Trump Is Reshaping the State Department


Trump administration executive order circulating among US diplomats proposes a radical reduction to and restructuring of the State Department.

The changes, if implemented, would be one of the biggest reorganizations of the Department since its founding in 1789.

The 16-page draft has been spread among diplomats around the world, according to officials familiar with the document.

The order would eliminate dozens of positions and departments, including those dealing with climate, refugees, democracy and Africa, as well as the Bureau of International Organizations, which liaises with the United Nations.

Under the changes, the sprawling State Department would be reorganized into four regional bureaus covering Indo-Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East and Eurasia.

An unspecified number of “non-essential” embassies and consulates in Sub-Saharan Africa would be shuttered.

The changes should be made by Oct. 1, according to the draft.
The draft order was first reported by the New York Times. A spokesperson for the US embassy in Nairobi declined to comment.

It remains unclear if the entire contents of the draft order will be signed by Trump.

One senior official in Africa said information circulating within the State Department about reforms that are set to be announced to the foreign service — potentially as soon as Tuesday — would be less sweeping than those described in the document.

Some employees writing on a foreign service-dedicated Reddit page also expressed doubt about how such an order could be implemented.

“I suspect this is being leaked as a red herring designed to make us grateful for a more modest but still unpopular reorganization,” wrote one user.

“It will be basically immediately challenged and enjoined, and then ‘implementation’ will be dragged out until Trump is voted out.”

#StateDepartment #reshape #draft

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📰 The Holy Draft War: Torah vs. Tzahal

At 11 p.m. in Jerusalem, rabbis shouted from balconies in Yiddish, dumpsters burned in the streets, and mounted police sprayed protesters with “skunk water.” The spark? Israel’s decision to draft the ultra-Orthodox after decades of exemption.

💭 “In this country I’m considered a criminal because I want to study Torah,”

said Haim Bamberger, 23, outside Mir Yeshiva.

📊 What’s driving the crisis
• The Supreme Court struck down the Ben-Gurion-era exemption in 2024. No law means no special deal.
• The IDF says it needs 12,000 fresh recruits after nearly two years of war in Gaza; so far, only 2,940 Haredim have enlisted.
• Netanyahu’s coalition is fraying: two ultra-Orthodox parties have already walked out.
• Demographic pressure is mounting: the Haredi population has grown from 40,000 in 1948 to nearly a million today, projected to reach 30% by 2035.

💼 Why it’s existential
• Secular Israelis are furious: their children fight and die while Haredi contemporaries remain in the yeshiva.
• Polling suggests up to half of Haredi men might serve if their communities allowed it, but rabbis fear losing control.
• The army is overstretched — more than 450 dead in Gaza, suicides rising, and reservists worn down by 400-plus days of service.
• The Gaza famine, with over 60,000 dead, collides with Netanyahu’s push for full control of Gaza City, deepening domestic discontent.

🤔 The unresolved question
If Torah study is presented as national defense and Gaza is an endless war, who really decides Israel’s survival strategy — the generals with their casualty counts, the rabbis with their texts, or Netanyahu clinging to his coalition like a life raft?

#israel #idf #haredim #draft #coalition #gazawar #politics

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Trump’s Original 28-point Peace Plan Is a Spoof

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Trump’s original 28-point peace plan was poorly drafted, internally contradictory, and so flagrantly tilted in Russia’s favor as to amount to an attempt to force Ukraine’s capitulation.

If the proposal has any virtue, it is that it has compelled Ukraine and its backers to abandon rhetoric and concentrate their minds on what can be achieved at a cost Ukraine, Europe, and its US backers are willing to bear.  

It is undeniable that Ukraine needs peace as soon as possible. The war is exhausting its manpower and devastating its economy. Ukraine’s soldiers have fought with valor and ingenuity.  But even in a just cause, there are limits beyond which further resistance is no longer feasible. 

