Smoke rises over destroyed buildings in northern Gaza, March 19, 2025. Photo by Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images.
  • Words count:
    284 words
  • Type of content:
    Update Desk
  • Publication Date:
    March 19, 2025
Headline
IDF denies striking UN facility in central Gaza
Intro
Hamas's Health Ministry had claimed that the Israeli Air Force strike in Deir al-Balah had killed one U.N. employee.
text

The Israel Defense Forces on Wednesday denied reports that it had struck a United Nations compound in the central Gaza Strip's Deir al-Balah area.

"The IDF calls on media outlets to act with caution regarding unverified reports," the military clarified in an English-language statement on X.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Gaza Health Ministry, which is run by the Hamas terrorist group, had claimed that an Israeli Air Force strike had killed one U.N. employee and wounded five others.

According to the Hamas statement, which was echoed by Reuters and other global news outlets, the slain U.N. staffer was a foreign national.

A spokeswoman for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)—which has employed staff members with Hamas ties—did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

On Tuesday, the IDF launched "extensive" strikes against terror targets in the Strip. The campaign has been officially named "Operation Strength and Sword."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said the military was acting after the Hamas terrorist organization rebuffed several proposals from U.S. Middle East envoy Steven Witkoff to extend the temporary truce during the Ramadan and Passover holidays.

Overnight Tuesday, the IDF carried out airstrikes on a Hamas site in the northern Gaza Strip after preparations for launching attacks on Israeli territory were identified, the military said on Wednesday morning.

Additionally, during the night, Israeli Navy forces targeted several suspicious vessels off Gaza's coast that were being used for terror activities by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, according to the military.

The IDF stated that it remains committed to striking terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip to neutralize threats against Israeli civilians and soldiers.

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  • Words count:
    256 words
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  • Publication Date:
    April 28, 2025

The top two Senate Democrats in the next Congress may both be Jewish.

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), one of 10 Jews in the current Senate, said he would seek to succeed retiring Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) as the Democratic whip, the No. 2 post in the caucus. Durbin announced last week that he would not seek re-election next year.

The current caucus head is Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who is Jewish.

Schatz, 52, has been Durbin’s chief deputy whip. He is the first senator to announce he would run for the whip position.

He told The Washington Post, which was the first to report that he is running, that he would focus on the work of shaping the floor debate with the majority Republicans. He said he would be like a basketball player who always dives after loose balls or gets into physical jousting with opponents to get himself in a position to rebound an errant shot.

“Not everybody loves the aspect of politics that occurs on the floor,” he told the Post. “This is where I think I can be most useful.”

Another Jewish Democrat, Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), is supporting Schatz’s candidacy, as are Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.).

Others mentioned for the post, according to published reports, are Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.).

Schatz and Durbin were two of the 14 Democrats who voted with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on the latter’s effort earlier this month to cut off some military aid to Israel.

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  • Words count:
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    April 28, 2025
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The U.S. Treasury and State Departments imposed sanctions on three vessels and their owners for providing support to Houthi terrorists in Yemen, the departments announced in separate statements on Monday.

Two of the vessels were registered to shipping companies in the Marshall Islands, and one was registered to Mauritius, according to the Treasury Department. The vessels that were targeted “discharged refined petroleum products at Houthi-controlled ports.”

“The United States is committed to disrupting the Houthis’ illicit revenue generation, financial facilitators, and suppliers as part of our whole-of-government approach to eliminating threats to freedom of navigation in the Red Sea,” read the State Department’s statement.

“Today’s action underscores our commitment to disrupt the Houthis’ efforts to fund their dangerous and destabilizing attacks in the region,” said Michael Faulkender, deputy secretary of the Treasury.

“Treasury will continue to leverage our tools and authorities to target those who seek to enable the Houthis’ ability to exploit the people of Yemen and continue their campaign of violence,” he continued.

After U.S. President Donald Trump reclassified the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization, the United States upped its strikes and military offensives against the Iran proxy group. U.S. military strikes in Yemen in recent weeks have killed at least 500 Houthi fighters.

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  • Words count:
    679 words
  • Type of content:
    Opinion
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  • Publication Date:
    April 28, 2025
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Over the past year, Jewish students across American college campuses have faced an unprecedented wave of antisemitism. What once may have been subtle bias or passive exclusion has become overt hostility: vandalized Hillel buildings, acts and threats of violence against Jewish students and demonstrations glorifying terrorism—all too often met with silence, or worse, from university administrators.

I understand how isolating it can feel for Jewish students to walk into a classroom where Israel is demonized, where Jewish history is distorted and where moral relativism is used to excuse the inexcusable. I also know how powerful it is when young Jews feel proud of who they are—when they are given tools to stand tall, speak clearly and connect deeply to their heritage. I see that strength every day at Touro University.

As the president of a university deeply committed to Jewish life and values, I cannot remain indifferent. And as a lifelong Religious Zionist, I know that our response must extend beyond the boundaries of any single campus. It must be broad, strategic and global. That is why I am urging every eligible Jewish American to vote in the upcoming World Zionist Congress (WZC) election.

You may ask: What does this have to do with antisemitism on American college campuses? The answer is: More than most realize.

The WZC, often called the “Parliament of the Jewish People,” determines how billions of dollars in funding are allocated through major Jewish and Israel-based institutions such as the Jewish Agency, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael, the World Zionist Organization and Keren Hayesod. These organizations fund global Jewish education, youth programs, aliyah-inspiring initiatives—and, crucially, campus outreach and support services for Jewish students abroad.

It is tempting to view this election as distant or symbolic. But it is neither. This is the only democratic process in which Diaspora Jews can influence global Jewish priorities and the outcome will determine the trajectory of policy, education and outreach for the next five years.

There are 23 different parties in the election, but only one in my view supports Observant Judaism and engages in a full-throated support for Zionism, values that I hold deeply. Just as in any election with a large number of complex issues, voting for a party does not mean that I agree with every viewpoint. But for a number of reasons, the Orthodox Israel Coalition has my full support and I am proud to be part of Slate 5.

The OIC has a proven record of using its seat at the table to invest in exactly these kinds of programs. In the last five years alone, OIC delegates have worked tirelessly to ensure that Jewish identity, Torah values and love for Israel remain central priorities across Jewish institutions, particularly where students are concerned. From expanding the presence of shlichim (Israeli emissaries) on college campuses to supporting programs that bring Jewish students to Israel to directing resources to strengthen Jewish student life in hostile environments, Slate 5 has made the safety and identity of our youth a top priority.

