, Hirsch said. If it was serious about reform, there are easy changes it could make at once to show its good faith. Changing a curriculum may take time, but there’s nothing to stopping the P.A. from changing the names of its schools honoring terrorists.

Dozens of educational institutions are named after individuals involved in armed attacks on Israelis, including Dalal Mughrabi, who led the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre, in which terrorists seized a civilian bus, killing 35, including 13 children, and wounding 71; Khalil al-Wazir, aka Abu Jihad, who organized numerous attacks against Jews as commander of Fatah's armed wing; and Salah Khalaf, who founded the Black September organization, responsible for the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre.

As to the report’s suggestion that the PLO diplomatic mission in Washington, D.C., which served as a de facto Palestinian embassy, would be reopened, Hirsch said it's far-fetched.

It was ordered closed by the first Trump administration in 2018. “Even the Biden administration didn't reopen the PLO’s offices,” he said. “That Trump is suddenly going to change his position and say the PLO is now actively engaged in a constructive manner to bring about peace, I don't believe that that's really going to happen.”

According to these assessments, the agreement gives Tehran crucial political and economic relief. This breathing space lets it withstand pressure for U.S. President Donald Trump’s remaining term while maintaining its nuclear and ballistic-missile programs. These are assets that it can later restore and enhance whenever it chooses.

The Iranian leadership requires more than mere regime survival. It needs an agreement that provides security and stability, facilitates sanctions relief and unlocks access to billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets abroad.

Such measures are viewed as essential to address a growing array of domestic challenges, including rising living costs, deteriorating public services, high inflation and unemployment, and the collapse of the national currency.

Senior security officials believe that Iran is unlikely to sign a new nuclear agreement under the terms sought by Washington.

Tehran is expected to use delaying tactics and negotiation strategies to prolong talks. This aims to make it harder for Trump to resume military action against Iran as time passes.

Iranian officials are well aware that negotiations over the 2015 nuclear agreement with the Obama administration lasted approximately 18 months. Consequently, they see little chance that negotiations with the Trump administration can be concluded within the proposed 60-day time frame.

In the meantime, Iran is expected to maximize every political and economic advantage from the Memorandum of Understanding.

According to senior security sources, Iranian decision-makers believe that the two principal pressure points at their disposal, the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, provide them with significant leverage over both the U.S. and the global economy.

This leverage, they believe, enables Tehran to engage in prolonged negotiations while reducing the likelihood of a return to hostilities. Iran appears prepared to withstand pressure from the Trump administration over the next two and a half years, until the end of the president’s term, to gain valuable time.

Iranian leaders also recognize the political pressures facing the Trump administration. These include rising fuel prices, the approaching midterm elections in November, as well as growing pressure from Gulf states seeking regional stability and urging Washington to avoid renewed military escalation.

Protecting regional proxies

At the same time, Iran is seeking to protect its regional proxies while promoting its broader security vision among Gulf states, a vision that calls for the removal of foreign military bases from the region.

Although Iran and its allied organizations within the so-called “Axis of Resistance” have suffered substantial setbacks during the war, Tehran still maintains influence through proxy forces in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and the Gaza Strip, even if these organizations have been significantly weakened.

Senior security officials nevertheless believe that Iran retains the ability to threaten Israel through these proxies. Hezbollah in Lebanon remains Tehran’s most significant regional asset, while the Houthis in Yemen continue to serve as an important deterrent against the U.S. through their ability to threaten shipping in the Bab el-Mandeb and disrupt freedom of navigation in the Red Sea.

The American maritime blockade and economic sanctions have had a significant impact on Iran’s economy and financial resources, directly affecting Tehran’s ability to fund these proxy organizations.

This underpins Iran’s insistence on an immediate release of about $24 billion under the MoU. Tehran also aims to gain substantial revenues from resuming full oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz after U.S. naval restrictions end.

Iran suffered a major strategic setback in Syria with the loss of its ally, President Bashar Assad. As a result, it lost its primary logistical corridor for transferring weapons and military equipment from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Regarding Lebanon, Iran is increasingly concerned that Israel may seek to dismantle Hezbollah’s second defensive line, particularly the Badr Force positions in the Nabatieh region north of the Litani River, which serve as a protective buffer for Beirut. According to security assessments, this concern was one of the principal reasons behind Iran’s direct intervention in support of Hezbollah and its declaration of a new deterrence formula against Israel, namely that any attack on Beirut’s Dahiyeh district would trigger a direct Iranian response.

