Russia has reaffirmed its support for Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri on the sidelines of the 17th Sir Bani Yas International Forum on Peace and Security.
“The Russian side reaffirmed its principled position in support of the unity, territorial integrity and sovereignty of this state,” the foreign ministry said in a statement published on its website.
The two sides also held a detailed exchange of views on developments in the Middle East, focusing on the situation in and around Lebanon, the statement said.
They also discussed prospects for strengthening traditionally friendly Russian-Lebanese relations, it said.
Every morning the cable networks put up the price of Brent and a graphic of a tanker, and every evening the experts reassure us that the oil is still flowing, more or less. Crude is the scoreboard everyone watches. It is also the wrong scoreboard.
Iran has hit roughly fifty ships in and around the Strait of Hormuz since September 1, most of them tankers. Against a world fleet of more than 8,000 tankers, that is a rounding error. Washington’s reassurance machine will tell you exactly that. What it won’t tell you is that a good share of what moves through the strait isn’t crude at all. It’s the stuff the modern economy is actually made of: the feedstocks for plastics, the methanol for chemicals, the urea and ammonia for fertilizer. And those markets are far less forgiving than oil.
If you want to know what Iran’s tanker campaign really costs, stop looking at the gas pump. Look in your kitchen.
What actually comes out of the Gulf
Start with plastic. The Middle East is the world’s largest exporter of polyethylene, the most widely used plastic on the planet. In 2025 the region shipped 18.7 million tons out of global exports of 43.8 million tons, more than 40 percent of the world total. According to ICIS, about 84 percent of the region’s polyethylene capacity depends on the Strait of Hormuz to reach the sea. Polypropylene and ethylene glycol, the raw material for polyester and PET bottles, follow the same route.
Then the feedstocks. Before the war, nearly 1.2 million barrels a day of naphtha moved through Hormuz, meeting 60 to 70 percent of Asia’s import needs, according to S&P Global. Asia’s steam crackers turn that naphtha into ethylene and propylene, the building blocks of nearly every plastic you own. The Gulf also supplies most of the propane and butane that feed Asia’s other plastics plants.
Then the chemicals. The Middle East exported more than 17 million tons of methanol in 2025. Iran alone shipped well over 9 million tons, and roughly 70 percent of China’s methanol imports came from the region. And fertilizer: by CRU’s count, nearly a third of global urea exports, 44 percent of sulfur exports and almost a fifth of ammonia exports pass through or originate west of the strait.
That’s the cargo Iran is shooting at. Not just oil, but the raw material for packaging, textiles, car parts, medical supplies and the fertilizer that grows the world’s food.
Why plastic bleeds faster than oil
Crude has escape hatches. Saudi Arabia can push oil across the peninsula to Yanbu, and the UAE can pipe it to Fujairah. Governments keep strategic petroleum reserves for exactly this kind of emergency. Petrochemicals have none of that. There is no strategic polyethylene reserve. Nobody stockpiles methanol for national security. And the giant plants at Jubail, Ras Laffan and Ruwais sit on the Gulf coast, built to load ships, not pipelines. As one analyst put it to Argaam, most petrochemical products cannot be rerouted the way crude can.
The ships are also more fragile, financially speaking. A VLCC hauling two million barrels at today’s freight rates can swallow a war-risk premium of several million dollars and still make money. The smaller product tankers, chemical tankers and gas carriers that move naphtha, methanol and LPG earn far less per voyage. Brokers noticed back in June that clean tankers were being scared off by insurance costs that crude carriers shrugged off. Every Iranian strike pushes those premiums up again, and the smallest, least profitable ships are the first to stop coming.
The buyers can’t easily switch, either. Asia’s crackers were built around Gulf naphtha. Some can burn more LPG instead, but that flexibility is limited, and the LPG comes through the same strait. When the naphtha stops, the crackers cut rates or declare force majeure. S&P put it bluntly: naphtha has moved beyond economics, and availability is now the core concern.
The numbers show it. UN data comparing April 2026 with a year earlier show Middle East methanol exports down 80 percent, urea down 83 percent and ammonia down 75 percent. Even polypropylene, the least affected of the twelve commodities the UN tracked, fell 24 percent.
The September head fake
Washington had a good September, or thought it did. With the US Navy escorting traffic down a southern route along the Omani coast, Gulf oil flows through Hormuz recovered to more than 81 percent of prewar levels, according to Kpler. The victory laps were drafted.
Iran read the same numbers and responded the way it said it would. The International Maritime Organization counted 34 confirmed attacks on ships between September 28 and October 27. On a single Sunday in October, six commercial vessels were hit, the most in one day since the war began. By mid-October, just seven tankers crossed the strait in a day, fewer than half the weekly average. The IRGC now announces, with some relish, that tankers using routes it hasn’t approved keep “striking mines.”
Here’s the part that matters for petrochemicals. Iran doesn’t need to sink a single chemical tanker to choke the chemical trade. It only needs to make each transit risky enough that the owners of small, low-margin ships stay home. The crude may limp through under Navy escort. The naphtha, methanol and polymers ride on the ships least able to bear the risk.
Who gets the bill
Asia first. Japan, South Korea and India depend on imported Gulf feedstocks, and their crackers have spent the year cutting rates or declaring force majeure. China’s polyethylene output in April fell 8.2 percent from a year earlier because its naphtha-fed crackers couldn’t get enough feedstock. S&P Global Market Intelligence estimates the disruption has taken nearly 20 percent of global ethylene capacity and as much as 40 percent of Asian naphtha supply off the market. Europe, whose crackers also run on naphtha, is not far behind.
