President Donald Trump announced Saturday evening that the U.S. had carried out military strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites earlier Saturday.

“We have completed our very successful attack on three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan,” Trump announced on Truth Social. “All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home.”

The three sites, particularly Fordow, are deeply entrenched underground, and analysts believe that Israel lacked the capacity to destroy the Fordow site on its own. Fox News host Sean Hannity said that Trump told him that the U.S. had dropped six bunker-busting bombs on Fordow and launched a total of 30 Tomahawk cruise missiles from U.S. submarines at Natanz and Esfahan. He said that all three facilities were destroyed completely.

The strikes come before the end of the two-week period that the Trump administration had provided for a decision on potential strikes. 

Trump indicated in his Truth Social post that the U.S. does not intend to carry out any further strikes, saying, “NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!” The president is set to deliver a speech at 10 p.m., White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said.

Dana Stroul, the research director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East under the Biden administration, told Jewish Insider that the “failed talks in Europe on Friday likely convinced [Trump] that diplomacy, at least in the short term, was futile.”

“The threat of a conventional war with the United States is what Iran’s leaders presumably fear most,” Stroul said. “For the past week of Israel’s operations, the Iranians have only responded with ballistic missiles and drones aimed at Israel. The real risk now is that Iranian leadership expands the scope of their retaliation, including aiming missiles at the U.S. and its partners, militia attacks on US forces, and potentially the targeting of energy infrastructure throughout the Middle East.”

She said that the “most pressing strategic question is whether US strikes make negotiations with the Iranian regime more or less likely, and whether Iran’s leaders are now more convinced of their need for a nuclear weapon or are finally willing to make concessions.”

So far, the strikes are being supported by most Congressional Republicans, while most Democrats are opposed, with many saying that the action was unconstitutional given that Congress did not authorize it.

“The regime in Iran, which has committed itself to bringing ‘death to America’ and wiping Israel off the map, has rejected all diplomatic pathways to peace. The mullahs’ misguided pursuit of nuclear weapons must be stopped,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said. “As we take action tonight to ensure a nuclear weapon remains out of reach for Iran, I stand with President Trump and pray for the American troops and personnel in harm’s way.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said the strikes “should serve as a clear reminder to our adversaries and allies that President Trump means what he says.”

“The President gave Iran’s leader every opportunity to make a deal, but Iran refused to commit to a nuclear disarmament agreement,” Johnson continued. “The President’s decisive action prevents the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism, which chants “Death to America,” from obtaining the most lethal weapon on the planet. This is America First policy in action.”

Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said: ”This war is Israel’s war not our war, but Israel is one of our strongest allies and is disarming Iran for the good of the world,” adding that the strike would “put an end to [Iran’s] ambitions” of destroying Israel and killing all Jews and could only have been carried out by the United States.

“This is not the start of a forever war. There will not be American boots on the ground in Iran,” Risch added, pushing back on concerns that anti-interventionists on both sides of the aisle have raised about a potential strike. “This was a precise, limited strike, which was necessary and by all accounts was very successful. As President Trump has stated, now is the time for peace.”

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, also praised Trump’s decision and said, “We now have very serious choices ahead to provide security for our citizens and our allies and stability for the middle-east.”

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), one of the most pro-Israel Congressional Democrats, said “this was the correct move” by Trump and said he’s “grateful for and salute the finest military in the world.”

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), another outspoken Israel supporter, said, “The world can achieve peace in the Middle East, or it can accept a rogue nuclear weapons program—but it cannot have both.”

“The decisive destruction of the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant prevents the dangerous spread of nuclear weapons in the world’s most combustible region,” Torres continued. “No one truly committed to nuclear nonproliferation should mourn the fall of Fordow.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who was championing legislation in the House aiming to block U.S. military action against Iran, condemned the strike as unconstitutional in a X post which was re-shared by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH), another isolationist House Republican, similarly questioned the strike’s constitutionality.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), who is leading the Senate version of Massie’s resolution, asserted that the American people are “overwhelmingly opposed” to the prospect of war with Iran and suggested that the strikes were not necessary to set back Iran’s nuclear program.

“What made Trump recklessly decide to rush and bomb today?” Kaine continued. “Horrible judgment. I will push for all Senators to vote on whether they are for this third idiotic Middle East war.”

Several House Democrats called for Congress to immediately return to Washington to vote on Massie’s resolution.

Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said the strikes were a “clear violation of the Constitution” and that it is “impossible to know at this stage whether this operation accomplished its objectives.”

“We also don’t know if this will lead to further escalation in the region and attacks against our forces, events that could easily pull us even deeper into a war in the Middle East,” Himes said.

Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL) called the strikes “an unambiguous impeachable offense.”

Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) interview on Tucker Carlson’s podcast published on Wednesday devolved into a shouting match at times between the two GOP heavyweights, with insults and charges of ignorance and antisemitism dominating the two-hour conversation between one of the Republican Party’s biggest pro-Israel champions and one of the most vocal critics of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

The interview was relatively civil for the first hour, but began to devolve when Carlson and Cruz started debating the benefits of the U.S. relationship with Israel and the merits of Israel and the United States allegedly spying on one another. 

Carlson pressed Cruz to say that allies spying on one another was wrong, which Cruz responded to by asking why Carlson and others had an “obsession with Israel” while ignoring similar behavior from other allies. Carlson rejected that he was “obsessed with Israel” before noting that he has never taken money from AIPAC, which he referred to as “the Israel lobby.” 

The conversation started to become more animated as the two could not find common ground on the role and purpose of AIPAC, with Carlson insisting that the organization, which is made up of U.S. citizens advocating for the U.S.-Israel relationship, needed to be registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act — an argument sometimes used as an antisemitic dog whistle accusing Jewish supporters of Israel of dual loyalty — and Cruz vehemently disagreeing. 

The interview grew more tense after Cruz accused Carlson of having an “obsession with Israel” and asked why he was so focused on asking, “What about the Jews? What about the Jews?” without being critical of other foreign governments.

“Oh, I’m an antisemite now?” Carlson replied wryly. 

“You’re asking, ‘Why are the Jews controlling our foreign policy?” Cruz told Carlson after the latter said he had accused him of antisemitism in a “sleazy feline way.”

Cruz told Carlson to give him “another reason why the obsession is Israel,” to which Carlson responded: “I am in no sense obsessed with Israel. We are on the brink of war with Iran, and so these are valid questions.”

“You asked me why I’m obsessed with Israel three minutes after telling me that when you first ran for Congress, you elucidated one of your main goals, which is to defend Israel. I’m the one who’s obsessed with Israel,” Carlson said, adding, “Shame on you for conflating” Jews and Israel.

“Israel and Jews have nothing to do with each other?” Cruz asked after Carlson claimed there was not a correlation.

Carlson said he was “totally opposed” to Iran’s desire to kill all Jews and Americans, which Cruz replied to by saying: “Except you don’t want to do anything about it.” 

The two then sparred over Carlson’s focus on Israel’s influence on U.S. foreign policy, with Cruz claiming Carlson was placing too much emphasis on the Jewish state while ignoring the malign influence of other governments. 

“I don’t even like talking about Israel. I never do because it’s not worth being called antisemites from AIPAC recipients,” Carlson said. “But now we are on the verge of joining a war and I just want to be clear about why we’re doing this.”

