(Washington Post) Gerry Shih - On Dec. 17, 2024, nine days after the ouster of former president Bashar al-Assad, Israeli helicopters landed in the Druze stronghold in southern Syria with humanitarian aid as well as 500 rifles, ammunition and body armor for a Druze militia called the Military Council, two former Israeli officials said. Israelis are also providing monthly payments between $100 to $200 to 3,000 Druze militiamen, two Druze officials said. The Israeli government's overarching strategy since the fall of Assad has been ensuring that a regime with the capability to threaten Israel does not emerge on its northeastern border, and officials believe Washington is naive when it accepts Ahmed al-Sharaa's insistence he has given up his extremist views. The Druze, followers of a monotheistic religion that differs from both Islam and Judaism, have played a prominent part in Israel, including by serving in senior positions in the Israeli military and government, and are therefore seen as a natural ally in Syria to many within the Israeli defense establishment. Israeli officials say that Israel has shown pragmatism by circumscribing its support for the Syrian Druze, dialing back military pressure on Syria, and giving negotiations a chance in recent months. There has also been a growing recognition within Israel that not all Druze have rallied around the Syrian Druze spiritual leader Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, who has been leading calls for splintering from Damascus with Israeli help. Funds have been funneled to the Military Council in Druze-majority Sweida province via the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led militia that also maintains ties to Israel. The SDF also trained Syrian Druze, including women, in Kurdish areas in northern Syria - a relationship that continues to this day. An Israeli government official said, "Israel expects Syria to establish a demilitarized buffer zone from Damascus to the [border] buffer zone area, including the approaches to Mount Hermon and the summit of Mount Hermon....It is possible to reach an agreement with the Syrians, but we will stand by our principles, including permanent protection for our Druze brothers and sisters, who were massacred this summer in atrocities reminiscent of October 7th."

(Jerusalem Post) Seth J. Frantzman - A major gun battle developed in Aleppo between government forces and local security forces in two Kurdish neighborhoods, signaling ongoing tensions between the government in Damascus and Kurdish groups aligned with the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). These neighborhoods have been secured by their own local Kurdish security force and were basically autonomous for much of the civil war after 2012. In March, the head of the SDF, Mazloum Abdi, met with the new Syrian president, Ahmed al-Sharaa. They agreed to integrate the SDF into the new Syrian security forces.

(New York Times) Erika Solomon - Some of Bashar al-Assad's top spymasters and generals are plotting to undermine the fledgling government that ousted them, a year after fleeing as the Assad regime collapsed. Some former regime leaders are attempting to build an armed insurgency from exile. Several hope to carve off Syria's coast, home to the minority Alawite sect to which Assad and many of his top military and intelligence officials belong. Two main figures involved in these efforts are Suhail Hassan, Assad's former special forces commander, and Kamal Hassan, a former military spy chief. Both men face international sanctions on accusations of war crimes. They have distributed funds and recruited fighters. Suhail Hassan's network has procured weapons, and he has met with collaborators in Lebanon, Iraq and even Syria over the past year. Two former Assad officials told the Times they were well positioned to recruit from an Alawite community that is not only frightened, but also full of former soldiers.

(Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs) Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar said Wednesday: "Foreign governments will not restrict the right of Jews to live in the Land of Israel, and any such call is morally wrong and discriminatory against Jews. The Cabinet decision to establish 11 new communities and to formalize eight additional communities is intended, among other things, to help address the security threats Israel is facing. All of the communities are located in Area C and are situated on state land." "Israel acts in accordance with international law. The incorporation of the 1917 Balfour Declaration into the [British] Mandate was explicitly agreed upon at the San Remo Conference in 1920. According to the Mandate, the right of the Jewish people to establish its national home extends over the entire territory of Mandatory Palestine. These rights were preserved in Article 80 of the Charter of the United Nations."

(Times of Israel) Lazar Berman - Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar on Wednesday accused Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of lying about internal reforms to end the PA's "pay-to-slay" policy, which provided financial benefits to the families of terrorists. "Instead of ending all payments, he's disguising many of them as payments to pensioners and salaries of the PA Security Services," Sa'ar said, demanding that the international community "hold the PA accountable" for the policy. The Foreign Ministry told the Times of Israel that the PA was continuing to issue payments under the old mechanism "through various channels designed to conceal their continuation, while creating a false impression of reforms for the international community." It said the PA has earmarked $214 million for such payments in 2025.