The coalition behind Slate 5 includes organizations I have had the privilege of working alongside: the Orthodox Union, AMIT, the Religious Zionists of America-Mizrachi, the Rabbinical Council of America, Torah MiTzion, Bnei Akiva and many others. These institutions are rooted in Torah values, dedicated to unity, and committed to building a strong Israel and a thriving Jewish Diaspora.

By voting for Slate 5, you will not just make a statement but also take tangible action. Together, we are helping to secure funding for programs that strengthen the Jewish community, education and pride on college campuses. We are ensuring that Jewish students are not left alone in the face of hate. We are backing a coalition that knows how to lead and has already proven it can deliver.

The Jewish people are no strangers to adversity. But we are also no strangers to resilience. This is our moment to act with clarity, purpose and unity.

Join me in voting for the Orthodox Israel Coalition-Mizrachi, Slate 5. Let’s stand up for our values, our students and our future.

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  • Words count:
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    April 28, 2025
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A member of the New Jersey legislature wants to hold up state aid to Princeton University until he gets a detailed explanation of what the private, Ivy League institution is doing to combat antisemitism.

Bob Singer, a Jewish Republican state senator whose district includes Lakewood and its large population of Orthodox Jews, told JNS that he wants university officials to show him that they are adequately addressing Jew-hatred on campus.

“I have a responsibility to make sure Jewish students not only get a quality education but are protected,” he said. “Let them prove those accusations are wrong. If they can show that, we can continue the aid.”

Princeton officials declined to comment on Singer’s comments when asked by JNS.

Singer is also the lead state Senate Republican sponsor of bipartisan legislation requiring New Jersey to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) ’s widely adopted working definition of antisemitism.

That legislation has yet to reach the floor in either house.

The Anti-Defamation League gave Princeton a “D” grade this year in its assessment of how well institutions of higher education are dealing with antisemitism, which exploded on college campuses as students and others sided with the Palestinians after the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

The ADL report found that the university has hosted antisemitic speakers and that campus protests have included calls for the destruction of Israel while embracing Hamas.

Fliers posted on campus in September 2024 read “Death to ‘Israel,’” “Tel Aviv will burn” and “We support Hamas,” the ADL said.

“This is beyond disgrace,” Singer told JNS. “Students should have the right to learn in safety and security. That is the responsibility of any institution. If they don’t feel that way about it, don’t take state money. Don’t take federal money.”

‘Will comply with the law’

In a survey accompanying an annual “state of the university” letter in January from Christopher Eisgruber, the Princeton president, 69% of Jewish students rated their experience at the university as “excellent” in 2024, compared with 41% in 2021.

The same number (88%) agreed with the statement, “I feel safe on this campus,” as in 2023, according to that survey.

Princeton received $2.6 million from New Jersey in 2023-24 and $3.3 million in the current fiscal year, Singer told JNS. 

That’s a pittance compared to the $455 million in federal funding that went to Princeton during 2023-24, according to a report from the university treasurer.

The Trump administration suspended $210 million in federal research grants to Princeton this month, citing Jew-hatred.

“Princeton University will comply with the law,” Eisgruber wrote earlier this month in a campus memo. “We are committed to fighting antisemitism and all forms of discrimination, and we will cooperate with the government in combating antisemitism.”

“Princeton will also vigorously defend academic freedom and the due process rights of this university,” he added.

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  • Words count:
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    April 28, 2025

The following is the complete text of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to the inaugural JNS International Policy Summit in Jerusalem on Sunday, April 27, 2025.

There are so many friends here that I don't see. 

Some that I do. And beginning first with you, Richard. You've been a wonderful friend over the years. You and your wife, to me and my wife. You've been, as we say in Swedish, mishpoche.

I want to also acknowledge other friends who are here. Pastor Hagee. Ambassador Danon, are you an ambassador who brought ambassadors? And I know there are other ambassadors from the U.N. and from Israel. Welcome.

Equally, I see many friends in the crowd. Malcolm, I see you, and I see old friends. I asked you a question, my dear friend from Minnesota. How come there are so many liberals in Minnesota? And never got an answer.

And of course, I see here also... well, I don't see him, but my good friend Mark Levin. Where is Mark?... Ah. Now, here's a man who speaks the truth fearlessly. In a straightforward and sort of subtle way. And he is an example of what all of you are, but especially what JNS does.

And I want to acknowledge Alex Traiman, CEO, for the work that you do. He said, to counter the konseptzia. I said, no, it's not countering the konseptzia. It's just to speak the truth. 

That's what we need because—there's a reason—because you cannot build peace and security on lies. If you do so, sooner or later, these lies will crash on the Middle Eastern realities. You cannot do that.

They crash all these theories that are promoted over the years, that are contrary to reality. They don't stand over time. They fall like pieces of an iceberg into the ocean, and very soon nothing is left. So, you need a solid foundation, and the only solid foundation is the truth.

So, I want to encapsulate some truths for you tonight, because I think they explain where we are today. In the founding of the State of Israel, 77 years ago, we faced a fairly united Arab world. It was led by Gamal Abdel Nasser. He promoted the idea of pan-Arabism.

He would unite the whole Arab realm under his leadership, under his rule, and the source of unity, one of the sources of unity, was to drive [out] Israel—that is, to oppose the founding of the State of Israel, that was done by the Egyptian regime before him, to prevent the Jewish state from being established. But once established, it had to be removed.

It had no place right in the center of that great Arab domain. There couldn't be a Western state. We were foreign interlopers. We were foreign interlopers, right? 

I mean, we're here in Jerusalem, about a kilometer away from David's capital, which was established 3,000 years ago. We are not foreign interlopers. We're not the Belgians in the Congo. We're not the Dutch in Indonesia. We're the Jews in the Jewish homeland, Judea. All right, that's one truth, an important truth.

But equally, they tried to not only ... at first, they didn't try to actually annihilate our history. They just tried to annihilate us. And it wasn't such a big task. We were very small, very small, really, on a strip, a tiny strip on the edge of the Mediterranean, with Jerusalem. 

