US sanctions individuals, entity with ties to Iranian nuclear-related research
Intro
These sanctions are intended to “delay and degrade” Iran’s ability to research and develop nuclear weapons, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.
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The U.S. State Department is sanctioning three Iranian nationals and one Iranian entity with ties to Iran’s Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, also known as SPND, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Monday.
Those sanctioned are involved in activities that currently or could potentially “materially contribute to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,” Rubio stated, adding that the sanctions are intended to “delay and degrade” SPND’s ability to research and develop nuclear weapons.
“Iran continues to substantially expand its nuclear program and carry out dual-use research and development activities applicable to nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons delivery systems,” Rubio’s statement read. “Iran is the only country in the world without nuclear weapons that is producing uranium enriched to 60%, and it continues to use front companies and procurement agents to obscure its efforts to acquire dual-use items from foreign suppliers.”
On Sunday, the United States and the Islamic Republic held another round of indirect nuclear talks, which Tehran characterized as “difficult.”
"There are no more cities of refuge in the Middle East," Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin declared on Tuesday night, revealing that dozens of Israeli Air Force fighter jets were "continuously" striking ballistic missile launchers in the central Iranian city of Isfahan.
"We continue to deepen our strikes," the spokesman said in his briefing on the fifth day of "Operation Rising Lion" in Iran. "A few hours ago, around 60 aircraft from the IAF launched a broad wave of attacks in the heart of Iran, targeting Iranian missile launch sites."
After the IDF achieved aerial superiority over the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force, regime forces were "pushed into central Iran," he said, adding that most missile fire now originates from the Isfahan region.
Dozens of Air Force aircraft are "continuously flying over Isfahan, locating enemy activity in real time and attacking operators as well as launchers," the spokesperson revealed. "There are no more cities of refuge in the Middle East. This isn't just a slogan; it's the reality."
"What applied to Hamas leaders in Gaza and to Hezbollah leaders in Dahiyeh [in Beirut], now applies to Iranian regime leaders and launch operators in Isfahan who try to fire missiles at Israeli civilians," he said.
Alongside attacks on missile systems, the IAF continues to strike terror targets across Tehran, including regime offices and assets used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, including its Quds Force, he said.
"We will not allow an existential threat—whether nuclear or missile—to persist over Israel. We are mission-driven, not time-driven, and will operate until our goals are fully achieved," according to Defrin.
Early on June 13, more than 200 Israeli fighter jets attacked dozens of enemy targets, including military and nuclear sites, in a "preemptive, precise, combined" opening strike against Tehran's nuclear program.
Since the start of the war on Friday, Iranian attacks on Israel's civilian population centers have killed 24 people in the Jewish state. Three were killed on Friday, 13 overnight on Saturday, and eight early on Monday.
Channel 12 said on Tuesday that Iran launched 17 waves of attacks using more than 400 ballistic missiles, in addition to suicide drones.
The Israeli Air Force, in response, attacked and destroyed more than 70 missile batteries across Iran, it said in a statement on Tuesday evening.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the operation would "continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat," vowing to end the Iranian threat to the Jewish state's "very survival."
The U.N. Security Council convened an emergency session last week to review Israel’s ongoing military attack targeting Iran’s nuclear-weapon facilities and related leaders. Israel’s traditional U.N. adversaries said it committed an unprovoked breach of international law. In actuality, Israel’s actions constitute justifiable self-defense under two lines of international law.
U.N. Charter Article 51 and customary international law give states the right to use military force in two situations: self-defense against an actual armed attack and “anticipatory self-defense” against an imminent armed attack.
Assessing Israel’s military operation requires a look at both legal rights.
Through a decades-old alliance of jihadist terror groups called the “Axis of Resistance,” Iran has been orchestrating a campaign of armed attacks on Israel. The axis members serve as Iran’s proxies and pursue Tehran’s well-publicized strategic goal to destroy Israel, and ultimately, to replace Western civilization with Islamic rule. To that end, these terror proxies have been striking Israel under an umbrella of Iranian funding, weapon smuggling, military training and intelligence sharing. Iranian leaders promote the cause with chants of “Death to America, Death to Israel.”