Carlson stated that anyone who criticized Israel’s actions were “instantly called an antisemite for asking questions” and said Israel was “the only government that no one will ever criticize.” Cruz said he rejected that assertion, pointing to statements from Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), a progressive House lawmaker and frequent critic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Carlson scoffed at Cruz’s Tlaib reference, explaining that he was referring to the consequences for “Republicans that I would vote for, including you.” 

Regarding Iran, the two sparred over the regime’s apparent efforts to assassinate Trump, which Carlson denied had occurred.

“I voted for Donald Trump. I campaigned for Donald Trump. He’s our president, and we’re on the cusp of a war. So if there’s evidence that Iran paid a hitman to kill Donald Trump and is currently doing that, where is that? What are you even talking about? I’ve never heard that before. Where’s the evidence? Who are these people? Why haven’t they been arrested? Why are we not at war with Iran?” Carlson asked.

The Justice Department, in November 2024, did, in fact, indict multiple individuals in connection to the assassination plot, arresting two individuals involved in the scheme in the United States and issuing a warrant for a third, described as an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps asset.

The plot had been extensively reported upon, both at the time and in the months since. Cruz criticized Carlson for his suspicions about the plot.

The former Fox host asked Cruz shortly after to explain why he’d be proud to say that he came to Washington with the goal of being the most pro-Israel member of Congress, to which Cruz responded by citing his Christian faith, after which the two sparred about Christian scripture. 

The senator subsequently argued that he does not solely cite his faith as his reason for supporting Israel in his professional capacity, telling Carlson that he had championed the Jewish state because of his belief that Israel is our best ally in the Middle East. 

“I think the most acute national security threat facing America right now is the threat of a nuclear Iran. I think China is the biggest long-term threat, but acute in the near term is a nuclear Iran. And I think Israel is doing a massive favor to America right now by trying to take out Iran’s nuclear capacity,” he continued, later adding, “You want to ask: how does supporting Israel benefit us? Right now, this tiny little country the size of the state of New Jersey is fighting our enemies for us and taking out their top military leadership and trying to take out their nuclear capacity. That makes America much safer.”

Returning to the subject of Cruz’s faith, the Texas senator said that his support for Israel was also rooted in his Christian faith, citing the biblical phrase: “Those who bless Israel will be blessed and those who curse Israel will be cursed.”

Carlson mocked the fact that Cruz’s faith informed his pro-Israel views, and asked specifically the biblical citation. After Cruz acknowledged he didn’t know the exact verse, the podcast host then incorrectly answered his own question, mistakenly saying it was in Genesis.  (The verse is from Numbers 24:9.)

The interview again devolved into chaos after Cruz acknowledged that upon sharp questioning that he did not know the exact population size of Iran, prompting both men to question what the other knew, if anything, about the country. Carlson accused Cruz of being dismissive of the consequences of the military actions he was calling for, while Cruz accused Carlson of adopting the foreign policy platform of progressive Democrats. 

The first 60 minutes of the interview, which was released on Wednesday, was largely civil with Carlson asking Cruz to explain his support for Israel’s operation to destroy Iran’s nuclear program and regime change in Tehran.

The Texas senator argued that his recent comments in favor of toppling Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, were not an endorsement of a U.S. military invasion of Iran but rather of the idea of a democratic Iran. 

The two initially agreed that it would be better for the U.S. without an Iranian regime that aspires to destroy Western civilization and that they were frustrated by the interventionist versus isolationist binary that has increasingly characterized Republican foreign policy.

“For a long time, people have perceived two different poles of Republican foreign policy. There have been interventionists, and those have been people like John McCain and Lindsey Graham George W. Bush, and there have been isolationists, and the most prominent of those have been Ron Paul and Rand Paul and there are others. People perceive those are the two choices, you’ve got to be one of the other. I’ve always thought both were wrong. I don’t agree with either one,” Cruz said.

“For whatever it’s worth, I agree with you. I don’t know who set up that binary, but there are lots of choices, actually,” Carlson responded. Carlson is seen by many, however, as one of the leading figures of the isolationist wing.

The two men described themselves as non-interventionist hawks, with each saying they believed in the principle that the “central touchpoint for U.S. foreign policy and for any question of military intervention should be the vital national security interests of the United States” before disagreeing on whether the situation in Middle East qualified as such. 

Jewish Insider’s senior congressional correspondent Marc Rod contributed to this report.

There is a chance the U.S. will join Israel in striking Iran’s nuclear facilities, President Donald Trump told reporters on Wednesday, adding that “nobody knows” yet what he will decide.

“I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do,” Trump said in his first public comments about Iran after an hour-long Situation Room briefing on Tuesday. 

He said he told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “keep going.” 

“So far he’s doing a good job,” Trump added. 

He acknowledged that some of his supporters “are a little bit unhappy” about his posture toward Iran, but added that there are “some people that are very happy.” Trump further threw his support behind Israel’s actions: “All I’m doing is saying you can’t have a nuclear weapon. I’m trying to do it nicely, and then on day 61, I said, let’s go,” he said. 

The president said that Iran has contacted the White House to talk about resuming negotiations. But Trump suggested the time for negotiations may have passed.

“Iran’s got a lot of trouble, and they want to negotiate. And I said, ‘Why didn’t you negotiate with me before all this death and destruction?’” Trump said. “Why didn’t you negotiate with me two weeks ago? You could have done fine. You would have had a country.”

Trump used the word “we” to describe the destruction of Iran’s air defense systems, without elaborating on the role the U.S. has played in assisting Israel. “We’ve totally captured the air,” Trump said Wednesday, following a post on Truth Social on Tuesday with similar language. 

In another Tuesday Truth Social post, Trump called for “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER.” He explained to the reporters, “That means I’ve had it. OK? I’ve had it. I give up. No more. Then we go blow up all the nuclear stuff that’s all over the place there,” said Trump. 

He offered stridently critical comments about the Islamic Republic. 

“For 40 years they’ve been saying, ‘Death to America, death to Israel,’ death to anybody else that they didn’t like. They were bullies,” Trump said of the Iranian regime. “They were schoolyard bullies, and now they’re not bullies anymore, but we’ll see what happens. Look, nothing’s finished until it’s finished.” 

Trump warned again that Tehran cannot be permitted to obtain a nuclear weapon — and intimated that Iran poses a direct threat to the United States.

“Is there anybody here that said it would be OK to have to have a hostile — very zealous, really — but to have a hostile country have a nuclear weapon that could destroy 25 miles, but much more than that, could destroy other nations, just by the breeze blowing the dust?” Trump asked. “That dust blows to other nations and they get decimated. This is just not a threat you can have. And we’ve been threatened by Iran for many years.”

At the end of the press conference, a reporter asked Trump for a message for Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“Good luck,” Trump said. When asked when his patience will run out, Trump responded simply: “It’s already run out.”

Last Thursday, Sam Heller went to sleep at a Tel Aviv hotel, thinking that any potential military action between Israel and Iran wouldn’t start until after his flight back to the U.S., scheduled for Saturday night. 

He was wrong.

When Home Front Command alerts woke Heller at 3 a.m. on Friday, informing the nation that Israel had launched a preemptive attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, he quickly booked the first flight out to Paris from Ben Gurion Airport.

