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Trump Touts ‘Peace Through Strength’ in State of the Union, but Results Are Mixed
US President Donald Trump gestures on the day he delivers the State of the Union address in the House Chamber of the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, Feb. 24, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/NATHAN HOWARD
“Peace through strength” is a foreign policy motto that has served President Donald Trump well — when he has adhered to it.
In his hyper-partisan State of the Union address on Tuesday, there was a rare moment of strength through unity. When Trump noted the return of all Israeli hostages from Gaza, Republicans and Democrats alike — except for Congress’s most noxious members — joined in a standing ovation. Among the many conflicts Trump took credit for ending in his speech, the Gaza ceasefire is, perhaps, the one for which he deserves the most credit.
Trump praised Hamas for working to recover the bodies of the last captives despite the fact that a high-ranking Israeli military official said that the terrorist group did not assist in the recovery of the body of Ran Gvili, the final hostage rescued from Gaza.
Trump noted Gvili’s mother’s relief to bury her son. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson also humanized Israeli victims of violence by inviting as his guest the brother of an Israeli Embassy staffer gunned down in Washington, DC, while attending a Jewish event.
But what Israel watchers were looking for was a sign indicating whether Trump would strike Iran with military force. Not surprisingly, the president did not give the order from the dais or press a big red button to launch the operation. But he left his tea leaves out in the open.
Exaggerating somewhat, Trump noted the successful Operation Midnight Hammer from June 2025 that “obliterated Iran’s nuclear weapons program” but acknowledged that Iran is busy rebuilding its nuclear weapons capabilities.
Iranians may be forgiven for a certain skepticism about Trump’s intentions going forward — whether he will indeed display the strength needed to keep the peace. In January, at the height of the protests against the Islamic Republic, the US president told the Iranians demonstrating in the streets that “help is on its way” and warned Tehran to “stop killing protesters.” But the Islamic Republic drowned Trump’s red line in a sea of its citizens’ blood.
In the weeks leading up to the State of the Union, the US military moved two aircraft carrier strike groups into the region and landed a group of F-22 Raptor jets in Israel — a lot of firepower. But to justify an attack, Trump wants to demonstrate that he has exhausted the diplomatic route.
Noting the negotiations with Iran, Trump declared, “My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy.” But, Trump stated, the Iranians haven’t forsworn nuclear weapons. Trump additionally mentioned the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile program and its support of terrorist proxies as causes for concern.
Trump has also undermined his mantra through his unwillingness to seriously challenge Russia to end its aggression in Ukraine during his second term, let alone within the 24 hours he promised on the campaign trail.
During his State of the Union address, Trump said his administration is working “very hard” to end the war. But the effort has not yet borne fruit.
He lamented “the killing and slaughter between Russia and Ukraine, where 25,000 soldiers are dying each and every month.”
That was the only mention of the four-year-long war in nearly two hours of speaking. Trump appears frustrated that his Midas touch in international peacemaking has exceeded his grasp. But he partly has himself to blame for rushing headlong into negotiations without first maximizing military or economic pressure on Russia, attempting peace without demonstrating strength.
Trump could have proactively built negotiating leverage against Russian President Vladimir Putin by strengthening Ukraine’s ability to withstand the Russian onslaught while applying stronger sanctions on the Russian economy. Instead, he slashed military assistance for Kyiv and waited nine months to impose sanctions targeting Russian oil companies Rosneft and Lukoil. Even then, his administration has not enforced those sanctions, reducing their impact.
Trump rolled out the red carpet for Putin in August for what he thought would be a productive one-on-one meeting. Instead, Putin embarrassed the president by lecturing him on Russian history while refusing to back down from his maximalist demands.
Trump’s negotiators, Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, have accomplished just as little in the same period. With Russia continuing to demand Ukrainian territory in the Donbas that its military cannot take by force, the White House has leaned on Ukraine to make territorial concessions, believing this will unlock peace. But that’s both unacceptable to Kyiv and insufficient to satisfy Putin, whose ultimate objective is to dominate Ukraine as a whole.
To his credit, Trump extracted a commitment from NATO members to spend 5 percent of their GDP toward defense and other security-related priorities, improving burden sharing. But Washington has added needless strain to transatlantic ties by meddling in European domestic politics, launching a self-defeating trade war, and attempting to bully Denmark into ceding Greenland to the United States.
As Trump put it in his speech, “We have to be strong, because hopefully we will seldom have to use this great power.” Washington can best deter its enemies when it applies its “peace through strength” approach forcefully and consistently and when it nurtures strong alliances rather than upending them.
David May is a research manager and senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where Dmitriy Shapiro is a research analyst and editor. For more analysis from the authors and FDD, please subscribe HERE. Follow David on X @DavidSamuelMay and Dmitriy @dmitriyshapiro. Follow FDD on X @FDD. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
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Antisemitic Beliefs More Common Among Young Social Media Users, Yale Poll Shows
Penn State graduate student Roua Daas, an organizer with Students for Justice in Palestine, speaks at a pro-Palestinian protest at the Allen Street gates in State College, PA on Feb. 12, 2024. Photo: Paul Weaver/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
A new survey from Yale Youth Poll is raising fresh concerns about antisemitism among younger Americans, revealing a significant link between social media consumption and anti-Jewish sentiment.
