Introduction: Israel and the coming of John Wayne Judaism
This group photo of American and Israeli Jewish and Arab students, taken Nov. 29, 1998, represented my hope for the Middle East – peace between Israel and the Palestinians and prosperity for the people of the region. I witnessed diverse young people coming together in friendship and opportunity and I burst with hope and possibilities for the traditionally embattled region.
Israel and the Middle East were very different back in November 1998. The Jewish State, under pressure from Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Intifadas, supported by Iran, Assad’s Syria, and Lebanese Shiites, desired friendship. Israel’s challenging neighborhood forced it to be Spartan; Israel’s soul, though, was nourished by balancing Sparta with Athens.
The nation’s warmth drew me in and I established a sister city program between Atlanta and Ra’anana, Israel, to develop friendship and trade. While chairing the committee for twenty-five years, I’ve observed a Spartan mentality beginning to overtake Athenian sensibilities.
Despite my support for Oslo, the Palestinians have never been a true partner for peace. The late Yasser Arafat, for example, facing a 2000 peace initiative brokered between President Bill Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, declined because he claimed his following would kill him. He was dying of two diseases and passed a few years later.
Before Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of Israel that killed 1,200 people, Israeli military sharpshooters were known to not take shots because the Hamas commander had surrounded himself with large groups of innocent shields.
After the Oct. 7 slaughter, the sharpshooters were tabled and what I call, “John Wayne Judaism,” set in. Israel began referring to all Gazans as terrorists and the only good one apparently was a dead one.
When a commander was believed to be hiding in a building with shields, Israel bombed it. If no commander was found among the bodies, Israel shrugged an apology. An estimated 75,000 Palestinians died during the two-and-a-half years of war in a Gaza reduced to rubble and chaos.
Israel’s more liberal political parties have generally supported Oslo and a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. Likud and the more conservative and religious parties have resisted and often resorted to expanding West Bank settlements to undermine a new state’s viability.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, before the Oct. 7 war, was being tried on corruption charges and divided the country by attempting to end judicial autonomy. Huge protests took place daily for months by supporters on both sides.
War forced Israelis to temporarily put aside their differences and fight. Some critics claim Netanyahu’s coalition survives because of his making constant war, however successful he may be.
Netanyahu’s coalition includes far right extremists like ministers Ben-Gvir and Smotrich who are disciples of the late Meir Kahane, a rabbi who advocated forcibly expelling Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza to form a Greater Israel.
The late Rabbi Meir Kahane
Before the war, an Israel Channel 12 anchorman was asked about the Kahanist extremists inclusion in the government. “Whenever we faced the ratings sweeps and needed to juice the numbers, we booked one of these very outrageous guys. It usually worked until we looked up one day and they were IN the government.”
Currently, extremist Israeli settlers have been attacking and driving Palestinians from their West Bank villages and homes while the IDF often looks the other way. Kahane’s calling for transfer of all Palestinians into neighboring countries is being realized through settlers’ cantonization of the West Bank. All that’s left is isolated, disconnected clusters of Arabs.
Israel, as of this writing, has been engaged in a month-long war with the United States against Iran after a twelve-day war in June 2025. Israel has reshaped the Middle East by destroying Iranian power and proxies, establishing itself as a regional power, while remaining divided and losing citizens and technology companies to the diaspora.
The burden of war has been fought mainly by 30,000 to 70,000 reservists who are exhausted and developing PTSD by the thousands. As of April 10, 2026, seventy-six IDF soldiers have committed suicide. Prevention programs are being developed to meet a growing need to save lives. Despite a ceasefire, Israeli soldiers battle Hezbollah fighters in Beirut and southern Lebanon and Israeli pilots bomb sites in Iran.
Oslo’s goal was to encourage Israel to make peace with the Palestinians and reward the Jewish State with world recognition of Jerusalem as its capitol and control of the Golan Heights. Trump gave Israel both for doing nothing and Israel venerated him for it.
Israel’s toll in forty days of the war with Iran was 650 missile hits, 24 dead, and over 7,000 people hurt. (Haaretz, April 10, 2026)
PLO and Hamas: The people who never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity for peace have historically shamed themselves with Oct. 7, 2023
Nakba is Arabic for “disaster” or “catastrophe.” During Israel’s war for independence in 1947, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs were displaced from the new Jewish State. The 250,000 that remained have become more than 5,700,000; 3.4 million in the West Bank, 2.3 million in Gaza.