“I went straight to the airport, and they locked the doors to Ben-Gurion, and they stopped letting people in,” Heller told Jewish Insider on Tuesday, safely back home in Cleveland. “They’re like, ‘We’re closing our airspace indefinitely. Your flight’s been canceled. All flights are canceled. You can’t get out.’”

Like some 38,000 other foreign visitors stranded in Israel after the country’s preemptive strikes on Iran prompted days of Iranian ballistic missile attacks on Israel, Heller began to try to think of creative ways to leave the country. First he called an Israeli shipping company and asked if he could travel as a stowaway on a cargo ship heading to Cyprus. They told him yes, at a cost of 87,000 Euros for 12 people. He said no.

Then Heller, who was visiting Israel as the last leg of a monthlong trip after graduating from the University of Michigan in May, called a sailing company from which he had rented a boat two years ago. They told him the only boat suitable for travel to Cyprus was out of commission. Another no. Next, a phone call to a company that offers helicopter tours of Israel, thinking helicopters might not be included in the ban on flying. Nope. 

Finally, he tracked down a company that offers private security details in the Middle East. There, he identified a circuitous route out of Israel that took him 36 hours: departing Israel through the Taba border crossing to Egypt, being driven three-and-a-half hours to Sharm el-Sheikh and taking a flight from the Sinai resort town to Istanbul. He left Israel Saturday night after Shabbat and landed in Cleveland at 11 p.m. the next day. That’s a relatively fast trip compared to others who have made it out.

In the days since the Iran-Israel war started, a cottage industry has emerged to help ferry people from Israel to other destinations around the globe. 

Israeli airspace was closed for five days and the U.S. Embassy said it was unable to assist Americans seeking to evacuate. After the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, several State Department-led charter flights brought Americans to Athens — but charter flights were not an option following Israel’s attack on Iran and the ensuing war between the two countries. A State Department spokesperson declined to comment on Tuesday.

El Al canceled all flights out of the country through at least June 23, and foreign carriers pulled out of Israel for longer. Israeli carriers El Al, Arkia and Israir announced on Tuesday that they received permission from the Israeli government to organize repatriation flights to bring back Israelis stranded abroad. The first two flights from Larnaca, Cyprus, landed at Ben Gurion Airport on Wednesday morning. 

The Israeli Tourism Ministry launched an effort on Tuesday to facilitate the departure of tourists from the country, distributing a digital registration form for departure flights from the country. 

But until those flights begin, in WhatsApp threads, Facebook groups and private messages, Americans stuck in Israel are passing along any information they can find to try to help get themselves and their loved ones home. The details are hard to verify. The costs range from expensive to astronomical. 

One graphic shared widely on WhatsApp advertises an emergency evacuation flight from Israel to New York, promising a Wednesday afternoon departure to Eilat and a bus transfer to Sharm el-Sheikh, followed by a charter flight to Milan and then a connection to JFK — “lavish meals included” and “security escorted” — for $2,200 a person. According to the travel company’s website, though, it was already sold out by the time the graphic circulated. Another message advertised a chartered flight from Aqaba, Jordan — near Eilat — to Paris, for $3,000 a person. Abraham Tours, a travel company best known for its hostels in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, advertised a cross-border transfer to Amman for $438. 

Adir Fischer is the vice president of marketing at Magnus Safety, a global search-and-rescue company based in Israel that is arranging boats to take people between Haifa and Larnaca, Cyprus. He can fit about 25 people on a tugboat for a 17-hour journey, costing between 1,000 and 2,000 Euros a person. 

“If you have three kids and a husband, it’s around 7,000 Euros a trip. Not everyone has it liquid, and it’s prepaid,” Fischer told JI on Tuesday. That’s before adding in the cost of flights from Cyprus back to the U.S. Still, he has turned away over 100 people because there isn’t enough room on the boats. 

One American woman who lives in Israel plans to depart on Wednesday on a small boat privately arranged by her husband’s company. They will be traveling with their six-month-old baby and two friends, at a cost of $15,000 for the five people. 

“Either I’m brave, crazy or an idiot. I’m not quite sure yet. But we really want to get out,” she said, requesting anonymity to speak about sensitive travel details. 

Early Sunday morning, Shira Raviv Schwartz woke up to a red alert. She was in Israel visiting her cousin, a trip she takes most summers. Soon after, her apartment building in Tel Aviv shook violently. In the morning, Schwartz saw that the next block had sustained a direct hit from an Iranian ballistic missile. She decided she needed to leave with her husband, their young adult son and her 84-year-old father-in-law. 

“I can’t take another night anxious in the safe room,” Schwartz said from Amman, where the family awaits a flight to Cairo, then another to Athens and finally a flight home to Chicago. 

Large tour groups have been luckier than individuals or families, who have to sort through the options themselves. Birthright Israel arranged for a private luxury cruise ship to bring 1,500 American young adults to Cyprus, where they boarded four planes back to the U.S. chartered by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. 

Jonathan Schanzer, who was leading a delegation hosted by his think tank, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, worked with the organization’s staff to get the group to Amman via the Allenby Bridge, the only border crossing between the West Bank and Jordan. (This is not an option for Israelis, who are not permitted to pass there.) He considered whether driving to Allenby amid the threat of incoming Iranian missiles was too dangerous but decided to risk it.

“Every security specialist warned me that the time in the war away from a shelter was the dangerous period, and I understood that,” Schanzer told JI. “But we were running out of programming for our participants and they were all sleep-deprived, as was I, from the incessant sirens every night. They didn’t sign up for this.” 

Jerusalem travel agent Mark Feldman said the key is not to tell clients what to do, but to give them options.

“Let him or her make the choice. I would never want to be responsible for somebody taking a 24-hour boat to Cyprus, throwing up the whole way, and emailing me saying it was the worst time of their life,” Feldman, the CEO of Ziontours, told JI. 

His business is at capacity simply trying to get existing clients into and out of Israel. His advice to those without a connection to a travel agent is to stick to trusted sources and avoid the “incredible amount of rumor-mongering.” Mostly, he is advising people to be patient, particularly those who do not have the appetite for a dayslong odyssey through multiple countries. 

But those who are waiting until the airspace reopens are not going to have an easy time leaving, Feldman warned. 

“Hard as it is just calming people down and relaxing them, the problem will come when the airport is open, and the thousands of people that are stuck here won’t have flights to get out,” said Feldman. If the airspace opens on June 23, the flights departing that day will be the ones that were initially scheduled for June 23 — meaning anyone with a June 23 ticket will have a confirmed seat. Everyone who has been stuck in Israel for days will be competing with each other for the empty seats.

“Many people assume, ‘Because I was bumped, I get first priority,’” said Feldman. “You don’t.”

Amid growing speculation that the U.S. will become directly involved in Israel’s military campaign against Iran, President Donald Trump dismissed a public assessment by his Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard earlier this year that Iran was not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon.

“I don’t care what she said, I think they were very close to having it,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One en route home from the G7 Summit in Canada, which he left early to address the situation in the Middle East.

