Uncategorized
What American Jews fight about when they fight about Israel
(JTA) — Eric Alterman, born in 1960, says the view of Israel he absorbed growing up in a Jewish family in suburban Scarsdale, New York, was decidedly one-sided.
“I went on this nerdy presidential classroom thing when I was in high school,” he recalls, “and some Christian kid from the South raised his hand and said to the rabbi, ‘I don’t get it, if the Jews could have a state, why can’t the Palestinians?’ And I was like, ‘How dare you?’”
Alterman would go on to attend Cornell University, where he wrote his honors thesis on Israel, Vietnam and neoconservatism; spend a semester abroad at Tel Aviv University; study Israeli military history while earning his master’s degree in international relations at Yale, and research a dissertation on American liberalism and the founding of Israel as a doctoral student at Stanford.
Although he frequently writes about Israel as a contributing writer at the Nation and the American Prospect, Alterman is best known for his liberal analysis of the media and U.S. politics. He’s written 11 previous books, including one on Bruce Springsteen.
Yet he never stopped thinking about the widening gap between the idealized Israel of his youth and the reality of its relations with the Palestinians, its Arab neighbors and the West. Even when Israel’s revisionist historians were uncovering evidence of massacres and forced expulsions of Palestinians during the War of Independence, and Israeli politicians and intellectuals began asking why, indeed, the Palestinians didn’t deserve a state of their own, he saw that such discussions were considered blasphemous in most American Jewish circles.
Alterman, now a CUNY Distinguished Professor of English at Brooklyn College, explores that gap in his latest book, “We Are Not One: A History of America’s Fight Over Israel.” The book surveys U.S.-Israel relations, but with a focus on the ways defending Israel have shaped public discourse. It’s a book about arguments: within the administrations of 14 presidents, between Washington and Jerusalem, and mostly among Jews themselves.
Earlier this month we spoke about how the pro-Isael lobby became a powerful political force, the Jewish organizations and pundits who fight to limit the range of debate over Israel, and what he thinks is the high price American Jews have paid for tying their identities so closely to Israel.
“I try to take on shibboleths that in the past have shut down conversation and take them apart and sympathetically show the complexity of the actual situation that lies beneath — so that [criticism and disagreement] over Israel can be understood rather than whisked away by changing the subject, or what-aboutism, or by demonizing the person who is raising them,” said Alterman.
Our conversation was edited for length and clarity.
Jewish Telegraphic Agency: Let me start by congratulating you: It’s the first book about U.S.-Israel relations with a chapter named after a Bruce Springsteen album: “Working on a Dream.”
Eric Alterman: Nobody else has caught that. But it’s not about U.S.-Israel relations. It’s the first book about the debate over Israel in the United States. There’s a million books on U.S.-Israel relations.
So let’s define that more narrowly. The title reminds me of the United Jewish Appeal slogan over the years, “We Are One,” which was about American Jewish solidarity. So who is the “we” in your title, “We Are Not One”?
There are three or four different meanings. The “we” in this book are obviously the United States and Israel. An awful lot of people argue that the United States and Israel have identical interests in the world and that’s crazy, because Israel is this tiny little country in the Middle East and we’re a global superpower thousands of miles away. So obviously, we’re going to have differences. Number two, American Jews and Israeli Jews are very different people. They have very different life experiences. And they see things quite differently as evidenced by the political split between them. The title also refers specifically just to Americans, because we can’t even discuss most things anymore. The pro-Israel community, such as it ever was, is enormously split and it’s split in angry ways.
Much of your book is about what happens to American Jews when the idealized portrait of Israel’s founding and its presumed blamelessness in its actions toward the Palestinians comes up against reality. In that context, tell me a little about your choice to devote a chapter to the Leon Uris novel “Exodus,” an extremely sanitized version of Israel’s founding, and the 1960 movie based on it.
The influence of “Exodus” is something I didn’t understand until I wrote the book. It’s crazy, because Leon Uris was this egomaniac who wrote kind of a shitty book and said that he wanted to add a new chapter to the Bible, and he kind of succeeded. I was born in 1960. When I was growing up in suburban New York, every single family had “Exodus” on their shelves. When the movie came out Israelis understood this. They said, “We can just shut down our public relations office now.” And from the standpoint of reality the movie is worse than the book because it has Nazis — the Arabs in the book are working with Nazism. Uris didn’t have the nerve to do that. So the book created this idealized Israel and this idea of [Palestinians as] evil, subhuman Nazis.