Iranian leaders reportedly fear that Hezbollah’s main stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburb is under serious threat and that a large-scale Israeli offensive there could lead to the collapse of Tehran’s most important regional proxy.

Security officials assess that Iran is trying to limit additional losses. Outwardly, Tehran aims to project confidence and strength while maintaining its regional stance. Privately, Iran seeks to avoid direct war with Israel or the United States, hoping to prevent further setbacks.

Iran’s objective is to reach a political accommodation with Washington, but on terms acceptable to Tehran rather than those dictated by the U.S. Such an arrangement would safeguard the survival of the Islamic Republic, slow the erosion of Iran’s regional influence, and preserve the foundational principle of the rule of the Islamic jurist.

Officials state that Iran is now at its most vulnerable point since 1979. Iran regards the MoU as a vital tool to exit the crisis, buy recovery time, and use negotiations to ease U.S. demands on its nuclear program.

Originally published by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.

On Wednesday, the connection of central and western Samaria communities to the Gush Dan wastewater treatment plant was inaugurated in a ceremony attended by Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen and Samaria Regional Council chairman Yossi Dagan. The communities of Peduel, Bruchin, Alei Zahav and Leshem were connected to the system for the first time, with Revava, Kiryat Netafim and Gush Kana, along with the Barkan Industrial Zone expected to be connected in the coming weeks.

"We are erasing the Green Line and applying sovereignty in law and in practice. We will continue to work for the infrastructure on the way to a million residents in Judea and Samaria,” said Cohen of the 136 million shekel ($46.6 million) initiative.

So what's behind this sudden uptick in activity?

According to Naomi Kahn, director of the International Division at Regavim, a research-based think tank and lobbying group dedicated to the protection and preservation of Israel’s sovereignty, it may be a combination of factors.

“It is likely a push before elections to show results, but a lot of things got back-burnered during the war,” she explained. “Plus, there is a ticking clock for current Knesset members. They plan to get as much done before their time is up.”

Another possible factor, she said, was that over the course of the war much of the world had turned its back on Israel diplomatically.

“All those years foreign governments have threatened to punish Israel with war crimes charges, to blacklist government members, to use sanctions and boycotts against us. But now they’ve done it all. This could be Israel’s way of saying, ‘go ahead, bring it on,’” she said.

Kahn, along with her organization, is currently being sanctioned by the European Union for “facilitating settlement expansion” through her advocacy and legal work to prevent illegal Palestinian land grabs.

The 2022 Israeli legislative election resulted in a right-wing coalition victory, leading to the swearing-in of Benjamin Netanyahu's 37th government. Campaign promises made by the current government included massive settlement expansion in Judea and Samaria, legalizing outposts and "massive construction." Now, months before the new elections, some of this seems to be coming to fruition.

At the Karnei Shomron ceremonies on June 14, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, unable to attend but clearly on board with the plan, addressed attendees via a congratulatory recorded video message.

Knesset members who attended shared optimistic messages.

“We are marking a historic moment, not only for Karnei Shomron, but for the entire Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria,” said Israeli Housing and Construction Minister Haim Katz. The upcoming Roof Agreements would include 182,000 housing units and 52.47 billion shekels ($17.9 billion) .

The clearest message of all came from Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who said, “We are shaping our future here, on the homeland. There are those who think that political pressure can be exerted on us to give up our rights. They do not understand the DNA of the Jewish people. Our answer to pressures, threats and sanctions. There will be more construction, more development, more alignment, more sovereignty... a national declaration that Israel will continue to be in its land, develop it and ensure its future home.”

He topped it off with, “Mr. Prime Minister, the time has come to also act in Judea and Samaria and to declare sovereignty here before the elections.”

On Tuesday, June 16, Smotrich claimed to have cancelled the Hebron Agreement, a move that would take away the Palestinian-run Hebron municipality of planning and construction powers. Israel’s Foreign Ministry swiftly issued a tweet claiming that this was not the case, with an unclear explanation about the Hebron municipality being "uncooperative."

“He didn’t change any of the jurisdiction lines,” explained Kahn, chalking the rhetoric up to election talk. “Ninety-seven percent of Hebron is under the Palestinian Authority. However, changes were made recently and the P.A. Municipality no longer has jurisdiction over the 3% comprising the Jewish neighborhood and religious sites (including the Cave of the Patriarchs)," she said.

