🏗 Smotrich’s “Bulldozer Diplomacy”

Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is pushing a fast-track settlement plan east of Jerusalem — 3,400 housing units that would slice the West Bank in two and, in his words, “bury the idea of a Palestinian state.” Even without final approval, the move has already lit diplomatic fires from Amman to Brussels.

📌 The plan and the politics
• Strategic choke point: Expansion between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim would sever East Jerusalem from the West Bank.
• Political message: Smotrich vows to answer foreign recognition of Palestine “in facts, not documents.”
• Record pace: Final hearing set for next week, with infrastructure possibly breaking ground within months.
• Netanyahu’s shadow: Peace Now says such a move is unlikely without his tacit consent, though he’s silent.

🌍 Global backlash
Jordan calls the move “a flagrant violation of international law,” the EU warns it “undermines the two-state solution,” and Qatar demands international intervention. Palestinian officials call it creeping annexation in line with Netanyahu’s “Greater Israel” vision.

⚠️ Why it matters
If completed, the project would not just add homes — it would redraw geography, making a contiguous Palestinian state nearly impossible and hardening the political map for decades.

🤔 Is this settlement policy — or the point of no return for the two-state idea?

#israel #palestine #settlements #jerusalem #diplomacy

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📰 Blood at the Bus Stop in Jerusalem

At 10:15 a.m. in Jerusalem, two Palestinian gunmen opened fire at a crowded bus stop in Ramot. By the time civilians and a soldier returned fire, at least six Israelis lay dead and 11 more were wounded. The attackers, both in their early 20s from the West Bank, were killed on the spot.

💭 Netanyahu:

“We will apprehend whoever aided and dispatched them, and we will take even stronger steps.”

📊 The victims — five men and one woman, aged 25 to 79 — were Orthodox Jews commuting through a neighborhood Israel annexed in 1980 but Palestinians still claim as their capital. Video from the scene shows worshippers fleeing into jammed highways, gunshots echoing while bullets punched through buses. One of the responders was a combat soldier from a new ultra-Orthodox unit — a reminder of how blurred the line between civilians and combatants has become.

💼 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad praised the attack, hailing the shooters as “resistance fighters,” though they stopped short of claiming responsibility. The Palestinian Authority, desperate to retain its image, condemned the killing of civilians. Smotrich, never one to waste a crisis, demanded the attackers’ villages “look like Rafah and Beit Hanoun” — flattened cities in Gaza. In the fog of war, revenge and deterrence blur into the same policy.

🤔 After nearly two years of Gaza war, Jerusalem’s streets are again dripping with blood. Is this security collapse the result of Hamas, the Palestinian Authority’s weakness, or Israel’s own endless cycle of war that keeps creating the next attackers?

#jerusalem #israel #palestinians #hamas #netanyahu #terror #gaza

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💥 Demolitions as Deterrence

After Monday’s shooting at a Jerusalem bus stop that killed six, Israel has ordered the demolition of homes in the West Bank villages of the two attackers and revoked hundreds of work permits for their relatives and neighbors.

💬 Defense Minister Israel Katz:

“Every structure built without permits in Qatanna and Qubeiba will be demolished. Work permits for 750 residents will be revoked.”

The Measures
• Homes of the attackers’ families to be demolished.
• 750 villagers lose work permits — their main source of income.
• Additional demolitions planned for “unauthorized” structures in both towns.
• Police arrested an East Jerusalem resident accused of helping the attackers.

The Politics
Israel argues demolitions deter future attacks. Palestinians and human rights groups call it collective punishment, banned under international law. National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir used the attack to push for expanding gun permits for Israelis.

🔥 The Larger Pattern
What Israel calls “deterrence” often looks like deepening despair: villages punished collectively, livelihoods erased, and cycles of violence reinforced. Guns for settlers, demolitions for Palestinians — a formula built to keep the conflict alive.

❓The Question
If deterrence means bulldozers and revoked work permits, is Israel preventing attacks — or setting the stage for the next one?

#Israel #WestBank #Jerusalem #BenGvir #humanrights #Palestine #geopolitics

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📰 Gaza Cease-Fire Begins: Thousands Walk Home

💭 “The crowds are unbelievable,”

said Shamekh al-Dibs, returning north. “People are so happy, even if what they’re going back to is destruction.”