(Ha'aretz) Nagham Zbeedat - Israel's Channel 11 on Sunday reported on Ramallah's Icon Mall, which opened in April. It is one of the largest and most modern commercial complexes in the West Bank, housing dozens of international and local brands, restaurants, and entertainment venues. The mall has quickly become a major destination for shoppers from across central West Bank cities. The mall's owner, Gandhi Jaber, has been listed on international wanted notices by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for large-scale drug trafficking.

(Times of Israel) Lazar Berman - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel is working to gain as much independence as possible in its weapons production. "I approved, along with the defense minister and finance minister, a sum of NIS 350 billion [$108 billion] over the next decade to build an independent Israeli munitions industry. We want to reduce our dependence on all players, including friends."

(Jerusalem Post) Amichai Stein - The UN spends $100 million per year on reports, debates, special mechanisms, and communication activities dedicated almost exclusively to singling out Israel, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said Tuesday. "These are orchestrated campaigns, well-funded and well-established within the UN budget...spent on activities against the government of Israel and against the IDF." The analysis, conducted by the Israeli Permanent Mission to the UN and International Organizations, identifies UN bodies such as the Division for Palestinian Rights and multiple General Assembly committees whose sole purpose is to promote the Palestinian cause. At least 100 reports are produced annually on Israel and the Palestinians, many of them repetitive, politically driven, and one-sided.

(Ynet News) A study by EIT Hub Israel - the Israeli innovation hub of the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) - found that over the past three years Israeli technology companies have significantly expanded their activities across Europe. These companies now employ more than 30,000 workers throughout the continent. Germany, Spain and France serve as the main innovation hubs, while Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic functioning as cost-effective operational bases for engineering centers and shared services. Israeli companies are establishing large service centers employing hundreds of workers in Lithuania, Bulgaria and Romania. "There is a natural synergy between Israel's strengths in AI, cybersecurity, robotics, and defense and the structure of leading European economies such as Germany, France and the UK, as well as the EU's new priorities, particularly in internal and external security," said Dina Pasca-Raz, head of technology at KPMG Israel.

(Jerusalem Post) Amb. Alan Baker - The recent bestial Muslim terrorist attack against Australian Jews celebrating the Jewish festival of Hanukkah on Dec. 14 at Bondi Beach in Sydney follows a growing pattern of systematic Islamist-inspired violence and intimidation deliberately directed against innocent civilians celebrating their traditional religious festivals and civic holidays in Western societies. A Dec. 2016 terrorist attack on a Christmas market in Berlin left 12 people murdered and dozens wounded. In 2018, a similar Islamist attack at a Christmas market killed five people in Strasbourg, France. On Dec. 21, 2024, five people were killed when a vehicle rammed into a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, injuring 200 others. Islamist, anti-religious, anti-Christian, and antisemitic violence is now spreading across Western societies like wildfire. In November 2025, the German town of Overath cancelled its traditional Christmas market, citing prohibitive security costs. Similar cancellations have occurred in Dresden, Rostock, and elsewhere in Germany. In France, Paris authorities cancelled the annual New Year's Eve celebrations on the Champs-Elysees, which last year drew close to a million celebrants. In Brussels in Dec. 2025, Islamist groups overran the Christmas market, forcing Christian families to flee in fear. In Milan, Islamist agitators disrupted festivities and imposed Palestinian flags on celebrants. This atmosphere of fear has also penetrated educational and cultural institutions. In Andover, England, a primary school informed parents that there would be no reference to Christmas in the school's festive performance "in order to be inclusive." In Denmark, kindergartens and schools have been cancelling or diluting Christmas celebrations for years to avoid offending Muslim sensitivities. How long will Western democracies, seemingly fixated on appeasing Muslim pressures, continue to erode their own Judeo-Christian traditions to avoid offending migrant sensitivities? How long will political correctness, misplaced guilt, and cultural appeasement override common sense and historical continuity? Once-proud democracies with rich religious and civic traditions - including Australia, Canada, the UK, Germany, France, and Italy - appear increasingly unable or unwilling to defend their own cultural heritage. The writer, former Legal Adviser and Deputy Director-General of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, heads the international law program at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.

(Boston Globe) Jeff Jacoby - I used to scoff when some American Jews told opinion surveys that antisemitism in the U.S. was "a very serious problem." I thought Jews had been blessed in America with a degree of tolerance and goodwill virtually unparalleled. America's story was rooted in Judeo-Christian soil. The founders of the American republic believed that they, like the Israelites of old, had been led to a Promised Land. Jews seemed familiar - the original protagonists in the very story the founders believed they were continuing. Jews were embraced as heirs to the scriptures Americans revered. George Washington in his famous 1790 letter to the Jewish community of Newport, R.I., said that in America, every Jew would live safely "and there shall be none to make him afraid." But the golden age has been replaced by a grim new reality in which antisemitism is being normalized with terrifying speed. Today, American synagogues and Jewish schools must spend a fortune on security. Jewish-owned businesses are targeted by antisemitic mobs, podcasters with huge followings platform Holocaust deniers, and social media is awash in anti-Jewish venom. Rev. Daniel Joslyn-Siemiatkoski, an Episcopal priest and director of the Center for Christian-Jewish Learning at Boston College, noted the difference between synagogues with rigorous security protocols and nearby churches where people were free to walk in and out of the open doors. "Why are we Americans willing to live like this? Why are Christians, who worship Jesus the Jew, willing to stand for this? Why do we stand by as Jews in our communities are threatened by antisemitic graffiti, as Jewish children are bullied in their schools, and as more and more Jews feel they must hide their Jewish identity for fear of harassment - or worse?" "Jesus lived as a Jew and taught as one. The gospels recount that one of the first acts of his public ministry was to teach in his home synagogue. If Jesus were to reappear today, what would he make of armed guards and locked doors at the entrance of U.S. synagogues?... Antisemitism threatens all of us. Rarely do those who target Jews with persecution, threats, or violence stop there. They come for others....Jesus would not keep silent at the sight of Jewish worshipers who need armed guards to pray in safety."

(Telegraph-UK) Elisa Bray - My children have been playing "sleeping lions" a lot lately. In the childhood game, you lie still and don't make a sound or the "hunter" will get you. They have been playing the game at their Jewish primary school as part of the lockdown drills that take place in the wake of the horrific shooting at Bondi Beach. When parents at schools around the country are watching their darlings take part in nativity productions and carol concerts, at Jewish schools children are undertaking lockdown drills to help protect them from the threat of attack from terrorists who hate Jews. Lockdown drills are a sad fact of life for American families. In the USA, 96% of state schools conduct them. But most British parents feel safe in the knowledge that it does not take place here in the UK. Except, it does. Unfortunately, children who attend Jewish schools live in a somewhat different reality in parallel to their non-Jewish peers. And it is time that everyone knows. It is time people are aware of the deep anxiety we felt after the Sydney killings, yet another massacre of innocent Jews. It was soon after two synagogue goers were killed in Manchester on Yom Kippur. Each time there is an antisemitic attack, no matter where in the world, the shock waves felt across the Jewish community bring home the awful reality that some people really do want us dead. The school prepared the children in advance. At the sound of an alarm and the words "sleeping lions," they needed to be silent and calm, breathe to focus their minds, and listen to an adult. Staff closed doors and covered windows to conceal those within, then hid quietly with the children in the classrooms until they heard the "all-clear." At ten-years-old and now used to the experience, my daughter was unperturbed while a teacher pretending to be an intruder hammered on the door, shouting. But it was my four-year-old's first drill. His teachers called it a game of "hide and seek." He told me how he hid in the toilet, and "if we wanted to sneeze or cough, we had to hold it in." How very sad it is that Jewish people have grown accustomed to something so... abnormal. "Sleeping lions" is the terrifying reality for Jewish children going to British primary schools today. And people should be angry.