We had Hebron—a few thousand years—and very little else. And the idea was you can cut to the sea and finish it off. So, they didn't waste time on propaganda. They just organized themselves. Having, from our point of view, miraculously defeated them in the War of Independence, they didn't think it was over. And they arranged ... themselves to choke us and drive us into the sea. In the weeks and days before 1967.

And of course, you know how that ended. It ended, even though they all said, well, Nasser put his troops into the Sinai, put 100,000 troops in the Sinai, Syria would join him. Hussein, despite our warnings, joined him from right across the street here. 

And we were about to be finished. But in six days, we turned the tables on them. And of course, we came back to our ancestral homeland in full force. And by the way, we took the high ground and we will not leave it. It's ours.

So. They still didn't give up. They tried the War of Attrition. And then in 1973, a combined attack, this time by two Arab armies in the Yom Kippur War, they surprised us. Within three weeks, we were at the gates of Damascus and Cairo, and that ended that. 

And so that began—this whole situation where they attacked us again and again—created a situation where the Arab world began to realise that Israel is here to stay, and that they have to make their due with it. 

And so, we began a process that began first with the peace at Camp David, between Begin and Sadat, and later the peace with Jordan that was signed by Yitzhak Rabin and King Hussein. And so, what you had was that the Arab world was slowly coming to realise that Israel is a fact that cannot be removed, and they were beginning to make peace with us.

We couldn't progress on that peace because one part of the Arab world resolutely remained against us, and that's—who's that, class? The Palestinians. The Palestinians clung to the original opposition to Israel, that basically, you do not recognize a Jewish state, the Jewish state, in any boundary, in any form. 

Israel has to be annihilated. Israel has to be excised like a tumour. That was their position, and that was and remains the principal obstacle to a Palestinian-Israeli peace. The persistent Palestinian opposition to a Jewish state in any form and any boundary.

That's the truth that somehow eludes fairly intelligent people. They sit in the State Department; they sit in the foreign chancelleries of the world. That's a very difficult concept to absorb. How? I think it's so obvious.

They keep saying it, they keep doing it. They keep saying, ‘We want a Palestinian state, in our ancestral homeland, in order to destroy the Jewish state.’ They say it. They say it in Ramallah. They say it in Gaza. They teach it in Ramallah to their children. They teach it in Gaza. There's no difference in the textbooks, exactly the same. 

One pays-for-slay in Ramallah and operates the ICC, and conducts warfare against us. Lawfare. And you know all this by heart.

And the other says, no, we have to go straight out militarily and terror. That's the difference between Hamas and the P.A. Hamas says we will destroy Israel by terror and military conquest right away. And the P.A. says, no, you destroy it politically by driving it, through propaganda and lawfare, to the '67 boundaries. 

And then you can do the military thrust because you're a few kilometres from the sea. That's the difference between them.

But the persistent refusal of the Arab, of the Palestinian Arabs, to recognize a Jewish state in any boundary is the source of this conflict. For close to 100 years, actually 100 years and more, from the Mufti in the 20s to today, in the 20s, a century later—no difference. One before the establishment of the state. And it didn't change after the establishment of the state.

So, the idea that you'll create a Palestinian state and that will produce peace. I'm saying this for the ambassadors who are here. All of you know this. The idea is folly, nothing more than folly. We just tried a Palestinian state in Gaza. You saw what that brought, right? So, we are absolutely clear on that. But it's important to see what happened in the rest of the Arab world.

After we had these two peace treatieshistoric peace treaties with Egypt and with Jordanthese are cold peace treaties, because there wasn't really pacification of the population, but between governments. And that still holds. And that's good, because a cold peace is a lot better than a hot war. OK.

That held. It took us another quarter of a century to get the next peace treaty, because everybody said, the only way you're going to get it is you have to go through the Palestinians. That is, first solve the Palestinian problem, and then you'll get peace with the rest of the Arab world. Remember that? Yeah. Who said that, John Kerry? Douze points.

Yeah, that's pretty good. That's right. He said it's not going to happen. No, no, no, no. He said it four times at the Saban Forum. I wish he had said it five times. We might get five countries. But that's what he said, and that was the [prevalent] assumption. 

Of course, I didn't think so, because if we had to go through the Palestinians—aside from creating a state that would spell the end of Israel—we knew the Palestinians would not make peace. They don't want a state next to Israel; they want a state instead of Israel. And so, they would never accept the expansion of peace with other countries, because we wouldn't succumb to their dictates.

So, we decided—I decided—to do something different. I chose to go around the Palestinians and went directly to the Arab capitals. In about two months, we made four peace treaties with four Arab states, expanding the circle of peace. 

The main thing you can see here is that the number of Arab states that attacked us kept declining over time: five (arguably seven) states in 1948, three in 1967, two in the Yom Kippur War, and then one in the Lebanon War of 1982. Gradually, the Arab world began to normalize its relations with Israel. And that was the good news.

The bad news, however, was that the Arab world was being replaced by a much more potent force that had appeared on the horizon—Iran. 

Beginning with the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran became the primary Islamist force in the Middle East, replacing the Arab world as the engine of attacks against Israel. They were committed to destroying Israel for a simple reason—they were determined to conquer the Middle East. 

They correctly identified Israel as the only real force standing in their way in the region, because no one else was fighting Iran. The only ones willing to fight Iran—and actually fighting Iran—were us. We were the only ones keeping the Middle East from collapsing under Iranian aggression.

If we were not here, the neighboring countries would collapse on the spot. I won't give you all the details, but I could—there are many. The ones who don't need the details, though, are the Iranians. They know this very well. 

So, they embarked on a campaign from the very start that targeted Israel. And it wasn’t just about conquering the Middle East; their ambition was larger: to subjugate all Muslims to their fanatic creed, as written in their constitution, and to export their revolution worldwide.

Their chant from the beginning was clear: ‘Death to Israel, death to America.’ That's almost a geographic truth. We stand in their way, not only for their regional goals but for their larger purposes. To get rid of us, they designed two main forms of attack.

The first attack was to try to develop over the last two decades, nuclear weapons. We'll talk about that in a minute. The second line of attack is something they developed piece by piece, step by step, which was to choke Israel by conquering pieces of the Middle East, both for their own reasons, but also as a noose of death around us. 

And you could see them moving from Iran to Iraq to Syria to the Mediterranean and Lebanon. They control Lebanon completely. They control Syria in many ways. They control Iraq. So now they have a continuum right to the sea. And then in the south, in Gaza, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and then further south, the Houthis. 

