RSS
Israel’s Iran Attack Carefully Calibrated After Internal Splits, US Pressure
Iranians attend an anti-Israel rally in Tehran, Iran, April 19, 2024. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Israel‘s apparent strike on Iran was small and appeared calibrated to dial back risks of a major war, even if the sheer fact it happened at all shattered a taboo of direct attacks that Tehran broke days earlier.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet had initially approved plans for a strike on Monday night inside Iranian territory to respond forcefully to last Saturday’s missile and drone salvo from Iran, but held back at the last-minute, three sources with knowledge of the situation said.
By then, the sources said, the three voting members of the war cabinet had already ruled out the most drastic response — a strike on strategic sites including Iran’s nuclear facilities whose destruction would almost certainly provoke a wider regional conflict.
Facing cabinet divisions and strong warnings from partners including the United States and in the Gulf not to escalate, and aware of the need to keep international opinion on Israel‘s side, the plans to hit back were then postponed twice, the sources said. Two war cabinet meetings were also delayed twice, government officials said.
Netanyahu’s office did not respond to requests for comment for this story. Before the attack, a spokesperson for the government’s National Public Diplomacy Directorate cited Netanyahu as saying Israel would defend itself in whatever way it judged appropriate.
Reuters spoke to a dozen sources in Israel, Iran, and in the Gulf region, as well as the United States, who described six frantic days of efforts in the Gulf, the US, and among some of Israel‘s war planners to limit the response to Iran’s first ever direct attack on its arch rival after decades of shadow war.
Most of the sources asked not to be named to speak about sensitive matters.
The eventual strike on Friday appeared to target an Iranian Air Force base near the city of Isfahan, deep inside the country and close enough to nuclear facilities to send a message of Israel‘s reach but without using airplanes, ballistic missiles, striking any strategic sites, or causing major damage.
Iran said its defense systems shot down three drones over a base near Isfahan early on Friday. Israel said nothing about the incident. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States had not been involved in any offensive operations.
An Iranian official told Reuters there were signs the drones were launched from within Iran by “infiltrators,” which could obviate the need for retaliation.
A source familiar with Western intelligence assessments of the incident also said initial evidence suggested Israel launched drones from inside Iranian territory. Iran’s foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
“Israel tried to calibrate between the need to respond and a desire not to enter into a cycle of action and counter reaction that would just escalate endlessly,” said Itamar Rabinovich, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington.
He described the situation as a dance, with both parties signaling to each other their intentions and next steps.
“There is huge relief across the Gulf region. It looks like the attack was limited and proportionate and caused limited damage. I see it as a de-escalation,” veteran Saudi analyst Abdelrahman al-Rashed told Reuters.
BIDEN CALL
The decision to hold back from broader and immediate action this week underlined the competing pressures on Netanyahu’s government in the aftermath of the more than 300 drones and ballistic and cruise missiles fired by Iran on Saturday night.
As Iran’s barrage unfolded, two members of the war cabinet, Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, both former armed forces commanders, wanted to respond straight away before agreeing to hold off following a call with US President Joe Biden and in the face of differing views from other ministers, two Israeli officials with knowledge of the situation said.
A spokesman for Gantz, a centrist who joined Netanyahu’s emergency government following the Hamas-led attack on Israel last October, did not respond to a request for comment.
The US State Department declined to comment on questions about Israel‘s decision-making. Washington was working to de-escalate tensions, Blinken said on Friday. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Aryeh Deri, the head of one of the ultra-Orthodox parties in Netanyahu’s coalition, who has observer status in the war cabinet and who has generally been wary of drastic moves, was firmly opposed to an immediate strike against Iran, which he believed could endanger the people of Israel given the risk of escalation, a spokesperson for his party said.
“We should also be listening to our partners, to our friends in the world. I say this clearly: I see no shame or weakness in doing so,” Deri told the Haderech newspaper.
Israel‘s options ranged from strikes on strategic Iranian facilities, including nuclear sites or Revolutionary Guards bases, to covert operations, targeted assassinations, and cyber attacks on strategic industrial plants and nuclear facilities, analysts and former officials in Israel have said.