U.S. and Israeli leaders have emphasized in recent days that Iran was quickly increasing its stockpiles of highly enriched uranium in recent months, which would have allowed it to move quickly to a bomb. Some have also disputed Gabbard’s assessment, which was consistent with past assessments by Republican and Democratic administrations in recent years.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said over the weekend, “The intel[ligence] we got and we shared with the United States was absolutely clear, that they were working on a secret plan to weaponize the uranium. They were marching very quickly. They would achieve a test device and possibly an initial device within months, and certainly less than a year.”

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Iran was “very close to having enough pure weapons-grade uranium for several weapons” and that there were “signs” it was “once again exploring” weaponization.

Gabbard denied any dispute between herself and Trump and appeared to stick by her previous assessment, telling reporters, “What President Trump is saying is the same thing I said in my annual threat assessment in March to Congress.”

Trump also said he is “not looking for a ceasefire” between Israel and Iran, adding “we’re looking for better than a ceasefire.” He said he’s instead looking for “a real end … a complete give-up.”

Asked if he’s still interested in negotiating with Iran, Trump responded, “I don’t know. I’ve been negotiating. I told them to do the deal, they should have done the deal. Their cities have been blown to pieces and they’ve lost a lot of people. They should have done the deal. … I’m not too much in a mood to negotiate now.”

Trump said he “may” attempt to send Vice President JD Vance and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to negotiate with Iran, but that will depend on “what happens when I get back” to Washington. Trump arrived in Washington early Tuesday morning.

But he also said he hopes that Iran’s nuclear program is “going to be wiped out long before” the U.S. would have to get involved in the campaign.

Asked about his call Monday night for the population of Tehran to evacuate, Trump denied any imminent threat adding, “I want people to be safe. That’s always possible. A thing like that could happen.”

He added later, “there’s a lot of bad things happening there. I think it’s safer for them to evacuate.”

The president said that U.S. troops in the region are well-protected, and that the U.S. would retaliate forcefully if Iran attacked U.S. troops.

Some Senate Republicans argued Monday that the U.S. should join Israel’s strikes on Iran to help it destroy deeply entrenched nuclear sites such as the Fordow facility, contending that Israel lacks the capacity to do so on its own. Others, though, argued that Israel may have alternative plans to attack Fordow, while still others suggested that the U.S. should hold back and focus on diplomacy unless U.S. personnel are attacked directly.

The comments come amid increasing speculation that the U.S. could become involved in the Israeli campaign, following comments by President Donald Trump on Truth Social that “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!” The Israeli government issued evacuation warnings for parts of the city earlier in the day. Trump also announced he would be leaving the G7 Summit in Canada early, though he wrote on Truth Social that the reason he was departing “certainly has nothing to do with a Cease Fire” between Israel and Iran and is “much bigger than that.”

Assessments have long held that bunker-busting bombs and larger bombers, neither of which Israel has, are needed to eliminate Fordow, though some analysts have speculated in recent days that Israel has been developing alternative strategies to strike that site.

“We have to. I think we have to help. I am going to be encouraging the president [to support Israel] because the greatest tragedy in the world would be if we left the Iranian regime in place with a nuclear easy startup. I’d hate to see Israel spending all those resources of people and dollars on getting the job 90% done,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) told Jewish Insider.

“I just think it would be silly to not help. I mean, here we are at this point and then to just [not let Israel finish the job] because they didn’t have the bombs that we have or the airplanes that carry them. That action alone could probably take the regime out. Now, you could try to just force the regime off some other way, but I wouldn’t leave either one of those things, the regime or the nuclear program, undone,” Cramer continued. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told JI that how the U.S. approaches Israel and Iran “is the most important decision the president will make. For the future of the Mideast and the security of Israel and our country, I think we go all in.”

A Senate Republican who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the situation said that Israel is not capable of destroying Fordow and similar facilities without U.S. assistance, and said they and colleagues are working with the administration on ensuring that it is provided.

“Israel can’t finish the job without us, not completely. We’ll give them the bombs but we need to help as well,” one senior Senate Republican told JI of the necessity of U.S. military support for Israel’s operation to take out Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

The senator cited the need for bunker-buster bombs to impact facilities that are deep underground. Only the U.S. possesses both the bombs and the planes that are capable of carrying the 30,000-pound explosives. “We’re working on the president,” the senator told JI. 

White House spokesperson Alex Pfeiffer on Monday denied an Israeli report that the U.S. was already conducting strikes inside Iran, saying, “American forces are maintaining their defensive posture, and that has not changed. We will defend American interests.”

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) told JI he would leave the decision on intervening up to the president, but suggested Israel may have alternative plans to address Iran’s most hardened facilities. 

“We will stand with Israel,” Rounds said. “Israel has done a marvelous job of preplanning their approach. They knew full well that we were not interested in participating or getting involved in this at this stage of the game, so my suspicion is they have their own plans on how to address [Fordow].”

“Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, it’s just simply gotten to that point. Israel is taking charge and I suspect they have a plan to finish the job,” he reiterated.

Asked about his takeaways from a Senate Intelligence Committee briefing on the issue earlier in the day, Rounds said it had “reaffirmed that Israel clearly had excellent plans and this is not a happenstance. This is a well-planned-out maneuver that had to be accomplished because, as I think most people realize, Iran was getting closer and closer to having enough equipment, supplies and so forth to actually create, in the very near future, a bomb, if they so desired to.”

“You can only go along with that so long before you realize you’re going to have to act, and this was the opportunity that they had,” Rounds added. 

Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) said the U.S. should get involved directly if Iran attacks any U.S. personnel but said the U.S. should otherwise remain focused on pressing Iran back to the negotiating table.

“I applaud the president for trying to get to a negotiated agreement and perhaps Iran will come to the realization that that is their only way out of this, and that’s what we should be pursuing at this point,” Ricketts told JI.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) introduced a war powers resolution on Monday that aims to block the U.S. from taking military action against Iran in support of Israel’s ongoing operation against the regime.

The resolution would bar military action against Iran unless directly authorized by a congressional vote, or in order to defend the United States from an “imminent attack.”

The legislation comes as Israeli leaders are reportedly pushing the United States to support Israel’s military operations, particularly to target the deeply entrenched nuclear site at Fordow that Israel is believed to lack the capabilities to destroy on its own.

War powers resolutions are privileged under congressional procedures, meaning that Kaine can force a vote on the legislation. Kaine told Jewish Insider on Monday that the resolution could be called up, at earliest, late next week, depending on other timing issues.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) announced that he plans to introduce a similar war powers resolution in the House.

“The question of whether United States forces should be engaged in hostilities against Iran should be answered following a full briefing to Congress and the American public of the issues at stake, a public debate in Congress, and a congressional vote as contemplated by the Constitution,” the resolution reads.

Kaine warned in a statement that the Israeli-Iranian conflict “could quickly pull the United States into another endless conflict.”

“It is not in our national security interest to get into a war with Iran unless that war is absolutely necessary to defend the United States,” Kaine said. “The American people have no interest in sending servicemembers to fight another forever war in the Middle East. This resolution will ensure that if we decide to place our nation’s men and women in uniform into harm’s way, we will have a debate and vote on it in Congress.”

President Donald Trump has indicated that the U.S. does not intend to get directly involved in the conflict.