Then everyone else. Polyethylene prices nearly doubled between the end of February and April. Dow and Celanese raised prices. Plastic is in the packaging for your groceries, the dashboard of your car, the syringes at your hospital and the polyester in your shirt. When the price of the resin doubles, it doesn’t stay in the chemical industry. It works its way onto store shelves, quietly, a few cents at a time.
And then there is food. Urea, ammonia and sulfur are not plastics, but they ride the same strait and suffer the same insurance math. Farmers who pay more for fertilizer either pass it on or plant less. Either way, you pay.
In fairness, there is one winner. American petrochemical producers, sitting on cheap shale gas along the Gulf Coast, have enjoyed a windfall as buyers scramble for resin that doesn’t pass through Hormuz. So if you were wondering who benefits from this war, check the quarterly earnings in Houston.
Two years, if everything goes right
Don’t take my word for how long the hangover lasts. Take the word of the man who runs the world’s biggest oil company. Speaking in London on October 5, Aramco chief executive Amin Nasser said the world entered this crisis with almost 10 billion barrels of oil in storage and has since lost nearly 3 billion barrels of supply, roughly half of what would normally have moved through Hormuz. Less than 6 billion barrels of commercial inventory remain, he said, and most of that is not practically available. His verdict: “Until Hormuz fully re-opens and confidence returns, the crude reality is that pressure at both ends of the barrel will intensify. Even then, replenishing inventories while meeting demand could take up to two years.” He repeated the warning in Riyadh a week later.
Note the conditions. Two years starts only after the strait fully reopens, and only if confidence returns. Every Iranian strike since then has pushed that starting gun further back.
And Nasser was talking about crude, the commodity with all the advantages. Crude has strategic reserves to draw on, a 7-million-barrel-a-day East-West pipeline to Yanbu and a Saudi upstream that Nasser says remains fully intact. Petrochemicals have none of those cushions. There is no strategic reserve of naphtha or methanol to refill. The plants that make them sit on the Gulf coast with no pipeline around the strait. If the best-protected product in the Gulf needs two years to get back to normal after the shooting stops, you can do the math on polyethylene yourself.
Except that the escape hatch is now under fire too. The East-West pipeline is carrying about 4 million barrels a day of Saudi crude to Yanbu, roughly 4 percent of global supply, and it is the main reason Saudi Arabia has avoided the fate of its neighbors. The Houthis know it. On Thursday they claimed strikes on a pumping station along the pipeline, the oil facility at Yanbu and an Aramco building in Riyadh. On Friday they claimed another pumping station, along with Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport. My sources tell me pumping station 11 was destroyed. Riyadh, as usual, has confirmed nothing.
This is not the first time. In September, attacks on the pipeline set fires at three pumping stations, and Saudi Arabia shut down the entire line as a precaution before rigging bypasses. The pipeline has 13 pumping stations, and every one taken out cuts how much crude reaches the Red Sea. So the one alternative route Nasser was counting on, the one he said kept Brent from hitting $200, is being taken apart one station at a time. Two years was the optimistic case. It assumed the bypass would hold.
The math Washington skipped
The planners who started this war modeled oil. They had the SPR, the escort plan and the pipeline workarounds. What they apparently didn’t model was that the Persian Gulf is also one of the world’s great chemical plants, and that its output has no pipeline, no reserve and no Navy escort sized to protect a fleet of small, uninsurable ships.
Iran figured that out. Its tanker campaign doesn’t have to win at sea. It only has to keep the strait dangerous enough, long enough, for the world to run short of the things that are made from what passes through it. Each strike resets the insurance clock and keeps the small ships away for another month.
So the next time someone in Washington tells you the oil is still flowing, ask them about the naphtha, the methanol and the polyethylene. Then go look at the price of a pack of diapers. That’s where this war is being lost.
In August 1949, three months after Israel joined the United Nations, Lebanon’s envoy in Washington sent his government a long report. Charles Malik, no firebrand, had signed the UN Charter and helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. His Report on the Present Situation lay largely unread until Dar An-Nahar printed it in 2002.
The Arabic text is online; the translations below are mine, with the book’s page numbers.
