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JD Vance just made a critical error in Israel — and time to curb Hamas is running short
The arrival of Vice President JD Vance in Israel on Tuesday was, in one sense, encouraging. Vance’s presence, with presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, signaled that the United States remains focused on the Gaza endgame. That message of engagement was right, as was the trio’s repeated message that Hamas must disarm.
But something essential was very much wrong. There was no sign that the U.S. understands what it will actually take to bring Hamas to heel.
Vance, Witkoff and Kushner’s rhetoric was managerial, not martial. It conveyed commitment without urgency. The measured tones implicit in the warnings that “time” and “hard work” are needed betrayed a deeper failure to grasp what the moment demands. Because words will not disarm Hamas — the single step most necessary to any effort to create a lasting peace.
Now is not the moment for carefully explaining how complex disarmament would be. It’s the moment for applying all possible pressure to get that disarmament done. If this does not occur soon, President Donald Trump’s peace plan will not just fall apart but become a joke. The best-case scenario would be the embarrassment of a prematurely declared victory. The worst would be an echo of Neville Chamberlain proclaiming “peace in our time” amid the failed effort to appease Hitler in the run-up to World War II.
As soon as the firing ceased, Hamas began consolidating power, publicly slaughtering members of rival groups by the dozen. These are not the actions of a group that intends to move forward in accordance with Trump’s plan, which calls for its disarmament and removal from all governance.
Rather, these are the actions of a group that thinks it has achieved what it has wanted: to remain standing at the end of the war, and thus be able to claim victory and validation. True, it is standing atop the smoldering ruins left by two years of death and devastation, but its leaders are indifferent to that cost. Indeed, they likely even see it as valuable in bringing global condemnation upon Israel.
If the U.S. is serious about ending this war on terms that deny Hamas any path back to power, it must respond to Hamas by replacing rhetoric with leverage. What is needed now is not patience but a dramatic and public escalation of pressure — a demonstration that Washington is prepared to wield the world’s biggest baseball bat until Hamas yields.
The U.S. should start by declaring, publicly and unequivocally, that no reconstruction money or aid will enter Gaza while any part of it remains under Hamas control. That is the red line, and it must be enforced, not implied. It’s essential to take every step possible to show Hamas that the material and political costs of them keeping their guns substantially outweigh any benefits.
Next, the U.S. must move beyond gentle urging and demand action by the three Arab states that matter most: Qatar, Turkey and Egypt. Each has in some way helped to sustain Hamas, and each depends heavily on American goodwill. Washington should insist on deliverables — that the countries freeze accounts affiliated with Hamas, expel Hamas operatives and make public commitments to choke off support — and couple them with clear consequences for failure. If these governments want continued partnership, they must help end Hamas’s reign.
Vance’s Tuesday appearance set an underwhelming precedent for any of these actions.
The time is running short for the U.S. to establish a blunt public posture. That stance is the only one with a shot at conveying to Hamas that, if they don’t comply, war will, unfortunately and inevitably, resume.
I say this as someone who opposed the war’s continuation. But the truth is that the enormous moral and political costs already paid cannot justify an outcome in which Gaza is still ruled by armed fanatics. The sunk cost of this campaign demands a decisive outcome: a territory free of Hamas’s guns.
The American envoys, to their credit, repeated that objective. Yet they sounded like negotiators, not enforcers.
That same error has proved costly for this administration before. After the June war in which Israel — and then the U.S. — crippled Iran’s nuclear and missile program, Tehran was momentarily staggered and diplomatically isolated. That was the moment to extract concessions: a formal rollback of uranium enrichment, an end to proxy militia funding and real limits on missile development.
Instead, Trump bombastically claimed victory and moved on. Within weeks, Iran had resumed its patterns of defiance, with its leaders rejecting negotiations over the nuclear program with the U.S. and backing out of a recent cooperation deal with the United Nations nuclear watchdog IAEA.
His team can’t make the same mistake twice. It’s time for them to employ substantial U.S. leverage against the Arab states that can help keep things on course. Qatar hosts the region’s largest U.S. air base and holds hundreds of billions in American investments. Turkey is a NATO ally angling for defense deals and financial relief. Egypt’s military depends on U.S. aid. None can afford sustained friction with Washington. The time for polite persuasion has passed.
This is a binary moment. Either Hamas disarms and Gaza rebuilds under international supervision, or it clings to its weapons and condemns the territory to perpetual siege. There is no middle ground. Each week of drift lets the group rearm, recruit, and rewrite the narrative, emerging from the rubble and calling survival victory.
