“The aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln is moving closer, fighter jets have arrived in Jordan, air defense systems are on the way, and aerial refueling and transport aircraft have also been tracked heading east”

ISRAEL HAYOM ( by agreement with JNS)
Inside the US military’s massive buildup ahead of possible Iran strike
Dudi Kogan
January 21, 2026

Amid rising tensions with Iran, the US is steadily amassing additional military forces in the region, according to open-source intelligence analysts, media outlets covering the US military and American newspapers reporting on Wednesday. According to The Wall Street Journal, President Trump has continued to press his advisers for “decisive” military options against Iran, even after backing away from a strike last week. Senior US officials told the paper that the president repeatedly uses the word “decisive” when describing the impact he wants any American action against Iran to have. At the center of the buildup is the movement of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and its strike group, which includes destroyers, F-35 jets and additional combat aircraft. READ MORE

JERUSALEM POST By asking Trump to delay Iran attacks, Netanyahu exposes Israel’s air defense holes The stunning revelation that part of why US President Donald Trump called off, or at least paused, any American attack on the Iranian regime was a request from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exposes a gaping, relatively new hole in Israel’s otherwise stellar multilayer air defense shield. The IDF sent more than a dozen messages in a matter of days about how it was ready and how strong its air defense capabilities are, only for Netanyahu to privately tell Trump the opposite. There were likely a variety of reasons that Trump canceled or postponed attacking the Iranian regime, and there were multiple reasons why Netanyahu also pushed him in that direction.

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US official re Bibi: “If he wants us to deal with Gaza, it will have to be our way. We worked over him. Let him focus on Iran and let us deal with Gaza”

AXIOS
“Gaza is our show”: U.S. pushes its plan over Netanyahu’s objections
Barak Ravid
January 17, 2026

President Trump’s advisers have little patience for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s objections as they push ahead with “phase two” of the Gaza peace plan. “This is our show, not his show. We managed to do things in Gaza in recent months nobody thought was possible, and we are going to continue moving,” a senior U.S. official told Axios, referring to Netanyahu. Netanyahu released an unusually pointed statement objecting to the “executive board” for Gaza, which the White House named on Friday. Th committee, which reports to the Trump-led Board of Peace, includes the foreign minister of Turkey and a senior Qatari official, despite Netanyahu’s insistence that those countries have no role in governing Gaza. READ MORE

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“It’s a reminder for those who are in this country on a visa or on a green card. You are a guest in this country. Act like it.”

JNS
Anti-Israel activist Mahmoud Khalil to be deported to Algeria, DHS official says
Mike Wagenheim
January 22, 2026

The Trump administration plans to re-arrest and deport Syrian-born anti-Israel activist Mahmoud Khalil, according to Tricia McLaughlin, assistant U.S. secretary of homeland security for public affairs. “It looks like he’ll go to Algeria. That’s what the thought is right now,” McLaughlin told NewsNation’s “Katie Pavlich Tonight.” Khalil’s mother has family ties to Algeria, and as a result, Khalil holds citizenship there. Khalil, a Columbia University graduate of Palestinian descent, holds a green card as a U.S. permanent resident. He has been accused of organizing encampments and other protests at the Manhattan campus, several of which turned violent and included rhetoric supporting Hamas. READ MORE

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NRO: “Kamala Harris’s Presidential Campaign Was Run by a Bunch of Lunatics”

ABC NEWS
Gov. Josh Shapiro alleges in memoir that Kamala Harris’ team asked him if he had ever been an Israeli agent
Oren Oppenheim
January 19, 2026

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, in a forthcoming memoir, claimed that the running mate vetting team for Vice President Kamala Harris during her 2024 run for the presidency asked him if he was ever an agent of the Israeli government, ABC News has confirmed. The New York Times first reported Shapiro’s claim. Shapiro writes in his memoir “Where We Keep the Light,” which is set to be released on Jan. 27, that he was asked at the last minute by Dana Remus, a former White House counsel and member of the vetting team, if he had ever been an agent for Israel. He said that he told Remus he found the question offensive, according to excerpts reported by The New York Times. He wrote that he was also asked by Remus if he ever spoke with an undercover Israeli agent, to which Shapiro said he responded in part that if they had been undercover, “how the hell would I know?” READ MORE

NATIONAL REVIEW Kamala Harris’s Presidential Campaign Was Run by a Bunch of Lunatics And what, exactly, spurred the Harris campaign’s suspicion that Shapiro had dual loyalties and had secretly been an agent of the Israeli government? And if an agent of any foreign state is undercover . . . how do you know? Occam’s razor would suggest that either (1) the Harris campaign foresaw insurmountable obstacles from having a Jewish, pro-Israel running mate at a time when the Democratic grassroots were growing vehemently anti-Israel, and needed an excuse to conclude Shapiro had flunked the vetting process or (2) the Harris campaign was full of paranoid antisemites who believed that every American Jew they encountered was secretly working for the Mossad.