(Wall Street Journal) Dov Lieber - Six months after a 12-day war with Iran over its nuclear program, Israeli officials are raising the prospect of another clash over Tehran's efforts to rebuild its arsenal of ballistic missiles. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel was watching Hamas, Hizbullah and Iran as they rearm and would act if necessary. Israel's new national security doctrine following Hamas's surprise Oct. 7, 2023, attacks holds that Israel won't hesitate to act on possible threats. Satellite images show Iran is rebuilding the missile production sites targeted by Israel in previous strikes, said Sam Lair, a research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Should Iran get its production facilities running at full capacity, it could produce hundreds of missiles a month, Lair said. Israel is concerned Iran could eventually produce thousands of missiles in the coming years, enough to overwhelm any defense. Security analysts said Israel sees a short window of opportunity while Iran's capacity to launch missiles is still degraded, its air defenses are weak, and the regime is dealing with a number of challenges. "We don't want to wait for them to get stronger to attack us," said Amir Avivi, a former senior defense official. "We have to deal with this now and hit them while they are weak and the air corridor is open."

(Institute for National Security Studies-Tel Aviv University) Raz Zimmt - The 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June 2025 had a destabilizing effect on the Islamic Republic due to the success of Israel's opening strike, the decision of the U.S. to join the campaign, and the damage sustained by Iran's nuclear program and long-range missile arsenal. Since the end of the war, Iran has engaged in an ongoing process of drawing lessons from the serious gaps revealed in the Islamic Republic's deterrence and defense capabilities. The war set back Iran's nuclear program considerably, particularly its enrichment capabilities, although residual capacities remain. Moreover, Iran's motivation to obtain nuclear weapons has increased in light of the war's lessons, which exposed the failure of its deterrence. At the same time, its leadership appears apprehensive about taking steps that could trigger another strike. Iran has intensified its efforts to reconstruct and upgrade its military systems, particularly its missile forces and air defenses. These efforts include ramping back up to pre-war missile production rates. In the regional arena, the war highlighted the collapse of the proxy concept, particularly after Hizbullah's defeat in the summer of 2024 and the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. The war also heightened doubts about the condition of Iran's leader, Ali Khamenei - who was forced into hiding during the war. The writer, a veteran Iran watcher in the IDF, is Director of the Iran and the Shiite Axis program at INSS.

(Wall Street Journal) Amit Segal - When Turkey's President Erdogan accuses Israel of encroaching on its neighbors' territory, he's mirroring his own desire to revive the Ottoman Empire, which once ruled those same regions. When he claims that Israel has "set its sights on" Turkey, he ignores his own prayers to Allah asking for Israel's destruction. While claiming that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians, he denies the genocide his country committed against the Armenians. Turkey stands by many bad actors in the region, supports terrorists and fuels instability. It has aided Pakistan against India, is reportedly building military bases in Sri Lanka, and hosts and protects Hamas members. Nothing good would come of allowing Turkish power in the region to increase. The U.S. recently signaled that it would try to sell F-35s to Saudi Arabia. Although Israel expressed concerns about such sales, it's clear that the Saudis would use these aircraft to defend against Iranian aggression, not to attack Tel Aviv. By contrast, Mr. Erdogan preaches the destruction of "Zionist Israel." There is no doubt that F-35 fighter jets sold to Ankara are intended for a future war with Israel. Selling the jets to Turkey would unsettle the delicate balance in the region and diminish or even wipe out the Israel Defense Forces' qualitative military edge. Why should the U.S. enable a future scenario in which F-35 jets conduct dogfights against each other? It would be a mistake to equip an increasingly aggressive and Islamist Turkey with far more advanced American weapons. The writer is chief political commentator on Israel's Channel 12 News.

