Lt. Gen. (ret.) H.R. McMaster reveals in his new book that as President Donald Trump's national security adviser, he warned that there would be terrible consequences if the US embassy was moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Well, guess what? The embassy was moved, and there weren't any terrible consequences. So what does that tell us about all the "experts" – and there were many – who made those kinds of predictions? According to McMaster's new memoir, "At War With Ourselves", President Trump was ready to announce the relocation of the embassy when he visited Israel in May 2017.

But McMaster and then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson pushed to delay the move, because they thought there would be a massive, violent Arab reaction. Their advice succeeded, for a time: Trump held off on the relocation for another seven months before finally proceeding with it in December 2017. Looking back to see who else got it wrong is important – not because of the I-told-you-so opportunity, but because so many of those people are today still in positions of influence, or are still being quoted by the major news media as "experts."

Ilan Goldenberg, for example. He's a senior Middle East adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris and serves as her liaison to the American Jewish community. Many media outlets are reporting that he would have a major role in US Mideast policy if Harris becomes president.

Moving the embassy to Jerusalem would be "playing the role of arsonist throwing more fuel on the flames instead of calming things down," Goldenberg told Politico. A Jewish ex-State Department official likewise invoked the dramatic danger of Arab wildfires if the embassy was moved. "It's hard to come up with a single act that would make the Middle East burn more than it is burning right now," Aaron David Miller declared.

Miller's colleague Daniel Kurtzer, a former ambassador to Israel, spoke and wrote extensively against moving the embassy to Jerusalem. He predicted it "will likely spark protests, some possibly violent, in Palestine and throughout the Arab and Muslim world."

Ex-Ambassador Martin Indyk claimed the Embassy move would "make everybody very angry." US Senator Bernie Sanders said it would "exacerbate tensions in this highly volatile region." Pundit Peter Beinart asserted it would "provoke Muslim violence" by "deepening Palestinian despair."

The New York Times interviewed eleven former US ambassadors to Israel. Nine of them predicted mass Arab violence. William Harrop (who was ambassador from 1992 to 1993) said the decision to move the embassy was "reckless" and even "masochistic." Richard Jones (2005-2009) said it would "cost lives in Israel and the region."How did all these so-called experts, with all their years of experience, manage to get it so wrong? Some got it wrong because they simply don't understand the Palestinian Arabs. They assume that the Palestinian Arabs are as if they are children who are incapable of doing anything but rioting when they're mad about something. Such an immature view of Palestinian Arab strategy and policymaking inevitably leads to simplistic and wrongheaded expectations.

But it's likely that some of these "experts" were not simply wrongheaded but downright cynical. Privately, they didn't really believe there would be substantial Arab rioting; they were just hoping that highlighting that alleged danger might stop Trump from moving the embassy to Jerusalem. Either way, the fact that these policy wonks and ex-diplomats were so wrong on such an important American foreign policy issue should disqualify them from being treated as experts on Israel or having any role in future US policy toward Israel and the Palestinian Arabs.

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Throughout all its stages, the Eurovision Song Contest has put the Israeli delegation through many hardships. Hostile looks, public shunning, massive anti-Israel protests, and even deliberate slumbering as a form of opposition and boycotts reminiscent of the American high school movie "Mean Girls" – these were just some of the challenges Eden Golan, the Israeli representative, had to overcome on her way to the stage in Malmö, Sweden.

Over the years, Israel's participation in the Eurovision Song Contest has faced its share of challenges in justifying its place. However, this year was particularly fraught – condemnation, exclusion, and even hatred reared their heads in an unprecedented manner, following the horrific events of Oct. 7 leading to a war in Gaza. From the moment Golan and the Israeli delegation set foot in Malmö, the dramas were relentless.

"United by music," goes Eurovision's slogan, while the representatives of Ireland, Portugal, Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands (who was eventually disqualified), Greece, Sweden, and the list goes on - represented their countries with proud ignorance and malice.

