Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: US-Israel Initiative”
February 19, 2026
*Qatar’s strategic alliance with Iran’s Ayatollah regime has been tightened since 2017, in the face of the blockade on Qatar, which was imposed by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Bahrain. The blockade was imposed due to their accusation that Qatar was fomenting terrorism and subversion in their countries, as well as assisting Al Qaeda, Yemen’s Houthis and other terrorists.
*The intensification of the Qatar-Iran strategic collaboration has taken place irrespective of Iran’s emergence as the lead global epicenter of anti-US terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering, the proliferation of advanced military systems, the fomenting of civil wars, Iran’s attempts to topple every pro-US Sunni (“apostate”) Arab regime, and the Ayatollah assistance to every anti-US government in Latin America.
*Moreover, Qatar has been accused by Saudi Arabia of intensifying tension in the oil-rich, Shiite-majority Eastern Province of the kingdom, as well as between the House of Saud and the Wahabis (20%-40% of the Saudi population), whose two-centuries-old-claim to be the sole designated-legitimate interpreter of Islam has been challenged by Crown Prince Muhammed Bin Salman.
*Qatar has evolved into the lead financial resource of the transnational Muslim Brotherhood, which is the largest Sunni terror organization in the world, aspiring to topple every national Muslim regime, and establish a universal Muslim society with Islam as the only divinely-ordained legitimate religion. While Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Bahrain designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, Qatar extends financial support to Muslim Brotherhood affiliates in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia (e.g., India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Thailand).
*In May 2020, Qatar’s Al Jazeera Network – the mouth piece of Qatar’s rulers and the most authentic reflection of their ideology and policy – referred to the US’ elimination of Qasem Soleimani, who was the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force international terrorists, and the architect of its anti-US operations, as the elimination of “a hero who walked in the path of God.”
*Qatar’s Al Jazeera Network was established in 1996 by decree of the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, as an arm of Qatar’s propaganda and foreign policy. It has systematically extolled the Muslim Brotherhood.
*In the 1990s, Qatar hosted Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, who later masterminded the 9/11 attacks.
*In the aftermath of September 11, Al Jazeera became an exclusive platform to publish al-Qaeda’s messages, which glorified the killing of US troops as “Paradise Operations.” In fact, Al Qaeda frequently used Al Jazeera as a primary platform to broadcast messages, videos, and statements from Osama bin Laden and other leading Islamic terrorists.
*All pro-US Arab regimes, such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco have accused the Qatar-proxy Al Jazeera Network of promoting extremism and inciting unrest on their soil.
*Qatar granted citizenship, a home base and a massive platform on Al Jazeera – including a full show attracting 60 million viewers – to the Egyptian-born Yusuf al-Qaradawi (1926–2022), and the al-Qaradawi-founded “International Union of Muslim Scholars,” which promotes the al-Qaradawi anti-US, anti-“infidel West” Islamic terror ideology and litany of terror-leaning religious decrees (fatwas), including the call to kidnap and murder US soldiers. Al-Qaradawi was the leading modern-day ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood, encouraging all able Muslims to commit suicide bombings, for which he was banned from entering the US, the UK, France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Bahrain, but offered the Red Carpet hospitality in Qatar.
*Qatar has offered sanctuary to Hamas leaders since their 1999 expulsion from Jordan.
*Qatar opposed Qadhaffi’s war on African Islamic terrorists, and has supported the Tripoli-based Islamist regime (which lynched Qadhaffi) in the civil war, that has afflicted Libya since 2011.
*Qatar’s partnership with Iran’s Ayatollah regime – including intelligence cooperation and the bypassing of economic sanctions – was also exposed, during the March 2024 biannual Doha International Maritime Defense Exhibition and Conference, when in a repeat of the 2022 exhibition, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officials and Iranian military officials were prominently in attendance, exhibiting missiles, drones, and other military systems.
*Qatar and Iran share ownership of the South Pars/North Dome natural gas condensate field, the world’s largest natural gas field.
*Do you want your education to be funded by the same source that funds Hamas? The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) reports that Qatar has invested upwards of $20 billion, almost three times the previously thought of amount, into US universities… documenting a correlation between increased antisemitism on campuses and the presence of Qatar funding.
*Qatar’s own school curriculum features antisemitism, religious intolerance toward non-Muslims, glorification of Jihad and martyrdom, alongside the systematic delegitimization of Israel, portrayal of Jews as deceitful, manipulative, and hostile, while distorting Jewish history and discrediting its 3,500-year-old roots in the Land of Israel.
*Of Qatar’s 3 million population only 10%-15% are citizens, who provide tailwind to the anti-US Ayatollah regime, the Muslim Brotherhood, Houthis, Hezbollah and other Islamic terror entities. 85%-90% of the residents in Qatar are second-class-foreign workers, mostly from South Asia.
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative”
May 13, 2025
*47 years of US negotiation with the Ayatollah regime suggest that US policy makers have been impressed with the, supposedly, pragmatism of Iranian negotiators. However, while the US considers agreements with the Ayatollah regime and its proxies (e.g., the Houthis, Hamas, Hezbollah) a step toward reconciliation and peaceful coexistence, the Ayatollah regime considers negotiation as a step toward the realization of its ideology – a global domination of all walks of life by Shia Islam, headed by Shia clerics.
*While US policy makers tend to take history, ideology and religion lightly, assuming that Money Talks, the Ayatollah regime is determined that Ideology Walks. Furthermore, as documented by its 47-year-old track record of rogue exportation of the Islamic Shia Revolution, the Ayatollah regime’s ideology transcends financial and diplomatic accords and benefits.
*The ideology-driven rogue conduct of the Ayatollah regime has been vindicated by the surge of Iran from a secondary/tertiary power in 1979 to a global power in 2025, with strategic footprint from the Persian Gulf to Latin America and the US homeland.
*Iran’s Ayatollah regime has been fully inspired by the Islamic Shia ideology, which was expounded by the leader of the 1979 Islamic Shia Revolution, and the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Khomeini is considered by the Ayatollah regime and Shia Muslims as The Sublime leader and the role model of governance in accordance with the Twelver Shia, which is embraced by a vast majority of Shia Muslims (e.g., a 60% majority in Iraq, 35% minority in Lebanon and a 12% minority in Saudi Arabia, mostly in the oil region). The Twelver Shia holds that the “infallible” 12th Imam (Muhammad al-Mahdi), who disappeared in 939 AD, will return in a violent apocalyptic context, severe suffering by Shia Muslims, stained in “infidel’s” blood, as a savior to establish global justice, dominated by Shia Islam, which is, ostensibly, divinely ordained as the sole legitimate religion.
*Khomeini’s aggressive legacy includes the Twelver concept of the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists (Velayat-e Faqih), which stipulates that all aspects of life must be governed by Shia clerics until the reappearance of the Mahdi. The Khomeini legacy also dictates that the attempts to bring the “infidel” West to submission provide a tailwind to the reappearance of the Hidden Imam al-Mahdi. Also, Khomeini was influenced by the founder and the leading ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb, in addition to the annually commemorated 680 AD Battle of Karbala (the origin of the Sunni-Shia rift and Shia vengeance and martyrdom), the Twelfth Imam, and the 1501 AD recognition of Shia Islam as the official religion of Iran. While martyrdom has always been celebrated by Islam, with martyrs promised a place in heaven (Quran 3: 169-171 – “Never think of those martyred in the cause of Allah as dead; they are alive with their Lord, well provided for….), the Khomeini legacy has promoted deliberate-martyrdom (Istishhad), heralding “the great martyr Imam Husayn ibn Ali,” who was killed in Karbala.
*Iran’s current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei has fully integrated the Mahdist ideology into Iran’s domestic and external conduct. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which coordinates Iran’s cooperation with its terror proxies throughout the globe, incorporates Mahdist ideology into its training programs, preparing the ground for the Mahdi’s return, and confronting The Great American Satan and its Middle East Vanguard, Israel.
*Thus, while the Ayatollah regime has underscored skilful negotiation and peaceful talk, its anti-US walk – domestically and internationally – has been driven by a 1,400-year-old apocalyptic ideology, which has been embedded in Iran’s 1979 Constitution, school curriculum, mosque sermons and official media, transforming Iran into the chief global epicenter of wars, terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering and the proliferation of advanced weaponry.
The bottom line
Underestimating the intensity of the apocalyptic zeal of the Ayatollah regime, and sacrificing the volcanic, bleeding and frustrating ideology-driven Ayatollah apocalyptic reality on the altar of a pragmatic, peaceful and convenient business-driven alternate reality, may yield a short term geo-strategic accommodation, but would trigger a long term wave of wars and terrorism, paving the road to the first ever apocalyptic nuclear power.
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: US-Israel Initiative”
February 24, 2026
*While the United Arab Emirates uprooted all anti-Jewish and anti-Israel elements from its school curriculum, the Friday mosque sermons, and its official media – replacing them with pro-Jewish and pro-Israel elements – Qatar has sustained its anti-“infidel”, anti-Christian, anti-Jewish and anti-Israel school curriculum, consistent with its Friday incitement mosque sermons and controlled media.
*Are Qatar’s worldview and conduct consistent with the values and interests of the USA? Is Qatar’s policy consistent with the US’ attempts to end/minimize wars and terrorism? Does it qualify Qatar as an honest broker? Is Qatar a partner in the defense of Western democracies in the face of Sunni and Shiite Islamic terrorism?
*Qatar’s shifty diplomatic pronouncements (Talk) has been incompatible with Qatar’s permanent school curriculum (Walk), which reflects most authentically its worldview, values, vision and conduct. It reflects and shapes the minds of Qatar’s ruling minority (10%-15%), and is fully-controlled by the ruler (Emir), Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who oppresses the 85%-90% majority of foreign workers.
*A February 2026 review of Qatar’s 2025-26 school curriculum, conducted by Impact-se, documents “anti-semitic narratives, religious intolerance toward non-Muslims, and legitimization of violent jihad,… demonstrating no substantive curricular reform since the 2021–2022 school year….
“In July 2024, the US Department of State’s Annual Report on International Religious Freedom criticized Qatar’s national curriculum for continuing to ‘include content that was antisemitic in nature.’ Despite this, the same material was reprinted and continues to be taught in the 2025–2026 school year….
“Disrespect towards non-Muslims is expressed through terminology such as ‘Infidels’ and ‘pagans/polytheists,’ through derogatory portrayals of non-Muslims, and through discussions of punishment for disbelief in Islam…. Non-Islamic nations such as the US and European countries are occasionally treated with suspicion….
