The New York Times reports that Israel was planning to launch air strikes against Iran before the Trump administration called off the move.
“Mr. Trump made his decision after months of internal debate over whether to pursue diplomacy or support Israel in seeking to set back Iran’s ability to build a bomb, at a time when Iran has been weakened militarily and economically,” reads the article from Julian E. Barnes, Eric Schmitt, Maggie Haberman, and Ronen Bergman.
“The debate highlighted fault lines between historically hawkish American cabinet officials and other aides more skeptical that a military assault on Iran could destroy the country’s nuclear ambitions and avoid a larger war,” it continues. “It resulted in a rough consensus, for now, against military action, with Iran signaling a willingness to negotiate.”
The Israeli government was ready to attack Iranian nuclear sites next month and believed that the United States would support the plan. Trump informed Netanyahu of his decision shortly before the Prime Minister arrived at the White House earlier this month.
That meeting was ostensibly about tariffs, but during an Oval Office press conference alongside Netanyahu, Trump revealed that the administration was engaged with Iran on nuclear talks. After the meeting, Netanyahu said a deal would only work if Iran’s nuclear facilities were blown up “under American supervision with American execution.”
The Times story provides valuable insight into the aforementioned fault lines.
In a recent meeting, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Vice President JD Vance all expressed concerns about such an attack, worried that it would spill out into a wider conflict.
Even national security advisor Michael Waltz, viewed as an Iran hawk, voiced doubts about the proposed operation.
The piece notes that, despite this decision, the administration is still debating how to handle Iran. Vance and others reportedly argued that Trump had an opportunity to make a deal with Iran, but could back an Israeli strike if an agreement fell through.
Interestingly, the Pentagon just placed two political appointees on leave after a probe into potential leaks. Now, in response to the Times story, pro-Israel pundits and lawmakers are calling for more firings.
Foundation for Defense of Democracies CEO Mark Dubowitz says this new information could destroy any hope of an Iran deal. “There is no deal that permanently halts Iran’s nuclear weapons program without a credible military threat,” Dubowitz told Jewish Insider. “It’s a serious error to signal — especially in outlets like The New York Times — that military plans may be off the table, even temporarily. Unless Iran’s leaders believe their regime is at risk, they will never agree to a deal that truly ends the nuclear threat.”
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), is attacking the Trump administration from the right, criticizing the administration’s decision to nix a bombing campaign. “This leak jeopardizes Israel’s security. There should be no deal with Iran until their nuclear program is gone.”
Middle East analysts provided insight on the reporting on social media, pointing out that the timing of the piece was probably intentional.
“These reports must be taken with grain of salt,” wrote University of Maryland professor Shibley Telhami. “Bottom line: Netanyahu and his backers, including in Trump admin, want to draw US into war with Iran; Trump and some advisers prefer avoiding one. All these reports must be seen as part of that tug of war.”
“Everyone knows Israel has spent decades trying to drag the US into war with Iran,” said Sina Toossi. “This NYT ‘leak’ from the admin looks more like an attempt to build leverage by signaling a looming military threat during talks. But it’s a threat that’s arguably neither effective nor credible.”
“The piece mirrors Trump’s current strategy with Iran: pursue a deal, but keep a military threat in the background,” he continued. “It repeats ‘for now’ he wants diplomacy, and even Vance says an attack’s possible if talks fail. A carefully curated leak to send a message to Iran.”
There’s another big takeaway that transcends the Iran negotiations. Trump told Netanyahu that the U.S. wouldn’t back the strikes, and they didn’t happen. Imagine if the president, or his predecessor, had sent the Prime Minister a similar message on Gaza.
War on free speech
For over a month now, we have seen student protesters snatched off the street in broad daylight and sent to detention facilities. We have watched hundreds, possibly thousands, of international students have their visas revoked. We have followed the Trump administration freezing university grants and contracts under the guise of “combatting antisemitism.”
This vociferous attack on free speech is also being waged in Congress, where multiple bills have been introduced to curtail academic freedom.