And they have other plans. They would like to conquer the Arabian Peninsula. They would like to topple Jordan. They want to complete the conquest of the Middle East. But what stands in their way? Israel. So, if you have this noose of death, tighten the noose. And the plan that they hatched is something that became much clearer to us in the course of the war. 

We've just fought, you know, that we were attacked savagely, horribly, on October 7. I mean, these people are indescribable, actually indescribable, I mean, Chancellor Scholz, who visited me in the beginning of the war when he saw the film The Horrors and visited the sites. 

He said there, they're exactly like the Nazis. And I said, well, they're different. Not in intent, not in savagery. But the Nazis tried to hide their crimes. And these people carry GoPro cameras, live, you know, they're ecstatic about the blood they shed, the people they butcher the women, they rape the men, they beheaded, the babies they burned. They're ecstatic about it. 

So, they took 250 and some hostages, of which we recovered so far, 197 and 100. And of these, sorry, 198, and of these, 41, 47 are live, and the remainder are dead. But we intend to recover the rest. There are up to 24 that are alive. The remainder are dead. We intend to bring back all of them. 

But the most important thing. The most important thing that we had to do was to stop the invasion, which we did. And as we stopped the invasion and continued to take the fight into their territory, and of course, into Lebanon, where Hezbollah joined the day after.

We learned basically one simple truth. We learned that Sinwar jumped the gun. He jumped the gun. He deviated from the plan that the noose of death had planned in advance. And that plan was that there would be simultaneous invasions from Gaza and from Lebanon. 

The distances to the centre of the country are very small. Simultaneous bracketing of Israel, barrage after barrage of ballistic missiles and rockets in a tiny country that was meant to basically erase Israel. That was the plan. 

And Hamas didn't wait, couldn't get over themselves. They fired too quickly. In fact, Hezbollah was surprised. ‘They said, why did they not tell us? They were supposed to tell us, but they didn't.’ 

And so, we had time to prevent a similar ground invasion. That would have been much more potent, because there's no comparison to the power of Hezbollah. There is one force compared to the numbers, the monsters who attacked us, much more potent. 

But by that time, we could move our army to the north. So, we stopped that invasion, and we discovered what had been hatched. There was a clock in Iran, and it said here, the end of Israel and such and such date and the clock is winding down. But this was the plan. 

And in many ways, what happened is that we simply broke this on the second day of the war. I said, we will change the face of the Middle East. We first had to go into Gaza, [we told] our American friends who came here. And I appreciate the fact that President Biden came here at the beginning of the war and gave his support the beginning of the war. 

But they said, ‘Don't go in, don't do the ground invasion. Do it from the air.’ And I said, ‘Joe, we tried that.’ I myself, as head of the government, [had previously] authorized three attacks, three major operations against the Hamas terrorists. 

After they had attacked us [previously], we killed thousands of terrorists. We killed their military commander, Jabari. It made a dent. It stayed them. They had to rearm again and so on. But it didn't stop it. 

I said, ‘It's not going to work this time. We have to go in.’ 

So, against their better advice, we went in, and well, very soon the propaganda war began to work against us. So, as we were making our military thrust, the diplomatic support that we had at the start of the war turned against us. And now we are facing pressure to mitigate the fight and very soon to stop the fight. 

We went into Gaza City. They didn't like it. We went into Shifa Hospital, some hospital. Right. They didn't like it. We went into Khan Yunis and then we reached the outskirts of Rafah. And there the Americans said, ‘Don't go in, don't go in. And if you go in, we'll put an arms embargo on you.’ 

And I said to President Biden, look, I respect you. You're the president of the United States. Please respect me. I'm the prime minister of the one and only Jewish state we are going in. And Secretary of State Blinken came in a few days later, and he said: ‘The president is serious.’ I said, I know he's serious. He's going to do it. I know he's already done it. 

And he said, ‘So what do you say?’ I said, Tony, we will fight with our fingernails if we have to. And we did. But we had more than fingernails. I said in the Cabinet that the weapons will take care of themselves. We'll fight with what we have, but we will survive. 

We are not a vassal state. We're the independent state of the Jewish people. And we will do what we need to do to protect us. So, we went into Rafah. The Americans told us that we can't go into Rafah because there'll be thousands of casualties. Some said 20,000 casualties in any way. They don't have a place to go. 

Remember that one? Well, I said, they do have a place to go. They can go two kilometres westward to the beach. There's a safe zone there. And they did. Within six days, 1.4 million people moved to the beach because we kept moving them out of harm's way. 

And I visited the extraordinary brigade commander there in the Rafah crossing, saw our soldiers and asked him, so, Itzik, how many terrorists have you killed? And this was in the middle of the fighting, he said, ‘At this point, 1,203.’ I said, How do you know? I said. ‘Body counts. We see them there.” And I said, How many civilians have you killed? You know what he said? ‘None. None. Because they all left.’ 

They ended up killing 2,000 terrorists and practically no civilians. In fact, the only civilian deaths that are recorded are in the beginning of the fighting, as far as I know, because we dropped a stray bomb before we actually went in, and it hit an ammunition dump that Hamas had placed among civilians, and 20 terrorists died and 20 civilians died. 

But in the course of the fighting, the assumptions that were broadcast around the world were untrue, that we would create extraordinary civilian deaths or that they had no place to go. They were proved to be wrong. And now we got the Philadelphia route. And so, we surround Gaza. We hold the perimeter inside Gaza, in the Philadelphia corridor. 

The sea is on the other side, so they can't smuggle weapons now. They can't do anything about that. Having done that, having destroyed most of the organised battalions of Hamas, they still have remnants. They still fight there. And we still have a job to do. And the only reason we're not doing it in, in such a short time is because of the hostages. Otherwise, it would be over long ago. 

But in the course of doing that, what is a battalion? A battalion means there's a Hamas chief and he says attack. And 100 people come out of the tunnels and attack. And when you destroy a battalion, three people come out, two people come out. Unfortunately, a sharpshooter can come out, but there's no organised military structure. 

So, having done that, having removed the threat of invasion from Gaza or the threat of serious rocketing from Gaza, having also done away with Sinwar, remember him? Remember Deif? Remember Haniyeh? 

Having gotten rid of them, we turn north. And having turned north, we had this small thing, you know, the beepers. You remember the beepers, the pagers? Yeah. 