The displaced gave name to their disaster – Nakba. Yasser Arafat (1929 – 2004) became their face and voice by founding the Fatah political party. Fatah and seven other parties formed the Palestine Liberation Organization (1969 – 2004) whose mission statement called for the destruction of Israel and return to their homes in Jaffa and Haifa.
Arafat and the PLO’s refusal to deviate and recognize Israel’s existence undermined proponents of the two-state solution. The Israelis began a relentless assassination campaign; Arafat reportedly never slept in the same bed two nights in a row.
Hamas, led by Sheik Ahmed Yassin, formed in late 1987, during the first Intifada (uprising) emerged as a militant group dedicated to armed resistance to Israel. The religio-political group solidified power over Gaza in 2007 by operating as both a social service provider and military force. (Google)
The Palestinian Authority, based in Ramallah in the West Bank, was condemned by Hamas as corrupt, out of touch, and uncaring about the plight of the people in Gaza. Netanyahu encouraged this split by funneling money to Hamas through Qatar.
Iran also funneled money to Hamas – to dig tunnels and develop rockets to shoot from shielded positions. Well-meaning European aid money was diverted to expand the tunnel system, improve rocketry engineering, and develop a missile production industry. The economy remained stunted and distorted and the people impoverished.
In the meantime, Hamas’ military power kept growing and periodically attacked Israel with missile barrages. Israel reacted by invading Gaza to Mow the Grass, eliminate Hamas’ war-making potential for the time being.
On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas committed a crime that will historically shame the group forever. Hamas, with lavish support from Iran and its proxies, invaded Israel and began destroying the kibbutzes that line the border with Gaza. The invaders penetrated deeper into Israel and slaughtered about 250 Jews attending the Nova Music Festival.
The Israeli Defense Forces were unprepared and it took two days to stop the invasion that killed 1,200 people. This attack was the worst against the Jewish people since the Holocaust in World War II.
Israel and Netanyahu responded by declaring that the Jewish State would retaliate appropriately and change the face of the Middle East. Hamas and Iran’s other proxies, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Assad’s Syria, the Houthis would be eliminated.
And as of April 9, 2026, that goal has been mostly achieved and a new Middle East is emerging. Hezbollah has been pummeled, Assad toppled, and a new pragmatic Syria has formed. Israel managed this new calculus with advanced technological applications such as satellite cameras, cyber-warfare, pin-point missiles and drones, and even novel pager weaponry.
How Israel will use its new hegemony remains to be seen. Despite a ceasefire, hundreds of Gazans have been killed from Israeli airstrikes against Hamas members to disarm them. The strip is in total ruins; aid groups struggle to feed and shelter the homeless, and most people do not feel sorry for them – they let Hamas bring this on and didn’t stop it.
Trump rushed a peace proposal that would turn Gaza in to a Riviera-style resort. He also put together a Board of Peace to direct security and development. Both hopeful concepts are unlikely to go anywhere until Hamas disarms.
Hamas uses terror to maintain dominance over Gaza’s more moderate elements. Until the notion of resistance is fully abandoned, reconstruction is hampered, and chaos and misery continue.
Iran: The failed Islamic Republic has been cut down to size but remains entrenched for the time being.
The Iranian Revolution of 1979 that produced the Islamic Republic was primarily supported by more conservative and religious people from small towns and rural areas. The westernized masses in Teheran joined in a hope for freedom from the Shah’s Savak (security forces) and a more prosperous future.
The revolution would have succeeded if the Ayatollah Khomeini and followers had installed a democracy and built a modern economy like the Shah had done. Iran’s new Shiite leadership instead ushered in a theocracy and declared that the revolution would be exported across the Middle East with the aim of destroying Israel. Mullah chatter about Israel “being a one-bomb state” was viewed as an existential threat in Jerusalem.
Khomeini died and was followed by Khamenei who supported anti-Israel proxies in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza. He swore to carry out Khomeini’s dream and was good to his word.
No expense was spared in this attempted surrounding of Israel with the aim of extinguishing it. Syria, headed by former eye doctor Bashir Assad, welcomed Iranian support to help Alawites, 15% of the population, maintain their iron grip on the army and nation. Hamas took money to build more tunnels and rockets. Iranian families, however, struggled to make ends meet in an economy distorted by sanctions and inflation.
On Jan. 2, 2026, President Trump, with the aim of overthrowing the regime, encouraged the masses to revolt and take to the streets. Trump told them if they rebel, American forces were “locked and loaded” to help them take their country back.
Across Iran, demonstrators seeking freedom and reforms heeded the call. The Badjis (security soldiers) were waiting and slaughtered over 7,000 people. Iranian Revolutionary Guard Units (IRGU) maintained a vice-like grip on the country.