To be sure, Russia is also suffering because of a needless war of its own making. Its losses in lives and materiel are staggering and incurred for marginal tactical gains. Each day the war continues, Russia falls further behind the great powers it will compete against in the decades ahead. But Ukraine is losing at a much faster rate than Russia.

In these circumstances, Ukraine and its supporters need to focus on what they can reasonably hope to achieve in a near-term settlement. This war will not end in a just peace. Ukraine is not about to expel Russia from the territory it has seized. Putin and his circle are not going to be hauled off to the Hague to answer for war crimes. But even in an ugly peace, Ukraine can preserve what is essential to its future: its sovereignty and independence.

Doing so will require hard choices on critical issues, including territory, security guarantees, and reconstruction.

On the territory, the war will most likely end with a ceasefire along the line of contact. Even Ukraine’s leaders acknowledge that, despite continued Western support, they lack the capacity to restore the internationally recognized borders of 1991.

The imperative is to stop Russia’s westward advance. Indifferent to the losses, Putin will continue his assault as long as he can claim Russian forces are advancing and therefore will eventually seize the remaining territory Russia has illegally annexed.

#proposal #trump #ukraine #peace #draft

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To stop him, the West will have to step up its support for Ukraine.  So far, there are a few indications that it will.

Security guarantees pose other challenges. Europeans need to face the limits of what they are prepared to do. It is time to abandon rhetoric about Ukraine’s NATO membership. If one thing has become clear since the end of the Cold War, it is that NATO as an organization and individual allies are not prepared to risk war with Russia to defend Ukraine.

Indeed, with the recent exception of Finland and Sweden, since the end of the Cold War, NATO has never admitted a country that it thought it would have to defend against Russia at the time of its admission. To the contrary, the major waves of NATO expansion occurred while the organization was focused on building cooperation with Russia in the late 1990s and early 2000s. 

In addition, the West will need to deploy a formidable deterrent force to stabilize and defend the long frontier with Russia, which will stretch from the Barents Sea to the Black Sea and cut through Ukrainian territory.

That could take the form of armed neutrality, as long as Europe and the United States are allowed to invest in expanding and modernizing Ukraine’s defense-industrial complex, enhancing interoperability with Ukraine, and conducting joint exercises outside Ukraine. That would help Ukraine build a military force adequate for territorial defense.

In 2025, the World Bank estimated the cost at more than half a trillion dollars. Russia’s frozen assets in the West—estimated as some $300 billion—will only cover part of that cost. The rest will have to come from the West, and perhaps China or the Gulf states.

Seizing Russian assets is the easy way out in the short term, because it requires no immediate sacrifice. But those resources are finite and will eventually be exhausted. European leaders are only postponing the moment when they must show real leadership to compel their electorates to make the sacrifices required to defend their security.  

Europe’s leaders have held out this promise since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. But few have acknowledged the challenges ahead. If Europeans are unwilling to pay the price to defend Ukraine now, how likely is it that they will accept the costs of bringing.

Ukraine into the EU? As a poor, devastated country, it will impose severe burdens on the EU’s budget. In particular, its vast agrarian potential will have far-reaching consequences for Europe’s farmers. Polish farmers are already protesting the privileges Ukrainian producers are enjoying in Europe.

Moreover, as the ongoing corruption scandal in Ukraine underscores, the country is far from meeting the governance standards required for accession. Yet leaving Ukraine outside the EU, after the great sacrifices Ukrainians have endured in the defense of Europe, will risk creating a resentful country that could pose challenges to European stability and security in the years ahead.

European leaders will need to find ways to allow Ukrainians some of the benefits of membership before they have fulfilled all the requirements for accession.

Tough choices lie ahead; the time for rhetoric and pretense is past. The reality is that Russia will not be defeated on the battlefield. But that does not mean that Ukraine must lose. It can still preserve its sovereignty and independence, even if the war ends in a messy compromise.

Achieving that outcome will require Ukraine, its US backers, and particularly Europe to abandon illusions and focus on the hard choices that must be made now and lay the foundations for a peace that preserves Ukraine’s freedom while holding open the possibility of a better future. The next few weeks will reveal whether they are up to the task.

