Middle East

Tuesday

Jacob Heilbrunn

Will the Maga isolationists forgive Trump for Iran?

That was fast. In the space of a few weeks, President Donald J. Trump has gone from being the idol of the Republican isolationists to the hero of the hawks. Only a few days ago, the Wall Street Journal editorial page was complaining that ‘Maga isolationists want the President to pressure Israel to stop the war before Iran’s nuclear sites are destroyed’. Now, as Israel pounds Iran, Trump increasingly appears to be embracing the role, not of peacemaker, but of a war president – one ready and willing to unleash, or at the very least abet, fire and fury against the mullahs. The hawks are rejoicing, and they have plenty to rejoice about. ‘Bombs

Fabian Hoffmann

How Iran is piercing Israel’s state-of-the-art missile defences

Since the beginning of ‘Operation True Promise III’ – launched after Israel’s strikes on Iranian nuclear infrastructure, leadership targets, and military sites – Iran has fired over 370 ballistic missiles at Israel, according to the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office on Monday. This is not the first time Israel has faced large-scale Iranian missile attacks. Similar volleys were launched in April and October 2024. The difference this time is that the strikes have caused casualties inside Israel. According to the latest reports, 24 people have been killed and roughly 600 injured in Iranian missile attacks. Missile defence is often described as shooting a bullet with a bullet, except that the target travels

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Israel will not be cowed by Iran

Yesterday morning, as families in central Israel emerged from bomb shelters after yet another sleepless night, the air was once again rent by sirens and the thunder of incoming missiles. Fires ignited across multiple cities. In Petah Tikva, a building lay smouldering from a direct hit. In Haifa, Iranian missiles struck near the port, severely damaging a power facility and forcing Bazan, Israel’s major oil refining and petrochemicals company, to suspend activity at all its plants. With grim efficiency, medics and emergency teams scrambled to locate survivors. It was the largest barrage of the war so far – around 100 ballistic missiles launched in a single salvo. And yet, amid the

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Why is the US so reluctant to fight Iran?

MAGA (Make America Great Again) isolationists all agree: the United States must not be drawn into the Israel-Iran war. Donald Trump was not elected president to become entangled in pointless foreign conflicts. Over on Truth Social, Trump’s hokey-pokey routine continues – in, out, in, out, send the Fifth Fleet out? – and America Firsters despair at the prospect of the US fighting ‘a war for Israel’. In Jerusalem, the thinking is the exact opposite: Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly concerned that the unpredictable Trump could push Israel to conclude Operation Rising Lion before its military objectives are met. This is all very interesting as Kremlinology, but it also throws

Monday

Jonathan Spyer

Iran is too weak to wage a ground war against Israel

As Israel advances its surgical reduction of Iran’s nuclear facilities and senior command, and Iran continues to launch missiles randomly at Israeli population centres in response, it is interesting to note what is not happening. Notably absent is any ground element to the war, which is currently being fought entirely between air and missile forces.   Israel has effectively reversed two decades of Iranian advance across the Middle East This brings home just how much the picture has changed in Israel’s favour over the last 20 months. It also reveals the deeper logic of this war. On 6 October, the Iran-led regional alliance stood as the most powerful strategic axis in the Middle East, pursuing

Jonathan Sacerdoti

The danger of recognising a Palestinian state

As Western leaders prepare to gather in New York this week to discuss international recognition of a Palestinian state, a stark signal from Washington demands their attention. US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has openly stated that he does not believe Palestinian statehood remains an American foreign policy goal. ‘Unless there are some significant things that happen that change the culture, there’s no room for it,’ Huckabee told Bloomberg News this week, adding that such changes ‘probably won’t happen in our lifetime’. The White House, far from rebuking him, referred reporters to past remarks from President Trump questioning whether a two-state solution ‘is going to work’.  Huckabee’s statement is, of

Sunday

Zoe Strimpel

Saudi Arabia’s soft power art attack

From roughly the 1970s to the mid-2010s, Saudi Arabia was the stuff of nightmares, referred to now, with understatement, as ‘the dark period’. Governed by the austere, brutal credo of the cleric Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, an 18th century Quran literalist who divided the world into true Muslims (Salafis/Wahhabis) and their mortal enemies, Saudi life was ruled by fear of the omnipresent religious police. Executions were commonplace, TV was banned, women were essentially locked up, and most foreigners and outward travel were blocked.  Wahhabiism has been softened a great deal since then. Since 2017, when the frenetic moderniser Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) became Crown Prince, a thousand laws have been dropped, and suddenly women, while still second-class

Friday

Patrick Gibbons

Israel strikes Iran – how will Iran retaliate?

