The Zionist Organization of America is calling on religious leaders to disassociate from J Street and four other groups that support legislation to stop weapons sales to Israel.

“When Jewish groups block these arms sales, it’s downright treasonous and antisemitic,” Mort Klein and Liz Berney, ZOA’s national president and director of research and special projects, respectively, write in a statement on Nov. 25.

“Disgracefully, radical groups J Street, Americans for Peace Now, T’ruah, Partners for Progressive Israel and IfNotNow lobbied for and supported three Joint Senate Resolutions of Disapproval to block $20 billion of U.S. arms sales to Israel,” they state.

ZOA advises Jewish community relations councils and Hillels to cut any official ties with the five organizations.

“We also urge that the Conference of Presidents remove APN from its membership,” its leaders say. “Furthermore, all rabbis and cantors on J Street’s board or advisory committees should resign in protest of their endangering Israel and Jews.”

The statement notes that it’s “time to hold accountable organizations whose traitorous efforts to block arms sales to Israel endanger Jewish lives and Israel’s survival in the midst of the seven-front existential war launched by Iranian-supported genocidal terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah against Israel.”

Countering Iran is likely to be the primary focus of Middle East policy in U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s forthcoming term, according to a report published Tuesday.

The Middle East Forum’s “blueprint” for the Trump administration, titled “Reasserting American Power in the Middle East,” predicts that the incoming administration will, via executive order, reinstate policies of the prior Trump administration, including reimposing travel restrictions that both Trump aides and critics called the “Muslim ban.” 

“During the first 100 days, the Trump administration will likely focus on immediate executive actions to implement key policy changes,” according to the Middle East Forum, a think tank founded by Daniel Pipes, the forum’s president.

“The first year presents distinct implementation challenges for the incoming administration, which will prioritize enhanced border controls, expanded deportation programs and strengthened oversight mechanisms across federal agencies,” per the report.

“The Iran pressure campaign will be escalated while simultaneously pursuing closer ties with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf allies, excluding Qatar,” it adds. “Higher education reform will focus on aggressively enforcing transparency requirements and new security protocols.”

The Biden administration took office seeking rapprochement with Iran including a return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA, the formal name for the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

Iran repeatedly rebuffed those offers, and the Biden administration took a tougher stance against Iran after the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, given Iran’s support for Hamas.

The Middle East Forum report envisions the incoming Trump administration restoring the “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran and even pursuing regime change in the Islamic Republic.

“The cornerstone of U.S. Middle East policy must address Iran’s expanding regional influence and its network of proxy forces,” the report states. “Under the Trump administration, this will manifest as an enhanced version of the ‘maximum pressure’ campaign, with the explicit goal of regime change in Tehran.” 

“This strategy represents an evolution from previous approaches, acknowledging that containment and negotiation strategies have failed to modify Iranian behavior,” it adds. “Key elements will likely include renewed sanctions, support for internal opposition movements and active disruption of Iran’s regional proxy networks. The administration must also address Iran’s nuclear program, its support for terrorist organizations and its destabilizing influence across Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.”

Another question the incoming administration will face includes the U.S. alliance with Qatar, which hosts U.S. Central Command at Al Udeid Air Base, given Qatar’s past support for Islamist groups including Hamas.

Despite the “two-sided game” that Qatar plays with these Islamist groups, the report predicts that Trump is likely to remain close to the Gulf state.

“He met with Qatari leaders at his Florida resort in September 2024,” it notes. “His son-in-law Jared Kushner, who spearheaded Trump’s Middle East policy, and former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin visited the emirate several times post-presidency and have accepted hundreds of millions of dollars from Qatar in investments to their private equity firms.”

The incoming administration also has an opportunity to work with Arab Gulf partners to rebuild Gaza in a way that lessens the centrality of the Palestinian issue to U.S.-Israeli-Arab relations.

“The Gulf Arab states should be asked to serve as part of the solution for post-war Gaza by funding reconstruction and providing security once an Israeli military occupation ends,” the report states. “This engagement could help pave the way to remove the ‘Palestinian Issue’ from its position of primacy regarding progress toward coexistence between Israel and the Gulf States.”