Pro-Israel Republican Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) have reintroduced the University Accountability Act, which would impose penalties on education institutions who fail to protect their students from antisemitic attacks.
Universities have a responsibility to protect their students from violence and discrimination but, instead, we’re seeing a disturbing increase in antisemitic attacks and rhetoric on college campuses,” said Malliotakis in a statement. “Our legislation seeks to hold these institutions accountable and encourage them to investigate and crack down on instances of antisemitism to help foster a safer academic environment for all students, regardless of their gender, race or religion.”
This is obviously all about stifling criticism of Israel, but it’s especially rich to talk about protecting students while they get disappeared for writing Op-Eds.
These congressional moves come alongside Trump’s recent threat to cut Harvard’s tax-exempt status. He cut federal funds to the university for refusing to comply with several administration demands.
This warning could have implications far beyond Harvard. “Five-alarm fire,” tweeted Harvard professor Erik Baker. “If Trump can get away with this, every university and progressive organization is next.”
The Internal Revenue Service is making plans to rescind the tax-exempt status of Harvard University, according to two sources familiar with the matter, which would be an extraordinary step of retaliation as the Trump administration seeks to turn up pressure on the university that has defied its demands to change its hiring and other practices.
The IRS is making plans to make a decision on the issue soon.
“We’ll see what IRS comes back with relative to Harvard,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon told CNN. “I certainly think, you know, in elitist schools, especially that have these incredibly large endowments, you know, we should probably have a look into that.”
It’s probably a good time to recall that a bill aimed at destroying nonprofits is still floating around Washington.
Last fall, H.R. 9495, or the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act, passed in the House but stalled in the Senate. It’s expected to be revived by the new Congress.
The legislation would allow the Treasury Secretary to strip tax-exempt status from nonprofits that the administration deems as “terrorist supporting.” Based on the actions of the administration so far, it’s safe to say that this would be enforced in a very broad manner.
“After years of repression targeting first the leftist and then the Islamist currents within Palestinian politics, the anti-charity bill now directly threatens liberal U.S. organizations as well,” wrote anthropologist and professor Darryl Li at Mondoweiss last November. “Two Republican House committee chairs earlier this year sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen demanding information on 20 groups, from Students for Justice in Palestine (which isn’t even a registered non-profit) to liberal behemoths like the Open Society Foundations and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Here, the right is using the bipartisan appeal of anti-Palestinian racism and the tools of the War on Terror to pursue its broader assault on liberal institutions in its quest for cultural hegemony.”
“As in so many other cases, hostility to Palestinian liberation is the tip of a spear aimed at liberal and left causes alike,” he continued. “For that reason, we should expect the right wing to continue pushing the anti-charities bill, and to find opportunities to replicate its logic in other ones. The only question is whether enough liberals will wake up to the threat in time.”
Odds & Ends
🥊 Continue to fight, even when you are weary
🇮🇷 Trump’s Iran talks can succeed if the administration embraces reality rather than myth
🇺🇸 Responsible Statecraft: US ‘open’ to supporting a Yemen ground operation
🪧 Common Dreams: Day of Action on 150+ Campuses Across US Will Target Trump Attack on Higher Education
🍁 Counterpunch: Free Rümeysa Öztürk Protest in Vermont
🏫 ABC News: Immigration judge denies bond for Tufts University student from Turkey, her lawyers say
📰 NBC News: Government’s case against Mahmoud Khalil is reliant on tabloid accounts, review of evidence shows
📄 Jewish Insider: Tenney, Moskowitz reintroduce federal anti-BDS legislation
💻 Middle East Eye: Social media users fume after ‘Free Palestine’ flag removed at Bernie Sanders rally
🇵🇸 Al Jazeera: Does Trump want a Gaza ceasefire before his Middle East trip?