Receiving cold treatment backstage was one thing, but a significant additional front also emerged in the audience. From the general rehearsals to the finals themselves, we heard the struggle between the boos and the cheers trying to rise above them. Amidst the beautiful, moving lyrics of "Hurricane," we heard the voices of those who see no justification for giving Israel a stage to tell its story.

Facing these challenges, Eden stood tall, steadfast, with a heart-piercing voice singing of Israeli pain and strength. We were all awed by her excellent performances one after the next throughout the entire competition, against a daily reminder – you are not welcome here. Israeli citizens united for moments of awe in front of the screen, watching Eden's performance, which often moved many of us to tears. In the second semi-final, we found out we shared this reaction with many more citizens – around the world.

With Eden's grand final performance behind us, we waited with bated breath and immense pride for the participating countries' juries' votes. Country after country, 37 in total - and not a single "douze points" was given to Israel. Officially, the nations of the world turned their backs on Israel, on the song that conveyed its greatest pain. Not a single country wanted its name associated with Israel's.

And while the situation looked bleak, the public voting results started coming in - and in one moment, and 323 points later, Israel leaped from 12th place to 1st - if only for a few moments - with the 2nd highest number of public votes in the world.

First place or not - it was a victory. A victory of light over darkness. A triumph of emotion and artistry over brainwashing and ignorance. Much like the song's lyrics, even when it's hard to see - a small light of hope has shone through.

Cliché but true – unity, love, and strength are more powerful weapons than we thought. All that's left for us is to learn from and preserve the boundless power of a 20-year-old girl, as proof of Israeli resilience.

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The recent image of a pro-Hamas student at George Washington University brandishing a poster calling for a "final solution" was horrifying. But it was also deeply ironic. Because on the very same campus in Washington, DC, where that Nazi slogan was invoked last month, actual Nazis were repeatedly welcomed in the years before World War II.

In October 1933, Gustav Struve, an official of Nazi Germany's embassy in Washington, spoke on the GW campus under the auspices of the university's German Club. In February 1934, Gerrit Von Haeften, Third Secretary of the German Embassy, visited GW to address the German Club's Valentine party. And in May 1937, two Nazi representatives, the wife and daughter of the German embassy's Chancellor, Franz Schulz, participated in an event on campus sponsored by GW's International Studies Society.

Friendly attitudes toward Nazi Germany appear to have permeated the campus. The visits by Nazi officials proceeded without any sign of objections or protests – unlike, for example, at Columbia University, where hundreds of students held multiple protest rallies when the Nazi ambassador, Hans Luther, was invited to that campus in 1933.

Both the German Club and the International Studies Society at GW held screenings of films that were "procured through the German Consul," according to the student newspaper, The GW Hatchet. At least one of the events also included displays of foreign flags; The GW Hatchet's coverage included a large image of Nazi Germany's swastika flag.

That was in April 1937, four years after Hitler came to power, after the Nazi regime's boycott of Jewish businesses, the nationwide book burnings, the Nazi takeover of German universities, the mass firing of Jews from most professions, and the mob violence against Jews in Berlin and elsewhere. It also was after the enactment of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, which stripped German Jews of their citizenship.

Yet The GW Hatchet, which was published by the university, continued to run advertisements from the Nazi government's tourism department and touted upcoming summer tours by GW students to Europe that included visits to Nazi Germany. During those years, GW maintained a junior-year student exchange program with the Nazi-controlled University of Munich, despite the purging of Jewish faculty, implementation of a Nazi curriculum, and mass book-burning at the Munich school.

The Hitler regime viewed such exchanges with American universities as a way to soften the Nazis' image abroad. The Nazi official in charge of sending German students to American universities was quoted, in the New York Times, as describing the German students in such exchanges as "political soldiers of the Reich." But that did not deter GW from participating in the program.

