Israel has a long history of conflict and military operations in Lebanon, and the IDF is now preparing for a broader ground incursion against Hezbollah.

What started with Operation Peace in the Galilee in 1982 to eliminate Palestinian Liberation Organization terrorist cells attacking Israel’s north turned into an 18-year military occupation of southern Lebanon. It ended with a retreat under public pressure and a return to power for the enemy — Hezbollah, which was founded soon after the war began. Six years later, Hezbollah abducted two Israeli soldiers, leading to the Second Lebanon War, and the terrorists attacked Israelis in Israel and abroad periodically over the subsequent 17 years.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a recent cable encouraged American diplomats to work with local Israeli embassies on messaging efforts to encourage foreign governments to collaborate with the U.S. in its war against Iran, ABC News reported on Monday.

“At post’s discretion, advocacy efforts should be coordinated with Israeli diplomatic counterparts,” a leaked diplomatic cable stated, according to ABC.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Tuesday that Ali Larijani, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, had been killed in overnight strikes in the Islamic Republic.

Also killed in the wave of strikes, according to the IDF, was Gholamreza Soleiman, the commander of the paramilitary Basij forces, who had led the elite unit for the past six years.

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, called out two Democratic lawmakers from the main stage of the organization’s Never is Now conference in Manhattan on Monday, accusing them of perpetuating antisemitism. 

“For the senior senator from Maryland — a state with one of the largest, most active and most observant Jewish populations in the country — he blamed AIPAC, which he slandered as ‘un-American,’” Greenblatt said during his State of Hate address, referring to Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s (D-MD) address at the J Street convention where he attacked the pro-Israel advocacy group  earlier this month. 

Following an attack last Thursday on Temple Israel and its early learning facility in West Bloomfield Township, Mich., the Jewish Federations of North America is making a renewed push for expanded security funding and resources to protect the Jewish community.

Since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in Israel, antisemitic attacks have repeatedly prompted such efforts from Jewish community groups and advocates on Capitol Hill, but funding has remained stubbornly gridlocked. Currently, funding for community security under the Nonprofit Security Grant Program remains in limbo during the Department of Homeland Security shutdown, with no signs of movement in the immediate aftermath of the attack.

Dan Caldwell, a vocal GOP critic of the administration’s Middle East strategy who hails from the isolationist wing of the party, has been hired for a job at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence under DNI Tulsi Gabbard.

Caldwell, once a top advisor and ally to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, was dismissed last spring, accused of leaking to the press, and publicly criticized by Hegseth. Caldwell blamed his firing on opposition from the “foreign policy establishment.”

Three men accused of assaulting two Israeli American men outside a restaurant in a Silicon Valley shopping mall last week were arrested on Monday, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office announced. The alleged assailants were charged with both misdemeanor and felony offenses, but they were not charged with hate crime-related offenses.

On Sunday, March 8, videos show the two men being assaulted in the middle of the day as other diners and shoppers looked on. The victims, Lior Zeevi, 47, and Daniel Levy, 48, told The Jewish News of Northern California that the attack began after they were overheard speaking Hebrew, and that one of the assailants yelled “f***ing Jew.” According to a police report, a witness heard one of the perpetrators shout “Don’t f*** with Iran” as he ran away. 

As Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro eyes a 2028 presidential run, he is using a series of big-name podcast interviews to refine and test out his messaging on Israel — and taking aim at California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential rival, in the process. 

In interviews with the “Pod Save America” and “Higher Learning” podcasts that dropped in recent days, Shapiro put himself in the line of fire from interviewers with more left-wing views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than he holds. In response, he made the case that, as the starting point for any public political conversation about Israel, the fact of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state must be respected.