#proposal #trump #ukraine #peace #draft

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📰 Netanyahu’s Year of Reckoning: Gaza, Drafts, and Judicial Chaos

Benjamin Netanyahu is facing a gauntlet of decisions in 2026: Gaza, conscription, judicial overhaul, and looming elections. His old playbook—delay, outlast, and turn crises into opportunities—might finally be running out of time.

“Netanyahu wants to give voters time to vent their rage,”

says Yohanan Plesner of the Israel Democracy Institute,

“but then also to get over it.”

Conscription Crisis
The ultra-Orthodox demand a new draft exemption, but most Israelis are sick of war fatigue. If Netanyahu doesn’t deliver, his coalition could collapse—forcing early elections. If he does, he risks alienating his own party and the public.

Gaza: Trump’s Plan or Netanyahu’s War?
Netanyahu signed on to Trump’s Gaza peace plan, but he’s never sounded like a true believer. He’s betting Hamas will have to surrender arms—or face more war. But Israel’s continued strikes have angered the White House, which wants to stabilize the region, not blow up truces.

The Saudi Wildcard
Saudi Arabia insists on Palestinian statehood as a condition for normalization with Israel. Netanyahu’s refusal to allow the Palestinian Authority in Gaza is making it hard for Trump to sell the deal. But if Netanyahu can pull off Saudi normalization, it could reshape the Middle East—and salvage his legacy.

Judicial Overhaul: Power or Pardon?
Netanyahu’s criminal trial is advancing, and his allies want a judicial overhaul to protect him. But if he finds another way out—like a plea deal or a pardon—he could break with the far right and make a dramatic pivot toward the center. Analysts say it’s hard to imagine, but not impossible.

Can Netanyahu still outlast his enemies, or will 2026 be the year his luck runs out?

#israel #netanyahu #gaza #draft #judicialoverhaul #trump #saudiarabia #fakeDemocracy

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📰 Ukraine’s Missing Men: Draft Dodgers, Future Diaspora, or Both?

While Kyiv talks about mobilisation, a quieter story is unfolding: the country is bleeding out exactly the men it will need if it ever reaches “reconstruction” mode. Over 11 million Ukrainians have been displaced since the invasion, but underneath the images of women and children at train stations, a different pattern is clear: young, educated, healthy men are leaving — and many have no intention of coming back.

Studies based on OneUA data show it’s not the poorest or weakest who go, but those with education, English, money and good health — the core of any future workforce. Even under martial law and legal exit restrictions, the guys with skills and connections find ways out. Official exemptions, like having three or more kids, explain only a slice of the trend. The rest is simple: if you can afford to choose between a trench and a work contract in Berlin or London, you choose not to die for a GDP you’ll never enjoy.
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And once they’re out, they’re not exactly rushing back. In the UK, 68% of Ukrainian adults now say they’d rather stay even if it became safe to return, up from 52% a year earlier. This isn’t “temporary refuge,” it’s a one‑way demographic edit. Europe gets young, motivated labour; Ukraine gets Telegram speeches about rebuilding with a population that increasingly lives on foreign tax rolls.
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The spin is already in place: think tanks talk about the “diaspora dividend,” how forced migrants will one day bring back capital, skills and export links, like Yugoslavs and Albanians once did. That’s the comforting version. The darker one: Ukraine is exporting its future middle class in exchange for short‑term survival money, hoping that, decades from now, some of them will remember where they were born.
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Kyiv calls it resilience. Brussels calls it solidarity. London calls it a labour market boost. The young men quietly boarding buses out of Ukraine call it something else: not being the last generation buried under a flag while everyone else writes policy papers about “post‑war reconstruction.”