GW was not the only American university to sponsor student exchanges with Nazified German universities, as Stephen Norwood documented in his book, "The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower." But not every American school with ties to Germany turned a blind eye when the Nazis rose to power and took over the country's universities. Williams College, for example, terminated its student exchanges with Germany as a protest against Nazi policies. GW did not.

Some GW students who spent a year at the University of Munich returned with upbeat reports about the new Germany. GW student Mary-Anne Greenough, for example, stated in a 1937 university newsletter that during her year in Germany, she attended the Nazis' celebration of the anniversary of Hitler's failed 1923 Beer Hall Putsch; she said she found the event "worthy of admiration."

Some GW faculty who visited Germany during the 1930s likewise came back with positive descriptions of the Nazi regime. Assistant Professor of Philosophy Christopher Garnett, returning from a visit to Germany in 1934, reported to the campus historical society that  the "optimism which permeated the Germans, even those who at first opposed the present regime, is almost unbelievable." Such apologetics whitewashed Nazi outrages and made Hitler more palatable to the American public.

The time has come for the GW administration to acknowledge that it was wrong for GW to invite Nazi representatives to campus and to maintain student exchanges with Nazi-controlled institutions. But that is not all.

In 1985, GW presented an honorary doctorate to Mircea Eliade, a noted scholar of comparative religion. Before Eliade was a scholar, he was a Nazi collaborator. During the 1930s, Eliade authored viciously antisemitic articles in the extremist Romanian periodical Cuvantul, raving about the alleged "Jewish onslaught" threatening Romania. He actively supported the fascist paramilitary group known as the Iron Guard, and when the Romanian government cracked down on Iron Guard activists in 1938, Eliade was among those whom it imprisoned.

After the Iron Guard came to power in 1940, Eliade was appointed as one of its diplomats in London. British officials privately called him "the most Nazi member of the legation." The Iron Guard regime actively collaborated in the mass murder of Romania's Jews. "Particularly gruesome," the US Holocaust Memorial Museum notes, "was the [Iron Guard's] murder of dozens of Jewish civilians in the Bucharest slaughterhouse. After the victims were killed, the perpetrators hung the bodies from meat hooks and mutilated them in a vicious parody of kosher slaughtering practices."

Eliade continued to defend the Iron Guard after the war, praising it in his 1963 autobiography. For some reason, that didn't deter GW from giving him an honorary doctorate in 1985. The time has come to revoke that honor.

Two years ago, public concern over racism in the United States prodded the George Washington University administration to remove the name of its longest-serving president, the late Cloyd Heck Marvin, from the student center because he advocated racial segregation. Last year, the administration changed the school's moniker from "colonials" to "revolutionaries" because of the many injustices associated with colonialism. GW should now show similar sensitivity to the concerns of its Jewish students and faculty.

Ninety years after actual Nazis were warmly welcomed at GW, extremist students on its campus today are invoking the infamous Nazi phrase "final solution" – meaning mass murder of Jews. That's a blatant violation of the GW Student Code of Conduct. Section V (F) prohibits "acting in a way that threatens, endangers, or harasses others, including verbal, written, or any other form of communication." Violators are subject to a range of possible punishments, from a warning to permanent expulsion. It's time for George Washington University to implement its own rules.

Acknowledging the error of GW's friendly attitude toward Nazi Germany in the 1930s, revoking Mircea Eliade's doctorate, and taking meaningful action against today's violators of the Student Code of Conduct is the path to restoring order, and decency, at George Washington University.

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This is the most difficult chapter in the ongoing campaign for Israel's position and good reputation worldwide. This challenge is so painful that most affiliated with it look away, avoid, or circumvent it – so as not to know of it or see it. This is understandable. The most terrible quarrels occur within the family, and in our case – the Jewish family.

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The alarming reality is that a significant number of the calls to boycott Israel, punish and denounce it, impose sanctions on it, define it as an apartheid state, and so on, come from Jews. It is difficult to estimate the number of these people, but it is significant.

In fact, it is doubly significant. First, there are many Jews in radical organizations. Second, their very participation in this movement validates the non-Jews participating in this delegitimization campaign.