Malik calls Palestine “the gravest Arab question of all”, whose outcome “is the outcome of the whole Arab world” (p. 24). Then he warns:
“Everything that has happened so far in Palestine and concerning Palestine is only a beginning. As for the end, it may be either the crushing of the Arab world and its colonisation by the Jews, or its rising anew as a modern, respected world, sharing with the living civilisations in creating values and preserving them. Whatever happens, the near future will be darker than the present and more dangerous than the past.” (p. 27)
A word on Malik’s language. He writes “the Jews” where we would now write the Zionist entity and the organised bodies abroad that back it: the Zionist movement and the vast bulk of organised Jewry. The movement named itself that way: a Jewish Agency, a Jewish National Fund, a Jewish state. In the Levant, the conquest of Palestine was experienced as an attack by Jews. That describes a political project and its institutions. It is not a racial term, and it says nothing about Jews as a people, some of whom opposed Zionism then and oppose it now. Malik’s target is the movement and the state it had just built:
“… the Jews’ triumph in seizing the greater part of Palestine and building their state, … and Israel’s entry as a member of the United Nations: all this is not an act at which the ambitions of the Jews stop and with which their danger ends. The State of Israel, in its present condition and borders, is not a resting place for the invading Jewish force, but a centre where it gathers, a soil in which it grows, and a point from which it sets out across its borders and springs upon the Arab countries, the adjacent and then the distant: politically, economically and socially, and, if need be, militarily. And I think it will need to.” (pp. 27–28)
“The Zionists have succeeded in all this. But they will not be content with this partial success, nor satisfied with this measure of victory, because their ambitions do not end at the patch of Palestine they have seized, nor stop at the borders the world has recognised for them. … Zionist policy is, at its core, an ambitious expansionist policy. The whole of Palestine is not enough for the needs of the Jews, nor does it sate the appetite of their leaders. … Israel wants to dominate the Arab world; it wants to be the heir of all its previous eras. Just as it was once known, in whole or in part, as the Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Turkish or Mandate era, so Zionism wants it to be known in its coming era as the Israeli era. The Arab world is Zionism’s vital space.” (pp. 40–41)
“… They will succeed in persuading the West, and in persuading some of our own politicians and thinkers, that they are the intermediary between the West and the Near East, in economics and development, in culture and thought, and in politics, and that they are the ones fit to represent the Near East, its interests, its will and its forces, to the West. … A day will come, if it has not already come, when all economic and development projects and all rescue plans … rest at bottom on the Jewish will, aimed in their motives at numbing the Arabs and distracting them from the shame of Israel’s establishment in their midst, and in their end at forcing them to recognise it and cooperate with it. These projects will be built so as, first and foremost, to entrench Israel’s foundations and make it the cornerstone of the economic structure and the pillar of development in the Near East.” (pp. 43–44)
Now Benjamin Netanyahu. At the UN in 2023, he hailed a “visionary corridor that will stretch across the Arabian Peninsula and Israel” to “connect India to Europe”, and said: “Israel can become a bridge of peace and prosperity between these continents.” “Israel must be a power,” he told a Mossad gathering in 2015. “Not just a regional power, but in some spheres, a world power.” In December 2025, two years into the genocide in Gaza, he declared in the Knesset that Israel “is the strongest power in the Middle East, and in certain fields, it is a global power.”
A page earlier, Malik had described what such a position would mean:
“For a day will come — and it may be near, if it is not already here — when nothing in the Arab world is loosed or bound except with the consent of the Jews. Then governments, regimes and individuals will be upheld or overturned according to the Jews’ approval or anger: a head of state or a head of government will rise or fall because Tel Aviv, and behind it world Jewry concentrated in New York and other Western capitals, wanted him to rise or to fall.” (pp. 42–43)
“I have repeatedly been given to understand that very important matters, such as development projects, international loans, and treaties and agreements for security in the Middle East, were left undecided or set aside because those with the power to decide on them had first consulted the Jews about them.” (p. 43)
The same line applies: Malik’s “world Jewry” is the organised Zionist movement in Western capitals, standing “behind” Tel Aviv. Read that way, the passage is prescient, as Israel’s record in Lebanon shows. Who today can say that this is far from the mark on the reality of contemporary political life?
A partial ambition
Malik’s “partial success” is the key. Zionist leaders always claimed more than they accepted at any moment. Acceptance was tactical.
At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, the Zionist Organization proposed a northern border starting “south of Sidon” and an eastern line “close to and west of the Hedjaz Railway”, well east of the Jordan.
When the Peel Commission offered a small state in 1937, David Ben-Gurion told his son Amos why he would take it: “A partial Jewish state is not the end, but only the beginning … I am certain that we will not be prevented from settling in other parts of the country, either by mutual agreement with our Arab neighbors or by some other means.”
In June 1938, the historian Nur Masalha shows from the Jewish Agency Executive’s minutes, Ben-Gurion accepted part of the country “on the basis of the assumption that after we build up a strong force following the establishment of the state – we will abolish the partition of the country and we will expand to the whole Land of Israel.”
Ze’ev Jabotinsky, founder of Revisionist Zionism, had already spelled out the method in 1923: colonisation “must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population”, behind “an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach”.
Menachem Begin’s Irgun answered the UN partition vote of November 1947, as he recorded in The Revolt: “The partition of the Homeland is illegal. It will never be recognized. … Eretz Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And for ever.”
Lebanon
Malik’s sharpest fear was for Lebanon. He warned of “a secret agreement between Israel and some short-sighted Lebanese”, who would then “carry out a coup loyal to Israel”. It “would not be counted as aggression by Israel, but as a mere internal movement”, leaving the West no room to act. Yet such a coup “would inevitably lead to chaos, then Syrian Arab intervention, then Israeli intervention, and so to a new war, and Lebanon will not be the winner in it at all” (pp. 145–146).
He did not know what Ben-Gurion had written on 24 May 1948, in a diary now published by the Ben-Gurion Archive: “Lebanon is the weak link in the Arab coalition. The Muslim government is artificial and easy to destabilize. A Christian state should be established with the Litani [River] as its southern border. We’ll form an alliance with it.”
In May 1955, according to Moshe Sharett’s diary as translated by Livia Rokach, Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan said Israel need only “find an officer, even just a Major”, then “create a Christian regime which will ally itself with Israel” and annex “the territory from the Litani southward”. It is almost exactly Malik’s plot.
In March 1949, US records show, Malik had asked Dean Acheson for a declaration “that no further expansion on the part of Israel would be permitted.” None came.
Seventy-seven years on
Malik’s answer was Arab renewal. Without it, he wrote, “I am certain that our future is colonisation and enslavement by the Jews. And I am certain of more than that: I am certain that in that case no one will grieve over our enslavement” (p. 42).
Against the genocide in Gaza, the wars on Lebanon and the seizures of Syrian territory, the report reads as description. In August 2025 Netanyahu said he felt “very much” connected to the vision of Greater Israel. Malik would not have been surprised. The ambition was never dropped, only deferred until the force existed to pursue it.
