U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with members of the media on board Air Force One en route to Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., January 31, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard

Iran’s foreign minister said on Friday he expected to have a draft counterproposal ready within days following nuclear talks with the United States this week, while US President Donald Trump said he was considering limited military strikes.

Two US officials told Reuters that US military planning on Iran had reached an advanced stage, with options including targeting individuals as part of an attack and even pursuing leadership change in Tehran, if ordered by Trump.

Trump on Thursday gave Tehran a deadline of 10 to 15 days to make a deal to resolve their longstanding nuclear dispute or face “really bad things” amid a US military buildup in the Middle East that has fueled fears of a wider war.

THREATS OF ATTACK FOLLOW CRACKDOWN ON MASS PROTESTS

Asked on Friday if he was considering a limited strike to pressure Iran into a deal, Trump told reporters at the White House: “I guess I can say I am considering” it. Asked later about Iran at a White House press conference, Trump added: “They better negotiate a fair deal.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said after indirect discussions in Geneva this week with Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner that the sides had reached an understanding on main “guiding principles,” but that did not mean a deal was imminent.

Araqchi, in an interview on MS NOW, said he had a draft counterproposal that could be ready in the next two or three days for top Iranian officials to review, with more U.S.-Iran talks possible in a week or so.

Military action would complicate efforts to reach a deal, he added.

After the US and Israel bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities and some military sites in June, Trump again began threatening strikes in January as Tehran crushed widespread protests with deadly force.

Referring to the crackdown on Friday, Trump said there was a difference between the people of Iran and the country’s leadership. He asserted that “32,000 people were killed over a relatively short period of time,” figures that could not immediately be verified.

“It’s a very, very, very sad situation,” Trump said, adding that his threats to strike Iran had led the leadership to abandon plans for mass hangings two weeks ago.

“They were going to hang 837 people. And I gave them the word, if you hang one person, even one person, that you’re going to be hit right then and there,” he said.

The US-based group HRANA, which monitors the human rights situation in Iran, has recorded 7,114 verified deaths and says it has another 11,700 under review.

Hours after Trump’s statements on the death toll, Araqchi said that the Iranian government has already published a “comprehensive list” of all 3,117 killed in the unrest.

“If anyone doubts the accuracy of our data, please speak with evidence,” he posted on X.

ARAQCHI SAYS DEAL POSSIBLE IN ‘VERY SHORT PERIOD’

Araqchi gave no specific timing as to when Iranians would get their counterproposal to Witkoff and Kushner, but said he believed a diplomatic deal was within reach and could be achieved “in a very short period of time.”

United Nations spokesperson Stephane Dujarric reiterated concerns about heightened rhetoric and increased military activities in the region.

“We encourage both the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran to continue to engage in diplomacy in order to settle the differences,” Dujarric told a regular news briefing at the U.N.

During the Geneva talks, the United States did not seek zero uranium enrichment and Iran did not offer to suspend enrichment, Araqchi told MS NOW, a US cable television news network.

“What we are now talking about is how to make sure that Iran’s nuclear program, including enrichment, is peaceful and would remain peaceful forever,” he said.

He added that technical and political “confidence-building measures” would be enacted to ensure the program would remain peaceful in exchange for action on sanctions, but he gave no further details.

“The president has been clear that Iran cannot have nuclear weapons or the capacity to build them, and that they cannot enrich uranium,” the White House said when asked about Araqchi’s comments.

People inspect the damage at the site of an Israeli strike on Friday, in Bednayel, Bekaa valley, Lebanon, February 21, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

At least 10 people were killed and 50 wounded in Israeli strikes in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, two security sources told Reuters, after the Israeli military said it had targeted Hezbollah sites in the Baalbek area.

The strikes on Friday were among the deadliest reported in eastern Lebanon in recent weeks and risk testing a fragile US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Shi’ite Islamist group Hezbollah, which has been strained by recurring accusations of violations.

The Israeli military said in a statement that it struck Hezbollah command centers in the Baalbek area, part of eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.

In a separate statement on Saturday, it said it had “eliminated several terrorists of Hezbollah’s missile array in three different command centers … recently identified as operating to accelerate the organization’s readiness and force build-up processes, while planning fire attacks towards Israel.”

Hezbollah said on Saturday that eight of its fighters, including a commander, Hussein Mohammad Yaghi, were killed in Friday’s strikes in the Bekaa area.

CEASEFIRE BROKERED IN 2024

Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a US-brokered ceasefire in 2024 intended to end more than a year of cross-border exchanges of fire that culminated in Israeli strikes that weakened the Iran-aligned group. Since then, the sides have traded accusations of ceasefire violations.

US and Israeli officials have pressed Lebanese authorities to curb Hezbollah’s arsenal, while Lebanese leaders have warned that broader Israeli strikes could further destabilize the country already battered by political and economic crises.

Separately, the Israeli military said it also struck what it described as a Hamas command center from which militants operated in the Ain al-Hilweh area in southern Lebanon. Ain al-Hilweh is a crowded Palestinian refugee camp near Sidon.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned the overnight Israeli strikes on the Sidon area and towns in Bekaa as a “new violation” of Lebanon’s sovereignty and a breach of U.N. obligations, urging countries backing regional stability, including the United States, to press for an immediate halt to avert further escalation, the presidency said.

Hamas condemned in a statement the Israeli strike on Ain al-Hilweh and rejected Israeli assertions about the target, saying the site belonged to the camp’s Joint Security Force tasked with maintaining security.