The "Jewish component" of the boycott movement has two main groups: the first is the leaders, from politicians such as Bernie Sanders to intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky; the second is the activists, ordinarily young people, who operate out in the field.

These college students sometimes come from a background of heavy criticism of Israel. They grew up in houses, communities, or schools where every possible accusation and claim was hurled at our country without the opportunity for them to hear the answers to these accusations or that the answers supplied were not satisfactory in their eyes.

Basing the moral justification

The second group, apparently no smaller than the first, includes those who grew up in a pro-Israeli environment. They were given praise about Israel in Hebrew school or the synagogue. They heard the basic story about Zionism, were taught about antisemitism and the Holocaust, Israel's War of Independence, and the Six-Day War, and believed everything they learned with all their hearts.

But then, on campus, their world was turned upside down. Suddenly, people explained to them, with ardor and in high tones of voice, that these Jews were causing Palestinian genocide. Most of them are left paralyzed as a result of this onslaught, few still fight back. Others are leaving the tent of Zionism – and joining the organizations that seek to bring it down.

As stated, most officials fighting the boycott movements are fleeing from this internal Jewish challenge. But instead of burying their heads in the sand, the pro-Israeli side should take it head on, for the costs resulting from ignoring it are growing.

Can something be done? Certainly. The response should be anchored in the moral justification for Israel's policy, for the boycotters are trying to hit our country in the most important place – the morality of its actions. Therefore, the more can properly make our own case to ourselves, the more we will be able to convince the Jewish youth abroad.

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The long-lasting conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Karabakh economic region of Azerbaijan has ended with a trilateral agreement signed on 10 November 2020, with the mediation of the Russian Federation. It has settled several conditions, and prerequisites for future negotiations, as well as unanswered questions on the issue of border demarcation and delimitation. Before mentioning that, we have to look back to the early 90s, when the first Karabakh war erupted, and resulted in the loss of thousands of lives on both sides. The cost of conflict and occupation, namely the economic and environmental damage hasn't been calculated, and officially scrutinized by the government of Azerbaijan before the international bodies.

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Meanwhile, on 23 September 2021, the Republic of Azerbaijan filed an Application instituting proceedings against the Republic of Armenia concerning alleged violations of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination of 21 December 1965 before the International Court of Justice. The Court ordered a provisional measure and asked Armenia to prevent the incitement and promotion of racial hatred, including by organizations and private persons in its territory, targeted at persons of Azerbaijani national or ethnic origin.

However, the cost of lives, human tragedy, and crimes against civilians have not been properly addressed by international tribunals. And, one of the painful pages of the conflict is missing Azerbaijani people from the early 90s, with more than 4000 in total.

It is worth mentioning that war crimes, crimes against humanity, and elements of racial hatred have been committed not only in 2020 but in 1992-93s during the first Karabakh War. This fact has been documented both by international and national civil society groups (Memorial, etc), and respective international bodies, such as ICRC, etc.

According to official data, around 4000 Azeris missing in the first Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. Despite the official request, public statements, and messages during the official trilateral meetings between Armenia, Azerbaijan, and European Union, the Armenian side has not delivered any concrete response, or official will to start the investigation, or ask for international support for the finding of missing people, or discover the place of mass graves of Azerbaijani soldiers, and civilians.

For the first time, it has been officially supported by the official persons of the European Union, as the President of the European Council Charles Michel has made a press statement on the outcomes of a trilateral meeting with the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan in Brussels on 31 August 2022. It was emphasized that a detailed discussion on humanitarian issues, including demining, detainees, and the fate of missing persons has been held.

On 4 October 2022, there have been discovered three sites of mass graves in the village of Edilli of Khojavand district. According to Forensic Exanimation and Pathological Anatomy Association, a total of 6 skeletons were discovered in the first and second sites and 12 skeletons were found in the third site. Based on forensic and anatomic expertise, it is proved that these are the skeletons of military servicemen with clothes and boots resembling black leather, knives, cigarette ends, and cartridge cases. As an example of war crimes, or crimes against humanity, most of them had their legs tied with wire and rope.