Arabic original: Charles Malik, شارل مالك، إسرائيل… أميركا… والعرب: تنبؤات من نصف قرن – تقرير في الوضع الحاضر، 5 آب 1949 (Israel… America… and the Arabs: Prophecies from Half a Century – Report on the Present Situation, 5 August 1949), preface by Ghassan Tueni (Beirut: Dar An-Nahar, first edition August 2002; scan of the third printing, March 2003). Read it on archive.org or download the PDF.
On the very morning of the critical US midterm elections, President Donald Trump made what seemed like a shocking announcement: no more aid to Israel.
“Bibi Netanyahu and I have made a deal that we give Israel $4 billion a year, and we made a deal months ago that we’re stopping,” Trump toldFox News’ Fox & Friends.
He goes on to make two seemingly contradictory assertions: “We won’t be paying Israel,” and “We’ll help Israel if they need it.”
In truth, there was little euphoria among those who have long campaigned against US funding of Israel. The lack of enthusiasm can be explained by two factors: few take Trump’s pledges seriously, and his remarks were widely understood as a desperate attempt to stave off what was shaping up to be a disastrous election outcome.
The election ultimately delivered one of the most humiliating defeats in Republican Party history, with Democrats capturing both the Senate and House of Representatives and making sweeping gains across the country.
Republicans quickly turned against Trump, who made the unusual admission that the war on Iran had contributed to their defeat.
Vice President JD Vance, widely considered a potential presidential contender in 2028, was more explicit. “The reason we lost is the war,” Vance tweeted on 4 November, calling for Republicans to “change our relationship to Israel.”
Though Vance was criticised by some within his party for naming Israel, the clearest indication that unconditional US support for Israel had become a major political liability came from Trump himself.
First, his rushed Election Day announcement was an unmistakable attempt to influence voters before they cast their ballots. Trump failed, but in doing so, he revealed that he and his party understood Israel had become a major factor in their political predicament.
Indeed, Trump described the $4 billion payment as “a bad talking point,” complaining that critics were using it against Republicans.
Second, Trump’s acknowledgment that the Iran war had hurt Republicans exposed the very Israel connection that Vance was prepared to articulate more openly.
The war on Iran was not America’s war. It was Netanyahu’s war, pursued as part of his longstanding quest to dominate the Middle East, with Washington paying the military, economic and political price.
This is hardly hyperbole. Netanyahu has repeatedly presented Iran as an existential enemy, while his far-right allies have openly celebrated American military involvement.
Ironically, Washington’s own 2026 National Defense Strategy had identified defending the US homeland and asserting American interests throughout the Western Hemisphere as its foremost priorities. Yet the administration plunged into another devastating Middle Eastern war.
Thanks to independent journalists and analysts operating outside mainstream media, Americans have become increasingly aware of the damage this relationship has inflicted on their country’s economy, military standing and international reputation.
According to Quinnipiac University, 48 percent of registered American voters now believe the US is too supportive of Israel, compared with just 16 percent in January 2017.
This growing awareness, coupled with the seismic shift in Congress following the midterms, is still not enough to guarantee tangible and irreversible change.
The midterm results nevertheless offer a major ray of hope that America is not a lost cause after all, and that ordinary people possess enough knowledge and determination to challenge the powerful interests, mega-donors and shadowy agendas shaping their country’s foreign policy.
There is a fundamental lesson here: Americans can no longer be satisfied with empty promises. And this brings us back to Trump’s announcement.
Israel has been the largest cumulative recipient of US foreign assistance, with the Council on Foreign Relations estimating that American aid since 1948 has exceeded $300 billion, adjusted for inflation.
That staggering figure, however, hardly tells half the story. Washington has consistently found ways to finance Israel’s wars beyond the declared annual military assistance of $3.8 billion.
For example, in April 2024, President Joe Biden signed emergency legislation providing Israel with an additional $8.7 billion in direct military assistance, separate from the regular annual allocation. The money included $3.5 billion in additional Foreign Military Financing and $5.2 billion for missile defense programs.
These extraordinary funding mechanisms demonstrate how Washington can continue financing Israel’s military even when regular assistance becomes politically controversial.
And that is only part of the picture.
Congress has been considering proposals to expand US-Israeli defense technology cooperation, potentially shifting more spending into Pentagon research, development and procurement accounts.
In essence, Israel could continue benefiting from billions in American military spending without those expenditures being labeled conventional foreign aid.
What Trump appears to be offering, therefore, is a sleight of hand: remove the politically damaging label of aid while preserving, and potentially expanding, the military relationship itself.
A Democratic-controlled Congress could block some of these initiatives. But many Democrats remain committed supporters of Israel, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC, will continue to spend heavily to influence congressional elections.
True, association with the lobby has become a political liability for some candidates. But AIPAC and its allies can be expected to seek alternative strategies, political vehicles and alliances to preserve their influence.
The election results are certainly a major step in the right direction, but America’s political civil war is only beginning: progressive Democrats against the party establishment, disillusioned Republicans against MAGA loyalists, independent media against mainstream institutions, and so on.
The good news, for now, is that the tireless work of generations of conscientious Americans are finally paying off. Thanks in no small part to their efforts, millions of Americans are beginning to recognise that Israel is not a friend of their country, and that this sinister relationship must end once and for all.
The US-Israeli war on Iran has cost Persian Gulf states more than $200 billion in physical damage and will erase $790 billion in expected growth by 2030, according to a report by insurance firm Allianz Trade published on 9 November.
“Physical damage across the region is assessed just above $200bn, mostly concentrated in Hormuz-locked economies, especially in energy infrastructure,” the report states.
Iran’s retaliatory strikes on US assets also hit host-country airports, seaports, landmarks and more than 80 energy facilities—mostly in Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain. About a third of the facilities were heavily damaged.
