The war against Iran had a coherent cause and was strategically successful. It is dishonest to deny this.

Published in The Jerusalem Post and Israel Hayom, April 17, 2026. Print-friendly copy

Operations Epic Fury and Roaring Lion have achieved their core strategic objectives: halting Iran’s advance toward nuclear weapons capability and significantly degrading its ballistic missile program – both of which posed a significant threat to Israel, Arab states, and Western interests.

It is dishonest to deny this. It is politically jaundiced to allege that the war was nothing more than reckless adventurism and to call it a slam-dunk failure.

Consider the clear and present danger posed by Iran prior to the war. It had nearly one thousand pounds (440 kg.) of enriched uranium, close enough to weapons grade that the IAEA said the Iranians could have fuel for up to nine nuclear bombs within a week. This, in violation of every nuclear restriction accord Iran had signed with the West.

Iran also was producing over 100 ballistic missiles a month, moving towards a situation where Iranian missile and drone stocks could overwhelm the defense of Israel and every American base in the region. Iran also was moving its nuclear and missile manufacturing facilities into bunkers buried too deeply underground for effective strikes against them.

In a historic joint military effort involving over 15,000 air strikes over the past six weeks, the US and Israeli air forces eviscerated Iranian air defenses, wrecked the Iranian navy and air force, destroyed Iranian missile launchers, stockpiles, and manufacturing sites, smashed Iranian plants and energy facilities that fed the nuclear and ballistic missile industries, assassinated senior scientists critical to the nuclear and missile industries, eliminated army commanders and leaders of internal repression forces by the thousands, and decapitated the radical clerical leadership which provided genocidal validation for Iran’s hegemonic advances.

Even without capture of Iran’s highly enriched uranium (which reportedly has been buried in the ruins of Isfahan ever since Operation Midnight Hammer last year), Iran likely has no ability to produce a nuclear bomb at this stage since the entire manufacturing chain in which Iran advanced toward a bomb was hit.

The war also deepened the economic pit in which Iran is mired. The US and Israel targeted significant dual-use infrastructure, including petrochemical processing facilities and steel production plants which collectively account for 15 percent of Iran’s total GDP and over 60 percent of its non-oil industrial output.

The current US blockade of Hormuz threatens Iran’s last remaining financial lifeline: oil revenue, which accounts for 50 percent of the state budget.

OVERALL, Iran lost strategic, military, infrastructural, and economic assets. It wrecked its relations with Arab Gulf states too, since it hit them with over 6,000 missiles and drones – ending up in splendid regional isolation.

Notably, Iran struggled to mount a meaningful military response against American and Israeli forces, whether through its own capabilities or via proxies. Iran’s defense arrays and supposedly formidable intelligence services were exposed as porous. Iranians witnessed the regime’s humiliation.

This importantly reveals the gap between reality and radical Islamic propaganda which had portrayed Iran as a power on the march, shaping the region around itself. The war also shattered the regime’s internal legitimacy. A state that commands genuine consent does not need to kill on a grand scale to clear the streets.

Indeed, Iran’s conduct during the war underscored the inevitability of the war. The Islamic Republic launched ferocious missile and drone attacks against its Arab neighbors, used cluster munitions against Israeli civilians, blockaded the Strait of Hormuz, and targeted points well beyond the region with heretofore hidden ballistic missile capacity.

Iran’s behavior clearly demonstrated that it cannot be trusted, that it poses a grave threat to regional and global security, and that it must be denied the ability to develop and deliver the ultimate weapon.

In sum, the six-week war was launched with coherent cause and purpose. It was a moral and necessary endeavor, it was a successful skirmish, and it changed the strategic picture for the better.

Imminent Iranian threats were neutralized, Iran’s strategic capabilities suffered a severe (although reversible) blow, and the regime’s stability was shaken – even if it totters on for a while.

HAVING triumphed in war, American and Israel must now win the narrative over the war, upholding the morality of the campaign and asserting the justice of the harsh restrictions on Iran going forward that are essential.

Preserving war gains requires prevention of Iran’s recovery – unless and until the country forgoes its threatening military programs and aggressive regional posture. The only way for Iran to recover is by accepting deescalation on American terms.

To this end, the US must continue to choke Iran (no significant sanctions relief); isolate Iran (prevent soft European or Gulf Arab overtures to Iran); maintain military pressure on Iran (no near-term withdrawal of American forces from the region); ride herd on the enriched uranium (and strike again any reactivated nuclear development site); and support the emergence of a muscular Iranian opposition movement (supply them with weapons).

As for Israel: Well, Israelis learned an important lesson which is to maintain a proactive defense posture including strategic ascendancy against the biggest and farthest enemies. Through outstanding military planning and execution, and with a staunch Great Power ally, Israel defeated Iran and can do it again.

Israel defeated Iran even though that country is 10 times larger than Israel, is over 1,000 kilometers away from Israel, and was fueling four proxy armies on Israel’s borders comprising tens of thousands of fighters with hundreds of thousands of rockets.

Equally important is the forbearance of Israelis, who showed that they can heroically weather full-scale war with Iran – in fact, two wars within one year.

Even during the war’s most intense days, the economy stayed open. Roads damaged by enemy warheads were repaved and reopened to traffic within hours. Discipline regarding homeland defense guidelines was impressive. Those who nevertheless lost their homes to Iranian bombs or were wounded are being well cared for. Families celebrated the Purim and Passover holidays quietly and cautiously, at home. Israelis are resilient.

The hardship was worth it. After all, the alternative to this successful war – a surging Iran armed with nuclear weapons and thousands of ballistic missiles – would have been enormously worse than anything Israelis have endured.

The post Justice and triumph in war appeared first on David M. Weinberg.

Don’t listen to the defeatists that gloomily dominate American and Israeli airwaves this weekend driving a double sourpuss narrative – that the war against Iran was politically vain and/or militarily futile. Both accusations are nasty; neither is accurate. The six-week war was the most moral and necessary campaign, and it has dramatically changed the strategic picture for the better.

Rest assured: Israel will hunt down its enemies, not be hounded by them. An utter rout of the ayatollahs is coming.

Published in The Jerusalem Post and Israel Hayom, April 10, 2026. Print-friendly copy

Do not listen to the defeatists that gloomily dominate American and Israeli airwaves this weekend driving a double sourpuss narrative – that the war against Iran was politically vain and/or militarily futile. Both accusations are nasty; neither is accurate.

The six-week war was the most moral and necessary campaign, and it has dramatically changed the strategic picture for the better.

Iran is cadaverously deadened and the US and Israel are hegemonically strengthened. When the fight continues – not this month or even this year, but down the road – the “allies” will even more decisively defeat the “axis” so much easier.

Of course, the need to ferociously fight on is not what most Israelis want to hear now – as they blessedly send their kids back to school, rebuild their shattered homes, and overall try to restore some semblance of normalcy to life.

But nobody in Israel is under the illusion that the struggle against evil is over, and nobody should dare question the morality of Israel’s need for ongoing and crushing victories over its adversaries.

Israel will not return to the “containment” policies of recent decades that prioritized restraint and diplomacy over enemy degradation and military triumph. Israel’s changed security paradigm involves proactively asserting dominance along its borders and strategic ascendancy against threats farther away. Operation Roaring Lion was an excellent demonstration of this, as is the current Israeli offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Expect Israel to continue to make fierce and overwhelming moves against enemy strongholds from Sidon to Khan Yunis and Isfahan. It will attack, not defend. It will initiate, not respond. It will hunt down its enemies, not be hounded by them.

Israel needs to be feared, not loved. And it is a resilient country, not a wet rag that meekly accepts international restrictions and absorbs Western denunciations.

Therefore, regional and world leaders should get used to a revamped Mideast strategic situation anchored by a hard-hitting Israel.

Jerusalem knows that its neighbours will seek true reconciliation only when Israel is strong. Additional Abraham Accord-style peace treaties are possible and desirable, even with Saudi Arabia and perhaps this year, but these will be based on muscular defense partnerships, not mushy notions of goodwill.

IF THERE IS one major reason for disappointment with the current pause/end in operations Epic Fury and Roaring Lion it is the fact that regime change in Iran seems far off.