So, we had a little debate, you know. Should we use the beepers? Some of the people said, ‘We have to tell the Americans.’ I said, No, no. And we didn't because I don't read The New York Times that often, but why give them the advance? I mean, it would be on the net. It would be, you know, that doesn't make any sense. 

We had to bring up the beepers a bit because we decided that we'd go into Lebanon in October. Why October? Well, obviously, because it's one month ahead of November. You'll figure that out. Okay, okay. 

But in late in the third week, I think of September, we learned that Hamas, or rather, that Hezbollah had sent three beepers to be scanned in Iran. We had previously bombed a scanner they were going to bring in. So, we got rid of that and the guy who operates it. 

But now they had these and, you know, they have this minuscule amount of TNT. And when the Mossad guy showed it to me a few months earlier, he's giving me an update how many we've got inside. And, and I said, is that really going to do the job? I mean, how much TNT do you have there? So, he says, I don't know, nano nanograms, something like that. And I said, what is that going to do? It's not going to do anything. 

He said, Oh no, it'll do it. Give me that. I take the beeper and I throw it on the wood panelling in my office and it dented it. And I said, okay, go ahead. So, but so now we're all set to go. But now it turns out that they are scanning this. And I learned it and I was crazy. I said, what? Why didn't you tell me this? Well, it happened a few days ago. Well, how long does it take him to do this? Could take a day. I said. Well, we have to do it right away. So, we did it. 

And that meant that we brought up the shock and the beginning of the great campaign in Lebanon. We brought it up about three weeks while the army was supposed to prepare in those three weeks for war. 

They came back a few days later and they gave me three options. One is do nothing. Wait, see what the beepers do. Option two was Conquer Bulgaria, something like that, you know, an impossible task. And option three was sort of a mixture—command post here, command post there. And I said, well, let's have option four. 

Option four was targeting the main stock of missiles that Nasrallah had built over the years in private homes. He was relying on the fact that we would not attack private homes. And he was right. We didn't over the years. But we set a goal for the army, attack these homes, but get the population out. 

And they came back 48 hours later with a brilliant, brilliant plan. They commandeered Lebanese television and radio. Can you imagine this is the IDF telling you if you're a resident of somewhere—leave because they had a missile in every garage and a rocket in every kitchen. They would open the roof and out it comes and so on. 

And that was done. So, in six or seven hours, we destroyed the bulk. Not all, but the bulk of the main weapons directed against us that Nasrallah had built over 30 years. Now, in the course of those weeks, we had targeted and killed many of Hezbollah's commanders, military commanders. 

But there was still one person there, and he was running the war independently. He was doing it quite well, I have to say. And that was Nasrallah himself. So, we had we knew where he was. And the question was, do we hit him or not? 

And that wasn't a simple answer, because he was the number two in the Iranian axis. He was the second most admired Shi’ite leader in the Shi’ite world. He was the beloved son of Khomeini. You know, he treated him like a son. And what does that mean? 

Could it possibly drive a war? Could it possibly? Could it bring Hezbollah into the war? That's a legitimate question. So, when we discussed and I received a big thicket of intelligence reports. I read it, all about Nasrallah. Then I read it again, 80 pages. I said he has to go. 

I was particularly impressed by the fact that by the fact that not only was he a capable leader, but also that his relationship with Iran was somewhat different from what I had thought. I would say he manipulated Iran much more than Iran manipulated him. He influenced Iran much more than Iran influenced him. And when I read this report, I came to the clear conclusion that he was the axis of the axis, and if we remove him, the axis would break. 

And so, we went into a debate in the Cabinet. Do we take him out or not? And there were two things that were brought up. One, we have to tell the Americans that again, I say, no, no, no, we're not going to do that. And the second was, well, you know, you have to really think seriously about the consequences. 

I mean, Iran has a lot of ballistic missiles, as long as from where I'm standing right up to that wall. It's like a bus full of tons of TNT. And you have many hundreds of these, and they would fall in Israel and they would do serious damage. So, you couldn't quite dismiss that. And then the question was, do you do it, or don't you do it? 

The Cabinet was split not quite half and half. Most wanted to do it, but some didn't. And the senior echelon was hesitant. I could see that. So, I called the then-Minister of Defence and then-Chief of Staff to a separate room. I said, look, the American thing is out of the question. At best. We could tell them, you know, when the planes are en route, give them the courtesy, but we're not going to tell them. 

But I want to think about your opinions, and I'll come back to you. And there was a real sigh of relief there, because, you know, I'm going to the States to give a speech at the U.N. I was a few hours away from giving a speech.

By that time, we had intel that Nasrallah would probably leave for another place, where we didn't have access. So that would solve that dilemma. What I think they didn't know is that I have what is called an Air Force One. It's really Air Force minus one. It's kind of dilapidated, but it's very serviceable because it has a bed and it has a secure line. 

So, I slept for a couple of hours, two hours, got up, opened the phone and called the Chiefs in, and I said, OK, I've made a decision, we're going to take him out. And I ask that you convene the cabinet on a phone line when I get to New York. I got to New York, went to the Regency Hotel. I mean, I'm sure there have been many important conversations in the Regency Hotel, but I don't think there was anything like this. 

And we had a cabinet meeting in the Regency Hotel. And decided on the attack. I still had to write my speech. What a bore. So, I spent the night writing the speech, but also taking two other phone calls to make sure that the planes take off. 

Went to give the speech. And right after the speech, I was meeting some Israeli journalists. I don't do that very often. There's no point. And my military secretary came in and gave me a note with one word, “Done”. 

Now, the collapse, the removal of Nasrallah really broke the axis. It was a terrific blow. Some people are irreplaceable. And so far, he's been irreplaceable. And so, having delivered that blow to Hezbollah, we also delivered a blow to Assad because Assad was relying heavily on Nasrallah.

He wasn't relying on his army during the civil war. Every time he got into real trouble, Nasrallah would send thousands and thousands of fighters to help him. And now there was no one to send the fighters. So, there was an opening, obviously, which Al-Sharaa used. They didn't understand how come they're rolling into every place. There's no one to fight. And they just kept moving from town to town with the full blessing, that's a diplomatic word, of Turkey. But Iran has this total, amazing, unbelievable investment in the axis [of resistance]. This is the axis. You have to have a continuum to supply Hezbollah. And that was going down the tubes. And so, they had to rescue Assad. And what they wanted to do was to send one or two airborne divisions to help them. 

