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Joe Biden’s Israel Policy Emboldens Iran and Threatens the World
US President Joe Biden addresses rising levels of antisemitism, during a speech at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Annual Days of Remembrance ceremony, at the US Capitol building in Washington, DC, US, May 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
At some point, Israel’s current war with Iranian proxy Hamas will likely evolve into a direct and protracted war with Iran. Whether or not this happens while Iran is “pre-nuclear,” such conflict could nonetheless “become nuclear.” In part, this is because any Israeli-Iranian competition in strategic risk-taking – a mutual search for “escalation dominance” – could compel Israel to cross the nuclear conflict threshold. Though this crossing would initiate an asymmetrical or one-sided nuclear conflict, it would still represent a genuine nuclear war.
There are clarifying scenarios. To begin, even a pre-nuclear Iran could mount “quasi-nuclear” attacks on Israel with radiation dispersal weapons and/or conventional rocket attacks on the Dimona nuclear reactor. In these worrisome narratives, both unprecedented, Israel could find itself having to escalate to low-yield or tactical nuclear weapons in order to “win.” In a worst-case scenario, North Korea would confront Israel as Iran’s already-nuclear surrogate. Such a scenario ought never to be dismissed out of hand.
What would happen next? What should Israel do now? Most urgently, Jerusalem needs to initiate a prompt or incremental process of “selective nuclear disclosure” (that is, put an end to “deliberate nuclear ambiguity,” aka the “bomb in the basement”), and clarify its assumed “Samson Option.” Whatever the particulars, the overriding point of this presumptively last-resort Israeli option would not be to “die with the Philistines” (per Samson in the biblical Book of Judges), but rather to enhance the credibility of Israel’s nuclear deterrent.
What do we know about the historical background for rendering such unique strategic calculations? Since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, world politics have been anarchic. This means that every nation-state’s security – but especially beleaguered states such as Israel – must rely on the complex and unpredictable dynamics of military threat. To best ensure a credible deterrence posture, Israel should always display an evident willingness to acquire “escalation dominance,” but also avoid drifting inadvertently or uncontrollably into a nuclear war.
In our increasingly unsteady nuclear age, this two-fold obligation – escalation dominance and nuclear war avoidance – could produce either an intentional or unintentional nuclear conflict. Regarding unintentional nuclear war, it could be an irremediable mistake for Israeli planners and policy-makers to assume that mega-conflict between adversarial states would always reflect rational decision-making processes. Moreover, even a rational Iranian adversary could produce unwanted or intolerable outcomes. For Israel, the ultimate survival problem might not be Iranian irrationality or madness, but the cumulatively injurious dynamic of rational Iranian calculation.
Are the odds of an Israel-Iran nuclear conflict meaningfully calculable? The only scientifically correct answer here is “no,” because valid probability judgments in logic and mathematics must always be based upon the determinable frequency of past events: How many times has an Israel-Iran nuclear war happened before? The obvious absence of any relevant past event makes accurate probability assessments impossible.
There is more. Even if assumptions of Iranian rationality were reasonable and well-founded, there would remain various attendant dangers of an unintentional nuclear war. Such potentially existential dangers could be produced by enemy hacking operations, computer malfunction (an accidental nuclear war) or national decision-making miscalculation. In this last causal circumstance, erroneous calculations could be committed by Iran, Israel or both parties.
There is additional nuance. In the especially-ominous third scenario, two-party miscalculation, damaging synergies could arise that would prove difficult or impossible for Israel to manage. By definition, the “whole” outcome of any such synergistic interaction would be greater than the sum of its “parts.” Furthermore, such “force-multiplying” interactions could surface all at once, as a “bolt from the blue,” or in seemingly fathomable increments.
Since 1945, the historic “balance of power” has largely been transformed into a steadily-accelerating “balance of terror.” To an unforeseeable extent, the geo-strategic search for “escalation dominance” by Israel and Iran – a search magnified by the divergent security expectations of a still-ongoing Gaza War – could enlarge the risks of an inadvertent nuclear war. This conclusion remains plausible even if Iran were to remain non–nuclear.