Lawmakers, led by Kaine, pursued similar efforts during Trump’s first administration following the killing of Quds Force leader Gen. Qassem Soleimani. That legislation passed Congress in 2020 with the support of then-Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), as well as Sens. Todd Young (R-IN), Mike Lee (R-UT), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Susan Collins (R-ME), Rand Paul (R-KY), Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Jerry Moran (R-KS), but was vetoed by Trump.

Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Peter Welch (D-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR) Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Ed Markey (D-MA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Tina Smith (D-MN) introduced a separate bill on Monday to block funding for any use of force against Iran except if authorized by Congress or in self-defense.

As grainy videos of Israel’s strikes on Iran spread in WhatsApp groups and Telegram channels used by the Iranian diaspora, Persian Jews in the U.S. are viewing this moment with a mix of trepidation and excitement — the first time in decades, some say, that the Iranian regime truly appears vulnerable. 

That has prompted cautious optimism about a future in which Iranians might live free from the oppression of the Ayatollah, several activists in the Persian Jewish community told Jewish Insider on Friday, and where they might be able to bring their children to visit their native land. But the escalation has also brought fear about what comes next, and that even an Israeli military success might not effect change on the ground for Iranians. 

Sharon Nazarian, a philanthropist and Jewish communal leader in Los Angeles who left Tehran with her family in 1978, said she has felt “two striking, opposing feelings” since Israel’s attacks began. 

“One of utter hope and the possibility that maybe one day we can go back to our country of birth to bring our children,” Nazarian said. “We are [also] very fearful that this regime, although it’s at its weakest point it’s been since 1979, it will survive, and it will, yet again, find a mechanism both to manipulate and to force its way into maintaining the stranglehold it has on the Iranian people and the country of Iran.” 

Sam Yebri, a Los Angeles attorney who left Iran with his parents as a toddler, described feeling “an inevitability to today’s events, and a hope that it’ll bring a better future for the people of Iran as well as the people of Israel.”

As foreign policy experts assess how President Donald Trump and other world leaders will respond to the strikes, and question what impact they will have on Middle East geopolitics, many Persian Jews feel a flicker of hope for the Iranian people. 

Arielle Mokhtarzadeh was born and raised in Los Angeles, but her parents were both born in Iran. She expressed hope that the attacks might herald a change in the Islamic Republic.

“The Iranian people will be responsible for carrying forward a new future for Iran. But they know, and we know, that they cannot do it alone. This is the first time since 1979 that a world power has stepped up to give them a chance,” Mokhtarzadeh said. “I could not be more proud that it is Israel — as an Iranian, as an American and as a Jew.” 

In a statement on Friday, the leaders of the small Jewish community that remains in Iran condemned “the rape and inhumanity that the Zionist regime has brought upon the our beloved homeland,” according to a translation provided by Nazarian, who pointed out that the leader of the community was appointed by the Iranian government.

“That is, by definition, what a captured Jewish community acts like they have no choice. This is their survival mechanism, and so they’ve put out statements condemning Israel,” Nazarian explained. 

Others in the Persian Jewish community in the U.S. felt a touch of schadenfreude at the developments.

“For all the wounds the regime has inflicted, it deserves this eve of bloodletting. May it stop quickly to make way for the arrival of the long-awaited season of woman, life, freedom,” Roya Hakakian, an Iranian-born author, wrote in The Free Press on Thursday.  

Matthew Nouriel, community engagement director at JIMENA, an organization that advocates for Jews from Middle Eastern countries, posted a video on Instagram from Tel Aviv responding to the strikes.

“I do want to say that I’m praying for the safety and freedom of the people in Iran, and I sincerely hope that every single strike against that bloodthirsty regime of filthy thugs disguised as clerics strikes the fear of God into each and every one of their satanic, black hearts,” said Nouriel, who had traveled to Tel Aviv to attend Tel Aviv Pride, which was canceled in light of the attacks. 

The next round of scheduled nuclear talks between the U.S. and Iran will not take place on Sunday, Omanian Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi announced on Saturday evening, as Israel and Iran continue to trade strikes.

Albusaidi said that the talks, intended to be the sixth round of negotiations, “will not now take place. But diplomacy and dialogue remain the only pathway to lasting peace.”

A senior U.S. administration official told The New York Times, “While there will be no meeting Sunday, we remain committed to talks and hope the Iranians will come to the table soon.” President Donald Trump had exerted additional pressure, writing on Truth Social on Friday that “Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left, and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire … JUST DO IT, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.”

In a Truth Social post on Saturday afternoon, Trump said that “we can easily get a deal done between Iran and Israel, and end this bloody conflict,” noting that the “U.S. had nothing to do with the attack on Iran, tonight” but that if the U.S. was “attacked in any way, shape or form by Iran, the full strength and might of the U.S. Armed Forces will come down” on Tehran “at levels never seen before.”

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkain reportedly said on a call with French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday that Iran will not “accept irrational demands under pressure” or “sit at the negotiating table while the Zionist regime continues its attacks.” 

The talks’ cancellation comes following Israel’s preemptive attack early Friday morning on Iranian nuclear and military targets, and Iran’s retaliatory strikes against Israel.

The IDF said Saturday night it had completed “an extensive series of strikes” on targets including the Iranian Ministry of Defense and its nuclear research and development headquarters. Iranian state media reported strikes on several oil facilities, including the South Pars field shared between Iran and Qatar, the largest natural gas field in the world. 

Iran fired around 70 ballistic missiles and several drones at Israel on Saturday night and early Sunday morning, sending Israelis across the country into bomb shelters. Direct impacts were reported in the northern Arab city of Tamra — killing four civilians — and the central cities of Bat Yam, where at least six civilians were killed and 200 wounded, and Rehovot, where at least 40 were wounded and laboratories at The Weizmann Institute of Science were reportedly damaged. The Bazan oil refinery in Haifa was also damaged in the attack, though its refining activities continue, its operating company reported on Sunday. 

Saturday night’s strikes bring the death toll in Israel from the Iranian attacks to at least 13 with 380 people injured.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said on Friday that he’s urging U.S. support for Israel’s campaign to destroy Iran’s nuclear program as a means of “substantially undoing the damage caused by the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal” during the Biden administration. 

The South Carolina senator told Jewish Insider that he views Israel’s military operation in Iran as an opportunity to improve the reputation of the U.S. in the region by helping the Jewish state eliminate the threat of a nuclear Tehran if diplomatic efforts to address the issue fail. 

Graham argued that the standing of the U.S. in the Mideast was significantly degraded by the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was ordered under President Donald Trump during his first administration and implemented under then-President Joe Biden. 

“If Iran rejects diplomacy, the only logical answer is to help Israel finish the job. If we don’t do that, it will be another example of Afghanistan where we blink. We can’t afford that anymore. If we do help Israel, who has been amazingly successful thus far, then I think it reverses the damage that Afghanistan caused for America. We’ve got a chance not only to take a bad guy off the table in terms of their nuclear ambitions, but reset the position of America in the world. I would take that opportunity if I were President Trump,” Graham said. 

“The benefit to us as a nation is that Iran is a threat not only to Israel but to us. It would have the benefit of substantially undoing the damage caused by the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. We would be seen as a stronger, more reliable ally and it would help us to get good outcomes in other conflicts throughout the world,” he continued. 

Graham expressed appreciation for Trump’s efforts to try “to get Iran back to the negotiating table to end their nuclear program through diplomacy” while cautioning that he believes “it’s important for the United States to go all in with Israel in finishing the job regarding Iran’s nuclear program” if “that effort fails.”