Gulf countries had been increasingly worried the situation would spill into “a grave regional conflagration which might be beyond anyone’s control or ability to contain,” said Abdelaziz al-Sagher, head of the Saudi-based Gulf Research Center.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had publicly called for maximum “self-restraint” to spare the region from a wider war.
Sagher said Gulf countries had warned the United States of the risk of escalation, arguing Israel should conduct only a limited attack without casualties or significant damage that could provoke a major reprisal.
This messaging “was relayed forcefully” in the last few days by the Jordanians, Saudis, and Qataris through direct security and diplomatic channels, one senior regional intelligence source said.
By Thursday, four diplomatic and government sources in the region were expressing confidence that the response would be limited and proportionate.
Ahead of the overnight Israeli strike, one regional source, who had been briefed on Israel‘s thinking, said the response would aim to minimize or completely avoid casualties and was likely to target a military base.
Flying F-35 fighter jets from Israel to Iran, or launching missiles from Israel, would almost certainly violate the airspace of neighboring countries, angering Arab states who Netanyahu has long sought to cultivate as strategic allies, said a Gulf government source with knowledge of the issues.
He couldn’t “just fly F-35 fighter jets across the region and bomb Iran or its nuclear sites,” the source said.
Iranian officials had warned a major Israeli attack would trigger immediate retaliation.
Iran’s options to respond included shutting down the Strait of Hormuz through which about a fifth of the world’s oil passes, urging proxies to hit Israeli or US interests, and deploying previously unused missiles, a senior Iranian official said.
While satisfying Israel‘s moderates at home, its neighbors and international partners, the measured strike, when it came, was met with dismay from hardliners in Netanyahu’s cabinet.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, whose ultranationalist party is a key prop in Netanyahu’s coalition, posted a single word on X: “Feeble.”
The post Israel’s Iran Attack Carefully Calibrated After Internal Splits, US Pressure first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
As Gaza War Continues, Hamas Calls for Global Protests While Israel Marks Breakthroughs in Medical Innovation
A pro-Hamas march in London, United Kingdom, Feb. 17, 2024. Photo: Chrissa Giannakoudi via Reuters Connect
As the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas calls for global protests amid stalled Gaza ceasefire talks, Israel has broken new ground despite the ongoing conflict, achieving a major medical breakthrough in synthetic human kidney development.
The contrast illustrates a stark contrast between the priorities of Hamas, an international designated terrorist group that has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades, and Israel, the lone democracy in the Middle East that has long been a leader in tech and medical innovation.
On Wednesday, Hamas urged worldwide protests in support of Palestinians, calling on the international community “to denounce Israel’s genocidal war and starvation policy in Gaza.”
“We call for continuing and escalating the popular pressure in all cities and squares on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday … through rallies, demonstrations and sit-ins outside the embassies of the Israeli regime and its allies, particularly in the US,” the statement read.
The Palestinian terrorist group also called to expose what it described as “the terrorism of the Zio-Nazi occupation against defenseless civilians.”
Hamas’s latest move against Israel comes amid stalled indirect negotiations over a proposed 60-day ceasefire and hostage release deal, which collapsed last month after the group vowed it would not disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established — rejecting a key Israeli demand to end the war in Gaza.
In its statement, Hamas demanded the opening of all border crossings to allow immediate aid into the war-torn enclave and urged a global condemnation of “the international community’s inaction on the Israeli crimes.”
Amid mounting international pressure to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Israel announced new measures to facilitate the delivery of aid, including temporary pauses in fighting in certain areas and the creation of protected routes for aid convoys.
Israeli officials have previously accused Hamas of diverting aid for terrorist activities and selling supplies at inflated prices to civilians, while also blaming the United Nations and other foreign organizations for enabling this diversion.
Hamas’s statement also emphasized that the “global resistance movement must continue until Israeli aggression on Gaza ends and the siege on the coastal strip is lifted.”
Meanwhile, as Israel faces escalating hostilities and the heavy toll of war, the Jewish state continues to push the boundaries of innovation and resilience, achieving new medical breakthroughs while confronting ongoing challenges.
In a major medical breakthrough, scientists at Sheba Medical Center and Tel Aviv University have successfully grown a synthetic 3D miniature human kidney in a lab using specialized stem cells derived from kidney tissue — one of the most promising advances in regenerative medicine.