While this was not one of the formal goals of the war (as opposed to stripping Iran of its ballistic missile and nuclear weapon capabilities), everybody knows that without a counterrevolution in the radical Islamic republic, the war’s attainments can be considered only temporary. And there was a moment when overthrow of the ayatollahs seemed at hand.

Was the opportunity missed? Not necessarily. In fact, a rout of the ayatollahs (– those ayatollahs who escaped Israel’s successful, broad decapitation crusade against 50 top genocidal clerics) may still be coming soon.

My guru on this matter is Mehdi Parpanchi, executive editor at Iran International TV and former Iran Service Director at Radio Farda. He was the most incisive analyst throughout the war.

Parpanchi explains that battlefield metrics are a poor measure of political reality. Political systems do not always collapse during war. Often, they collapse in the aftermath, when military failure gives way to elite fracture and a society no longer willing to live as before.

Consider the aftermath: Iran’s economy is in dire condition. It was so before the war, and the destruction wrought to Iran’s industrial and export base by the 30,000 coalition bombs is gargantuan, almost unsurmountable. Let us hope that US President Trump keeps Iran under a heavy regime of economic sanctions.

On the strategic level, the assaults on Iran on June 2025 and March 2026 exposed the gap between radical Islamic propaganda and reality. For years, Ali Khamenei and his IRGC commanders boasted about indigenous air-defense systems. They told Iranians that even the most sophisticated US and Israeli aircraft could not operate over Iran. Billions were spent developing these systems and building an image of invulnerability. That myth collapsed on first contact with reality.

Furthermore, for years the Islamic Republic spoke of control over four Arab capitals, of a powerful Shia crescent across the Mideast. It presented itself as a power on the march – expanding, advancing, and shaping the region around itself. When Assad fell, when Syria was lost, and when the proxies took crippling blows, that image began to collapse. What had been presented as strategic depth looks increasingly like an expensive illusion.

Internally, the 12-day war shattered the regime’s image of competence, control, and strength. Much of the population that opposed the regime saw it humiliated and were openly pleased to see it struck so hard.

The events of Jan. 8-9, 2026, marked a decisive shift in Iran’s political landscape, according to Parpanchi. In Tehran, an estimated 1.5 million people took to the streets, with similar scenes repeated in 400 cities, with total participation reaching five million people. The state responded with lethal force that killed an estimated 36,000 people in 48 hours. According to Parpanchi, the scale of the violence shattered the narrative that the Islamic Republic still ruled with some measure of public consent. A state that still commands genuine consent does not need to kill on such a scale to clear the streets.

THEREFORE, the Islamic Republic may have somewhat survived this war, but it is unlikely to survive the peace. It is a regime in collapse phase, Parpanchi asserts.

The US and Israel must now push the regime over the edge. They can do so by choking Iran economically (no sanctions relief); by maintaining military pressure on Iran (no withdrawal of American forces from the region); by diplomatically further isolating Iran (no soft European or Gulf Arab overtures to Iran); by strategically humiliating the ayatollahs (take away their enriched uranium); and by finally getting serious about supporting the emergence of a muscular Iranian opposition movement (supply them with weapons).

All this will encourage the chances of widespread defections among military and other Iranian elites.

In sum, nobody should join the hypocrisy of the “West’s weepers” for the Islamic Republic or help the mullahs evade the utter rout that is their inevitable lot. (“Nauseating weepers” is what Brendan O’Neill calls all those outraged about America’s strikes on Iran, but who were silent when the ayatollahs slaughtered thousands of their countrymen in the streets).

Nobody should bow before the agents of depression in America, Europe, or Israel who peddle a jaundiced, politically malign account of this just, successful war.

And nobody should doubt the ability of Israel to withstand and win its wars, again and again, as necessary.

The post Israel will fight on ferociously appeared first on David M. Weinberg.

Israel is asserting a forward defensive security zone on all fronts, amounting to long-term military control of critical territories alongside diminution of hostile civilian populations. From Israel’s perspective there are no more “sacrosanct” borders in its immediate vicinity…

Western leaders should not waste their breath on protestations of Lebanese, Syrian, or Gazan “inviolable sovereignty & territorial integrity” or the “internationally mandated territorial contiguity” of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. These are hackneyed concepts, extinguished by reality in the region.

Published in The Jerusalem Post and Israel Hayom, April 3, 2026. Print-friendly copy

After the October 7, 2023 assault on Israel by Hamas, Israel cannot brook illusions about the dawn of regional peace, nor can it return to the “containment” policies of recent decades that prioritized diplomacy over decisive military triumphs.

Israel can no longer accept policies that emphasize “quiet for quiet” and prioritize “restraint,” because this allowed enemies to develop attack capabilities under the cover of diplomatic breathing time; what some Western officials mistakenly call periods of “stability.”

That approach failed. It blew-up in Israel’s face, with terror and invasion from the West Bank and Gaza and from Syria and Lebanon, and with the march of Iran’s nuclear bomb program to near completion.

Therefore, Israel is gearing for extended conflict at varying degrees of intensity, basing itself on a more aggressive mix between diplomacy and the use of force to scuttle enemy threats. Israel intends to act like a superpower, proactively asserting dominance along its borders and strategic ascendancy against threats farther away. Operation Roaring Lion is a demonstration of this.

In this regard, even after President Trump pauses American strikes on Iran, expect Israel to continue to make fierce, overwhelming, and surprise moves against enemy strongholds from Khan Yunis to Isfahan. It needs to keep its enemies off base with beeper blasts, targeted assassinations, computer viruses, and occasional bunker-busting airstrikes.

Israel wants to be feared, militarily dominant, and even “hegemonic” – not loved. Jerusalem knows that its neighbours will seek true reconciliation only when Israel is strong. More Abraham Accord-style peace treaties (even with Saudi Arabia) are possible and desirable, but these will be based on strength and explicit defense partnerships.

So, get used to a revamped Mideast strategic situation anchored by a very strong Israel.

ISRAEL’S UPDATED security posture and strategic doctrine also means that the “borders” between it and its failed and/or hostile neighbors must change. What was between Israel and Gaza, Israel and Syria, and Israel and Lebanon, and Israel and the Palestinian Authority will be no more.

Israel is asserting a forward defensive security zone on all four fronts, amounting to long-term military control of critical territories alongside diminution of hostile civilian populations.

This already is the case in Gaza where the IDF has taken control of 53% of the land that previously was under the thumb of Iran’s proxy terrorist army Hamas, and it continues to destroy every town in this area that Hamas had turned into a military garrison above and below ground.

These is, and will not be for the long-term future, any Palestinian life in this area. No rehabilitation and reconstruction here. Nothing that would once again place Palestinian terrorist armies smack right up against and adjacent to Israel’s magnificent farming towns and peaceful cities in the Gaza periphery.

The same goes for Syria, where Israel now holds the “Crown” of the Hermon mountain ridge, formerly known as the Syrian Hermon, along with several strategic border outposts in what used to be considered “Syrian territory.”

Do not expect this to change any time over the coming decades, certainly not while a former ISIS terrorist named Ahmed al-Sharaa (a.k.a. Mohammed al-Jolani), under the tutelage of the Islamic dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, parades around as the new president of Syria.

To some extent, Israel also will continue intervene on behalf of the non-jihadist Druze community in Syria, which holds a zone of strategic importance in the southeast of that country along Israel’s northern border. There are no UN or EU “peacekeepers” with the guts to use real bullets to protect the Druze and secure the border area.

The same is now true for Lebanon, the classic Middle East failed state, where for the past decades an Iranian-backed army called Hezbollah has ruled the roost and rained down hell and brimstone on Israel with tens of thousands of rockets and missiles.

The IDF is now clearing Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon, bunker by bunker, building by building, one enemy missile firing emplacement after another. When Israel is done, nothing will remain, alas, of the villages of southern Lebanon, and no Lebanese villagers likely will be able or allowed to return to this area – just like the current situation in eastern Gaza.

The IDF must and will continue to control this area through long term military garrisons, ranging from the former “border” up to the Litani River area.

In this regard, international statements of support this week for Lebanon’s “inviolable sovereignty & territorial integrity” are misplaced if not laughable. Lebanon has not exercised real sovereignty or enjoyed territorial integrity for more than a generation. Large parts of Lebanon were first decimated and controlled by the PLO, and in recent decades by Hezbollah. They used Lebanon as a launching pad for non-stop assaults on Israel.