#Ukraine #war #migration #diaspora #draft #fakeDemocracy

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📰 War Budget, No Draft: How God’s Parties Just Saved Bibi

Israel’s ultra-Orthodox parties are quietly climbing down from their sacred ultimatum: no draft exemption law, no state budget. Now, under the cover of war, Degel HaTorah’s rabbis have told their MKs to back the 2026 budget even if the conscription dodge isn’t legally locked in. In a system built on extortion, the professional extortionists just blinked.

The stakes are simple: no budget by the end of the month, the government falls and elections follow. For years, Shas and Degel HaTorah swore they’d bring the house down before letting tens of thousands of yeshiva students face the draft; now, with a war burning and soldiers exhausted, they suddenly discover “national responsibility.” Translation: better a flawed budget today than risk a different coalition tomorrow.

This isn’t a morality play, it’s a swap. The Haredi leadership knows that any new draft law is likely to be toothless, legally shaky, and eventually gutted by the High Court. So they take the money and time now, bet on legal chaos later, and hope that by the time the justices rule, everyone is too tired, too broke, or too dead to enforce anything on thousands of “deserters.”

Netanyahu, for his part, gets exactly what he needs: a budget that keeps him in office through war, with his most loyal partners back on board and their rage theatrically redirected at the courts and “leftist elites.” The soldiers keep serving, the Haredi draft problem stays unsolved, and the crisis over “sharing the burden” is converted into one more overdraft on Israel’s future.

In this arrangement, the war is not the reason to fix the inequality — it’s the excuse not to.

#israel #budget #haredim #draft #netanyahu #war #oligarchy #fakeDemocracy

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Israel’s Draft Law: Sacrificing Soldiers to Save the Coalition

The government just put a price tag on Israeli security, and it’s denominated in coalition math, not in lives.

On Wednesday, the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is scheduled to debate, in the same morning, two pieces of political dynamite: an amendment to formally integrate yeshiva students into the draft‑exemption framework, and another amendment to extend mandatory military service. The message is simple and obscene: Torah students out, everybody else in for longer.

The second bill — extending mandatory service — was kept in the drawer for months because even this coalition knows how furious the public already is. Now they’re trying to sneak it through in the same package as the yeshiva law, as if you can bury a time bomb under a bigger explosion.

At the same time, there’s a preliminary vote set on dissolving the Knesset. Netanyahu’s camp is trying to convince the ultra‑Orthodox parties that there is still a majority to pass the exemption law, basically begging for time. The calendar tricks are pure survival mode: if they can stall, September 1 becomes impossible, the election date slips past September 15, and suddenly you’re campaigning in October instead of being punished sooner.

Inside the Haredi camp, the split is naked. Rav Lando’s house tells Degel HaTorah MKs to support dissolution and avoid “political games,” but party figures leak that if the draft‑exemption law actually passes, they’ll run back to the rabbis to “reconsider” their stand on the vote. Translation: “principles” are valid until the coalition delivers the goods.

The opposition doesn’t even need to invent a slogan. Lapid can just read the situation out loud: Netanyahu is trying to “sell Israel’s security” — trading the already overstretched combat and reserve pool for one more round of legal protection and political oxygen. For frontline troops and reservists, it looks even uglier: you get longer compulsory service so someone else can keep permanent exemption and permanent leverage.

The Forum of Service Partnership calls the law “an absolute disgrace” in light of the Chief of Staff’s warning that the army and its reserves are “one step away from collapse.” That’s the core of the story: the professional warning is that the system is at breaking point; the political response is to squeeze it harder and hand out exemptions to the government’s most loyal voting bloc.

This isn’t policy. It’s a hostage deal, where the hostages are soldiers, reservists, and what’s left of the idea that the IDF belongs to everyone, not just to the people who know how to blackmail a prime minister on the way to the ballot box.

#Israel #IDF #Haredim #draft #Netanyahu #Lapid #security #fakeEquality

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Fatwas, Frontlines and the General Staff

Tehran’s clerics just issued a religious death sentence on Trump and Netanyahu; in Bnei Brak, a rabbi calls down a curse on Israel’s own chief of staff. Different languages, same addiction: turning politics into holy war and generals into demons.