(Foreign Affairs) Asli Aydintasbas - When the Gaza ceasefire deal was signed on Oct. 13, Turkey's President Erdogan stood beside President Trump and the leaders of Egypt and Qatar. More than 100 years earlier, General Allenby had led the British army into Jerusalem, ending four centuries of Ottoman rule. But now, striding center stage into the politics of the Holy Land was the final reclamation of Turkey's historic role in the Middle East. Or so Erdogan would want the Turks to believe. In truth, Turkey's power so far does not match Erdogan's aspirations to establish a Turkish-led regional order. Trump's embrace is highly unlikely to boost Turkey's influence in the region - or to persuade the rest of the Middle East to accept it. On its own, Turkey faces too many internal problems, including a strained economy and a hollowed-out state. For ordinary Turks who are struggling to make ends meet, imperial grandeur feels distant from daily hardship. Erdogan's geopolitical project rests on the idea that Turkey is destined to lead the broader Middle East. A week after Assad's fall, Erdogan declared that "as a nation, we cannot limit our vision to 782,000 square kilometers." Turkey "cannot escape its destiny." The government's formidable propaganda machine has popularized the idea that Turkey is bound for greatness. The Ottoman Empire has been rehabilitated as a model of order. Turkey's security establishment also embraces the idea of a Turkish-led regional order. The military, once a bastion of restraint, now champions Turkey's forward defense postures in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and the eastern Mediterranean. The growing Turkish defense industry has also given Ankara leverage with its European allies. In addition to drones, the crown jewel of Turkish defense exports, private and state-owned manufacturers have been churning out ammunition, warships, missiles, tanks, and armored vehicles, and they will soon produce the country's first combat aircraft. Yet politically, Erdogan's base has narrowed. The opposition swept the 2024 municipal elections, with Erdogan's party garnering only 35% of the vote, its worst performance since coming to power in 2003. The March 2025 arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu on corruption charges and the subsequent arrests of more than a dozen other mayors belonging to the main opposition party were widely viewed as politically motivated. This erosion of support ultimately constrains Erdogan's regional aspirations. The writer is a Fellow and Director of the Turkey Project at the Brookings Institution.

(Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies-Bar-Ilan University) Prof. Eitan Shamir - For decades, Israel was placed under the U.S. military's European Command, EUCOM. The U.S. announced Israel's move to Central Command, CENTCOM, which oversees the Middle East, in 2021, and by 2022 it was fully implemented. Israel thus became an official component of the regional security architecture that the U.S. had been building for years to counter Iran through shared intelligence, integrated air defense, maritime cooperation, and coordinated operational planning. The U.S. responded to Hamas's Oct. 7 attack with a rapid, large-scale deployment: aircraft carriers, missile defense ships, electronic warfare aircraft, and enhanced intelligence assets, signaling unmistakable deterrence toward Iran and Hizbullah. In response to Iran's large-scale missile and drone attacks on Israel in 2023 and 2024, the regional defensive network was activated for the first time. U.S. aircraft intercepted dozens of drones over Iraq and the Red Sea; American, British, and French ships shot down cruise missiles; Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE provided air corridors and shared tactical intelligence. The result was an unprecedented multinational defensive effort that successfully neutralized what could have been devastating strikes. Following the Trump plan for Gaza, the U.S. and Israel set up a joint command center in Kiryat Gat to implement the plan. This should not be understood as an American takeover of operational decision-making but as a mechanism to deepen coordination. The joint headquarters facilitates real-time intelligence sharing, access to American reconnaissance capabilities, and humanitarian coordination with international actors. The presence of American officers alongside Israeli commanders has also heightened U.S. understanding of Hamas's methods - such as its use of human shields and diversion of humanitarian aid. Israeli defense officials repeatedly emphasize that the current level of cooperation with the U.S. is unprecedented, and no attempt has been made thus far to impose decisions contrary to Israel's security interests. In practice, Israel enjoys the strategic advantages of alliance integration while retaining independent decision-making. The U.S. is re-engaging in the Middle East, strengthening allies and escalating pressure on Iran. In practice, this represents a dramatic enhancement of Israel's strategic position. For the first time, Israel finds itself embedded within a regional defense architecture that magnifies its strengths and compensates for its vulnerabilities. Israel has entered a fundamentally new framework, one in which it operates shoulder-to-shoulder with the U.S. and, increasingly, with key Arab partners. This emerging de facto regional alliance provides Israel with strategic depth, intelligence and logistical support, operational coordination, and a dramatically improved international posture. The writer heads the BESA Center.