And we stopped that. We sent some F-16s towards some Iranian planes that were en route to Damascus. They turned back. So, being shed of any support from the West and any support from the East, the Assad regime collapsed. 

And just to make sure, we destroyed 90 percent of their armaments. And then improved our positions a bit, like taking the summit of the Hermon Mountain, a very beautiful place. That's what we did. 

So, in effect, if you summarise everything that I said up to now, what we did is we had peace going with the Arab world, Iran coming up, Iran putting a noose around our necks, and Israel turning the tables on them from a situation where on October 7, people were thought that Israel was doomed—to making Israel the most powerful country in the region. Within a very short time. 

We could do that because of the incredible courage of our soldiers and our commanders. Incredible. Just incredible. I mean, they are really, they're really the lions of Judah. I mean, they really fight. They are heroes, and the fallen are heroes and those who are wounded. 

You should see the wounded. There's a guy who lost both his legs, and he has these, you know, these artificial legs and an arm. And he lifts another arm. You know, he says, I want to go back and fight, you know, and he's not alone. These are amazing heroes. 

So having done that, we've smashed the Iranian axis, but we didn't finish the job. Remember, there's still more to be done. We have to finish the war in Gaza, get our hostages back and destroy Hamas. Hamas will not be there and we're not going to put the P.A. there. 

Why replace one regime that is sworn to our destruction with another regime that is sworn to our destruction? We won't do that. I can say that Israel, in any case, will control the area militarily. We're not going to succumb to any pressure not to do that. 

And I very much welcome President Trump's plan to allow the voluntary relocation of Gazans who want to leave. And believe me, many of them want to leave. So, what's left? Well, quite a few things and many opportunities, but obviously they'll all go down the tube if Iran gets nuclear weapons. 

The reason Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons is because successive governments, under my prime ministership, have led successive actions, which I won't discuss here, forgive me, with the same detail over the years. And that set them back about ten years from where they thought they'd be ten years ago. They already thought they'd have a nuclear arsenal. They don't. 

We delayed them. But we didn't stop them. So, they moved very far on enrichment. They're trying to move on weaponry. And the question is now what to do? Happily, we have a president in Washington who's committed, as he says. And as he said to me many times, including just recently, we can't allow Iran to have nuclear weapons. 

And I said, I absolutely believe that I devoted a good chunk of my life to prevent that. But there are two ways to do it. One is to get a deal that would prevent them from doing that by dismantling their nuclear infrastructure. You have to dismantle their nuclear infrastructure. And that means not that they will not enrich uranium, but that they will not have the capacity to enrich uranium, which means you destroy the centrifuges. 

You remove, of course, the nuclear material that is already enriched. And there are a few other things that you have to do. But that's the crux of it. The real deal that works is the deal that removes Iran's capacity to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. By the way, the only reason you enrich uranium is to have nuclear weapons. 

There are dozens and dozens of countries that have civilian nuclear programs, and they don't enrich uranium. So, Iran is constantly thinking, well, we have to find a reason why we're putting these things in bunkers under mountains, maybe for radio isotopes, right, for medicine, or for nuclear submarines. Give me a break. 

They enrich uranium for one reason and one reason only. And that's to make nuclear weapons, which they intend to use to destroy my country and threaten America once they have the weapons of delivery. Ballistic missiles, ICBMs, intercontinental ballistic missiles, they will threaten every city in the United States. That is a palpable danger to Israel and to the free world. And it must be prevented. 

The way to prevent it is to dismantle all the infrastructure of Iran's nuclear program. That is the deal. We could not live with anything short of that, anything short of that could bring you the opposite result, because Iran will say, alright, I won't enrich, wait, run out the clock, wait for another president, do it again. That's unacceptable. 

Equally, I think we should bring in the ballistic missiles—the prevention of the development of ballistic missiles into the deal. I think these are the two requirements. I said to President Trump that I hope that this is what the negotiators will do.

But I said one way or the other, Iran will not have nuclear weapons. So, from a seven-front war, we have a one-front war with Iran and its proxies. We appreciate the fact that the United States is taking action against the Houthis. It's very important. We appreciate the help that we're getting from the United States. Arms are flowing in. 

It's important we share the same goals, but we have to make sure that Iran does not get nuclear weapons. A bad deal is worse than no deal. We need a good deal. And the only good deal that works is a deal like the one that was made with Libya that removed all the infrastructure. I can tell you now, you should applaud that. That's the main point. 

We have another front. It's called the deep state. You heard about that? No. You're talking about the deep state in America. It's very shallow. It's a puddle. Ours is ocean deep, even though it's somebody said it's a deep shtetl, but it's a deep state. It's a deep state. It's very deep. 

It threatens democracy. It abrogates the rights of citizens to choose their government that will make its own decisions, its own appointments. That has to be obviously resolved. But we have to understand that there is another threat on the horizon.

And with this, I'll finish, because I think it relates to what JNS is doing and doing so ably. And that is, puncture the lies. The lies are disseminated in America by a campaign, a systematic campaign that is funded, organised by governments, by NGOs, that are funded also by very wealthy individuals. 

There's a lot of tourists in America. Yeah, a lot of tourists. There's a lot of tourists in Israel, too. So, what do they do? They pay influencers. They use social media in a very systematic way to attack the supporters of Israel. And I'm not talking about only the supporters of Israel on the left. I'm talking about the supporters of Israel on the right. 

And that is a palpable threat to our future. We do not ask others to fight for us. We don't ask for boots on the ground, but we ask for that support. That support means that the UN Security Council does not make binding resolutions against Israel. It means that Israel is not sanctioned, is not choked by the international community, and that support is being threatened by the systematic public opinion campaign. 

And if there's one thing that has to be done, is to fight back. That's what we do. We have to fight back, and you fight back. You fight back with the truth. 

So, I ask you to continue to fight for the truth. All of you do it in one way or the other. You should do it well. You should do more, more, more and more. Because we've learned in the long history of our people that if somebody says that they want to kill you. Believe them. 

And these people who want to kill us enjoy the support now of young Americans who support our killers and our rapists and our would-be destroyers more than equally as much as they support us. 

That has to be reversed. As fast as it came up, it can go down. But like in anything in antisemitism, people respect you only if you stand up for yourself. 