The Iranian-sponsored aggression ignited a full-scale war on Oct. 7, 2023, with the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel. During and after the slaughter and atrocities, Israel came under attack from multiple directions: Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza; Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy, in Lebanon; terrorist militias in Syria; Houthi rebels in Yemen; Shi’ite militias in Iraq; and Palestinian terror cells in Judea and Samaria. Iran itself fired two waves of missiles and drones at Israel in 2024.
Legally speaking, Iran’s “substantial involvement” in the proxy war against Israel permits the Jewish state to launch counteroffensives against Iran and its proxies, based on a 1986 ruling of the International Court of Justice in The Hague. In short, the collective war against Israel justifies Israel’s strike on Iran as an act of self-defense.
Israel’s actions are also justified by the international law right of anticipatory self-defense. The classic example of anticipatory self-defense was the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel pre-empted an imminent armed attack by Syria, Egypt and Jordan. Israel took similar steps when it pre-emptively bombed the Osirak Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, as well as when it pre-emptively hit a Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007.
The concept of an imminent armed attack is not explicitly defined. But in 2012, the United States and other democracies interpreted the term by devising the Bethlehem Principles. Applying those criteria to the Iran-Israel showdown reveals there was ample evidence as of June 13, or earlier, that an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel was imminent.
The first criterion examines the “nature and immediacy of the threat,” disregarding whether the defending state knows the exact time, place and means of attack. The U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency discovered Iran’s undeclared nuclear enrichment activities and announced, in 2003, the regime’s violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Subsequently, the United Nations engaged Iran in protracted diplomacy to cure the noncompliance, but Iran deceptively continued its nuclear progress.
The IAEA said on June 12 that Iran breached its nuclear obligations, having enriched so much uranium to near-weapons grade purity that it could produce several nuclear bombs. Israeli intelligence predicted that a nuclear weapon could be made within weeks. That fact, in light of Iran’s anti-Israel proxy war, confronted Israel with an immediate existential threat.
The next Bethlehem criterion studies whether any third parties support the anticipated aggressor. In this case, the third-party support comes from Iran’s Axis of Resistance.
The analysis also asks whether the anticipated attack is part of “a pattern of continuing armed activity.” In this case, the proxy war on Israel has convulsed the region for 20 months.
Another factor estimates the scale of potential damage from an anticipated attack. A single Iranian nuclear missile detonated over a tiny country like Israel could not only destroy it but complete an antisemitic genocide greater than the Holocaust.
Finally, the Bethlehem inquiry considers any attempts to pursue defensive alternatives, ones less drastic than the use of military force. Many attempts were made to restrain Iran nonviolently. Most significant among them was a nuclear limitation agreement, the 2015 nuclear deal titled the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which was signed by Iran and six world powers in 2015. The contract was structured to delay, but not stop, Iran from producing nuclear weapons, and, therefore, the United States withdrew from the arrangement in 2018.
Earlier this year, the United States offered Iran a 60-day period in which to negotiate a new nuclear limitation deal. Unfortunately, the U.S.-Iranian talks reached an impasse. Iran faced economic sanctions from the U.N. Security Council, the European Union, the United States and other major democracies. None of these peaceful measures convinced the fundamentalist regime to stop its nuclear enrichment. Israel waited out the 60 days before taking action.
For decades, Iran’s leaders have obsessively vowed to eliminate the “Zionist entity.” But as the Bethlehem Principles recognize, a nation need not stand still as its enemy prepares to attack, especially when the attack threatens nuclear annihilation.
Israel’s attack on Iran flows from two rights of self-defense: one to repel actual attacks from the Axis of Resistance and the other to defuse an anticipated nuclear attack from Iran. Neither of these lawful imperatives satisfies Israel’s opponents. It’s a familiar story. Everyone recognizes the right of self-defense ... until Israel invokes it.
Brad Lander, comptroller of New York City and a Democratic mayoral candidate, was detained by federal immigration officers on Tuesday at immigration court in Lower Manhattan.