JEWISH INSIDER Jewish leaders condemn ‘classic antisemitism’ in Josh Shapiro’s account of Harris VP vetting “The more I read about [Shapiro’s] treatment in the vetting process, the more disturbed I become,” Deborah Lipstadt, who served as the State Department’s antisemitism envoy under President Joe Biden, said in a post on X. “These questions were classic antisemitism.”  Shapiro suggests in the book that he was being treated unfairly as a Jewish contender for the role of vice president: “I wondered whether these questions were being posed to just me — the only Jewish guy in the running — or if everyone who had not held a federal office was being grilled about Israel in the same way,” he writes.

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“The recent surge of antisemitism on both the left and the right suggests that we are entering a new chapter of the Jewish relationship to political power in America”

TABLET MAG
Are Jews Still Welcome in the White House?
Tevi Troy
January 20, 2026

…Another, also unpalatable, possibility is that this fourth phase could couple rising elite and popular antisemitism with diminishing opportunities for Jews, as national politicians fear that prominent Jewish appointees might alienate key voting blocs, be they Muslims in Michigan, progressive Israel critics, or anti-globalists on the right. In the summer of 2024, for example, Gov. Shapiro’s Jewishness clearly seemed to count against him in the Democratic vice presidential selection process, as demonstrated by the offensive question from the Harris team of whether Shapiro was an Israeli agent. Bypassing Shapiro resulted instead in the choice of the less-talented Tim Walz as Kamala Harris’ running mate. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that the increasing mainstream acceptance of antisemitism in both major parties may already be causing the pipeline of future higher-level Jewish appointees to dry up. READ MORE

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“The Iranian regime thought it signed Israel’s death warrant on 7 October 2023 – in fact, it may have signed its own”

SPIKED
7 October was the biggest mistake Iran ever made
Brendan O’Neill
January 12, 2026

‘The Zionist regime is melting before the eyes of the world’, gloated Ayatollah Khamenei in the aftermath of Hamas’s pogrom of 7 October 2023. His giddy foretelling of the death of the Jewish nation was echoed across the realm of Israelophobia. Israel’s downfall ‘is a matter of when, not if’, said the Islamo-loons of 5 Pillars. Leftist hotheads agreed that the invasion of Israel by Iran’s proxies sounded the death knell for ‘the Zionist project’. Fast forward to 2026 and the only thing ‘melting before the eyes of the world’ is the Islamic Republic itself. All the terrible things Khamenei thought would befall Israel have in fact befallen his own regime. Israel has ‘entered a dead-end corridor’ from which it ‘will not be able to escape’, he boasted. Hilariously, he’s probably literally in a corridor right now, or some squalid room, the hatches well and truly battened down as he hides from the implacable fury of the glorious Iranian revolt. READ MORE

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“The situation in Iran fundamentally undermines the mainstream liberal narrative that states ‘Islam = peace and love’, and by extension the idea that anyone who rejects that framing is a weird bigot”

MAX’S NEWSLETTER
Iran breaks the narrative: Note the strange silence…
January 12, 2026

…It is staggering, but not surprising, to watch the people who claim to be so deeply emotionally affected by events in the Muslim world when it comes to Palestine go mute as protesters are beaten, imprisoned, and executed for opposing the Islamic regime in Iran (if they aren’t actively defending the Ayatollah). After all, this type of deeply selective outrage is foundational to their entire movement. Their lack of concern about the barbarism in Iran is no different from their total disinterest in the genocide of African Christians by Muslim groups, which has claimed vastly more lives than the war in Gaza — a war initiated by Islamist fanatics. Or their silence about the lynching of Pakistani atheists, the slaughter of Indian Hindus, the beheading of French teachers, the execution of homosexuals and apostates across the Middle East. READ MORE

DAILY WIRE Dutch Lawmaker Slams France, Spain, Italy For Blocking Terror Label On Iranian Revolutionary Guards After Spain, France, and Italy blocked a move to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, Dutch member of the European Parliament Bart Groothuis blasted the decision. The IRGC acts as the “praetorian guard” for the Supreme Leader of Iran, tasked with ensuring the regime’s survival by crushing any internal opposition. Reports indicate that IRGC and Basij forces used live fire against peaceful demonstrators and even raided hospitals to arrest injured protesters…Germany and the Baltic states are among the countries pushing for the European Parliament to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization. Under EU rules, all 27 member states must agree for the designation to move forward.