What most Americans don’t understand, or choose not to understand, is that before the 1940s most Jews were anti-Zionist, or non-Zionist. This changed in the 1940s, when, as a result in part of the Holocaust, and the reaction to that, and the triumph of Zionists, they became intensely pro-Zionist, leading up to the creation of Israel. But after that, they kind of forgot about Israel. One might have given their children JNF boxes to carry on Halloween instead of UNICEF boxes, or maybe they paid to plant trees. But Israel doesn’t show up in the American Jewish Committee’s 1966 annual report until page 35 or 36, and Nathan Glazer’s 1957 book “American Judaism” says that the creation of the Jewish state has had “remarkably slight effects on the inner life of American Jewry.”
With the events of 1967, Uris’ idealized notion of Israel came together with this terrible fear of a second Holocaust, and the terror and shame and frightening nature of that combined to transform American Judaism overnight to an enormous degree.
You are referring to Israel’s lightning victory in the Six-Day War, which even non-religious Jews saw as a kind of miracle, and redemption two decades after the Holocaust. And that transformation, you argue, put defense of Israel, combined with Holocaust consciousness, at the center of Jewish identity.
More than just the center: It basically comprised almost all of it, for many secular Jews. I quote the neoconservative Irving Kristol in the book saying in 1976 that “the Holocaust and the founding of the state of Israel” was 100% of what Judaism means.
Which in turn led to a the tremendous pro-Israel lobbying efforts, political activism and punditry.
The budgets of American Jewish organizations overnight went from social services and liberal social justice causes to defense of Israel. And rabbis were replaced at the center of public discourse by the heads of these organizations — most of whom had no religious training or knowledge of history or Judaism.
Joe Biden, then vice president, speaks at the AIPAC 2016 Policy Conference in Washington, DC, March 20, 2016.
(Molly Riley/AFP via Getty Images)
One distinction you repeatedly make is between what most Jews believe compared to the Jewish organizations that claim to represent them. Surveys show the rank and file is consistently more liberal on Israel and less hawkish than the big organizations — a gap that showed up markedly around the Iraq War and the Iran nuclear deal.
Right. The big mistake that so many in the media make is that they go to the heads of these organizations who pretend to speak for American Jews when they don’t speak for American Jews. They speak for their boards and their donors.
The shift to Jewish lobbying on behalf of Israel coincides with an era in which there is seldom daylight between what Israel wants and what the United States wants or agrees to — often to the frustration of presidents. You are critical of those who exaggerate the pro-Israel lobby’s influence — folks like Stephen Walt and John J. Mearsheimer, authors of the 2007 book “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” — but, at the same time, you write, referring to the Israel debate in America, about “the continued stranglehold that money, power, organizational structure, and clearly defined paths to personal career advancement continue to hold over the shape of foreign policy.” How will you respond to critics who will say your book is trafficking in the myth of Jewish power and its conspiracy-minded hold over American policy?
The short answer is, that’s why I wrote a 500-page book — basically, for two reasons: One, everything is incredibly complicated. And some of those complications are consistent with antisemitic myths, and therefore they have to be teased out and broken down in such a way that you’re telling the truth rather than portraying the myth.
If you say things without context, they sound antisemitic. I say that yes, Jews are very powerful in the media and many use that power on or about Israel. But I think if you lay out the examples that I use, if you look at them and examine them, I don’t see how you can conclude otherwise. The people I describe often say that about themselves — how much power and influence they yield.
Secondly, I’ve always found it just about impossible to discuss Israel with anyone, because you have to share exactly the same assumptions with that person. And if you don’t, then they take it personally, or you’re an antisemite, or, at best, you’re insufficiently sensitive to how important antisemitism is. And if you describe ways in which American Jews act in ways that are consistent with antisemitic myth, it has a way of shutting down the conversation.
Undoubtedly there’s some criticism of Israel that is motivated by antisemitism, but there’s an awful lot of reasons to be critical of Israel, particularly if you are a Palestinian or care about Palestinians. This accusation [antisemitism] has shut down the discourse and part of my hopes in demonstrating the complexities of this history is to open this up.
