Memo to Democrats: “As supposed moderates like Gavin Newsom demonize AIPAC and smear the Jewish state to appeal to their party’s mainstream, voters will have to draw their own conclusions”

Posted on March 8, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
If pro-Israel Democrats become extinct, what will liberal Jews do?
Jonathan Tobin
March 6, 2025

…Everywhere you look, you find evidence of mainstream Democrats scurrying for cover as their invariably more left-wing primary opponents use past visits to Israel or reports of their getting funding from pro-Israel PACs, as well as those connected to AIPAC, as campaign issues. Among Democrats, AIPAC is more and more being falsely compared to radical right-wing hate groups, despite the absurdity of the comparisons. Examples of this abound. In Illinois, State Senator Laura Fine is being bashed for taking pro-Israel PAC money by her opponent Daniel Bliss, as they compete for the Democratic nomination to replace Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), herself a veteran Israel-basher in the state’s heavily Jewish 9th District on Chicago’s North Side and adjoining suburbs. All three are Jewish. READ MORE

Posted in Israel & Middle East, Jewish, Politics | Leave a comment

“The U.S. has joined the IDF in the enterprise, but Americans have not seen their military fight that kind of war in a long time. For some, it is a disorienting experience”

Posted on March 8, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

NATIONAL REVIEW
America and Israel Remind the World How Wars Are Fought to Victory
Noah Rothman
March 5, 2026

…Jerusalem’s objective is to “create the conditions” for regime change, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Toward that end, one Israel-based security expert told the Financial Times, Israel is attacking “the pillars of this regime” and “everything that holds it together.” But what will follow the Islamic Republic? That’s tomorrow’s problem. “If we can have a coup, great,” the analyst added. “If we can have people on the streets, great. If we can have a civil war, great.”. Israel is fighting this war as it has fought every conflict it has waged since October 7, 2023, with the goal of achieving tactical victories at the lowest possible cost in blood and treasure. The full flourishing of the Iranian people would be nice. And who wouldn’t welcome the establishment of a durable and placid social contract throughout the Middle East? Those are fine outcomes, but the IDF has a narrower agenda: break the back of the Iranian regime and rid the world of its terror masters once and for all while putting its soldiers at as little risk as possible. READ MORE

Posted in Islam, Israel & Middle East, Politics | Leave a comment

“Israel’s ‘proportionate’ responses are a thing of the past. Now we understand we can’t live with terrorists”

Posted on March 5, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

WALL STREET JOURNAL
The New Israeli Rules of Engagement
Amit Segal
March 4, 2026

The Israeli defense establishment realized as early as the night between October 6 and October 7, 2023, that something was stirring in Gaza. They knew, yet they did nothing. The paralyzing fear was “miscalculation”: the worry that if the IDF moved forces, Hamas would interpret it as an escalation, fighting would ignite, and the coveted “quiet” would be shattered. This was Israel’s state of mind in 2021. The head of the Shin Bet compared it to a patient whose vital signs were all in decline. When a person fails to exercise their muscles for an extended period, they become a couch potato. Decades of containment, restraint, and forbearance caused Israel to appear more vulnerable than ever in the eyes of its enemies. Two and a half years later, Israel stands at the pinnacle of its power in the Middle East. This transformation occurred only after it shed every rule it had gradually adopted since the 1980s. READ MORE

Posted in Islam, Israel & Middle East, Politics | Leave a comment

“America is in this fight because of China. Specifically, it is about dismantling the most significant Chinese forward base outside of East Asia”

Posted on March 4, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

FREE PRESS
This Isn’t Israel’s War. It’s America’s.
Haviv Rettig Gur
March 3, 2026

The debate about the U.S.’s war in Iran is everywhere. It is threatening to split the conservative movement, dividing it between those who see it as Donald Trump’s breaking of a promise against new wars and those who see it as a necessary confrontation long overdue. Progressives, predictably, frame it as another Middle Eastern adventure dragged out of Washington by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Anti-war libertarians call it regime change in a new dress. And across the world, from Brazil to Beijing, London to Karachi, the argument is the same: America is fighting Israel’s war. But this isn’t true. And the confusion matters, because if you misread what this war is actually about, you will misread everything that follows. READ MORE

BEYOND THE IDEOLOGICAL The Iran Question Is All About China Iran is most often discussed as a nonproliferation problem, a sponsor of terrorism, a regional spoiler. Each of these framings captures a real problem, but none captures what matters most. The nuclear file, the militia archipelago stretching from Lebanon to Yemen, the question of Gulf security architecture: these only acquire their full meaning when read against the backdrop of Chinese grand strategy. In fact, Beijing has spent years and billions of dollars building Iran into a structural asset. Everything that follows in the Middle East flows from this fact. Which is why Operation Epic Fury is the first American military campaign that threatens to sever that asset. By striking Iran directly, the Trump administration is dismantling, whether by design or by consequence, a pillar of China’s regional architecture. 