Yet nobody in the “international community” huffed and puffed and protested about the decrement to Lebanon’s “inviolable sovereignty & territorial integrity” all those years. Nobody was moved to express “deep solidarity” with the people of Lebanon when Arafat, and then ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei, occupied and raped Lebanon.

All they did was put up a dummy international “peacekeeping” force called UNIFIL – which did nothing at best and even ignored Hezbollah’s fortifications and provocations.

Only now when Israel has decided to put an end to the charade of Lebanese sovereignty in southern Lebanon and essentially reset the border for solid security reasons – do the denizens of Berlin, Canberra, London, Ottawa, and Paris begin to protest, and to patter about “sacrosanct” international borders.

SO, HERE is the place to say it plainly: From Israel’s perspective there are no more “sacrosanct” borders in its immediate vicinity. Security lines and defensive zones will necessarily be drawn and redrawn according to frontier needs.

This, without reference to stale lines that go back to the colonial era (such as the Sykes-Picot boundaries), without regard for useless UN resolutions (such as resolution 1701 that followed the conflict in 2006 and which promised the defanging of Hezbollah and demilitarization of southern Lebanon), and without reliance on the expired, hollow Oslo Accords.

Consider Judea and Samaria. Nobody is under the illusion that any Palestinian “authority” can or will counteract the build-up of Iranian backed Islamic terrorist armies in these areas, which directly threatens Jerusalem and central Israel. Only the IDF can and will.

Thus, brigade-level Israeli military operations in places like Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nablus will continue to resolutely rout out terrorist threats. Thus, Israel increasingly will reassert military and civilian-settlement control over the open and strategic highlands of Judea and Samaria. This is likely to be permanent Israeli policy going forward for decades if not forever.

Israel has no confidence whatsoever in the ability of the “international community,” not even through President Trump’s 2020 “Peace Through Prosperity” plan (a.k.a the “Deal of the Century”) or through his newfangled “Board of Peace,” to make the Palestinian Authority into a “democratic, transparent, efficient, and sustainable governance system” – never mind a real partner for peace.

Thirty years and billions of dollars and euros later, the return on Western investment in Palestinian independence is abysmal. There is no democracy, no rule of law, no transparency, no sustainability, no investment in economic stability, and no peace education in the PA.

There is only nepotism and corruption, “pay-for-slay” handouts (meaning the incentivizing and rewarding of terrorism against Israel), violent propagandizing against Israel (including support for Hamas’s October 7 invasion and massacres), and diplomatic assault on Israel in every possible international forum.

And today, Israel also has real reason to fear and ward off Hamas-style organized military assault by PA forces on its Gush Dan population center.

So don’t lecture Israel about “sacrosanct” borders. Do not waste breath on protestations of Lebanese, Syrian, or Gazan “inviolable sovereignty & territorial integrity” or on the “internationally mandated territorial contiguity” of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. These are hackneyed concepts, extinguished by reality in the region.

The post Inviolable borders? appeared first on David M. Weinberg.

Published in The Jerusalem Post, March 27, 2026. Print-friendly copy

Even in the midst of war, even as the enemy inflicts pain on the homefront, even amidst uncertainty over the endgame – it is necessary to appreciate our gargantuan gains in the current struggle against Iran. It is right to celebrate the bravery of our people and the many acts of endless kindness with which we have blessed this month.

The Pesach (Passover) “seder” ritual is the perfect moment to do so. It commemorates Jewish redemption by Divine hand in every generation going back to ancient Egypt and looks forward to a double portion of liberation in a messianic era, coming soon.

I say that the double portion of exalted wins over our enemies we have beheld this year should be celebrated with a double portion of Pesach wine. Therefore, I propose expansion of the traditional four cups of wine drunk at the seder to ceremonial drinking of eight cups of wine. Each goblet can be matched to an expression of deliverance and triumph.

This wine-winning chiddush (innovation) is meant to underscore for ourselves that Operation Roaring Lion is an overwhelming success, a feat with global ramifications. Don’t be confused by agents of depression and defeatism (“dichonistim”) that gloomily dominate the airwaves! The reality is that Iran has been weakened and destabilized like never before. This stands true even if the campaign against Iran is cut short this weekend (although I doubt it will be).

We know that ‘leaving Egypt’ is a long road which the Jew has been traveling for 3,500 years without yet fully arriving at his destination; and that the Jewish People is not deterred by long journeys.

Consequently, we are obliged to catalogue and count our victories and express thanks to the Heavens for keeping us strong and resilient; and do so this year with twice as much Pesach passion. So, here is my wine drinking menu for this Pesach, with eight relevant articulations of appreciation for astounding and sustained victories.

Start with the four traditional expressions of redemption, detailed by the Talmud Yerushalmi based on Exodus 6:6-7: “I am Hashem, and (1) I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. (2) I will free you from being slaves to them, and (3) I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. (4) I will take you as My own people, and I will be your God.”

We can call this: articulations of Rescue, Freedom, Redemption, and Embrace. To which, let us add this year: exclamations of Prowess, Bravery, Renewal, and Partnership.

1. Rescue from the yoke of bondage, which today translates into salvation of Israel from the shadow of annihilation by the Ayatollahs, by destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment and bombmaking facilities in Bushehr, Fordow, Isfahan, Natanz, Parchin, and more.

For this we pour the first cup of wine (“Kadesh” in the seder ritual), and I suggest Yatir Creek White 2022, an intense, creamy blend of Grenache Blanc, Clairette Blanche, Roussanne and Viognier. This will fill you all the way through the “Maggid” section of the seder.

2. Freedom to build our nation anew in the Jewish People’s indigenous homeland, liberated from the hegemonic threats of the radical Shiite republic based in Tehran and Iran’s proxy armies decamped on our borders.

After the long tale of the Exodus, we bless God for freeing “us and our forefathers” and drink the second cup of wine. Here I recommend Flam “Camillia,” a gently oaked, crisp and fruity Chardonnay that will nicely prepare your palate for all the coming mandatory matza.

3. Redemption indeed involves “mighty acts of judgement” such as elimination of Iran’s fifty or so top political and military leaders, demolition of Revolutionary Guards missile facilities, flattening of Basij bases, and other strikes intended to undermine the regime.

After the matza and before the meal, we can drink freely. Go with Ramat Naftaly Barbera 2021, the country’s best Barbera varietal, intensely floral and fruity.

4. Embrace means the message of Divine protection for Israel, of Providential support for the Jewish People, conveyed to nations of the world who inexorably (perhaps reluctantly) are bowled over by Israel’s grit and resilience in the face of so many threats and enemies.

A fantastic meal-opener is Domaine Netofa’s Tel Qasser Red 2018, a medium-bodied Mediterranean-style blend of Grenache and Syrah.

5. Prowess is the parade of awesome Israeli power; truly miraculous, nearly flawless IDF military performance. We must own and even flaunt our muscle, not be embarrassed or apologetic about it.

For a fish or chicken first course, pour Razi’el 2023 (a precise, light Syrah-Carignan blend), which is a Domaine du Castel spinoff line of Mediterranean-style wines.

6. Bravery in wartime abounds in Israel – from the fearless Israeli air force pilots who fly dangerous sortie after sortie into Iran, to the valiant homefront command rescuers who dig through bomb sites, to the resolute wives of reserve soldiers away from home for months at a time, to families rich with children that endure weeks without school and constant flight into protected spaces day and night.

Deep into the meat main course of the seder night, pour Naveh Red 2019, which is a heavy, filling Cabernet Sauvignon. (This is a kosher cuvee from Chateau Golan.)

7. Renewal is the rekindling of unity in Israel, a recalibration of national priorities, an awakening from the security misconceptions and diplomatic mistakes of the past 32 years, and a return to tradition.

For a concluding meal masterpiece, drink Shiloh Mosaic 2022, a full-bodied, multilayered, and heavily oaked red wine with rich aromas of black fruit and roasted coffee, and a long and elegant finish. (Drink this during the meal and as the ritual third cup of wine, marking “Grace after the Meal”).

8. Partnership is the hope for a more integrated Middle East after this war, for Arab-Israeli reconciliation and cooperation; something that should be a slam dunk given stark demonstration of the real sources of evil in this region.