And the main thing is not to cower, not to cower before our enemies here, not to cower before lies that are spread here and there, not to cower, to stand up and fight back. 

That's my message to you. Thank you very much. Thank you all.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAbedUHFSlA
  • Words count:
    1229 words
  • Type of content:
    Opinion
  • Byline:
  • Publication Date:
    April 28, 2025
  • Media:
    1 file

Israel’s tech sector is more than a growth engine. It is one of the most strategic levers we have for long-term economic resilience, global relevance and national security. This Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel Independence Day, as Israel turns 77, the innovation economy stands at a critical juncture.

The past year tested the entire ecosystem: infrastructure, capital, talent and trust. Yet even through conflict and uncertainty, Israeli tech continued to perform. In 2024, tech companies raised $10.6 billion. In the first quarter of 2025, private funding reached $3.2 billion, and thanks to the landmark acquisition of Wiz by Google, M&A (mergers and acquisitions) activity soared to $35.9 billion. Despite anticipated contractions in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s currently delayed proposed tariffs and other macroeconomic factors, Israeli tech is staying the course.

These are not isolated data points. They prove a strong foundation, but the next phase will require more than resilience. It will demand strategic action. It will require scale, talent development, sector diversification and alignment between innovation and national priorities.

Here are the opportunities and challenges that will shape the path ahead for Israeli tech at 77.

Seven opportunities

  1. Cyber and defense tech as a scalable growth engine
    Cybersecurity and defense tech attracted $3.8 billion in private funding last year, making it the most capitalized sector. Israeli companies continue to lead the global cybersecurity landscape, with some of the world’s top firms founded by Israelis or maintaining R&D hubs here. Defense tech is emerging as critical to national and economic security as AI, infrastructure and digital systems evolve. Dual-use technologies are in demand, and Israel is well-positioned to lead in platforms that secure digital assets, infrastructure and emerging AI systems, offering a new economic growth engine for the ecosystem.
  2. AI stack leadership with global relevance
    Israel operates across the entire AI value chain, from chip design and data infrastructure to applications that fit the global market, attracting strategic AI R&D operations from the world’s largest companies, including Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Google and more. The Startup Nation Central and NVIDIA joint report highlights Israel’s strength in building commercially viable AI solutions across sectors like health, defense and finance. With global AI spending expected to reach $300 billion by 2026, Israel has a clear opportunity to shape the infrastructure and tools that define how intelligence is developed, deployed and secured.
  3. Regional innovation diplomacy post-conflict
    The Abraham Accords opened a new chapter in regional cooperation. But today, the geopolitical environment creates a deeper imperative. For the first time in Middle East history, countries across the region face a shared interest in investing collaboratively in innovation infrastructure. Tech collaboration in areas like water, food and climate can help stabilize the region and create new platforms for economic interdependence. Israel can help lead this transition.
  4. Sustained investor confidence in scale
    Despite the war, Israeli tech raised over $10 billion in 2024, with 15 mega-rounds totaling $4 billion. In early 2025, investment momentum continued. The first quarter saw 37 M&A deals totaling $3.9 billion, even excluding Google’s $32 billion acquisition of Wiz. Sectors like cybersecurity, fintech and health tech are showing maturity. Global investors, who make up most of the funding in the country, continue to see Israeli companies as relevant and competitive on the world stage.
  5. Health, energy and food tech ready for scale
    Israel is gaining recognition in sectors tied to global infrastructure and resilience. Startups in health, energy and food systems are beginning to secure larger rounds and scale internationally. These are high-impact areas where Israeli innovation can offer global solutions and contribute to economic growth at home.
  6. Secure global R&D hub status
    With more than 430 multinational R&D centers operating in Israel, including leaders in AI, semiconductors, cloud and enterprise systems, Israel is a trusted destination for innovation. As nations prioritize technological sovereignty and security, the ability to offer a stable and strategic R&D base is a clear advantage.
  7. Foster growth companies and global category leaders
    A new wave of Israeli scale-ups is emerging. These companies are not just growing, they are setting the standards and shaping markets. Companies like Wiz are leading the charge as global category creators, turning deep tech into dominant platforms and positioning Israel as a launchpad for industry-defining companies.

Seven challenges

  1. Geopolitical volatility and economic uncertainty
    The Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, changed the operating environment for many Israeli companies. At the same time, global shifts and geopolitical tensions are impacting macroeconomic conditions and reshaping international supply chains. These developments increase production costs, introduce logistical risk and force Israeli companies to reassess global strategies.
  2. Talent bottlenecks and workforce gaps
    Startup Nation Central’s Q1 2025 Ecosystem Report shows that Israel’s tech workforce shrank by 1.2% in 2024, the first decline in more than a decade. Non-R&D roles like product, data and business operations saw the sharpest drop while R&D hiring grew by 3.6%, signaling a shift toward core innovation roles. To stay competitive, the sector must grow the local talent pool and better integrate women, Arab Israelis and Haredi workers, while curbing brain drain and supporting local talent to remain in Israel.
  3. Need to move from strategy to execution
    Israel has the talent and policy infrastructure to lead globally. However, national innovation programs are often not fully executed or coordinated. Strategic alignment between government, the tech ecosystem and capital markets remains a work in progress. Israel’s academic research and investment infrastructure is constrained by overregulation and bureaucracy. Reducing these barriers is key to enabling business growth and creating a more competitive environment.
  4. Overconcentration in a few sectors
    Cybersecurity is a strength, but relying too heavily on one pillar limits economic growth. Sector diversification into health, climate, semiconductors and food systems must accelerate. These areas offer strategic value and long-term economic returns and resilience.
  5. Capital flow and global perception
    Investors are taking a cautious view of political and economic uncertainty. Judicial reform, policy instability and regional tensions have raised questions in some global markets. Restoring and maintaining investor confidence will require clarity, consistency and sustained high performance from both the government and the ecosystem.
  6. Tech sovereignty under pressure
    As AI infrastructure, cloud computing and chips become central to national security, Israel must reduce its dependence on foreign-controlled systems. Strategic partnerships can help, but sovereignty must be maintained in the most critical layers of technological development and deployment.
  7. Applied innovation starts at home
    Israel builds world-class tech but lags in using it. Outside defense, most innovative products are launched in foreign markets and not utilized locally. In addition, basic services are slow and not digitalized, from opening a bank account to public-service delivery in the periphery. Closing this gap is critical for competitiveness and quality of life.