“Textbooks continue to teach antisemitic content…. portraying Jews as materialistic, arrogant, deceitful, and hostile to Islam. Jews are further associated with traits such as lying, scheming, fleeing in fear, spreading discord, breaching agreements, and excessive attachment to material wealth, thereby reinforcing an image of Jews as fundamentally untrustworthy…. Antisemitic tropes depict Jews as cynically manipulating global affairs… denying Jewish historical ties to Israel/Palestine and the right to self-determination….
“Violent interpretations of jihad prevail as religious ideals…. Textbooks praise the upbringing of children ‘to love jihad,’ and students are taught that God rewards those who fight and die for Islam by granting them entry into Paradise….
“Israel’s establishment is framed as occupation…. Israel is erased from maps, and normalization is condemned…. Poems exhort students to draw swords, engage in jihad, and sacrifice their lives fighting against ‘the Zionist enemy….’
For example:
*Islamic Education, Grade 11, Vol. 1, 2025–2026, p. 46 condemns Christianity and Judaism as religions which “have been corrupted”, and that polytheistic elements “have been inserted into them.”
*Islamic Education, Grade 8, Vol. 1, 2025–2026, pp. 124, 129 presents two possible infinite outcomes one can expect when dying: Muslims (“Believers”) will reside in Heaven; non-Muslims (“Infidels”) will suffer in Hell.
*Islamic Education, Grade 10, Vol. 1, 2025–2026, pp. 18–19 “accuses Jews of failing to uphold the Torah they were given by Allah…. instructing students to specifically avoid ‘resembling Jews….”
*Islamic Education, Grade 8, Vol. 1, 2025–2026, pp. 26–28 suggests that “Moses and Jesus are both Islamic prophets who were initially rejected by their people, according to the Qur’an…. Jews are evil…. The Jewish people are forever cursed by Allah…. None is more evil than people who have been invited to Islam and rejected it….”
*Islamic Education, Grade 8, Vol. 1, 2025–2026, pp. 70–71. A chapter about the Battle of Khaybar, fought between the Muslim forces of the Prophet Muhammad and the Jewish Arabian tribe of Banu Nadir… portrays the Jewish people as inherently hostile to Islam and Muslims. A repeated emphasis on the Jewish nature as historic enemies of Muslims…”
*Islamic Education, Grade 6, Vol. 2, 2025–2026, p. 139. “An Islamic education lesson teaches that one of the ways to measure a good Muslim woman is raising children to sacrifice their lives [martyrdom], in what is understood to be violent Jihad.”
*Islamic Education, Grade 8, Vol. 1, 2025–2026, pp. 72–73 teaches the Battle of Khaybar, fought between the forces of the Prophet Muhammad and the ancient Jewish Arabian tribe of Banu Nadir in 629 CE, concluded by teaching students that the sublime goal of Jihad is to bring non-Muslims to convert to Islam.
*Islamic Education, Grade 8, Vol. 1, 2025–2026, pp. 22, 25, 28, 103 teaches that God loves Jihad warriors who “fight” (yuqātilūn) for His sake, favoring a violent interpretation of Jihad. God defends Islam against the non-Islamic world.
The bottom line: A prerequisite for Qatar’s constructive role in advancing peace and combatting terror isa thorough structural overhaul of its prevailing culture, which is preconditioned upon the uprooting of its hate and terror-driven school curriculum.
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: US-Israel Initiative”
February 19, 2026
*Qatar’s strategic alliance with Iran’s Ayatollah regime has been tightened since 2017, in the face of the blockade on Qatar, which was imposed by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Bahrain. The blockade was imposed due to their accusation that Qatar was fomenting terrorism and subversion in their countries, as well as assisting Al Qaeda, Yemen’s Houthis and other terrorists.
*The intensification of the Qatar-Iran strategic collaboration has taken place irrespective of Iran’s emergence as the lead global epicenter of anti-US terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering, the proliferation of advanced military systems, the fomenting of civil wars, Iran’s attempts to topple every pro-US Sunni (“apostate”) Arab regime, and the Ayatollah assistance to every anti-US government in Latin America.
*Moreover, Qatar has been accused by Saudi Arabia of intensifying tension in the oil-rich, Shiite-majority Eastern Province of the kingdom, as well as between the House of Saud and the Wahabis (20%-40% of the Saudi population), whose two-centuries-old-claim to be the sole designated-legitimate interpreter of Islam has been challenged by Crown Prince Muhammed Bin Salman.
*Qatar has evolved into the lead financial resource of the transnational Muslim Brotherhood, which is the largest Sunni terror organization in the world, aspiring to topple every national Muslim regime, and establish a universal Muslim society with Islam as the only divinely-ordained legitimate religion. While Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Bahrain designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, Qatar extends financial support to Muslim Brotherhood affiliates in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia (e.g., India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Thailand).
*In May 2020, Qatar’s Al Jazeera Network – the mouth piece of Qatar’s rulers and the most authentic reflection of their ideology and policy – referred to the US’ elimination of Qasem Soleimani, who was the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force international terrorists, and the architect of its anti-US operations, as the elimination of “a hero who walked in the path of God.”
*Qatar’s Al Jazeera Network was established in 1996 by decree of the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, as an arm of Qatar’s propaganda and foreign policy. It has systematically extolled the Muslim Brotherhood.
*In the 1990s, Qatar hosted Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, who later masterminded the 9/11 attacks.
*In the aftermath of September 11, Al Jazeera became an exclusive platform to publish al-Qaeda’s messages, which glorified the killing of US troops as “Paradise Operations.” In fact, Al Qaeda frequently used Al Jazeera as a primary platform to broadcast messages, videos, and statements from Osama bin Laden and other leading Islamic terrorists.
*All pro-US Arab regimes, such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco have accused the Qatar-proxy Al Jazeera Network of promoting extremism and inciting unrest on their soil.
*Qatar granted citizenship, a home base and a massive platform on Al Jazeera – including a full show attracting 60 million viewers – to the Egyptian-born Yusuf al-Qaradawi (1926–2022), and the al-Qaradawi-founded “International Union of Muslim Scholars,” which promotes the al-Qaradawi anti-US, anti-“infidel West” Islamic terror ideology and litany of terror-leaning religious decrees (fatwas), including the call to kidnap and murder US soldiers. Al-Qaradawi was the leading modern-day ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood, encouraging all able Muslims to commit suicide bombings, for which he was banned from entering the US, the UK, France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Bahrain, but offered the Red Carpet hospitality in Qatar.
*Qatar has offered sanctuary to Hamas leaders since their 1999 expulsion from Jordan.
*Qatar opposed Qadhaffi’s war on African Islamic terrorists, and has supported the Tripoli-based Islamist regime (which lynched Qadhaffi) in the civil war, that has afflicted Libya since 2011.
*Qatar’s partnership with Iran’s Ayatollah regime – including intelligence cooperation and the bypassing of economic sanctions – was also exposed, during the March 2024 biannual Doha International Maritime Defense Exhibition and Conference, when in a repeat of the 2022 exhibition, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officials and Iranian military officials were prominently in attendance, exhibiting missiles, drones, and other military systems.
*Qatar and Iran share ownership of the South Pars/North Dome natural gas condensate field, the world’s largest natural gas field.
*Do you want your education to be funded by the same source that funds Hamas? The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) reports that Qatar has invested upwards of $20 billion, almost three times the previously thought of amount, into US universities… documenting a correlation between increased antisemitism on campuses and the presence of Qatar funding.
*Qatar’s own school curriculum features antisemitism, religious intolerance toward non-Muslims, glorification of Jihad and martyrdom, alongside the systematic delegitimization of Israel, portrayal of Jews as deceitful, manipulative, and hostile, while distorting Jewish history and discrediting its 3,500-year-old roots in the Land of Israel.
*Of Qatar’s 3 million population only 10%-15% are citizens, who provide tailwind to the anti-US Ayatollah regime, the Muslim Brotherhood, Houthis, Hezbollah and other Islamic terror entities. 85%-90% of the residents in Qatar are second-class-foreign workers, mostly from South Asia.
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative”
May 13, 2025
*47 years of US negotiation with the Ayatollah regime suggest that US policy makers have been impressed with the, supposedly, pragmatism of Iranian negotiators. However, while the US considers agreements with the Ayatollah regime and its proxies (e.g., the Houthis, Hamas, Hezbollah) a step toward reconciliation and peaceful coexistence, the Ayatollah regime considers negotiation as a step toward the realization of its ideology – a global domination of all walks of life by Shia Islam, headed by Shia clerics.
*While US policy makers tend to take history, ideology and religion lightly, assuming that Money Talks, the Ayatollah regime is determined that Ideology Walks. Furthermore, as documented by its 47-year-old track record of rogue exportation of the Islamic Shia Revolution, the Ayatollah regime’s ideology transcends financial and diplomatic accords and benefits.
*The ideology-driven rogue conduct of the Ayatollah regime has been vindicated by the surge of Iran from a secondary/tertiary power in 1979 to a global power in 2025, with strategic footprint from the Persian Gulf to Latin America and the US homeland.
*Iran’s Ayatollah regime has been fully inspired by the Islamic Shia ideology, which was expounded by the leader of the 1979 Islamic Shia Revolution, and the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Khomeini is considered by the Ayatollah regime and Shia Muslims as The Sublime leader and the role model of governance in accordance with the Twelver Shia, which is embraced by a vast majority of Shia Muslims (e.g., a 60% majority in Iraq, 35% minority in Lebanon and a 12% minority in Saudi Arabia, mostly in the oil region). The Twelver Shia holds that the “infallible” 12th Imam (Muhammad al-Mahdi), who disappeared in 939 AD, will return in a violent apocalyptic context, severe suffering by Shia Muslims, stained in “infidel’s” blood, as a savior to establish global justice, dominated by Shia Islam, which is, ostensibly, divinely ordained as the sole legitimate religion.
*Khomeini’s aggressive legacy includes the Twelver concept of the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists (Velayat-e Faqih), which stipulates that all aspects of life must be governed by Shia clerics until the reappearance of the Mahdi. The Khomeini legacy also dictates that the attempts to bring the “infidel” West to submission provide a tailwind to the reappearance of the Hidden Imam al-Mahdi. Also, Khomeini was influenced by the founder and the leading ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb, in addition to the annually commemorated 680 AD Battle of Karbala (the origin of the Sunni-Shia rift and Shia vengeance and martyrdom), the Twelfth Imam, and the 1501 AD recognition of Shia Islam as the official religion of Iran. While martyrdom has always been celebrated by Islam, with martyrs promised a place in heaven (Quran 3: 169-171 – “Never think of those martyred in the cause of Allah as dead; they are alive with their Lord, well provided for….), the Khomeini legacy has promoted deliberate-martyrdom (Istishhad), heralding “the great martyr Imam Husayn ibn Ali,” who was killed in Karbala.