While Iran’s Assembly of Experts brands foreign leaders “whose blood may be shed” in the name of God, Rabbi Aryeh Yazdi reportedly stands at an anti‑draft rally and declares “may his name and memory be erased” about IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, accusing “the entire army” of wanting to uproot faith, Torah and the Messiah.

At the same event, former chief Sephardi rabbi Yitzhak Yosef tells the crowd that wars are won not by Iron Dome, but by Torah students in the yeshivot. In Tehran, clerics sanctify violence against enemies abroad. In Bnei Brak, rabbis delegitimize the officers keeping those missiles from landing.

The meta‑joke writes itself. Iran’s regime uses fatwa language to cover for military weakness and political crisis; it talks big about assassinating Trump while scrambling to keep radar and command posts from getting blown up.

Haredi leaders denounce the army that’s already carrying their security burden, portraying a draft enforcement campaign as an existential war on religion, then insist that the real front line is in the study hall. Both are selling a theology where blood and risk belong to someone else.

Meanwhile, Israel’s own leadership plays both sides. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s successor, Defense Minister Kac, condemns the rabbinic incitement and insists you can’t cross red lines against the people responsible for national security — days after calling to stop arrests of yeshiva draft dodgers.

The coalition passes a Basic Law elevating Torah study to “supreme value,” protects mass exemptions, then expresses shock when rabbis talk about the IDF as a threat to faith and curse its commanders from a stage.

Put Tehran and Bnei Brak side by side and you get parallel processes, not opposites. In Iran, clerical power uses religion to criminalize compromise and keep a collapsing regime afloat. In Israel, coalition politics uses religion to outsource risk to soldiers while building a protected class that can curse those same soldiers with impunity.

In both cases, the uniform is expected to absorb the fire, the robe to claim the victory, and any challenge to that hierarchy to be labeled heresy.

So when Iran’s Assembly of Experts declares Trump and Netanyahu fair game, and an Israeli rabbi declares the chief of staff erasable, the question isn’t who’s more extreme.

It’s how long both systems can keep asking the same people to fight and die while their leaders, clerical and political, compete over who gets to issue the next curse in God’s name.

#Israel #Iran #IDF #Tehran #Haredim #draft #war #religion #Torah #fakeDemocracy

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Jerusalem’s Draft-Dodger Dividend

Thousands marched through Jerusalem to honor ultra-Orthodox men released from military prison for draft evasion. At the end, each man was promised 1,000 shekels.

The country is extending reserve call-ups while a religious movement puts a cash prize on refusing the draft.

The procession began in Geula and ended near Kikar HaShabbat. About 50 recently released draft evaders attended, though roughly 100 had been invited.

Participants held signs calling the IDF an “enemy army” and demanding the release of “hostages” from Prison 10, the military prison.

The event’s organizers said the money came from donations abroad. Video later showed Rabbi Yehuda Tzadaka handing envelopes to the men, with 1,000 shekels in each.

The cash is neither a salary nor a fine. It is a public reward for choosing the army’s jail over the army.

Yashar! leader Gadi Eisenkot called the coming vote a choice between a “government of draft evasion” and a “Zionist government of enlistment.”

Democrat leader Yair Golan said people were marching through the capital with anti-IDF signs while Netanyahu transfers billions of shekels to their community. Bennett said the Netanyahu-Deri government pays them billions.

Ofer Winter placed the sequence correctly: the evaders received honors in Bnei Brak, then the calls of “enemy army” arrived in Jerusalem. He said the scenes demeaned IDF soldiers.

Avigdor Liberman demanded an immediate investigation into who financed the envelopes and called on Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz to condemn the event that same night.

Israel’s government is asking for authority to keep up to 200,000 reservists under emergency call-up through November. In Jerusalem, a parallel institution handed cash to men whose emergency was refusing to serve.

#Israel #IDF #Haredim #Draft

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