Under international humanitarian law, the prohibition of enforced disappearance was recognized as a rule of customary law. As an obligation, the government of Armenia is obliged to document the cases and inform the requesting country with proper information on the numbers and place of mass graves, personal data, and comprehensive information containing investigation and prosecution of war crimes.

Still, there are small efforts remaining for the government of Armenia for the sake of restoring justice, through disclosing the relevant data on missing persons, hoping for creating future peaceful neighborhoods and building confidence between the societies.

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Shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Francis Fukuyama wrote a widely popular book, The End of History and the Last Man, proclaiming that history is linear and evolutionary, and that humanity has reached "not just … the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: That is, the end-point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government."

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We would love to have believed that man has evolved to his highest state, and that history is evolutionary and linear, leading people to truly understand and appreciate the magnificent gift of the liberal world order and embrace it with the United States standing at its helm.

However, with 150,000 troops along the border of Ukraine, it is unfortunately and conspicuously clear that history is not linear.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, the former KGB agent that he is, would like to resurrect the Cold War. He sees the world as a zero-sum game: He wins; America and the West lose. Putin recently described the collapse of the Soviet Union as the "biggest geopolitical catastrophe in history."

How does this play out for Israel? For years, Jerusalem has had to calibrate that delicate balancing act of maintaining a good relationship with Washington and maintaining a diplomatic channel to the Kremlin, with troops just north of Israel's border in Syria. Ironically, Russia has kept Iranian troops at bay, and Israel has been working with the Russians to get approval to attack Hezbollah strongholds in Syria or convoys carrying Hezbollah men and equipment to Lebanon.

Israel, whose modern rebirth came about after the Holocaust, cares deeply about antisemitism, and there are sizeable Jewish populations in both Ukraine and Russia.

For Israelis, who live in the Middle East where they have to confront radical Islamism, tribalism and conflicting ethnic disputes, there never was the illusion of the "end of history," when one can nurture the illusion that history is going along a steady rational, linear course. That is the neighborhood that seems to produce religious fanatics with a totalitarian view of how to create a utopian society. Inevitably, this leader becomes a totalitarian, and the utopian society inevitably erodes into a dystopian one.

Yet we have always had in the West a troop of "useful idiots" (as Vladimir Lenin called them), who believe the assurances of fanatical despots and dictators.

Certainly, that is true of the Islamic Republic of Iran. A June 2016 BBC report revealed that the Carter administration had actually helped depose Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, afraid that there would be a civil war between the military and the followers of Imam Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which would cause instability and hurt US national security and oil interests.

Khomeini went on a charm offensive towards the White House, saying, "You will see we are not in any particular animosity with the Americans," promising that his new Islamic Republic would be a humanitarian one, which would benefit "the cause of peace and tranquility for all mankind."

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In November 1978, US Ambassador to Iran William Sullivan sent a cable to the Carter White House, warning that the "Shah was doomed." By January 1979, the Carter administration helped the Shah depart for a "vacation," abandoning the Iranian military that depended on the US and paving the way for the Islamic Revolution.

The next thing we knew on Nov. 4, 1979, our embassy was seized in Tehran, taking 66 Americans hostage and holding them for 444 days. And for the last 43 years, women who are raped have been subjected to public lashings, gays have been hung in the public square and religious minorities, and other dissidents have been taken to the notorious Evin prison, where they are tortured and frequently executed.

Since 2015, we have had almost seven years to see how the government in Iran has cheated on the nuclear deal, enriching two tons of uranium to the highly purified state of 60% – way beyond the maximum level of purity of 3.65% specified in the deal. We have seen them block International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors from entering suspicious sites, and, of course, build nuclear sites deep underground at the Fordow and Natanz nuclear facilities. If their program was so legitimate, why are they hiding these sites?