*Iran’s current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei has fully integrated the Mahdist ideology into Iran’s domestic and external conduct. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which coordinates Iran’s cooperation with its terror proxies throughout the globe, incorporates Mahdist ideology into its training programs, preparing the ground for the Mahdi’s return, and confronting The Great American Satan and its Middle East Vanguard, Israel.
*Thus, while the Ayatollah regime has underscored skilful negotiation and peaceful talk, its anti-US walk – domestically and internationally – has been driven by a 1,400-year-old apocalyptic ideology, which has been embedded in Iran’s 1979 Constitution, school curriculum, mosque sermons and official media, transforming Iran into the chief global epicenter of wars, terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering and the proliferation of advanced weaponry.
The bottom line
Underestimating the intensity of the apocalyptic zeal of the Ayatollah regime, and sacrificing the volcanic, bleeding and frustrating ideology-driven Ayatollah apocalyptic reality on the altar of a pragmatic, peaceful and convenient business-driven alternate reality, may yield a short term geo-strategic accommodation, but would trigger a long term wave of wars and terrorism, paving the road to the first ever apocalyptic nuclear power.
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: US-Israel Initiative”
February 16, 2025
1. President Trump is not an impartial leader. As expected, he is driven by US interests, determining that Israel’s capabilities and track record have been a unique force and dollar multiplier for the US, commercially and militarily, technologically and operationally.
2. President Trump views Islamic terrorism as a threat to Western democracies, including the US (“The Great American Satan”) – a mutual threat to both the US and Israel. He is aware of NATO’s vacillation (No Action Talk Only), and its unwillingness to flex any effective military and political muscle against Islamic terrorism. Also, all pro-US Arab regimes have the machetes of Iran’s Ayatollahs and the Muslim Brotherhood at their throats. Thus, Israel is the most potent, reliable and experienced ally in the US’ battle against Islamic terrorism. Trump views Israel as an essential ally in his attempt to end wars and terrorism, which requires the obliteration – not containment – of the epicenters of war and terrorism (e.g., Iran’s Ayatollahs, Hamas and Hezbollah).
3. President Trump aspires to minimize US military presence in the Middle East. However, he does not ignore the critical role played by the Middle East as the main epicenter of global anti-US Islamic terrorism and drug trafficking, and the site of 48% of global oil reserves. Also, the Middle East is a junction of critical trade routes between Asia and West Europe, stretching between the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Persian Gulf and between Europe, Asia and Africa. President Trump considers Israel as the only effective ally to fill in the vacuum created by a US military withdrawal, serving as a US strategic beachhead, while not requiring US military personnel, only US military hardware – the largest US aircraft carrier with no Americans on board.
4. President Trump (just like most Americans, most Capitol Hill legislators and his entire foreign policy and national security team) identifies Israel as part of the forces of Good in their battle against the forces of Evil, which underscores Islamic terrorism.
5. President Trump realizes that Islamic (and Palestinian) terrorism is driven by a fanatic anti-Western ideology, not by despair. He has concluded that terrorism must be defeated, not contained.
6. President Trump supports Israel’s obligation to defeat terrorism, not just Israel’s right to defend itself. He is aware that Israel’s victory over Islamic terrorism is also a US’ victory.
7. President Trump realizes that Israel’s capabilities have played a key role in the defense of all pro-US Arab regimes (e.g., Jordan), which are targeted by Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood and other forms of Islamic terrorism.
8. During his first Administration, President Trump evicted the establishment of the State Department from the center stage of policy-making, because Foggy Bottom has systematically failed in its Middle East policy. Thus, it was the defiance of the State Department’s Palestinian-centered worldview, which paved the road to four additional Israel-Arab peace treaties (the Abraham Accords).
9. Unlike the State Department’s worldview, President Trump does not consider Israel to be part of the problem, but a major part of the solution. He does not believe in soothing – but defeating – terrorism, and considers Gaza as a terror-state, where the population idolizes terrorism.
10. Contrary to the multilateral and cosmopolitan worldview of the of the State Department’s establishment, President Trump does not aspire to establish a policy-common-denominator with the traditionally anti-US and anti-Israel UN and UN-related international organizations. President Trump prefers independent US national security action in collaboration with effective allies, such as Israel, rather than mortgaging US policy to the UN and ineffective Western allies.
11. President Trump is aware that Israel’s posture of deterrence has made it a unique ally, enhancing the US’ regional and global strategic posture. He appreciates Israel as a site of an innovation center for some 250 US high tech giants, which has contributed to the US global technological edge. Moreover, he knows that Israel has been the triple-A-store and cost-effective battle-tested laboratory of the US defense and aerospace industries, yielding a mega-billion-dollar bonanza to the US taxpayer through research and development savings, enhanced US competitiveness in the global market, increased US exports and expanded US employment.
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative”
January 28, 2025
*Ending wars and terrorism is a noble aspiration, which confronts the reality of NO intra-Muslim peaceful coexistence during the last 14 centuries. In fact, since 1948, intra-Muslim wars have featured a toll of mega-million fatalities (e.g., 3 million killed during two civil wars in the Sudan, 3 million during the Pakistan-Bangladesh war, over 1 million during the Afghan civil war, close to 1 million Syrians killed by Hafiz and Bashar Assad, 1 million killed during Iran-Iraq war, 350,000 in Yemen’s civil wars, etc.) compared with some 130,000 Arabs killed in Arab wars against Israel.
*Ending wars and terrorism must contend with the 14-century-old reality of intra-Muslim unpredictability, violent intolerance, ethnic and religious fragmentation, despotism, tenuous regimes-policies-accords, intrinsic terror and subversion. Not an “Arab Spring,’ but an “Arab Tsunami!”
*Ending wars and defeating terrorism mandates a regime-change in Iran, which has become the chief global epicenter of anti-US terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering and proliferation of advanced military systems all the way to Latin America and the US homeland.
*46 years of the US diplomatic option, and 40 years of US and UN economic sanctions (including crippling maximum pressure sanctions), have failed to moderate Iran; in fact, bolstering its anti-US capabilities. Economic sanctions are relatively ineffective when imposed on fanatical, apocalyptic regimes, and in view of the litany of financial, trade and diplomatic ways to bypass sanctions through third parties, which oppose sanctions. Moreover, as documented by the Biden Administration, economic sanctions are reversible by a succeeding President. In fact, Iran’s defiance of economic sanctions has enhanced its strategic posture, regionally and globally.
*Iran’s regime-change would remove the Ayatollahs’ machete from the throats of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and all other pro-US Arab regimes, reducing regional and global violence. It would expand the Abraham Accords to Saudi Arabia, Oman and possibly Kuwait, Indonesia and additional Muslim countries.
*Ending wars and defeating terrorism requires recognition of the central role played by the 1,400-year-old fanatical, religious and imperialistic ideologies/visions, which transcend financial and diplomatic benefits. Fanatical, religious and megalomaniacal ideologies have driven Shiite terrorists (e.g., Iran’s Ayatollahs, Hezbollah and the Houthis) and Sunni terrorists (e.g., the Muslim Brotherhood and its branches, such as Hamas), mandating them to bring “apostates” and “infidels” to submission.
*Money talks in Western societies, but fanatical ideologies walk when it comes to Iran, Hezbollah, ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and the PLO (Palestinian Authority), as documented in their foundational charters, school curriculum, mosque sermons, official media, public monuments and financial support of terrorists’ families.
*Ending wars and defeating terrorism is preconditioned upon the realization that school curriculum is the most effective production-line of terrorists, and the most authentic reflection of rogue entities’ strategy/vision. School curriculum transcends moderate statements shared with the West. These statements represent the art of Taqiyya (dissimulation), which aims to mislead and overcome the “infidel” West.
*In the Middle East, one does not pay custom on words. Western preoccupation with (the comforting) moderate Middle Eastern talk, tends to obscure the (inconvenient and frustrating) Middle Eastern walk, that is frequently the reverse of the talk. For example, US emissaries to the Middle East are exposed to a barrage of pro-Palestinian Arab talk, while the Arab walk on the Palestinian issue has been (since 1948) anywhere from indifferent to negative. Thus, the six Israel-Arab peace treaties were not preconditioned upon the establishment of a Palestinian state.
*Contrary to Western policy makers, pro-US Arabs are preoccupied with the intra-Arab Palestinian walk, which has transformed the Palestinian into a role model of intra-Arab terrorism and treachery (e.g., Palestinian-Muslim Brotherhood terrorism in Egypt in the 1950s, Syria – 1960s, Jordan – 1970, Lebanon – 1970-1982, Kuwait – 1990). Arabs are aware of the systematic alignment of Palestinians with radical global entities, such as Nazi Germany, the Soviet Bloc, Ayatollah Khomeini, international terrorism, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, China and Russia. The Palestinian track record has convinced the pro-US Arab regimes that a Palestinian state would add fuel to the Middle East fire, toppling Jordan’s pro-US Hashemite regime, transforming Jordan into an uncontrollable entity and another platform of Islamic terrorism. It would undermine the stability of the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt and all pro-US oil-producing Arabian Peninsula regimes, benefiting Iran’s Ayatollahs (who may gain control of 48% of global oil reserves), the Muslim Brotherhood, Russia and China; thus, dealing a blow to Western trade, economy and homeland security.
*Middle East reality has documented that the Palestinian issue is NOT the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict, NOT a core cause of Middle East turbulence and NOT a crown-jewel of Arab policy makers.
*Ending wars and terrorism, on the one hand, and snatching Hamas and Hezbollah from the jaws of obliteration, on the other hand, constitutes an oxymoron, which allows terrorists to recuperate, and plan the next wave of terror.
*Minimizing wars and terrorism, on the one hand, and disengaging from the Middle East (the chief epicenter of anti-US Islamic terrorism), on the other hand, is a contradiction in terms. While the US may wish to disengage itself from the bases of Islamic terrorism, Islamic terrorists do not intend to disengage from the US. Would the US prefer to fight Islamic terrorism in the terrorists’ trenches, or in the US trenches (e.g., NYC, San Bernardino, Orlando, etc.)?!
*Negotiation and deal-making are perceived by the West as a step toward reconciliation, but for terrorists it is a step toward regrouping and bringing the Western “infidel” and the “Great American Satan” to submission.
*As comforting as a hand-shake with Middle East terrorists (and their supporters) may be, President Trump is surely aware that Leopards don’t change their spots; only their tactics!