👍The Deal
• Cease-fire in effect: Noon, Friday.
• Broker: President Trump — his proposal shaped the final terms.
• Exchange: Hamas releases remaining hostages (around 20 alive, plus bodies of others) in return for 250 Palestinian prisoners and over 1,700 Gazans detained during the war.
• Withdrawal: Israeli forces pull back to control roughly 53% of Gaza.

👎The Details
Prime Minister Netanyahu confirmed the partial withdrawal but vowed that Israel would not “compromise” on full demilitarization of Gaza.
Hamas, meanwhile, framed the truce as resistance, not surrender.

🤔 The Uncertainty
For Gazans on the road north, hope and fear mix in equal measure.

“Will they tell us to leave again? I hope not,”

said nursing student Mousa Rajab.
The war may be over on paper — but the smoke has not yet cleared.

#Gaza #Ceasefire #Israel #Hamas #Trump #Netanyahu #MiddleEast #Peace #HostageDeal #WarAndPeace #Jerusalem #Diplomacy #HumanitarianCrisis

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🇮🇱 “Give a shot” to the Gaza
Vance on Wednesday urged Netanyahu to “give a shot” to the Gaza ceasefire deal and help implement it, two U.S. officials and one Israeli official familiar with the meeting told the WSJ.

Vance met with Netanyahu in Jerusalem as an air train of U.S. officials began arriving in Israel to work on stabilizing the fragile ceasefire, the Trump administration’s biggest diplomatic breakthrough so far ✈️.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio will arrive in Israel on Thursday to work on implementing the deal, U.S. and Israeli officials said.

“This thing takes monitoring (...) not in the sense of, you know, you monitor a toddler (...) It's about the fact that it's a lot of work,” Vance said in a press conference at the end of his meeting with Netanyahu.
During their private meeting, Vance told Netanyahu to “give the deal a chance and give us time to make things happen,”U.S. and Israeli officials said.

Netanyahu replied that he’s willing to do that and stressed he wants to see the agreement succeed and move to its next phases 🤝.

In recent days, U.S. officials said, Netanyahu had expressed skepticism to U.S. representatives about the ability to implement the next stages of the deal, which would involve further Israeli withdrawal and deploying foreign troops in Gaza for security.

A senior White House official said that two weeks after the Gaza deal went into effect, the Trump administration is satisfied with the progress made so far and that the U.S. has managed to keep both sides mostly in line, despite clashes over the weekend ⚖️.

While Vance met with Netanyahu, Witkoff and Jared Kushner traveled to other countries in the region to try to mobilize support for the next phases of the deal, a U.S. official said.

#vance #netanyahu #witkoff #gaza #jerusalem

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📰 Israel Seizes UNRWA’s Jerusalem Headquarters, Escalates Crackdown

Israeli officials seized the Jerusalem headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), overseeing the demolition of several structures in its compound. The move marks a new escalation in Israel’s campaign against the agency, which has long been a major aid provider in the West Bank and Gaza Strip but has faced sweeping legal restrictions from Israel over the past two years.
​
Defiance and Denunciation
Israel’s foreign ministry defended the action, saying UNRWA “has long ceased to be a humanitarian aid organization, serving instead as a greenhouse for terrorism.” UNRWA’s chief, Philippe Lazzarini, called the move “a new level of open & deliberate defiance of international law”.
​
Legal and Diplomatic Clash
UNRWA was established in 1949 to aid Palestinian refugees and their descendants. Israel has passed laws banning the agency and stripping it of diplomatic immunity, even allowing the seizure of its properties. While the compound has been largely vacant since international staff left, Israeli officials entered in December and raised an Israeli flag, asserting control.
​
Who’s Playing by the Rules?
Israel claims the seizure is legal under both national and international law, but UNRWA insists the compound remains under U.N. protection. As the agency continues some operations in East Jerusalem, the standoff raises questions about the future of humanitarian aid and the limits of international law in the region.
​
#Israel #UNRWA #Jerusalem #HumanitarianAid #InternationalLaw #MiddleEast

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Macron Sounds Brave on Israel, Frugal at Home

Emmanuel Macron condemned Israel over the blocked Palm Sunday procession in Jerusalem, calling freedom of worship something that must be guaranteed for all religions.