The habit of claiming credit before closing the deal — the instinct to declare progress rather than enforce it — haunts this administration. It is now offering a lifeline to Hamas. It must take pains to ensure that history does not record that the U.S. — amid risibly premature pomp and circumstance — turned what could have been a positive ending into yet another prelude for war.
The post JD Vance just made a critical error in Israel — and time to curb Hamas is running short appeared first on The Forward.
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Israeli Ambassador Sounds Alarm on Rising Antisemitism in Germany as Left Party Youth Wing Targets Jews as ‘Traitors’
Pro-Hamas demonstrators marching in Munich, Germany. Photo: Reuters/Alexander Pohl
Israel’s ambassador to Germany, Ron Prosor, has warned of a rising wave of antisemitism in the European country, particularly from left-wing groups, as the youth wing of Germany’s Left Party continues to spread anti-Israel rhetoric and harasses Zionists, labeling them “traitors.”
In a new interview with the German news outlet Berliner Morgenpost, Prosor said that the local Jewish community is living in fear amid an increasingly hostile climate, noting that it is “better not to walk down Sonnenallee in Neukölln wearing a Star of David.”
“In 2025, Jewish men and women fear attending university or riding the subway because they are visibly Jewish. That schools, community centers, and synagogues require round-the-clock police protection is not normal,” the Israeli diplomat said.
Prosor also highlighted the growing threat of left-leaning antisemitism, saying it is even more dangerous than antisemitism from the political right or from Islamist extremists.
“Left-wing antisemitism, in my view, is even more dangerous because it masks its intentions. It has long operated on the thin line between free speech and incitement,” he said.
“Across Europe, this is visible on university campuses and theaters. Many present themselves as educated, moral, and progressive — yet the line separating free speech from incitement was crossed long ago,” he continued. “Israel is demonized and delegitimized day after day, and it is Jews everywhere who ultimately suffer the consequences.”
His comments came after Germany’s Left Party youth wing last week passed an anti-Israel resolution labeling the world’s lone Jewish state a “colonial and racist state project,” sparking controversy within both the local Jewish community and the party’s senior leadership.
During the Left Youth’s 18th Federal Congress last weekend, Jewish delegates reported being harassed by fellow party members — branded “traitors” and even warned of an internal “purge.”
According to local media reports, several participants left early after colleagues allegedly threatened to show up at their hotel rooms at night.
Now, the youth group is set to vote next week on a motion falsely accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, as well as another measure calling for support of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate the Jewish state internationally as a step toward its eventual elimination.
Earlier this year, the Berlin Office for the Protection of the Constitution — the agency responsible for monitoring extremist groups and reporting to the German Interior Ministry — designated BDS as a “proven extremist endeavor hostile to the constitution.” The agency also described the campaign’s “anti-constitutional ideology, which denies Israel’s right to exist.” That followed Germany’s federal domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), last year classifying BDS as a “suspected extremist case” with links to “secular Palestinian extremism.”
Prosor in his interview condemned the Left Youth’s latest resolution and the harassment of Jewish members, saying “the red line has been crossed.”
“The youth wing of the Left Party is showing the true face of left-wing antisemitism, which would otherwise remain well hidden,” the Israeli diplomat wrote in a post on X.
“By justifying terror, turning a blind eye to antisemitism, and denying Israel’s right to exist, the Left Party has abandoned its moral compass and integrity. All that remains is extremism, radical ideology, and violence,” Prosor continued.
Die rote Linie ist überschritten. Die Jugend der Linkspartei offenbart das wahre Gesicht des linken Antisemitismus, der sonst gut verborgen bleibt.
Mit der Rechtfertigung von Terror, dem Ignorieren von Antisemitismus und der Leugnung des Existenzrechts Israels hat die… pic.twitter.com/mNEmdNR0dp
— Ambassador Ron Prosor (@Ron_Prosor) November 7, 2025
Amid increasing political pressure to clearly distance itself from the youth wing, senior leaders of Germany’s Left Party are now facing growing scrutiny.
While the youth group is technically independent, it relies financially on the main party.
After meeting Wednesday night, the party’s executive committee issued a statement saying there was “broad agreement that the approved motion is inconsistent with the positions of the Left Party.”
“Antisemitism and the downplaying of antisemitic positions contradict the core values of the Left,” the statement read.
“Intimidation, pressure, and exclusion have no place in a left-wing youth organization, and even less in the political culture we uphold as the Left,” it continued.
