Activists showed up outside The White House today to protest the arrival of Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. “Biden is actively endorsing a right-wing leader of an apartheid state,” said Palestinian Youth Movement’s Laura Albast.

You would think that the Afghanistan debacle is another blow to neoconservatives: That the school of foreign policy experts inside the Beltway who gave us the Iraq war would be further discredited by the fall of Afghanistan. And you would be wrong.

Once again, the danger of conflict between Israel and Iran is rising. Once again, the mainstream U.S. media is either ignoring or distorting the news.

The New York Times slants its coverage of the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal talks, leaving out the Israeli role.

Netanyahu used a visit from Tony Blinken to turn the subject to Israel’s supposed “existential” threat, Iran. This claim is taken seriously inside the beltway, but Assal Rad writes that it is spurious. U.S./Israel alignment has been harmful to regional and global security.

Israeli provocation inside the Al-Aqsa mosque made the recent fighting in Gaza a war of choice for Israeli leaders. US approval also made it a war of American permission.

The Israel lobby has prevented a warming of relations between the U.S. and Iran, even if it can’t prevent a return to the nuclear deal, John Ghazvinian writes in his superb new history. “Perhaps the most unfortunate effect of all this domestic [U.S.] political wrangling was that it destroyed any hope that the nuclear deal might become a building block to warmer relations between Iran and the United States.”

Last week negotiations over an Iran nuclear deal began again and an enrichment site in Iran was promptly attacked. A planned explosion caused a blackout. The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said the country had been the victim of “nuclear terrorism.” Anyone with a cursory understanding of world affairs knew who was responsible as soon as they heard the news.

The New York Times says presumed Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facility reflects “yearslong shadow war between Iran and Israel,” but almost all hostility has come from Israel in a transparent effort to scuttle the Iran deal. And the New York Times has only obliquely addressed Israel’s motivation in the attack.

Benjamin Netanyahu is more desperate than ever. Will he provoke conflict to sabotage the Iran nuclear deal?