A common refrain from Jewish Democrats during the fall election season was that a Trump administration would be a dangerous disaster for Jews in America and Israel. These criticisms held little water given that Donald Trump’s first administration was highly favorable to Jews, including accomplishments like expanding Title VI protections and signing the 2020 Abraham Accords in the Middle East.

Now, with plans for the new Trump administration taking shape, it should be clear that the next four years will offer many promising signs for Jews in America and Israel alike.

Let’s look at what the incoming administration and the incoming Republican-led Congress have already done to help Jews and the Jewish state. It is useful to start with the president-elect’s cabinet picks, which include many people who have expressed unequivocal support for the safety of the American Jewish community and the security of the Jewish state. Trump offered New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, a leading pro-Israel lawmaker, the role of ambassador to the United Nations. Stefanik, who famously took elite university presidents to task in the hearings about campus antisemitism, is sure to take a similarly uncompromising stance against the United Nations, which is notoriously biased against Israel.

Trump also selected Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who is both a staunch supporter of Israel and one of Washington’s fiercest critics of Iran, as the new secretary of state. Rubio has repeatedly called for Israel to be able to do whatever needs to be done to defeat Hamas, correctly pointing out in a viral video that all blame for the war lies with the terrorist organization and that Israel has a moral imperative to destroy them. His advocacy for tough sanctions and a stronger posture against the Iranian regime is also good for Israel and Jews across the world, acting as a hedge against any American enablement of their global financing of terror.

He will be joined in the incoming U.S. foreign-policy establishment by other Jewish allies like the future ambassador to Israel former Alabama Gov. Mike Huckabee, a self-described Zionist who has a decades-long political record of support for the Jewish state; and future national security adviser Rep. Mike Waltz of Florida, who stands by Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza and has criticized the Biden administration’s policies of constraining Israel and enabling the terrorists in Iran. Waltz is also an advocate for expanding the Abraham Accords and advancing Trump’s earlier record of creating regional peace.

With these picks and a slate of others, Trump’s incoming administration is shaping up to be one of the most strongly pro-Israel administrations in recent U.S. memory. The incoming government doesn’t only bode well for Israel and U.S.-Israeli relations but for American Jewish security. Trump has promised to combat antisemitism by deporting the foreign radicals who cheer on Hamas and Hezbollah, and stripping federal funding from universities that fail to enforce anti-discrimination laws when Jewish students are targeted for hate.

The Republicans are already starting to make good on this promise with a recently introduced Protect Economic Freedom Act, which aims to pull federal financial aid funding from colleges that participate in boycotts of Israel. The legislation comes after months of warnings from Republican attorneys general across the country, who have threatened to enforce standing state anti-boycott laws against universities that greenlight divestment measures. The bipartisan measure, co-sponsored by Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) and Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), stands no chance of passing in the current Congress. Lawmakers plan to reintroduce it in January after Republicans resume control of Congress, where it may have enough support from moderate Democrats to pass.

The bill will be a powerful tool for lawmakers aiming to reform our broken, politicized universities, which receive federal funding under the condition that, among other things, they follow antidiscrimination laws. While the U.S. Department of Education technically has the power to pull funding if schools violate these laws, they rarely do, particularly in Democratic administrations. This bill has the potential to change the current climate, holding universities more accountable for creating a fair, unbiased campus environment and making federal dollars conditional on meaningful reforms.

Trump has also promised to enforce existing statutes holding foreign students on visas accountable for following American laws—and penalizing them for actions such as supporting terror groups like Hamas. “If you come from another country and try to bring jihadism or anti-Americanism or antisemitism to our campuses, we will immediately deport you,” he said at a rally. One organization, Betar, has even begun preparing for January by compiling lists of pro-Hamas students attending American universities, hoping this will make it easier to apply swift consequences when the new administration takes effect.