Israeli tech has proven its strength. Now, it must prove its strategy. The fundamentals are there. However, scale, talent and global partnerships will determine the next phase. Innovation must serve not only the economy but national priorities: security, stability and resilience.

This moment calls for execution. The decisions we make now will shape Israel’s global standing for decades to come.

Startup Nation Central brings together tech leaders, global investors, government stakeholders and multinational partners. This nonpartisan platform is central to aligning policy, capital and innovation toward national priorities and international partnerships in a complex and often divided environment. This will be essential as the country looks toward economic recovery and regional stability.

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  • Words count:
    594 words
  • Type of content:
    News
  • Byline:
  • Publication Date:
    April 28, 2025

As Holocaust survivors continue to dwindle 80 years after the Holocaust, so do the ranks of those who liberated the Nazi concentration camps in Europe. The latter group deserves more attention than it has received, Ellen Germain, the U.S. State Department’s special envoy for Holocaust issues, told JNS in a recent interview.

“I’ve been reading and talking so much about the liberators. I think their stories aren’t known as well as they should be,” she said. 

“We don’t know the experiences and the stories of those young guys, who walked into the concentration camps not knowing what they were going to find, and who were absolutely horrified and appalled and couldn’t believe their eyes,” Germain told JNS.

Soldiers who liberated camps took part in the Trump administration’s Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration at the U.S. Capitol on April 23.

Germain told JNS that she was moved to see the veterans, who carried the flags of their army units and the camps they liberated, walking into Emancipation Hall in the Capitol.

“It just gets to me—this rolling litany of names,” she said of the list of Holocaust victims presented at the ceremony. 

“Here are our heroes from the U.S. Army, juxtaposed with these names that just bring up a feeling of horror and sadness,” she stated. “Looking at the soldiers who are carrying those insignias, the banners of the units—they were so young, and that’s who was fighting over there, and that’s who was liberating Europe, liberating the camps, liberating the survivors.”

Germain traveled to Germany and Austria over the weekend to take part in the 80th anniversary commemorations of U.S. troops liberating the Dachau and Gusen camps.

The envoy met with government officials, Jewish community members and counterparts in Europe to discuss a range of issues, including Holocaust commemoration and education, and “how that connects with countering Holocaust distortion and denial.”

Holocaust denial is “a really pernicious form of antisemitism,” Germain told JNS.

Survivor care and restitution were also on the agenda, including “discussions about the need to continue to push for restitution and compensation and acknowledgement of the great wrong that was done,” Germain said.

The U.S. envoy noted that the city of Amsterdam issued a formal apology last week for the role it played in deporting Jews during the Holocaust. Mayor Femke Halsema also announced a fund worth roughly $28.5 million to support Jewish life and the visibility of Judaism in Holland's capital. It seems especially relevant following the violent assault last November on visiting Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer fans, coupled with a record number of antisemitic incidents in the country in 2024.

“There’s still a lot of soul-searching to be done, and it’s admirable that the city of Amsterdam just took this step and put this out,” Germain told JNS.

‘Why commemoration and education matter’

Marco Rubio, the U.S. secretary of state, issued a statement marking the Days of Remembrance of Victims of the Holocaust, following U.S. President Donald Trump’s proclamation on the same subject. 

The State Department also published a series of short videos of employees whose families survived the Holocaust, describing how the experience inspired them to pursue careers in public service.

“I think this week is a real opportunity to highlight why Holocaust commemoration and education matter,” Germain told JNS.

This year’s ceremonies are “an all-out effort, because this 80th anniversary is probably the last big anniversary where there will be any significant number of survivors present, but also liberators,” she said.

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The Israeli government will finish the war against Hamas and return the hostages, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer declared at the JNS International Policy Summit in Jerusalem on Monday night.

"There are people you'll meet in Israel who say, you know, forget about the hostages, just finish the war. And the people who say, finish, you know, forget about the war, just return the hostages," Dermer told JNS CEO and Israel Bureau Chief Alex Traiman during an interview.

"We're not going to do that. That's not where Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu is. It's not where I am," said Dermer, who has led the indirect negotiations for a hostage deal with the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza in recent weeks.

"I think we have to work on achieving those goals, and we've gone pretty far, and what will happen the 'day after' in Gaza is a discussion—lots of discussions we've had behind the scenes," he added.

However, 12 months from now, Jerusalem's seven-front war across the Middle East will be "over," he declared, adding, "Israel will have won.

"I think you will see many peace agreements that either have been forged or will be forged in the coming years of President Trump's presidency," Dermer predicted.

"But the key to that, and this is important to remember, is victory. In the Middle East, when you win, when you're strong, that's what attracts others," he said.

"You never want to have daylight with the United States if you can afford not to have daylight," Dermer said of Jerusalem's relations with the American administration. "It's never a good thing, because it sends a message to Israel's friends and Israel's enemies when we are aligned with the United States.

"A public disagreement is never in your interest unless you have a vital national interest, where sometimes you have to air that. Otherwise, you try to resolve these things behind the scenes," Dermer said. "And I think in Trump's first term, that's exactly what happened.

"I think it's important to understand that Israelis would love to see the war end—every Israeli. Anyone who has a son, a brother, a nephew, a niece or a daughter in the army wants the war to be over," he said.

According to Dermer, "That's not the real question. The real question is: Do you end the war with a victory or with a defeat? Do you accept the terms of those who committed the atrocities of October 7, or not?

"We are going to dismantle Hamas’s military capabilities and end its rule in Gaza. We will ensure that Gaza can never again pose a threat to the State of Israel. And we are committed to bringing all our hostages home. These are the goals we have set, and we fully intend to achieve them," vowed Dermer.

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U.S. President Donald Trump is not expected to announce a decision on recognizing Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria in the coming weeks, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee told JNS in Jerusalem on Monday night.

"Those are important questions," Huckabee said during a press conference following his keynote address at the JNS International Policy Summit, "but for the president, getting the hostages home, especially our Americans, is front and center above everything else."

He continued, saying that there is "certainly time for that discussion, but right now, our priority is seeing the hostages safely returned, ensuring the Iranians are no longer aspiring to nuclear weaponry designed to murder and kill. Then we’ll take on the other issues."

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