On Feb. 28, 2026, a joint Israeli – American strike force, after bombing Iran for twelve days in June 2025 to destroy nuclear bomb capacities “for good,” attacked once more to level Iran’s military infrastructure and end the regime’s war-making potential.
Israel has waged a decapitation campaign to collapse the regime that tenaciously hangs on despite dozens of assassinations including an attempt on Khamenei’s replacement, his son, who supposedly has been injured. The IDF has dropped 18,000+ bombs and threatens to reduce Iran to Gaza-like rubble. The US has carried out 11,000+ bombing strikes with more threatened.
The Iranians struck several tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. Insurance rates to cover passage reached two million dollars a ship. Oil and gas prices have gone up a dollar per gallon, economies globally have been rocked, uncertainty is plaguing business.
Trump, trapped by Iran’s strangle-hold, gave them a deadline to open the Strait to free passage or face erasure. Trump TACO’d again and accepted a ten-point proposal that gives Iran control of the Strait.
The cobbled together Iranian leadership now demands recognition of their control and is seeking tolls for passage and reparations from Israel and the US for damages rendered.
Trump, seeking an off-ramp to avoid having to put “boots on the ground” is in a bind. Iranian intransigence forces Trump to either declare victory and go home and leave the regime relatively intact, or occupy Teheran to end the Islamic Republic. Shiite martyrdom syndrome is real and guarantees another forever war / quagmire. Iran invented IED warfare in Iraq to drive America from that country and succeeded.
Israel does not want to end this war yet but must follow Trump. Iran refuses to open-up the Strait until Israel stops fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Iran is a proud old nation and geared towards making this situation as difficult for Trump and Israel with whatever means they have left. That decision has already cost the lives of 1,500 Iranians.
Lebanon: The never-ending national tragedy.
The Lebanese have always been industrious – they invented trade and the global economy. The Phoenicians created purple dye and sold it to the royals of the Mediterranean who had the money to buy it.
The French pulled The Lebanon out of Syria in 1944. A careful governing formula between the Christians, Sunnis, and Shiites fostered stability. Beirut and business boomed while tourists poured in for the beaches or nearby mountains to ski.
The Shiite population grew faster and began demanding more power. A civil war tore the nation apart for a decade. Peace returned and so did prosperity until Iran again interfered.
Lebanon sits north of Israel and a prime location to launch missiles from. Iran began aiding Hezbollah to dominate the central government and threaten the Jewish State. Periodic exchanges occurred between Hezbollah and Israel who, at times, moved forces to the Litany River that runs about ten miles in from the border. Israel, at the time of this writing, has done it again to push Hezbollah away from the boundary line.
Israel views Hezbollah as Iran’s last proxy and has pounded them in Beirut’s southern and central suburbs. Israel’s hope is to finish Hezbollah off and secure the northern border for the first time in years.
The poor people of Lebanon are suffering because the central government failed them. Both Israel and the US offered Lebanon the military backing needed to gain control over Hezbollah and the government shied away. An estimated 1,145 people have died because they froze instead of filling a power vacuum.
A nation that does not exercise discipline internally may have it thrust upon them by an external force like Israel.
Syria: A new pragmatic country is emerging from the ashes of the monstrous Assad father-and-son dictatorships.
Syria is a country made up of many ethnic groups. The Alawites, a Shiite-related branch of Islam, are an estimated 15% of the population. The Sunni branch of Islam represented approximately 80% of Syria in comparison.
This imbalance made Hafez Assad, an Alawite army officer, nervous so he grabbed power and established a scorpion-style state that silenced the opposition. The predominately Sunni city of Hama rose-up against his rule in 1982 and he had the army destroy it and kill an estimated 15,000 people. Assad ruled with an iron hand until his death in 2000.
His son, Bashir, an eye doctor, succeeded him and some expected broad reforms that never happened. Bashir proved to be as ruthless as his father with security forces disappearing an estimated 200,000+ people into a feared prison and black hole of death. Families across the country are searching for lost loved ones.
Most people have forgotten the Syrian Civil War that sent more than five million Sunni refugees to Europe that stoked a rise of right-wing parties across the continent. People have also forgotten that Vladimir Putin committed his first war crime in Syria when he came to the rescue of Bashir Assad to prop him up with military force.
Russian air strikes killed more than 100,000 Syrians without resistance from Israel or the United States. I have questioned President Obama’s hesitancy to use force in Syria to check Russia’s murderous behavior.
