Also bought a book today by @MelanieLatest at Pomeranz Bookseller in Jerusalem. Looking forward to reading it. The Builder’s Stone: How Jews and Christians Built the West—and Why Only They Can Save It

Classic joke: An antisemitic millionaire goes to eat in a fancy restaurant. A Jewish man with a kippah sits down next to him. When the millionaire sees him, he says to the waiter, "On me, serve the most expensive meal to everyone in the restaurant except the Jew." The waiter does so, and everyone, even the Jew, gets up to thank the antisemite. The millionaire then asks the waiter which dessert is the most expensive, and asks that be served to everyone but the Jewish man. With that done, everyone thanks him again, including the Jew. The antisemite, bursting with rage, asks the waiter to serve the most expensive wine to everyone but the Jew. Again everyone thanks him, including the Jew. Finally, the antisemite explodes and asks, “Why do you keep thanking me if you are the only one who received nothing?!” The Jewish man replies, "I am the owner of this restaurant. Thank you very much!”

There will be no final Iran deal. This phase one is about getting oil back to market at the lowest possible price paid to the regime. We’ll find out what that price is over the next 30–60 days. There is no phase two deal. Soon enough, President Trump will be back to relying on American power, not the regime’s false promises. At that time, the strategy needs a missing pillar: maximum support for the Iranian people. Economic and military pressure can weaken the regime. The Iranian people can cripple it. Together, they offer the only path to a durable solution.

The strongest argument in favor of the MoU w/ Iran made by @megynkelly in conversation w/ @JDVance: the ease at which one could leave it: “You’ve already signed it. But it’s not like legally binding to where you can’t undo it. It’s a diplomatic agreement. So if people freak out and there’s an utter melt down here in the United States it could always be undone if you change your minds.” “Yea, exactly.” x.com/MegynKellyShow/status/…

In 1968, while teenage Red Guards beat their professors to death with clubs in Beijing courtyards, Jean-Paul Sartre sat in Paris calling Mao's Cultural Revolution a model of revolutionary democracy. The most celebrated intellectual in France looked at a country burning its own libraries and saw liberation. He sold the Maoist newspaper La Cause du Peuple on French street corners himself, holding it aloft like a sacrament. Consider what he was endorsing. Between 1966 and 1976, the Cultural Revolution killed somewhere between 500,000 and two million people. Schools shut down across the entire country. Students dragged teachers onto stages, hung placards around their necks, forced them to kneel on broken glass, then murdered them. The historian Bian Zhongyun, vice-principal of a girls' school in Beijing, died on August 5, 1966, beaten by her own students with nail-studded clubs. Sartre called this the people governing themselves. You should understand why a man this intelligent got it this wrong. Sartre believed knowledge served power, that truth was whatever the revolution required, that the individual existed to be dissolved into the collective will. So when Mao abolished the distinction between teacher and student, between expert and mob, Sartre cheered. He had spent decades arguing that bourgeois reason was a class weapon. Here was a regime taking him at his word and clubbing the reasoners to death. This is what economic illiteracy buys you. A university, a price, a contract, and a peasant's grain stockpile all carry knowledge that no central planner can seize or replicate. Mises explained the calculation problem in 1920. Hayek explained dispersed knowledge in 1945. Sartre had access to both and chose the dunce cap of the collective instead, then handed out its propaganda on the Rue de Rennes. He died in 1980, mourned by 50,000 followers, never having retracted a word about Mao. The professors of Beijing got no such funeral. They got a ditch, and a philosopher in Paris explaining that their murder was freedom.

🚨 Following an unexpected security development, a sealed envelope was delivered to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today, interrupting his testimony. The PM informed judges that he had to make an urgent phone call. No further detail was provided on the nature of the developments that required the prime minister's immediate attention.

دقیقا. ترامپ رو باید با جایگزینش ( کاملا هریس) مقایسه کرد تا فهمید چه کارهای بزرگی کرده ( و هنوز داره میکنه) بجای اینکه با یک نمونه بی‌نقص خیالی مدام مقایسه کرد، و مدام ناامید شد.

Trump shattered the Iran status quo that all administrations had preserved. For the first time in the history of the US-Israel alliance, Israel executed a full-scale military operation in complete operational harmony with Washington. He dismantled the missile-and-drone architecture that his predecessors had allowed to metastasize across the region for a decade. He mobilized Treasury and Energy simultaneously to prevent a global recession while a major military campaign was reshaping one of the world's most critical strategic chokepoints. He imposed sanctions against Chinese teapot refineries, the financial backbone of Iranian oil revenues, and still held the Xi summit, forcing Beijing to absorb the cost without an exit ramp. He brought the Gulf Arab states and Israel into operational collaboration under CENTCOM, something every prior administration deemed structurally impossible. But yes, Trump is "doing like Obama," and ceasefires along the way are complete "capitulations."

The Iran MoU is either going down as one of the most extraordinary stratdecs in history or Washington has no idea what it’s doing and MAGA’s mask off is this admin selling away America’s greatness (SAGA) for personal gain on the 250th. We’ll see soon enough, but my god does it reek to the weeping heavens at the moment.