Here we drink the last glass of all, after “Hallel” (thanksgiving songs and prayers). Pour Dalton’s Traditional Method Champagne, a festive sparkling delight. For a real treat, give all seder guests also a taste of the incredible Dalton “Anna” dessert wine made from Muscat Alexandria grapes and aged in the unique Solera method for eight years. This is liquid honey gold!

For those seeking religious sanction for my proposal to double down on drinking wine at this year’s seder, consider the following. Scripture abounds with language of blessing and redemptive multiplicities: “Comfort my people, comfort them, says your God” (Isaiah 40:1); “I will rejoice, greatly rejoice in the Lord” (Isaiah 61:10); “He will impart the secrets of wisdom, manifold wisdom” (Job 11:6); “Wine cheers both God and man” (Judges 9), and many other expressions of double good.

From a halachic perspective, it is best to imbibe my additional glasses of wine and discuss their meanings between the mandatory second and third Pesach cups of wine – meaning during the meal, as detailed above; and not interrupt the flow of the traditional Haggadah texts and standard blessings.

“Next year in fully rebuilt and greatly magnified Jerusalem,” serving as magnet for all nations in awe and amity!

The post Celebrating Israel’s wins with eight Passover cups of wine appeared first on David M. Weinberg.

Who would have dared predict that Trump would be courageous enough to blow off his political detractors from left and right to pursue this campaign with such certainty?

Therefore, even if Trump doesn’t this month finish the job of “wiping out evil” and he scales back the US military effort to open space for a deal with Iran – no matter how feeble, how tentative and even illusory, how partial and unsatisfactory such a deal may be – I will still salute President Trump for his gutsy and intrepid war leadership to-date.

At the same time, I am certain that Trump will not abscond battle with Iran all-together . He will not abandon the effort to deny Iran a nuclear bomb. And I think that the US and Israel now will finally get serious about supporting the emergence of a muscular Iranian opposition movement…

Published by the Jewish News Service (JNS) March 26, 2026. Print-friendly copy

The professional, anti-Trump prognosticators and doomsdayers are out in full force, warning that the US president is going to pull an Obama and run for the hills prematurely. They warn that he is going to cut a soft deal with Iran this weekend, long before the declared goals of the current war have been fully achieved.

They assert that for the third time in a year, President Trump is about to end the military effort too soon; that he will seize on small moves by Iran, such as a pay-for-passage offer for Japanese and European ships through the Strait of Hormuz, as a sign of Iranian surrender.

He will assert that “regime change” in Iran is a fact, bombastically declare “total victory,” and go home – leaving Israel and Gulf Arab states to deal with Tehran’s resilient Islamist regime, its remaining ballistic missile threat, and its residual nuclear program.

I think that this is a wrong-headed and defeatist reading of Trump driven by political bias, and that it ignores his substantial achievements in the effort to defang Iran. Indeed, it is meant to belittle the staunch stance of the US under Trump against Iran and to deny Trump his place in history as a leader with great strategic bravery.

At the moment, we do not know what exactly Trump has in mind by declaring a five-day moratorium on his threat to destroy Iran’s major power plans and energy infrastructure unless Iran opens the Strait of Hormuz.

We do not know what “very good and productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution the hostilities in the Middle East” have taken place, with whom in Iran, and what validity or authority (never mind believability) such Iranians might have. Nor do we know whether actual negotiations really took place.

We don’t know whether this amounts only to a tactical pause, or this truly signals the beginning of the end of the war. We don’t know whether this is strategic reconciliation with a subdued Iran, or this is strategic misdirection – a ruse in advance of further US military action.

Trump could be employing subterfuge to lull Iran into a false sense of security ahead of a potential move against Kharg Island, a US assault to assume control of Hormuz, or a raid to seize Iran’s highly enriched uranium for nuclear bombmaking.

After all, at least twice Trump has used negotiations under the shadow of an ultimatum as a diversionary maneuver before launching an attack. He did it once when Israel attacked Iran at the start of the 12-day war in June 2025, and he did it again before the current war was launched on February 28.

Either way, Trump’s accomplishments in the effort to defang Iran already are gargantuan – far greater than any analyst or policymaker believed likely.

Who could have imagined that the president of the US would embark on a one-month-long military campaign involving 9,000 US Air Force sorties with over 10,000 bombs to degrade Iran’s military capabilities and decapitate its radical Islamic leaders?

Who believed that Donald Trump would have the guts to apply the massive military weight of the United States of America for such a lengthy and sustained period at a cost of well over $30 billion to a full-blown military campaign to eviscerate Iranian threats and undermine the radical Islamic regime?

Who would have dared predict that Trump would be courageous enough to blow-off his political detractors from left and right to pursue this campaign with such certainty, and to risk his political fortunes and historical legacy on overwhelming Iran?

Moreover, Trump has returned the language of moral clarity to US foreign policy and politics by unequivocally categorizing Iran as an evil actor – an evil empire, an evil state, a gang of bloodthirsty thugs, a brutal regime, etc. – and declaring that the primary objective of the current military campaign is to “wipe out evil.”

Therefore, even if Trump doesn’t this month finish the job of “wiping out evil” and he scales back the US military effort to open space for a deal with Iran – no matter how feeble, how tentative and even illusory, how partial and unsatisfactory such a deal may be – I will still salute President Trump for his gutsy and intrepid war leadership to-date.

I am also certain that Trump will not abscond battle with Iran all-together even if he scales back the current intense military campaign. He will not abandon the effort to deny Iran a nuclear bomb. And I think that the US and Israel now will finally get serious about supporting the emergence of a muscular Iranian opposition movement.

Can you imagine what might have been if Trump had not been elected president of the US in 2024? Iran would be laughing its way toward declared nuclear bomb capability and the stockpiling of 10,000 ICBMs with which to flatten Israel and impose Shiite hegemony across the Mideast.

For all his peccadilloes and unpredictability, thank heavens for the presidency of Donald Trump.

The post Trump will not run for the hills appeared first on David M. Weinberg.

Listen to the snotty statements coming out of Bonn, London, Ottawa, and Paris. Their neutrality in the great struggle against Iran is collusion with the enemy.

Published in The Jerusalem Post, March 20, 2026; and Israel Hayom, March 26, 2026. Print-friendly copy

Listen to the snotty statements coming out of Bonn, London, Ottawa, and Paris since the start of World War III – the assault launched this month by the US and Israel against the globe’s top exporter of terrorism, against a nearly nuclear radical Islamic hegemon that seeks to destroy Israel and bring the US and the West to its knees.

In a first stage of reactions to operations Epic Fury and Roaring Lion, Western leaders took to the high hills of condescension against the US and Israel.

President Emmanuel Macron stuck his nose up in the air in typical French diplomatic fashion to distance himself from US President Donald Trump and Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, whom he views as hotheads. He said that France would remain “calm, composed, and determined” – meaning superior, aloof, and disengaged.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer also took refuge in ersatz “high principles” to rebuff the US-Israel offensive. “We stand by principles, which I believe are shared by the British people, to base our decision on a calm, level-headed assessment of the British national interest” – meaning that London rejects the interests of Washington and Jerusalem as feverish and foolish.

Behind this is perverse denial of the 47-year war waged by Iran against America, the West, and Israel; irritating fealty to something nebulous and immobilizing called the “rules-based international order”; bitter hostility to Trump and to the State of Israel; and disintegration of national identity and purpose.

In a second stage of reactions, these Western leaders bent a tad to begin talking about “the defense of allies in the region,” basically meaning Gulf states but not Israel.

On March 1, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom said that they were “appalled” by the indiscriminate and disproportionate missile attacks launched by Iran against countries in the region, including those who were not involved in initial US and Israeli military operations.” I read this as “especially” or “mainly” those countries not involved in striking Iran – again, specifically excluding Israel.

France added that it “would be reliable with our allies,” clearly meaning Arab allies. Paris got a little hot under the collar when Iranian fire hit French forces in Iraq and the UAE. And then Paris along with Bonn got particularly perturbed mid-week when Israel struck Iran’s largest gas facility and Iran assaulted oil facilities in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. That got their cahoonas into gear – not 500 massive and deadly ICBMs fired by Iran into Israel.

On March 15, the UK Ministry of Defense highlighted Britain’s role “in air protection over the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Cyprus in defense of British people and British interests, and to support our allies across the region.” Again, no mention of Israel and no recognition of the suffering of Israelis or the damages incurred by Israel throughout this war.