Dora Pekec, communications director for Lander’s mayoral campaign, told JNS that the city comptroller was arrested while “escorting a defendant out of immigration court at 26 Federal Plaza.”
“Brad was taken by masked agents and detained by ICE,” she said. “This is still developing, and we are monitoring the situation closely.”
Lander, who is Jewish, can be seen being detained by several immigration officers in a post shared on the comptroller’s X account by his wife.
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is also running in the Democratic primary set for June 24, condemned Lander’s detention in a statement shared with JNS.
“This is the latest example of the extreme thuggery of Trump’s ICE out of control,” he said. “One can only imagine the fear families across our country feel when confronted with ICE. Fear of separation, fear of being taken from their schools, fear of being detained without just cause.”
ICE raids across New York City must stop immediately, according to Cuomo.
“This kind of conduct is the direct result of Mayor Eric Adams handing the keys of our great city over to Donald Trump,” he said. “Comptroller Brad Lander was doing absolutely nothing wrong when he was illegally detained, and he must be released now.”
U.S. President Donald Trump posted on social media on Tuesday that the United States knows “exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding,” indicating that U.S. intelligence knows the whereabouts of Iran’s cleric ruler, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“He is an easy target, but he is safe there—we are not going to take him out (kill!) at least for now,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Shortly after, CNNreported that Trump met with his national security cabinet in the Situation Room at the White House.
Trump separately announced an intelligence and military update, stating, “We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran. Iran had good sky trackers and other defensive equipment, and plenty of it, but it doesn’t compare to American-made, conceived and manufactured ‘stuff.’ Nobody does it better than the good ol’ USA.”
It was unclear whether Trump meant that Israel had aerial control with U.S. weaponry or if the United States had officially entered the conflict. JNS sought comment from the White House.
Palestinian terrorists launched two rockets at Israel from the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday evening, the Israel Defense Forces confirmed.
"A short while ago, two launches were identified crossing from the southern Gaza Strip into Israeli territory and landing in open areas. There were no casualties," the Israeli military stated in Hebrew.
Air-raid alerts were activated to warn civilians present in the border area "in accordance with policy," shortly after an Iranian ballistic-missile attack had also triggered sirens in Israel's south, the IDF added.
On Sunday evening, Gaza terrorists launched one projectile at Israel. The aerial attack triggered air-raid sirens in Kibbutz Nir Oz, Moshav Ein HaBesor and Kibbutz Magen, the Home Front Command announced.
The day prior, four rockets were shot into southern Israel in two separate attacks. They impacted in open areas, and no casualties were reported.
As of February, some 85% of the 64,000 residents in the Gaza Envelope were back home, with 11,000 still living in temporary, state-funded accommodations elsewhere. Almost all had been evacuated following the Hamas-led terrorist attacks into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The rocket attacks came amid continued IDF ground operations across the Strip as part of "Gideon's Chariots," a campaign with the stated goal of dismantling Hamas's remaining military capabilities, taking control of key areas in Gaza, and securing the release of the remaining 53 captives.
Col. Nathan McCormack, the Levant and Egypt branch chief at the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s J5 planning directorate, has referred publicly to “Netanyahu and his Judeo-supremacist cronies,” to Washington having “overwhelmingly” enabled Israel’s “bad behavior” and pro-Israel activists in the United States prioritizing “support for Israel over our actual foreign interests.”
JNS has learned that McCormack, who according to his LinkedIn account has held his current role since June 2024, has also bashed Israel as a “death cult” that is America’s “worst ally” on a semi-anonymous social-media handle, where he has written hundreds of posts since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks about Jews and Israel.
“The Western states go to great lengths to avoid criticism of Israel, much out of Holocaust guilt,” McCormack wrote on social media in April. “Israel’s actions over decades have prompted the accusations of ethnic cleansing and genocide.”
“Netanyahu and his Judeo-supremacist cronies are determined to prolong the conflict for their own goals: either to remain in power or to annex the land,” he wrote on social media in May.
