(Wall Street Journal) Alexander Ward - The U.S. intelligence community assesses that Iran has 1,500-2,500 missiles in its arsenal, U.S. officials said. Although the U.S. and Israel damaged its missile-production facilities, Iran has continued to rebuild its arsenal, albeit at a slower pace than before the war, mostly from stockpiled components. Israeli military officials similarly assess that Iran has more than 1,500 ballistic missiles. Iran has used ballistic missiles, drones and improved tactics to continue inflicting damage on U.S. military installations, radars and early-warning systems across the Middle East.

(Wall Street Journal) Jon Gambrell - Iran launched an attack on Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, early Sunday, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claiming it targeted radar positions with six drones at Riffa Air Base, south of Manama. Iran days earlier launched its first attack on Bahrain in two months. U.S. Central Command said it shot down two Iranian drones in that attack.

(Jewish Institute for National Security of America) On the third anniversary of Hamas's Oct. 7, 2023, brutal attack on Israel, we retired senior military leaders and legal experts reject claims that Israel committed genocide in Gaza. The allegations that Israel committed this crime do not meet the established definition and standards of genocide, are unsupported by established facts, nor do they stand up to common sense scrutiny. Israel has neither intended to, nor destroyed, Palestinians as a group in Gaza. All the evidence points to the contrary conclusion: that, after suffering a barbaric, indiscriminate massacre by Hamas terrorists, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), acting in justified self-defense, went to extreme lengths to protect civilians in Gaza. Genocide is not a quantitative crime; there is no number of civilian casualties that constitutes genocide. Nor are the claimed casualty numbers from Gaza credible. Issued by Hamas, they do not distinguish between civilians and combatants and cannot be relied upon. Established legal precedent makes clear that civilian deaths occurring during combat, however tragic, are insufficient, by themselves, to support a finding of genocidal intent.

(Israel Hayom) Danny Zaken - In recent days, intelligence provided by Israel's Mossad to the CIA indicated that Iran intends to target President Trump and senior members of his administration. As a result, the prospects of reaching an agreement between the U.S. and Iran have diminished significantly. Senior Israel officials corroborated the intelligence at the request of the Americans, after U.S. intelligence agencies asked the Mossad to verify the information. The intelligence provided by Israel points to specific, recent threats, including the possibility of attacks using explosive-laden drones.

(Fox News) Ashley J. DiMella - Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Todd Blanche and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have been living at military installations for months amid threats linked to Tehran.

(Ynet News) Dr. Michael Milshtein - More than a year has passed since the ceasefire in Gaza took effect, and little has fundamentally changed. Israel has enjoyed a year of relatively limited external pressure from the Trump administration. The IDF, which controls more than 60% of Gaza, has entrenched itself along the Yellow Line. It has retained broad operational freedom, carrying out daily strikes against Hamas targets including senior commanders. Nevertheless, Hamas remains the dominant force in the Palestinian-controlled part of the territory and has no intention of relinquishing its military capabilities. No meaningful alternative or challenger has emerged. Hamas is far weaker than it was three years ago, but it is undergoing a continuous rebuilding process. Winter storms have caused severe hardship in Gaza tent encampments. Images of Gaza's worsening winter conditions have fueled growing international criticism of Israel. Hamas has recognized the propaganda opportunity presented by the winter crisis and is moving quickly to exploit it, according to Dr. Dina Lisnyansky of Tel Aviv University's Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies. Hamas "is promoting a coordinated campaign, working closely with and mutually reinforcing sympathetic media outlets in the Arab world, particularly Al Jazeera. A similar pattern emerged during the campaign that purported to show the 'starvation of Gaza.'" "Across Hamas websites and dozens of Telegram accounts operated on the organization's behalf, the same messages appear in multiple languages, accompanied by identical illustrations of refugee tents submerged in water." Hamas appears, as it has in the past, to be using manipulative and exaggerated portrayals of the situation to advance its objectives. The writer is a senior researcher at Tel Aviv University's Moshe Dayan Center.

