Opinions

Twenty years after Hamas’ electoral triumph, the consequences of misreading its intentions are painfully clear, especially for Benjamin Netanyahu.

After the blows dealt by the IDF to Hezbollah, Lebanon’s Christians need Israeli protection more than ever. Israel, however, also stands to gain, all the more so if they can bring moderate Sunni and Shiite factions to the table.

Jerusalem is not planning Syria’s rehabilitation but the configuration that follows its fragmentation and the role in shaping it. There is no viable "Syria-first" doctrine: recognition cannot precede protection, the unitary Syria myth leads only to the next war, and Israel will not underwrite that illusion with its security, its moral commitments, or sacrificed lives. Syria was never one country. 

Any attempt to engage with this regime, to reach agreements or understandings with it, or even to strike it, has failed to slow down, let alone halt, its march toward missiles and nuclear weapons as part of its plan to destroy Israel.

The leader of the world's most powerful nation must think carefully before making a speech or a crucial decision, and no longer react in such a simplistic and emotional manner. Contemporary history teaches us that decisions made lightly and impulsively, without prior planning for the future, have always had catastrophic consequences for world peace.

Why the loudest mouths are silent regarding freedom for Iran.

Unlike in Gaza, in Iran people are genuinely being slaughtered in the streets. Yet only this week did the UN secretary-general find the time to address the massacre, urging Iranian authorities to “exercise maximum restraint.” Compare that to his and his organization’s obsessive fixation on Israel.

Human rights organizations? Glad you asked. They are silent, and confused. There are no Jews on either side of this conflict, so they struggle to determine who has rights, the butchers or the butchered.

This time, however, may be different, because this time, the uprising wasn’t triggered by lack of political freedom, but by socio-economic conditions in Iran.

On any index of weapons and military capabilities, the Iranian threat is far greater than Hamas. But that is a narrow perspective, one that focuses on the short term. Over the long term, the destruction of the terrorist organization is critical, because its survival means that anything can be done to Jews and that it is permitted. Israel must return to speaking in very clear terms.