The list could go on, but the broad takeaway should be clear: Instead of wringing their hands and prophesizing about doom, American Jews should look at the hard policy evidence ahead of them and recognize the promising signs it contains. We are safer when there is a government willing to enforce anti-discrimination laws and penalize college campuses that swing into overt antisemitism, and Israel is safer when it is dealing with American officials who sanction terrorists and stand unequivocally with its battle against evil. Jews should welcome an administration that values our security both at home and abroad, and Trump’s team so far shows every sign that they will do just that.

The U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions on Tuesday against 35 vessels and companies that it says are part of a "shadow fleet" that illegally delivers Iranian oil to other countries, destabilizing the region.

"Iran continues to funnel revenues from its petroleum trade toward the development of its nuclear program, proliferation of its ballistic missile and unmanned aerial vehicle technology and sponsorship of its regional terrorist proxies, risking further destabilizing the region," said Bradley Smith, acting U.S. under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at the Treasury Department.

The U.S. government imposed sanctions on 21 ships, which it said "have collectively shipped tens of millions of barrels of oil for Iran." It also sanctioned 14 companies that own or manage the vessels.

Alexander (“Shabbos”) Kestenbaum, the Jewish student activist at Harvard University who gained national prominence for speaking at the Republican convention in July, recently shared how the chaplains at Harvard are falling Jewish students.

On Nov. 18, masked Hamas supporters gathered in front of the Harvard Hillel and screamed at Jewish students trying to enter.

Kestenbaum tweeted: “After Harvard Jews were told by masked students ‘Zionists aren’t welcomed here’ outside of the Hillel, the Chaplain Office finally released a statement that did not include the words Jew, Zionism, Israel or antisemitism. A total abdication of religious responsibility.”

How did Greg Epstein, a Jewish chaplain at Harvard, and his fellow chaplains respond after the incident at the Hillel? They were silent for three days and then, finally, the Chaplain Office issued their statement that incredibly read as if the pro-Hamas intimidation rally was a legitimate religious expression!

Still, Epstein and company conceded, noting that to say somebody is “not welcome here” is problematic. Not because it’s antisemitic, but because some students might perceive it that way. “Student groups who are singled out in this way experience such language and acts of vandalism as a painful attack,” read the mealy-mouthed word salad from the Harvard chaplains.

It’s bad enough that Jewish students at Harvard have to contend with pro-Hamas demonstrators and faculty members, but now, chaplains have failed them, including a Jewish one.

Epstein, a member of the J Street Rabbinic Cabinet and a graduate of the rabbinical ordination program at the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism, was named chief chaplain at Harvard University back in 2021.

The news media thought it was noteworthy that after nearly 400 years of having chief chaplains who believed in God, Harvard had chosen a self-proclaimed atheist for the position. Officially, Epstein serves as the Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University.

And maybe some parents of Jewish students at Harvard were less than thrilled at the prospect of their sons or daughters being influenced by a passionate advocate of atheism. After all, that’s pretty fringe stuff in the eyes of most American Jews.

But the bigger problem, I warned at the time, was that Epstein would use his new position as a platform to influence Jewish students’ perceptions of the Holocaust, antisemitism and Israel.

For example, in 2019, Epstein tweeted that American detention facilities for illegal migrants “can LITERALLY [his caps], in a historically accurate way, be called concentration camps.” That’s a pretty twisted, shallow understanding of the Holocaust.

Epstein’s tweets about Israel have been equally disturbing.

A tweet from Epstein on April 28, 2021, employed the ugly term “Jewish supremacists” to demean Jewish nationalists who were marching in Jerusalem. That slur was invented by neo-Nazis and has more recently been adopted by the radical left.

Some years earlier, when Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections, Epstein was part of a group of radical American rabbis who urged then-President Barack Obama not to reject the terrorist victors. “We urge you to maintain a cautious approach” towards Hamas, they wrote to the president. Yeah, that worked out well.

So now that we’ve seen where that “cautious” approach to Hamas led, has Epstein had a change of heart? On the contrary—in recent tweets, he has been bashing Israel over Gaza.