Tourism and real estate have also taken a hit, and the report expects both sectors to grow more slowly in the years ahead.
The report says the $790 billion is the output Gulf economies are expected to lose from 2026 to 2030 compared with pre-war growth forecasts—equivalent to 5.9 percent of GDP over the five-year period.
Gulf states are expected to offset some of the losses by redirecting about $120 billion from their sovereign wealth funds into domestic investments through 2030, leaving less money to invest abroad.
Surplus earnings generated from their trade and overseas holdings are expected to fall by half.
Gulf spending has also been forced to shift away from mega-projects toward resilience and security, and domestic infrastructure and defense outlays are set to reach $380–400 billion by 2030, opening up roughly $160 billion in opportunities for private and foreign investors, the Allianz report noted.
Saudi Aramco reported last week that its third-quarter net profit rose 34.6 percent, despite restricted access to Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab, driven by higher oil prices.
However, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects that Riyadh’s economy will contract by 3.3 percent this year, a five-point downgrade from its July forecast.
In mid-October, IMF regional director Jihad Azour warned that the Gulf’s oil-producing economies will not return to their pre-war growth path in the medium term, as the war has left lasting damage across several sectors.
Azour said the region initially avoided an energy crisis by using reserves, stockpiles, non-Gulf supplies, and alternative shipping routes. Those buffers are nearly depleted, making a prolonged war the region’s biggest economic threat.
The prospect of a Democratic takeover of Congress in January 2027 is raising the possibility of a sweeping investigation into the Trump administration’s decision to wage war on Iran, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu potentially facing scrutiny over reports that he pushed US President Donald Trump into the war.
As Republican lawmakers question War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s handling of the war amid rising impeachment calls, Israeli website Zman Yisrael has warned that the political fallout could put “Israel” in the dock, as it faces congressional scrutiny.
Republican divisions deepen
Republican Representative Thomas Massie, who lost his party’s primary election and whose term in Congress is expected to end in January 2027, submitted articles of impeachment to remove Hegseth last Monday.
The impeachment resolution contains eight articles, centered on the Trump administration’s waging of war on Iran without the approval of Congress, as the Constitution requires.
It also notes that the administration continued the war even after the expiry of the sixty days, after which obtaining the approval of both the House of Representatives and the Senate becomes mandatory in order to continue the fighting.
But the proceedings alone are not what threatens Hegseth. The fundamental problem facing him and other senior Trump administration officials lies in the House committees, which will begin investigating the decision-making process during the months that preceded the war on Iran.
US intelligence assessments under scrutiny ahead of public hearings
The Israeli website acknowledged that “the United States and Israel did not achieve their unofficial goal, which was toppling the Iranian regime.” Instead, the battle plunged Washington into a series of crises: a sharp rise in energy prices, a jump in consumer goods prices, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz (which had been open until the outbreak of the war), and fatal damage to US infrastructure and bases in the region, in addition to harm to US allies in the Gulf.
It said, “It is true that US President Donald Trump, as well as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have repeated in public statements the claim that they triumphed, defeated, eliminated, and destroyed, but it is likely that, with the exception of Hegseth, no one in the world believed it.”
It warned that the repercussions of the deliberations in Congress could be grave for “Israel”. In the first phase, which is taking place this week against the backdrop of Massie’s proposal, no hearings or committee deliberations will be held, and no investigation of Hegseth is expected. But starting in January, with the majority changing hands in both chambers, “Israel may find itself in the dock,” according to the website.
‘Netanyahu dragged Trump into war’
Although members of the House of Representatives, and possibly senators later on, do not have the authority to compel officials of the Israeli administration to testify, they are expected to question US officials about the intelligence that their Israeli counterparts provided to them.
Democratic Representative Gregory Meeks, who is expected to assume the chairmanship of the Foreign Affairs Committee, has already pledged to launch an in-depth investigation into the Trump administration’s decision-making process before going to war.
Where could all of this drag “Israel”? An extensive New York Times investigation revealed what transpired behind closed doors between Netanyahu and Trump during the private meeting held on February 11, 2026, a little more than two weeks before the war began.
The investigation described Netanyahu as the person who dragged Trump into the war, despite several public statements by the president in which he said he had made the decision himself and that no one had pushed him to do so.
Later, the newspaper’s two White House correspondents, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, published the book “Regime Change,” in which they detailed that US intelligence had been highly skeptical of the presentation Netanyahu delivered at the White House and that CIA Director John Ratcliffe described some of the ideas concerning toppling the Iranian regime as “a farce”.
When the going gets tough, Rubio flips
These issues are expected to be put on the table in public hearings before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Senior Trump administration officials will be asked to answer pointed questions: Why did Washington assess that the Iranian system would collapse? What was the intelligence that led to the war based on? And other questions. Such proceedings are expected to be wholly uncomfortable for the Israeli side.
And if that were not enough, Trump himself has joined, in recent days, the voices saying that the war on Iran inflicted one of the Republican Party’s biggest political defeats.
In addition, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a politician known for his clearly pro-“Israel” positions, addressed the day before yesterday the halting of security aid to “Israel”.
He said, “Israel is a rich enough country, and they can buy weapons from us, but we will not fund that.”
The prospect of a congressional investigation into the Trump administration’s decision to wage war on Iran adds to the growing political pressure on the White House, as divisions within the Republican Party deepen and opposition to renewed military action gains ground.
Against this backdrop, Haaretz has reported that Trump’s room for maneuver has narrowed considerably, leaving Netanyahu increasingly isolated in his push to resume the war.
Trump’s post-election retreat leaves Netanyahu increasingly isolated on Iran
Trump’s options for renewed military action against Iran have narrowed significantly following the Republican Party’s loss of its majorities in both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections, Harretz reported.