In fact, nobody in London has felt the need at any time over the past three weeks to talk about defending Israel. Maybe because Britain no longer truly considers Israel an “ally”?

In truth, Israel does not need or want these countries to physically defend the Jewish state. We will settle for recognition of the justice of the war against Iran, some acknowledgement of the sacrifice of Israeli civilians and heroism of Israeli pilots, and a modicum of rehabilitation relief for battered Israel – say, one-one-hundredth of the massive European and Canadian humanitarian assistance for Lebanese citizens.

Do any of the above-mentioned leaders even know that 3,500 Israelis have been made homeless by Iranian missile attacks, and almost 4,000 Israelis injured?

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney also has discounted the broad context of the necessary war and its strategic aims, muttering only about “defending Canadians” and “defending our allies when it makes sense” – whatever that means.

What about helping to eviscerate Iran? No way. Carney harrumphed that “Canada will play no offensive role against Iran,” and averred that Ottawa is bravely focused on getting Canadians out of the region and assuring that the Canadian Armed Forces remain out of harm’s way.

Not to be rhetorically outdone by her prime minister, Canadian foreign minister Anita Anand huffed and puffed: “We were not consulted on the offensive military operation. We did not participate in the offensive operation. We have no intention of participating in the military operation period.”

Under pressure from Washington, Carney’s defense minister, David McGuinty, allowed that Canada is “leaving the door open” to military support in the region, meaning that “the question of assistance to Gulf countries is one that we’re considering.” (Again, no thought of assisting Israel).

And in a striking moment of honesty, McGuinty admitted that neither strategic principle nor tangible commitment to allies stands at the core of Canadian policy but rather the question of how Ottawa maneuvers around, about, and over Trump. “We will continue to consult, but we’ve always managed to find a way to manage our relationship with the United States, and we will manage our way through this as well,” McGuinty gulped without a smidgeon of embarrassment.

ALL THESE “leaders” have withstood pressure from Trump to join an international naval coalition to force open the Strait of Hormuz, even though Europe is much more dependent on oil from the Arabian Gulf than is the US.

Essentially, they say: Iran is not such a threat to global peace and security. Israel and the US may be the greater shared threat. Therefore, this is not our war. We will only defend our narrowest-of-narrow interests a bare bit.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has sought to wrap repudiation of the US and Israel in highfalutin diplomatic terms. “We lack a mandate ​from the United Nations, ​the European Union, or NATO for the war,” he said. “Diplomacy and deescalation” are the preferred route for handling Iran, he predictably added.

Yeah, sure. As if “mandates” from impotent international edifices are more important than winning the war that has been engaged. As if European-led diplomacy ever has effectively defanged or dissuaded Iran from pursing its path of genocidal aggression.

I say that such studied neutrality in the great struggle against Iran is collusion with the enemy. All the “calm and level-headed” excuses for sitting out this war (of course, excepting “defensive assistance” to several oil-rich Gulf countries) is a grand collapse of Western spine and principle.

I also cast-off anodyne sentiments about “heartfelt feelings for all victims of conflict in the region” and other such throwaway international statements. Without determination to quell Iran – and again, without specific expressed concern for Israel and Israelis too – these mushy musings equal profound moral failure.

Indeed, the frostiness exhibited by the “leaders” described above recalls the adage that you rudely discover who your true friends are (and are not) when the chips are down.

ALAS, the ethical limpness and political animosity described here regarding struggle against Iran is of a piece with the rotten global standard in relation to Arab-Israeli conflict, going back decades.

The response of UN and EU leaders to every Palestinian-Israeli conflagration long has been to condemn the “continuing cycle of violence” (and then press for endless negotiations while boosting Hamas blood libels about Israeli war crimes). As if Israel and the Palestinians each were cavalierly engaging in murder just for fun or out of comparable burning hatred. As if “both sides” were “suffering casualties” and equally responsible for the “cycle” of warfare.

What is missing from the above comments in relation to both the Iranian and Palestinian fronts is no-nonsense diagnosis of enemy aggression. Few are willing to reference Tehran’s almost five-decade-long record of assault against non-Shiite Arab, Western, and Israeli interests. Nobody has the guts to remark upon the death-glorifying political culture of Palestinians that repeatedly chooses war and terrorism over peace negotiations.

This nonalignment keeps the storyline in a neat, supposedly non-judgmental, and purportedly “level-headed” comfort zone – bereft of any right-minded backbone, free from any commitment to explicitly recognize and concretely fight evil. Alas, such detachment is tantamount to betrayal of Israel and the US, and is perfidy against the future of Western civilization.

The post Sitting out World War III appeared first on David M. Weinberg.

The US president should be lauded for the nobility of his resistance to Iran.

Trump is not at all confused or capricious regarding Iran. He has shown unwavering willpower and strategic purpose, and evinced domestic political courage.

From his 2018 dumping of Obama’s rotten nuclear deal with Iran, to his 2020 assassination of IRGC chief Qassem Soleimani, to Operation Midnight Hammer last June, to Operation Epic Fury over the past two weeks – Trump has proven neither fickle nor flighty.

Published in The Jerusalem Post, March 13, 2026; and Israel Hayom, March 18, 2026. . Print-friendly copy

Israeli media, including this newspaper, has spent all week fretting over the possibility that US President Donald Trump will cut short Operation Epic Fury, abandoning Israel to alone face a battered but abiding radical Islamic regime in Iran.

Such fussing is normal, but misplaced. Alongside Israel, Trump has proven to be this generation’s great generator of moral purpose. His principled leadership and steadfast determination to “win” against the enemy should be celebrated and lauded, not derided by insinuations of disengagement and enfeebling rumors about deescalation.

Trump is awakening the West from suicidal slumber, from dangerous cultural and strategic malaise. He understands that the West must defend itself against the worst radical Islamic actors such as Iran, beginning with vigorous support for the State of Israel’s vanguard war against it. He knows that the current conflict is essentially a world war against America’s greatest strategic adversaries including China and Russia – who are allied with Iran.

Therefore, Trump is exceedingly unlikely to desert the battlefield without more significantly quelling Iran. He will not just declare a synthetic “victory” this weekend and withdraw his bombers.

Trump will further pursue the military effort to destroy Tehran’s missile production and nuclear bombmaking facilities; to confiscate or eradicate Iran’s cache of highly enriched uranium; to strip Iran of its ability to interfere with container and oil shipping out of the Arabian Gulf; and to extinguish the threat of the ayatollahs to Gulf Arab countries.

In past, I too have cogitated about Trump’s truancy; about the peril of his outwardly non-ideological approach to political and foreign affairs; about his ostensibly too-transactional thinking; about his non-dogmatic methodology for “solving” conflicts – refreshing in some contexts but dangerously delusional in others.

It does sometimes seem that Trump ridiculously believes the force of his personality can fix everything and lead to swift and “huge” peace deals everywhere. This appears to be true regarding his pie-in-the-sky plans for “grand civilizational peace” in Gaza.

And in the current context, it is possible that the ceiling on this war will be set not by the cusp of Iran’s remaining offensive capabilities but by Washington’s imperfect endurance. Wary of the economic costs of a prolonged conflict, limited by dwindling weapons stocks, and faced with diminishing military returns – at some point Trump may halt the campaign even if the US Armed Forces and the Israel Defense Forces believe that more battle is necessary.

He will call the war “very complete” and an “awesome win.” A Trump triumph. Actually, he already has declared this to be the case.

NEVERTHELESS, I think that President Trump understands that stopping the war now amid some short-term economic discomfort would be a victory for the mullahs. Iran cannot be allowed to conclude that shutting down oil flows is its passport to survival, now or in the future. After all, the spike in oil prices due to traffic stoppage in the Strait of Hormuz was not unexpected. As Trump himself has said, the disruption is a “small price to pay” for major security advances.

It also makes no sense to leave so many loose ends in Iran, from missiles and production facilities to nuclear sites at Pickaxe Mountain and the Isfahan tunnels where Iran’s gigantic stockpile of highly enriched uranium for nuclear bombmaking is said to be stored. This is why a raid of US and Israeli ground troops on Isfahan is being considered, to extricate and confiscate the uranium.

There is also little reason to leave standing any IRGC or Basij bases, when these are the key agents of Iranian repression against its own people. “Help is on its way,” Trump told Iranians, and he meant it. This is why US and Israeli assaults are increasingly focused on installations of regime control and repression in addition to nuclear and missile sites.