(Ynet News) Elisha Ben Kimon - The IDF and Israel Security Agency confirmed Sunday that they had killed Samir Mahmoud Hassan Abu Younis, commander of Hamas' Rafah Brigade, in an overnight airstrike in Gaza. Hamas described him as "one of the most important commanders involved in planning the October 7 attack."

(Ynet News) Ron Ben-Yishai - Neither Israeli nor U.S. intelligence agencies have information indicating that Iran possesses a weapon or any other capability that poses an existential threat to Israel. Nor is there any intelligence indicating that such weapons or capabilities are being actively developed or manufactured. Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has decided in principle to pursue the development of a bomb, but almost nothing has been done in practice. There is also intelligence indicating that Iran has resumed developing and manufacturing ballistic missiles at a rate of several dozen a month, and is working to restore and harden nuclear facilities and missile and drone production sites.

(The Times-UK) Samer Al-Atrush - Farzan Sabet, an Iran expert at the Geneva Graduate Institute, said: "The U.S. believes economic pain will lead to a capitulation, or at the very least the softening of (Iran's negotiating) position, and the Iranian side believes they can wait out Trump. They think they've been effective in inflicting a political defeat on Trump [in the U.S. midterm elections], and so they think they'll have leverage to do something similar and shape the U.S. presidency in two years." There have been voices within the regime arguing for a deal, but those in charge, such as Ayotollah Mojtaba Khamenei, view the conflict as an existential struggle. The likelihood of the regime capitulating seems far-fetched. For months the U.S. has successfully led an operation to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, taking exports to almost pre-war levels. The campaign has been accompanied by regular U.S. strikes on Iranian radar and missile-launching sites along the coast. However, the Iranians "are attacking ships and they're becoming more effective at doing damage to those ships," Sabet said.

(Times of Israel) Rahgu Kondori - In the war of 2026, Ali Khamenei was killed, senior commanders were eliminated, and military infrastructure was heavily damaged. Yet the system kept functioning. The explanation lies in the architecture of power in Iran. The Islamic Republic is built like an onion, not a pyramid. Over nearly five decades, the Islamic Republic has evolved into a layered political-security organism, built to withstand pressure, redistribute authority, and preserve continuity. Beyond the visible administrative state is a parallel political-security state, centered on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and extended through intelligence services, the Basij, strategic industries, financial networks, and religious foundations. When a leader is removed, surviving institutions redistribute his authority. This is what the 2026 war revealed. Military commands reorganized, security institutions expanded their responsibilities, and civilian administration continued to operate. The removal of the leadership did not produce the disintegration that a personalized model of dictatorship would predict. But institutional survival is not political strength. The regime suffered severe military and economic damage, and its continued operation proves redundancy, not invulnerability. Nor should resilience be mistaken for legitimacy. Survival is not the same as consent. The writer is an Iranian-French author and president of the Shahvand Think Tank.

(Israel Hayom) Avinatan Or, who was kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023, and released after more than two years in Hamas captivity, told the Israel Hayom Summit on Nov. 11 about life inside a Gaza tunnel. "In darkness, the brain goes into survival mode. You can no longer see anything, and your other senses become sharper. Smells grow stronger, sounds become more distinct. When you want to survive and you have nothing, you will do anything to find something, something to hold on to, something to believe in, something that gives you hope." "In captivity, I could see no reality other than what our captors chose to show me. They decided what I would see, what I would hear, what I would smell and what I would know. They took away my freedom in every sense except one: In the darkness of the tunnel, I refused to surrender my freedom to choose. The freedom to choose how to respond to the reality forced upon me. Every morning and every evening, even when I could no longer tell them apart, I held on to that freedom. It was my responsibility to choose how I would live my life each day." "A few days before I was freed, Abu Hassan, one of the Hamas terrorists, entered my cell and told me, 'As long as the State of Israel exists, this war between Israel and Hamas will never end.' That conversation made it absolutely clear to me who we are facing and what Hamas is really about. They have only one goal: the destruction of the State of Israel." "I heard their ideology, I saw their plans, I tasted their hatred. I experienced what war really is....That is precisely why this war must end with only one outcome. Our mission is to ensure that an enemy whose entire existence is devoted to spreading death cannot live alongside us. Because if they live there, we will not live here. We must complete the mission and destroy Hamas."