14 min listen

Israel struck military and nuclear targets in Iran overnight in a major escalation of hostilities in the Middle East has begun further strikes on Friday. Iran has vowed retaliation though President Trump has warned Iran and encouraged the Iranians to continue negotiations over their nuclear programme. Further talks had been due to take place this weekend. What’s Israel’s objective? And does this underline the unpredictability of geopolitics, at a time when the UK has pledged significantly more money for defence?  Patrick Gibbons speaks to James Heale and Michael Stephens, associate fellow at RUSI. Plus: updates on assisted dying and the government’s plans for welfare. Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Jonathan Spyer

Israel’s war with Iran is only getting started

With the launch of Operation ‘Rising Lion’, Israel appears to have sought to take advantage of a narrow window of opportunity. Through its own actions over the last 18 months, the Iranian regime brought itself to a moment of extreme vulnerability. Tehran found itself in an uncomfortable position in which it continued to seek to prosecute its long war against Israel – intended to result in the Jewish state’s demise – while at the same time finding itself shorn of many of the capacities for aggression and defence on which it had relied. Israel has struck in this narrow window. Iranian has retaliated. The two sides are continuing to exchange strikes.   The

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Israel’s Iran attack has done the West a favour

Israel’s overnight strikes on the Islamic Republic of Iran represent the initial salvo of what Jerusalem is calling Operation Rising Lion. In Genesis 49, Jacob tells his sons: ‘Judah is a lion’s cub/ from the prey, my son, you rise up/ He lies down and crouches like a lion/ like a lioness — who dares disturb him?’ Jerusalem is bracing itself for painful reprisals and has put its citizens on alert Israel rose up after years of warning the world of Iran’s plot to acquire nuclear weapons. In a series of daring precision strikes, it has targeted key regime figures, ballistic missile supplies and the Natanz nuclear facility. Israeli intelligence

Stephen Pollard

Israel’s attack on Iran marks the beginning of a new era for the Middle East

On 5 June 1967, Israel destroyed three Arab air forces with a devastating pre-emptive strike at the start of what became the Six-Day War. Overnight, Israel has undertaken what appears to be a similarly devastating pre-emptive attack, this time on Iranian nuclear, military and terror facilities. Israel has undertaken what appears to be a devastating pre-emptive attack But there is a key difference between the two strikes. In 1967, Israel was fighting to defend only itself. It had no allies in the region and little concern with what happened outside its own borders. Today, Israel is not only acting as a proxy for the West itself; it is acting against

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Israel’s shadow war on Iran has burst into the open

Woken by sirens outside my window in Israel at 3 a.m. I made my way to the bomb shelter in the basement, reaching for my phone on the way. An unusual and urgent message appeared on the screen which had been sent to the entire nation: Home Front Command had updated its guidelines with immediate effect. Israelis are instructed to know where their nearest protected space is, to avoid unnecessary movement, and to prepare for possible extended periods in shelters. Public institutions are not to open. The meaning was clear: the long-anticipated Israeli operation against Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes had begun. Saudi Arabia publicly condemned the Israeli strikes

Daniel DePetris

How will Iran respond to the Israeli airstrikes?

President Donald Trump was off the mark when he was asked about the likelihood of an Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities on Thursday afternoon. “I don’t want to say imminent, but it looks like it’s something that could very well happen,” he said. Hours later, the Israelis conducted a major bombing campaign against dozens of Iranian targets purportedly linked to its nuclear, missile and military programs. Dubbed “Operation Rising Lion,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed the operation was geared to hit the heart of Tehran’s nuclear capability in order to protect Israel’s survival. Iran has a number of ways to retaliate “This operation will continue for as many days

Thursday

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Is Israel preparing to strike Iran?