👁️ The Nation: Trump’s War on the Palestine Movement Is Something Entirely New
💬 Haaretz: Trump and Witkoff’s Mixed Signals on Iran Raise Concerns Over Plausibility of Nuclear Deal
Zeteo: ‘New Kind of Antisemitism’: Jewish Students Slam Trump’s Detention of Mohsen Mahdawi
🇮🇱 Drop Site News: Leaked Data Reveals Massive Israeli Campaign to Remove Pro-Palestine Posts on Facebook and Instagram
✊ Truthout: Appalled at Funding Genocide, Over 2,000 US Taxpayers Turn to the UN for Redress
🗳️ Politico: Abdul El-Sayed launches Michigan Senate campaign
🤔 Forward: US claims Mohsen Mahdawi’s activism could ‘potentially undermine’ prospect of peace in Gaza
🏛️ In These Times: The War on Protest Is Here
Stay safe out there,
Michael
Odds & Ends: In the latest New York Review of Books Omer Bartov ( Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown ) writes a review of books about the war on Gaza. This is one of the more powerful indictments of Israel I’ve seen –
On January 12, 1904, the Herero people of German Southwest Africa—today’s Namibia—launched a series of attacks on scattered German farms in the territory. The Herero, a pastoral group of about 80,000, depended on their vast cattle herds for their economic, social, and cultural life, but the German settlers who had begun to arrive in the late nineteenth century increasingly encroached on their grazing lands…..The rebels destroyed many of the farms and killed more than a hundred settlers, mostly sparing women and children. For the settlers the rebellion served as a final proof of the need to eradicate the Herero, whom they described as “baboons.” Unable to restore order, the German governor appealed to Berlin, which sent some 10,000 soldiers…..Most of the Herero were shot or died of thirst and hunger in the desert to which they had been expelled. Several thousand were taken to forced labor camps….That remote genocide at the dawn of the twentieth century shares some remarkable similarities with the campaign of ethnic cleansing and annihilation prosecuted by Israel in Gaza. Israel saw the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, in much the same way that the Germans saw the Herero attack 119 years earlier: as confirmation that the militant group was utterly savage and barbaric, that resistance to Israeli occupation would always incline toward murder, and that Gaza’s Palestinian population as a whole should be removed from the moral universe of civilization. “Human animals must be treated as such,” the Israeli major general Ghassan Alian (who is Druze) said shortly after the attack, echoing several other Israeli officials, including former defense minister Yoav Gallant…. Over the next seventeen months Israeli forces killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, over 70 percent of whom are estimated to have been civilians, maimed well over 100,000, and imposed on the remaining population conditions of inhuman deprivation, suffering, and pain.
( you will need a subscription to get the full article )
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2025/04/24/infinite-license-the-world-after-gaza/
@Jon S. elsewhere you said that there were ancient Jews, so there was ancient Judaism. I asked what mede them Jews.
You said that it was because they identified as Jews and were accepted as Jews by others.
That is as helpful as saying that flergls are flergls because they identify as flergls and others accept them as flergls. It doesn’t give us the slightest idea what a flergl is.
You also seemed to accept that modern Judaism is a different religion from ancient Judaism, even though it is descended from ancient Judaism.
And we have established that your claim to “the Jewish homeland” is not based on biological descent from ancient inhabitants of the land, but on cultural and religious continuity with those inhabitant.
Christians also claim cultural and religious continuity with those inhabitants. They do not claim to be Jews, but they do identify as the spiritual descendants of Abraham, Moses, David, and the other Old Testament heroes. Doesn’t this give Korean and Welsh Christians equal right to claim Palestine as their “homeland”?
The report about Trump’s action on Iran should serve to correct the false notion that he is under Israeli control. It is the US empire based in Washington DC that controls and uses Israel as its attack dog in the Middle East for its strategy of keeping the region disunited and violent, and thereby ensuring the continued flow of resources created by the working class there to the corporations of that empire. Solutions will come only by the enormous power of a united working class – including Israeli and Palestinian.
A case can be made we would be looking at a different world had Abbas followed thru with declaring one state with equal citizenship as an acceptable option when he said he intended to.