“We have capability Israel doesn’t just in terms of air assets, and I think it is in our national security interest to provide Israel what they need and to assist them in finishing the job. That doesn’t require boots on the ground, but it will require military assets,” the GOP senator said. 

“If you believe in America as a force for good and you believe that we should deal with threats before they get out of hand, then the answer is to go all in. What would be provocative and irresponsible is to allow this program to continue. We’re trying to use diplomacy to end it, but that only works if we have a willing partner. I cannot stress how important it is to deny Iran a nuclear capability. If they get a weapon, they will use it. And if they get a weapon, the Arabs will want one of their own and you’ll have a new arms race in the Mideast,” he added of the risks of a nuclear-armed Iran. 

Asked about left- and right-wing critics of Israel’s actions who have accused the Jewish state of hurting the diplomatic efforts, Graham compared them to “the heirs of Neville Chamberlain.”

“That’s what they said about Hitler, that being provocative would make Hitler more lethal. They were wrong then, they’re wrong now,” he said.

The U.S.’ moves to evacuate some State Department personnel and military families from the Middle East are seen by experts as a potential sign of a U.S. or Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear program — or, at least, a signal to Iran that the U.S. is prepared for such action, ahead of a planned round of nuclear talks with Tehran. 

The moves come as President Donald Trump’s self-imposed deadline for the talks is approaching this week, and Trump has expressed public frustration with the lack of progress being made. There have been conflicting reports about whether the talks expected this weekend are still slated to occur.

The State Department is drawing down personnel in Iraq, the department said, and the Pentagon is allowing for voluntary departures of military families from locations in the Middle East. The United Kingdom, separately, issued a maritime trade warning about a potential “escalation of military activity” in the Middle East.

Dana Stroul, the research director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, noted that the Trump administration had conducted mandatory drawdowns of State Department personnel in Iraq at the end of the first Trump administration. The Pentagon evacuations, she noted, are thus far optional.

“This was part of the Iran policy approach [during Trump’s first administration] to increase pressure on the Iraqi government to get attack[s] against U.S. forces to stop,” Stroul told Jewish Insider. “So some of the people making these decisions inside the Trump administration have prior experience with reducing our presence in the region as part of a pressure play against Iran.”

But, she added, a “reduction in military families in the Gulf is the first step military planners would want to take if they were trying to reduce risk to U.S. personnel before large-scale, significant military operations.”

“If you’re trying to minimize risk before significant military operations, this is what you do. But right now they’re voluntary, not ordered,” Stroul continued.

Stroul argued that, in combination with the recent call between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump’s public comments that he’s been frustrated by Iran’s posture in negotiations, “Tehran should take notice.”

Daniel Shapiro, Stroul’s successor in the deputy assistant secretary role, said that the administration “is clearly into some major preparations for possible military action vs Iran (by US and/or Israel).”

“A useful signal ahead of round 6 of nuke talks,” Shapiro continued. “Need to be prepared to back it up.”

Jason Brodsky, the policy director for United Against Nuclear Iran, framed the move as a likely sign of action, noting that congressional testimony by Gen. Erik Kurilla, who leads U.S. Central Command, set for Thursday morning, had been postponed.

“Something is cooking,” Brodsky said.

John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America and former national security advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney, told JI he believes that the moves are primarily an “unambiguous signal to the Iranians in advance of the next round of talks that U.S. patience is not unlimited and that time may be running out for them.”

He said the steps will take time to carry out but “they all have the indicia of the classic playbook that the United States would start rolling out in advance of anticipated hostilities. And of course it’s all being undertaken without much stealth and secrecy, but rather in a manner that ensures the Iranians and the rest of the world will know about it.”

He added that it “doesn’t necessarily have to be just one or the other,” and the moves should leave Iran guessing.

“The fact that the immediate purpose of these moves might primarily be a signaling mechanism to influence Iran’s posture in the negotiations doesn’t ipso facto mean it’s all just a bluff — although, if we’re honest, bluffing and then retreating is clearly often an integral part of President Trump’s negotiating MO and the ‘art of the deal,’” Hannah said. “That said, it could also be a deadly serious first step to put Iran on notice that it’s got one last chance to take the deal on offer or face the wrath of a U.S. military strike.” 

“Trump is perfectly capable of going either way and the Iranians shouldn’t sleep too comfortably trying to figure out which one of those possibilities  they’re facing,” he continued. “If they guess wrong, the outcome for them is potentially catastrophic.”

Mark Dubowitz, the CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, framed the moves more as a negotiating tactic.

“Ahead of round 6, the U.S. is signaling: failure at the table means real consequences,” Dubowitz said on X. “Starting to move non-essential personnel and families —reversible but not trivial. Message to Khamenei: you can end this peacefully, or face serious preparedness if you don’t.”

Kurilla said in response to a question from lawmakers on Tuesday about retaliation from a potential Israeli strike on Iran that the U.S. is continually assessing threats to military personnel in the Middle East and taking steps to address potential vulnerabilities.

The IDF found and returned the bodies of U.S.-Israeli citizens Judith Weinstein-Haggai and Gad Haggai, who were killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office announced on Thursday.

The Haggais were murdered in Kibbutz Nir Oz during Hamas’ onslaught targeting Gaza border communities. Their bodies were held by Hamas, the PMO said.

The couple was on a morning walk when they were shot by terrorists on motorcycles. Weinstein-Haggai called emergency medical services, but the ambulance that was traveling to help them was hit by a rocket, according to her daughter. 

Gad was 72 and Judith, a New York native who also held Canadian citizenship, was 70; they are survived by four children and seven grandchildren.

The Weinstein-Haggai family released a statement via the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, saying that their return “is painful and heartbreaking, yet it also brings healing to our uncertainty. Their return reminds us all that it is the state’s duty to bring everyone home, so that we, the families, together with all the people of Israel, can begin the process of healing and recovery … A grave is not a privilege. A grave is a basic human right, without which personal and national recovery is impossible.”

The family called on leaders to “do everything necessary to reach an agreement that will return all 56 remaining hostages — the living for rehabilitation and the deceased for burial.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked the IDF soldiers and Shin Bet fighters who recovered the bodies and added, “We will not rest until we bring all of our hostages home, living and deceased.” 

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz sent condolences to the Weinstein-Haggai family and said that “the State of Israel is morally and nationally committed to returning our brothers and sisters, living and not living, and we will continue acting with determination until the mission is complete.”

The bodies of two American hostages, Itay Chen and Omer Neutra, remain in Gaza, out of a total of 56 hostages, 20 of whom are thought to be alive.

President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he had called off the U.S. bombing campaign against Houthi targets in Yemen after the terrorist group told the Trump administration this week that “they don’t want to fight anymore.”

Trump made the comments, which he described as “very good news,” while speaking to reporters from the Oval Office ahead of a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. 

“The Houthis have announced that they are not, or they’ve announced to us at least, that they don’t want to fight anymore. They just don’t want to fight, and we will honor that, and we will stop the bombings,” Trump said. “They have capitulated, but more importantly, we will take their word. They say they will not be blowing up ships anymore, and that’s what the purpose of what we were doing.”