So let me ask about your own stake in this. Your educational background and relationship to Israel are similar in many ways to the writers and thinkers in your book who tolerate no criticism of Israel. I don’t know if you call yourself a Zionist, but you have some connection to Israel, and you’re also willing to tolerate critiques of Israel. What’s the difference between you and some of the other people who went on the same journey?
For the longest time I was comfortable with the words “liberal Zionist,” but I don’t think they have any meaning anymore. I don’t think it’s possible to be a liberal Zionist — you have to choose. Israel is the only putatively democratic country that prefers Trump to either Obama or Biden, and it’s not even close. And young Israelis are moving further in that direction and young American Jews are moving further in the opposite direction.
So you ask me if I am a liberal Zionist. I don’t think the word “Zionist” is useful at all anymore, because Israel is a country and it’s not going anywhere. I sometimes call myself an anti-anti-Zionist, because anti-Zionism is dumb. I’m very anti-BDS. If I thought [the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement] could end occupation, I would support it, even though the idea of boycotting Jews puts a bad taste in my mouth. But the theory behind BDS apparently, and I’ve spent a lot of time on this, is that the world will force Israel to give up its identity and turn the country over to its enemies. It’s inconceivable that Israel would do that and inconceivable the United States would pressure them to do that. So BDS is entirely performative. It’s more of a political fashion statement than anything else.
And to me, it speaks to the failure of Palestinian politics throughout history. I have a great deal of sympathy for the Palestinians and their bad politics because it’s based on two problems. One is that they have never been able to see the future very well. So they should have agreed in 1921 and 1937, or whenever they would have had the majority and they were being given a country by the British. They should have taken the lousy offer from Ehud Barak and Bill Clinton in 2000. I kind of get it because they have so many competing constituencies, and it’s impossible to satisfy all of them at the same time. I understand that. It’s hard to imagine a Palestinian politician who could say yes, and if you look at Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, in both cases, it’s hard to imagine making peace with them.
I read that in your book, and my first thought was, well, isn’t that basically just confirming what the pro-Israel right has always said — that Israel has no partner for peace? So maybe the best it can do is maintain a status quo that assures some security for Israel and a workable something for the Palestinians.
Well, number one I hold Israel significantly responsible for the conditions under which that has developed and that they can change those. And number two, that’s no excuse for the way Palestinians are treated, either in the occupation or in Israel. So yes, I agree. There’s no one to make peace with today, but there are many steps Israel could take that could vastly improve the lives of the Palestinians, both in the occupied territories and inside Israel. And there are a lot of steps they could take that could build confidence for a future that could weaken Hamas, that could strengthen the Palestinian Authority, so that one day peace would be possible. But they do the opposite.
An Israel supporter at a New York rally to tell the United Nations “no more anti-Israel documents or resolutions,” Jan. 12, 2017. (Don Emmert/AFP via Getty Images)
You talk about funding of Israel studies and Jewish studies departments as a reaction against fears of a pro-Palestinian takeover of academia. At the same time, you write how Palestinian supporters “succeeded in colonizing Middle East studies departments, student faculty organizations, and far-left political organizations.” Why does that matter in the long run if, as you also write, nothing’s really going to change American policy on Israel?
I gave a talk before the book came out at Tel Aviv University and someone asked me that question. I said, You care about these transformations for two reasons. One, you really will be all alone in the world. You’ll have the support of conservative [Evangelical] Christians who are in many respects antisemitic and are using you for their own purposes. So if you lose American Jews, you will be existentially alone in a way you’re not now and that strikes me as very unpleasant.
I do think that the quote-unquote pro-Israel community has a stranglehold on American politics that I can’t see changing anytime soon, and I think the change in the Democratic Party [that it will turn more pro-Palestinian] is very much exaggerated by both sides for their own reasons.
That being said, the people who are being trained now to be in the State Department and the National Security Council and the Defense Department and the think tanks and the places where the intellectual foundation of U.S. policy is made are learning something very different from what you and I learned in college. Right now, there’s no such thing as an influential Palestinian lobby in this country. There’s no pushing back. There’s no percentage for anyone opposing Israel who has a career interest in the future. That will change, and the whole shaping of the discourse will change and that will change the relationship between the United States and Israel. It’s not going to happen anytime soon, but it’s definitely going to happen.