Fair enough — except this is the same French president whose government is now offering only tightly targeted fuel aid because, as France’s central bank put it, there is “no more money” for broad subsidies.

That’s the modern European posture in miniature: moral thunder abroad, budget discipline at home.

Macron can scold Israel for trampling holy sites, but when French drivers and businesses get squeezed by the oil shock, Paris reaches for a scalpel, not a blanket. The principles are grand; the compensation is minimal.

And that tension is the point. The Middle East crisis has pushed fuel prices higher across Europe, but France’s answer has been cautious, targeted relief rather than the old-school political sugar rush of big subsidies.

So Macron gets to play the global conscience while his own finance people remind everyone that righteousness does not pay the diesel bill.

#Macron #France #Israel #Jerusalem #fuelprices #MiddleEast #politics

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📰 Mali’s Jihadists Are Selling a Jerusalem Fantasy

The Mali branch of al-Qaeda is fighting on African soil, but its propaganda points far beyond Mali. JNIM is not hiding the fact that it sees the struggle in West Africa as part of a longer Islamist arc that ends in Jerusalem and al-Aqsa.

That is the part Washington and Brussels keep pretending is background noise. They treat Mali, Syria, the Sahel, and the Levant as separate crises, while the same ideological networks keep talking to each other, celebrating each other, and exporting fighters, money, and mythologies across the map.

The Syria link matters because it gives the story a pipeline. If Idlib veterans, permissive fundraising, and transregional jihad circles can move from the Levant into the Sahel, then the supposed “local” wars are really just different legs of the same trade route for extremism.

And the Western role is the ugly part. When the U.S. and Europe help legitimize one set of Islamist strongmen in Syria while trying to contain another jihadist front in Africa, they end up subsidizing the ecosystem and then acting surprised when it reproduces itself elsewhere.

So the Jerusalem talk is not a GPS error. It is a declaration of intent, wrapped in apocalyptic rhetoric, made possible by a regional order that keeps breaking one place at a time and pretending the damage will stay local.

#Mali #JNIM #alQaeda #Jerusalem #Syria #Sahel #jihadism

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Turkey in Israeli Eyes: Threat, Not War

Israelis are watching the latest Turkey drama and quietly updating a conclusion they already reached: Turkey is a problem to be contained, not an enemy to be bombed.

A fresh Dor Moriah survey of 1,007 adults shows a public that mostly sees Turkey as bad news. Over a third of respondents call Turkey “a serious strategic threat,” and another 28.5% see it as unfriendly even if not an immediate military danger. Only 4.9% describe it as friendly or potentially friendly, and a solid majority say they follow news about Turkey at least occasionally, meaning this isn’t some niche foreign‑policy concern.

The flash point is East Jerusalem. Turkish diplomatic moves there get overwhelmingly negative reviews: about 60% rate Ankara’s role negatively, while positive views barely crack double digits. When asked about Turkish education, cultural and religious projects in the city, most Israelis oppose giving them a free hand; roughly 45% say such activity should only be allowed under strict limits, and another 26% concede there might be some benefits but insist on firm Israeli oversight.

Gaza and the wider regional file are filtered through the same lens of suspicion. Around 36–37% see a Turkish role in a post‑war Gaza settlement as a serious security risk that could empower hostile actors, and another 28% see risks that would need to be heavily contained by international guarantees. The pattern is similar when people are asked to imagine a stronger Turkey in the context of U.S.–Iran talks: threat first, management second.

The deepest split, as usual, is national and religious. Among Jewish respondents, nearly 40% label Turkey a serious strategic threat, compared with just 5% of Arab citizens. A strict control regime on Turkish activity in East Jerusalem is backed by a majority of Jews (over 50%) but only a small minority of Arabs. Religious and ultra‑Orthodox Jews are even more hawkish: they are more likely than others to see Turkey as a major threat, to favor maximal restrictions in Jerusalem, and to view Turkish involvement in Gaza as particularly dangerous. In the Arab sector, positive assessments and “don’t know” responses are both much higher, reflecting a very different regional perspective.