On Sept. 3, an X (Twitter) user named “Sofie” tweeted out some anti-Israel slurs. Sofie’s X account is adorned with a slogan denouncing “amerika” and proclaiming “glory to the resistance.” In case anybody doubts which “resistance” she has in mind, she has an illustration of a paraglider—the symbol used to glorify the Oct. 7 terrorists, some of whom entered Israel on paragliders in order to rape, mutilate and murder. Sofie’s paraglider symbol is followed by a hammer and sickle.

You get the picture: Sofie is an Israel-hating, America-hating fanatic.

That doesn’t seem to bother Epstein one bit, to judge by his response to one of her recent tweets.

On Sept. 3, Sofie tweeted that according to some sources, the actual death total in Gaza “is now over 92,000.” Note that even Hamas says the number is 44,000, and the real number is less than half that, according to Israel. But even 92,000 isn’t enough for Sofie. She continued by declaring in her tweet that the true number—which she called “a conservative estimate”—is 368,000!

You would think that Greg Epstein, a Jewish chaplain at Harvard, would either ignore or refute this anti-Israel slander. On the contrary, he responded: “I think about this every day. I personally have no idea how precise #s are but I can say the math has seemed *off* to me for months. Given conditions we’ve created in a Gaza Strip that was already an open-air prison before the war, estimates of 30-40K have long been inadequate.”

From the comfort of Harvard Yard, thousands of miles away, Epstein decided that the already exaggerated number of 40,000 “seems off” and is “inadequate.” The absurdly high number furnished by a Holocaust-denying terrorist group was not enough for him.

His claim that Gaza “was already an open-air prison before the war” is equally absurd. More than 15,000 residents left that “prison” every day to enter Israel for jobs—and to do surveillance for Hamas. We now know that some of those Arab workers provided information about towns in southern Israel that Hamas used for its murder-and-rape rampage. That’s the “prison” Chaplain Epstein has in mind.

Now thanks to Kestenbaum’s tweet, we see just where the Chaplain Office at Harvard can’t even do the decent thing and name Jews when they are victimized.

So, heads up, Jewish parents of prospective Harvard students: This is what your $51,925 in annual tuition (tuition alone, mind you) will get.

Paraguayan President Santiago Peña will travel to Jerusalem next week to attend the reopening of the South American country's embassy in the Jewish state’s capital, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana said on Tuesday.

The delegation will also include the speaker of Paraguay's Chamber of Deputies—Raúl Luís Latorre Martinez—and other senior officials.

Peña is scheduled to address the parliament on the morning of Dec. 11, followed by a Knesset ceremony with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog and Opposition Leader Yair Lapid.

The reopening of Paraguayan’s diplomatic mission will take place the next day at the Har Hotzvim industrial park in northwestern Jerusalem.

"About three months ago, I had the honor of inaugurating the Israeli embassy in Paraguay," Ohana said in comments cited by Hebrew media. "In a moving ceremony, we affixed the mezuzah from the house where Sivan Elkabetz and Naor Hasidim were murdered on Oct. 7 [2023]."

"Next week, we will close a circle. Paraguay’s president will inaugurate the embassy in Jerusalem. Shimon, Sivan’s father; Avi, Naor’s father; and Elhanan Danino—the father of Uri, who was kidnapped from the Nova party and was murdered—will attend," stated the lawmaker.

"Avi and Elhanan joined me on my recent visit to Paraguay, and like me, they felt the president's embracing and sympathetic attitude towards the State of Israel and support for its existential struggle," he concluded.

The embassy move, which had been planned before the start of the war against Hamas, is a diplomatic boon for Israel at a time when it has faced opprobrium over the conflict triggered by the Oct. 7 assault.

Paraguay first moved its embassy to Jerusalem in 2018, following then-President Donald Trump’s lead. It became the third country to do so after the United States and Guatemala. However, months later, the mission was returned to Tel Aviv, setting off a diplomatic crisis.

During his campaign last year, Peña pledged to return the embassy to Jerusalem. "The State of Israel recognizes Jerusalem as its capital. The seat of the parliament is in Jerusalem, the president is in Jerusalem. So who are we to question where they establish their own capital?" he said.