As Jews in this country have remained largely liberal, Israel appears to be getting more illiberal, as we’ve seen with a new government that is more right-wing than any previously. And Israel has become more of a divisive element among Jews than a unifying force. As this gap appears to be widening, do you have any real hope for changing the discourse?
No, I don’t have any hopes for that. I don’t have anything optimistic to say about Israel. I think, politically speaking, from the standpoint of American Jews, everything is going in the wrong direction. But by demonstrating just how different Israeli Jews are than American Jews, and how little Israeli Jews care what American Jews think, I do think that it presents an opportunity for American Jews to think about what it means to be an American Jew in the Diaspora. Roughly half of the Jews in the world live in the United States. And since 1967 American Jews have defined themselves vicariously through Israeli Jews and taking pride in Israel. They expressed their identities by defending Israel and attacking the media when the media didn’t defend Israel.
Meanwhile, American Jews hardly ever go to synagogue. According to Pew, 20% of American Jews regularly attend synagogue and half of them are Orthodox, who are 10% of the community. What brought me back into Judaism was studying Torah. And hardly any American Jews are ever exposed to that.
So I think there’s an opportunity to reimagine Diaspora Jewry now that the Israel story doesn’t work, and it’s clear that it doesn’t work. Young American Jews are leaving or voting with their feet. They’re walking away. Israel-centric Judaism is in part responsible, although it’s not the whole story. Intermarriage is a big part of the story. The de-religionization of all groups is part of the story. But personally, I don’t see what a liberal American Jew would see in a Judaism that defines itself as it has for the past 50 years as defending Israel and remembering the Holocaust.
—
The post What American Jews fight about when they fight about Israel appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
‘Center of Gravity for Global Terrorism’: US Lawmakers Spotlight Surging Jihadist Terror Threat in Africa
Islamic State – Central Africa Province released documentary entitled “Jihad and Dawah” covering group’s campaigns in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo and battles against Congolese and Ugandan armies. Photo: Screenshot
US lawmakers this week raised alarm bells over the rising terrorist threat from Africa, advocating for continued American support for African nations fighting Islamists as the continent becomes the center of global terrorism.
The US Senate Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health Policy, which is part of the larger Foreign Relations Committee, held a hearing in which legislators highlighted the importance of combating terrorist groups in Africa while jousting over President Donald Trump’s approach to the continent.
“Today, the center of gravity for global terrorism has shifted to Africa. It has shifted partly and in fact precisely because of the export of violent Islamic terrorism from the Middle East as well as because of incredibly complicated and specific local dynamics,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who chairs the subcommittee.
“Across the Sahel in West Africa and in East Africa, terrorist groups are expanding, embedding, and operating with increasing capability,” Cruz added. “ISIS affiliates and al-Qaeda-linked groups are growing, controlling territory, and exploiting weak governance.”
The Sahel region runs 3,360 miles across the African continent, dividing the Sahara Desert to the north from the tropical southern savannahs. Terrorist hot spots in recent years in the region have included Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, where, Cruz noted, “JNIM [Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin], and Islamic State in the Sahel have all expanded. In Nigeria, Boko Haram, ISIS West Africa, and Fulani extremists are mass slaughtering Christians.”
In November, the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point released a study documenting that in 2024, 86 percent of all terrorism-related deaths occurred in just 10 countries, with seven of them in Africa and five in the Sahel. The researchers identified JNIM as being behind 83 percent of the killings.
Describing the threats in the Horn of Africa region, Cruz said that, in Somalia, al-Shabaab “targets Americans and threatens US personnel and partners in East Africa, all while receiving support from the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen.”
“In region after region, terrorist groups are outpacing the ability of local governments to respond,” he added. “The failures threaten our interest globally and endanger the American homeland. The threat is rapidly growing and demands attention.”
The Texas senator also took time in his opening remarks to criticize former US President Joe Biden’s approach to Africa.