And yet, this hostile perception doesn’t translate into a public appetite for direct confrontation. Asked about disputes between Greece and Turkey, the plurality answer isn’t “back Greece to the hilt” but “stay out of it”: over 40% say Israel should avoid involvement, and only about 36% support more active backing for Athens. When it comes to Azerbaijan, which has ties to both, the most common expectation is that Baku would stay neutral in any clash. Even on Gaza, roughly a quarter of respondents say that while Turkey poses real risks, its cooperation with the U.S. could also offer opportunities for regional stability if tightly managed.

Put simply, the Israeli mainstream doesn’t like or trust Turkey, especially under its current leadership and especially in Jerusalem and Gaza. The latest rhetoric from Ankara and Jerusalem — Erdogan calling for Israel’s destruction, Netanyahu framing him as a dangerous extremist — only hardens that view. But the dominant instinct isn’t “go to war with Turkey”; it’s “lock the doors, tighten the supervision, and let someone else fight with them.” For now, Turkey sits in the Israeli mind where many unpleasant neighbors do: a serious threat to be fenced in, not a target for tanks.

#Israel #Turkey #Erdogan #Netanyahu #Jerusalem #Gaza #Hormuz #war #security #publicopinion #fakeDemocracy

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Colombia’s Israel Reset

Three days after taking office, Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella has begun dismantling Gustavo Petro’s Middle East policy piece by piece.

Under Petro, Bogotá broke diplomatic relations with Israel over the Gaza war, suspended arms purchases and joined South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. De la Espriella came to office promising the reverse: a renewed strategic alliance with Israel, closer ties with Washington and a clean break with Petro’s foreign-policy brand.

The new package is bigger than the Golan Heights. Colombia will restore full diplomatic and economic relations with Israel, exchange ambassadors, lift visa requirements and move its embassy to Jerusalem.

Bogotá has also said it will withdraw its support for South Africa’s ICJ case against Israel. Recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan is the headline-grabbing clause, but it is only one item in a broader political demolition job.

Colombia is now the second country after the United States to recognize Israel’s claim over the Golan Heights. Gideon Sa’ar called it a “historic decision.” The timing is no accident: Sa’ar has been working Latin America while political change in Bogotá created an opening that did not exist under Petro.

Then, on the same day, a 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck western Colombia. At least 111 people were killed and 87 injured; buildings collapsed across the country as rescue teams searched for survivors.

Sa’ar called his Colombian counterpart, Omar Bula Escobar, offered Israeli assistance and said Israel was prepared to help “as much as required.”

Those looking for divine intervention will find only geology and a national disaster. But diplomacy, unlike tectonic plates, does respond to a change of government.

One president tore up Israel’s relationship with Colombia. His successor is rebuilding it — faster than most embassies can replace the stationery.

#Colombia #Israel #GolanHeights #Jerusalem #LatinAmerica #diplomacy #Trump

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🇬🇧🏗 E1: A British Threat, an Israeli Colonial Reply

Britain says Israel’s E1 settlement project could destroy the two-state solution. Israel says Britain has no standing to lecture anyone about territory.

The immediate trigger was Israel’s publication of tenders for roughly 1,200 housing units in E1, the sensitive tract between Jerusalem and Maale Adumim.

The broader plan covers more than 3,400 units. Palestinians and European governments say construction there could split the West Bank from East Jerusalem and make a contiguous Palestinian state far harder to build.

Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband called the tender “unacceptable and destructive.” He said E1 would cut through “the heart of Palestine,” and warned that Britain would not accept the destruction of the two-state solution.

London summoned Israel’s chargé d’affaires and said it would announce a broader response in coming weeks, including targeted sanctions against people involved in settlement expansion.

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar rejected what he called Miliband’s “patronising” tone.

“The Jewish people have the right to live throughout the Land of Israel, just as the British have the right to live in London and throughout the United Kingdom,” Sa’ar said.

He cited the 1917 Balfour Declaration, arguing that Britain had recognized the Jewish people’s historic right to reestablish a national home in the area, including E1.

Britain, Sa’ar said, still controls territories thousands of miles from its shores. It was therefore absurd, he argued, for London to tell Jews where they may live in what Israel describes as their historic homeland.

He also accused British policy of blaming Israel alone while ignoring Palestinian extremism, and said that approach had contributed to antisemitism and attacks on Britain’s Jewish community.

Britain treats E1 as occupied territory and a test of whether a Palestinian state remains geographically possible. Israel treats it as part of its historic homeland and cites the Balfour Declaration as evidence that Britain once accepted that claim.