Netanyahu’s campaign promises (along with allies that included Smotrich's Religious Zionism and Itamar Ben-Gvir's Otzma Yehudit) focused on security, settlement expansion, judicial changes, security and anti-crime initiatives, religious/conservative policies that included priorities like countering Iran.

One week before the 2022 election, Netanyahu and allies signed the Settlement Expansion Pledge, part of the broader “Right-Wing Coalition Agreement / Joint Commitment on Judea and Samaria,” for “massive construction” in Judea and Samaria towns in 2022. The pledge included commitments to legalize outposts, accelerate building, and advance sovereignty steps in Judea and Samaria.

Nadia Matar, co-director of the The Sovereignty Movement, an advocacy organization for Judea/Samaria settlement, declared the de jure support “Amazing. This government is slowly but surely undoing 30 years of Oslo damage and tragedy. The people of Israel are grateful and expect all the amazing de facto sovereignty actions to be sealed with a de jure sovereignty: i.e. a vote, before the upcoming elections, for the application of Israeli sovereignty.”

However, attempts to annex areas in Judea and Samaria were quashed by U.S. President Donald Trump as recently as October 2025, after Israeli advanced two symbolic bills in the Knesset for annexation, one for Maale Adumim and the other for broader Judea and Samaria sovereignty.

Votes passed narrowly in preliminary readings (e.g., 25-24 for the wider bill), but Netanyahu’s government largely boycotted or opposed them as “political provocation.”

The vote triggered 15 Arab/Muslim countries/organizations to issue a condemnation coordinated from Doha, reflecting Qatar’s active diplomatic role on Palestinian issues.

At the time, Trump responded with a public statement that Israel would not annex Judea and Samaria, calling it against U.S. policy and warning it would undermine regional deals (including Gaza).

Since then, de facto sovereignty measures, including registering land as Israeli state property, approving new settlement construction, expanding infrastructure and gradually transferring civilian administration from military to civil authorities effectively and quietly deepened Israeli integration and control over parts of the area without a single dramatic declaration of annexation.

According to Matar, however, “only with de jure sovereignty will we make sure there never will be a Palestinian state, only with de jure sovereignty Israel will be strong and will have declared: the land of Israel is ours forever." That, she said, "is what the majority of the people want, and we pray: let it continue.”

But will the Trump administration and those driving the end to the Iran war find a way to stop such efforts?

On Nov. 18, 2025, in a White House meeting with Trump, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman stated, “We want to be part of the Abraham Accords, but we want also to be sure that we secure a clear path to a two-state solution.”

The position issued by the Saudi Foreign Ministry in February 2024 and repeatedly reaffirmed through 2025–2026 is, “There will be no diplomatic relations with Israel unless an independent Palestinian state is recognized on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, and that the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip stops and all Israeli occupation forces withdraw from the Gaza Strip.”

With Trump’s “eye on the prize” (the Nobel prize, that is), in conjunction with his memorandum to end the Iran war, he has likely been trying to persuade Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt and Jordan to join the Abraham Accords subsequent to any Iran agreement. Most countries view the push as unrealistic without progress on creating a Palestinian state.

This is at odds with Israel's sudden surge toward sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, and the question is whether it the first step toward Israel reasserting its independence from the river to the sea, or whether it's a last-minute push ahead of fateful elections.

According to the Palestinian News Agency WAFA, the decree-law increases the number of seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council to 200, lowers the electoral threshold for winning seats to 1%, and raises the minimum number of candidates on each electoral list from 16 to 20.

While the changes appear on the surface to include positive steps—such as increasing women’s representation and lowering the minimum age for candidacy to encourage youth participation—experts dismissed the initiative as a “farce.”

Cosmetic reforms

Maurice Hirsch, director of the Initiative for Palestinian Authority Accountability and Reform at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, told JNS that the reforms are little more than an attempt to deceive Western audiences.

“The so-called ‘reforms’ announced by the P.A. are nothing other than another attempt to fool the willfully blind Europeans,” Hirsch said. “Over the last three decades, the PLO and Fatah have done everything they can to undermine the establishment of any potential Palestinian democratic tradition.”

Hirsch noted that in the past 32 years, there have been only two elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council and the position of P.A chairman.

Democracy without elections

“Abbas, the self-professed and much-touted reformer, is now in his 22nd year of what was meant to be a four-year term,” he said. “It was Abbas who disbanded the 2006-elected P.A. parliament and has consistently refused to hold new elections.”

According to Hirsch, the problem extends beyond Abbas himself.