Seemingly out-of-control escalations, after all, could prod Israel to cross the nuclear combat threshold. Most portentously, the likelihood of such unprecedented escalation has been enlarged by US President Joe Biden’s recent embargo on weapons needed by Israel to fight against Hamas criminality. This is because a strengthened Hamas means a strengthened Iran and a greater Iranian willingness to war against Israel directly. The ill-conceived Biden embargo heightens the risk of nuclear weapons use in the region, even while Iran still remains non-nuclear.
There are vital particulars. The risks of any direct Israel-Iran war would include nuclear war by accident and nuclear war by decisional miscalculation. In this fearful scenario, the “solution” for Israel could never be to “wish-away” the search for “escalation dominance,” but rather to manage all prospectively nuclear crises at their lowest possible levels. Wherever feasible, to be sure, it would be best to avoid such existential crises altogether and to maintain reliable “circuit breakers” against strategic hacking and technical malfunction. Realistically, however, to achieve authentically durable nuclear war avoidance in the Middle East, a more promising strategic posture will be required.
The Iranian existential threat to Israel does not exist in vacuo. Israel faces other potential foes and enemy alliances. Pakistan is a nuclear Islamic state with tangible ties to China. Pakistan, like Israel, is not a party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). North Korea has already shared advanced ballistic missile technologies with Russia’s Vladimir Putin (North Korean missile fragments were discovered in Ukraine), and could sometime do the same for Iran. “Everything is very simple in war,” says Carl von Clausewitz in On War, “but the simplest thing is very difficult.”
Going forward, Israel should comprehensively consider whether there could be an auspicious place for nuclear threats against its still pre-nuclear Iranian adversary. The “answers” will depend significantly on Israel’s prior transformations of “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” into postures of “selective nuclear disclosure.” Though all such considerations would concern matters that are sui generis or without historical precedent, Israel has absolutely no sensible alternatives to such logic-based investigations.
Various subsidiary questions will arise. What is the probabilistic difference between a deliberate nuclear war and one that would be unintentional? This distinction could prove indispensable to reducing the tangible likelihood of an Israel-Iran nuclear conflict.
More refined thoughts should dawn. Capable Israeli strategists will have to devise optimal strategies for calculating and averting nuclear war with Iran. This task’s difficulty will vary, among other things, according to
(1) presumed Iranian intentions;
(2) presumed plausibility of an accident or Iranian hacking intrusion; and/or
(3) presumed plausibility of Iranian miscalculations.
Any particular instance of accidental nuclear war would be inadvertent. However, not every case of an inadvertent nuclear war would be the result of an accident. On all such terminological matters, underlying conceptual distinctions will have to be kept continuously in mind by dedicated Israeli strategists.
“Escalation dominance” should never be approached by Israeli security planners and policy-makers as a narrowly tactical problem. Instead, informed by in-depth historical understandings and refined analytic capacities, these individuals should prepare themselves for a self-expanding variety of deeply intersecting, even synergistic explanations.
Summing up, the competitive dynamics of nuclear deterrence will never just fade away. In our anarchic or “self-help” world legal system, Israel must continuously prepare to prevail in variously multiplying and interrelated struggles for “escalation dominance.” Over time, no matter how carefully, responsibly and comprehensively such preparations are actually carried out, a world system based on incessant power struggle and unprecedented risk-taking will fail. Regarding the specific security matter here at hand – the growing prospect of an Israel-Iran nuclear war – such failure would be catastrophic.
Nonetheless, Israel’s immediate task should be to “stay alive,” to navigate analytically and systematically amid potentially irreversible harms. Above all, these harms could include a nuclear war with Iran even before that terror-mentoring state becomes an independent nuclear power. Among other possibilities, a mutual Israel-Iran search for “escalation dominance” could sometime cause the Islamic Republic to (1) activate radiation-dispersal weapons; (2) strike Israel’s Dimona reactor with conventional rockets; and/or (3) compel the Jewish State to use its nuclear weapons to avoid irrevocable defeat.