The president added that his team had “just found out” about the developments, which he called “very, very positive.”

Israel conducted intensive strikes against the Houthis on Monday and Tuesday after the terror group struck Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport complex over the weekend, injuring six.

Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of the Houthi Political Council, told Bloomberg News that the group may stop attacking U.S. ships if the bombardment stops “but we will definitely continue our operations in support to Gaza” and that Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and against Israel “will not stop regardless of the consequences until the end of the aggression on Gaza and blockade on its people.”

The foreign minister of Oman, Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, said in a statement that “recent discussions and contacts conducted by the Sultanate of Oman with the United States and the relevant authorities in Sana’a … have resulted in a ceasefire agreement between the two sides. In the future, neither side will target the other, including American vessels, in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait, ensuring freedom of navigation and the smooth flow of international commercial shipping.”

Trump told reporters, “They were not going to have a lot of ships going, as you know, sailing beautifully down the various seas. It wasn’t just the canal, it was out of other places. And I will accept their word, and we are going to stop the bombing of the Houthis effective immediately,” later adding in response to a question about the news, “They don’t want to be bombed anymore. I sort of thought that would happen.”

Trump then turned to Secretary of State Marco Rubio to discuss the change in strategy, who stated, “This was always a freedom of navigation issue. These guys are a band of individuals with advanced weaponry that were threatening global shipping. And the job was to get that to stop, and if it’s going to stop, then we can stop. And so I think it’s an important development.”

Jake Rakov, a former congressional staffer for Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) who is now challenging Sherman for his Los Angeles-area congressional seat, has plenty of criticism aimed at his old boss. But one issue on which they appear largely in step is support for the U.S.-Israel relationship.

Rakov, 37, told Jewish Insider that the Democratic Party needs “a new generation to step up if we want to get anything done in Washington.” He’s one of a series of young insurgent candidates delivering a similar message as they challenge longtime Democratic incumbents whom they characterize as complacent and disconnected.

The former Sherman staffer worked for the California congressman for a year in 2017 as his deputy communications director. He said that he feels Sherman, who has served in the House since 1997, has failed to adapt his talking points and approach to the second Trump term, adding that he doesn’t feel Sherman is bringing the “energy” needed to challenge President Donald Trump and is not responsive, accessible or accountable to constituents.

Rakov’s campaign pitch is light on policy specifics, centered around a pledge to push for 10-year term limits for members of Congress, to not take corporate PAC funding and to hold monthly in-person town halls. But he told JI his focus areas would include science and technology policy, cybersecurity, transportation and infrastructure issues. 

Sherman’s campaign is indicating he’s not particularly worried about the challenge.

“Congressman Brad Sherman typically has half a dozen challengers every two years. Democrats, Republicans and others,” a Sherman campaign spokesperson said. “Mr. Rakov may be the first who apparently has never voted in Sherman’s district prior to announcing his candidacy. We welcome his entry into the race. Rakov has not identified any single one of Congressman Sherman’s thousands of votes that he disagrees with. So, at least there is an important aspect of the job that he believes Sherman has performed flawlessly.”

Sherman, who is Jewish, represents one of the most Jewish districts in the country and is a vocal and relatively hawkish supporter of Israel. Rakov, whose husband is Jewish, did not indicate any significant breaks with his former boss on that issue.

“I’m a strong supporter of the U.S.-Israel relationship. I understand the need to maintain that relationship and I would also be a proactive advocate in Congress for continuing to strengthen the vital allyship between our two countries,” Rakov said. “I see the need of that, especially in the state of the Middle East right now, for having such a close ally in the region.”

He said that he supports continued U.S. aid to Israel, explaining Israel “has the right to defend itself against terrorists and those who want to attack it.”

Rakov traveled to Israel with his husband shortly before the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks to visit his husband’s family. Rakov described it as an “absolutely amazing experience” seeing how “diverse” and “engaged” the Israeli people are.

“It was just amazing to see the culture and the Old City [of Jerusalem], all the history there, and everything was very awe-inspiring,” Rakov said.

Rakov said he was also struck by the conversations Israelis were having among themselves about the Israeli government and the country.

Rakov said he wants to see a path forward to reach peace and a negotiated two-state solution, and said the U.S. should play a central role in driving toward that goal.

Rakov’s support for Israel separates him from some of the other prominent challengers going after longtime Democratic incumbents, several of whom have carved out positions to the incumbents’ left on Israel policy.

Rakov also said that it’s in the U.S.’ interest to ensure Iran cannot develop nuclear weapons. He said he doesn’t have the expertise to discuss the possibility of military intervention, but said that he supports diplomatic overtures and providing support for the Iranian people to achieve democracy and a “functioning government that supports their rights.”

The district also has a significant Iranian-American diaspora population.

At home in the U.S., Rakov said that he wants to see better education and dialogue to combat antisemitism, especially on college campuses, instead of the punitive measures that the Trump administration has pursued, such as cutting off funding to schools. He said the administration should instead be focusing on “adding resources to educate students about antisemitism and discrimination in all forms.”

“If there are bad actors and if they violate the law, that’s very obviously not a peaceful protest or a First Amendment protected thing,” Rakov said. “I disagree with the idea of defunding universities or cutting back funding. I think this doesn’t solve the problem at hand.”

Reza Pahlavi, the son of former Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, argued on Monday that the U.S. has another option to address the Iranian nuclear program and other issues with the regime, aside from diplomacy and military strikes, which have come under serious discussion by the administration in recent weeks.

Speaking at an event organized by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the National Union for Democracy in Iran, Pahlavi and others argued for a strategy of providing support for Iranian dissidents, whom he said are prepared to overthrow the regime from within. 

The event was designed to promote that policy, which supporters have dubbed “maximum support” for the Iranian people, a play on and companion to the Trump administration’s “maximum-pressure” sanctions policy.

“All I’m asking is give the Iranian people a chance to put an end to all of these concerns,” Pahlavi said. “And if we fail, you always have those options. But jumping straight from ‘diplomacy is not working’ [to] ‘let’s go bomb the hell out of them’ — once again, you’re throwing the people of Iran under the bus which will only add insult to injury.”

“I think that the Iranians have understood that the more they are in numbers, they reach that critical number where change can really happen,” Pahlavi continued. “We are getting pretty close to that number.”

He said that the weakening of the regime and its proxies provides the “perfect opportunity to finally cut the state’s head, not by an outside force doing it for us, but … by supporting a change which is a combination of external pressure and internal pressure combined to ultimately bring the regime to its knees,” Pahlavi said. “If that is successful you won’t have to worry about having military strikes. You won’t have to worry about the existential threat [to] Israel.”

Pahlavi argued further that negotiations are a “waste of time” that the regime will only use to buy time. President Donald Trump said earlier on Thursday during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office that “high-level” direct negotiations between the U.S. and Iran will begin on Saturday.

Pahlavi said that increasing defections from the regime is critical both to bringing down the regime and ensuring stability in a new government, with defectors taking places in a reconstructed post-regime government to provide stability.

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), the lead sponsor of the Maximum Support Act, which aims to implement a set of policies to support the Iranian people, also spoke at the event, saying that the Iranian regime “has never been weaker,” which he attributed to Trump.

