(Prime Minister's Office) At a joint press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: "The purpose of a Palestinian state is to destroy the one and only Jewish state. They already had a state in Gaza, a defective state, and it was used to try to destroy the one and only Jewish state. We believe there's a path to advance a broader peace with the Arab states and a path also to establish a workable peace with our Palestinian neighbors. But we're not going to create a state that will be committed to our destruction at our doorstep." "We are obviously going to take care of our security. The one thing that we will always insist upon is that the sovereign power of security from the Jordan River, which is right here, to the Mediterranean Sea, which is right there, will always be in Israel's hands. And that means that Israel will control its destiny, continue to protect its security."

(Israel Hayom) Danny Zaken - As Arab and international pressure intensifies on Israel to allow the Palestinian Authority to govern Gaza and advance toward a Palestinian state solution, Jerusalem has established a comprehensive list of conditions for PA reforms, including the elimination of refugee status for Palestinians living in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Arab and Western diplomatic sources indicate these conditions encompass shuttering all UN refugee agencies, chiefly UNRWA, while transferring complete responsibility for civilian needs to the PA. Israel further insists on transforming "refugee camps" into standard neighborhoods or towns. In Samaria, Israel has positioned the termination of UN refugee agency operations as a prerequisite for IDF withdrawal from the Jenin and Tulkarem camps, where forces have maintained a presence for months. Israel's requirements include complete Hamas disarmament, comprehensive Israeli security authority with unrestricted military operations even in Palestinian Authority-controlled zones, total demilitarization of Palestinian territories excepting lightly-armed police forces, meaningful curriculum overhauls in Palestinian Authority educational institutions from kindergarten through university eliminating antisemitic and anti-Israel materials, population-wide de-radicalization initiatives, and genuine PA security operations against terror organizations. Israel views these as essential preconditions for accepting a process culminating in Palestinian statehood, as mandated by the Trump plan.

(Ynet News) Amir Ettinger - Iran has resumed large-scale production of ballistic missiles six months after its 12-day conflict with Israel, a senior IDF representative told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday. In November, officials familiar with regional intelligence assessments said Iran had begun producing missiles using older manufacturing methods after Israel destroyed its planetary mixers - key components in missile production. According to those officials, Iran intends in any future clash to launch hundreds of missiles at once.

(Israel Hayom) Erez Linn - Britain's Guardian reported Monday that Israel is conducting widespread surveillance of U.S. forces stationed at the U.S.-led Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) in Kiryat Gat, Israel. IDF International Spokesperson Lt.-Col. Nadav Shoshani responded: "At the CMCC, the IDF documents and summarizes meetings in which it is present through protocols, as any professional organization of this nature does, in a transparent and agreed-upon manner. It should be noted that these are unclassified conversations. The claim that the IDF is gathering intelligence on its partners in meetings in which the IDF is an active participant is absurd."

(Ha'aretz) Ruth Schuster - A 40-meter-long section of the ancient city wall of Jerusalem, five meters thick, has been unearthed within the grounds of the Kishle prison complex near David's Citadel in the Old City, the Israel Antiquities Authority said Monday. The wall dates to the Hasmonean period, which began in the second century BCE, the period of the Second Temple. The excavation was being done ahead of the construction of an archaeology and art wing. The Roman-Jewish historian Josephus wrote in detail about the "impregnable" Jerusalem wall with 60 guard towers. It originally rose to a height of ten meters, well above the present city wall which dates to the Ottoman period.