However, intimidation of dissenting voices and anti-Israel rhetoric are not new within the Left Party, following a pattern of previous antisemitic incidents within the organization.
For example, Berlin’s former Culture Senator, Klaus Lederer, and other prominent members left the organization last year following an antisemitic scandal at a party conference in Berlin.
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Progressive Jewish groups say ADL’s ‘Mamdani Monitor’ is ‘Islamophobic and racist’
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The post Progressive Jewish groups say ADL’s ‘Mamdani Monitor’ is ‘Islamophobic and racist’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iran’s Water Crisis Worsens as President Warns Tehran May Need to Be Evacuated
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian speaks during a meeting in Ilam, Iran, June 12, 2025. Photo: Iran’s Presidential website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iran has endured an extreme drought in recent months, depleting the country’s reservoirs and leading President Masoud Pezeshkian to warn that the capital may even need to be evacuated.
“If rationing doesn’t work, we may have to evacuate Tehran,” Pezeshkian said last week, adding that the Iranian regime will start restricting water supplies in the city next month if there isn’t more rain.
According to Abbasali Keykhaei of the Iranian Water Resources Management Company, 19 major dams comprising 10 percent of the country’s reservoirs have run dry. In Tehran — a city with 10 million people in the city itself and 18 million in the metropolitan area — five dams that provide drinking water have hit “critical” levels, with one at below 8 percent capacity.
Hossein Esmaeilian, managing director of the Water and Wastewater Company in Mashad, the country’s second largest city with four million residents, told state media that reserves have fallen below 3 percent and that “the current situation shows that managing water use is no longer merely a recommendation – it has become a necessity.”
Esmaeilian added that “only 3 percent of the combined capacity of Mashhad’s four water-supplying dams — Torogh, Kardeh, Doosti, and Ardak — remains. Apart from Doosti Dam, the other three are out of operation.”
Iranian Energy Minister Abbas Ali Abadi has stated that “some nights we might decrease the water flow to zero.” He said on Iranian state television on Saturday that this was needed “so that reservoirs can refill.”
“If people can reduce consumption by 20 percent, it seems possible to manage the situation without rationing or cutting off water,” Esmaeilian urged Iranians, suggesting that those consuming the most would see cuts to their water supply first.
However, environmental researcher Azam Bahrami told German media outlet DW that “reduced consumption among the population is nowhere near enough to overcome this crisis.”
“One look at the water consumption pyramid shows that the agriculture sector consumes about 80-90 percent, the biggest share,” Bahrami continued. “As long as other sectors are positioned as priority … the water saving measures will not be very successful.”
The BBC reported that Iranian weather officials do not expect rain in the next 10 days. Mohammad-Ali Moallem, who manages the Karaj Dam, said that there was a 92 percent decrease in rain compared to last year.
“We have only 8 percent water in our reservoir — and most of it is unusable and considered ‘dead water,’” he added.
Stuttgart University researcher Mohammad Javad Tourian told DW about the rate of water loss Iran has seen in recent years.
“Iran loses a volume the size of Lake Constance almost every three years,” Tourian said. “In total, some 370 cubic kilometers have disappeared over the last 23 years. This means the problem is very serious.”
The question of a potential evacuation of Tehran remains unresolved. Former Tehran Mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi stated that fleeing the city due to the drought “makes no sense at all.”
Tourian identified actions that Iran could take to provide “rapid relief,” saying that prioritizing drinking water in key cities and the “temporary diverting of less critical usage” could be effective as quick, short-term steps.
However, actions to create a sustainable solution to the water crisis remain elusive.
While the Islamic regime in Iran struggles to quench the thirst of the Iranian people, its military reportedly remains stocked in its missiles targeting Israel.
“Our missile power today far surpasses that of the 12-day war,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said last week, referring to the regime’s brief conflict with Israel in June. “The enemy in the recent 12-day war failed to achieve all its objectives and was defeated.”
Brig. Gen. Aziz Nasirzadeh likewise boasted of Iranian military might, saying on Monday that the country’s “defense production has improved both in quantity and quality compared to before the 12-day Israeli-imposed war in June.”
Last week, a US official confirmed that Iran had initiated a plan to assassinate Ambassador Einat Kranz Neiger, Israel’s emissary in Mexico City.
“The plot was contained and does not pose a current threat,” the official told i24 News. “This is just the latest in a long history of Iran’s global lethal targeting of diplomats, journalists, dissidents, and anyone who disagrees with them, something that should deeply worry every country where there is an Iranian presence.”