“I’m very hopeful that the success of the people of Syria should be the equivalent for the Middle East of the fall of the Berlin Wall for Europe and Central Asia, for, ultimately, the liberation of countries around the world,” Wilson said.

He argued that the U.S. “cannot meaningfully negotiate” with the Iranian regime.

High-level direct negotiations between the U.S. and Iran will begin on Saturday, President Donald Trump announced in an Oval Office meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday.

Netanyahu, who has historically expressed skepticism about the possibility of reaching an effective nuclear deal with Iran, raised the topic, saying that “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. If it can be done diplomatically as it was in Libya, that would be a good thing. But if it can’t, we have to ensure it has no nuclear weapons.” 

In response, the president said: “We are having direct talks with Iran. It’ll go on Saturday.”

Iran, however, has yet to publicly agree to enter direct talks with the U.S.

”I think everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious,” Trump added, a reference to a possible attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. “And the obvious is not something I want to be involved with or frankly, that Israel wants to be involved with if they can avoid it.” 

Trump said Iran’s nuclear program is “getting to be very dangerous territory.” 

Asked the level of the delegation to the nuclear talks, Trump said “high level, very high level … almost the highest level.” He would not say where the talks will take place.

The president’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said he had no comment when asked by Jewish Insider on Monday if he would be involved in the negotiations on Saturday.

Iranian state media reported on Tuesday that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Witkoff will lead the talks, characterized by Araghchi as “indirect,” in Oman. Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi will reportedly serve as the mediator.

The president acknowledged that it’s “a possibility” that Iran is trying to buy time and does not plan to seriously negotiate.

“I think if the talks aren’t successful with Iran, I think Iran is going to be in great danger, and I hate to say it. Great danger,” he said. “Because they can’t have a nuclear weapon. You know, it’s not a complicated formula. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, that’s all there is.”

However, Trump stopped short of threatening to bomb Iran, as he did last week.

The president said that if he makes a deal with Iran, “it’ll be different and maybe a lot stronger” than the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. 

Deputy Special Envoy Morgan Ortagus said in an interview with Al Arabiya that “what we’re not going to do is get into the Biden trap where you do indirect talks that last for years and the Iranians just string us along. Not happening in this administration.”

“If we’re going to have talks, they need to be quick, they need to be serious about dismantling their nuclear weapons program,” she said. “President Trump wants a peaceful future for both countries, but we’re not going to be extorted like the Biden administration was.” 

Ortagus noted that the U.N. Security Council Resolution underpinning the JCPOA, which would allow parties to the deal to snap back all pre-deal sanctions on Iran, expires in October, and that there have long been grounds to bring back those sanctions, because Iran has been violating the terms of the agreement since 2021.

This story was updated at 4 a.m. ET

Vice President J.D. Vance expressed deep reservations about the U.S. conducting strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen earlier this month in a private group chat with other senior administration officials, according to a bombshell report by The Atlantic.

Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, reported on Monday that National Security Advisor Mike Waltz had inadvertently added him to a group chat on Signal, an encrypted messaging application, with Vance and numerous Cabinet-level officials. Goldberg reported that Vance told the group chat, which debated and detailed the Trump administration’s plans to launch the strikes, that he thought they should hold off on the mission.

“Team, I am out for the day doing an economic event in Michigan. But I think we are making a mistake,” Vance reportedly texted the group on the morning of March 14. “3 percent of US trade runs through the suez. 40 percent of European trade does. There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary. The strongest reason to do this is, as POTUS said, to send a message.”

“I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now,” Vance continued. “There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices. I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself. But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pushed back on Vance’s arguments, explaining why he believed it would be a mistake to wait to conduct the strikes. 

“Waiting a few weeks or a month does not fundamentally change the calculus. 2 immediate risks on waiting: 1) this leaks, and we look indecisive; 2) Israel takes an action first – or Gaza cease fire falls apart – and we don’t get to start this on our own terms. We can manage both. We are prepared to execute, and if I had final go or no go vote, I believe we should,” Hegseth wrote to the group. 

“This [is] not about the Houthis. I see it as two things: 1) Restoring Freedom of Navigation, a core national interest; and 2) Reestablish deterrence, which Biden cratered. But, we can easily pause. And if we do, I will do all we can to enforce 100% OPSEC,” Hegseth continued, referring to operational security.

Vance replied directly to Hegseth shortly after, writing: “[I]f you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again.”

The comments underscore that Vance’s views are at odds with the prevailing foreign policy view in the Trump administration, and aligned with an isolationist wing of GOP foreign policy circles that has sought to expand its influence. By suggesting that Europe benefits more than the United States from the U.S. Navy’s protection of the Red Sea shipping lanes, he downplayed the national security threat posed by the Houthis in threatening international waterways.

(After the strikes against the Houthis, the Trump White House issued a statement reiterating the American interest in the region: “No terrorist force will stop American commercial and naval vessels from freely sailing the Waterways of the World.”)

A user with the initials SM — believed to be Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff for policy at the White House and a close Trump advisor — replied to these messages by suggesting the U.S. expects some recompense from its allies for carrying out the strikes.

“As I heard it, the president was clear: green light, but we soon make clear to Egypt and Europe what we expect in return,” the user wrote. “We also need to figure out how to enforce such a requirement. EG, if Europe doesn’t remunerate, then what? If the U.S. successfully restores freedom of navigation at great cost there needs to be some further economic gain extracted in return.”

A spokesperson for Vance said in a statement to Jewish Insider on Monday, “The Vice President’s first priority is always making sure that the President’s advisers are adequately briefing him on the substance of their internal deliberations. Vice President Vance unequivocally supports this administration’s foreign policy. The President and the Vice President have had subsequent conversations about this matter and are in complete agreement.”

The statement did not address whether the vice president did believe or still believes that striking the Houthis serves U.S. national security interests. 

A spokesperson for the National Security Council said in a statement, “At this time, the message thread that was reported appears to be authentic, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain. The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to our servicemembers or our national security.”

The leaked messages also revealed that senior Pentagon advisor Dan Caldwell and Joe Kent, the nominee to be director of the National Counterterrorism Center — subordinate to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — had been named as the lead deputies coordinating the operation for the Defense Department and ODNI.

Caldwell, a Koch network alumnus, took a leading role in the Pentagon transition process, helping to bring on a series of isolationist foreign policy hires into the Pentagon. Caldwell himself faced scrutiny for calls for the U.S. to pull back from the Middle East.

Kent, who is reportedly acting in an advisory role at ODNI before his confirmation, has past ties to white supremacists and neo-Nazis and promoted conspiracy theories.

The revelations have prompted immediate backlash from both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill.

“Classified information should not be transmitted on unsecured channels — and certainly not to those without security clearances, including reporters. Period,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) said.  “Safeguards must be put in place to ensure this never happens again.”

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) said that the messages should not have been shared on unclassified systems, adding that U.S. adversaries are likely monitoring Hegseth’s personal phone.

“If true, this story represents one of the most egregious failures of operational security and common sense I have ever seen,” Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee said.

Leaders of multiple intelligence agencies are set to appear before the Senate and House Intelligence committee on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, where they’re likely to face fierce scrutiny from Democrats over the security breach.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, posted an image mocking Hegseth. Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said he was “horrified” by the reports and that they were illegal and posed “calamitous risks.”