The Spring 2026 poll, conducted by researchers affiliated with Yale University, finds that Americans aged 18 to 34 are more likely than older generations to agree with statements widely recognized as antisemitic even as many express uncertainty about what qualifies as antisemitism in the first place.
According to the survey, a significant share of young respondents agreed with longstanding antisemitic tropes. Roughly a quarter to a third of the youngest respondents expressed belief in ideas such as Jews having “too much power” or divided loyalty between the United States and Israel. The poll also found that about one in five young respondents supported boycotts of Jewish-owned businesses to express disapproval over Israel’s war in Gaza.
The poll reveals that roughly 10 percent of those 18-34 agreed with all three of these antisemitic sentiments. Conversely, only 2 percent of those above 65 agreed with all three.
While these views are not held by a majority, experts say the numbers are high enough to raise alarms.
Beyond attitudes themselves, the poll also indicates that youth who receive news from alternative media sources, such as social media, are more likely to harbor antisemitic sentiments.
Respondents who rely more heavily on social media platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, and X/Twitter, were significantly more likely to agree with antisemitic statements.
The survey also points to a striking divide based on how young Americans consume news. Respondents who rely primarily on social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and X were roughly 1.5 to 2 times more likely to agree with antisemitic statements than their peers who turn to traditional sources like television or newspapers. On measures such as beliefs about Jewish power or loyalty, gaps of 10 to 15 percentage points emerged between the two groups, with social media–heavy users consistently showing higher levels of agreement.
The pattern is striking enough to suggest that digital information ecosystems may be shaping perceptions in ways that traditional media does not. Further, the underlying pattern can give insight into why opinions on Israel and antisemitism substantially diverge among US youth compared to older generations.
Observers point to the nature of these platforms, where algorithm-driven feeds often elevate emotionally charged, highly simplified content. In that environment, complex geopolitical conflicts, such as the war in Gaza, can be reduced to slogans, viral clips, and narratives that blur the line between political criticism and longstanding antisemitic themes.
In the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 slaughters in Israel, a bevy of left-leaning social media personalities immediately condemned Israel and accused the Jewish state of committing war crimes and genocide in Gaza. Several reports indicate that anti-Israel content performs especially well on youth-centric social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram, incentivizing content creators to intensify public criticisms of the Jewish state. The Yale survey suggests that for many young Americans, views on Israel are increasingly intertwined with perceptions of Jewish people more broadly.
The poll also challenges attempts to place blame on a single political group. The data indicates that both “extremely conservative” and “extremely liberal” individuals are likely to express belief that antisemitism is a “serious problem” in the country. Moderate voters are more likely to express ambivalence, with a plurality indicating that they “neither agree nor disagree” that antisemitism is a significant issue in the US.
Importantly, the survey does not suggest that most young Americans hold antisemitic views.
But it does point to a rising level of acceptance, or at least tolerance, of ideas that were once more widely rejected. Moreover, the poll suggests that young people underestimate the level of antisemitism that persists in the country. For instance, among voters ages 18-34, 29 percent agree with the antisemitic conspiracy “Jews have an extremely organized international community that puts their own interests before those of their home countries” compared to only 17 percent of those age 65. Approximately 8 percent of the 18-34 age cohort believe “people exaggerate how bad the Holocaust actually was” compared to 2 percent of those above 65.
A mere 21 percent of voters aged 18-34 agreed with the notion that Jews experience the bulk of hate crimes in the US, compared to 40 percent of overall voters. Various surveys indicate that Jews have faced the greatest increase in hate crimes over the past two years.
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As Ohio again tries to block Hebrew Union College’s restructuring, a new rabbinical school emerges in Cincinnati
(JTA) — The attorney general of Ohio has filed a second lawsuit against the nation’s largest Reform rabbinical school over the planned shuttering of its historic Cincinnati campus — a controversial move that has also prompted the creation of a new rabbinical school in the city.
Ohio AG Dave Yost, a Republican, says he wants to prevent Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion from closing its 151-year-old Cincinnati campus at the end of the current school year. Yost’s lawsuit alleges that the planned closure would violate state laws intended to protect the original intent of nonprofit donors, who believed they were supporting HUC’s Cincinnati base.
“Hebrew Union accepted millions of dollars in donations based on a 76-year-old promise it now would like to break,” Yost’s office said in a statement accompanying the lawsuit, citing the school’s 1950 agreement to “permanently maintain” a rabbinical school in the city. “We’re suing to keep these assets in Cincinnati where they belong.” The suit asks a judge to bar HUC from closing its doors before a court date.
A request for comment to spokespeople for HUC was not immediately returned.
In 2022, HUC leadership announced that they would be closing degree-granting programs at their flagship Cincinnati campus in order to focus on their other campuses in New York and Los Angeles, which the school claimed were more popular with students. The college has pledged to preserve its archives and library housed on the campus, but has also pursued plans to sell off property across all its campuses as well as, reportedly, to sell rare books from its collection.