These three catastrophic scenarios have now been rendered more likely by US President Joe Biden’s embargo on terror-fighting weapons to Israel.
Louis René Beres was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971) and is the author of many books, monographs, and scholarly articles dealing with military nuclear strategy. In Israel, he was Chair of Project Daniel. Over recent years, he has published on nuclear warfare issues in Harvard National Security Journal (Harvard Law School); Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists; International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence; Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs; The Atlantic; Israel Defense; Jewish Website; The New York Times; Israel National News; The Jerusalem Post; The Hill and other sites. A version of this article was originally published by Israel National News.
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University of California Rejects Ethnic Studies Admissions Requirement in Faculty Assembly Vote
Demonstrators holding a “Stand Up for Internationals” rally on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, in Berkeley, California, US, April 17, 2025. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect.
The University of California (UC) Faculty Assembly has rejected a proposal to establish passing ethnic studies in high school as a requirement for admission to its 10 taxpayer-funded schools for undergraduates.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the campaign for the measure — defeated overwhelmingly 29-12 with 12 abstaining — was spearheaded by Christine Hong, chair of the Critical Race and Ethnic Studies department at UC Santa Cruz. Hong believes that Zionism is a “colonial racial project” and that Israel is a “settler colonial state.” Moreover, she holds that anti-Zionism is “part and parcel” of the ethnic studies discipline.
Ethnic studies activists like Hong throughout the University of California system coveted the admissions requirement because it would have facilitated their aligning ethnic studies curricula at the K-12 level with “liberated ethnic studies,” an extreme revolutionary project that was rejected by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023. Had the proposal been successful, school officials of both public and private schools would have been forced to comply with their standard of what constitutes ethnic studies to qualify their students for admission to UC.
Being indoctrinated into anti-Zionism and “hating Jews” would essentially have become a prerequisite for becoming a UC student had the Faculty Assembly approved the measure, Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, executive director of antisemitism watchdog AMCHA Initiative, told The Algemeiner on Friday. AMCHA Initiative first raised the alarm about the proposal in 2023, calling it “a deeply frightening prospect.”
“Ethnic studies never intended to be like any other discipline or subject. It was always intended to be a political project for fomenting revolution according to the dictates of however the activists behind the subject defined it,” Rossman-Benjamin explained. “And anti-Zionism has been at the core of the field, and this became especially clear after Oct. 7. Most of the anti-Zionist mania on campuses that day — the support for the encampments, the Faculty for Justice in Palestine chapters — it was a project of Ethnic Studies. At UC Santa Cruz, 60 percent of Faculty for Justice in Palestine members were pulled from the ethnic studies department.”
Founded in the 1960s to provide an alternative curriculum for beneficiaries of racial preferences whose retention rates lagged behind traditional college students, ethnic studies is based on anti-capitalist, anti-liberal, and anti-Western ideologies found in the writings of, among others, Franz Fanon, Huey Newton, Simone de Beauvoir, and Karl Marx. Its principal ideological target in the 20th century was the remains of European imperialism in Africa and the Middle East, but overtime it identified new “systems of oppression,” most notably the emergent superpower that was the US after World War II and the nation that became its closest ally in the Middle East: Israel.
UC Santa Cruz’s Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES) department is a case study in how the ideology leads inexorably to anti-Zionist antisemitism, AMCHA Initiative argued in a 2024 study.
Following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, CRES issued a statement rationalizing the terrorist group’s atrocities as political resistance. Additionally, the department days later participated in a “Call for a Global General Strike,” refusing to work because Israel mounted a military response to Hamas’s atrocities — an action CRES called “Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza.” Later, the department held an event titled, “The Genocide in Gaza in our [sic] Classrooms: A Teaching Palestine Workshop,” in which professors and teaching assistants were trained in how to persuade students that Zionism is a racist and genocidal endeavor.