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative”
January 7, 2025
According to Sir John Jenkins of University of Cambridge, a world leading expert on the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic terrorism, and contrary to the US State Department’s worldview: “… The key to confronting the Islamist challenge is to understand what the challenge is. There is a lot of nonsense talk about the Muslim Brotherhood’s approach to violence…. In fact, violence has been constitutive of the Brotherhood ideology since its origins….
“Central to the Brotherhood’s shared ideology are the ideas of Sayyid Qutb [who was executed in Egypt in 1966 for plotting to assassinate President Nasser], a seminal figure for all Islamist movements… the foundational text of Islamism, particularly violent Islamism…. There is an interview of Al Jazeera and Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra leader in Syria. [Al Jazeera’s interviewer] says to al-Jolani: ‘Everything you’re doing and saying is straight out of the Muslim Brotherhood and Qutb’s handbook…. And al-Jolani replies: ‘Yes; you’re right that Qutb is essential, and we teach him in our schools….’ You have to understand this in order to understand the constitutive ideological challenge of Islamism….
“The Brotherhood’s ultimate objective is to take power and create what they construe as a true Islamic state… an idea they share with all radicalized Islamists including ISIS and other actively violent Islamist movements…. The relationship between the Brotherhood and more theatrically violent groups like ISIS or al-Qaeda is complex. They criticize each other…. But this is what Freud called the narcissism of small differences. The end-state of all these groups is the same…”
The Western battle against Islamic terrorism has been afflicted by the following shortcomings:
*The determination that Islamic terrorists could be induced – through generous gestures – to subordinate their deeply-rooted fanatical ideology to enhanced standard of living and benefits of modernity, and to embrace Western values, such as peaceful coexistence, compliance with agreements, human rights and democracy.
*The presumption that Islamic terrorists could adhere to “Money Talks,” rather than “Fanatical Ideology Walks.”
*The refusal to realize that terrorists bite the hand that feeds them.
*Taking lightly the centrality of radical/fanatical, religious ideology in the shaping of the 1,400-year-old Islamic terrorism, in general, and the Muslim Brotherhood (which was founded in 1928, and has been radicalized through Qutb’s teachings since the 1950s), in particular.
*The assumption that Islamic terrorism is driven by social, economic and political/diplomatic despair, rather than by a fanatical ideology, which mandates the subjugation/destruction of – and precluding peaceful coexistence with – “apostates” and “infidels.”
*The focus on terrorists’ violent actions – which represents tactics – rather than on the clear and present threat of the intent, which reflects the overriding ideology-driven strategy to bring the “infidel” West to submission.
*Basing counter-terrorism on defense, rather than offense; containment, rather than bringing terrorism to submission; reaction to – rather than preemption of – terrorism.
*The perception of negotiation as a means to advance reconciliation, while Islamic terrorists consider negotiation as a means to bolster their capabilities and bring the “infidel” West to submission.
*Leopards don’t change ideological spots, only tactics. Similarly, the frustrating Middle East reality cannot change its spots, and become a convenient alternate reality.
*Western awakening to the challenge of Islamic terrorism, in general, and Muslim Brotherhood, in particular, would free the vast majority of Muslims – who are not terrorists! – from the tyranny of despotic, terror regimes.
Sir John Jenkins adds: “…The basic ideology of Islamism—common to all its forms—poses [a challenge] to the international and domestic state order. [Overlooking this ideology] has given an opening to those who claim that socio-economic oppression is the root of all radicalization and that the ideological threat comes instead from Western and other attempts to combat it….
“This [Islamic] ideology is triumphalist, totalitarian and apocalyptic. It is founded in revelation, not reason…. It is a mistake to think that hard and fast lines can be drawn between violent Islamist ideologues who aim to implement Sharia and establish a caliphate through vanguardist brutality, on the one hand, and pragmatic Islamist ideologues who seek to do so through an [intellectual, political, cultural] maneuver, on the other. In doing so, policymakers risk misconstruing the positions that some in the region—including the UAE, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia since at least the 1990s—have taken against the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates [which are determined to topple all “apostate” national Muslim regimes and establish a divinely-ordained universal Muslim society, dominating the globe]….”
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative”
December 29, 2024
Iran’s Regime-Change Transcends Economic Sanctions
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative”
December 29, 2024
*Driven by a 1,400-year-old fanatical religious vision – which eclipses financial and diplomatic benefits – Iran’s Ayatollahs have surged as the leading epicenter of anti-US Islamic terrorism, such as Yemen’s Houthis, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Gaza’s Hamas. In addition, the Ayatollahs have fueled civil wars in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, East Africa (Ethiopia, Eritrea and the Sudan) and West Africa (Mauritania). They have subverted and terrorized pro-US Sunni Arab regimes in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bharain, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Morocco, etc. Since the early 1980s, Iran’s Ayatollahs have collaborated – along with Hezbollah terrorists – with Latin America drug cartels, terror organizations, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and all anti-US governments. They have established sleeper cells on US soil and have served as a focal point of global drug trafficking, money laundering and the proliferation of advanced military systems.
*The Ayatollahs’ conventional capabilities have made them the lead igniter of regional and global instability, terrorism and wars.
*The 46-year-old US diplomatic option has not moderated Iran’s Ayatollahs, but – unintentionally – has facilitated their transformation from “The American Policeman of the Gulf” to the leading anti-US perpetrator of wars and terrorism. Contrary to US policy makers, who consider negotiation (and economic sanctions) as a means to advance reconciliation, the Ayatollahs have viewed negotiation as a means to advance theiranti-US vision of subjugating the “apostate Sunnis” and the “infidel West.”
*President Trump’s maximum pressure economic sanctions managed to cripple the Ayatollahs’ economy and constrain their capabilities of assisting terror entities. However, as expected, President Biden proved them to be reversible and short-term in effectiveness. Moreover, surging unemployment and inflation, a disastrous shrinking of oil exports and a dramatically reduced GDP did not induce the intended policy changes by the Ayatollahs. Moreover, in the long run, the reversible economic sanctions enhanced the strategic posture of the Ayatollahs, who demonstrated their capabilities to overcome Western assaults.
*Economic sanctions are insufficiently effective when imposed on fanatical ideology-driven, apocalyptic regimes, as documented in their constitutions, school curriculum and official media. These regimes are less susceptible to the Western “Money Talks,” adhering to the Middle Eastern “Radical Vision Talks.”
*According to Tufts University’s Prof. Daniel Drezner, “Sanctions can be circumvented through third-party trade, with countries friendly to the sanctioned nation, serving as a substitute for both imports and exports from the countries that are sanctioning. For example, Russia’s trade with the European Union fell by about 5% compared to the 2017-2021 average in the wake of sanctions imposed in response to its invasion of Ukraine. However, at the same time, there were spikes in trade between Russia and Armenia, the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Hong Kong. Those countries also experienced increases in trade with Europe and the U.S….”
*Furthermore, 40 years of economic sanctions have not induced the Ayatollahs to abort their nuclear plan, or to refrain from flexing their highly destabilizing conventional rogue muscles. In fact, economic sanctions have incentivised them to develop creative ways to bypass sanctions, enhancing trade with China, Russia and other countries, which oppose sanctions.
*Iran’s Ayatollahs have evolved into a role model of ruthless, apocalyptic despotism and imperialism, driven by an ideology, which mandates subjugation and degradation of internal and external opponents, such as domestic dissidents, ethnic and religious minorities, women, “apostate” Sunni regimes, the “infidel” West (religiously, culturally and strategically), “The Great American Satan” and “the illegitimate Zionist entity, the vanguard of the US in the Middle East.”
*Contrary to economic sanctions, regime-change is irreversible. It eliminates the threat, and cannot be restored by succeeding Presidents. Moreover, regime-change in Iran would bolster the US’ strategic stature (including in Latin America, the US’ soft underbelly), by removing the Ayatollahs’ machete from the throats of all pro-US Arab regimes, eliminating the chief global destabilizer and core of Islamic terrorism. This would also induce Saudi Arabia and Oman (and possibly Kuwait, Indonesia and additional Moslem countries) to join the Abraham Accords.
*The track record of Iran’s Ayatollahs, the self-destructive nature of the US diplomatic option, and the reversibility of crippling economic sanctions, underscore the fact that the Ayatollahs should not be partners to negotiation, nor a target for maximum pressure economic sanctions, but a target for regime-change. Also, the potential cost of regime-change would be dwarfed by the horrific cost of facing a nuclear Iran.
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiatives”
December 16, 2024
*The success of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) terrorists to topple the Assad regime is traumatizing all pro-US Arab regimes, which, for decades, have had the machetes of Iran’s Ayatollahs and the Moslem Brotherhood at their throats.
*Contrary to some Western policy makers, journalists and academics, the pro-US Arab leaders do not take HTS’ moderate statements at face value. They are aware of the fanatic, religious vision, which has guided the HTS, and are familiar with the Middle Eastern gap between the talk and the walk, and with the Islamic tactic of Taqiyya (dissimulation). Taqiyya was also employed by Bashar Assad upon assuming power in 2000, when his moderate talk led US legislators (e.g., Senator John Kerry), Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and NYT’s Tom Friedman to view him as a potentially peaceful leader. It was used by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1978/79, ahead of assuming power in Iran, convincing President Carter and the State Department that he would be “an Iranian edition of Ghandi…. preoccupied with tractors, not tanks.” The Houthis issued moderate pronouncements that led to their delisting from the list of terror organizations in 2021 by President Biden. Also, Arafat issued peaceful statements upon concluding the Oslo Accord, which won him the Nobel Prize for Peace, and led Tom Friedman to wonder: “Who’s Arafat? Is he Nelson Mandela or Willie Nelson?”). Etc.
*The vision of the HTS is not limited to Syria. It aims to topple all national Islamic regimes, and establish a universal Islamic entity, as prescribed by the precepts of the Moslem Brotherhood, which has pursued its goals through politics, education, social welfare and affiliates, splinters and offshoots that engage in terrorism.
*The initial strategy of HTS, as suggested by their name (al-Sham = the Levant) is to “liberate” the Levant, which was “Greater Syria” (Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Cyprus and Turkey’s Hatay province), then the entire Middle East, the “Abode of Islam,” and finally the “Abode of the Infidel,” preferably via peaceful means, or militarily, if resisted by the “infidel.”
*The Moslem Brotherhood is inspired by the HTS’ success in Syria, to be replicated in additional Moslem countries. Therefore, the Muslim Brotherhood branches in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and other Moslem countries have congratulated HTS for achieving the first goal of the Sunni Islamic revolution, expecting a robust tailwind to bringing down additional national Moslem regimes.