“I’ve lately been considering whether we might be Israel’s proxy and not realized it yet,” he wrote in April 2024. “Our worst ‘ally.’ We get literally nothing out of the ‘partnership’ other than the enmity of millions of people in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.”
“The U.S. has not been an honest broker,” he wrote in June 2024. “We have overwhelmingly enabled Israel’s bad behavior.”
In one post replying to the idea of Gazans potentially finding refuge outside the Gaza Strip, McCormack wrote that Israel wants “to expel them and cleanse ‘Eretz Israel’ of ethnic Palestinians.”
On Oct. 11, 2023, five days after Hamas’s terror attack, McCormack wrote that “Israel has an absolute right to respond militarily” and “civilians may legally be caught in the crossfire” but that “Israel’s responses always (always—not hyperbole) disproportionately target Palestinian civilians.”
Despite some attempts to anonymize his account, McCormack has repeatedly revealed his name and job title on the platform and has posted photos of himself that match his LinkedIn profile and that include his uniform name tag. (JNS sought comment from the Pentagon and McCormack.)
“How so? What data? This is literally what I do at work every day,” he wrote to someone in May. “I’m the Joint Staff J5 Israel branch chief.” His LinkedIn profile indicates that he is also responsible for Egypt and the wider Levant.
On Aug. 3, 2024, he posted a photo of a meritorious service medal certificate issued to “Lt. Col. Nathan E. McCormack” on June 1, 2022. He has since been promoted to full colonel.
Other posts include descriptions of his conversations with generals in the Israel Defense Forces, briefings from Israel’s coordinator for humanitarian aid into Gaza and aborted plans to send emails over the Pentagon’s Secret Internet Protocol Router Network for sharing classified information.
A DoD contractor who has interacted with McCormack described the postings as “dangerous.”
“This is the kind of bitter oversharing I’d expect from someone who doesn’t know better,” the contractor said. “But at his level and under his own name and likeness? It’s mind-boggling. We have enough opsec and public perception problems as is.” (Opsec refers to operations security.)
The contractor raised the question whether McCormack’s personal politics influence the advice his team provides to senior leaders.
“If this is what he’s publicly sharing, who knows what he’s saying behind closed doors,” the contractor said.
“Who else has seen this? He’s an easy mark for foreign intelligence agencies,” the contractor said. “Publicly expressing such radical views that undermine the president’s policy opens the door for bad actors to exploit.”
“Posting discussions he’s having with colleagues and details about conversations with foreign partners? I’m gobsmacked,” the contractor said.
An aerial view of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., on May 15, 2023. Credit: U.S. Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Alexander Kubitza/U.S. Department of Defense.
‘Rants seem out of place’
Blake Johnson, director of communications at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, described the tweets as “disappointing.”
“There should be lots of room in the U.S. decision-making process for vigorous and honest debate, but these anti-Israel rants seem out of place in a Pentagon that has such a strong working relationship with Israel’s Ministry of Defense,” Johnson told JNS.
That’s particularly the case for “someone entrusted with the role of chief of the Levant and Egypt branch of the Joint Staff’s Strategy, Policy and Plans Directorate,” he said.
One theme of McCormack’s posts is that U.S. support for Israel undermines the United States.
In August, McCormack wrote on social media that “the problem with pro-Israel political activism in the United States is that it prioritizes support for Israel over our actual foreign interests.”
Instead, he has called John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s 2007 book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, which the Anti-Defamation League called “a classical conspiratorial antisemitic analysis invoking the canards of Jewish power and Jewish control,” a “very good” book.
“The argument, that the pro-Israel lobby in the United States has shaped U.S. foreign relations to support Israel in ways that are strategically harmful to both the United States and Israel still holds, even though the book was published in 2007,” he wrote.
“I also particularly like the attention they pay to efforts to silence criticism of Israel’s policy through claims of antisemitism, but also acknowledge actual antisemitism and condemn it,” he said.
Close-up of a ceremony with Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the 18th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in which a retired U.S. soldier received a Silver Star, the nation's third-highest military award, Jan. 28, 2014. Credit: Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Daniel Hinton/U.S. Defense Department.