The move sparked intense blowback from leaders in the Reform movement, some of whom have argued that the college was abandoning its founding principles by moving out of the Midwest in favor of the coasts.
Some of HUC’s former Ohio figureheads, along with other Reform leaders, have since announced plans to launch their own Cincinnati-based rabbinical school: The College for Contemporary Judaism.
“We believe it is imperative that there be a strong, vibrant rabbinical school in Cincinnati to serve the liberal American Jewish community, especially between the coasts where access to congregational rabbis and rabbinical education is severely limited,” the college’s founders said in a statement Tuesday. “While we cannot comment directly on the lawsuit filed by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost against Hebrew Union College, it is vitally important that assets subject to the lawsuit are used as originally intended: to support a strong, thriving rabbinical school in Cincinnati.”
The college’s founders include Rabbi Sally Priesand, the first female rabbi to have been ordained by HUC in 1972, who will serve as the new college’s honorary president; and Rabbi Gary Zola, longtime director of HUC’s Cincinnati-based American Jewish Archives, who will now serve as CCJ’s founding president.
The college pledges not to be affiliated with any particular denomination, but will instead commit itself to “Liberal Judaism” with what its site describes as “an unwavering commitment to the existence and well-being of the Jewish and democratic State of Israel.” It will have a particular focus on Jewish communities in the Midwest, South and Mountain West, where its founders say “access to rabbinical education has been severely limited.”
In explaining the decision to base the college in Cincinnati, the school points to some of the Jewish institutions there currently being shepherded by HUC, including the library and archives. It also names the region’s historical importance to American Judaism, as the city where Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, spiritual forefather of Reform Judaism, chose to base his fledgling movement.
Yost’s latest lawsuit, filed April 10, was the second time the Ohio AG had taken HUC to court over its planned downsizing. He also sued the school in 2024 following reports that leadership was exploring the sale of some of its rare books. The two parties settled the following year with an agreement intended to keep HUC from selling its items without 45 days’ notice to the state.
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Orthodox groups ask Supreme Court to hear case of Ohio man barred from hosting home prayer services
(JTA) — Orthodox Jewish groups urged the Supreme Court to take up the case of an Orthodox Jewish man ordered by officials in University Heights, Ohio, to stop hosting prayer services in his home without a permit.
The amicus brief, which was filed Friday by the National Jewish Advocacy Center alongside the Orthodox Union and the National Council of Young Israel, comes years after Daniel Grand, a resident of the suburb of Cleveland, invited a group of Jewish men to his home for Shabbat services starting in January 2021.
At the time, University Heights, citing zoning laws, issued a cease-and-desist order blocking Grand from using his home for prayer.
Grand initially applied for a special use permit to use his home as “a place of religious assembly” in 2021, but later withdrew the application, saying he did not “wish to operate a house of worship as is defined under the zoning ordinance.”
According to the NJAC, the former mayor of University Heights, Michael Dylan Brennan, then encouraged Grand’s “neighbors to watch his home and report any sign of Jewish worship to the authorities.”
“What happened to Daniel Grand is not an isolated incident,” Rabbi Mark Goldfeder, the CEO of NJAC, said in a statement. “It is the latest chapter in a long and documented history of municipalities using zoning laws to suppress Orthodox Jewish religious practice.”
The city’s current mayor, Michele Weiss, who was elected last fall, told JTA that there was currently one residence in the city that had obtained a special permit to host worship gatherings and that another was currently in the middle of applying for one.
“My perspective is that everyone has a right to worship in their home with a small group of people (a minyan) without city involvement, just like a book club might do,” Weiss, who is the first female Orthodox Jewish mayor in the United States, wrote in an email to JTA. “If a congregation wants to worship in a residence with a proper congregation then each city should have a way forward through their planning commission.”
In September 2022, Grand filed a lawsuit against the city and Brennan, alleging that the former mayor was motivated by “animus against Orthodox Jews.” He maintained that the actions blocking him from conducting services in his home were part of a “systematic campaign” to prevent the Orthodox community from growing in University Heights, according to the Cleveland Jewish News.
In January, Weiss told JTA that University Heights’ Jewish community had grown a “tremendous amount” in recent years, and was the “largest Orthodox contingency of residents in the state of Ohio.”
Brennan, who was twice censured by the city council for “inappropriate language,” had previously faced criticism from the city’s Jewish community during his tenure. In November 2024, he drew backlash for criticizing voters in a heavily Jewish neighborhood who supported Donald Trump, and in April 2025, he accused the volunteer-run Jewish ambulance service Hatzalah of “jeopardizing public safety.”
In October 2024, the U.S. District Court of Northern Ohio ruled in favor of University Heights, and the Ohio 6th District Court of Appeals later upheld the ruling in November 2025.
A petition for Supreme Court review is currently pending, and a decision on whether it will be heard is expected in the coming months, according to NJAC.
“This case deserves Supreme Court review because, across the country, Jewish religious practice has repeatedly been constrained through the neutral application of rules in ways that disproportionately burden visible Jewish life,” David Benger, the litigation counsel at NJAC, said in a statement.
The post Orthodox groups ask Supreme Court to hear case of Ohio man barred from hosting home prayer services appeared first on The Forward.