*HTS considers the toppling of Jordan’s pro-US Hashemite regime as a top priority, as does a chief enemy of HTS, Iran’s Ayatollahs. Both have intensified subversion, terrorism and drug trafficking in Jordan, leveraging the presence – in Jordan – of 2 million refugees from Syria and Iraq, a solid operational foundation of the Moslem Brotherhood, the presence of Palestinian terror organizations, and the intra-Bedouin animosity.
*The HTS’ success in Syria is inspiring the Moslem Brotherhood in its attempts to topple the pro-US General Sisi regime in Egypt, which is the 1928 birth site of the Moslem Brotherhood. In 1949, the Moslem Brotherhood assassinated Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmoud Nuqrashi; in 1954, the Moslem Brotherhood failed in its attempt to murder Egyptian President Nasser; in 1981, the Moslem Brotherhood’s offshoot, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, murdered Egyptian President Sadat. The Islamic Jihad merged with Al Qaeda.
*Prof. Albert Hourani, a leading Middle East historian, Oxford University’s St. Anthony’s College, noted the following tenets of the Muslim Brotherhood (A History of the Arab Peoples, pp. 445-446): “A total rejection of all forms of society except the wholly Islamic one…. The true Islamic society…regarded the Quran as the source of all guidance for human life…. All other societies were societies of Jahiliyya (ignorance of religious truth), whether they were communist, capitalist, nationalist, [followers of] false religions, or claimed to be Muslim but did not obey the Sharia…. The leadership of Western man in the human world is coming to an end… The turn of Islam has come….Those who accepted [the Muslim Brotherhood] program would form a vanguard of dedicated fighters, using every means, including Jihad… The struggle should aim at creating a universal Muslim society…. The Western age is finished…. Only Islam offered hope to the world…. [The Muslim Brotherhood] were prepared for violence and martyrdom.”
*The Muslim Brotherhood, just like the HTS, have been very skillful in obfuscating the West through Taqiyya and a two-pronged operation: the religious, educational, social and political screensavers, as well as the operational (subversive and terroristic) modes. In fact, the Muslim Brotherhood poses the following proposition: Submission to Allah and the Koran, or else…!
*Before embracing the Muslim Brotherhood’s and the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s moderate talk, Western policy makers are advised to study the following observations by Sir John Jenkins, a top specialist on the Moslem Brotherhood and the Middle East, and former Executive Director of the British International Institute for Strategic Studies – Middle East branch:
“[The West] should resist the temptation to seek to understand the Muslim Brotherhood through our own cultural or epistemological [knowledge] categories…. [The Muslim Brotherhood] continues to threaten the constitutive basis of most contemporary Muslim majority states…. Some may still be tempted to hope that when a malign or otherwise unsatisfactory regime is overthrown the subsequent trajectory must be progressive. [Middle East] experience suggests the reverse…. Authoritarianism is not weakened in such circumstances: it recurs….
“[Hassan Al Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood] urged his followers to scorn life; claimed that ultimate martyrdom could only be attained through death in the service of the divine; articulated a doctrine of armed physical force…. The writings of Sayyid Qutb – its most significant and protean ideologue [who was executed in Egypt in 1966] – remain central to Brotherhood thinking everywhere and continue to be used to justify multiple forms of Islamist violence….”
“The Brotherhood… gives little space to tolerance, choice and individual freedoms…. no commitment to democratic choice…. It is constitutively antisemitic and homophobic….”
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative”
December 10, 2024
*The unpredictable eruption of the Syrian volcano – which could emit molten lava well beyond Syria and the Middle East – sheds light on the following 1,400-year-old features of the radical/fundamentalist segment of the complicated, brutal and frustrating inter Arab/Moslem reality, which are currently menacing every pro-US Arab regime:
<Violent unpredictability;
<Ruthless despotism;
<Tenuous/shifty regimes, and therefore tenuous policies and accords;
<Violent clannish, ethnic, religious and ideological fragmentation, yielding a volatile balance of power;
<Superiority of local – over national – loyalty;
<Fanatical ideologies – which mandates destruction of enemies/rivals – transcend financial benefits and diplomatic agreements;
<Fanatical ideologies defy peaceful coexistence;
<Fanatical ideologies are enshrined in mosque sermons and school textbooks;
<Ideology – not despair – driven terrorism against “apostates” and “infidels.”
<Aiming to bring the “infidel” West to Islam or to submission.
<Western gestures perceived as weakness, whetting terrorists’ appetite;
<Dissimulation employed to mislead and overcome the “infidel” West;
<Deal-making as a means to advance fanatical ideology, not peaceful coexistence.
<Posture of deterrence is the key component of national security/survival.
*Against the backdrop of these Middle East features, and Israel’s pre-1967 9-15 mile waistline, Israel’s defensible borders must not be based on a state-of-peace, but rather be capable of withstanding unpredictable eruptions of lava (e.g., an abrupt military violation of a state-of-peace, or a recurrence of the October 7 horrific terrorism on three fronts). Israel’s defensible borders should be able to withstand the worst-case – not the best-case – scenarios in the most violent region in the world.
*The eruption of the Syrian volcano, and the victory of Islamic terrorists, will impact regional stability, emboldening epicenters of global Islamic terrorism, and undermining the stability of all pro-US Arab regimes and homeland security in Europe and the USA. The impact of the fall of the Assad regime may resemble the impact of the fall of the central regimes in Iraq (2003), Libya (2011) and Yemen (2010 and before), which transformed these countries into a chaotic arena of civil wars and global Sunni (e.g., Al Qaeda, ISIS, the Moslem Brotherhood) and Shiite (e.g., Iran’s Ayatollahs) terrorism.
*The toppling of the pro-US Hashemite regime in Jordan – which is perceived by Syria to be its southern province – is high on the agenda of the Islamic terrorists, who toppled the Assad regime, and are committed to liberate (at least) the Levant, which includes Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, Hatay in Turkey and Cyprus. The Islamic terrorists’ success in Syria is bolstering the on-going effort to oust the Hashemites, which is led by Iran’s Ayatollahs, as well as by ISIS and Al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic terrorists, the Moslem Brotherhood and Palestinian terror organizations. The downfall of the pro-US Hashemites would transform Jordan into another platform of Islamic terrorism, posing a clear and present threat to the Pro-US Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman, as well as Israel, energizing global terrorism, jeopardizing Europe-Asia trade and – potentially – awarding control over 48% of global oil reserves to anti-Western Shiite and Sunni terrorists.
*Some Western policy makers have been impressed by the Dr. Jekyll-like talk, expressed by Mr. Hyde-like Islamic terrorists, who effectively leverage the Islamic art of “Taqqiya” (dissimulation). These terrorists follow in the footsteps of Bashar Assad, whose soft rhetoric induced then Senator John Kerry to suggest that Bashar Assad was a partner in stabilizing the region. They also imitate Yemen’s Houthi terrorists, who overwhelmed US diplomats with moderate statements in the aftermath of the 2020 Presidential election, which led to their delisting from the US list of terror organizations in February 2021 by Tony Blinken, the incoming Secretary of State. The Syria-based Islamic terrorists have also adopted the tactics of Ayatollah Khomeini, who flooded President Carter with moderate messages from his exile in Paris, in order to induce the US President to pressure the Iranian military (which was loyal to the Shah) to refrain from undermining the toppling of the pro-US Shah by the anti-US Khomeini. President Carter took the bait, facilitating the rise of the Ayatollahs to power. However, contrary to his commitments, Khomeini executed a significant number of pro-US military leaders, and proceeded to take over the US Embassy, holding 50 Americans hostage for 444 days, and transforming Iran from “The US Policeman of the Gulf” to the leading epicenter of anti-US terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering and the proliferation of advanced military systems.
*This was one of several milestones, which have demonstrated that terrorists bite the hand that feeds them.
*A prerequisite for ending/minimizing terror and war – which is President Trump’s arch goal – is the elimination of the head of the poisonous octopus in Tehran. Negotiation with Iran’s Ayatollahs accords legitimacy to a ruthless, oppressive, terroristic regime. Any agreement concluded with – and any sanctions levied on – the Ayatollahs are reversible, as was demonstrated by Presidents Trump in 2018 (withdrawing from the JCPOA) and Biden in 2021 (suspending severe sanctions), and will not induce the Ayatollahs to abandon their anti-US rogue vision.
*Prof. P.J. Vatikiotis (Arab and Regional Politics in the Middle East), who was – along with Professors Elie Kedourie and Bernard Lewis – a game-changing historian of the Middle East sheds light on Middle East reality, warning Western policy makers against addiction to a self-destructive alternate reality:
“The present political map of the Arab Middle East may not be a permanent one (p. 94)…. Inter-Arab relations cannot be placed on a spectrum of linear development, moving from hell to paradise or vice versa. Rather, their course is partly cyclical, partly jerkily spiral, and always resting occasionally at some ‘grey’ area. American choices must be made on the assumption that what the Arabs want or desire is not always – if ever – what Americans desire. In fact, the two desires may be diametrically opposed and radically different (p. 115)…. Even without the Arab-Israel conflict, the Arab Middle East would have been a conflict-ridden and conflict-generating area (p. 77)…. Islam remained a source of legitimacy for all power. Other man-made institutions were secondary (p. 136)…. In practice, there has been no single or uniform Islamic understanding or explanation of phenomena (p. 137)…. No government or regime in power believes in, or allows for, the idea of an alternative government. It holds power until it is overthrown by a successful conspiracy, by subversion (p. 141)….”
*In order to avoid the systematic failure of the State Department’s Middle East policy, President Trump is advised to benefit from the experience of the late Prof. Vatikiotis, and refrain from subordinating Middle East reality – as frustrating as it is – to a more convenient alternate reality.
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative”
April 26, 2026
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative”
April 26, 2026
*500,000 Arabs (away for over a year) are included in the census, contrary to global norms. 325,000 were included in the 1997 census. 400,000 in 2005, according to the Palestinian Election Commission. 100,000 overseas births added to the census in 1995-2014, according to the Palestinian Undersecretary of Interior. The number grows steadily due to births.
*380,000 East Jerusalem Arabs are doubly-counted – by Israel and by the Palestinian Authority. The number grows steadily due to births.
*Over 200,000 Arabs, who married Israeli Arabs are similarly doubly counted. The number expands steadily due to births.
*A 447,000 net-emigration of West Bank Arabs (since the 1997 Palestinian census) is ignored by the Palestinian Authority. In recent years, a 20,000 annual average net-emigration has been documented by Israel’s Population and Migration Authority in land, air and sea international passages.