London threatens sanctions. Jerusalem answers with the British Empire.

Neither side is discussing who will live between Maale Adumim and East Jerusalem once the arguments become concrete.

#Israel #Palestine #E1 #WestBank #Jerusalem #UK #EdMiliband #GideonSaar #Settlements #MiddleEast

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🏗⚖️ Governments Go After the Contractors

A group of Western governments has condemned Israel’s E1 construction tenders. The important part is not what they told Jerusalem. It is what they told the companies expected to bid.

Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Belgium, Spain, Austria and Greece signed the joint statement. The first tender covers 1,400 homes between Maale Adumim and Jerusalem. Israel’s broader E1 plan calls for thousands more.

Their argument is familiar. The governments said construction in E1 would cut the West Bank in two, break up the territorial contiguity needed for a future Palestinian state, and further undermine the prospects for a two-state solution. They said Israeli settlements in the West Bank violate international law and called on Israel to rescind the tender and halt settlement expansion.

The statement then addressed the bidders.

“Businesses should not consider bidding for construction tenders,” it said. The signatories warned of legal and reputational consequences, including the risk of complicity in serious violations of international law.

This is diplomacy addressed to chief financial officers: compliance reviews, litigation exposure, insurance questions, investor campaigns, and financing risk. The target is not a ministry in Jerusalem. It is a contractor deciding whether 1,234 homes are worth a court case, an investor campaign, or a bank that walks away.

Israel says E1 will connect Maale Adumim to Jerusalem. Its critics say the plan will break the West Bank’s territorial contiguity. The tenders are scheduled to close on October 19, eight days before Israel’s election.

The governments could not stop the project with a statement. So they sent the statement to the people who build it.

#E1 #Israel #Palestine #WestBank #Jerusalem #Settlements #InternationalLaw #UK #Europe #MiddleEast

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🇮🇱 From The Apprentice to Jerusalem: How Jewish New York Helped Shape Trump

🔤🔤🔤🔤1️⃣

To understand Trump’s relationship with Jewish America and Israel, it is tempting to begin with the White House — with the embassy in Jerusalem, Jared Kushner, the Abraham Accords, or Trump’s unusually close relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But the story actually begins much earlier. It begins in New York, in the worlds of real estate, television, law and deal-making that shaped Trump long before he entered politics. And one of the most revealing places to start is television.

In 2004, Trump became the star of The Apprentice, the reality show that transformed him from a famous New York developer into a national celebrity.

The program did more than put Trump on television. It created a political persona before Trump was even a politician: the powerful businessman, the ruthless negotiator, the billionaire who supposedly knew how to recognize talent, punish failure and make decisions without hesitation. His signature phrase — “You’re fired” — became part of American popular culture.

The show was created by British television producer Mark Burnett, but its success depended on something Trump had already spent decades cultivating: his image as the ultimate New York deal-maker.

The Apprentice turned that image into a mass-market product. Millions of Americans who knew little about Trump’s actual business career suddenly knew his face, his voice and his mythology.

Years later, political analysts would point to the show as one of the most important pieces of infrastructure behind Trump’s political rise. Before he had a political movement, he had an audience. Before he had a campaign organization, he had a recognizable character.

Television had already done much of the work of introducing “Donald Trump” as a national political brand. There was also a revealing Jewish connection to the television chapter.

During negotiations over his Apprentice contract, Trump reportedly wondered whether he needed a Jewish agent because he believed a Jewish representative might be better at negotiating the deal.

The anecdote, reported by The New York Times and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 2016, is striking less as evidence of some hidden influence than as a window into Trump's own understanding of New York’s business culture.

Trump had spent his entire adult life in a city where Jewish lawyers, bankers, developers, agents, media executives and entrepreneurs were an important part of the professional networks surrounding real estate and entertainment. He understood that network as a source of power. But television was only one part of the story.

Perhaps the most consequential Jewish figure in Trump's early career was Roy Cohn.

Cohn was a powerful New York lawyer, political operator and one of the city's most controversial public figures. He had worked as a prosecutor in the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg case, became a close associate of Senator Joseph McCarthy, and eventually established himself as a formidable fixer in New York’s legal and political worlds.

Trump met Cohn in the 1970s, when the young real-estate developer was facing battles with New York authorities over alleged discriminatory practices in his apartment buildings.