Posted in Islam, Israel & Middle East, Jewish, Politics | Tagged , | Leave a comment

“For 47 years, the Islamic Republic has targeted Americans directly or through proxies”

Posted on March 4, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

URBAN WARFARE
Iran’s War on the United States Did Not Start Yesterday
John Spencer
March 1, 2026

Iran started a war against the United States in 1979. It has never stopped. That is not rhetorical flourish. It is historical fact. On November 4, 1979, Iranian militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. That was not a protest. It was a declaration. The newly established Islamic Republic defined itself in opposition to the United States and built its foreign policy around confrontation with America and its allies. Since then, the pattern has been consistent. In 1983, 241 American Marines were murdered in the Beirut barracks bombing, an attack carried out by Hezbollah with Iranian backing. It remains one of the deadliest single days for the Marine Corps since World War II. During the Iraq War, Iranian-backed militias killed 603 U.S. service members, according to Pentagon assessments…The campaign never ended. It evolved. READ MORE

Posted in Islam, Israel & Middle East, Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment

“Turkey has blanketed the region, leaving it well positioned to fill the void left by the Islamic Republic”

Posted on March 4, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

FDD
Beware Turkey’s ambitions in the post-Iran power vacuum
Jonathan Schanzer
March 4, 2026

…A better question is this: Which regional powers may try to fill the vacuum after Iran’s dictatorship falls? Tehran has for years projected power by proxy across the Middle East, sponsoring terrorist groups like Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Shiite militias in Iraq, and other malign actors across the region. Should the regime collapse, other aspiring regional powers will seek to fill the void. And while many countries may think regional leadership is theirs to inherit, there is one powerful player to watch: the Republic of Turkey. The country has the second-largest army in NATO. It has a growing drone industry and a government-tied military contractor, SADAT, that is training and arming militias across the Muslim world. Concurrently, Ankara has been cultivating terrorist proxies in the Middle East for years. The Turks are key patrons of Hamas, dating back nearly two decades…READ MORE

AXIOS Kurds backed by Mossad, CIA could lead next phase of war in Iran Militants from several Kurdish Iranian factions are preparing for a possible ground offensive against Iran’s regime in the northwestern part of the country, according to U.S. and Israeli officials and a senior official in one of the Iranian-Kurdish factions. A Kurdish ground offensive coordinated with the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign against Tehran would be a potential way to increase pressure on the regime and encourage an internal rebellion that could spread to other parts of Iran. Six days before the war began, five dissident Kurdish Iranian groups sheltering in Iraq announced the formation of the Coalition of Political Forces of Iranian Kurdistan to fight Iran.

Posted in Islam, Israel & Middle East, Politics | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

“Newsom ridiculed Israel, called for cutting off military support and smeared it as an apartheid state”

Posted on March 4, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

COMMENTARY MAG
Newsom’s Bright Idea: Defund Allies in Wartime
Seth Mandel
March 4, 2026

It’s not easy being Gavin Newsom. Every morning the California governor has to wake up and figure out who progressive voters want him to pretend to be. Today they want him to be more of an anti-Israel zealot. So he learned his lines and went on Pod Save America, the Israel-obsessed podcast hosted by former Obama advisers. But Newsom, with his impeccable timing, picked a moment when his performative sneering at our allies would be most insulting to America and the men and women in uniform. “Do you think, looking down the road,” Pod host Jon Favreau asked Newsom, “that the United States should consider maybe, you know, rethinking our military support for Israel?” To which the governor responded: “It breaks my heart, because the current leadership in Israel is walking us down that path where I don’t think you have a choice about that consideration.” READ MORE

TIMES OF ISRAEL Gavin Newsom declares he never has and ‘never will’ accept AIPAC funding Remark by California governor, who is widely expected to run for US president in 2028, signals opposition to the pro-Israel lobby group is increasingly become a litmus test for Democrats

JEWISH INSIDER Senate defeats resolution to halt Iran war, largely along party lines The vote showcased how the Iran war has quickly become a partisan issue, despite lawmakers on both sides of the aisle expressing long-standing concerns about the threat from Iran. With the U.S.-Israel operation against Iran widening, the Senate voted 53-47 on Wednesday afternoon — largely along party lines — to block a procedural vote on a war powers resolution that would have forced the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from combat with Iran. Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and John Fetterman (D-PA) broke with their respective parties as expected, with Paul voting for and Fetterman voting against the motion, with all other lawmakers voting along party lines.

POLITICO Ties to Israel plague Democrats in top primaries post-Gaza Israel, after a long, devastating war in Gaza, has become so unpopular among many voters in the Democratic base that major candidates in top primaries are using even small connections to the country’s political leaders to hit their opponents. One Illinois Democratic operative involved in this year’s primaries has dredged up a 2019 trip that Illinois U.S. Senate candidate Juliana Stratton took to Israel to meet with the then-leader of the Israeli opposition Tzipi Livni…A Gallup poll released Friday found that around two-thirds of Democrats sympathize more with the Palestinians with only around 20 percent saying they are aligned with Israelis, down from half of Democrats being pro-Israel in 2016. 