Conventional wisdom suggests Rev. Jesse Jackson’s infamous, unfortunate, off-the-record, 1984 “Hymietown” comment radically reshaped and further degraded Black-Jewish relations. It’s true. But not for the reasons that one might imagine.

Jackson, then a presidential candidate, initially denied the report, first published in The Washington Post, that he had used the aforementioned slur in a Washington, D.C. airport bar. Two weeks later he reversed course. In an address at synagogue Adath Yeshurun in New Hampshire, he asked to be forgiven.

How much damage to Black-Jewish relations did Jackson’s remark actually do? Some, for sure. But given how wobbly the two communities’ once-vaunted “grand alliance” had become by 1984, the degree of the slur’s impact has, I think, been overstated. Both groups had already built a vast reservoir of mutual mistrust. Among the causes: Jackson’s meetings with Yasser Arafat of the PLO rendered him suspect to Jews, and Jewish opposition to affirmative action struck Blacks as a betrayal. Ditto for the Andrew Young affair of 1979, a takedown of one of the community’s most distinguished public servants.

What actually changed Black-Jewish relations for the worse was not the “Hymietown” indiscretion, but Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan’s entry into the fray.

On Feb. 25, 1984, 12 days after the slur was first reported and one day before his synagogue apology, Jackson attended a meeting of the Nation of Islam in Chicago. There, Farrakhan told Jews: “If you harm this brother, I warn you in the name of Allah, this will be the last one you harm.”

Farrakhan was just getting started. On March 11, he referred to Hitler “as a very great man.” In June, he described Judaism as a “gutter religion.” By summertime, Jewish organizations were demanding that Jackson, still at that point running for president, fully denounce Farrakhan. Jackson initially resisted that call, instead downgrading the controversial cleric’s status from campaign “surrogate” to “supporter.” Eventually, with his campaign on fire, a besieged Jackson made a complete disavowal.

The long-term repercussions of this episode for the fragile Black-Jewish alliance were immense. The scandal launched Farrakhan — who until that point could have been described, per The New Republic, as “the boss of a fringe Muslim sect” — into national and even international visibility, so much so that Libyan ruler Muamar Gaddafi soon donated to his cause. Perched atop this new platform, Farrakhan set about injecting his group’s unremittingly antisemitic worldview into the cultural mainstream.

Conspiracy theories with lingering influence

The consequences of this ascent are still unfolding today.

For instance, the falsehood that Jews were major players in the African slave trade had little traction before the events of 1984. After them, it became a hot subject in popular and even academic circles. The far-right commentator Candace Owen’s antisemitic espousal of it to her audience of millions is only the most recent manifestation of that trend.

Under Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam argued that “so-called Jews” were imposters who had usurped and appropriated an African religious identity. That trope has recently reappeared in statements by public figures like Nick Cannon, Kyrie Irving, Deshawn Jackson, and Ice Cube — some of whom have since apologized.

It’s not just the Jewish community that has suffered in response. Farrakhan’s emergence also triggered what journalist Marjorie Valburn has called a “litmus test” for Black politicians: A requirement that Black political candidates must publicly denounce Farrakhan, often at the summons of a Jewish leader. The test has been administered countless times, including to former President Barack Obama during his 2008 campaign; numerous Democratic lawmakers in 2018; and Congressman Jamaal Bowman in 2024.

As Cynthia Ozick once observed, a Jew is a person who makes distinctions. Major Jewish organizations who subjected Blacks to the litmus test seemed incapable of doing precisely that. Jackson was clearly not Farrakhan. Truth be told, most Black people who shared Farrakhan’s concerns about economic empowerment were not and are not Farrakhan; they have little interest in his antisemitic obsessions.

In any case, I know of no case where applications of this test helped to improve Black-Jewish relations. Quite the contrary: It bred further resentment and distrust.

A mistaken mythology

As I learned while co-authoring a book about Black-Jewish relations with Terrence L. Johnson, the Black-Jewish alliance was never quite as “feel-good” as its champions have alleged. Even when the groups collaborated toward impressive Civil Rights accomplishments,their encounter was rife with every imaginable tension.

Johnson and I date the alliance from the NAACP’s founding in 1909 to the Six-Day War in 1967. One of our key observations was that inter-group tensions between Blacks and Jews were exacerbated and even driven by intra-group tensions. In other words, pitched battles between Jewish liberals and conservatives, and between Church-based liberals and Black radicals did much to shape — and endanger — the alliance, even when it was racking up victories for civil rights.

The same held true after 1984. Because of the intra-group complexities with which Jackson was dealing —  trying to temper the effusions of radicals like Farrakhan while absorbing them into his coalition — his relations with Jews got worse. And tension within the Jewish community about how to respond equally spurred reasonable mistrust on the other side. Many forgave, but others, like then- executive director of the ADL, Nathan Perlmutter, did not: Perlmutter once said that Jackson “could light candles every Friday night and grow side curls, and it still wouldn’t matter. He’s a whore.”

The irony and tragedy is that Jackson was, in fact, one of the leaders in either community who put in the most effort to repair the shattered alliance. He understood its importance, and the risks of its dissolution. He sought to solve collective problems by forging common ground among disparate actors in a mutli-racial, multi-ethnic Rainbow Coalition.

His plan did not come to fruition. But as we mourn his passing, we should ponder his legacy, and revisit his compelling vision.

The post The ‘Hymietown’ affair degraded Black-Jewish relations. Jesse Jackson wasn’t the real culprit appeared first on The Forward.