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“Rising anti-Semitism means UK ‘no longer a safe place,’ Donald Trump’s personal lawyer tells The Telegraph”

JTA
British Jews could be offered asylum in the US, Trump’s UK-born Jewish lawyer says
Shira Li Bartov
January 19, 2026

The Trump administration might be considering granting asylum to British Jews, according to Trump’s personal lawyer, who said “the UK is no longer a safe place for Jews.” Robert Garson, a Jewish attorney from Manchester, England, with rising influence in the Trump administration, said he proposed the move to the State Department in an interview with The Telegraph. Garson said his proposal was well received despite the Trump administration’s general anti-immigration stance. “I thought: Jews are being persecuted in the United Kingdom,” Garson said. “They fit a wonderful demographic for the United States. They are, on the whole, educated. They speak English natively. They’ve got businesses. They’re exactly the sort of immigrant the United States should want to attract. So, why not?” READ MORE

FUTURE OF JEWISH British schools are erasing the Holocaust. Since October 7, 2023, the number of British schools marking Holocaust Memorial Day has collapsed. A society that cannot remember its darkest crime has already decided its future. In 2023, more than 2,000 secondary schools across the UK registered to commemorate the day, according to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. Participation had risen every year since 2019. In 2024, that number fell to fewer than 1,200. In 2025, it dropped again, to just 854, a reduction of nearly 60 per cent from before the Hamas-led massacre. This is not coincidence, and it is not administrative drift. It is fear and hate, both complicit and explicit.

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“Solidarity Sunday exists to answer a defining question for the Church in this hour: Will we remain silent, or will we stand courageously with the Jewish people?”

CHRISTIAN NEWS WIRE
Solidarity Sunday Brings Jewish and Christian Communities Together in Public Stand Against Antisemitism
Eagles’ Wings
January 20, 2026

As antisemitism continues to rise across the United States and around the world, more than 500 churches are choosing to respond—not with silence, but with action. On January 25, 2026, churches across North America and beyond will participate in the third annual Solidarity Sunday, a global initiative hosted by Eagles’ Wings through its pastors network, the Israel Christian Nexus, in partnership with Moral Hearts Alliance. Solidarity Sunday calls Christian congregations to stand publicly with the Jewish people through prayer, education, and personal relationship—rejecting antisemitism and affirming the Church’s moral responsibility to confront hatred and bigotry in all its forms. The movement was launched in the wake of the October 7, 2023 Hamas terror attacks in Israel and the dramatic surge of antisemitism that followed in the United States, including on college campuses and in public life. For many Jewish communities, the sense of vulnerability since that time has been profound. READ MORE

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“U.S. planes have moved within the region, several countries including the United States have urged nonessential personnel to leave the region and Iran briefly closed its airspace on Wednesday night”

ISRAEL HAYOM (by agreement with JNS)
A World Without Iran
Amit Segal
January 15, 2026

…Despite the concerns here, there is no decision-maker in Israel who would not vote in favor of an aggressive American move against the ayatollahs’ regime. The potential damage pales in comparison to the benefits Israel would reap from the regime’s collapse. A senior figure in the system recently calculated how much money—and how many divisions—the IDF would save if a revolution were to occur. Hezbollah’s collapse, he estimated, would happen within weeks, once the money for salaries, reconstruction, and weapons runs out. The organization’s fate in Lebanon would be bitter—not because of the IDF, but because of the Lebanese. Hamas would fall into a severe cash-flow crisis. The Houthis would not be eliminated, but their situation would also deteriorate. The Palestinian problem would not disappear, but it would no longer be fueled by money and weapons. Without a nuclear project and the threat of ballistic missiles, vast sums could be redirected to other challenges. The immediate benefit to national security is estimated at 100 billion shekels. Amen. READ MORE

JTA Travel disrupted, fears elevated as Israel weathers uncertainty over potential US strike on Iran Several European carriers canceled flights to Tel Aviv on Wednesday as turmoil over a potential U.S. strike on Iran roiled the skies and elevated fears in Israel. President Donald Trump has threatened for days to intervene in Iran if the government proceeds with plans to execute protesters who have staged weeks of demonstrations against the autocratic religious regime there. Thousands of protesters have been killed in the streets, according to both government and opposition sources, and Tehran had planned a first execution of a protester arrested during the demonstrations on Thursday. That execution was postponed amid sharp pressure from the United States, as signs piled up that Trump may plan to go forward with a military option against Iran.

JPOST Netanyahu asked Trump to pump brakes on US strikes in Iran, NYT reports Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally asked US President Donald Trump to hold off on a US military attack on Iran, The New York Times reported on Thursday, citing an anonymous senior US official. The two leaders reportedly held a call on Wednesday. The White House confirmed that a call took place after The Jerusalem Post asked for comment. However, the White House did not confirm the contents of the call.

JNS Trump admin sanctions ‘architects’ behind brutal crackdown on Iranian protesters The U.S. Treasury Department announced on Thursday sanctions against what it described as the “architects of the Iranian regime’s brutal crackdown on peaceful demonstrators.” The designations include Iranian security officials, such as Ali Larijani, secretary of the Supreme Council for National Security. The Treasury stated that Larijani “was one of the first Iranian leaders to call for violence in response to the legitimate demands of the Iranian people.”

TIMES OF ISRAEL Trump said to tell Iran he’s not about to attack, as US returns troops to Qatar air base Four Arab countries reportedly convinced president to walk back plans to strike Iran, as envoy for Islamic Republic says Trump informed Tehran he’s not interested in war and urged restraint

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