Imposing such noxious views on all California students would have been catastrophic, Rossman-Benjamin told The Algemeiner.
“The goal of admissions requirements is to make sure that students are adequately prepared for college,” she noted. “Their goal was to use their power to force students to take the kind of Critical Ethnic Studies that is taught at the university, with the goal of revolutionizing society. The idea should have been dead on arrival, being rejected on the grounds that there is no evidence that it is a worthwhile subject that should be required for admission to the University of California.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Israeli FM Praises Paraguay Decision to Label Iran’s IRGC, Proxies Hamas and Hezbollah as Terrorist Organizations
Paraguayan President Santiago Peña praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Dec. 12, 2024. Photo: The Western Wall Heritage Foundation
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar praised Paraguay’s decision to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, and to broaden the country’s previous designation to include all factions of Hamas and Hezbollah.
The top Israeli diplomat congratulated the South American country and described President Santiago Peña’s decision as a “landmark move” in addressing security challenges and fostering international peace.
“Iran is the world’s leading exporter of terrorism and extremism, and together with its terror proxies, it threatens regional stability and global peace,” Sa’ar wrote in a post on X. “More countries should follow suit and join the fight against Iranian aggression and terrorism.”
I commend Paraguay and @SantiPenap for the landmark decision to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hamas, and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations.
Iran is the world’s leading exporter of terrorism and extremism, and together with its terror proxies, it threatens… https://t.co/OzWACbWcno— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) April 24, 2025
On Thursday, Peña issued an executive order designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization “for its systematic violations of peace, human rights, and the security of the international community.”
The executive order also expanded Paraguay’s 2019 proscription of the armed wings of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, the al-Qassam Brigades, and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terrorist group in Lebanon, to encompass the entirety of both organizations, including their political wings.
“With this decision, Paraguay reaffirms its unwavering commitment to peace, international security, and the unconditional respect for human rights, solidifying its position within the international community as a country firmly opposed to all forms of terrorism and strengthening its relations with allied nations in this fight,” Peña wrote in a post on X, emphasizing the country’s strategic relationship with the United States and Israel.
Iran is the chief international backer of Hamas and Hezbollah, providing the Islamist terror groups with weapons, funding, and training. According to media reports based on documents seized by the Israeli military in Gaza last year, Iran had been informed about Hamas’s plan to launch the Oct. 7 attack months in advance.
Last year, Peña reopened Paraguay’s embassy in Jerusalem, making it the sixth nation — after the US, Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, and Papua New Guinea — to establish its embassy in the Israeli capital. During the same visit, he condemned the Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, calling the perpetrators “criminals” in a speech at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.
The Trump administration also praised Paraguay’s decision to officially label the IRGC as a terrorist organization, describing it as a major blow to Iran’s terror network in the Western Hemisphere.
“Iran remains the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world and has financed and directed numerous terrorist attacks and activities globally, through its IRGC-Qods Force and proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas,” US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement.
The US official said Paraguay’s action will help disrupt Iran’s ability to finance terrorism and operate in Latin America — particularly in the Tri-Border Area, where Paraguay borders Argentina and Brazil, a region long regarded as a financial hub for Hezbollah-linked operatives.
“The important steps Paraguay has taken will help cut off the ability of the Iranian regime and its proxies to plot terrorist attacks and raise money for its malignant and destabilizing activity,” the statement read.
“The United States will continue to work with partners such as Paraguay to confront global security threats,” Bruce added. “We call on all countries to hold the Iranian regime accountable and prevent its operatives, recruiters, financiers, and proxies from operating in their territories.”
During his first administration, Trump designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), citing the Iranian regime’s use of the IRGC to “engage in terrorist activities since its inception 40 years ago.”
At the time, Trump said this designation “recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a state sponsor of terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft.”
“The IRGC is the Iranian government’s primary means of directing and implementing its global terrorist campaign,” he continued.
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Yale’s Silence Is Allowing Blatant Campus Antisemitism — and Betraying the Promise of ‘Never Again’
Yale University students at the corner of Grove and College Streets in New Haven, Connecticut, U.S., April 22, 2024. Photo: Melanie Stengel via Reuters Connect.
As darkness fell over Yale University on Wednesday evening, Jewish students faced intimidation that echoed history’s darkest chapters. The following day, as the sun rose on Holocaust Remembrance Day, the world solemnly reflected on the devastating consequences of unchecked hatred.
Yet, disturbingly, at Yale, the shadows of that same hatred linger once again.
For several nights now, radical anti-Israel activists, primarily organized by “Yalies for Palestine,” an anti-Israel hate group, have targeted Jewish students at Yale — in many cases, based solely on their outwardly Jewish appearance.
On Wednesday, protestors blocked walkways, physically intimidated Jewish students, and hurled bottles and sprayed liquids at them — all while campus police stood by and did nothing.
One Jewish student described her chilling encounter with the protesters the night before, on Tuesday: “When I tried to get through, they blocked me, ignored my requests to pass, and handed out masks to those obstructing me. Yale security told me they couldn’t help.”
The immediate trigger for this harassment is the invitation extended by Shabtai, a Yale Jewish society, to Itamar Ben-Gvir, an Israeli government minister. Whether one supports or opposes Ben-Gvir’s politics is beside the point. Notably, Naftali Bennett, a former Israeli prime minister, was also protested and disrupted during a separate campus event in February, underscoring a broader trend of hostility toward Israeli speakers regardless of their political affiliation.
These events signal more than isolated protests; they constitute a redux of hatred that historically escalates when met with institutional silence or indifference.
Yale’s administration, under President Maurie McInnis and Dean Pericles Lewis, has failed to adequately respond. Though Yale revoked official recognition from Yalies for Palestine, its tepid actions have not halted the dangerous slide toward overt hostility. The silence — from both the university and the Slifka Center, Yale’s center for Jewish life — is deafening.
This isn’t the first troubling instance at Yale. A year ago, similar demonstrators disrupted campus life with vitriolic anti-Israel rhetoric, silencing dialogue and fostering an atmosphere hostile to Jewish students.
Earlier this year, CAMERA on Campus documented Yale’s Slifka Center pressuring students to erase evidence of anti-Jewish harassment during a pro-Israel event, effectively whitewashing antisemitism and emboldening extremists.
As CAMERA’s Ricki Hollander has powerfully documented, the rhetoric of anti-Zionism today often revives the antisemitic patterns of the past, particularly those propagated by the Nazi regime in the 1930s. These tactics, she explains, echo Nazi-era propaganda that portrayed Jews as subhuman, sinister, and uniquely malevolent — a narrative used to justify marginalization and, ultimately, genocide.
These dynamics — scapegoating, dehumanizing, and ostracizing Jews under the guise of “anti-Zionism” — are not relics of history. They are alive and active across elite American campuses. And now, unmistakably, they have taken root at Yale.
McInnis must break the silence and condemn the open harassment and assault of Jewish students. She must also hold the perpetrators of the heinous actions and those responsible for the safety of students accountable for their inaction.
This week has revealed a grave failure of moral and institutional duty on many fronts. When law enforcement stands by as Jewish students face intimidation and assault, it sends a chilling message: their safety matters less.
We must demand a full investigation and real accountability. Condemnations of antisemitism are not enough. Policies must be changed to ensure Jewish students and organizations can freely exercise their right to free expression without being subject to harassment and assault. Anything less would betray Yale’s stated values — and the promise of “never again.”
Douglas Sandoval is the Managing Director for CAMERA on Campus.
The post Yale’s Silence Is Allowing Blatant Campus Antisemitism — and Betraying the Promise of ‘Never Again’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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