(Wall Street Journal) Jon Emont - For most of the war, Iran had an invaluable cushion: dozens of oil tankers holding millions of barrels of crude sitting safely in waters in Asia. Tehran steadily sold the oil to China, bringing in billions. By mid-October, the reserves were fully depleted, according to analysts at Kpler, as a U.S. naval blockade prevented Iran from replacing the crude. U.S. Central Command said Saturday that the blockade has denied Tehran at least $25 billion in oil revenue.

(New York Times) Julian E. Barnes - The U.S. and Israeli militaries have developed specific plans for a short but intensive operation against Iran after the American midterm elections, according to U.S. officials. The targets would likely include Iran's energy infrastructure, nuclear facilities, and missile and drone arsenal. The U.S. will not have its full complement of military assets - including three aircraft carriers - in place until early November. It is also far from certain President Trump will approve fresh strikes. Diplomatic efforts have continued, as U.S. negotiators use the potential return to war as leverage with Iran to make progress on their demands on its nuclear program and control over the Strait of Hormuz.

(Axios) Barak Ravid - Dozens of Israeli Air Force fighter jets and refueling aircraft conducted a sortie on Oct. 19, flying as far as the Iranian border more than 800 miles from Israel, according to Israeli and U.S. officials. Israel notified the U.S. in advance and described the operation as a training exercise.

(Israel Hayom) Itay Ilnai - The recent flight of Israeli aircraft toward Iran was likely just another routine drill in the IAF's extensive preparation for the next inevitable clash with Iran. These incursions double as vital intelligence-gathering missions while steadily conditioning Iranian defenses to frequent regional air traffic, carefully setting the stage for a future unannounced strike.

(Jerusalem Post) Yonah Jeremy Bob - Despite a Financial Times report, the IDF was not planning a strike on Iran on Oct. 10, the Jerusalem Post learned on Wednesday. Sources said the premise of the report - that Trump blocked Israel from an attack on Iran which it was about to carry out - is wrong because Israel was not about to carry out an attack.

(Telegraph-UK) Will Bolton - British counter-terror police said a 24-year-old British man and a 25-year-old British-Iranian man involved in a terror plot at RAF Fairford were detained under the National Security Act on Tuesday, and that the "country to which the investigation relates is Iran." RAF Fairford was home to hundreds of U.S. military staff at the time of the incident, and has been used by bombers to launch strikes on Iran.

(BBC News) Rachel Flynn - The UK will deploy RAF Typhoon jets to help defend Saudi Arabia's cities and infrastructure against Houthi missile and drone attacks, the government has said. "These aircraft will operate in a defensive role and will not conduct offensive strikes against the Houthis," Defense Secretary Wes Streeting said Tuesday. However, the UK warplanes will free up Saudi aircraft to carry out offensives strikes against the Houthis. The UK will also deploy military advisers and an RAF A400M transport aircraft to support the movement of defense equipment within Saudi Arabia. It is already providing Saudi Arabia with defense support equipment to protect against aerial attacks and air-to-air refueling for defensive Saudi operations.

(CNBC) Luke Fountain - The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) plans to stop endorsing candidates, making direct PAC contributions, and earmarking contributions to candidates, reversing a strategy it adopted in 2021. AIPAC will continue operating the United Democracy Project, its super PAC, while putting greater emphasis on mobilizing individual donors to give directly to candidates. AIPAC support has become a liability in some Democratic primaries amid the war in Gaza, with candidates attacking rivals for accepting its support and some lawmakers pledging to reject money tied to the group.

(Reuters) Malaysia has banned civil servants from using the navigation app Waze after Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said its origins in Israel raised security concerns. Malaysia's Chief Secretary to the Government Shamsul Azri Abu Bakar said all civil servants would now be barred from using Waze, according to an Oct. 20 letter.

(Jerusalem Post) Amir Bohbot - The IDF has intensified operations against Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in Gaza over the past two weeks, eliminating an average of two to three field commanders and operatives per day, a security source told Walla on Wednesday. Some of those targeted were on their way to carry out operations against IDF forces.