The Israeli newspaper said, “While Netanyahu is returning to his vision of launching a new war, the White House appears to have lost interest in the matter.”
It assessed that “the chances now clearly favor ending the war on Iran amid Trump’s continued shifts in position,” noting that he has been wavering on the issue for more than six months, after effectively halting the momentum of the war last April.
Netanyahu pushes for renewed war
Trump said early yesterday that there appeared to be no need to resume the war and that a return to fighting would be “a highly unlikely scenario.”
He added that the war was “effectively over” militarily, making a relatively definitive statement that he had avoided making in recent months.
The Israeli newspaper noted that “three main options have long been under consideration: resuming the offensive, potentially in coordination with “Israel”, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been pushing for; reaching an agreement with Iran that includes restrictions on its nuclear program; or maintaining economic pressure.”
In recent days, the Trump administration announced the launch of “Operation Iron Gate” to shut down Iran’s land trade routes, as a measure complementing the naval blockade.
According to the newspaper, Trump’s latest statements indicate that he has chosen, at this stage, to continue the policy of “economic strangulation” against Iran, hoping to force it into an agreement on terms more favorable to the United States.
Trump’s war options narrow
Haaretz added that this comes despite the absence of any current signs that Iran’s leadership is retreating or yielding to pressure.
These developments come amid ongoing mediation efforts by Qatar and several other Gulf countries, which are seeking to prevent the war from resuming.
“Israel currently appears to be the only country in the region whose leadership — the current leadership, whose continued hold on power has been called into question by the results of the Knesset elections — still supports resuming the war,” Haaretz added.
The newspaper also noted that the Trump administration includes an influential group of senior officials opposed to resuming the war, led by Vice President JD Vance. This group has stepped up its criticism of efforts to continue the war since the Republicans’ defeat in the elections.
Lt. Col. Daniel Davis is a 4x combat veteran, the recipient of the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling, and is the host of the Daniel Davis Deep Dive YouTube channel. Daniel Davis Deep Dive: https://www.youtube.com/@DanielDavisDeepDive/videos
00:00 The West’s “1992” mindset and a changing balance of power
03:59 Unattainable objectives, morality, and the rules-based order
09:38 Operation Iron Gate: Can Iran’s land borders be sealed?
13:12 Why Davis calls the proposed blockade a fantasy
17:26 Show of strength, negotiation, or a path back to war?
21:02 Two possible exits from the Iran conflict
25:28 Why the Strait of Hormuz changes the stakes
28:59 Russia and Ukraine: the same strategic miscalculation
33:40 Closing thoughts on Western policy toward Russia
“Look, if you’re in the administration and you’re ready to… run for president, you need to continue taking in the lessons that were sent by the American people on Tuesday, and it was really the same lesson that was sent in 2024,” she advised in a video post the day after the midterms.
“No more foreign wars, (Americans) don’t support the war in Iran,” Greene said. “We don’t want to fund foreign countries and foreign wars. We don’t want to fund Israel, we don’t want to fund killing children in Gaza.”
“And we want to put Americans first,” she added.
The deeply unpopularIran war was at the center of why Republicans performed so poorly on Tuesday. Even before that, voters in both major parties were already souring on the U.S. backing of Israel and particularly the bloodshed in Gaza at the hands of the Israel Defence Forces, a policy that Trump has been fully invested in, as was President Joe Biden. This anger was particularly salient among younger voters and even most young Jewish-Americans.
In mid-2025, then-Rep. Greene, who the New York Timesdescribed at the time as “an avatar of MAGA politics on Capitol Hill,” became the first congressional Republican to call the Gaza crisis a “genocide.”
“It’s the most truthful and easiest thing to say that Oct. 7 in Israel was horrific and all hostages must be returned, but so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza,” Greene said in a social media post on July 28, 2025.
As her vocal opposition to the war grew, so did her criticism of foreign aid, which she saw as prioritizing Israel over U.S. interests. She also demanded the administration release the Epstein files, an original MAGA promise. It was then that Trump began machine-gunning MTG with new names: calling her “wacky,” “lunatic,” and even “Marjorie Traitor Greene,” insisting that the once avid MAGAite had turned against him and his movement.
When she was elected to Congress in 2020, Greene was presented regularly by legacy media as merely the QAnon candidate, reportedly dabbling in rightwing conspiracy theories. In that same period, Trump called Greene “a future Republican star.”
Five years later, after she resigned from Congress, it was Trump who was calling Greene crazy. By then, the feeling was mutual.
Yet it was also Trump who went from promising no new wars on the campaign trail, often flanked by Greene, to later justifying his own war of choice by conjuring up questionable, but familiar, propaganda about Iran being weeks away from having a nuclear weapon and the U.S. having to end the war with Tehran after “47 years.”
In November 2025, Greene announced that she would not run for re-election, saying she refused to be a “battered wife,” seemingly referring to Trump’s reneging on his campaign promises combined with increased attacks on her personally. Trump had already vowed to back a primary challenger against her.
“I have too much self-respect and dignity, love my family way too much, and do not want my sweet district to have to endure a hurtful and hateful primary against me by the president we all fought for, only to fight and win my election while Republicans will likely lose the midterms,” Greene explained a year ago.
Greene was in a similar position to that of her friend and fellow antiwar Republican ally, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who did run for re-election this year and was defeated in his Kentucky GOP primary in May by Trump-aligned, billionaire pro-Israel donors in the most expensive House primary race in U.S. history.