(Israel Hayom) Prof. Zaki Shalom - President Trump is entitled to take pride in his policies and emphasize his contribution to Israel's security. But there is a line between gratitude to a friend and acceptance of the claim that he is the reason we exist. In an interview with "60 Minutes," he portrayed Israel as a country whose very existence depends on his benevolence. That portrayal replaces the image of a strong partner, possessing capabilities and bearing responsibility, with that of a country unable to survive without an outside savior. It could encourage Israel's enemies to believe that a political change in Washington would leave it defenseless, while conditioning its friends to view it as a burden dependent on their protection. Israel must never entrust its friends with full responsibility for our fate. We must strengthen the alliance with the U.S. while preserving our ability to act independently and decisively. Israel must say: "Mr. President, Israel appreciates your friendship and the U.S. contribution to its security. We seek to deepen this partnership. But Israel's existence is not a gift from an American president, nor does it depend on who occupies the White House. The responsibility for Israel's defense rests with us." "We do not ask America to bear that responsibility in our place, and our gratitude must not be interpreted as an admission that we cannot exist without it." This is how a sovereign state should speak to its ally: with appreciation and friendship, but without surrendering its dignity. The writer is a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies and professor emeritus at Ben-Gurion University.

(Gatestone Institute) Robert Williams - In August, the Trump Administration removed Syria from its list of state sponsors of terrorism. Yet according to a new report, The New Syria: Education under al-Sharaa: Review of Syria's National School Curriculum, 2025-2026, authored by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), an Islamist indoctrination effort on steroids is taking place in the Syrian Arab school system. The report analyzed 130 textbooks and found that the new curriculum is doubling down on the existing school curriculum's emphasis "on jihad, martyrdom, sacrifice, and the glorification of both religious and secular heroes." It continues "to normalize and valorize violence, armed resistance, and self-sacrifice as central components of collective identity and moral duty." "From the earliest grades, martyrdom is introduced as having a spiritually exalted status, while jihad is framed as both a moral and military duty tied to defending religion, the homeland, holy places, and the Islamic nation. A Grade 8 Arabic Language textbook incites students to take up the fight against Israel for the Golan Heights, encouraging them to view sacrificing their own lives to reclaim this land as a noble and heroic act." In grade 10, students are taught that "joy remained incomplete as long as there remained even one piece of Arab land defiled by the filth of Zionist occupation." Indoctrinating children with terrorism and jihad might just indicate that al-Sharaa is seeking to build the Islamic state that he has fought for his entire career.

(Israel Hayom) Jason D. Greenblatt - On Oct. 10, 2026, Mahmoud Abbas canceled the Palestinian legislative vote set for Nov. 28, 2026. It would have been the first such election in more than 20 years. Abbas is now in his 22nd year of his four-year term. The world devotes enormous attention to Israel and virtually none to the leadership that governs the Palestinians of Judea and Samaria. In an August 2026 poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah, 79% said they wanted Abbas to resign, and 83% said corruption exists in Palestinian Authority institutions. I dealt with Abbas and his team up close. We developed several initiatives to improve Palestinians' lives and strengthen their economy. In June 2019, senior adviser Jared Kushner organized a transformational economic conference in Bahrain to help Palestinians prosper. The leadership in Ramallah boycotted it and warned Palestinians not to attend. In my experience, the Palestinian leadership was never interested in governing. It preferred parading around the international stage, pretending to run a government and making unrealistic demands, hoping the world would force Israel to deliver the fantasies failed Palestinian leaders have sold their people for decades. The Palestinian Authority's deepest problems are of its own making: payments to terrorists, corruption, mismanagement, and the absence of any real governance. Instead of governing, the Palestinian leadership has poured its energy into campaigns against Israel at the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, which have done nothing to bring Palestinians any closer to better lives. Palestinians deserve leaders who build schools instead of rewarding terrorists. Israelis deserve a neighbor that offers peace, or at the very least a separation without constant threat. The world should stop pretending the address of Palestinian misery is anywhere but Ramallah. The writer, a former White House Middle East envoy who played a key role in developing the Abraham Accords, is Senior Director of Arab-Israel Diplomacy for the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.