Military code
The J5 directorate of the Joint Staff is tasked with providing assessments and recommendations directly to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, per the Joint Chiefs of Staff website. “The Joint Staff J5 proposes strategies, plans and policy recommendations to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to support his provision of military advice across the full spectrum of national security concerns to the president and other national leaders,” it says.
McCormack’s profile includes a disclaimer noting that his tweets “do not represent the position of the Department of Defense or any of its components,” in line with the Army’s online personal conduct guide.
Elizabeth Robbins, a retired Army officer now at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JNS that McCormack’s social-media activity remains alarming despite the disclaimer.
“The issue here is his X account is quickly traceable to a senior U.S. Army officer who works at the Pentagon focused on the Middle East,” Robbins said. “A member of the military can hold whatever positions they want on U.S. national security and foreign policy, but they should refrain from publicizing those opinions.”
That’s the case “particularly when they are a member of the Joint Staff and they are commenting on an American ally at war,” she told JNS.
“I was surprised that McCormack also shared his own movements and activities on X, to include Pentagon gatherings and a cancelled trip to Jordan,” she said. “This X account shows a lack of circumspection and professionalism, and the contents could be pieced together by adversaries to infer classified insights, such as dissension in the ranks regarding U.S. support for Israel.”
The Army’s social-media guide is mostly focused on steering soldiers away from posting domestic partisan political content, but also bars “showing contempt for public officials, releasing sensitive information or posting unprofessional material that is prejudicial to good order and discipline under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.”
An aerial view of the Pentagon on May 15, 2023. Credit: U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. John Wright/U.S. Department of Defense.
In April, McCormack wrote a reply to Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) mocking his use of military metaphors in support of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s plan to “put the warfighter first.” (JNS sought comment from the senator’s office.)
“Grok, create an image of a plumber leading the breach, laying down cover fire, taking the high ground, exposing himself to enemy fire to communicate and bringing back integrity, focus and putting the warfighter first inside DoD,” he wrote, addressing his reply to X’s artificial intelligence image generator.
The Pentagon’s social-media guide also tells soldiers to “avoid use of Department of Defense titles, insignia, uniforms or symbols in a way that could imply DoD sanction or endorsement of content on your personal page.”
“Also avoid misrepresenting yourself as an official DoD spokesperson on your personal account,” it adds.
On Monday afternoon, McCormack wrote about himself as part of the official defense community to endorse the casualty numbers put forward by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry.
“Along with the World Health Organization and United Nations, we (Department of Defense, Department of State and the U.S. Intelligence Community) consider the Gaza Health Ministry figures to be generally reliable (though not precise),” he wrote, “but probably less so now than they were originally due to the general destruction and chaos in Gaza.”
U.S. officials during the Biden administration sometimes cited Hamas’s casualty figures from Gaza, but also cast doubt on their accuracy.
“I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed,” former President Joe Biden said in late October 2023. “I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using.” He cited Hamas figures in a State of the Union address several months later, however.
The DoD contractor expressed surprise to JNS that McCormack had so much free time to post so many comments, given the extent of regional turmoil after Oct. 7.
“Two-and-a-half years into a new war, I’d hope he’d have something more productive to do during the day,” the contractor said.
It was never my plan to be in Israel when it attacked Iran.
About a year ago, my wife and I learned that a close relative of ours had decided to volunteer for the Israel Defense Forces as a lone soldier. This was a longtime goal. He’s 19.
We knew that we had to be there when he received his rifle and Tanach (Bible) at the Western Wall (Kotel) in Jerusalem, during what is often translated as a swearing-in ceremony. For nearly two millennia, Jews were unable to defend the Jewish people in the Land of Israel. Now, we live in a time when that is possible. If a Jew is not moved by this simple fact, I’m at a loss to understand it.
We stood at the wall on the night of June 11, not knowing that less than 30 hours later, Israeli forces would stun the world with their successes within Iran.
What is truly shocking, though, is that most American Jews (and many Israelis) have little understanding of what these incredibly moving ceremonies are really like.