“The issue is not Abbas alone, but rather the stranglehold of Fatah and the PLO over the P.A.,” he said. “Even if Abbas were to leave the scene, nothing would change substantively.”

Hirsch also questioned several provisions in the decree.

“The reforms lack a clear explanation for increasing the number of seats in the P.A. parliament from 132 to 200,” he said. “In the run-up to the 2006 elections, Abbas did the same thing, hoping to stack the deck in favor of Fatah. The move failed and Hamas won.”

He also questioned why Abbas, who is nearly 91, postponed presidential elections until 2027.

“Why are those elections not being held immediately, or at least alongside parliamentary elections?” Hirsch asked. “Why waste more funds, which the PA allegedly does not have, on additional elections?”

Addressing provisions aimed at boosting women’s representation, Hirsch argued that they are largely symbolic.

“One of the more creative moves to fool the Europeans is theoretically increasing the representation of women,” he said. “In reality, Palestinian society is governed by Islamic law and traditions. Whether more or fewer women are elected to parliament is irrelevant. Despite European donations totaling more than 1.81 billion euros to improve gender equality, Palestinian society remains male-dominated and misogynistic. That reality will not change simply because more women are elected.”

Hirsch also pointed to what he called a glaring omission from the decree.

“The reforms do not clearly prohibit internationally designated terrorist organizations from participating in elections,” he said, citing Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The European Union has taken a more positive view of the decree.

An E.U. spokesperson told JNS that the bloc “welcomes President Abbas’s new decree-law amending the general elections law, which represents a good step toward preparations for legislative elections,” and said it looks forward to the announcement of a concrete election date.

The spokesperson added that the E.U. has “consistently supported efforts toward genuine and democratic elections, which are crucial with a view to the Palestinian state-building process.”

The deeper problem

Itamar Marcus, founder and director of Palestinian Media Watch, echoed Hirsch’s criticism, arguing that the focus on procedural reforms distracts from more fundamental problems.

“The great farce about so-called Palestinian Authority reform is that the P.A., followed by many European countries, is completely focused on administrative changes,” Marcus said. “They talk about transparency, democracy and better administration, as if this will make the P.A. worthy of statehood.”

“The problems with the P.A. are 2% administrative and 98% related to the essence of its ideology and identity,” he added.

Marcus said the P.A. continues to promote antisemitism and glorify terrorism.

“The P.A. promotes odious antisemitism, presents terrorist murderers as the most honored people in Palestinian society, names schools after child killers and holds school assemblies celebrating Oct. 7,” he said.

He also noted that religious officials on official P.A. television have repeatedly prayed for the extermination of Jews.

“All of this antisemitism, hate and terror promotion are fundamental parts of the world the P.A. has intentionally created,” Marcus said.

He pointed to polling showing broad Palestinian support for Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

“Eighty-two percent of Palestinians said the Oct. 7 Hamas attack was the correct decision—not because of a lack of transparency, but because the P.A. has convinced people that there is no greater glory than murdering Israelis and Jews,” he said.

“The P.A. can promise the most democratic structures in the world, and it’s all intended as a distraction so the world won’t demand the serious changes that it refuses even to begin implementing.”

By presenting limited procedural changes as meaningful democratic reform while leaving untouched issues of incitement, terrorism and governance, Abbas’s latest decree appears, critics say, aimed more at reassuring Western donors than transforming the Palestinian political system.

According to Marcus, “the Palestinian Authority is a terrorist organization in everything but name.”

This month, the legislature votes on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s final state budget, with three anti-hate programs at stake.

The Commission on the State of Hate is the state’s research and advisory body. The legislature granted it a four-year extension in 2025 after it was set to sunset. The new budget gives the Commission $900,000 in 2026 and $1.8 million annually after that.

Second is CA vs Hate, the statewide reporting hotline launched in 2023 with a $10 million budget. It received a $2.383 million extension, but line-item funding expires in June 2026. It is expected to continue within the Civil Rights Department’s $68.7 million budget.

The third anti-hate program, aptly named, Stop the Hate, is the California Department of Social Services program that has routed more than $150 million to community organizations since 2021. The Asian American and Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus is lobbying to keep it alive and add another $100 million.

Before lawmakers sign another check, they need to answer a simple question: Why is California spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on anti-hate programs that have built a political hierarchy of victimhood inside the state’s anti-hate apparatus?