Posted in Politics, Israel & Middle East, Jewish | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

“A festering dispute broke out into the open as Trump took aim at Tucker Carlson”

Posted on March 4, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

FREE PRESS
Trump: Tucker Carlson Is Not ‘America First’
Eli Lake
March 5, 2026

Of the first political casualties of President Donald Trump’s second Iran war is his relationship with populist movement leader and social media broadcaster Tucker Carlson. In an interview with ABC News’ Jonathan Karl, Trump cast Tucker out of the MAGA tent. “Tucker has lost his way,” Trump told Karl on Thursday. “I knew that a long time ago, and he’s not MAGA. MAGA is saving our country. MAGA is making our country great again. MAGA is America first, and Tucker is none of those things. And Tucker is really not smart enough to understand that.” As I reported last month, Trump’s patience with Carlson was growing thin. The president has privately asked Carlson to tone down his criticism of pro-Israel supporters of the president since January. But until this week, Trump did not share his irritation with the wider public. Carlson’s outbursts about Operation Epic Fury were too much. He called the war “absolutely disgusting and evil” in an earlier interview with Karl. Carlson devoted Monday’s show on his own podcast to advancing claims that Trump had caved to pressure from Israel to launch another endless war. READ MORE

ARUTZ SHEVA Tucker Carlson attacks Chabad and Holy Temple ‘patches’ Anti-Israel media personality Tucker Carlson sparked controversy after claiming that Israel’s war is allegedly driven by a goal of destroying the Al-Aqsa Mosque and building the Third Temple in its place. In an episode of the “Tucker Carlson Show,” he asked, “How did all these guys wind up wearing patches suggesting the point of this war was the destruction of one of the holiest places in Islam and the rebuilding of a temple that is totally anathema to Christianity?” He answered, “This has been going on a long time in public through, in part, the efforts of a group called Chabad, C-H-A-B-A-D.” 

MIDDLE EAST FORUM Gregg Roman: Tucker Carlson Has Become Tehran’s Most Effective English-Language Propagandist …According to Tucker: The war serves only Israel. The Gulf States are the real victims. America should declare victory and leave immediately. Dual-loyalty fifth columnists dragged the country into a foreign war. The Ayatollah’s death is a tragedy that will unleash chaos. The neocons are possessed by demonic blood lust. And then, in the second broadcast, the escalation: the war is really about rebuilding the Jewish Third Temple on the ruins of Islam’s third-holiest site, a conspiracy involving Hasidic organizations, the Secretary of Defense, IDF soldiers wearing temple patches, and evangelical preachers calling for the annihilation of Gaza. The logical terminus of this narrative is not policy criticism, but a blood libel for the digital age.

Posted in Israel & Middle East, Politics | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

“The nouns have changed. The structure hasn’t.…The accusation is the same. Americans aren’t really in charge. Jews are”

Posted on March 4, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

ALGEMEINER
From Coughlin to Carlson: The Return of the ‘Jewish War’ Libel
Micha Danzig
March 4, 2026

Nearly every generation in America produces the same refrain in moments of conflict: this is not our war. Sometimes that argument reflects prudence. Sometimes it reflects hardheaded cost-benefit analysis. But in American history, it has also carried something more corrosive — the suggestion that America is not acting on its own interests at all, that shadowy “foreign” forces are pulling the strings, and that those forces are Jewish. In the 1930s, Father Charles Coughlin aligned himself with the isolationist fervor that would later crystallize into the America First movement. He warned about foreign entanglements and demanded neutrality. In practice, that neutrality meant opposing American support for Britain, while leaving Nazi Germany untouched. Coughlin spoke darkly of “international bankers” and “alien powers.” READ MORE

Posted in Islam, Israel & Middle East, Jewish, Politics | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

“Financial Times reports IDF used algorithms to interpret troves of data, allowing it to build pattern-of-life models for top bodyguards; CIA had human intelligence on supreme leader”

Posted on March 3, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Israel hacked Tehran traffic cameras to track Khamenei ahead of assassination
Lazar Berman
March 3, 2026

Israel hacked into Tehran’s extensive traffic camera network in order to track the bodyguards of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other top Iranian officials ahead of Saturday’s assassination of the supreme leader, the Financial Times reported on Monday, citing two people familiar with the matter. Iran’s cameras are believed to be part of the state’s surveillance apparatus, allowing authorities to identify and pursue protesters and regime opponents. But the Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, was able to co-opt the network for use against the regime, the report said. The FT said Israel gained access to the cameras years ago, and found that one particular camera was angled in such a way that it showed where members of Khamenei’s security team parked their cars…On the day of the attack, Israel and the US also disrupted cellular service on Tehran’s Pasteur Street, where Khamenei was assassinated, so those trying to reach the bodyguards and deliver possible warnings would receive busy signals, per the report. READ MORE

Posted in Islam, Israel & Middle East | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment