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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.

The post Joe Biden’s Israel Policy Emboldens Iran and Threatens the World first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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New Poll: Majority of NYC Voters ‘Less Likely’ to Support Mamdani Over His Refusal to Condemn ‘Globalize the Intifada’

Zohran Mamdani Ron Adar / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect

Zohran Mamdani. Photo: Ron Adar / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect

In a warning sign for the campaign of Democratic nominee for mayor of New York Zohran Mamdani, a majority of city voters in a new poll say the candidate’s hardline anti-Israel stance makes them less likely to vote for him.

In the survey of likely city voters conducted by American Pulse, 52.5 percent said Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada” coupled with his backing of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement made them less likely to vote for him in November. Just 31% of city voters polled were more likely to support him because of these positions.

At the same time, a significant share of young New York City voters support Mamdani’s anti-Israel positioning, a striking sign of shifting generational views on Israel and the Palestinian cause.

Nearly half  of voters aged 18 to 44 (46 percent) said the State Assembly member’s backing for BDS and “refusal to condemn the phrase ‘globalize the intifada’” made them more likely to support him.

Mamdani, a democratic socialist from Queens, has been under fire for defending “globalize the intifada,” a slogan many Jewish groups associate with incitement to violence against Israel and Jews. While critics argue it glorifies terrorism, supporters claim it’s a call for international solidarity with oppressed peoples, especially Palestinians. Mamdani has also voiced support for BDS, a movement widely condemned by mainstream Jewish organizations as antisemitic for singling out Israel.

The generational divide exposed by the poll comes amid a broader political realignment. Younger progressives across the country are increasingly critical of Israeli policies, especially in the wake of the Gaza war, and more receptive to Palestinian activism. But to many Jewish leaders, Mamdani’s rising support is alarming.

Rabbi David Wolpe, visiting scholar at Harvard University, condemned the phrase with a sarcastic analogy.

“‘Globalize the intifada’ is just a political slogan,” he said. “Like ‘The cockroaches must be exterminated’ was just a housing authority slogan in Rwanda.”

Jewish organizations have reported a surge in antisemitic incidents in New York and across the U.S. since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war last fall. The blending of anti-Zionist slogans with calls for “intifada,” historically linked to violent uprisings, has deepened fears among Jewish communities that traditional red lines are being crossed.

Whether this emerging coalition reshapes New York politics remains to be seen. However, the poll indicates that among younger voters, views that were once considered fringe are quickly moving into the mainstream.

The post New Poll: Majority of NYC Voters ‘Less Likely’ to Support Mamdani Over His Refusal to Condemn ‘Globalize the Intifada’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Report: Jews Targeted at June’s Pride Month Events

A Jewish gay pride flag. Photo: Twitter.

The research division of the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) released a report on Wednesday detailing incidents of hate against Jews which took place last month during demonstrations in celebration of LGBTQ rights and identity.

Incidents reported by the group include:

  • At a Pride march in Wales, the activists Cymru Queers for Palestine chose to block the path and show a sign that said “Profiting from genocide,” an attempt to link the event’s sponsors — such as Amazon — to the war in Gaza.
  • A Dublin Pride march saw the participation of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which labeled Israel a “genocidal entity.”
  • In Toronto at a late June Pride march, demonstrators again attacked organizers with a sign declaring, “Pride partners with genocide.”

CAM also identified a recurring narrative deployed against Israel by some far-left activists: so-called “pinkwashing,” a term which the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement calls “an Israeli government propaganda strategy that cynically exploits LGBTQIA+ rights to project a progressive image while concealing Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies oppressing Palestinians.”

The report notes that at a Washington DC Pride event in early June Medea Benjamin, cofounder of activist group Code Pink and a regular of anti-war protests, wore a pair of goofy, oversized sunglasses and a shirt in her signature pink with the phrase “you can’t pinkwash genocide.”

Other incidents CAM recorded showed the injection of anti-Israel sentiment into Pride events.

A musical group canceled a performance at an interfaith service in Brooklyn, claiming the hosting synagogue had a “public alignment with pro-Israel political positions.” In San Francisco before the yearly Trans March, a Palestine group said in its announcement of its participation, “Stop the war on Iran and the genocide of Palestine, stop the war on immigrants and attacks on trans people.”

CAM notes that this “queers for Palestine” sentiment is not new, pointing to a 2017 event wherein “organizers of the Chicago Dyke March infamously removed participants who were waving a Pride flag adorned with a Star of David on the grounds that the symbol ‘made people feel unsafe.’”

In February, the Israel Defense Forces shared with the New York Post documents it had recovered demonstrating that Hamas had tortured and executed members it suspected of homosexuality and other moral offenses in conflict with Islamist ideology.

Amit Benjamin, who is gay and a first sergeant major in the IDF, said during a visit to New York City for Pride month that “All the ‘queers for Gaza’ need to open their eyes. Hamas kills gays … kills lesbians … queers cannot exist in Gaza.”

The post Report: Jews Targeted at June’s Pride Month Events first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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IAEA pulls inspectors from Iran as standoff over access drags on

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi at the agency’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria, June 23, 2025. REUTERS/Elisabeth Mandl/File Photo

The UN nuclear watchdog said on Friday it had pulled its last remaining inspectors from Iran as a standoff over their return to the country’s nuclear facilities bombed by the United States and Israel deepens.

Israel launched its first military strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites in a 12-day war with the Islamic Republic three weeks ago. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors have not been able to inspect Iran’s facilities since then, even though IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has said that is his top priority.

Iran’s parliament has now passed a law to suspend cooperation with the IAEA until the safety of its nuclear facilities can be guaranteed. While the IAEA says Iran has not yet formally informed it of any suspension, it is unclear when the agency’s inspectors will be able to return to Iran.

“An IAEA team of inspectors today safely departed from Iran to return to the Agency headquarters in Vienna, after staying in Tehran throughout the recent military conflict,” the IAEA said on X.

Diplomats said the number of IAEA inspectors in Iran was reduced to a handful after the June 13 start of the war. Some have also expressed concern about the inspectors’ safety since the end of the conflict, given fierce criticism of the agency by Iranian officials and Iranian media.

Iran has accused the agency of effectively paving the way for the bombings by issuing a damning report on May 31 that led to a resolution by the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors declaring Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations.

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has said he stands by the report. He has denied it provided diplomatic cover for military action.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Thursday Iran remained committed to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

“[Grossi] reiterated the crucial importance of the IAEA discussing with Iran modalities for resuming its indispensable monitoring and verification activities in Iran as soon as possible,” the IAEA said.

The US and Israeli military strikes either destroyed or badly damaged Iran’s three uranium enrichment sites. But it was less clear what has happened to much of Iran’s nine tonnes of enriched uranium, especially the more than 400 kg enriched to up to 60% purity, a short step from weapons grade.

That is enough, if enriched further, for nine nuclear weapons, according to an IAEA yardstick. Iran says its aims are entirely peaceful, but Western powers say there is no civil justification for enriching to such a high level, and the IAEA says no country has done so without developing the atom bomb.

As a party to the NPT, Iran must account for its enriched uranium, which normally is closely monitored by the IAEA, the body that enforces the NPT and verifies countries’ declarations. But the bombing of Iran’s facilities has now muddied the waters.

“We cannot afford that … the inspection regime is interrupted,” Grossi told a press conference in Vienna last week.

The post IAEA pulls inspectors from Iran as standoff over access drags on first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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