“For too long, however, Africa was treated as a theater where we didn’t have interests. Presidential administrations either ignored it or used it as a playground for self-indulgent ideological experiments,” Cruz said. “The latter problem was particularly acute during the previous administration. That mismatch allowed terrorist groups to expand and global adversaries, in particular Russia, China, and Iran, to intervene and undermine American interests. Those dynamics now threaten US interests, our allies, and ultimately the American homeland.”
After concluding, Cruz allowed Sen. Cory Booker (NJ), the top Democrat on the subcommittee, to offer his own assessment.
“What we are discussing today is not far away. It’s not disconnected from American life. It’s not some side issue we can afford to regulate to the margins of our senatorial and administrative focus,” Booker said. “Africa is not peripheral to the national security of the United States and to the urgencies we face.”
Booker added that, earlier this year, “the US intelligence community assessed that Africa has become ‘a focal point for the global Sunni Jihadist movement.’ That is not a passing warning. That is a flashing red light.”
Echoing Cruz’s concerns, Booker noted that “al-Shabaab remains a deadly and determined force who has killed civilians, killed Americans, threatened US interests, and plotted a 9/11 style attack against the United States.” He also described how “ISIS Somalia is emerging as a more significant node in the broader ISIS network with demonstrated intent and capability to threaten beyond the region, including against the United States.”
The senator went on to discuss the Sahel, pointing to how “in the Lake Chad Basin, IS West Africa and Boko Haram continue to exploit borders that are weak, states that are strained, and communities that have been failed by their governments for far too long. So, let’s be clear, counterterrorism in Africa is not charity. It is not a distraction. It’s not optional for our country. It is a core American national security interest.”
Booker named the factors that fueled terrorist groups in the region, saying, “They feed on corruption. They feed on broken governance. They feed on despair. They feed on the absence of state legitimacy, the weakness of institutions, the pain of exclusion, and the vulnerability of young people who see too few pathways to dignity, work, and hope.”
Emphasizing that “military strikes alone cannot prevent extremist groups from returning the moment attention shifts and the dust settles,” the New Jersey Democrat argued that combating the threat takes “strategy, patience, partnerships, diplomacy, development, and security working together.”
Booker then criticized the Trump administration for its approach to Africa, describing it as “retreat dressed up as resolve,” in part due to “diminished diplomatic presence” across the continent.
“The Trump administration is not delivering a whole-of-government strategy. It is delivering a whack-a-mole policy dressed up as counterterrorism,” Booker argued. “It is fragmented. It is reactive. It is too often militarized and under-strategized. Because the future of American security is bound up with the future of the stability, prosperity, and partnerships we have on the African continent, we need a strategy that reflects the true conditions on the ground and not only frames Africa as a problem but actually sees the real framing that it is an extraordinary asset.”
Cruz defended the Trump administration’s efforts in Africa.
“As I’ve said, one of the reasons for these hearings is to ensure that the administration officials have the opportunity and the platform to articulate President Trump’s approach to Africa. For too long, US policy has treated Africa as a secondary theater,” Cruz said. “The Biden administration withdrew US forces from Niger, which was a key foothold in the region that is the epicenter of global terrorism. That assumption is no longer tenable for a range of reasons.”
Cruz said that Trump “personally met with 13 African heads of state in his first year in office. But too often there is nonetheless a lazy assumption that the US is disengaging from Africa.”
Nick Checker, senior official in the State Department’s Bureau of Africa Affairs, testified before the committee.
“Africa will play an important role in America’s economic future. The continent holds vast critical minerals, energy resources, and tremendous human capital,” he said. “However, these opportunities cannot be fully realized amid persistent instability in parts of the continent, including terrorist threats, which continue to affect US interests.”
Checker described the limited nature of the administration’s approach.
“Our counterterrorism posture in Africa is narrowly focused and aligned with US national security priorities. The primary objective is clear: We will protect the homeland from threats while safeguarding US citizens and commercial interests abroad,” Checker said. “Groups affiliated with ISIS and al-Qaeda remain active in the Sahel, Nigeria, and parts of East Africa. These threats are real, but our response must be disciplined.”
On April 16, troops in Nigeria killed 25 fighters in the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) terror group during a failed attack in the Borno state.
“We will not pursue large-scale, indefinite military engagements, or nation building efforts,” Checker said. “Instead, we are adopting a targeted approach that emphasizes intelligence sharing and limited, high impact security cooperation with partners who demonstrate both capability and political will.”