(Ynet News) Lior Ben Ari - As military representatives from Israel, Lebanon and the U.S. began three days of talks Tuesday at U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida, the IDF publicly accused the Lebanese Armed Forces of failing to fulfill their responsibilities under security understandings reached in 2024. IDF Arabic-language spokesperson Lt.-Col. Ella Waweya said, "Under the 2024 understandings...the Lebanese Army was responsible for acting against the presence of weapons and military infrastructure belonging to the Hizbullah terrorist organization in southern Lebanon. However, this responsibility was not fulfilled as required, allowing Hizbullah to continue entrenching itself, arming itself, and building military infrastructure in the area." The IDF also said, "The Intelligence Directorate has identified instances in which elements within the Lebanese Army coordinated with Hizbullah regarding enforcement activities. This coordination assisted efforts to prevent, delay, or thwart enforcement operations and enabled Hizbullah to prepare in advance to remove and transfer weapons from the area." "The IDF emphasizes that it expects the Lebanese Army to act more decisively and effectively to fulfill its responsibilities and prevent the presence of weapons and military infrastructure belonging to the Hizbullah terrorist organization in southern Lebanon. The IDF and the Intelligence Directorate continue to monitor Hizbullah's attempts to rebuild and strengthen its capabilities and will not allow any violation that poses a threat to the State of Israel and its civilians." Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said, "The IDF will not move from the security zone as long as Hizbullah has not been disarmed throughout Lebanon and the threat to residents of northern Israel has not been removed."

(Jerusalem Post) Amir Bohbot - Hizbullah is rebuilding its military capabilities in Beirut, an Israeli security official told Walla on Wednesday. "We know there is significant terrorist infrastructure there, alongside Hizbullah's efforts to bolster its capabilities. They are working on rehabilitation and military buildup, not only in southern Lebanon, but also in Beirut and Tyre, where the largest concentrations of the Shiite population are located....They are making a major effort to regain operational experience and return to peak combat readiness."

(Jerusalem Post) Danielle Greyman-Kennard - Iran is paying and blackmailing people to display support for Tehran in Sistan and Baluchestan province. It is pursuing the same policy among minority communities across Iran, a Baloch human rights activist in hiding told the Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. Baluchestan accounts for 10% of Iran's landmass. According to the NGO Iran Human Rights, 108 Baloch individuals were executed in Iran in 2024, accounting for 11% of all recorded executions, while the minority makes up ony 2-6% of the country's population. Although almost all Baloch are Muslim, the majority belong to Sunni or Zikri communities, which the regime views as heretical.

(New York Post) Reuven Fenton - A veteran Palestinian teacher at an UNRWA school in Gaza told the Post in an interview that an administrator at her school confronted her with scissors days after she got into a heated argument with another teacher over what she described as the indoctrination of young girls. "She told me, 'We'll make you wish for death, and if you don't stop arguing, we will cut your tongue.'" The teacher said the threats left her afraid to speak out, particularly because she feared retaliation against her family. "As a teacher, it's my duty to convey an accurate picture and call upon the world to save our children from these ideas." She said she initially sought employment with UNRWA because she believed a school operated under UN auspices would offer children protection from Hamas's culture of violence. "I was shocked to find the reality was far different from what I had imagined." The teacher said she believes the school indoctrination problem has grown worse since the war began. She said she fears the children are particularly susceptible to teachers who blame Jews for Gaza's devastation without acknowledging Hamas's role in triggering the war. She estimated that half or more of the teachers she encounters in Gaza believe violence against Jews is necessary to achieve Palestinian political goals. "If the upcoming generations in Gaza have the capabilities to make another attack, they will make it," she warned.