Cohn became Trump's lawyer and, over the following years, much more than that. He became a mentor. The lessons Trump absorbed from Cohn were not primarily about Judaism or Israel. They were about power.

Cohn's philosophy was famously combative: never concede weakness, attack opponents aggressively, use the media, and turn legal or political pressure into a public relations battle. Trump adopted many of these habits and carried them with him for decades.

#trump #apprentice #jews #jerusalem #washington

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🔤🔤🔤🔤2️⃣

The style that would later define his presidential campaigns — personal attacks, relentless media engagement, refusal to apologize and an instinct to treat politics as combat — has often been traced back to the world of Roy Cohn.

That relationship is crucial because it demonstrates the difference between “Jewish influence” and an ethnic or religious conspiracy.

Cohn was one individual. He was Jewish, but the influence he exercised over Trump came from his personality, his profession, his connections and his political experience — not from representing Jewish people as a group.

The same distinction becomes essential when we look at Trump’s later relationship with Israel.

Trump did not suddenly discover Israel after becoming president. His connections to Jewish Americans and to the Israeli-American political world had been developing for decades. His daughter Ivanka converted to Judaism before marrying Jared Kushner, a member of a prominent Orthodox Jewish real-estate family.

Kushner eventually became one of the most powerful figures in Trump's political orbit. During the first Trump administration, he served as a senior White House adviser and became deeply involved in Middle East diplomacy. His role was particularly significant because he was not merely a symbolic Jewish connection to the president.

He was part of Trump's inner circle and had direct access to the president on some of the most consequential foreign-policy questions facing the administration.

Through Kushner, Trump's personal and political worlds became even more intertwined with American Jewish institutions, donors and Israel-related policy circles. Then there was David Friedman.

Friedman was a bankruptcy lawyer, a longtime friend of Trump and another figure from the New York legal world.

Unlike many traditional American diplomats, Friedman was an outspoken supporter of Israel's settlement movement and maintained close ties to Israeli leaders and right-wing political circles. Trump appointed him U.S. ambassador to Israel.

Jason Greenblatt, another Orthodox Jewish lawyer who had worked for the Trump Organization, also became a central figure in the administration's Middle East policy. Together with Kushner and Friedman, he helped develop the administration's approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The policy consequences were enormous. In 2017, Trump announced that the United States recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and would move the American embassy there. The embassy officially opened in Jerusalem in 2018.

The administration also recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights in 2019, a dramatic break with longstanding American policy. And in 2018, Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear agreement, taking a position strongly favored by Netanyahu's government and many American supporters of a more confrontational policy toward Tehran.

Then came the Abraham Accords. In 2020, the Trump administration helped broker agreements that normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, followed by normalization moves involving Morocco and Sudan.

The agreements represented one of the most significant diplomatic achievements of Trump's first term in the Middle East.

None of this can be explained simply by saying that “Jewish advisers influenced Trump.”

Trump himself had strong political instincts about Israel. Evangelical Christians were a major part of his electoral coalition and among the strongest supporters of his pro-Israel policies. Republican donors and activists also played an important role.

Netanyahu's government had its own strategic interests. And Trump increasingly saw confrontation with Iran as central to his Middle East worldview.

#trump #apprentice #jews #jerusalem #washington

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🔤🔤🔤🔤3️⃣

The Jewish influence was therefore neither singular nor uniform.

American Jews themselves are politically diverse. Many are liberal Democrats and have been deeply critical of Trump. Others are conservative Republicans and some became enthusiastic supporters of his Israel policies.

Orthodox Jewish communities, evangelical Christians, pro-Israel organizations, wealthy donors, Republican strategists and Israeli officials all interacted with the Trump administration in different ways.

That diversity is precisely why the story is more interesting than a simple claim about “Jewish influence.” What we see instead is a series of relationships.

A Jewish New York lawyer, Roy Cohn, helped teach a young Trump how to fight and how to use publicity as a weapon.

A television industry turned that New York persona into a national brand.

Trump's daughter entered an Orthodox Jewish family through her marriage to Jared Kushner, bringing one of America's most prominent Jewish real-estate families into the president's immediate family circle. Kushner became a senior political adviser.

Friedman and Greenblatt brought their own views, networks and experience into Trump's foreign-policy operation.