Regarding the Sahel, Checker said “a region that accounted for 5-10 percent of terrorism-related deaths a decade ago, now represents more than 50 percent. Despite significant American engagement, the strategic picture demonstrates that open-ended, aid-centric approaches have not delivered sustainable security outcomes. This is why a fundamental rethink is necessary.”
In his conclusion, Checker noted that “our approach is grounded in respect for sovereignty and realism about political conditions on the ground. We engage governments as they are, not as we wish them to be.”
Monica Jacobson, senior official for the Bureau of Counterterrorism, also testified and explained how the administration’s approach was guided by three core principles: neutralizing terrorist threats before they reached the US, supporting regional partners instead of replacing them, and defending critical supply chains.
“Moroccan forces previously trained by the Bureau of Counterterrorism now train Sahelian forces across sub-Saharan Africa, using US-provided curricula,” Jacobson said. “This is precisely the model we seek to expand, with regional partners leading and sustaining regional security efforts.”
Jacobson continued, “We also recognize that, in many parts of Africa, radical Islamic terrorists target civilians based on their Christian faith. As President Trump and Secretary Rubio have made clear, we will respond to atrocities and violence against Christians, including those who knowingly direct, authorize, fund, support, or carry out violations of religious liberty. Our counterterrorism efforts have included directly targeting the terrorists responsible for this violence, and we likewise hold governments’ feet to the fire when they fail to address terrorist threats that undermine religious freedom.”
Former Nigerian Information Minister Lai Mohammed responded to the hearing on Wednesday when speaking at Abbey College in Cambridge.
“Now, people say that there is religious persecution in Nigeria and that there is genocide against Christians,” Mohammed said. “It’s not true. It is fake news.” He defended Nigeria as fostering a culture that promotes interfaith tolerance.
Chigozie Ubani, a fellow at the Institute of Security Nigeria, has discussed Boko Haram’s attacks.
“Their target is to terrorize, maim, and displace people,” Ubani told Nigeria’s Punch News. “Once they displace them, of course, they occupy the space. So, for as long as that is not achieved, they can only retreat and come back.”
Last month, multiple terrorist attacks in Nigeria’s Maiduguri killed 25 people and injured more than 200.
“Their goal is to take over our territories,” Ubani said. “When they take over, everybody there will submit to their religious authority. That’s what it is.”
Earlier this week, officials from both Mali and Niger accused their neighboring countries of supporting terrorism. At the sidelines of a security forum in Senegal, Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop claimed that other countries were “harboring terrorist groups” and allowing them to operate against Mali. Niger officials have previously accused France of backing terrorism and faced criticism for allegedly concealing the severity of Islamist terror attacks.
On Saturday, US Africa Command released a statement announcing strikes had occurred on Friday, targeting Islamic State terrorists in the mountain regions of Puntland, the Easternmost state of Somalia. The attacks targeted territory approximately 30 miles southeast of the port city of Bosaso in the Bari region. No casualty numbers were announced.
On Wednesday, Puntland forces displayed the corpses of more than 10 suspected Islamic State fighters killed in the strikes on the Jaceel Valley area of the Calmiskaad mountain range.
Video shared from the scene showed bodies in what appeared to be a crater from an airstrike.
Uncategorized
Iran’s Foreign Minister Arrives in Pakistan, Trump Expects Offer Satisfying US Demands
Army soldiers patrol a road as Pakistan prepares to host US and Iran for the second round of peace talks in Islamabad, Pakistan, April 24, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Waseem Khan
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi arrived in the Pakistani capital Islamabad on Friday to discuss proposals for restarting peace talks with the US, offering some optimism for an end to the eight-week war that has killed thousands and sown turmoil in global markets.
US President Donald Trump told Reuters on Friday that Iran plans to make an offer aimed at satisfying US demands, but said he did not yet know what the offer entailed.
When asked who the US was negotiating with, Trump said: “I don’t want to say that, but we’re dealing with the people that are in charge now.”
It remained unclear whether Araqchi would meet this weekend with US special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, or whether a meeting would happen later.