Data not in dispute

We are civil-rights attorneys who have worked for years in the communities California’s anti-hate machinery is supposed to protect. The state’s own numbers confirm what we see on the ground: California runs these programs through an “oppressor vs. oppressed” lens, and it fails victims who do not fit the script.

Anti-Jewish hate crimes jumped 52.9% in 2023, the largest single-year increase in any category tracked by the California Department of Justice, and climbed again in 2024 to 310 reported events. CA vs Hate’s own first-year data show 37% of validated religious-bias reports were anti-Jewish and 23% were anti-Hindu. Those two communities were hit harder than any other religious group in the state. By the commission’s own accounting, anti-Jewish bias drove about 73% of all religious hate-crime events in 2023.

The data is not in dispute. The state generated the research. Yet the Commission on the State of Hate minimized anti-Jewish and anti-Hindu hatred in both of its last two annual reports.

In the 2023-24 report, anti-LGBTQ+ hate, anti-black hate, missing and murdered Indigenous people, AAPI hate, anti-Latino hate, anti-disability hate and school-based prejudice programs each get dedicated treatment. Anti-Jewish and anti-Hindu hate do not.

Antisemitism, the fastest-rising category of hate in the state of California, was folded into a chapter titled “Hate in the wake of October 7” and bundled with “Muslim, Palestinian, Israeli or Arab” victims under the war in Gaza. In Sacramento’s telling, antisemitism is not a civil-rights crisis. It is a foreign-policy problem.

Anti-Hindu bias got a sentence fragment, even though three Hindu temples were vandalized in 2023 and early 2024, two more were hit in late 2024 and 2025, and calls to the CA vs Hate hotline surged.

The commission’s newest annual report, released in February 2026, repeats the pattern. It records the anti-Jewish surge, including the more than 50% jump in anti-Jewish hate crime events and the 1,344 antisemitic incidents recorded in California in 2024. Yet antisemitism is still tucked inside a general discussion of religious hate framed by the post-Oct. 7 political environment, while anti-Hindu hate speech again gets a passing line about temple vandalism. The report even concedes that the California Department of Justice does not track anti-Hindu hate-crime statistics.

This pattern did not start by accident. In 2023, the legislature passed SB 403, a first-in-the-nation bill adding “caste” as a protected class. Hindu American groups warned that it singled out their community and violated equal protection and due process rights. Newsom vetoed it, but the fight cemented a framing in California progressive politics: Hindu Americans were no longer victims in the civil-rights story. They were villains. That framing grew out of the Civil Rights Department’s lawsuit against Cisco Systems, where the department explicitly and implicitly linked caste to Hinduism and trafficked in racist claims about Indian Americans.

Now that framing lives inside the state’s anti-hate infrastructure. The CA vs. Hate resource page, operated by the Civil Rights Department, sends Hindu Californians to Sadhana, a New York group with no mainstream standing among Hindus. No California-based Hindu organization is listed. The state maintains formal partnerships with Sikh, Jewish and Muslim groups across California. It has none with Hindu American organizations, even though CA vs Hate’s own report says Hindus account for nearly a quarter of validated religious-bias reports.

Not an oversight, an ideology
The Jewish ledger is no better. CA vs Hate’s contracted partners include CAIR-CA and Bend the Arc: Jewish Action. Both campaigned against the antisemitism framework Newsom signed last year under AB 715, California’s K-12 antisemitism statute. CAIR-CA has continued to reject the anti- Jew hatred legislation law and is lobbying to dismantle it.

On June 9, the federal government put Sacramento on notice. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services informed Newsom that it is investigating CAIR’s business practices and ethics, citing more than $27 million in federal HHS funds the California Department of Social Services sub-granted to CAIR-CA. The investigation could end in suspension and debarment from federal programs.

CAIR’s long association with Hamas, including a federal judge’s finding of “ample evidence” of that association in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism-financing case, should disqualify it from its place as a “contracted partner” with the California Civil Rights Department. But, the opposite has happened; the commission’s 2024-25 report features CAIR's own intake numbers as evidence of hate incidents and hate crimes, using their reports as validated statistical incidents.

CAIR is an advocacy group lobbying in Sacramento and a PAC endorsing political candidates throughout the state. Even so, California directly funds CAIR through the CDSS Stop the Hate program. Taxpayers are funding an organization to do “anti-hate work” while that organization campaigns against the state’s own anti-hate laws.