(Ynet News) Dr. Michael Milshtein - Hamas is reasserting governance in Gaza and remains adamantly opposed to disarmament. The central war goal of dismantling Hamas or permanently neutralizing its military capabilities has not been achieved. However, President Trump is blocking renewed combat. Instead, he is pressing for movement into stage two of his Gaza plan. The major obstacles for stage two include Hamas disarmament, deploying a multinational force in Gaza, and the establishment of a governing authority that is not Hamas. Hamas signaled its openness to a new governing authority structure, knowing it could maintain influence behind the scenes, similar to Hizbullah's role in Lebanon. Israelis who expected the war to end with Hamas's eradication now see it intact, influential, and with no credible substitute. As stage two approaches, Israel must prioritize maintaining freedom of action to counter emerging threats from Gaza, similar to its posture in Lebanon; ensuring firm U.S.-led oversight of the Philadelphi Corridor and the Rafah crossing; and retaining veto power over the composition of any future governing body in Gaza, especially if it includes figures aligned with Hamas. These steps must occur alongside planning for a future comprehensive campaign against Hamas. The writer is head of the Forum for Palestinian Studies at the Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University.

(Ynet News) Itamar Eichner - According to Israeli officials, Qatar and Turkey - nations that helped negotiate the recent hostage-release deal - are now working to extract Hamas from the requirement to disarm. They are offering alternatives: that Hamas gives up its weapons to the Palestinian Authority (PA) or the weapons are transferred to secure storage under oversight. Israel insists that Hamas must remain weapon-free. According to Israeli officials, both countries are working to prevent a scenario in which Israel can declare a decisive victory over Hamas. Qatar and Turkey reportedly favor a two-year grace period during which Hamas could keep its weapons. The Israeli message is clear: if Hamas isn't disarmed promptly, Israel will act unilaterally to make it so. Officials in Jerusalem believe the issue will be discussed at the upcoming meeting between Prime Minister Netanyahu and U.S. President Trump on Dec. 29. Israel is concerned that an international stabilization force (ISF) by itself cannot guarantee dismantling Hamas's military capabilities. The understanding in Jerusalem is that if Israel decides that jihadist groups must not be allowed near its borders - whether in Gaza or on the Golan Heights - the Americans are expected to respect that determination. According to Israeli intelligence assessments, 75% of Gaza's residents no longer support Hamas; while 25% remain loyal. Officials believe that once conditions are right, these 75% may embrace an alternative.

(Jerusalem Strategic Tribune) Ahmed Charai - One of the most dangerous illusions of our time is the belief that the International Stabilization Force for Gaza can bring order, reconstruction, or peace without dismantling Hamas. A force that enters Gaza while Hamas remains armed will not stabilize anything; it will merely stabilize Hamas itself. It will become, in practice, an International Stabilization Force for Hamas, a shield that protects the very organization that plunged Gaza into tragedy. No serious strategist can pretend that disarmament is optional. A stabilization force that cannot confront the terrorists who rule Gaza is a political anesthetic. It buys time for Hamas to rest, reconstitute its battalions, rebuild its tunnels, and prepare for the next war. It allows the group to rewrite the narrative so that its catastrophic decisions appear as heroic resistance. Some governments now maneuver to shield Hamas from the consequences of its actions. But Hamas must be dismantled - not tolerated, not reinterpreted, not "managed." Gaza cannot be rebuilt while Hamas exists. Peace cannot be built while Hamas rules. The writer is Chairman and CEO of World Herald Tribune, Inc., and publisher of the Jerusalem Strategic Tribune.

(Israel Hayom) Nissan Shtrauchler - Former hostage Rom Braslavski, 22, spoke Sunday at an event hosted by Italy's ruling party, Fratelli d'Italia, led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. "October 7 is a terrible trauma. I was kidnapped by the terrorists from Gaza. I saw the horrors with my own eyes. I witnessed the massacre. I saw young, beautiful women thrown on the ground, riddled with bullets, their clothes torn, and rivers of blood were on the road, while in the background the cries and screams of 'Allahu Akbar' were heard." "I saw inside a large yellow garbage bin full of bodies. Women, adults, small children, all covered in blood, and they were murdered only because they are Jews and Israelis. During my time in captivity, they tortured me every day and left me with physical and mental scars everywhere....The October 7 massacre was without a justified reason, and was an inhuman massacre." "Thank you and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni for the invitation to come here. Until two months ago, I was inside Gaza, 131 feet (40 meters) underground. Torn clothes after I hadn't showered for at least a month, I hadn't eaten for entire days."