Greene never surrendered her antiwar, anti-genocide posture, and in fact has probably become more fierce since she decided not to seek re-election. Nor has she abandoned the America First brand that defined Trump’s 2016, 2020 and 2024 presidential campaigns, a message that some Democrats successfully capitalized on after Trump discarded it.
And Greene noticed.
When Zohran Mamdani, the self-described democratic socialist mayor of New York City, participated in a debate during his 2025 campaign, the candidates were asked if he or she would like to visit Israel. Popular rightwing populist Tucker Carlson remarked to Greene during an interview that Mamdani, “was the only person in the New York City mayor’s debate to say he wanted to focus on New York City.”
Carlson noted that unlike the other candidates, Mamdani said “I’m running New York. That’s my job.”
“He gave the right answer,” Greene responded. Carlson agreed. How prescient both were.
In late October, Greene said the best way the Trump administration could ensure a win for Democratic Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed over reliably hawkish Republican Mike Rogers would be to attack Iran again before the midterms.
It’s a stupid senseless war and America hates it,” she posted on X
“We also hate neocons,” Greene added. “This is not an endorsement, I’m not a Democrat, but I’m also not a neocon Republican.”
El-Sayed himself was asked in July about a potential crossover between his philosophy and Greene’s, known to many as just “MTG.”
“So I talked to a former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene on this podcast in April and it’s kind of remarkable how similar some of your positions are. Like, she also has condemned AIPAC’s influence and politics, called for no more US taxpayer dollars to Israel, said that the cost of health insurance needs to go down,” Dasha Burns posited to El-Sayed on her POLITICO podcast, “The Conversation.”
“Do you think you could build this new coalition with people like MTG?” the Democrat was asked.
“When you ask me about why establishment elite Democrats are so worried about me? It’s because there are a lot of people who listen to her who are going to vote for me in the general election,” he replied.
Democrat El-Sayed handily defeated his Republican opponent last Tuesday by running his own version of an “America First” campaign. “And when it comes to the question of foreign policy, the difference is usually AIPAC money. And if we got that money out, maybe our political consensus would match our public consensus,” El-Sayed said of the formidable pro-Israel lobby.
Greene said after the election, “I think America spoke very loudly that we don’t want politicians that are loyal to AIPAC and loyal to a foreign country.”
Marjorie Taylor Greene began her Washington career as the most devoted Trump loyalist, who would go to the wall for his America First message. She still does.
It was Trump who reversed course, leading so many in the same coalition that delivered him the election two years ago to now reject him and his latest iteration of the GOP.
“Marjorie is strong on everything and never gives up – a real WINNER!,” Trump wrote in 2020.
“We never changed, Trump did,” Greene wrote in August.
Donald Trump was right. Marjorie Taylor Greene never gave up.
But he did.
Jack Hunter is the former political editor of Rare.us. Jack has written regularly for Modern Age, Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The American Conservative, Spectator USA and has appeared in Politico Magazine and The Daily Beast. Hunter is the co-author of the The Tea Party Goes to Washington by Sen. Rand Paul.
US President Donald Trump’s second term has exposed a reality starkly at odds with his promises to end crises and “achieve world peace,” as wars continue and economic difficulties deepen, Israeli reserve Major General Yitzhak Brik said.
In an article published by the Israeli newspaper Maariv, Brik noted that the West Asia region remains engulfed in an ongoing war, amid fears that the confrontation could spread to other parts of the world. Meanwhile, the global economy is deteriorating rather than experiencing the prosperity Trump had promised.
Brik argued that the outcome of the US midterm elections, in which Republicans lost control of Congress, reflected the extent of public dissatisfaction with Trump’s policies and declining confidence in his ability to resolve the crises he had pledged to address.
According to Brik, the US president is now facing consequential decisions over the war on Iran, amid sharp divisions within his administration and the absence of a unified strategy for dealing with the evolving confrontation.
US divided over war
Brik further stated that disagreements within the White House revolve around two principal options: escalating military attacks on Iran in an attempt to achieve a decisive outcome through force, or maintaining economic pressure while pursuing an agreement that could bring the war to an end and prevent further escalation.
However, military and political calculations are not the only factors shaping Trump’s decisions, the Israeli general said. He suggested that the US president’s sense of “humiliation” over Iran’s treatment of him could drive him to launch an attack out of a desire for revenge rather than on the basis of strategic assessments.
He warned that a military decision motivated by such considerations could have grave consequences for the entire region, particularly if “Israel” joined any new offensive.
A catastrophe for ‘Israel’
Brik stressed that another aerial assault on Iran, potentially involving “Israel”, could rapidly trigger a full-scale regional war in which “Israel” would find itself at the center.
He acknowledged that the damage “Israel” could sustain in such a confrontation would be “enormous and unbearable,” noting that some of the damage it suffered during previous rounds of fighting had already become irreparable.
Brik called on the “sensible and responsible” figures within the US administration to dissuade Trump from ordering another attack, warning that further escalation could open the door to a confrontation extending far beyond the current war.
He argued that the expectation that airstrikes alone could secure a decisive military victory over Iran rests on unrealistic assumptions. Without a ground intervention, he said, aerial operations cannot topple the Iranian government or prevent Iran from becoming a “nuclear state”.
Citing the outcome of previous attacks, Brik maintained that they had failed to achieve their strategic objectives, producing little more than temporary destruction while strengthening Tehran’s determination to continue developing its capabilities.
What are the costs of war?
In outlining the options available to Washington, Brik argued that addressing Iran’s nuclear program would require one of two principal courses of action, neither of which could produce results without imposing a substantial cost.
The first option would involve a large-scale ground operation inside Iranian territory, directly targeting nuclear facilities with substantial troop deployments, extensive air support, and the use of technological and intelligence capabilities.