There had been a wave of dictators overthrown by popular uprisings and Putin may have feared that if Assad went down, he might be next. Putin had just invested a trillion dollars into a military buildup and used it against Syrian civilians.
Did the US over-respect Russia’s military power or cynically stand back to analyze how well it worked? Obama has only admitted that he did not believe it to be in American interests to fight Russia in Syria. US hesitancy in Syria may have encouraged Putin’s annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine’s Donbas region.
Bashir Assad made a bad mistake by not paying his security forces well and on time. Israel launched a pin-point bombing campaign against Assad while Syrian opposition forces mounted an attack against his government. The underpaid security forces melted away in two days causing a sudden power collapse and Assad’s quick departure to exile in Russia.
President Ahmed al-Sharaa of Syria
Two days of fighting and suddenly Ahmed al Sharaa, leader of the opposition forces and a redeemed former ISIS member, was the new leader of Syria. He has displayed moderation and pragmatism in rebuilding Syria into a republic but made mistakes along the way such as battling the Druze and Kurds to bring them under the control of the central government. Trust is hard to build after the Assads’ oppression.
Sharaa is challenged to work with Israel, the new regional hegemon, to bring about stability and rebuild the economy to provide jobs for the refugees in Europe and North America. Many have made good lives and need a stable land and growing economy to come home to.
Egypt and el-Sisi: 13 years, 18 security forces, a new capitol, and no free elections.
In 2010, the Middle East, after decades of economic stagnation and authoritarian rule, experienced a regional uprising called the Arab Spring. Egypt President Hosni Mubarak, successor to the martyred Anwar Sadat, had kept control with fourteen security forces, ten to look after the people and four to watch the agencies. Mubarak, challenged by both the right and the left, was swept aside.
The Muslim Brotherhood, led by Mohammed Morsi, took over Egypt and mistakenly tried to rule without including the army or students. The westernized Egyptians felt used and the army angry from being squeezed out of their control of major industries. Two years of grumbling over economic mismanagement led to a counter-revolution.
The army, led by Colonel Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, deposed Morsi and installed himself as president. Sisi promised to hold free elections in the near-future. Thirteen years later, the Egyptian people are still waiting because Sisi has 18 security agencies to clamp down on “troublemakers.”
Cairo, with an estimated 23 million people packed into a crumbling and chaotic infrastructure, is difficult to administer. Sisi and the army have built a new administrative center called The New Capitol about 28 miles east of Cairo.
Historically, new capitols are built for the elite to demand a 10% – 20% pay-to-play agreement. A new capitol can also be easier to defend from a mob of angry citizens. Are 18 security agencies enough to permanently keep Egyptians divided and stave off free elections?
Saudi Arabia: Meeting the challenge of opening up the country and engaging the Saudi people.
Saudi Arabia, historically, was a successful merger between the House of Saud and the Wahabis (religious police). The royal family faithfully dealt with the responsibilities of state and economic affairs while the Wahabis dictated strict Sunni religious policy; protect the holy places, coordinate the annual Haj (pilgrimage to Mecca), assure the people’s adherence to faith and religious practice.
Oil fueled growth and development and provided great wealth for some and a comfortable life for many. But oil also fueled growth, development, and wealth in the Gulf States – UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait – who foreseeing the end of the age of oil invested heavily in the future.
The Gulf States have built cities that are splendors in the desert; allowed for a more relaxed lifestyle, and globally attracted business and visitors. I personally know two young persons who went to Doha to start successful careers and fondly remember their time spent there.
The Abraham Accords are a series of joint normalization agreements between Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco that call for regional peace, cooperation, and prosperity. The Gulf States’ leadership has given Saudi Arabia regional competition for global importance and investment.
Mohammed bin Salman, son of King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and heir to the throne, took notice and is sparking a Saudi response and take-off through engaging the people to build spectacular Saudi splendors in the desert.
MBS, as he is referred to in the media, has taken bold steps to normalize relations with Israel and offered to join the Abraham Accords, too. Israel’s current Kahanist government and its treatment of Gazan and West Bank Arabs makes it hard for MBS to do so.
Yes, MBS has made mistakes; the killing of Adnan Khashoggi was wrong and he should probably scale his innovative NOEM down greatly. Regardless, he is moving his country forward and trying to play a positive regional role.
At this moment, MBS and the Saudi military have been defending the nation from Iranian missile attacks raining down on them because of a war Israel and America started. I expect MBS and the Saudis to be a constructive force in bringing the war to an end and helping to rebuild the region.
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