So why the obfuscation in Trump’s many statements? One day he says the war is almost over and the next day (or the same day) he says that there are battle plans for six weeks more. Well, the administration’s ambiguity makes sense because it confuses the enemy. If we are left guessing at Trump’s next moves, so are the ayatollahs.

But Trump himself? I do not think that he is at all confused or capricious regarding Iran. From his 2018 dumping of Obama’s rotten nuclear deal with Iran, to his 2020 assassination of IRGC chief Qassem Soleimani, to Operation Midnight Hammer last June, to Operation Epic Fury over the past two weeks – Trump has proven neither fickle nor flighty.

On the contrary, Trump has broadcast unwavering willpower and purpose. He ain’t a paragon of virtue in so many other ways, but in strategic matters Trump has shown profound understanding of his responsibility to reshape the regional and global strategic architecture by eviscerating Iran; of the historic opportunity to bring peace through strength.

Trump also has evinced domestic political courage, taking on hard Left Marxist and pro-Islamist critics and hard Right isolationist and Christian nationalist critics. He has taken risks with his own MAGA base by slapping-down the loudest and most influential foul-mouth faultfinders like Tucker Carlson.

REMEMBER this: The Islamic Republic of Iran is a self-declared radical power that openly seeks to create Greater Persia; to export its revolution and impose it on the entire Middle East, if not beyond. It explicitly sees itself in civilizational clash with the West.

It believes that all means are legitimate in achieving its goals – from sending Shiite shock troops into battle across the region, to orchestrating terrorist attacks in Asia, Europe, and the Americas, to developing nuclear weapons.

Despite the rise of an enemy potentially as lethal as Nazi Germany, many Western leaders nevertheless have preferred accommodation with Iran. After all, there are calculations of caution, pragmatism, realism, diplomatic alliances, business interests, and political preservation that have mitigated against confronting Iran. It always is easier to delay and deflect than to fight a fiercely committed and skilled enemy.

And yet, Trump has taken on the Iranian challenge. In defiance of conventional wisdom that the “responsible” approach is to swallow Iran’s piecemeal provocations to avoid war, and that Iran’s hegemonic ambitions are anyway near-unstoppable, Trump preferred to draw blood and a red line. He defied the ayatollahs instead of dancing with them.

And so, Trump ought to be recognized and appreciated for his moral and strategic clarity. This war is an act of rectitude, of justice and sanity in foreign affairs. Regarding Iran and its collaborators, Trump has struck a weighty wallop against wickedness, a blow against an “axis of evil” that has not been seen since World War II.

So, if you want to worry that Trump could yet cut a deal with Tehran that does not push Iran far enough away from the nuclear bomb and from Israel’s borders, or that he may stop short of regime change, go ahead and stew.

But for the moment, Trump should be lauded for the nobility of his resistance to Iran; for smashing Soleimani and Khomeini Sr. (and one hopes and assumes Khomeini Jr. soon too) and the apocalypse they represent.

The post In Trump we trust appeared first on David M. Weinberg.

Pretentious Spanish, French, and British politicians – and other devious and disingenuous world leaders in the US, Russia, and China – have no moral right to tell Israel what to do – not how to craft its security doctrines, conduct its military campaigns, or where to draw its borders. Nobody has the right to restrict Israel in crushing Iran.

Published in The Jerusalem Post, March 6, 2026; and Israel Hayom, March 8, 2026. Print-friendly copy

Just who has the right to tell Israel how to defend itself against Iran’s nuclear weapons, ballistic missile program, and regional proxy armies?

Might it be the pussyfooting British government whose immediate inclination upon the launch of operations Epic Fury and Roaring Lion this week was to call for “de-escalation” and “return to a diplomatic process”?

Throughout the week, Prime Minister Keir Starmer broadcast spinelessness. Even when Iran attacked a British military base in Cyprus and targeted Gulf Arab countries, he insisted that Britain would engage only in “defensive actions” on behalf of “countries not previously involved in the conflict” and which “have not been involved in hostilities from the outset.” In other words, specifically excepting any defense of the US and Israel.

Riding the twin tigers of Islamic and left-wing hatred of Israel, Starmer also initially denied the US use of the strategic airbase on Diego Garcia Island.

Might it be the French government, which this week pompously pontificated about international law to distance itself from the US and Israel?

Everybody knows that “international law” is an elastic, contrived boondoggle trotted out mainly to isolate and emasculate Israel. International law has done diddly-squat to scuttle Iran’s hegemonic advances and attacks on Israel and Western allies in the region over the past 50 years via various terror surrogates, including Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, the Taliban, and Iraqi and Afghan Shia militias.

The so-called “rules-based international order” has ignored the fact that an international armed conflict (IAC) long has existed between Iran, the US, and Israel, originating with Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1979 proclamation of “death to America and Israel.”

The make-believe “rules-based international order” has turned a blind eye to Iran’s supply of loitering munitions to Russia for use against Western-aligned interests, its conduct of maritime sabotage in the Red Sea via Houthi surrogates, its terrorist operations across four continents, and so much more.

But this week, in a great show of ersatz military machoism, President Emmanuel Macron of France sent an aircraft carried to the eastern Mediterranean to “defend Lebanon,” supposedly. Alas, this is little more than a supercilious French attempt to interfere with Israel’s operations against Hezbollah.

This is the same France, of course, that has never known how to defend its own borders, neither against Nazi invasion nor against Islamist infiltration; the same Macron who has sought to ram down Israel’s throat a runaway, hostile Palestinian state – even after October 7.

Might it be the European Union, which for years has done nothing except snort about the use of “disproportionate force” by Israel?

This is the same EU that never has found the gumption to brand the IRGC as a terrorist entity and whose members bow obsequiously before the Iranian ayatollahs in search of commercial contracts and sinecures.

These are the same hostile EU countries that continue to intervene disproportionately on behalf of the Palestinians in their struggle with Israel through gargantuan sums of aid money that pays for terrorists and funds hostile NGOs, that build illegal settlements in Area C for Palestinian squatters, and that support anti-Israel resolution after resolution in international forums including language that denies Jewish history in Jerusalem.

Perhaps it is the dictatorial, radical Islamist, and antisemitic Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan who has a “right” to criticize and threaten Israel?

This is the same Erdogan who has jailed tens of thousands of Turkish academics, judges, journalists, and generals who have dared to disparage his regime; the same Erdogan who openly harbors Hamas operational terrorist headquarters in his capital city, and who pow-wowed publicly and repeatedly with Ayatollah Khamenei of Iran (the latter, now blessedly deceased).

This is same Turkish leader who now seeks to gobble-up portions of Syria, Iraq, and Iran and to slaughter the courageous Kurds.

Or perhaps Israel should accept criticism from Kamala Harris who over two years of Israel’s existential battle with the Iranian-backed Hamas einsatzgruppen worried mainly whether Palestinian women had hygienic pads.

This week, the former, defeated Democratic Party candidate for US president exclaimed her earnest opposition to a “regime-change war in Iran,” went on to plaint about Trump’s “dangerous and unnecessary gamble with American lives that also jeopardizes stability in the region and our standing in the world,” and called the war “recklessness dressed up as resolve.”

To say that this statement disgusts most Israelis, and that it perfectly explains why they are thankful that this person was not elected president of the US – would be the understatement of the century.

What about the United Nations Security Council which has not found a way to do anything about the fifteen-year-long slaughter in Syria or about Iran’s five-decade-long subversive muckraking across the Middle East, and which celebrated Obama’s disastrous deal with Iran as a great achievement?

This is the same UNSC that still has not condemned the Hamas invasion of Israel on October 7 but has tried a dozen times to excoriate Israel for blocking Hamas infiltration and going on the counterattack.

THE TEMERITY and hypocrisy of such critics is simply astounding. None of them have the right to criticize Israel’s defensive actions against Hamas or its defensive-offensive operations against Iran.

Israel need not apologize for seeking to expunge Hamas from Gaza no matter what degree of devastation is necessary, nor be contrite about demolishing Iranian nuclear and missile facilities and about eliminating the leaders of Iran’s mullahcracy and seeking to spark regime transformation.

Given the proximity to Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day, six weeks from now), historical precedents inevitably come to mind – something that only reinforces Israeli anger and the inclination of Israelis to defy international deprecation.