This pattern is not an oversight. It is ideology. At February’s Commission meeting, vice chair Andrea Beth Damsky, a Jewish and LGBTQ+ leader and the commission’s most consistent internal voice on antisemitism, announced her intent to resign. She cited the body’s refusal to hold a single hearing on antisemitism. “Hate is hate,” she said. When the person fighting from inside decides that she has to walk out, that is a verdict on the institution.

California should fight all forms of hate. The point is not to rank victims by worthiness. Public dollars and attention should follow the data. Instead, California’s anti-hate apparatus is clinging to dogma, even when its own research says otherwise.

That is the test for legislators now. Will they make these three taxpayer-funded programs fight hate equally or continue an ideological project dressed up in civil-rights language?

The legislature should require the California Civil Rights Department and the California Department of Social Services to publish criteria for selecting anti-hate partners. Grants should come with written limits on what contracted groups can do with state “anti-hate” money. Partners should be required to align with California’s antisemitism law, not work against it.

The Commission on the State of Hate must allocate its hearings, research and budget in proportion to the hate California actually documents. If it will not, lawmakers should let it sunset and route the money to organizations that serve victims as the numbers find them, not as the ideology prefers them.

Many legislators voting on this budget are on the ballot in November. Voters deserve to know whether they conducted oversight or just signed the check.

Equal protection is not a slogan. It is the promise California makes to everyone who lives here. This month, Sacramento gets to show whether that promise still holds or whether, in 2026, some victims simply count more than others.

The decision is part of a fundamental departure from the previous security approach that governed the area for over two decades. Following the conclusion of the Second Intifada, the military largely relied on intelligence-driven, targeted raids.

However, this operational model allowed the broader terror ecosystem to survive and continuously replenish its ranks, weapons, and fortifications in the absence of a permanent Israeli security presence. This changed in January 2025, when the IDF launched "Operation Iron Wall" in Samaria.

"The fact is that every time we entered into a pinpoint operation of a few days, seized weapons, and targeted operatives, in the end we kept going back to the same baseline," said the source. "Ultimately, when you leave them with their terror stronghold and their hub, you essentially fail to change anything, which is why 'Operation Iron Wall' in January 2025 was launched to change this situation."

"By remaining inside the camp to alter the reality on the ground, the operation worked, leading to a 70 percent decrease in terror since it began," the source observed.

"The decision to establish a base there is a directive from the political echelon, which essentially states that they are currently not interested in a withdrawal of forces," said the military source.

The decision is driven by a number factors, including the need to protect renewed Israeli nearby settlement presence in the region, specifically the communities of Sanur, Ganim, and Kadim.

Planners also recognized the inherent unreliability of the Palestinian Authority's security forces.

Before the launch of "Operation Iron Wall," the various armed factions inside the camp abandoned their traditional organizational rivalries. The military observed intense efforts to amalgamate Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and various local terror networks into a singular cohesive fighting force funded directly by Tehran. This newly formed alliance was designated as a centralized terror organization specific to the camp, operating under the moniker Abnaa al-Mukhayam (Sons of the Camp).

"They really tried to imitate the terror organizations from Oct. 7, since on Oct. 7 the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, as well as Hamas, all raided together, and that is exactly what they attempted to do here," the source stated.

"They sought to unite Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and all of these bodies under one head that is funded by Iran. So that is what we succeeded in doing ultimately, neutralizing all the attempts to organize as a group, at least in these areas."

Still, Israel faces continuous attempts to orchestrate terrorism against civilian and military targets alike, forcing the defense establishment to maintain high readiness.

"Obviously, like always, there are desires and attempts and warnings to carry out attacks, there is no question here," the source cautioned.

The external funding and strategic direction for this terror hub flowed directly from the Iranian regime. Iranian leadership views the destabilization of Judea and Samaria as a vital component of its multi-front war of attrition against the State of Israel. By trying to flood the territory with terror financing and smuggled weaponry, the Islamic Republic sought to ignite a major escalation that would stretch Israeli forces and attention.

"You also see the Iranians [in action], who understand that Judea and Samaria is ultimately the soft underbelly of Israel," the source analyzed. "Ultimately, an intifada in Judea and Samaria diverts the attention of all the arenas directly into that sector."

This effort was heavily supported by various Hamas command centers operating safely in foreign capitals.

"This includes Hamas in Turkey and Hamas in Tunisia, but you also see the Iranians attempting to drag Judea and Samaria into this," the source concluded.

The Iranian strategy has included an arms smuggling campaign across the eastern border with Jordan. Smuggling rings utilized criminal networks to move vast quantities of assault rifles, explosives, and cash across the frontier, destined for the terror cells operating in Samaria. To counter this, the IDF deployed the newly established 96th Division to secure the Jordan Valley and interdict the supply lines fueling the violence.

These were premised on basic foundational and underlying principles, first enunciated in the September 1993 Exchange of Letters between PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, in which Arafat declared, “The PLO commits itself to the Middle East peace process and to a peaceful resolution of the conflict and declares that all outstanding issues relating to permanent status will be resolved through negotiations.”

This was formalized in the preambular provisions of the 1993 Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Governing Arrangements (Oslo I), and repeated in the preamble to the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (Oslo II).

These foundational and underlying principles included:

• Enunciation of the will of the parties to “end decades of confrontation and conflict” and to live in peaceful coexistence and mutual dignity;

• Recognition of their mutual legitimate and political rights;

• The desire to achieve a just, lasting, and comprehensive peace settlement and historic reconciliation; and

• That this be achieved solely through an agreed and exclusive political mechanism of dispute settlement through negotiation.

The concept of resolving disputes through negotiation did not emanate from a vacuum. It was set out in the 1945 U.N. Charter, which prohibits the use of force and calls for the lasting resolution of disputes through norms of mutual respect and legal parity, as well as through appropriate mechanisms.

U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 (1967), adopted following the 1967 Six-Day War, specifically called for establishing contacts with the states concerned to promote agreement and assist efforts to achieve a peaceful and accepted settlement in accordance with the resolution’s provisions and principles.

This was further enhanced in Security Council Resolution 338 (1973), following the Yom Kippur war, which called for negotiations between the parties concerned under appropriate auspices aimed at establishing a just and durable peace in the Middle East.

Accordingly, the Oslo Accords established a negotiated mechanism that combined a transitional period of governance with direct negotiations toward a permanent-status agreement.

In the final clauses of the 1995 Oslo II Accord, the PLO and Israel undertook to refrain from initiating or taking “any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations.”

In fact, the principle of negotiated dispute settlement constituted the very backbone of the Middle East peace process from its very beginning, based on the assumption that only through direct negotiation could the parties develop between them a basis of mutual trust and respect that would enable the implementation of the commitments in the agreements and consolidation of a lasting relationship of peaceful coexistence and bonhomie.

The Oslo Accords made no mention of international conferences, U.N. intervention or any form of unilateral or other third-party determination. There was no reference by international leaders to prejudging or imposing a resolution of the Middle East dispute. Similarly, there was no mention of recourse to juridical intervention through international tribunals or of unilateral recognition campaigns as means of bypassing the agreed contractual negotiating framework.

The overriding foundational concept was bona fide, direct negotiation, without any outside intervention or predetermination of the negotiation’s outcome.

Changing factors adversely influenced the return to negotiation

After 30 years, while the basic assumptions leaning toward peace may have remained in place, several international, regional and local factors are now influencing the prospects for achieving peace by returning to a direct negotiating mechanism similar to the one that enabled the adoption of the Oslo Accords.

Evolving radicalization within the Islamic world, including elements advocating jihadist tendencies against Israel, the U.S. and the West, is now being generated and exported by Iranian Shi’ite extremism with the support of such Islamist states as Qatar. These impede and even obstruct more moderate elements in the Arab world.

What was once a readiness by moderate elements in the Arab world to accept Israel as a partner in the area appears to have become fractured, radicalized and fanaticized.

Even those moderate Arab states that enthusiastically joined the Abraham Accords in 2020 at the initiative of U.S. President Donald Trump appear to be apprehensive when presently faced with the still-existent jihadist Iranian regional influence and the lack of any viable and decisive Western response.

Radicalization of the international community: The organized international community is becoming monopolized by radical and non-democratic regimes, including some with jihadist tendencies, that dictate an international agenda serving their political interests. Such interests generally orient against the West and increasingly undermine and neutralize the U.N. and its ability to fulfill its aims and purposes as set out in its charter.

Politicization of international legal bodies: The tendency of international and regional bodies to resolve disputed legal questions with predetermined political conclusions, influenced by shared political and economic preferences, drastically weakens and undermines these bodies.

The manipulation and abuse by South Africa of the International Court of Justice, the main juridical arm of the U.N., under the direction and financing of Iran, in order to engage in a futile crusade against Israel, as well as ongoing Palestinian abuse and manipulation of the International Criminal Court by obliging it to engage in a similar crusade against Israel and its leaders, only serve to politicize such bodies, to weaken and prejudice their credibility and international standing and to render them basically ineffective.