Ohana inaugurated Israel’s reopened embassy in Asunción on Sept. 18. The two parliaments signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for cooperation, and Martinez gave Ohana a top congressional award.

Landlocked Paraguay has a long history of friendship with Israel, dating back to its vote for the establishment of the Jewish state at the United Nations.

Trump's landmark decision in 2018 set the stage for other countries to follow suit in the following years, with additional nations expected to make similar announcements after a delay caused by the Hamas war.

Five countries currently have their embassies in Israel’s capital: the United States, Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo and Papua New Guinea. All of the other countries that have ties with Israel maintain their embassies in Tel Aviv or the Tel Aviv-area suburbs due to the political sensitivities over the city that is holy to multiple religions.

In this episode of "The Quad," Israeli innovation envoy Fleur Hassan-Nahoum tries to make sense of the not-so-civil war in Syria and the current Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire.

She is joined by Avi Mayer, former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, and activist and writer Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll.

And, of course, get ready for the Scumbags and Heroes of the Week, with a special submission from actor and comedian Michael Rapaport!

A staffer for Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, has been “suspended without pay indefinitely, pending further investigation” following the exposure of a video showing her tearing down a poster intended to raise awareness for the hostages kidnapped by Hamas during its terror attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Nallah Sutherland, 25, a coordinator in the Mayor’s Office of Special Projects and Community Events, was seen on Nov. 2 ripping a poster at the corner of York Avenue and East 84th Street before smacking the phone from the anonymous individual who filmed her actions.

The watchdog group StopAntisemitism and the social-media platform Jews of NY shared the video.

Her role within the city office is said to “bridge cultural divides” and uphold “the mayor’s commitment to celebrating the rich diversity of New York City.”

The mayor’s office told The New York Post on Nov. 30 that “disciplinary action was taken immediately after learning about this incident a few weeks ago.” The initial “disciplinary action” involved Sutherland attending multicultural training and a note placed in her employee file, which many said was not enough.

“I would fire anyone who engaged in acts of antisemitism like tearing down posters of the hostages,” said Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.). “The city and the state should not only preach but also practice zero tolerance for antisemitism.”

Inna Vernikov, a Jewish member of the New York City Council, called the disciplinary response “extremely hypocritical,” especially “in a department that plays a vital role in our city’s diversity efforts.”

Adams, who office representatives said was not involved with Sutherland’s “light punishment,” intervened on Dec. 2 following the widespread criticism and instituted the unpaid suspension.

“While this is a positive step toward holding this vile antisemite accountable, it falls far short of what justice demands,” Liora Rez, executive director of StopAntisemitism, told The New York Post.

“Nallah Sutherland must be fired immediately, and Mayor Adams’ office must set a powerful example in New York City by taking a firm stand against bigotry toward Jews,” she said. “Words alone are not enough—actions speak louder than anything.”

After air-raid sirens sounded in Kibbutz Erez in southern Israel, the Israeli Air Force intercepted one rocket launch that crossed from the northern Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces reported on Tuesday.

While Hamas rocket fire has significantly decreased since the early days of the war as the IDF has consistently and severely degraded the terror group’s capabilities, it has not been eliminated.

Terrorist forces in Gaza launched a rocket at the border community of Kerem Shalom on Nov. 21, triggering sirens in the kibbutz, located at the Gaza-Israel-Egypt border near the crossing of the same name.

The rocket was successfully intercepted, causing no injuries or damage, according to the IDF.

A rocket from Gaza set off sirens in Kibbutz Erez on Nov. 13, impacting in an open area. No injuries were reported. The community is located less than a mile from the Strip’s northern border and is the namesake of the Erez Crossing.

On Nov. 25, the Israeli military reported that Abd el-Halim Abu Hussein, the head of rocket operations for Hamas’s Western Jabalia battalion, was among several terrorists killed in an Israeli airstrike in the northern Gaza city. He was responsible for numerous rocket and mortar attacks against Israeli civilians, as well as against Israeli forces in Gaza.

The strike also eliminated Muhammad Abd al-Rahman Muhammad Zakout, one of the Hamas terrorists who carried out the massacre of 1,200 men, women and children in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.