*A 32% artificial inflation of Palestinian births was documented by the World Bank (page 8, item 6) in a 2006 audit.
*The Judea & Samaria Arab (West Bank) fertility rate declined from 9 births per woman in the 1960s to less than 3 births in 2026, reflecting a sweeping urbanization, a growing female enrollment in higher education, rising marriage age, increased use of contraceptives and youth’s emigration.
*The number of deaths is under-reported for political and financial reasons.
*An artificial inflation of 1.75 million documents a population of 1.5 million Arabs in Judea and Samaria, not the official 3.25 million.
In January 2026: a 69% Jewish majority in the combined area of Judea, Samaria and pre-1967 Israel, benefitting from a tailwind of fertility and net-immigration, while Arab demography is westernized.
No Arab demographic time bomb; but, a Jewish demographic momentum.
More data in these articles and this short video.
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative”
September 3, 2026
*The assumption that “D-Day” like economic sanctions can force the collapse – or a dramatic moderation – of the Ayatollah regime, overlooks the centrality of theological fanaticism in the shaping of the Ayatollah’s vision, strategy, policy and education system, as well as its 47-year-war on the US. The Ayatollah’s war against the USA has been conducted – unrelated to Israel’s existence – in the Middle East, Latin America and on US soil.
*47 years of US-led economic sanctions and negotiation have transformed Iran from “The American Policeman of the Gulf” to a leading anti-US epicenter of war, terrorism, drug trafficking and money laundering. Moreover, it has catapulted the Ayatollah regime from a secondary/tertiary power in 1979 to a global power in 2026, with a strategic footprint from the Persian Gulf through Africa to Latin America and the US homeland.
*Furthermore, economic sanctions and negotiation have bolstered the Ayatollah’s tactic of stalling for time, expecting the mid-term election to weaken President Trump, diverting his attention away from international issues, softening US policy toward Iran, and leading to a non-hawkish Administration in Washington.
*The assumption that the Ayatollah regime is driven by the Western “Money Talks,” ignores the fact that in Tehran Ideology Walks, outweighing financial and diplomatic inducements.
*Refraining from regime-change in Iran has been interpreted – regionally and globally – as indecision and weakness, benefitting China, Russia and North Korea, emboldening them to expand their strategic footprint throughout the globe, including Latin America. The focus on the cost of regime-change has led to underestimating the following catastrophic cost of no-regime-change:
^Eventual emergence of the first ever apocalyptic nuclear power;
^Erosion of the US posture of deterrence;
^Emboldened Ayatollah regime, China, Russia and anti-US Islamic terrorism; ^Growing instability of pro-US Arab regimes, especially the oil-producing; ^Frustrated Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait getting closer to China and Russia.
*The apocalyptic nature of the Ayatollah regime has produced exceptional resilience in the face of economic and military adversity. The entrenched belief in a cataclysmic divine intervention is embedded in the Ayatollah’s Constitution, school curriculum (which is the most authentic reflection of the Ayatollah’s state of mind), mosque sermons and official media. Thus, the Ayatollah is mandated to conduct Jihad (Holy War), bring the “infidel” West to submission, and expand the Islamic Revolution globally. This must be stained with “infidel” blood, requiring “believers” to assume suffering and martyrdom. These are actionable and operational doctrines, culminating in chaos and conflict, paving the way for the Deliverance – the reappearance of the Twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, who disappeared in the 10th century, and is currently represented by the Ayatollah, the “Supreme Leader.” In 2026, Iran’s Twelver Shia is embraced by a vast majority of Shia Muslims: a 60% majority in Iraq, 35% minority in Lebanon and a 12% minority in Saudi Arabia, mostly in the oil-rich Eastern Province. Martyrdom has been underscored by Islam, with martyrs promised a place in heaven, as documented in Quran 3: 169-171 – “Never think of those martyred in the cause of Allah as dead; they are alive with their Lord, well provided for….” It has been supplemented by Ayatollah Khomeini’s legacy, which has promoted the deliberate-martyrdom (Istishhad), heralding “the great martyr Imam Husayn ibn Ali,” who was killed in the 680 AD Battle of Karbala. In fact, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)has incorporated the Mahdist apocalyptic ideology into its training programs, preparing the ground for the Mahdi’s return, and confronting the “apostate” Sunnis and the “infidel” West.
*The “Economy of Resistance” has resulted in a 60% control of the Iranian economy by the IRGC and state-linked foundations, featuring black-market smuggling, illicit land and sea oil trade, and bypass mechanisms, consolidating the domestic economy into the hands of the ruling apparatus.
*The “axis of sanctions evasion/circumvention” has leveraged Chinese, Russian and North Korean anti-US strategy, including deep barter and non-dollar trade systems, Chinese purchase of discounted Iranian crude via land, export via the Caspian Sea ports, “ghost fleets” and third-party (trade-triangulation), shell companies, ship-to-ship transfers, while Russia trades critical military hardware, satellite intelligence, and nuclear technology in exchange for Iranian drones and ballistic systems. 47 years of economic sanctions have developed deep Iranian institutional expertise in sanction evasion.
*When applied to totalitarian, ideologically-entrenched regimes – certainly apocalyptic regimes – economic sanctions have caused severe hardship on the population (not the regime!), but have failed to generate either regime moderation, or regime collapse. For example, the 1979-2026 US and UN maximum-pressure-economic-sanctions against the apocalyptic Ayatollah regime has resulted in expanded commercial and military Iranian capabilities, and exacerbated the repression of protestors and religious and ethnic minorities; the 1990-2003 UN economic boycott and oil embargo against Iraq’s non-apocalyptic Saddam Hussein resulted in intensifying domestic oppression; the 1950s-2026 US/UN financial and trade embargoes activated against the non-apocalyptic North Korea have yielded famine, upgraded thermonuclear warheads and intercontinental ballistic missiles, as well as more ruthless despotism; the 1960-2026 US trade and financial embargo on the non-apocalyptic Cuba, has resulted in severe economic decline and a more brutal central authority; the 2022-2026 comprehensive Western sanctions against the non-apocalyptic Russia rerouted energy trade to Asia, transitioned Russia to a wartime economy controlled by Putin’s solid authority, but has failed to stop or slowdown the war against Ukraine.
*Economic measures alone have failed to induce ideologically entrenched, survival-at-all-cost, ruthless, apocalyptic regimes to abandon their core theological or strategic imperatives. They never considered sacrificing their ideology and strategy on the altar of an abundant windfall. In the arm-wrestling with the Ayatollah regime, “Money Talks” has been resoundingly defeated by “Ideology Walks.”
*Economic sanctions and negotiation do not substitute for regime change. They reinforce the Ayatollah regime, and undermine the strategic posture of the US, which is exposed as a sprinter, unable to sustain a required marathon. Sustaining such a US policy threatens the existence of all its Arab allies in the Persian Gulf and throughout the Middle East, who have had the machete of the Ayatollah at their throats since 1979.
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative”
February 27, 2024
Secretary of State Antony Blinken represents conventional wisdom when claiming that “It’s been longstanding US policy… that new settlements are… inconsistent with international law.”
However, conventional wisdom is frequently demolished by the march of facts.
For instance:
*According to Prof. Eugene Rostow, who was the co-author of the November 22, 1967 UN Security Council Resolution 242, served as Undersecretary of State and was the Dean of Yale University Law School: “Jews have the same right to settle in the West Bank as they have in Haifa.”
*According to UN Resolution 242, Israel is required to withdraw from territories, not the territories, nor from all the territories, but some of the territories, which included Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. Moreover, according to Prof. Rostow, “resolutions calling for withdrawal from all the territories were defeated in the Security Council and the General Assembly…. Israel was not to be forced back to the fragile and vulnerable [9-15 mile-wide] lines… but to secure and recognized boundaries, agreed to by the parties…. In making peace with Egypt in 1979, Israel withdrew from the entire Sinai… [which amounts to] more than 90% of the territories occupied in 1967….”
*Former President of the International Court of Justice, Judge Stephen M. Schwebel, stated: “Between Israel, acting defensively in 1948 and 1967 (according to Article 52 of the UN Charter), on the one hand, and her Arab neighbors, acting aggressively in 1948 and 1967, on the other, Israel has better title in the territory of what was [British Mandate] Palestine…. It follows that modifications of the 1949 armistice lines among those States within former Palestinian territory are lawful…. [The 1967] Israeli conquest of territory was defensive rather than aggressive… [as] indicated by Egypt’s prior closure of the Straits of Tiran, blockade of the Israeli port of Eilat, and the amassing of [Egyptian] troops in Sinai, coupled with its ejection of the UN Emergency Force…[and] Jordan’s initiated hostilities against Israel…. The 1948 Arab invasion of the nascent State of Israel further demonstrated that Egypt’s seizure of the Gaza Strip, and Jordan’s seizure and subsequent annexation of the West Bank and the old city of Jerusalem, were unlawful….”
*The legal status of Judea and Samaria is embedded in the following 4 authoritative, binding, internationally-ratified documents, which recognize the area for what it has been: the cradle of Jewish history, culture, language, aspirations and religion.
(I) The November 2, 1917 Balfour Declaration, issued by Britain, calling for “the establishment in Palestine (a synonym to the Land of Israel) of a national home for the Jewish people….”
(II) The April 24, 1920 resolution, by the post-First World War San Remo Peace Conference of the Allied Powers Supreme Council, entrusted both sides of the Jordan River to the British Mandate for Palestine, for the reestablishment of the Jewish Commonwealth: “the Mandatory will be responsible for putting into effect the [Balfour] declaration originally made on November 2, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” It was one of over 20 Mandates (trusteeships) established following WW1, responsible for the boundaries of most Arab countries.
(III) The July 24, 1922 Mandate for Palestine was ratified by the Council of the League of Nations, entrusted Britain to establish a Jewish state in the entire area west of the Jordan River, as demonstrated by its 6th article: “[to] encourage… close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands….” The Mandate was dedicated exclusively to Jewish national rights, while guaranteeing the civic rights of all other religious and ethnic groups. On July 23, 1923, the Ottoman Empire signed the Treaty of Lausanne, which included the Mandate for Palestine.
(IV) The October 24, 1945 Article 80 of the UN Charter incorporated the Mandate for Palestine into the UN Charter. Accordingly, the UN or any other entity cannot transfer Jewish rights in Palestine – including immigration and settlement – to any other party. According to Article 80 of the UN Charter and the Mandate for Palestine, the 1967 war of self-defense returned Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria to its legal owner, the Jewish state. Legally and geo-strategically the rules of “belligerent occupation” do not apply Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria, since they are not “foreign territory,” and Jordan did not have a legitimate title over the West Bank. Moreover, the rules of “belligerent occupation” do not apply in view of the 1994 Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty. The 1950-67 Jordanian occupation of Judea and Samaria violated international law and was recognized only by Britain and Pakistan.