The global diplomatic community stood by as Hitler grew in power and began persecuting the Jews of Germany. They did mostly nothing during the war even as the contours of the Nazi extermination regime against Jews became apparent. They failed to bomb the railways to Auschwitz, and more. Diplomatically, the world failed the Jewish People.

Today, as mentioned, the United Nations has become the greatest purveyor of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel delegitimization. The Security Council long has been more seized with Israeli housing starts than with annihilationist threats against Israel.

In this dismal situation, the Jewish People and the State of Israel diplomatically owe the world nothing. Broadly speaking, the nations of the world have no moral right to tell Israel what to do – not how to craft its security doctrines, conduct its military campaigns, or where to draw its borders.

Pretentious Spanish, French, and British politicians – and other devious and disingenuous world leaders, including from Russia and China – ought to approach us with a great deal of humility when they come to discuss Israel’s diplomatic well-being, and before they attempt to dictate terms of Israel’s security future or critique our military operations.

Having been so wrong in their Pollyannaish hopes for the Oslo Accords, for the Arab Spring, and for the JCPOA (Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran), they ought to give Israel the benefit of the doubt when Jerusalem feels the need to act determinedly in the defense arena or cautiously in the diplomatic arena.

And while we are at it, this is the time and place to remind the great minds of the “international community” that Jews are not foreigners in their ancestral homeland; that Israel is not an occupying force in the Biblical hilltops or in Jerusalem. A declaration of Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria is justified and imminent, and Israelis will proudly defy any wicked censure that ensues.

FINALLY, one cannot ignore the Jewish holiday context of the current war. The Purim tale, retold through the biblical Book of Esther in Jewish communities around the world this past week, suggests that beyond the intrigue of royal courtyards, behind the politics of a Grand Shura Council, Security Council, or a Kremlin – lies a Hidden Hand operating on a transcendental plane.

And thus, over and above the threatening actors around Israel – from the time of Haman in ancient Persia to the Ayatollahs of Shiite Iran, and from Amalek of Exodus to the anti-Jewish and anti-Israel wildly woke “intelligentsia” of today’s Western world – there is an engaged and concerned God. And he acts to guide and protect the Jewish People.

Indeed, the grand sweep of Jewish history is a sustained tutorial against the evils of brutal dictatorships, totalitarian regimes, and arrogant empires. From the oppression implied in the Tower of Babel story to the slavery of Pharaonic Egypt, and from Achashverosh to Nebuchadnezzar, the Bible critiques the politics of absolute power and the penchant of dictators to lord over the Jewish People.

None of those empires lasted too long. And none of these bad actors were able to destroy the physical core and resilient spirit of the Jewish People.

Thus, the ambitions of Iran to global Islamic empire are ephemeral and so are the pretensions to power of radical “progressives” in Red-Green intersectional alliances who currently are savaging Israel. They will not prevail.

The post Anger, defiance, resilience appeared first on David M. Weinberg.

On Purim, drown our adversaries in drink and catapult our consciousness to a refined world.

Published in The Jerusalem Post, February 27, 2026; and Israel Hayom, March 3, 2026. Print-friendly copy

Unfortunately, many people know the holiday of Purim only as the “Jewish Halloween” – as a big dress-up (or strip-down) party celebrated with meaningless mirth and carnival-like abandon. I beg to offer a more sober, theological, and kabbalistic gloss on the holiday.

Tanakh (the Bible), Talmud, Halacha, and Kabbala elevate wine from beverage to blessing – linking joy to holiness, song to gratitude, and harvest to hope. And drinking wine on Purim is a method of catapulting our consciousness to a perfected world where God’s presence is dominant and evil is vanquished.

Throughout the Jewish cannon beginning with the Bible, the vital relationships between man and woman, between man and God, and between the Jewish People and their God are expressed via the metaphors of vine and wine.

“Your wife is like a fruitful vine in the innermost parts of your house, and your children are like flowering olive plants gathered around your table (Psalms 128). “Oh God, look down from heaven and be mindful of this vine, of Your stock which You planted” (Psalms 80) – meaning the Jewish People in the Land of Israel.

Indeed, the Bible (Ezekiel 36) and the Talmud (Sanhedrin 90a) relate to the bountiful harvest of grapes and other fruits by Jews prophetically returning from exile to the Land of Israel as a sure-fire sign of Divine favor and as a marker of extraordinary joy.

There are magnificent Biblical descriptions of festivity at the grape harvest (see for example Judges 9 and Isaiah 16). The harvesters would enter the vineyards in gladness (besimcha), and they would sing out and shout in joy (meranenim u’mre’im), in exultation (gil), with jubilant cries (hillulim), hollering hooray (heidad), and with song and harp (zemer and nevel). (Nevel is a play on words, because it means both a harp and a flask of wine.)

Indeed, “wine makes the heart of man glad, lighting the face even brighter than oil” (Psalms 104), and “wine cheers God and man” (Judges 9). Based on these verses and other sources, the Talmud rules (Brachot 35a) that that you can’t really give thanks to God unless you have in hand a Kos Shel Bracha, a glass of blessing, a goblet of wine. This is where we get the use of wine for Kiddush (sanctification) at all Jewish ritual events.

Jumping two thousand years forward, there is a great passage in the journal of a young man who worked for Baron Edmond de Rothschild at his new winery in Rishon LeZion when the pioneering Zionist grape crop was harvested in 1890.

David Yudelevich describes how “The bell rang at 4 am to wake up the army of young men, women, and children armed with pruning shears. The carts overflowing with grapes began streaming into the crushing vats, and they all sang: ‘Awaken, oh people of Israel, your youth has returned to the land, your redemption is near,’ followed by song and dance.”

There also is a beautiful story told about Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, the great rabbinic leader in Volozhin, Lithuania known as the “Netziv,“ who exulted when a first bottle of wine from Carmel Winery in Israel reached him in the spring of 1893. He understood that the fine taste of terroir had been restored to the Jewish People.

His son, Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan, relates that despite the Netziv’s severe illness (from which he died later that year), “his eyes brightened and shone with joy,” and he dressed in his finest Shabbat clothes before opening the bottle.

“I thank God for the zechut, the merit, of drinking wine from a vine planted by Jews in the Land of Israel,” the Netziv exclaimed. He then made the special Shehecheyanu blessing on drinking the wine “and this practice continued for several days.”

Today, we take it for granted that we eat the fruits and drink the wine of the Land of Israel. But these passages are a reminder that what for us has become everyday reality is in fact a fulfillment of prophecies and dreams. Modern Israeli winemaking is the concretization of Jewish repatriation, re-indigenization, and redemption.

WHICH BRINGS us to Purim. In traditional Jewish sources, the Book of Esther is an admonitory tale about the disastrous confusion of good and evil. It is about rejecting the creeds of a wicked kingdom where every major decision – including the decree to exterminate the Jewish People across the Persian empire – was taken during wild parties marked by inebriation, idolatry, and lewdness.

To counter this criminality and immorality, the spiritual work that Jews attempt on Purim is reestablishment of the boundaries between good and evil. We seek to drown out the name of Haman (the villain of the Purim story who was of “Amalekite” ancestry) and everything that he represents.

That is where wine comes in. It is an intoxicating double-edged sword. It can push you to do the worst things, or it can raise your consciousness to a place of clear thinking and pure intentions. Wine has a way of blurring the differences that don’t matter while clarifying the realities that do.

Indeed, according to one opinion in the Talmud, it was grapes that grew on the “Tree of Knowledge Good and Evil” in the Garden of Eden, and wine that Eve gave to Adam. Drinking wine forces a choice whether to respect or reject Divine authority, then and today.

In Torah thought regarding Purim, then, Jews strive to clear a path towards an elevated existence where there is no confusion; nothing but the unadulterated good that existed, say, in the Garden of Eden prior to sin.

Instead of the ancient Persian world of royal drunkenness, bloodthirsty passions, and atheistic dogmas, we aim to exalt ourselves to a refined world where God’s presence and teachings are ascendant.

This explains the unusual Purim concept of Ad D’lo Yada, of purposeful disorder. We imbibe on Purim to the point where the arrogance of the supposedly superior materialistic world – what is today sometimes called the “enlightened world” which can be extremely fascist or Marxist – is tempered by mind-bending drink. We try to erase the “Amalekite” influences in our world and overcome the tangle of good and evil that distances us from God.