And the resulting administration made decisions on Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, Iran and Arab-Israeli normalization that fundamentally changed American Middle East policy.

There is another dimension to this story as well: Trump's own understanding of Jewish success.

Throughout his career, Trump repeatedly operated in environments where he encountered successful Jewish businessmen, lawyers, media executives and political figures. Sometimes his comments about Jews were crude or stereotypical; sometimes they were admiring; often they reflected the transactional worldview through which he understood almost every relationship.

Trump tends to see politics through people rather than institutions — who is loyal, who is useful, who has access, who can negotiate, who can deliver. In that sense, the individuals around him mattered enormously. Personal relationships often became channels through which policy was shaped.

And that may be the most important point. The history of Trump's relationship with Jewish America is not the history of a president being controlled by “the Jews.” There is no evidence for such a collective explanation, and it reduces a complicated political history to an ethnic stereotype.

The real story is more concrete — and arguably more fascinating.

For decades, Trump moved through a particular New York ecosystem of lawyers, developers, financiers, entertainers and media figures. Some of the people who became important to him were Jewish. Some were not. What mattered was not their ethnicity alone, but their individual influence, access, expertise and ability to operate inside the worlds Trump trusted.

By the time he reached the White House, many of those relationships had evolved into a political network.

The journey from Roy Cohn's Manhattan office to the Oval Office, from The Apprentice to Jerusalem, was not a straight line. But it reveals something fundamental about Trump: his politics did not emerge from nowhere in 2016. They were built over decades, in the institutions and relationships of New York — and some of the most consequential figures along that path were Jewish.

Trump's relationship with Jewish America and Israel, in other words, did not begin in the White House.

It began much earlier — in the boardrooms, courtrooms, television studios and social networks of New York.

And by the time Trump arrived in Washington, those old relationships were already part of the architecture of his power.

#trump #apprentice #jews #jerusalem #washington

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One Wall, Two Headlines

On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, more than 50,000 people packed the Western Wall plaza for the final selichot of the season. Itamar Ben-Gvir stood among them. The Western Wall Heritage Foundation counted close to a million worshippers since the start of Elul.

Hamas channels reported a different night. The national-security minister of the occupation had raided the Al-Buraq Wall, "west of Al-Aqsa Mosque," with tens of thousands of settlers performing "Talmudic rituals."

Nothing in that sentence is a mistranslation. In Muslim tradition, Al-Buraq is the western wall of the Haram al-Sharif, and therefore part of Al-Aqsa.

Once the Wall belongs to the mosque, a prayer at its foot becomes an incursion. Once every Jew in Jerusalem is a settler, a crowd from Bnei Brak becomes a colonial column. The vocabulary does not describe a rival map. It manufactures a rival event.

The same weekend, Jewish worshippers blew the shofar outside the Bab al-Rahma cemetery under the eastern wall of the compound, under police protection, for the third week running.

For them it was the Days of Awe, performed as close to the Temple site as they are allowed. For the Jerusalem Governorate it was another step in the campaign to bring Jewish ritual inside.

A week later, the captions split again. On Friday, police entered the Bab al-Rahma prayer hall inside the compound around the midday prayer: before it, according to some Palestinian outlets, during it, according to others.

The hall has been a flashpoint since 2019. Police have cited unauthorized construction and safety; the Waqf reads each entry as an assault on Muslim control.

Palestinian sources reported worshippers, some in wheelchairs, turned back from the gates. That evening, people prayed in the street where they had been stopped.

For one side, a record crowd at a holy site and a security operation. For the other, a storming of Al-Aqsa and a siege of its worshippers. Neither account needs to invent a fact. Each only has to choose the noun.

Jerusalem's holy geography has no shared captions, only rival footage and a road full of people praying where they were stopped.

#Jerusalem #TempleMount #AlAqsa #BenGvir

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The Checkpoint Carousel

A vehicle tried to ram IDF troops near the Ganot barrier in northern Samaria. Soldiers from the 890th Battalion shot and killed one suspect and detained a second occupant.

The IDF said no troops were injured. Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, praised the soldiers for killing one attacker and capturing the other.

At Rimonim Junction on Route 458, a truck driver allegedly tried to ram troops and was detained for questioning.