*The 1949 4th Geneva Convention prohibits the forced transfer of populations to areas previously occupied by a legitimate sovereign power. However, Israel has not forced Jews to settle in Judea and Samaria, and Jordan’s sovereignty there was never legal.
*The November 29, 1947 UN General Assembly Partition Resolution 181 was a recommendation, lacking legal stature, superseded by the Mandate for Palestine. The 1949 Armistice (non-peace) Agreements between Israel and its neighbors delineated “non-territorial boundaries.”
*The term “Palestine” was a Greek and then a Roman attempt (following the 135 CE Jewish rebellion) to eradicate Jews and Judaism from human memory. It substituted “Israel, Judea and Samaria” with “Palaestina,” a derivative of the Philistines, an arch enemy of the Jewish people, whose origin was not in Arabia, but in the Greek Aegian islands.
*The aforementioned march of facts demonstrates that Secretary Blinken’s conventional wisdom on the Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria is based on gross misperceptions and misrepresentations, which fuels infidelity to law, undermining the pursuit of peace.
*More on the legality of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria in this article by George Mason University Law School Prof. Eugene Kontrovich.
US departure from the recognition of a United Jerusalem as the exclusive capital of the Jewish State, and the site of the US Embassy to Israel, would be consistent with the track record of the State Department, which has been systematically wrong on Middle East issues, such as its opposition to the establishment of the Jewish State; stabbing the back of the pro-US Shah of Iran and Mubarak of Egypt, and pressuring the pro-US Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, while courting the anti-US Ayatollahs of Iran, Saddam Hussein, Arafat, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, the Palestinian Authority and the Houthis of Yemen; transforming Libya into a platform of global Islamic terrorism and civil wars; etc..
However, such departure would violate US law, defy a 3,000 year old reality – documented by a litany of archeological sites and a multitude of documents from Biblical time until today – spurn US history and geography, and undermine US national and homeland security.
United Jerusalem and the US law
Establishing a US Consulate General in Jerusalem – which would be a de facto US Embassy to the Palestinian Authority – would violate the Jerusalem Embassy Act, which became US law on November 8, 1995 with substantially more than a veto-override majority on Capitol Hill.
According to the Jerusalem Embassy Act, which enjoys massive support among the US population and, therefore, in both chambers of Congress:
“Jerusalem should remain an undivided city in which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected….
“Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of the state of Israel; and the United States Embassy in Israel should be established in Jerusalem….
“In 1990, Congress unanimously adopted Senate Concurrent Resolution 106, which declares that Congress ‘strongly believes that Jerusalem must remain an undivided city in which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected….’
“In 1992, the United States Senate and House of Representatives unanimously adopted Senate Concurrent Resolution 113… to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem, and reaffirming Congressional sentiment that Jerusalem must remain an undivided city….
“In 1996, the state of Israel will celebrate the 3,000th anniversary of the Jewish presence in Jerusalem since King David’s entry….
“The term ‘United States Embassy’ means the offices of the United States diplomatic mission and the residence of the United States chief of mission.”
United Jerusalem and the legacy of the Founding Fathers
The US Early Pilgrims and Founding Fathers were inspired – in their unification of the 13 colonies – by King David’s unification of the 12 Jewish tribes into a united political entity, and establishing Jerusalem as the capital city, which did not belong to any of the tribes (hence, Washington, DC does not belong to any state). King David entered Jerusalem 3,000 years before modern day US presidents entered the White House and 2,755 years before the US gained its independence.
The impact of Jerusalem on the US founders of the Federalist Papers, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Federalist system and overall civic life is reflected by the existence, in the US, of 18 Jerusalems (4 in Maryland; 2 in Vermont, Georgia and New York; and 1 in Ohio, Michigan, Arkansas, North Carolina, Alabama, Utah, Rhode Island and Tennessee), 32 Salems (the original Biblical name of Jerusalem) and many Zions (a Biblical synonym for Jerusalem and the Land of Israel). Moreover, in the US there are thousands of cities, towns, mountains, cliffs, deserts, national parks and streets bearing Biblical names.
The Jerusalem reality and US interests
Recognizing the Jerusalem reality and adherence to the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act – and the subsequent recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the site of the US Embassy to Israel – bolstered the US posture of deterrence in defiance of Arab/Islamic pressure and threats.
Contrary to the doomsday assessments by the State Department and the “elite” US media – which have been wrong on most Middle East issues – the May 2018 implementation of the 1995 law did not intensify Palestinian, Arab and Islamic terrorism. State Department “wise men” were equally wrong when they warned that Israel’s 1967 reunification of Jerusalem would ignite a worldwide anti-Israel and anti-US Islamic volcanic eruption.
Adherence to the 1995 law distinguishes the US President, Congress and most Americans from the state of mind of rogue regimes and terror organizations, the anti-US UN, the vacillating Europe, and the cosmopolitan worldview of the State Department, which has systematically played-down the US’ unilateral, independent and (sometimes) defiant national security action.
On the other hand, US procrastination on the implementation of the 1995 law – by Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama – eroded the US posture of deterrence, since it was rightly perceived by the world as appeasement in the face of pressure and threats from Arab/Muslim regimes and terrorists. As expected, it radicalized Arab expectations and demands, failed to advance the cause of Israel-Arab peace, fueled Islamic terrorism, and severely undermined US national and homeland security. For example, blowing up the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and murdering 224 persons in August 1998; blowing up the USS Cole destroyer in the port of Aden and murdering 17 US sailors in October 2000; the 9/11 Twin Towers massacre, etc.
Jerusalem and Israel’s defiance of US pressure
In 1949, President Truman followed Secretary of State Marshall’s policy, pressuring Israel to refrain from annexing West Jerusalem and to accept the internationalization of the ancient capital of the Jewish people.
in 1950, in defiance of brutal US and global pressure to internationalize Jerusalem, Prime Minister David Ben Gurion reacted constructively by proclaiming Jerusalem the capital of the Jewish State, relocating government agencies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and settling tens of thousands of Olim (Jewish immigrants to Israel) in Jerusalem. He upgraded the transportation infrastructure to Jerusalem, erected new Jewish neighborhoods along the 1949 cease fire lines in Jerusalem, and provided the city land reserves for long-term growth.
In 1953, Ben Gurion rebuffed President Eisenhower’s pressure – inspired by Secretary of State Dulles – to refrain from relocating Israel’s Foreign Ministry from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
In 1967, President Johnson followed the advice of Secretary of State Rusk – who opposed Israel’s 1948 Declaration of Independence – highlighting the international status of Jerusalem, and warned Israel against the reunification of Jerusalem and construction in its eastern section. Prime Minister Levi Eshkol adopted Ben Gurion’s statesmanship, fended off the US pressure, reunited Jerusalem, built the first Jerusalem neighborhood beyond the 1949 ceasefire lines, Ramat Eshkol, in addition to the first wave of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria (West Bank), the Jordan Valley and the Golan Heights.
In 1970, President Nixon collaborated with Secretary of State Rogers, attempting to repartition Jerusalem, pressuring Israel to relinquish control of Jerusalem’s Holy Basin, and to stop Israel’s plans to construct additional neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem. However, Prime Minister Golda Meir refused to rescind the reunification of Jerusalem, and proceeded to lay the foundation for additional Jerusalem neighborhoods beyond the 1949 ceasefire lines: Gilo, Ramot Alon, French Hill and Neve’ Yaakov, currently home to 150,000 people.
In 1977-1992, Prime Ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir defied US and global pressure, expanding construction in Jerusalem, sending a clear message: “Jerusalem is the exclusive and non-negotiable capital of Israel!”
“[In 1978], at the very end of [Prime Minister Begin’s] successful Camp David talks with President Jimmy Carter and President Anwar Sadat, literally minutes before the signing ceremony, the American president had approached [Begin] with ‘Just one final formal item.’ Sadat, said the president, was asking that Begin put his signature to a simple letter committing him to place Jerusalem on the negotiating table of the final peace accord. ‘I refused to accept the letter, let alone sign it,’ rumbled Begin. ‘If I forgot thee O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning,’ said [Begin] to the president of the United States of America, ‘and may my tongue cleave to my mouth’ (The Prime Ministers – An Intimate Portrait of Leaders of Israel, 2010)”
In 2021, Prime Minister Bennett should follow in the footsteps of Israel’s Founding Father, Ben Gurion, who stated: “Jerusalem is equal to the whole of the Land of Israel. Jerusalem is not just a central Jewish settlement. Jerusalem is an invaluable global historical symbol. The Jewish People and the entire world shall judge us in accordance with our steadfastness on Jerusalem (“We and Our Neighbors,” p. 175. 1929).”
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative”
September 17, 2026
More on Jewish holidays: Smashwords, Amazon
*Modeled on Yom Kippur and other Biblical fast days, the Early Pilgrims’ and Founding Fathers’ “Day of public humiliation, fasting and prayer” suspended business to confess collective wrongdoing and petition for mercy through soul-searching. Thus, the Second Continental Congress proclaimed a fast day on July 20, 1775, and repeated it through the war, calling for collective repentance and prayer to petition King George III to end the bloodshed, as the Revolutionary War began; President John Adams issued national fast days in 1798 and 1799; President James Madison did so during the War of 1812. General George Washington strictly enforced the religious observance and banned unnecessary labor and recreation for troops under his command.
*Yom Kippur is observed on the 10th day of the Jewish month of Tishrei, starting on the evening of September 20, 2026. It is referred to as a Super Sabbath (Shabbat Shabbaton in Hebrew), concluding 10 soul-searching days, personal and collective accountability spiritual self-awareness and self-enhancement, beginning on Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the Jewish year.
*Ten has a special significance in Jewish tradition: God’s abbreviation is the 10th Hebrew letter (Yod – י); the 10 Commandments; the 10 Plagues of Egypt; Yom Kippur on the 10th day of Tishrei; the 10 spheres of the spiritual universe, highlighting the Biblical Creation; 10 reasons for blowing the Shofar (ram’s horn) on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur; the 10% Biblical gift to God (tithe); the 10th day of the Jewish month of Tevet commemorates the beginning of the 586-589 BCE siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar; 10 Martyrs (Jewish leaders) were tortured/murdered by the Roman Empire; 10 generations between Adam and Noah and between Noah and Abraham; Abraham passed 10 divine tests; a 10-person-quorum (Minyan in Hebrew) is required for a collective Jewish prayer service; 10 sons of Haman and 10 Nazi leaders were hung; etc.