(Ynet News) Ilana Curiel - Archaeologist Dr. Ayelet Dayan's new book, The Body-Sifting Project, produced in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 massacre, is a record of destruction - written by the woman who led the Israel Antiquities Authority team tasked with locating the remains of Israelis murdered by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza border communities. Dayan and her team were dispatched days after the attack to kibbutzim, the Nova festival site, and stretches of Highway 232. In a diary entry in Nov. 2023, she describes being sent with her team to Highway 232. They found personal items belonging to missing Israelis and "the remains of a murdered woman who burned and melted into the asphalt. I identified a necklace and hair."

(Washington Free Beacon) Elliott Abrams - Israeli hostage Eli Sharabi's book Hostage is now available in English. It is a classic work about captivity - joining Natan Sharansky's Fear No Evil about his years in the Gulag, and Viktor Frankl's account in Man's Search for Meaning of his years in Nazi concentration camps - examining the human spirit under the worst possible circumstances. It begins on Oct. 7 and ends with his release from Gaza after 491 days in captivity - and his visit to the graves of his wife Lianne and his daughters. He did not know that his family was murdered, and living for them was a key part of his own survival. Sharabi thinks of his family but says, "I refuse to let myself sink into longing. I refuse to let myself drown in pain. I am surviving. I am a hostage. In the heart of Gaza. A stranger in a strange land. In the home of a Hamas-supporting family. And I'm getting out of here. I have to. I'm getting out of here. I'm coming home." Sharabi repeatedly says to himself that he and the other captives are on a mission: "We're on a mission to survive." It isn't only for his wife and children that Sharabi fights; it is for himself as well. "I want to live. I love life. I crave it....I tell myself: Eli, focus. It is what it is. This is the situation. You have no idea what's happened to your family. You have no way of knowing their fate. You have no control over how much food you were given, no control over how clean your environment is, no control over your freedom. So focus on what you can control. Channel your strength towards the things you can manage - and stay yourself." This is how Sharabi stays alive and sane through months of near starvation, cruelty from guards, psychological torture, beatings, and month after month in dank, airless tunnels deep under the earth. The end of the story is tragic, because when he is released Sharabi is met by his mother and his sister - and immediately realizes that his wife and daughters cannot greet him because they are gone. Sharabi demands to visit their graves, and breaks down and sobs there for 40 minutes. Then "I pick myself up and start walking slowly toward the exit of the cemetery. This here is rock bottom. I've seen it. I've touched it. Now, life." The writer is Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

(X) Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib - During the hunger crisis in Gaza in the past six months, Hamas deliberately hid tons of infant formula and nutritional shakes for children in clandestine warehouses belonging to the Gaza Ministry of Health. Now, Gaza activists are documenting the waste and deliberate disposal of tons of infant formula, nutritional children's shakes, and children's powdered milk, which Hamas had hoarded away. You can have compassion for the real suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza while still holding Hamas accountable for its part in causing a hunger crisis in the first place.