(Wall Street Journal) Daniel J. Samet - The notion that the pro-Israel lobby pulls the strings has long been popular among conspiracists. In 2007, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt published The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, which gave a weak argument the veneer of scholarship. Two decades later, Eli Clifton and Ian Lustick pick up where they left off in Israel's Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power. Their assertions quickly unravel. Take one: Israel has used its relationship with the U.S. "to extract unconditional aid, coordination, and support at a scale and for a duration beyond anything a great power has ever done for a foreign country." But there are numerous examples of great powers doing more for foreign countries than America has ever done for Israel. Britain lost nearly a million men defending France and Belgium in World War I. The U.S. has kept tens of thousands of troops in Japan since 1945 and in South Korea since 1950, before Israel received any American military aid. The authors state that Israel has "consistently bent American policy to its will." It is the other way around. From Dwight Eisenhower's pushing Israel out of Egypt during the Suez Crisis to Joe Biden's forcing Israel into a ceasefire with Hamas in 2021, the U.S. has repeatedly made Israel veer from its preferred course. The authors claim the Israel lobby has been behind Congressional opposition to Barack Obama's Iran deal. The thought that lawmakers opposed Obama's nuclear deal because they believed it deleterious to U.S. interests doesn't occur to them. The authors refer to "the ongoing genocide in Gaza" and paint a picture of a rogue, illiberal Israel running roughshod over the Middle East. In fact, Israel's Arab population has skyrocketed since 1948 and now numbers more than two million, while the Jewish population in the rest of the Middle East has shrunk to near zero. Israel has never seen a day without enemies bent on destroying it, but the authors won't acknowledge the little country's enormous security concerns. The writer is a Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

(New York Post) Liel Leibovitz - Harvesting olives in Judea and Samaria does not require reporters, activists or New York Congressional nominee Brad Lander. Yet, there he was, wearing a Knicks hat while sharing on social media that he's been detained by the IDF. Even without challenging Lander's baseless ululations about "the occupation," it's easy enough to dismiss his sermonizing about agricultural practices 5,700 miles from the district he aspires to represent. Search for "olive harvest" in Arabic, and it won't be too hard to find videos, like the one released earlier this week by Hamas-affiliated media, showing hundreds of young terrorists flocking to the fields, carrying knives, guns, and throwing slings loaded with rocks. They use the harvest as an excuse to riot; attack Jewish farmers on nearby lands; and then, when the Jews retaliate, make sure they have a throng of sympathetic international observers nearby to document it. If you're lucky, some hot-headed 23-year-old Israeli may even respond with excessive force, in which case you can run to the nearest camera and cry again about the unspeakable cruelty of those evil Jews. It's a coordinated campaign, pitting Palestinian terrorists, European NGOs and American idiots like Lander against a gaggle of young Israelis trying to farm in peace in a very tough neighborhood. And it generates the desired results, again and again, because the Palestinian Authority is dedicated to demonizing their Jewish neighbors by any means necessary. The IDF came up with a simple solution: If you're a Palestinian who wishes to harvest his olives, all you have to do is inform the IDF. This season alone, some 100 such coordinated harvests have already occurred without incident. Lander was briefly detained, then let go, but he got what he came for. These days, certain politicians no longer share a cup of coffee with voters in their local neighborhood diner as they campaign. Instead, they travel halfway across the world to show everyone their true passion is Palestine, not America. The writer is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

(JNS) Richard Pollock - Western leaders this week expressed shock when Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, decided to cancel the first legislative elections in 20 years. Yet his cancellation of elections isn't new. This is what dictators do. Since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, the EU alone has poured an estimated $30 billion into a territory called "Palestine." The U.S. has bestowed $11 billion on the Palestinians. Where did this money go? To Abbas and his cronies. Abbas' sons, Yasser and Tarek Abbas, head major firms in construction, telecom, energy and finance, all funded through contracts their father controls. Their combined worth is estimated in the hundreds of millions. The Palestinian people live in a police state where corruption is rampant. It's what academics and diplomats call a failed state. Human Rights Watch in its 2026 world report concluded that "in 2025, the Palestinian Authority escalated its repression of dissent, arbitrarily arresting and torturing critics and opponents with impunity." An August poll by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that "79% want Abbas to resign." 65% now describe the PA as "a burden rather than an achievement." While the image the Palestinian leadership wishes to project is of an impoverished nation, at the same time, Palestinian billionaires in the West Bank live in opulent mansions in protected enclaves. A photography book published by Regavim showcases 100 privately owned Palestinian villas and estates across the West Bank. Titled Real Estate Under Occupation, the book features swimming pools, fountains, marble staircases and landscaped grounds.

