As the United States ramps up its military presence in the Persian Gulf amid rising tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, a symbolic move by China has fueled speculation that Beijing could arm Tehran with cutting-edge stealth aircraft, potentially challenging the US and Israel’s regional dominance.

Last week, a Chinese military attaché in Tehran — a senior official handling defense and military relations — presented Brigadier General Bahman Behmard, commander of the Iranian Air Force, with a scale model of China’s J-20 stealth fighter.

Even though no official contract has been announced, experts interpreted the Chinese gesture as a sharp warning to the US and close ally Israel amid mounting fears of renewed conflict in the Middle East.

If China were to supply fifth-generation jets to Iran, it would not only strengthen Tehran’s deterrence but also break Beijing’s previous stance of neutrality and limited diplomatic support, signaling a direct challenge to US sanctions.

However, it remains unclear whether China actually intends to sell the J-20 to Iran or if presenting its mockup was meant mainly to signal Washington that Beijing is prepared to support Tehran politically, technologically, and otherwise militarily.

While China has publicly urged de-escalation and restraint from both sides in the US-Iran dispute, its latest symbolic move sends a stark signal that Beijing may be prepared to directly challenge US influence in the region.

China’s advanced AI-driven satellites could also give Tehran a strategic advantage by providing the regime with precise intelligence on US military assets in the region, the Eurasian Times reported.

After repeated attempts at nuclear talks between the US and Iran have failed to yield meaningful results, Washington has deployed large numbers of troops and assets to the region in a bid to pressure Tehran back to the negotiating table more willing to make concessions.

With at least a dozen F-22s from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia and F-16s from bases in Italy, Germany, and South Carolina deployed to the Gulf, along with a significant fleet of fighter, surveillance, and intelligence aircraft, the US is marking the fastest military buildup in the region seen over the past month.

According to media reports, F-35 jets from the United Kingdom are also headed to Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan — a recent hub of US air operations — while a dozen US Navy warships are already active in the area.

Meanwhile, the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, entered the Mediterranean Sea on Friday, joining the USS Abraham Lincoln and the attendant ships that form its carrier strike group.

Advanced air defenses and radar systems have also been deployed to the region to help counter a potential Iranian response to any US military action.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Friday he expected to have a draft counterproposal ready within days following nuclear talks with the US this week.

US President Donald Trump said he was considering a limited military strike on Iran but gave no further details.

Asked if he was considering such a strike to pressure Iran into a deal on its nuclear program, Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday, “I guess I can say I am considering” it.

The US president was asked later about Iran at a White House press conference and added, “They better negotiate a fair deal.”

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

Amid mounting regional tensions, Washington could launch military strikes as soon as Saturday, CBS News reported.

On Thursday, Trump warned that the Islamist regime must reach a “meaningful deal” in its negotiations with the White House within the next 10-15 days, or “bad things will happen.”

US and Israeli officials have argued that a deal should go beyond Iran’s nuclear program and include limits on its ballistic missiles and a cessation of support for terrorist groups across the Middle East. Iranian officials have said that both issues are firm red lines and that they only seek to strike a deal over the country’s nuclear program, although Tehran has publicly rejected a US demand of forgoing all enrichment of uranium.

In the past, particularly during last June’s 12-day war when the US and Israel struck the Iranian regime’s nuclear facilities, China — despite being a close ally and strategic partner of Iran — remained notably on the sidelines, offering only diplomatic support and statements of condemnation rather than any tactical or material assistance.

A key diplomatic and economic backer of Tehran, China has moved to deepen ties with the regime in recent years, signing a 25-year cooperation agreement, holding joint naval drills, and continuing to purchase Iranian oil despite US sanctions.

China is also the largest importer of Iranian oil, with nearly 90 percent of Iran’s crude and condensate exports going to Beijing.

Last week, the two allies — along with Russia — took part in the Maritime Security Belt 2026 joint naval drills in the Strait of Hormuz, delivering yet another symbolic show of force as regional tensions climb.

According to some media reports, China may be even helping Iran rebuild its decimated air defenses following last year’s 12-day war.

The Iranian regime has reportedly acquired China’s HQ-9B long-range surface-to-air missile systems and YLC-8B radar units, along with thousands of tons of sodium perchlorate, a chemical used to produce fuel for solid-propellant mid-range ballistic missiles.

Iran’s growing ties with China come at a time when Tehran faces mounting economic sanctions from Western powers, while Beijing itself is also under US sanctions.

There’s a joke in Blazing Saddles, about an event that took place several thousand years ago, that maybe hasn’t aged so well.

It’s in the scene where Harvey Korman’s conniving Attorney General Hedley Lamarr brainstorms plans to clear away the town of Rock Ridge. Lamarr’s lackey Taggart, played by Slim Pickens, makes a modest proposal: “We’ll kill the firstborn male child in every household.”

Lamarr considers the idea, before dismissing it. “Too Jewish,” he says.

When I heard that quip in a recent rewatch with my girlfriend (her first time), I saw a new reason why you couldn’t make the film today: Modern audiences, particularly those amateur critics itching to sound off online, seem to have more fluency in blood libels about Jews than the Passover narrative Mel Brooks and Co. were riffing on. For those who think the Epstein files contain damning proof of elites eating babies, “too Jewish” might seem like an admission. For the many more who look upon Zion as the source of the world’s ills, a misreading of the gag would likely go viral.

True, Blazing Saddles was made in 1974, well before the recent carnage in Gaza. But I could imagine the rejoinders — “Israel has been killing kids since 1948!”

I put the “too Jewish” joke out of mind for a bit. I decided I was overstating just how wrong people on the internet could be. And then I encountered a post on X. It was responding to a screenshot from Marty Supreme, where the title character presents his mother with a chunk of the pyramids. “We built that,” he says.

“This is Zionist propaganda,” an eagle-eyed netizen wrote, to the tune of nearly 96,000 likes, 11,000 reposts and 7 million views. The self-professed “archeology (sic) major” took the occasion to correct this humorous expression of the collosal self-regard of an antihero ping-pong hustler with proof that this particular Wonder of the World was the work of well-respected Egyptian craftsmen and so (somehow) invalidates the Jewish national project.

Someone else said the film, which nowhere mentions Israel, was Zionist. A Letterboxd review is terse in its description: “if the spiritually Israeli term was a movie.”

This failure to grasp Jewish references that have their own ontology — or the desire to graft more recent ones onto them — is becoming a theme.

Last year, The Brutalist, was mired in a debate about whether or not its subplot about the newly formed Jewish state was an endorsement or indictment of national ambitions in the Levant. (In entering this particular fray, most missed the point: Recent survivors of the Holocaust discussed and argued about Israel, some moved there, others didn’t and a film can present this reality without offering a judgment either way.)

When I see these takes, I beat my chest as if performing viddui over the death of media literacy.

As a critic for a Jewish publication, whose remit is to read deeply into even the most tenuous of Jewish subtexts, this pains me. Not because I myself have offended (though perhaps I have), but because I take the work seriously and try my hardest not to impose on art something that just isn’t there. I’m reminded of Freud’s famous remark: “Sometimes a cigar is a phallic metaphor for Jewish domination on stolen Palestinian land.”

Sorry, that wasn’t it at all, was it?

What the terminally online crowd often mean to say when they shout “Zionist propaganda” is “there are Jews in this!” It’s not a great way to interpret art, and it undermines the legitimacy of the argument that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism. But a film need not even have Jews in it for some to claim it’s really about Israel.

My colleagues and I have written about how Dune, Superman, and Zootopia 2 have been seized by the internet as part of the monomyth of Israeli villainy. When people make these connections, they may believe they’re thinking deeply, but they’re really just reaching for the nearest headline or playing to their own biases.

This insistence on Israel as the ultimate Big Bad reminds me of a remark made by Denise Gough, an actor in the Star Wars series Andor (another property said to be about Israel-Palestine, even though the creator Tony Gilroy mentioned numerous historical inspirations, most directly the Wannsee Conference). In an interview, Gough said a fan sent her a Star Wars analogy, which she said she only half understood.

The fan argued that just as the Death Star, a planet-destroying weapon, has an Achilles’ heel in its exhaust port, that when fired at explodes the whole thing, the conflicts of the world have a focal point in Palestine from which the architecture of oppression can be demolished.

“If we can free Palestine,” Gough concluded, “it explodes everything.” “Everything,” here, being unrelated atrocities in Sudan, Congo and Nigeria.

Let’s leave aside the fact that Gough, an actor in a Star Wars property, is somehow unfamiliar with the most iconic scene in the franchise, and what that level of research might connote for her understanding of the dynamics of the Middle East.

What she is really demonstrating, when she mentions other countries rocked by violence, is something much scarier: how the conspiratorial, magical thinking that all wrongs lead back to Israel — and that everything is a metaphor for it — echoes tropes of Jewish control and is ultimately an excuse for an exclusive fixation. Turn off the targeting computer that acknowledges complexity. Use the force, Denise! Get rid of the Zionist entity, every other crisis will sort itself out!

And so, I worry that Jewish stories — or even jokes — will stop being seen outside of a context of Israel’s actions and that metaphors and allegory will lose their elasticity, all looping back to a unified theory of evil Jews. Not for everyone, but for enough people to make a difference.

The Jewish story is textured, complex and anything but unified. Marty Supreme, The Brutalist and Blazing Saddles, each make this case. Those who see only one narrative not only miss the plot, they miss out on what good art does best.

The post Dear internet: Having Jews in movies isn’t ‘Zionist propaganda’ appeared first on The Forward.

The French government is moving to criminalize anti-Zionism in a sweeping bid to confront a deepening surge in antisemitism targeting Jews and Israelis across the country, as officials warn of a growing climate of fear and intimidation nationwide.

Speaking at the annual gathering of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF), the main representative body of French Jews, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu announced that the government would introduce a bill criminalizing anti-Zionist expressions, signaling a move to tackle antisemitism in all its forms, not just traditional manifestations.

“To define oneself as anti-Zionist is to question Israel’s right to exist. It’s a call for the destruction of an entire people under the guise of ideology,” the French leader said.

“There is a difference between legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and rejecting the very existence of the Jewish state. This ‘blurring’ must stop,” he continued.

“Calling for the destruction of the State of Israel is calling to endanger the lives of a people and cannot be tolerated any longer,” Lecornu added. “Hatred of Jews is hatred of the Republic and a stain on France.”

The European Jewish Congress (EJC) commended Lecornu’s announcement, praising him “for his clear and principled commitment to criminalize calls for the destruction of any state, including Israel.”

“Calling for the destruction of the State of Israel is calling to endanger the lives of a people and cannot be tolerated any longer”

We commend PM @SebLecornu for his clear and principled commitment to criminalize calls for the destruction of any state, including Israel. pic.twitter.com/dvCd2iMtUB

— European Jewish Congress (@eurojewcong) February 20, 2026

During the ceremony, CRIF president Yonathan Arfi warned that Jewish communities in France are under mounting threat, stressing the urgent need for action against the country’s rising antisemitism.

“Antisemitism knows no truce. The conflict in the Middle East has acted as a catalyst. But the hatred growing in our country is a French problem, and there is no reason to expect a rapid decline,” Arfi said.

In April, the French government is expected to endorse a private bill proposed by Jewish Member of Parliament Caroline Yadan, who represents French citizens abroad — including thousands living in Israel — with backing from right-wing parties likely ensuring the majority needed to pass the legislation.

Yadan explained that the bill is designed to combat emerging forms of antisemitism, emphasizing the urgent need for stronger legal measures to protect Jewish communities in France.

“This is a clear statement: Our Republic will not become accustomed, will not look the other way, and will never abandon the Jews of France,” the French lawmaker said.

« Il faut une étape supplémentaire : appeler à la destruction d’Israël, c’est appeler à la mise en danger de tout un peuple. »

Je remercie le Premier ministre @SebLecornu d’avoir annoncé, ce soir, lors du dîner du @Le_CRIF, l’examen, en avril prochain, de ma proposition de loi… pic.twitter.com/hruoRSP5iE

— Caroline Yadan (@CarolineYADAN) February 19, 2026

Like most countries across Europe and the broader Western world, France has seen a rise in antisemitic incidents over the last two years, in the wake of the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

According to the French Interior Ministry’s annual report on anti-religious acts, antisemitism in France remained alarmingly high last year, with 1,320 incidents recorded across the country.

Although the total number of antisemitic outrages in 2025 fell by 16 percent compared to 2024’s second highest ever total of 1,570 cases, the report warned that antisemitism remains “historically high,” with more than 3.5 attacks occurring every day.

The most recent figure of total antisemitic incidents represents a 21 percent decline from 2023’s record high of 1,676 incidents, but a 203 percent increase from the 436 antisemitic acts recorded in 2022, before the Oct. 7 atrocities.

Even though Jews make up less than 1 percent of France’s population, they accounted for 53 percent of all religiously motivated crimes last year.

Between 2022 and 2025, antisemitic attacks across France quadrupled, leaving the Jewish community more exposed than ever.