(Tablet) Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch - We need to be honest with ourselves: the American Jewish community has entered a new era. The Golden Age of American Jewry that defined the years when most older millennials, Gen X and Baby Boomers grew up and established careers and families, is over. It was a world where anti-Jewish animosities and discrimination receded from public life and social institutions. Jews were respected, embraced and overrepresented in many fields of human endeavor prized by society. Israel had broad bipartisan support. Now we are reverting to the historical norm. Oct. 7, 2023, was the symbolic end of the Golden Age. Ever since, there has been intense and intensifying opposition to Israel that has triggered a surge in anti-Jewish hostility on both the right and the left of the American political system. Anti-Jewish sentiments have been normalized in American politics. Statements that would have been banished to the margins of political life 10 years ago are now mainstreamed. Some of the new representatives elected to the House and Senate are viscerally, obsessively, and ideologically opposed to the very idea of Israel. They seek to destroy the Jewish state. This is what they mean by "Free Palestine." It is not a call for coexistence. Anti-Zionism is a hateful ideology of destruction. It is illiberal and immoral. To justify it by arguing that "hurt people hurt people," to support forces in the Middle East that seek to massacre and brutalize Israelis, to rationalize, justify, minimize, or explain away the barbaric savagery of Oct. 7 - the inhumanity of taking hostages and suffocating them to death in dungeons - is a moral disease that is metastasizing. Growing anti-Zionism generates intensifying antisemitism. No matter who leads the next Israeli government, those who vilify Israel will oppose any Israeli government because their problem with Israel is ideological. They are against any Jewish state in any territory, and therefore will oppose any and all Israeli policies. We should be deeply worried because the political forces that hold these beliefs are getting stronger. We need to oppose these forces in both parties as vigorously as we can - in politics, academia, the media, and cultural institutions. Whatever happens, Israel will still be the home of half of the remnants of our tiny people and a central component of Jewish identity in America. The writer, senior rabbi of Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York City, served as executive director of the Association of Reform Zionists of America. This article is based on a sermon he gave on Nov. 6, 2026.

(Wall Street Journal) Joseph Bottum - Opponents of Israel have turned into a threat to the American ideal of religious pluralism and tolerance. Four Yeshiva school buses in Brooklyn were spray-painted with swastikas and the slogans "Free Palestine," "F--- Israel" and "America First" on Nov. 2. The vandals brought their quarrel with Israel to the school buses of American children simply because they were Jewish. On Oct. 29, Mohamed Sabry Soliman pleaded guilty to hate crimes after setting Jews on fire in Colorado in June 2025. He attacked Jews who were calling for Hamas to release Israeli captives. He killed an 82-year-old woman and wounded 12 others. He announced after his arrest that he wanted "to kill all Zionist people" and "would do it again." The incidents are piling up. I am a Zionist because on the ground, activist anti-Zionism is becoming indistinguishable from antisemitism. Cody Allen Balmer claimed anti-Zionism as his motive for setting fire to the Pennsylvania governor's mansion in 2025 when he attacked a Jewish governor and his family. I've always generally supported Israel, beginning with the strategic reason that Israel is an ally in a region in which the U.S. has national interests. For that matter, I've supported Israel because my Christian faith seems to require it. Jews, as Pope John Paul II noted, are our elder brothers, and the safety of God's covenant people currently requires the existence of a Jewish state. Does anyone believe that if Israel surrendered today to Hamas, Hizbullah and Iran, the Jews in a new Palestine, running from the river to the sea, wouldn't be slaughtered? Israel is an outpost of Western inheritance, facing enemies who are hostile to the West itself. First the Jews, then the Christians. From that old support I have come to full-blown Zionism - because that is the most coherent way to oppose the activists who aim at something profoundly antithetical to the American spirit. As long as we have a social politics in which antisemitism wears the cloak of anti-Zionism, the duty of Americans is clear: When Jews are targeted as Jews, the solidarity the moment requires from the rest of us is standing up as Zionists. The writer is a visiting scholar at the University of Colorado's Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization.