(House Education Committee) On Wednesday, the House Education and Workforce Committee released a report exposing how antisemitism and radical activism have made their way into K-12 classrooms and the nation's largest teachers union, the National Education Association (NEA). In Philadelphia schools, a world history assignment asks students to honor a resistance movement, listing a Hamas-endorsed campaign as an option. Another lesson asks students to label the U.S. and Israel as terrorists. In Berkeley, an ethnic studies unit features a map labeling Israel as "Palestine" and praises figures with histories of antisemitic remarks. Since Oct. 7, 2023, the NEA has pledged thousands of dollars to Rethinking Schools and the Zinn Education Project, identified as sources of antisemitic K-12 materials. Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-MI) said: "Parents send their children to school to learn reading, writing, and math - not to be taught to hate Israel or embrace radical political causes. Yet that's exactly the kind of material our investigation uncovered. Jewish students deserve to feel safe in their classrooms."

(JNS) Melissa Brodsky - In December 2023, teachers in Oakland, California, organized an unauthorized "Palestine teach-in" for students from elementary school through high school. Younger children were introduced to the book P Is for Palestine. Older students could read Life Under Blockade. The teachers hadn't assembled the lesson plans and videos overnight. Organizations had spent years developing Palestine curriculum and training educators.

(Spectator-UK) Stephen Pollard - Sir David Bell's report on antisemitism in British schools finds that three in five Jewish students have experienced antisemitism - and that fewer than half think there is any point reporting it. His recommendation that schools and colleges should be forced to recognize antisemitism as a specific category of harm and to take explicit action to tackle it is eminently sensible. But his terms of reference did not allow him to examine the causes of the Jew-hate he found, only its extent. There is the elephant in the room which few are willing to identify: that much of the problem in schools lies with Muslim children. All too often, this is swept under the carpet in fear of accusations of Islamophobia. A typical incident was reported this year, in which two Muslim girls approached a child and stated: "We will send our family to behead yours like Jews deserve." The incident was reported to the Metropolitan Police but their response was that the girls involved were considered exemplary students and no substantive action would be taken. We already know what will happen now with the report, because it always happens. Instead of dealing with the facts of Jew-hatred in Britain in 2026, the report's findings will be attacked with reference to the Gaza war - as if Jewish children at school in Britain are soldiers in the IDF, which itself demonstrates the problem of antisemitism.

(Tablet) Liel Leibovitz - In Latrun, halfway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, is the Museum of the Jewish Soldier in World War II. Inside, interactive displays tell the story of the 1.5 million Jewish men and women from all over the world who fought to defeat the Nazis. One display is dedicated to the Aboulker family. On Nov. 7, 1942, this prominent Algerian Jewish family recruited a force of 377 resistance fighters, of whom 315 were Jewish. Wearing fake uniforms, they marched up to the Vichy military command and demanded its immediate surrender. The Aboulkers captured the police station, the radio station, and all other strategic assets, then radioed the Allies and informed them it was safe to enter. As a result, Algiers was liberated overnight. You could easily spend a day at the museum swiping from one story to the next. But take a step back, and the scope of Jewish bravery is revealed. There were 18 million Jews in the world when the war started. If 6 million were murdered by the Nazis, and if you don't count the elderly and the underage, you end up with 4 million Jews. Nearly a third of all capable Jews alive in the world put their lives on hold and joined the fight - more, by far, than any other group in the world. 250,000 Jewish warriors fell in World War II. The museum triggers pride and even joy, for being brave, for being right, for winning. In the museum's last gallery, we meet Americans and Brits, Russians and partisans again as they join one more glorious battle - for the establishment of the first sovereign Jewish state in millennia.