And now, we have members of our own American administration who had promised us a "longer and a stronger deal," but who are, nonetheless, sprinting headlong into a "shorter and a weaker deal." History does not march along a linear path, and unfortunately, it is not marching in the path of the liberal world order with the US at the helm.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Since its founding, the Almagor Terror Victims Organization has sounded the alarm over the relaxed atmosphere terrorists enjoy in Israeli jails. We have even issued explicit warnings that this could lead to jailbreaks.

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But our warnings have never been heeded. This has been painful for the families of victims and has also undermined our security.

The message coming out of our prison system was that as long as prisoners did not go on strike, they would be allowed to manage their lives as they saw fit. Conscientious prison guards and officials have repeatedly tried to sound the alarm along with Almagor, but the response has always been that such a policy prevented a larger crisis within the prison system. We even reported on specific prisons where things could go sideways at any moment.

At some point we even approached Gilad Erdan, who as public security minister was in charge of the Israel Prison Service back then. He went on to establish a committee that imposed more restrictions, declaring that the "parties in prisons" must be stopped.

Although there were some fixes and improvements, senior terrorist figures continued to operate out of prison as if they were still in charge.

At the same time, courts decided they had the authority to set restrictions on prisons. One such ruling said that a prison cell is considered to be the terrorist's home and therefore he is entitled to keep many personal belongings, regardless of the size of the cell.Terrorists took advantage of this in order to make life difficult for the guards who now had to conduct a thorough search of countless of items.

Those who wanted to buy peace and quiet in prison saw reality rear its ugly head on the eve of Rosh Hashanah.Here is a solution that is already being implemented in prisons around the world: Inmates should be held in solitary confinement, as many prisoners around the world are, and as Yigal Amir, who assassinated former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, was.

From a moral standpoint, those prisoners should have died as their victims did. Some of them should have been given the death sentence, as we have been demanding for years, and as Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman has long called for. This is the bare minimum required in dealings with the terrorists who made families to lose their loved ones.

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As expected, Israeli gymnast Artem Dolgopyat winning a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics has reignited one of the nation's most controversial debates: Who is a Jew?

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Dolgopyat's mother lamented to the media that the country's authorities would not allow him to wed in Israel because he is not considered Jewish according to Orthodox Judaism.

In short, he is facing a bureaucratic problem: Under Israeli law, one can only marry through religious institutions.

As Tourism Minister Yoel Razvozov put it: "It makes no sense that the rabbinate of the country that Artem Dolgopyat represented would deny him a civil right as basic as getting married in Israel."

So let us clarify things: Artem Dolgopyat, despite his victory, is not a Jew under Halachah (Jewish law). He is, of course, Israeli in every sense of the word, only he is not a Jew. 

It happens. This is not necessarily insulting because nothing could change this unless he undergoes conversion, but even then he would not be able to marry his girlfriend because she is not Jewish.

How can this situation be remedied? First of all, lawmakers need to legalize civil marriages in Israel so that people won't have to marry under the auspices of religious authorities. But for Razvozov and many others who protest the "unfair" situation, this would not be enough. They are adamant about him being recognized as Jewish. Otherwise, why would the Chief Rabbinate be dragged into the debate?

Another solution would be for the government to remove the ethnicity indicators from Israeli IDs and registries, or let anyone who wishes to register as Jewish to do so. In that case, however, even if the majority of the Knesset approved the law, the ultra-Orthodox and traditional Jews would not accept it. They would continue to view non-Jews as, well, not Jewish, including Dolgopyat.

There is also the possibility of reforming the conversion process, but even that would require the consent of ultra-Orthodox institutions. Why? Because without them on board, Razvozov would not achieve his goal: forcing ultra-Orthodox leaders to recognize the gymnast as a Jew. As long as that doesn't happen, Razvozov will continue to "demand justice" for the Olympic athlete.