(Wall Street Journal) Yaroslav Trofimov - The development and spread of cheaper and more precise ballistic missiles have allowed Iran to inflict serious damage on U.S. military bases, forcing the abandonment of key American installations in the Persian Gulf. Since World War II, Washington has used a network of bases around the globe to protect its allies and keep rival powers in check. Today, it turns out, these bases are vulnerable even to third- and fourth-rate military forces like those of Iran and the Houthis that are located thousands of miles away. Drones carry relatively small warheads and are relatively easy to intercept. They can be extremely effective against flammable targets such as oil refineries. But drones usually can't destroy hardened structures. Acknowledging the new ballistic-missile threat must lead to a rethinking of America's military posture worldwide, especially considering the shortage of interceptors, which the U.S. military-industrial base won't be able to rectify for several years. Lockheed Martin's current orders for Patriot PAC-3 and Thaad interceptors will carry well into the 2030s. One senior Western defense official said nations that are capable of providing their own ballistic-missile defenses would become locations of choice for U.S. military facilities in the coming years. This has already happened with American military operations increasingly concentrated in Israel, which manufactures and operates its own missile-defense systems.

(Washington Institute for Near East Policy) Dana Stroul - With the coming end of military aid to Israel, how does the bilateral partnership fit into the U.S. approach to the Middle East going forward? For the past three decades, U.S. military aid enabled Israel to have a predictable source of funding to acquire the capabilities needed to defend itself from current and future threats - an important signal to enemies and partners alike. The primary goals of U.S. military aid for Israel were to help the country obtain the U.S. equipment and training needed to address threats in its neighborhood, and to develop its capabilities in peacetime so that it can partner with the U.S. during wartime. In the Middle East, Washington needs competent partners to address a host of challenges, including terrorism, maritime security, and Iran-associated threats. The U.S. investment in Israel has delivered when measured against these objectives, producing a capable partner willing to fight both independently and as a peer military. Especially in the years since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks, Israel has demonstrated that it is capable of defending its territory and people against external threats while joining the U.S. in combined military operations against Iran. Israel's military performance positions it to graduate from Foreign Military Financing (FMF) grants. Although U.S.-Israel defense relations should evolve, heeding the increasingly vocal calls to downgrade the partnership would harm America's national security interests. Israel's defense innovation, industrial base, military capabilities, intelligence collection, and willingness to fight make it an invaluable partner for an American military looking to maintain its technological and tactical edge while shifting burdens to others. Israeli capabilities have improved U.S. operations and saved American lives. Israeli expertise helped U.S. forces lessen the threat of improvised explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan. Israeli armor helped protect U.S. service members in those same theaters. Israeli innovations in battlefield medicine are used regularly by the U.S. Israeli operations during the Iran war have provided multiple lessons on effectively integrating intelligence, missile defense, radars, and fighter jets into a coherent system for meeting complex battlefield situations. Israel's contributions to regional defense against Iranian missile and drone threats underscores that its capabilities are enhancing not only America's security but also that of its neighbors. The U.S. should fulfill the commitments it made in the current MOU so that (1) Israel has time to plan its defense spending without U.S. direct support, and (2) U.S. officials can avoid exacerbating perceptions that Washington is an unreliable partner. Administration officials should also consult with the U.S. defense industry on how ending aid might affect existing contracts, with billions of U.S. dollars in procurement for Israel currently flowing to American manufacturers. The writer, Director of Research and Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute, is a former deputy assistant secretary for the Middle East at the Pentagon.