This is a bit esoteric, but the Kabbala insists that such effacement has the power to connect us to whispers of Divine communion that run through the universe.

Therefore, we raise a glass and say LeChaim (To Life) to express our determination to strive for the good. We articulate our desire to reveal Divine currents embedded in the universe and the powers latent in Jewish history.

And we drown our adversaries in drink – from the exterminationist tyrants of ancient Persia to the annihilationist ayatollahs of modern Iran. (In defeating our current enemies, a couple of B-52 bombers might help too.)

The writer is a WSET Level 3-accredited wine enthusiast, and he conducts wine tours and tutored tastings with Zionist/Jewish flavors.

For an expanded discourse on Torah and wine, listen to his episode on Simon Jacob’s “Kosher Terroir” program entitled “Drunk on Zion: The Soul of Israeli Wine” (December 2025), available on all podcast platforms.

This Purim, he will be pouring the following quality Israeli kosher wines: BinNun Reserve Marsalis, Dalton Galilo, Flam Even Sapir, Hayotzer Lyrica GSM, La Foret Blanche Ya’ar Levanon, Lueria Sayada’s Vineyard Edition, Munitz Shikma, Oryah Old Musketeer, Petit Castel, Teperberg Essence Cabernet Sauvignon, Tura Limited Edition, and Yatir Forest.

The post The Jewish Soul in Wine appeared first on David M. Weinberg.

There is something perverse about the fact the world sees only the suffering of the attackers, Palestinians, and not the suffering of the attacked, Israelis. There is something truly wicked about the fact the world rushes to plunk down billions for Gaza but not Kfar Aza, for Rafiah but not Rehovot, for Khan Yunis but not Kiryat Shmona.

Published in JNS (the Jewish News Syndicate), February 22, 2026. Print-friendly copy

The Trump Administration and the “international community” are revving-up to raise funds for Gazan rehabilitation – even under de facto Hamas rule. The talk is of $70 to $120 billion in funds to provide Palestinians in Gaza with “human dignity” and “humanitarian relief.”

At the inaugural meeting in Washington last week of his grandiose “Board of Peace,” President Trump announced $10 billion in US funding for Gaza alongside $7 billion more in funds from other countries.

All this passion and concern would be admirable if it were not so counterproductive (at this point) and so one-sided.

The world-at-large still has said nothing at all about Hamas’s use of women and children as human shields, hospitals as weapons depots, or United Nations schools as launchpads for rockets. It has said little at all about Hamas’s violent seizure of humanitarian aid shipments into Gaza or its targeting of Palestinians approaching aid centers operated by Western backed humanitarian foundations.

The world seems incapable of admitting that Hamas’s dictatorial and genocidal regime in Gaza is responsible for every bit of ruin suffered by Palestinians, and it has nothing but platitudes to offer about how this time it might be different.

But what really gets my goat is that nobody around the world is talking about raising even one penny for rehabilitation and reconstruction of Israel; of Israel’s southern and northern areas that have been depopulated and devastated by Hamas and Hezbollah attacks over the past two years and even the past decade.

Not a penny for the battered people of Israel – war widows and orphans, terrorized civilians, traumatized soldiers, and battered businesses.

Except for Jews abroad, nobody is prioritizing relief and aid for Israel.

Sure, with the war over, Western countries will now return to buy Israeli technology and weapons for their own benefit, and cooperate in science and the arts too. But lavish sympathies and abundant budgets are reserved for the attacking Palestinians, not for the attacked Israelis.

Understand: The cumulative economic toll of the two-year-long conflict inflicted upon Israel by Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran is estimated at NIS 352 billion ($112 billion), according to the Bank of Israel. This figure encompasses direct military spending, property compensation, and broader civilian outlays. This calculates to a daily burden of about $100 million on Israeli taxpayers.

Remember that this war has brought about mass displacement of Israeli civilian communities. Approximately 200,000 Israelis remain displaced from their homes in border communities near Gaza and Lebanon. The cost of evacuating northern residents alone topped $2 billion. Israel has dedicated about NIS 60 billion ($18 billion) to supporting displaced citizens and maintaining social services.

To rebuild the southern region (Gaza Envelope) the government has established the Tekuma (Revival) Directorate with an initial 5-year budget of 19 billion shekels ($5.3 billion) to rehabilitate and upgrade 47 communities and cities in the south.

NIS 1.8 billion also has been devoted towards development in the regional councils of Ofakim, Netivot, Merhavim, Eshkol, Sha’ar HaNegev and Sdot Negev. The funds are earmarked for 24 municipalities that sustained damage during the war but are not included in the budget for the western Negev Tekuma region

To rehabilitate, secure, and revive northern towns Israel intends to invest NIS 15 billion ($4 billion) over 5 years, with an initial NIS 200 million injection for immediate infrastructure restoration. Wildfire losses caused by Hezbollah rockets in the north are said to exceed $100 million.

As for the destruction wrought by Iranian ballistic missiles, mainly in the center of the country, Israel faces $10 billion in property compensation and rebuilding costs.

Then there are the workforce absences caused by the war. Reservist call-ups have cost the economy an estimated $600 million dollars per week in lost productivity. The Bank of Israel estimates that one month of reservist service equals roughly NIS 38,000 ($12,100) in lost production per soldier.

As a result of the war, especially the heavy load of army reserve duty, over 50,000 Israeli businesses have closed.

I won’t elaborate here of Israel’s direct military costs, but these amount to at least NIS 243 billion ($77 billion) on ammunition, fuel, and equipment. It is likely that Israel spent more than $1 billion on Arrow missile interceptions alone since the start of the multifront war.

And I won’t elaborate here on the cost of preparing for the next wars, which against Hezbollah and Iran may begin this month. The Israeli defense establishment has already decided it needs a far more independent defense-industrial base as a hedge against future boycotts or embargoes, like the one imposed by the Biden administration when it decided to suspend deliveries of 2,000-pound bombs.

The development of cutting-edge military technologies that allow Israel to stay a step ahead of its enemies, such as the Iron Beam laser for which the state last year signed a $500 million contract with defense contractors Elbit and Rafael, will further strain the public purse, even if the laser is ultimately able to dramatically reduce the cost of interceptions.

Israel’s defense spending as a percentage of GDP, which stood at 4.5 percent in 2023, has risen to a whopping 8.8 percent – the second highest in the world, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Israel’s Nagel Commission, headed by Brig. Gen. (Res.) Jacob Nagel, believes that those numbers are only going to increase. The military budget is expected to nearly double, reaching as much as NIS 500 billion ($159 billion) over the next decade.

On the fiscal/monetary levels, Israel has taken on an additional NIS 19 billion ($6 billion) in debt servicing costs due to increased borrowing. Israel ran a budget deficit in 2025 of 6.9 percent of GDP. That is more than twice the level of Germany and higher than even France. Israel already has begun cutting civilian ministry budgets by roughly $5 billion, with a view toward bringing its budget deficits to below 3 percent over the next three years.

In short, the economic and fiscal burden that Israelis shoulder is enormous, and this does not take into account pain, trauma, post-trauma, and other “medical” costs, nor the tribulations of 2,000 families with widows and orphans nor 15,000 soldiers with varying degrees of injury including many with long-term medical rehabilitation challenges.

But again, nobody around the world is talking about raising even one penny for the reconstruction of Israel and the rehabilitation of Israelis, never mind for their “human dignity.” Except for Jews abroad, nobody is prioritizing the rebuilding and strengthening of Israel.

Now of course, Israel is a strong first-world country that has miraculously and smartly pulled through the war with incredible economic resilience. And Israel does not run around the world with a cap in hand begging for handouts. And Israel graciously has received massive military assistance from the United States.

Nevertheless, there is something grossly perverse about the fact the world sees only the suffering of the attackers, Palestinians, and not the suffering of the attacked, Israelis. There is something truly wicked about the fact the world rushes to plunk down billions for Gaza but not Kfar Aza, for Rafiah (and of course Ramallah, as always) but not Rehovot, for Khan Yunis but not Kiryat Shmona.

I’m just saying.

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READ MY RECENT FRIDAY OP-ED: Sitting on Shpilkes – It is not easy to navigate the twilight zone between regular life and all-out war.

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