Dr. Dror Harats, chairman of Sheba’s Research Authority, described this achievement as a reflection of Israel’s leading role in global medical innovation.
“Despite growing efforts to isolate Israel from international science, breakthroughs like this prove our impact is both lasting and essential,” he said.
In a landmark study, a team from Sheba’s Safra Children’s Hospital and Tel Aviv University’s Sagol Center for Regenerative Medicine created synthetic kidney organs that matured and remained stable for 34 weeks — the longest-lasting and most refined kidney organoids developed to date.
Nearly a decade ago, the research team became the first to successfully isolate human kidney tissue stem cells — the cells responsible for the organ’s development and growth.
Previous attempts to grow kidneys in a lab using general-purpose stem cells were short-lived, typically lasting only a few weeks and often producing unwanted cell types that compromised research accuracy.
However, this Israeli research team used stem cells taken directly from kidney tissue — cells that naturally develop into kidney parts — allowing them to create a much purer and more stable model with key features found in real kidneys.
This medical breakthrough could have far-reaching implications, redefining the current understanding of kidney diseases and advancing the development of innovative treatments.
Researchers believe the model could help assess how medications impact fetal kidneys during pregnancy and move science closer to repairing or replacing damaged kidney tissue with lab-grown cells.
The discovery came days after researchers from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and international partners discovered a way to boost the immune system’s cancer-fighting ability by reprogramming how T cells, which are white blood cells critical to the immune system, produce energy.
The researchers explained in a study published in the peer-reviewed Nature Communications that disabling a protein known as Ant2 in T cells greatly enhances their effectiveness against tumors.
“By disabling Ant2, we triggered a complete shift in how T cells produce and use energy,” Prof. Michael Berger of Hebrew University’s Faculty of Medicine, who co-led the study with doctorate student Omri Yosef, told the Tazpit Press Service. “This reprogramming made them significantly better at recognizing and killing cancer cells.”
RSS
Netherlands to Push EU to Suspend Israel Trade Deal but Won’t Recognize Palestinian State ‘At This Time’
Netherlands Foreign Affairs Minister Caspar Veldkamp addresses a press conference, in New Delhi on April 1, 2025. Photo: ANI Photo/Sanjay Sharma via Reuters Connect
The Netherlands is spearheading efforts to suspend the European Union-Israel trade agreement amid rising EU criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza, while simultaneously refusing to recognize a Palestinian state, contrasting with other member states as international pressure mounts.
On Thursday, Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp announced that the Netherlands will push the EU to suspend the trade component of the EU-Israel Association Agreement — a pact governing the EU’s political and economic ties with the Jewish state.
This latest anti-Israel initiative follows a recent EU-commissioned report accusing Israel of committing “indiscriminate attacks … starvation … torture … [and] apartheid” against Palestinians in Gaza during its military campaign against Hamas, an internationally designated terrorist group.
Following calls from a majority of EU member states for a formal investigation, this report built on Belgium’s recent decision to review Israel’s compliance with the trade agreement, a process initiated by the Netherlands and led by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas.
According to the report, “there are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations” under the 25-year-old EU-Israel Association Agreement.
While the document acknowledges the reality of violence by Hamas, it states that this issue lies outside its scope — failing to address the Palestinian terrorist group’s role in sparking the current war with its bloody rampage across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israeli officials have slammed the report as factually incorrect and morally flawed, noting that Hamas embeds its military infrastructure within civilian targets and Israel’s army takes extensive precautions to try and avoid civilian casualties.
In a Dutch parliamentary debate on Gaza on Thursday, Veldkamp also announced that the government would not recognize a Palestinian state for now — a position that stands in sharp contrast to the recent moves by several other EU member states to extend recognition.
“The Netherlands is not planning to recognize a Palestinian state at this time,” the Dutch diplomat said.
“This war has ceased to be a just war and is now leading to the erosion of Israel’s own security and identity,” he continued.
This latest decision goes against the position of several EU member states, including France, which has committed to recognizing Palestinian statehood in September.
The United Kingdom has likewise indicated it will do so unless Israel acts to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and agrees to a ceasefire.