(Washington Institute for Near East Policy) Hanin Ghaddar and Assaf Orion - Although major military operations between Israel and Hizbullah ended in Nov. 2024, Israeli fire has hardly ceased; its forces are still conducting focused operations against Hizbullah targets nearly every day. This is because Israel's chief war goal - removing the terrorist threat on its northern border so that evacuated residents can safely return home - is still unattained. If Lebanon fails to meet its obligations, Israel is resolved to enforce this goal itself. Under the ceasefire deal, Beirut agreed to disarm Hizbullah via a mechanism carried out by the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and monitored by the U.S. and France. Recognizing that this effort would be difficult and lengthy, Washington also acknowledged Israel's right to remove threats by force in the interim as necessary. Today, Israeli reports indicate that the group is not disarming - in fact, Hizbullah efforts to rebuild its military capabilities have accelerated, including in the south. In response, Western officials have given Beirut multiple warnings about looming Israeli military escalation, giving LAF leaders until year's end to resume the process of disarming Hizbullah and cutting off the militia's cash flow. Given Lebanon's divisive sectarian politics, imminent parliamentary election (scheduled for May), and lack of strong state institutions or dominant security forces, its leaders appear unwilling to take further steps that might increase the possibility of escalation with Hizbullah. They are concerned that pressing Hizbullah to disarm might spark a civil war and divide the LAF. If the situation remains unchanged once the new year arrives and Washington's ultimatum expires, Lebanon will probably face a different reality - one that entails more targeted killings of Hizbullah military and political leaders as well as more evacuations from densely populated centers of Hizbullah activity like Dahiya. Hanin Ghaddar is a Senior Fellow in The Washington Institute's Program on Arab Politics. Brig.-Gen. (res.) Assaf Orion, an Institute International Fellow, is former head of the IDF Strategic Planning Division.

(Israel Hayom) Amb. Freddy Eytan - German Chancellor Friedrich Merz's trip to Jerusalem on Dec. 7 is significant given the Jewish state's isolation on the international stage, particularly in Europe. Unlike France's Emmanuel Macron, who recognizes a state of Palestine, boycotts Israel, and refuses to supply us with arms, Merz is strengthening military ties with the Jewish state. He arrived just after the German military had acquired the Israeli Arrow 3 anti-missile defense system to bolster its own air security. Who would have imagined that Holocaust survivors would one day supply weapons to Germany to protect it from the Russian threat? Before the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel also provided Uzi submachine guns and artillery shells to Germany, and over the years, drones as well. Conversely, Germany regularly delivers submarines to Israel. Today, German-Israeli relations are excellent. Germany is our closest ally and our most important trading partner after the U.S. Unlike in other European countries, boycotts against Israel have not gained traction in Berlin. Campuses warmly welcomed Israeli professors, researchers, and students. More than 7,000 young Germans visit the Jewish state each year. While differences have existed regarding the peace process with the Palestinians and the future of Gaza, the conversations are conducted respectfully and amicably, and not through moralizing lectures as is the practice of French leaders. In the fight against Islamist terrorism and the presence of Iranian terrorists in Europe, Germany collaborates closely with Israeli intelligence services; valuable information provided by the Mossad has thwarted dozens of attacks on European soil. The writer, a researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, is a former Foreign Ministry senior adviser who was Israel's first ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Mauritania.

(Tufts Daily) Joel Trachtman - On Nov. 17, I attended an event at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. For the first time in my 36 years as a professor at Tufts University and Fletcher, I felt unwelcome as a Jew. I heard audience members compare Jews who oppose Hamas to Nazis and suggest that Jews appointed to posts in the State Department Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs are inherently biased. I alone, as a member of the audience, objected to these antisemitic statements. To say that Arabs are indigenous to Israel while Jews are not is profoundly biased against Jews and requires the proponents of that view to erase inconvenient facts. That is not proper at a university. I observed that faculty panelists who discussed harms to children and sexual violence spoke only of the suffering of Gazan victims and simply ignored violence against Israelis, including the unspeakable sexual violence committed by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023, and the sexual abuse of hostages. Jewish suffering was erased. Speakers did not mention that Israeli actions in this war were a defensive response to the unprovoked Oct. 7 attack. Speakers labeled Israel's defensive war "genocide," while erasing the inconvenient components of the definition of genocide. The writer is Professor of International Law Emeritus at the Fletcher School.