The woke influence on Western governments: A progressive “woke” ideological framework is influencing Western politics and decision-making, through progressive indoctrination within Western educational and governmental systems and media, driven by popular social-justice activism.

Islamist financing of Western universities: In addition to the progressive woke educational indoctrination of Western governments and social media, billions of dollars in propaganda and social media manipulation are being funneled by Islamist state actors, especially Qatar, seeking to influence Western culture and educational institutions and governance.

The tragic events of Oct. 7, 2023, fundamentally altered Israel’s security concept of defensible borders, and those of its assumptions underlying all previous political and territorial compromises and arrangements.

The foundation of mutual trust that had generated and accompanied the peace-negotiation process up to then, as well as Israel’s assumption that the international community was a willing partner in accompanying any such negotiating process, have been basically and irreparably shattered.

The illusion of the 'two state solution'

The insistence by international leaders, especially those of France, the U.K., Canada and Australia, as well as repeated U.N. General Assembly resolutions, in advancing the “two state solution” has become a curious, ill-advised international fixation.

It is indicative of an utter lack of understanding of the history, complexities and realities of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. In so doing, these leaders and organizations in effect seek to bypass the negotiating table and impose what they believe is the necessary solution.

While the “vision of two states living side by side in peace and security” was originally coined by U.S. President George W. Bush on June 24, 2002, as a possible outcome of the direct negotiating process, it was never intended to replace direct negotiation between the parties, nor was it intended to prejudge and impose a solution. It was nothing more than a possible outcome, should the parties agree thereto.

In fact, the Oslo Accords made no reference whatsoever to any “two-state solution.”

To the contrary, according to the accords, only through the agreed permanent-status negotiations could the parties determine the final status of the territories, whether one, two, three or more states, a federation, a confederation, a condominium, or any other combination.

The fact that the term “two-state solution” has become a form of lingua franca, enunciated unthinkingly and even off-handedly, at every opportunity by European and some North American leaders, and appearing automatically in politically motivated and partisan U.N. resolutions, does nothing to advance the settlement of the Israeli Palestinian dispute by one iota.

Palestinian leadership vacuum: The lack of any unified, responsible, accepted and authoritative Palestinian leadership that could present itself as a reliable and stable negotiating partner for Israel only enhances the notion of continuing instability and lack of any likelihood of a return to a negotiating process.

This strengthens Israel in its determination to ensure its own security, on its own.

Israel’s internal governance issues: Israel’s need to preserve its democratic legitimacy, internal democratic resilience and legal coherence are major factors in maintaining its international credibility.

Political and social elements that weaken Israel’s internal social and political cohesion serve to enhance the international perception of weakness. Israel cannot effectively defend the legitimacy of its international legal position while appearing divided over the authority of its governmental institutions, its judiciary, constitutional norms and wartime decision-making processes.

The Abraham Accords as an alternative model to Oslo

The historic series of agreements comprising the Abraham Accords, announced by Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2020, perhaps constitutes the most significant and hopeful factor in demonstrating today the possibility and capability of achieving peaceful, mutually beneficial coexistence between Arab states and Israel, without necessarily returning to the Oslo-style negotiating framework.

In the Abraham Accords, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan agreed to “foster mutual understanding, respect, coexistence and a culture of peace between their societies in the spirit of their common ancestor, Abraham, and the new era of peace and friendly relations ushered in by this Treaty, including by cultivating people-to-people programs, interfaith dialogue and cultural, academic, youth, scientific, and other exchanges between their peoples.”

As such, the Abraham Accords can indeed be seen as proof that peaceful, lucrative relations and mutual and regional acceptance are achievable when the parties decide that their interests align with the desire for peace.

When other Arab states, including Syria, Saudi Arabia, other Gulf states and the Palestinian people reach such a realization that they have everything to benefit from entering such a framework, rather than engaging in terror and disseminating and financing jihadism, an extended version of the Abraham Accords will doubtless serve as the inspiration.

The traditional penchant of the international political and legal community to act unilaterally by imposing ineffective and unrealistic third-party solutions is indicative of international institutional blindness and naivete. This cannot serve as a replacement mechanism for direct negotiations.

As long as such a nebulous situation exists, lacking any serious international inclination to encourage negotiation for peaceful relations, Israel clearly cannot place its trust in any foreign or international mechanism and will have no other choice but to rely on its own capabilities and power.

Originally published by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.