The leadership of each brigade decides when their soldiers will receive their Bible and weapon. It can happen anywhere—from several weeks into their training to many weeks after that, and there’s an additional six months of training after the “swearing-in” ceremony for most.
This, to me, speaks to the genius of the Israeli army. Young men and women are forged into cohesive, effective fighting units, bonded through shared experiences of training and ceremonies that blend spirituality and patriotism. These units will serve together long after training ends.
At this particular ceremony, we witnessed hundreds of young men swearing—or affirming—that they would sacrifice their lives to defend Israel. They came from religious homes (including Haredi ones), and secular ones, were born in Israel and abroad, and represented a full spectrum of racial backgrounds—white, black and brown.
The unity on display was powerful, offering clear evidence against the idea that Israeli society is fractured to the point of civil war.
The Western Wall Plaza was packed—standing room only. Thousands of emotional and proud family members surrounded us. The remarks from the various officers who addressed the soldiers and their families were inspiring and worthy of repetition, but space here doesn’t allow for that.
What I can share is this: The officers began by remembering their fallen heroes. The speakers who followed quoted Torah, acknowledged the hostages in Gaza, and reflected on Zionist history and the biblical prophets, weaving an authentic and moving tapestry of the Jewish People. Chazak v’amatz is a Hebrew phrase meaning “Be strong and courageous,” from Devarim (Deuteronomy). These ancient words that Moses directed to Joshua were quoted to the soldiers.
The young fighters, filled with pride and excitement, hoisted their comrades on their shoulders, dancing and chanting slogans.
Families and fellow recruits cheered as the new soldiers received their Bibles and their rifles. It was a moment of pure connection.
The evening ended with everyone—soldiers, commanders, families and onlookers—united in song. We sang “Hatikvah,” and later, “Ani Ma’amin” (“I Believe”). The words of the Rambam (Maimonides), written in the 1100s, resonated deeply: “I believe with complete faith in the coming of Moshiach (Messiah), and although he may tarry, nevertheless, I wait every day for him to come.”
The perceived divisions within Israeli society have been overstated. In reality, Israel is a nation bound together by shared concern, care and solidarity. Israelis support one another, deeply and unwaveringly.
As I write this, Iranian and Houthi missiles continue to target Israeli neighborhoods across the land. We’ve witnessed these attacks up close and personal, just as we have seen time and again that Israelis are one people.
And to you, dear reader—whether you’ve never visited Israel, haven’t been there in years or have visited more recently—I urge you to go again. You owe it to yourself and to the people of the Jewish state to experience the unity and resilience firsthand.
Israeli airlines, led by El Al, will begin operating a limited number of one-way flights to Tel Aviv on Wednesday to gradually bring home the tens of thousands of Israelis stranded abroad by the war against Iran.
The first El Al flights, which are completely sold out, will depart from Larnaca, Athens, Rome, Milano and Paris, Israel’s national carrier stated on Tuesday.
Three smaller Israeli airlines—Arkia, Israir and Air Haifa—will also start flying passengers back to Tel Aviv on June 18 if security conditions permit. Their initial pre-assigned repatriation flights were also sold out.
The news came as some 150,000 Israelis remain stranded abroad since the Jewish state closed its airspace to civilian traffic after launching a preemptive strike on Friday against Iranian nuclear and military sites.
The El Al flights to Tel Aviv will only be available to travelers whose tickets were canceled due to the war.
There will be no outbound flights from Israel. Israel's airspace for commercial flights remains closed through at least Monday.
More than 60,000 passengers signed up on El Al’s registration site in the hour after the return flights were announced on Monday.
Prioritization of flight assignment is subject to the date of cancellation of the original flight and exceptional medical humanitarian cases.
Arkia will let those wanting to return to Israel book a flight on its website, while Israir said that it would first work to return its ticketed passengers, starting with group travel. Air Haifa announced that it will run up to nine daily flights from Larnaca, beginning with ticketed passengers.
Miri Regev, Israeli minister of transportation, announced on Monday that the rescue flights would begin within 72 hours pending final security approval.