(JNS) Melanie Phillips - Imprisoned former Fatah terrorist leader Marwan Barghouti, 66, consistently leads opinion polls asking Palestinian Arabs who they want to replace Mahmoud Abbas, 90, as head of the Palestinian Authority. Some 200 high-profile actors and musicians have now called for his release, claiming that he has been "illegally held by Israel" for more than two decades. Barghouti was properly convicted in 2002, with overwhelming evidence, for orchestrating multiple deadly terror attacks during the Second Intifada, in which five people, including four Israelis and a Greek monk, were murdered. The court determined that Barghouti also bore moral responsibility for numerous other terror attacks in which many more Israelis were murdered. Those calling for his release are promoting as a hero someone responsible for heinous acts of murder. The terrorist's violence is sanitized, and the innocents he has murdered are dehumanized. The celebrities think these victims deserved what they got because their very existence was an offense against the righteousness of the cause. The Palestinian cause has helped destroy the West's moral compass. This cause stands for nothing less than the destruction of Israel. The Palestinian Arabs say so repeatedly. They teach their children to hate and murder Jews. They demonize the Jews as rats or snakes. The Palestinian cause is the Trojan horse for antisemitism. And antisemitism is the Trojan horse for the attack on Western civilization. The writer is a columnist for The Times-UK.

(Jewish Onliner) The Vassar College administration shut down a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) educational "teach-in" on Dec. 2 set to focus on the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. SJP responded by accusing the college of "suppressing" anti-imperial education and cooperating with the federal government's "fascist agenda." According to promotional materials, the cancelled event was designed to help students learn from the PFLP's "historic example." The PFLP is a Marxist-Leninist terrorist group notorious for hijacking passenger planes and participated in the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.

(Jerusalem Post) Yonah Jeremy Bob - Iran used cyber weapons to try to attack every citizen in Israel multiple times during the 12-day June war, Israel National Cyber Directorate (INCD) chief Yossi Karadi said. There were 1,200 social engineering hacking operations, each targeting thousands of Israelis. During the June war, Tehran hacked into parking and other road cameras to "track the movements of Israeli VIPs, with the aim of building operations to target and harm them." When Iran struck the Weizmann Institute with a ballistic missile, it had taken control of a street camera watching the building just before the missile struck.

(Institute for National Security Studies-Tel Aviv University) Maj. (res.) Danny Citrinowicz - In 2012, Iran sent terrorist cells to attack Israeli targets in Bangkok. Following the 2015 nuclear agreement and in the context of Iran's commitment to Bangkok that it would not carry out attacks on Thai soil, relations warmed considerably, as reflected in deeper economic ties. 12% of Thailand's population is Muslim, and about 1% is Shiite, with the vast majority concentrated in the Bangkok area. In recent years, and especially over the past year, Iran has strengthened the varied mechanisms it has established in Thailand in an effort to increase its hold on this minority and subordinate it to its objectives. Shiite religious centers in Bangkok play a significant role in Iran's outreach. As in other countries where it operates, Iran seeks to take control of Shiite religious centers by appointing clerics who studied in its institutions. These clerics then guide the daily lives of the Shiite population in the country in accordance with the "commander's spirit" emanating from Tehran. All Muslim employees at the Iranian embassy in Bangkok have converted to Shiism. What is happening today in Thailand is also evident in India and elsewhere in Asia, wherever there are Shiite communities. Therefore, when presenting the Iranian threat to Asian states, Israel should not only stress Iran's nuclear ambitions but also its efforts to influence the local populations through "soft" religious and cultural means. The writer, former head of the Iran branch in the research and analysis division of Israel defense intelligence, is a research fellow at INSS.