After a US bombing campaign and Iran‘s blocking of the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the two countries are at a costly impasse, with Iran‘s oil exports blocked and US gasoline prices at multi-year highs. The US and Israel also destroyed most of Iran’s navy and air defenses, killed much of the regime’s leadership, and significantly degraded its nuclear, missile, and drone programs.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Witkoff and Kushner would leave for Pakistan on Saturday morning for talks with Araqchi. Pakistani sources said Araqchi was not slated to meet US negotiators in Islamabad, a message echoed by an Iran state television reporter, who said Pakistan could convey Iran‘s concerns for ending the war.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry confirmed Araqchi’s arrival in Islamabad, where a heavy military and paramilitary presence was visible across the central parts of the city.
Araqchi went straight into a meeting with Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar at the Serena Hotel, where the first round of talks with the US was held, two government sources said.
Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani pledged his country’s support for mediation efforts by Pakistan in a phone call with Trump, Qatar’s state news agency reported.
Leavitt struck an upbeat tone, saying the US had seen some progress from the Iranian side in recent days and hoped more would come this weekend.
She added that US Vice President JD Vance, who earlier this month led a first round of unsuccessful talks with Iran to end their war, is ready to travel to Pakistan to join the negotiations if they prove successful.
Araqchi wrote on X that he was visiting Pakistan, Oman, and Russia to coordinate with partners on bilateral matters and consult on regional developments. The tour will include consultations on the latest efforts to end the war, Iran‘s Foreign Ministry spokesperson later told state media.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a briefing earlier on Friday that Iran had a chance to make a “good deal” with the United States.
“Iran knows that they still have an open window to choose wisely,” he said. “All they have to do is abandon a nuclear weapon in meaningful and verifiable ways.”
Reports on Araqchi’s trip in Iranian state media and the Pakistani sources made no mention of Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, the speaker of Iran‘s parliament, who was the head of its delegation at the talks earlier this month.
The Iranian parliament’s media office denied a report that Qalibaf had resigned as head of Iran‘s negotiating team, and added that there was no new round of talks scheduled yet.
Pakistani sources said earlier that a US logistics and security team already was in place in Islamabad for potential talks.
The last round of peace talks had been expected to resume on Tuesday but never took place, with Iran saying it was not yet ready to commit to attending and a US delegation led by Vance never leaving Washington.
Trump unilaterally extended a two-week ceasefire on Tuesday to allow more time to reconvene the negotiators.
Oil prices remained volatile on Friday, as traders weighed potential disruption from the worst oil shock in history amid the prospect for further talks.
Brent crude futures settled at $105.33 a barrel, about 0.3% higher, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures were down 1.5% at $94.40.
HEZBOLLAH DISMISSES LEBANON CEASEFIRE EXTENSION
On Thursday, Israel and Lebanon extended a separate ceasefire for three weeks at a White House meeting brokered by Trump.
The war in Lebanon, which Israel invaded last month to root out Iran‘s Hezbollah allies after the terrorist group fired across the border, has run in parallel with the wider Iran war, and Tehran says a ceasefire there is a precondition for talks.
There was little sign of an end to the fighting in southern Lebanon. Lebanese authorities reported two people were killed by an Israeli strike and Hezbollah downed an Israeli drone.
While the ceasefire that came into force on April 16 has led to a significant reduction in hostilities, Israel and Hezbollah have continued to trade blows in southern Lebanon, where Israel has kept soldiers in a self-declared “buffer zone.”
“It is essential to point out that the ceasefire is meaningless in light of Israel’s insistence on hostile acts, including assassinations, shelling, and gunfire” and its demolition of villages and towns in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Fayyad said in response to the extension of the ceasefire.
Israel’s military said it had killed six armed Hezbollah members in southern Lebanon on Friday.
STRAIT OF HORMUZ BLOCKADE
Trump on Thursday said he wanted an “everlasting” agreement with Iran, while asserting the US had an upper hand in the standoff in the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important energy shipping route.
The US has yet to find a way to open the strait, where Iran has blocked nearly all ships apart from its own since the start of the war eight weeks ago. Iran showed off its control this week by seizing two huge cargo vessels there.
Trump imposed a separate blockade of Iranian shipping last week. Iran says it will not reopen the strait until Trump lifts his blockade.
“Our blockade is growing and going global,” Hegseth told reporters on Friday.