*According to Leviticus 23:26-32: “The Lord said to Moses, that the tenth day of this seventh month [Tishrei] is the Day of Atonement…. Do not do any work on that day…. This is a lasting ordinance for generations to come….” Yom Kippur highlights second-chance-eligibility and renewal through repentance, commemorating the day of divine forgiveness for the sin of worshipping the golden calf idol, and the introduction of the Moses-made second set of the Two Tablets (Ten Commandments). Mankind is urged to learn from mistakes, and refrain from the recurring human fallibility: the temptation to sacrifice spiritual values on the altar of convenience.
*The astrological sign of the months of Tishrei is Libra (♎), which symbolizes the scales of justice, truth, optimism, humility and tolerance. Libra is ruled by the planet Venus (Noga – נגהin Hebrew – is the name of my oldest granddaughter), which represents divine light and compassion.
*The Hebrew word Kippur [כיפור] means atonement/repentance – a derivative of the Biblical word Kaporet [כפורת], which was the dome/cover of the Holy Ark in the Sanctuary, and the word Kopher [כופר], which was the cover/dome of Noah’s Ark and the Holy Altar in the Jerusalem Temple.
Yom Kippur resembles a spiritual cover/dome, which separates between spiritualism and materialism/mundane. The Kippah [ [כיפהis the skullcap – a spiritual dome – which covers one’s head during prayers.
*Asking forgiveness of fellow human-beings is a major feature of Yom Kippur, transferring human behavior from acrimony and vindictiveness to forgiveness and peaceful coexistence. The wronged party must accept a sincere apology. Ritual alone does not substitute for repair. It is consistent with the philosophy of Hillel the Elder, a leading 1st century BCE Jewish Sage: “The essence of the Torah is: do not do unto your fellow person that which is hateful to you; the rest [of the Torah] is commentary.” Criminals and sinners are invited to participate in Yom Kippur services.
*Fasting is a key feature of Yom Kippur, reducing material pleasure in order to focus on one’s soul-searching, and enhancing empathy with the needy. The Hebrew spelling of fasting [צומ] is the root of the Hebrew word ((צמצומ for reducing and the Hebrew word for a camera’s focus (צמצמ).
However, Judaism opposes ascetism and self-torment, and therefore views genuine repentance as a critical engine of elevating individuals from despair to hope, from abuse to caring, from intolerance to tolerance, from violence to comity, from isolation to integration, from ignorance to knowledge and from forgetfulness to commemoration.
*There are six annual Jewish fasting days:
(a) The 10th day of the month of Tishrei is Yom Kippur.
(b) The 10th day of the month of Tevet commemorates the beginning of the 586-589 BCE siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar.
(c) The 17th day of the month of Tammuz commemorates the 586 BCE and 69 CE breaching of Jerusalem’s walls by the Babylonian and Roman Empires, as well as the breaking of the Tablets by Moses upon confronting the Golden Calf lapse of faith.
(d) The 9th day of the month of Av is the most calamitous day in Jewish history, commemorating the destruction of the first (586 BCE) and second (70 CE) Jewish Jerusalem Temples, by the Babylonian and Roman Empires respectively; the beginning of the Jewish exile from the Land of Israel; the Ten Spies’ bankruptcy of faith; the crushing of the 132-135 CE Bar Kokhbah Revolt by the Roman Emperor Adrianus (600,000 Jewish fatalities); the pogroms of the First Crusade (1096-1099) in Germany, France, Italy and Britain; the expulsion of the Jews from Britain (1290) and Spain (1492); the eruption of the First World War (1914); and the beginning of the 1942 deportation of Warsaw Ghetto Jews to the Treblinka extermination camp.
(e) The 3rd day of the month of Tishrei commemorates the murder of the Jewish Governor of Jerusalem, Gedalyah Ben Achikam, by another Jew, Yishmael Ben Netanyah (586 BCE).
(f) The 13th day of the month of Adar is the Fast of Queen Esther – one day before the Purim holiday – commemorating Queen Esther’s three-day-fast prior to her appeal to the Persian King Ahasuerus to refrain from exterminating the Jews (around 480 BCE).
*According to Judaism, the human tongue can be lethal, and therefore, ill-speaking of other people (“evil tongue” in Hebrew) may not be forgiven.
*Yom Kippur is concluded by blowing the Shofar (a ritual ram’s horn), which represents a moral wakeup-call, optimism, determination, humility and peace-through-strength (the peaceful ram deters enemies through its horns). The blowing of the Shofar commemorates the saving of Isaac by a ram; the receipt of the (second) Tablets/Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai (even the sin of the Golden Calf does not foreclose restoration); the re-entry to the Land of Israel and the conquest of Jericho by Joshua; as well as Gideon’s victory over the much larger Midianite military. The Hebrew word Shofar שופר]] means “to enhance,” “top quality,” glory and spiritual pleasure [שפר, שופרא].
*The Biblical Scroll of Jonah – which is the fifth book in The Twelve Prophets – is read on Yom Kippur, underscoring repentance, prayer/faith, justice and forgiveness. The Prophet Jonah (“dove” in Hebrew), son of Amitai (“truth” in Hebrew and the name of my 4th grandchild) transformed the sinful Assyrian population of Nineveh into a pious society; thus, displaying social responsibility.
*A Memorial Candle in memory of one’s parents is lit on Yom Kippur, reaffirming “Honor thy father and mother,” providing an opportunity to mend fences with – and ask forgiveness of – one’s parent(s).
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: US-Israel Initiative”
February 24, 2026
*While the United Arab Emirates uprooted all anti-Jewish and anti-Israel elements from its school curriculum, the Friday mosque sermons, and its official media – replacing them with pro-Jewish and pro-Israel elements – Qatar has sustained its anti-“infidel”, anti-Christian, anti-Jewish and anti-Israel school curriculum, consistent with its Friday incitement mosque sermons and controlled media.
*Are Qatar’s worldview and conduct consistent with the values and interests of the USA? Is Qatar’s policy consistent with the US’ attempts to end/minimize wars and terrorism? Does it qualify Qatar as an honest broker? Is Qatar a partner in the defense of Western democracies in the face of Sunni and Shiite Islamic terrorism?
*Qatar’s shifty diplomatic pronouncements (Talk) has been incompatible with Qatar’s permanent school curriculum (Walk), which reflects most authentically its worldview, values, vision and conduct. It reflects and shapes the minds of Qatar’s ruling minority (10%-15%), and is fully-controlled by the ruler (Emir), Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who oppresses the 85%-90% majority of foreign workers.
*A February 2026 review of Qatar’s 2025-26 school curriculum, conducted by Impact-se, documents “anti-semitic narratives, religious intolerance toward non-Muslims, and legitimization of violent jihad,… demonstrating no substantive curricular reform since the 2021–2022 school year….
“In July 2024, the US Department of State’s Annual Report on International Religious Freedom criticized Qatar’s national curriculum for continuing to ‘include content that was antisemitic in nature.’ Despite this, the same material was reprinted and continues to be taught in the 2025–2026 school year….
“Disrespect towards non-Muslims is expressed through terminology such as ‘Infidels’ and ‘pagans/polytheists,’ through derogatory portrayals of non-Muslims, and through discussions of punishment for disbelief in Islam…. Non-Islamic nations such as the US and European countries are occasionally treated with suspicion….
“Textbooks continue to teach antisemitic content…. portraying Jews as materialistic, arrogant, deceitful, and hostile to Islam. Jews are further associated with traits such as lying, scheming, fleeing in fear, spreading discord, breaching agreements, and excessive attachment to material wealth, thereby reinforcing an image of Jews as fundamentally untrustworthy…. Antisemitic tropes depict Jews as cynically manipulating global affairs… denying Jewish historical ties to Israel/Palestine and the right to self-determination….
“Violent interpretations of jihad prevail as religious ideals…. Textbooks praise the upbringing of children ‘to love jihad,’ and students are taught that God rewards those who fight and die for Islam by granting them entry into Paradise….
“Israel’s establishment is framed as occupation…. Israel is erased from maps, and normalization is condemned…. Poems exhort students to draw swords, engage in jihad, and sacrifice their lives fighting against ‘the Zionist enemy….’
For example:
*Islamic Education, Grade 11, Vol. 1, 2025–2026, p. 46 condemns Christianity and Judaism as religions which “have been corrupted”, and that polytheistic elements “have been inserted into them.”
*Islamic Education, Grade 8, Vol. 1, 2025–2026, pp. 124, 129 presents two possible infinite outcomes one can expect when dying: Muslims (“Believers”) will reside in Heaven; non-Muslims (“Infidels”) will suffer in Hell.
*Islamic Education, Grade 10, Vol. 1, 2025–2026, pp. 18–19 “accuses Jews of failing to uphold the Torah they were given by Allah…. instructing students to specifically avoid ‘resembling Jews….”
*Islamic Education, Grade 8, Vol. 1, 2025–2026, pp. 26–28 suggests that “Moses and Jesus are both Islamic prophets who were initially rejected by their people, according to the Qur’an…. Jews are evil…. The Jewish people are forever cursed by Allah…. None is more evil than people who have been invited to Islam and rejected it….”
*Islamic Education, Grade 8, Vol. 1, 2025–2026, pp. 70–71. A chapter about the Battle of Khaybar, fought between the Muslim forces of the Prophet Muhammad and the Jewish Arabian tribe of Banu Nadir… portrays the Jewish people as inherently hostile to Islam and Muslims. A repeated emphasis on the Jewish nature as historic enemies of Muslims…”
*Islamic Education, Grade 6, Vol. 2, 2025–2026, p. 139. “An Islamic education lesson teaches that one of the ways to measure a good Muslim woman is raising children to sacrifice their lives [martyrdom], in what is understood to be violent Jihad.”
*Islamic Education, Grade 8, Vol. 1, 2025–2026, pp. 72–73 teaches the Battle of Khaybar, fought between the forces of the Prophet Muhammad and the ancient Jewish Arabian tribe of Banu Nadir in 629 CE, concluded by teaching students that the sublime goal of Jihad is to bring non-Muslims to convert to Islam.
*Islamic Education, Grade 8, Vol. 1, 2025–2026, pp. 22, 25, 28, 103 teaches that God loves Jihad warriors who “fight” (yuqātilūn) for His sake, favoring a violent interpretation of Jihad. God defends Islam against the non-Islamic world.
The bottom line: A prerequisite for Qatar’s constructive role in advancing peace and combatting terror isa thorough structural overhaul of its prevailing culture, which is preconditioned upon the uprooting of its hate and terror-driven school curriculum.