Hamas operatives prepared Europe attack timed to Oct. 7 anniversary Federal prosecutor confirmed authorities recovered a pre-recorded claim-of-responsibility video from 1 suspect, in which an attack was announced around the 2nd Oct 7 anniversary in 2025 jpost.com/international/isla…

🚨 BREAKING | Inside the Shouting Matches Behind the U.S.-Iran Talks • According to my sources, every proposal and every clause discussed with the Americans had to be approved by Ahmad Vahidi and senior IRGC officials • Araghchi and Qalibaf were not negotiating independently. They received detailed instructions on what they could say and which red lines they could not cross • Sources say discussions between the negotiating team and the IRGC were tense and included heated confrontations • Vahidi’s message to the negotiators: “You are being too soft. You have given the Americans too much.” • Inside the IRGC, many believe Iran could have secured far more while making far fewer commitments • According to the same sources, much of the messaging appearing in Iranian media does not necessarily reflect what is being said in the negotiating rooms, but rather the line dictated by the IRGC • Political figures inside Iran are reportedly reluctant to challenge the IRGC and closely follow its messaging • Vahidi’s final instruction to the negotiating team: “If we are forced to give up anything, make sure the money arrives first.”

Hezbollah: Iran promised us that it will not sign a final deal with the United States if Israel does not withdraw from Lebanon.

U.S. intelligence assesses that Iran will be able to block the Strait of Hormuz whenever it wishes from now on. “This is a weapon stronger than nuclear power.” (CNN)

The Wall Street Journal reveals the extent of the American surrender to Iran: the sanctions will be lifted, and Iran will be able to sell oil immediately.

Huge dit:

Everyone now sees why Iran requested JD Vance for negotiations.

If Potus is engaged in strategic deception and stringing Iran, Qatar and Turkey along, then the man’s a genius. And God bless him. But entrenching Turkish influence via HTS Salafists on Israel’s north with Russian backing makes Obama look like a foreign policy genius and an absolute angel. Literal crazy talk from Potus. If Gog and Magog tainted ME policy is your cup of mint tea, this is the way forward.

In @ForeignPolicy @FDD @AhmadA_Sharawi argues that Washington is contemplating the one thing that could rally Lebanese around Hezbollah and save the terrorist group: Inviting Syria back into Lebanon.

MUST READING: “In a bitter paradox, the Iran war revealed opportunities for @CENTCOM to work much more effectively with regional militaries. But the trust deficit that has opened between USG and its Gulf partners will make it far harder to take advantage of those opportunities.” Sober, informed analysis from my @WashInstitute colleague - and former senior DOD official - @dstroul. @ForeignAffairs foreignaffairs.com/iran/midd… via @ForeignAffairs

תושבים בדרום לבנון שמנסים לחזור לבתיהם מודים לאיראן ולחיזבאללה

Yesterday Trump did an interview with the New York Times where he said some very important things that I don’t see covered anywhere. Instead, everyone is busy covering the regime’s propaganda, which is really shameful. In the 28-minute phone conversation that President Trump initiated from the White House residence, he made several statements: 1. Trump emphasized that if the regime kills protesters, it will prevent them from getting full sanctions relief and access to $25 billion in frozen funds. He insisted that Iran would receive no relief from sanctions or release of its frozen financial assets until it delivered on its commitments. 2. Trump openly acknowledged what he had said on the opening day of the war, when he urged the Iranian people to rise up and take over their government once the American and Israeli bombing was complete. He admitted he had said that, but went on to note that the Iranian people did not have access to arms, and would be slaughtered if they tried. 3. Trump made it clear he is ready to restart military attacks. He insisted that if Iran failed to reach a final nuclear accord with the United States, he would restart military attacks on Tehran. His finger remains on the trigger. 4. Trump praised Chinese President Xi Jinping and called him “a total gentleman.” He said: “He didn’t send a tanker, along with 20 destroyers on each side of it, to try and break up the blockade,” noting that Xi helped (or at least did not interfere) in the settlement. This must answer your question that why he ended the blockade, probably cause China would not tolerate it any longer. 5. The most important and interesting point: Trump said that if Iran does not reach a final deal, he would make the United States “the guardian of the Middle East” in return for 20 percent of the region’s revenues. He described this as turning American protection of the region, and the U.S. nuclear umbrella, into a paid police force, there in return for profit. This is a very Trumpian departure from post-World War II American tradition. This last point is especially significant. Trump is directly telling the Arabs and others who want the regime to stay in power and who are not seriously helping with regime change: “Okay, I’ll handle security for the region, but I’m not doing it for free.” He knows exactly what game some of these countries are playing, continuing to fund or tolerate the regime and regional proxies to keep Iran destabilized and weak. Trump has read their hand, and he is putting a clear price tag on America’s role as the region’s guardian. The full interview contains even more details that deserve attention rather than the regime’s narrative being pushed everywhere. nytimes.com/2026/06/14/us/po…