Therefore, the entire Jewish identity debate is strange and unnecessary. The ultra-Orthodox establishment can in no way see a non-Jew as a Jew unless the person converts through a process it sees fit.

And since the minister insists on forcing the religious authorities to change their view, it makes the debate even more ridiculous. We would be better off focusing on what is important and practical by introducing civil marriage in Israel.

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The sight on Sunday night of the trendy Tel Aviv set celebrating the new Israeli government with great fanfare – flags and all – was nothing short of hilarious. After all, one would have been hard-pressed to locate a single person in the throng of thousands dancing in and around the fountain at Rabin Square who had voted for Yamina, the party whose chairman had just been sworn in as the country's next leader.

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Indeed, ahead of the March 23 Knesset elections – the fourth round in two years – the munchkins chanting the equivalent of "Ding dong! The witch is dead" at the ousting of Benjamin Netanyahu would have shuddered with horror and disgust at having Naftali Bennett become prime minister.

Yes, in the eyes of the state's chattering classes, the kipah-wearing Jew who made a fortune in high-tech exits was and still is a capitalist "fascist" bent on annexing Judea and Samaria at all costs. And Yamina ("Rightward"), in their view, was merely an iteration of Habayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home) and the Religious Zionist Party headed by Bezalel Smotrich, with far-right pariah Itamar Ben-Gvir of Otzma Yehudit in its ranks.

A similar opinion was frequently expressed by the radical leaders of Labor (Merav Michaeli), Meretz (Nitzan Horowitz) and certainly by Mansour Abbas, leader of the Islamist Ra'am Party. Yesh Atid's Yair Lapid and Blue and White's Benny Gantz have less of an ideological stake in any of it, which is why they are referred to euphemistically as "centrists."

Their euphoria at Bennett's taking the reins, then, is both comical (or would be if Israel's domestic and foreign challenges weren't so monumental) and illustrative of just how deep the pathological loathing for Netanyahu runs in certain circles.

Prior to the election and subsequent coalition-building attempts – first by Netanyahu and then Lapid – Bennett's supporters were a different breed, save for a common thread in the plotline that Bibi had to go. In their minds, the longest-serving prime minister in Israel's history wasn't pursuing a sufficiently right-wing agenda.

Like Bennett, they argued that Netanyahu was too focused on staying in power, which caused him to abandon ideology in favor of political maneuvering. It's an accusation that's deservedly coming back to bite Bennett himself in the behind.

Opponents have been bemoaning the nature of the coalition that he finagled, consisting of a bunch of small, disparate parties. Detractors point to the unprecedented phenomenon of having the government headed by a party with a mere seven seats – six after Knesset member Amichai Chikli dropped out in protest over its leftward move.

Netanyahu's Likud won a far greater number of seats (30) than any other individual party in the race. Even Lapid's Yesh Atid garnered only 17. Many Likud supporters, thus, have been calling Bennett and the new government "fraudulent."

Yamina enthusiasts are split. Some feel duped by Bennett for his broken promises. These include a vow not to join forces with Lapid and never to accept backing by Ra'am, let alone sit with it in a government.

Others are consoling themselves that at least their candidate will be prime minister for two years and lead a government that consists of a number of like-minded right-wingers. The people in this category, who wanted Bennett to replace Netanyahu, say that they're willing to give him a chance. What they mean is that they're hoping he won't cave, where it counts, to the leftists and Islamists.

The latter seem to be assuming that he will, or at least are planning to bide their time until Lapid takes over in 2023 to get to work reversing Netanyahu's policies. Despite their carry-on about his criminal charges, which are trumped up at best – and aside from their assertions that "most Israelis" voted against him – his successes are the bane of their existence far more than his failures.

The opposite is true of Bennett, who has been contending that he could do a better job than Netanyahu at implementing the ideas that they share. In other words, the difference between the two "anybody but Bibi" groups now occupying the same rows of Knesset benches is stark.