(Israel Hayom) Shay Gal - Turkey, a NATO state, is projecting power far beyond its borders to Somalia in East Africa, and everyone looks away. Turkey's missile-testing project in Somalia is part of a mosaic Ankara has built for over a decade: Russian-fueled nuclear infrastructure in Akkuyu in Turkey; Pakistani nuclear and missile expertise embedded through military channels; discreet uranium routes explored via Niger; and now a long African coastline to test delivery systems without oversight. Under development banners, Turkey has a base training thousands of Somali soldiers, an airport and port under long concessions, a national hospital bearing Erdogan's name, and a Turkish state bank - the first foreign bank in Somalia in half a century. This is leverage, not philanthropy. Somalia receives protection and infrastructure; Turkey receives coastline, concessions, deniability and a launch corridor. In Libya, Turkey turned an intervention into a semi-permanent presence, with airbases at Al-Watiya and Misrata. Somalia is not beyond Israel's horizon. The distance from Israel to Somalia is nearly identical to Yemen - and only marginally farther than to Iran. Jerusalem's eyes are open. Somaliland, an unrecognized state north of Somalia, has political contacts with neighboring Ethiopia and Djibouti, as well as with Canada, France, Kenya, Norway, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, UK, and U.S. Partners have deployed Israeli-manufactured early-warning systems in Somaliland to improve counter-Houthi maritime awareness. Israeli-origin capabilities do not shift theaters without policy behind them.

(Washington Institute for Near East Policy) Noam Raydan and James Jeffrey - On Nov. 24 - two months after the reopening of the Iraq-Turkey Pipeline (ITP) - an oil tanker laden with crude from the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) sailed from the Turkish port of Ceyhan and discharged at the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port terminal. The shipment would not have been possible without a U.S.-facilitated interim deal in September to reopen the ITP after a halt of more than two years. U.S. refiners are importing northern Iraqi crude due to an appetite for medium sour crudes of the type produced there. Although the U.S. exports light sweet crude, it imports medium, heavy sour, and other types from the Middle East and Latin America in order to address demand from refineries designed to operate on these feedstocks. To attract buyers, firms exporting Iraqi Kurdish oil via Ceyhan reportedly offered steep discounts. Noam Raydan is a senior fellow at The Washington Institute, where James Jeffrey, former U.S. ambassador to Iraq and Turkey, is a Distinguished Fellow.

(Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs) Lt.-Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch - One of the less known aspects of the Palestinian Authority's "Pay-to-Slay" policy that rewards terrorists for their participation in attacks is the tax exemption from import duties and taxes on vehicles for released prisoners who spent 20 years or more in prison - generally, those convicted of murder. As a result of the release of terrorists to secure the release of the hostages kidnapped during the Oct. 7 massacre, there are now 336 more terrorists who are entitled to purchase a tax-free car. PA taxes on the purchase of new cars range from 70% to 100%. The PA's financial difficulties are a direct result of its insistence to keep rewarding terror. The writer is former director of the Military Prosecution in Judea and Samaria.

(Jerusalem Report) Dana Ben-Shimon - Clashes last July between Bedouin and Druze militias in the southern Syrian city of Sweida have become a catalyst for a dramatic rise in IDF enlistment among Druze who live on the Golan Heights, who are long known for their opposition to Israel. Unlike the Druze of the Galilee - who serve proudly and prominently in the IDF - the Golan Druze historically held residency without Israeli citizenship and avoided military service. That is now shifting, said Safi Ibrahim, 45, an IDF colonel from Israel's Druze community who heads the army's department for soldiers from Israel's minority populations. "The Druze residing in Syria believe there is no one who can help them more than the State of Israel." "Shortly after the war began, we saw a willingness among the local [Golan Druze] population to defend themselves and join the reserves. We facilitated training for 150 people, and they continue to serve to this day. Now you see them in IDF uniforms in their villages - something they were reluctant to do previously." A second group of 150 Golan Druze soldiers began basic training this month. While military service is mandatory for Israeli Druze, it is voluntary for Bedouins, Muslims, and Christians. Ibrahim noted that Arab Christian enlistment has increased threefold in the past year. "No matter what minority group you come from, everyone saw the cruelty of Oct. 7 and realized that the enemy didn't care if it was a Bedouin woman with a headscarf or a Jew from a kibbutz. Arab Christians here also saw how their counterparts in Syria have been slaughtered and persecuted by [Syrian leader] Al-Jolani's forces."