While much of the Western debate remains trapped in tired slogans and false moral narratives, events on the ground in the Middle East have taken a decisive turn. In the past 24 hours, U.S. embassies have begun evacuating non-essential staff. Military dependents are being authorised to leave key bases. Multiple reports say U.S. officials have been told Israel is fully ready to launch an operation against Iran if required, and Washington expects possible Iranian retaliation on American sites in Iraq. The U.S. anticipates that Iranian retaliation against U.S. assets in Iraq could follow any Israeli strike The trigger is Iran’s growing stockpile of near-weapons-grade uranium, its preparations for potential retaliation

Saturday

Jason Pack

What being kidnapped taught me about the struggle for Kurdish independence

Twenty-one years ago, I was opportunistically kidnapped by supporters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). In light of the PKK declaring last month its intention to discontinue its armed struggle against Turkey, I’ve been reflecting back on my involuntary run-in with the struggle for Kurdish self-governance. As with my kidnapping, the Kurdish cause had always been riven by amateurism, not to mention the petty feuds of the rival Kurdish organisations in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. Truces, mass casualty events, kidnappings, and negotiations followed each other haphazardly. The struggle was filled with freelancers, bandits, and entrepreneurs. It embodied contradictory approaches to Americans and Western power in the region. Steve had come to the Levant for a taste

Thursday

Natasha Hausdorff

Why can’t Piers Morgan handle the truth about Israel?

As Israel continues to wage a defensive war against the terrorists who invaded and slaughtered hundreds of Jews on October 7, the Jewish State is under attack as never before in the West. I found this out for myself when I was invited on to Piers Morgan Uncensored to discuss the situation in Gaza. Piers Morgan asks for the truth but refuses to hear it. pic.twitter.com/2LtEgoMJ5h — Natasha Hausdorff (@HausdorffMedia) June 3, 2025 What my appearance and censorship on the ironically named “Uncensored” show demonstrated was a refusal, perhaps even a fear, to hear the reality, the facts and the law when it comes to the war against Hamas. This is in

Wednesday

Natasha Hausdorff

Israel is not conducting a genocide in Gaza

Since Hamas’s brutal attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, the Jewish State’s most vociferous critics have been busy. Their most egregious claim is that Israel is committing a genocide. As is so often the case with Israel, the crimes it is accused of are rooted in an inversion of the truth. Israel’s critics must stop politicising and weaponising international law to spread blood libels Genocide has been committed during this conflict: by Hamas terrorists who rampaged through southern Israel and massacred over 1,000 innocents, targeting Jews. They executed their barbaric atrocities in the hope this would inspire simultaneous attacks on Israel’s other borders. On that day, Yahya Sinwar’s terror

Monday

Jonathan Sacerdoti

The rush to blame Israel is bad for journalism

If the war in Gaza has taught the world anything, it is this: truth in war is rarely immediate. In the fog of conflict, facts take time, evidence can be manipulated and early narratives are often weaponised. Yet time and again, much of the international media – and too many public officials – refuse to learn this lesson. Faced with shocking claims, particularly when they implicate Israel, they rush to publish, to condemn, to headline. Rarely do they wait for verification. Even more rarely do they correct with the same urgency when the facts unravel. In the fog of conflict, facts take time, evidence can be manipulated and early narratives are often

Saturday

Matthew Gould

Israel is going too far

I have kept my silence on the Middle East for ten years. I left Israel in 2015, after five years as British ambassador, as the first Jew in the role. Since then, I have turned down every request to be a talking head. Neither the world nor my successors needed another ex-ambassador pundit. But I now feel obliged to break my silence, just once, to say that the Israeli government’s treatment of the Gazan population is both wrong and self-defeating. And that it is not anti-Israel or pro-Hamas to say that withholding humanitarian aid is not the answer. The situation is the opposite of straightforward. It is not just that

Friday

Andrew Tettenborn

Britain’s Gulf trade deal is not the place for virtue signalling

Rachel Reeves announced that a trade deal with the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) – in other words, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states – was imminent last week. It was then leaked that, even though the deal was with unashamed petrostates with no time for net zero and, in some cases, a distinctly doubtful record on rights, the text imposed no legal duties in respect of human rights, modern slavery or the environment. The trade unions and human rights groups are unhappy. The TUC wants any deal to be conditional on workers’ rights protection; the Trade Justice Movement and other earnest humanitarian activists are demanding binding commitments on human rights