Near the Silwad cemetery, a gray car without license plates allegedly tried to hit two Israelis from Givat Yeshuat Israel.

Reports conflict over what followed: one said the vehicle escaped; another said the suspect was detained.

In the City of David, one account said Palestinians threw stones at Jewish residents and one of the residents fired into the air.

An earlier account described a confrontation between Palestinians and Jews, followed by police warning shots. By night, a large fire broke out in Sur Baher.

Palestinian residents said Israeli forces caused it with tear gas and stun grenades during clashes.

Security checks produced severe traffic jams at Qalandiya and along the Hizma-Anata road. Clashes were also reported in al-Ram and Tuqu’.

The daily system is a stack of roadblocks, alerts and competing incident reports.

Every checkpoint generates a version. Every version becomes another emergency.

#WestBank #Jerusalem #IDF #Security

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⚔️Two Jerusalems, One Camera

Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, joined the final selichot service at the Western Wall before Yom Kippur. Netanyahu recited the Mi Sheberach prayer for IDF soldiers and called the gathering Netzach Yisrael, a Hebrew phrase often rendered as “the eternal people of Israel.” He said the scene moved him to tears.

The Western Wall Heritage Foundation said about 150,000 worshipers attended through the night, filling the plaza, balconies and Old City alleys.

It said nearly 2 million people had visited the site during Elul and the Ten Days of Repentance. Released hostages Rom Braslavski, Elkana Bohbot, Eliya Cohen and Ohad Ben Ami also attended.

Arab channels ran the same footage under a different caption: tens of thousands of settlers “storming” the Western Wall beside Al-Aqsa.

Hamas described Netanyahu’s visit to the Western Wall tunnels as a raid on excavations beneath Al-Aqsa and tied it to his International Criminal Court arrest warrant. Netanyahu’s own video showed the couple walking through the tunnels before the prayer service.

On Sunday morning, Palestinian sources said about 570 Jewish visitors entered the Al-Aqsa compound under heavy Israeli police protection and performed religious rituals ahead of Yom Kippur.

The same reports said National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir entered the compound and prayed near Bab al-Rahma.

Israel’s official image was a prime minister at prayer before a crowd at the Wall. Palestinian coverage showed Jewish visitors, police protection and Ben-Gvir inside Al-Aqsa. Jerusalem’s sacred stones do not need a filter. Each side supplies the caption.

#Jerusalem #WesternWall #AlAqsa #Netanyahu

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Jerusalem’s Two Landlords

Erdoğan says Jerusalem is “our city.” Netanyahu says: “No, sir, you won’t. It is our city.” The city itself has heard this real-estate pitch before, usually from men whose armies are elsewhere.

Turkey’s claim is Ottoman nostalgia with an aid budget. Erdoğan invokes four centuries of Ottoman rule, Suleiman the Magnificent and Al-Aqsa as a Muslim symbol.

Ankara then funds restorations, schools and Palestinian institutions through TİKA, its state development agency. Turkey repairs a dome, finances a dormitory and calls it heritage. In Jerusalem, a renovated window can be a foreign-policy office.

Jordan owns the paperwork Ankara lacks. Article 9 of the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty recognizes the Hashemite Kingdom’s “special role” in Jerusalem’s Muslim holy shrines.

King Abdullah’s custodianship is also anchored in the 2013 agreement with Mahmoud Abbas. The Jordanian-linked Waqf administers the Islamic compound.

Even TİKA had to negotiate with Jordanian authorities when it wanted to renovate the Islamic Museum beside Al-Aqsa.

That is the collision. Turkey wants the microphone. Jordan has the keys. Israel controls security and access around the Temple Mount. Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. Each side has a title, a treaty, a police checkpoint or a restoration invoice. None has the whole building.

Erdoğan’s Jerusalem policy is not about acquiring a formal custodianship tomorrow.

It is about making Turkey impossible to ignore when Al-Aqsa is discussed. Jordan’s role blocks Turkey from becoming the official guardian. Turkish money works around that barrier by turning influence into a parallel form of presence.

Netanyahu tells Erdoğan that Jerusalem is Israel’s city. Erdoğan answers with Ottoman ghosts. Jordan quietly points to Article 9. At Al-Aqsa, the loudest claimant is rarely the one holding the paperwork.

#Jerusalem #Turkey #Jordan #AlAqsa

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