The head of Israel’s Civil Aviation Authority warned this weekend that it will take weeks before all Israelis stranded abroad will be able to fly home.
Israeli carriers have relocated their planes to Larnaca, Cyprus, and Athens, Greece, in line with the recommendations of a contingency plan developed ahead of the strike on Iran.
Qatar is buying influence at Georgetown University and reshaping the Jesuit school’s academic mission, hiring practices and campus culture, according to a new report from the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy.
“The big takeaway is that we found $1 billion of soft power from the Qatari regime that goes into one of the most important universities in the United States, and if not the world,” Charles Asher Small, founding director and president of the nonprofit, told JNS.
“Muslim Brotherhood ideologues have had an influence in the academic world,” he said. “Not just in Georgetown but throughout the United States.”
According to the 135-page report, decades of “substantial” funding from Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan and Qatar have changed Georgetown in the past 50 years from “a prestigious academic institution rooted in Jesuit traditions into a pivotal nexus where radical ideologies, academic inquiry and geopolitical influence converge.”
Those funders have steered the Washington private school “toward a distinctive pro-Islamist and anti-Israel orientation,” according to the report. The foreign donors, of which Qatar is the principal, have also shaped a school that is “a training ground for U.S. foreign service professionals,” according to the report.
“It’s all open-source information that we have seen,” Small told JNS. “Just imagine what we couldn’t find.”
Healy Hall on the campus of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., April 30, 2022. Credit: APK via Wikimedia Commons.
‘Blur the lines’
In 2005, the school opened a campus in Doha that is “an extension of the university that operates under a distinctly different set of political and academic constraints,” according to the report.
The Qatar campus, Georgetown’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and its Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding—the latter two of which are parts of its School of Foreign Service in Washington—are “conduits through which external capital and ideological impulses converge to promote narratives that challenge the traditional American bipartisan consensus on international relations and cultural understanding,” according to the report.
“By fostering environments that often blur the lines between academic freedom and ideological advocacy, these centers have not only influenced scholarly discourse but have also played a significant role in the formation of activist networks and policy-oriented debates,” it states.
The Muslim Brotherhood is a driving force behind the Qatari belief system, which Small described as a “fusion of European genocidal antisemitism and even Nazism fused with a perversion of Islam.” It aims to “alienate and weaken Israel, to fragment and weaken the United States and Europe and to fragment the ‘great Satan,’” he said.
By infiltrating elite North American and European universities, the brotherhood and its allies are shaping the values and ideas of future leaders, with the effects now visible “from the classroom to the encampment to our streets,” Small said.
In Doha, Georgetown’s campus depends financially on the Qatar Foundation, which the royal family and the government control. Events organized on the campus and scholars invited to them have ties to extremism.
Small told JNS he had “particular shock” that Georgetown awarded its president’s medal to Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, chair of the Qatar Foundation and a public supporter of Hamas. (Jewish Insider noted that she posted, “O Allah, we entrust Palestine to you,” in Arabic on Oct. 8, 2023.)
“Here’s Georgetown giving a medal to a woman who supports Hamas, applauds Hamas’s activities when it comes to murdering Israelis and Jews,” he said. “This, to me, is astounding. It’s almost like it’s prime and plain sight.”
Since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, there have been more antisemitic incidents, pro-Hamas demonstrations and harassment of Jewish students at Georgetown, according to the report.
“Universities have a sacred mission,” Small told JNS. “You’re educating young people on how to be citizens in a democracy. When liberal educational institutions are taking money from regimes that want to exterminate Jews, subjugate women, murder gay people, destroy democracy, this is really a threat to our stability and to our democracy and our democratic principles.”
He added that other research from the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy has found that Qatar funds U.S. institutions to the tune of $100 billion.
“It’s probably only the tip of an iceberg,” Small told JNS. “Now, we’re extending our research into Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and South Africa.”
“We’re very concerned that Qatar has excellent relations with Iran,” he said. The Qataris “understand our culture and our language and our political institutions, and we in the West remain ignorant and oblivious.”