No wonder the public harbors little faith in the longevity of the so-called "pro-change coalition." But the Left, whose La La Land ideas about Palestinian victimhood at the hands of Israeli "occupiers" have become so unpopular, appears to believe that the absence of Netanyahu and an administration in Washington anxious to return to the Iran deal are its ticket to resuscitation.

Boy, is it ever in for a surprise.

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The irony lies in the thrill its members are exhibiting at having the likes of Bennett serve as their savior. Bets are on about how soon their literal and figurative parties will be over.

The Israeli electorate may have been slightly divided for the past two-and-a-half years over Netanyahu's continued rule after well more than a decade. But it's been crystal-clear about where it stands on Iran, Hamas, the boycott divestment and sanctions movement and the International Criminal Court, to name but a few issues liable to put a damper on the kumbaya coalition.

I, for one, pray that Bennett remembers and acts on this. If he does, a whole different crowd will be descending on Rabin Square and elsewhere to applaud. In the event that he doesn't, the next election might just see Netanyahu return from opposition exile.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org

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Former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen is not naive. As one might expect, the outgoing director is suspicious by nature, cynical due to his vocation, and is someone who knows first hand that one can have a moderate demeanor even if they still pursue a radical agenda.

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In his first interview after leaving the intelligence agency, he conceded that he wrongly assessed that Hamas was looking for some sort of deal with Israel. He even revealed his almost-theological mistake of "I wanted to believe" and "I believed wholeheartedly."

He explained: "I thought we had an arrangement. I wanted to believe that because of all the effort we put into bringing about times of peace that we desperately need here and there… I admit I believed, wholeheartedly believed that if the residents of the Gaza Strip saw their wellbeing improve, [if]...  their motivation for crises and wars would decrease. It seems I was wrong. I was wrong."

Jews have been making this mistake for over a century. In the early statehood years, Moshe Sharett, who would become the second prime minister of Israel, explained that Zionism was built entirely on national consciousness, not on getting Jews to feel that they are better off. Yet, when it came to Arabs that lived in Israel, it expected them to voice their opinions on the economy and progress, entirely ignoring the national problem.

"We said: We are bringing them a blessing… We expected them to sell their national birthright in this land for the proverbial mess of socioeconomic pottage... There is an assumption, explicit or not, that since the Arabs are in an economically, socially and culturally disadvantageous position, they only focus on sustenance and on the mundane… They have no understanding of national values. [Such an argument] gives rise to negative inclinations that stem from the insulting feeling that we see them as inferior human beings, who are not enthused over national identity and all they seek is food and medical services."

The damage of such an outlook becomes greater when combined with an analytic and perceptual error that is prevalent among intellectuals who believe that pragmatic behavior indicates that the leaders are transitioning away from radicalism.

According to this approach, if the radicals exhibit pragmatism, they must be abandoning their strategy of terrorism and attempts to wipe the Jewish state off the map. If only they were given all the assets they need, they would no longer try to destroy the country that granted these possibilities because "they would have something to lose."

Such an assumption is based on a faulty understanding of radicalism and a lack of knowledge of world history.
Adolf Hitler acted pragmatically in Munich, as did Joseph Stalin with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Yasser Arafat in Oslo, Ruhollah Khomeini with the first government that he formed, and Ali Khamenei with his negotiations with Barack Obama. So did Pol Pot in Cambodia when he supported King Norodom Sihanouk, and Kim Il-sung when he was a commander in the Soviet army. This is also how the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt managed to get Obama to help them.

Hezbollah, Hamas and the Iranian regime are radicals, even when they act pragmatically. Israel must deter them instead of "believing wholeheartedly" that their aggressive and violent nature can be changed if their standard of living improved.

Radicals are trying to persuade Jerusalem and Washington to grant them resources, such as rehabilitating the strip and lifting sanctions on Iran, which would enable them to continue the war.

The two governments must not be tempted to do so. True, in the short- and medium-term, it could eliminate the threat, but we must in no way help Hamas gain more strength.

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