For its part, Germany said it was not planning to recognize a Palestinian state in the short term, and Italy argued that recognition must occur simultaneously with the recognition of Israel by the new entity.
Spain, Norway, Ireland, and Slovenia all recognized a Palestinian state last year.
Israel has been facing growing pressure from several EU member states seeking to undermine its defensive campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.
On Thursday, European Commission Vice President Teresa Ribera strongly condemned Israel’s actions in the war-torn enclave, describing the situation as a “grave violation of human dignity.”
“What we are seeing is a concrete population being targeted, killed and condemned to starve to death,” Ribera told Politico. “If it is not genocide, it looks very much like the definition used to express its meaning.”
Until now, the European Commission has refrained from accusing Israel of genocide, but Ribera’s comments mark one of the strongest European condemnations since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
She also called on the EU to take decisive action by considering the suspension of its trade agreement with Israel and the implementation of sanctions, while emphasizing that such measures would require unanimous approval from all member states.
RSS
Graduate Student Unions Promoting Antisemitism, Reform Group Says
Students listen to a speech at a protest encampment at Stanford University in Stanford, California US, on April 26, 2024. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect.
Higher-education-based unions controlled by United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE) are rife with antisemitism and anti-Zionist discrimination, according to a new letter imploring the US Congress’s House Committee on Education and the Workforce to address the matter.
“Tracing its roots to communism in the 1930s, the UE is a radical, pro-Hamas labor union that has a long history of antisemitism,” the National Right to Work Foundation (NRTW), one of the US’s leading labor reform groups, wrote on July 30 in a message obtained by The Algemeiner. “The UE openly supports the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which is designed to cripple and destroy Israel economically. Today, the UE furthers its antisemitic agenda by unionizing graduate students on college campuses and using its exclusive representation powers to create a hostile environment for Jewish students. The hostile environment includes demanding compulsory dues to fund the UE’s abhorrent activities.”
NRTW went on to describe a litany of alleged injustices to which UE members subject Jewish student-employees in the US’s most prestigious institutions of higher education, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to Cornell University. At MIT, the letter said, “union officers” aided a riotous group which illegally occupied a section of campus with a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” participating in the demonstration and even denying access to campus buildings. UE members at Stanford University, meanwhile, allegedly denied religious accommodations to Jewish students who requested exemption from union dues over that branch’s supporting the BDS movement. And Cornell University UE was accused of denying religious exemptions in several cases as well and followed up the rejection with an intrusive “questionnaire” which probed Jewish students for “legally-irrelevant information.”
The situation requires federal oversight and intervention, NRTW said, including Congress’s possibly clarifying that student-employees are not traditional employees and are therefore afforded protections under sections of the Civil Rights Act which apply to the campus.
“These continuing patterns of antisemitism are illegal, immoral, and must be stopped,” the letter continued. “We encourage you to do all that is in your power to investigate and help bring an end to the UE and its affiliates’ nonstop harassment and intimidation of Jewish students … The Trump administration can also use tools available to it under Title VI and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act against colleges who work with unions to create a hostile environment for Jewish students.”
July’s letter is not the first time NRTW has publicized alleged antisemitic abuse in unions representing higher education employees.
In 2024, it represented a group of six City University of New York (CUNY) professors, five of whom are Jewish, who sued to be “freed” from CUNY’s Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY) over its passing a resolution during Israel’s May 2021 war with Hamas which declared solidarity with Palestinians and accused the Jewish state of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and crimes against humanity. The group contested New York State’s “Taylor Law,” which it said chained the professors to the union’s “bargaining unit” and denied their right to freedom of speech and association by forcing them to be represented in negotiations by an organization they claim holds antisemitic views.
That same year, NRTW prevailed in a discrimination suit filed to exempt another cohort of Jewish MIT students from paying dues to the Graduate Student Union (GSU). The students had attempted to resist financially supporting GSU’s anti-Zionism, but the union bosses attempted to coerce their compliance, telling them that “no principles, teachings, or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees” to the union.
“All Americans should have a right to protect their money from going to union bosses they don’t support, whether those objections are based on religion, politics, or any other reason,” NRTW said at the time.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.