“No one sails from the Strait of Hormuz to anywhere in the world without the permission of the United States Navy,” he said.
Only five ships crossed the strait in the last 24 hours, shipping data showed on Friday, compared to around 130 a day before the war. Those included one Iranian oil products tanker, but none of the vast crude-carrying supertankers that normally feed global energy markets.
Container shipping company Hapag-Lloyd also said one of its ships had crossed the strait, without giving details.
Uncategorized
IDF Unveils AI-Powered Robotic Warfare System, Breakthrough Artillery Against Hezbollah
Smoke rises from a village in southern Lebanon as the Israeli army operates in it as seen from the Israeli side of the border, April 23, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Gil Eliyahu
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has introduced cutting-edge battlefield technology while fighting Hezbollah over the past several weeks, deploying fleets of explosive robots and game-changing artillery to accelerate the destruction of the Iran-backed group’s terrorist infrastructure across southern Lebanon.
With the goal of minimizing risks to troops, the IDF plans to deploy robots on high-risk missions to detonate large, strategic infrastructure in areas previously beyond the reach of ground forces, marking a significant expansion in its use of autonomous battlefield systems. Some of this technology has already been in use but will only escalate.
According to Israeli officials, this newly introduced technology is designed to scan vast areas using intelligence data, locate Hezbollah infrastructure both above and below ground, and systematically dismantle networks built over decades within Shiite villages, forests, and dense terrain.
The IDF expects this sustained military engineering effort to drain Hezbollah’s extensive financial investments and push threats farther from Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.
Given Lebanon’s rugged, mountainous terrain in the area, the natural landscape severely limits the movement of heavy engineering equipment, forcing troops to rely on complex field improvisations amid dense vegetation and terrain that conceals militant infrastructure.
The IDF has previously used robotic systems during the war in Gaza, providing ground forces with a strategic edge while reducing exposure to danger, including deploying them to explore Hamas tunnels and enhance the detection and tracking of armed operatives.
Robotic systems not only reduce the danger to troops but also help offset manpower shortages and enable operations in especially challenging environments, including tunnel networks, densely populated urban areas, and other locations that are difficult for ground forces to reach.
The IDF has further expanded its arsenal with the introduction of the “Ro’em” self-propelled howitzer battery developed by Elbit Systems, a platform that leverages advanced technology and artificial intelligence to deliver quicker and more accurate firepower.
Fully automatic, the self-propelled howitzer can fire between six and eight rounds per minute at ranges of up to 40 kilometers.
Hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel reignited on March 2, when the terrorist group opened fire in support of Iran two days after the start of the joint US-Israeli military campaign against the Iranian regime. Since then, Israeli troops have created a “buffer zone” that extends 5 to 10 km (3 to 6 miles) into Lebanon. According to Israeli officials the purpose of the zone is to protect northern Israel from attacks by Hezbollah, which has fired thousands of rockets and drones during the war.
The US mediated a 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon last week. The deal was separate from Washington’s efforts to de-escalate tensions with Iran, though Tehran had pushed for Lebanon to be included in any broader framework for stopping hostilities.
On Thursday, US President Donald Trump announced a three-week extension of the truce, which was due to expire on Sunday, to allow more time for negotiations and diplomatic efforts.
Even though the US-backed ceasefire has sharply reduced violence, negotiations and prospects for lasting peace remain fragile, with Israeli forces still positioned in southern Lebanon to maintain its buffer zone and dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure.
For its part, Hezbollah, an internationally designated terrorist group that openly seeks Israel’s destruction, maintains it has “the right to resist” what it calls occupying forces, while rejecting any direct negotiations between the two countries.
Even with the truce in place, Israel has warned Lebanese citizens against returning to their homes at this stage, with officials saying that Hezbollah could seek to exploit the situation to reestablish its terrorist infrastructure under civilian cover.
The Lebanese government has now opened direct contacts with Israel despite strong objections from Hezbollah — which was established by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in 1982.
With negotiations now underway toward a potential longer-term arrangement, Israel has said its position rests on two core demands: the full disarmament of the Iran-backed terrorist group and a “sustainable” security-based peace framework.
Lebanon has demanded an Israeli withdrawal from the south, the return of Lebanese detainees held in Israel, and the delineation of the land border.