Brik believed this option could potentially deliver a decisive military defeat to the Iranian government and neutralize its nuclear facilities. He acknowledged, however, that it would require a massive operation resulting in heavy casualties among US forces.
The second option would involve economically exhausting Iran through stringent sanctions and a prolonged blockade, backed by the full participation of Western countries, with the aim of isolating the Iranian economy from global markets.
He specified that this approach would require preventing Iran from exporting oil, gas, and other products, while restricting the entry of raw materials and weapons through land crossings, thereby subjecting Tehran to sustained economic pressure.
Brik acknowledged that this option had a lower likelihood of success than a ground military campaign and would require prolonged patience, international discipline, and broad Western commitment.
At the same time, Brik rejected reliance on a “middle-ground solution” based on repeating aerial attacks, arguing that such an approach would neither halt Iran’s nuclear program nor achieve a decisive military outcome. Instead, it could drag “Israel” into a regional war in which it would pay a heavy price.
Brik concluded his article by urging decision-makers to abandon their reliance on political promises and displays of air power, warning that military decisions driven by revenge, without adequately assessing their consequences, could aggravate the crisis rather than resolve it.
Trump’s naked pro-Zionist agenda triggered an unprecedented ‘blue wave’ that was characterised by a complete rejection of Israel first neo-conservative foreign policy, changing U.S. politics forever.
In 2024, Donald Trump achieved an electoral miracle. Coming back from an embarrassing defeat in 2020, he won a sweeping victory – winning the presidency in terms of both the electoral college and the popular vote, but also securing Republican majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Effectively, this comprehensive win granted Trump and the Republican Party complete control over the U.S. federal legislative machinery. Holding power over this political trifecta granted Trump a golden opportunity to enact his agenda, something he struggled with during his first term. This incredible victory and the resulting political mandate was largely built around two policies: controlling immigration and ensuring America withdrew its support for the war in Ukraine and did not embroil itself in any other costly foreign conflicts. This policy platform was dubbed ‘America First’, with the overarching narrative being that American politicians needed to focus on domestic issues and the wellbeing of Americans, rather than embroiling the country in foreign entanglements or prioritising the needs of migrants.
The success of Trump’s third campaign for the White House makes the Republican defeat at the 2026 U.S. midterms even more catastrophic, presenting a sweeping structural collapse of the party’s elected power base. The Republicans not only lost their majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, but they did so comprehensively, losing a number of historically safe seats along the way. The Democrats did not just win, but to quote President Trump, they won ‘bigly’, striding confidently into Republican heartlands and scoring victories in red states where the idea of a Democrat win was previously unthinkable. While it is true that midterms often see an electoral swing away from the party that is currently in charge of the White House administration, that swing is usually driven by a very specific voting pattern. Usually in a midterm election with a Republican incumbent in the White House, pollsters would expect to see two distinct patterns of voting: Republicans who wished to punish the establishment would stay at home and Democrats wishing to punish the establishment would turn out in greater numbers.
This election however, was different. Democrats who wished to punish Trump did indeed turn out in greater numbers, but interestingly, Republican voters did not stay at home – they went out and voted, but for the Democrats. Usually, Republican voters wishing to punish their own party will simply opt not to vote, thus reducing their party’s tally. However, most of those Republicans won’t actually vote Democrat, because that is a mental step too far, and those voters view that as an endorsement of the ‘other side’ and of policies they fundamentally disagree with. Trump however managed to alter this established pattern; he motivated vast numbers of Republicans to vote Democrat and this is what led to such a monumental swing that altered the balance of power in Congress. What’s more, this is why as the votes were counted Trump watched in horror as the Republicans not only lost swing seats, but also took losses in areas that were viewed as Republican fortresses: Kansas elected a Democrat to the Senate for the first time since 1932, Texas elected a Democrat to the Senate for the first time in nearly four decades and South Carolina flipped to the Democrats for the first time since 1998.
But what fuelled this massive electoral swing is arguably far more interesting than the results themselves. The massive swing that saw millions of Republicans voting Democrat for the first time was primarily fuelled by one issue: Trump’s betrayal of his core anti-war promises and his abandonment of the ideal of America First and the consequent inflation. Trump had embarked on a wholly unnecessary war with Iran at the behest of the state of Israel, and the consequences of that conflict had harmed middle class families all over America. This was not just another unnecessary war, but it was a war that was affecting Americans at home and hitting families where it hurt the most: normal people could no longer afford to fill up their cars with fuel or fill up their shopping cart with groceries. And Trump was not only committed to the war with Iran, but went as far as to make it very clear that he believed the cost to the average American family was not only acceptable, but something that those families should bear for the good of Israel’s wider goals in the Middle East. This was no longer America First, it was Israel First.
Trump was extremely bullish about his commitment to the war, and when asked by reporters whether his slavish support for the Zionist cause was worth the economic hardship that was being experienced by American families as a result of the war, he responded: ‘I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all.’ For the man who once championed the phrase “Make America Great Again”, this comment hit Republicans hard. Voters who had rallied around Trump and turned out in record numbers for him in 2024 could now see the truth: Trump was happy to let Americans suffer. And American families were suffering because Trump was ready to further prioritise the needs of a Middle Eastern nation that was already sucking billions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers that could have been better spent on services at home. Further to this, Trump brazenly stated that the federal government could no longer afford to pay for programs like Medicare and Medicaid due to military spending on the war with Iran.
But Trump’s slavish support for Israel and his willingness to destroy the living standards of his voter base to send U.S. troops to war with a country that most Americans couldn’t point to on a map did not occur in a vacuum. This rerouting of American tax dollars away from domestic priorities and towards a wholly unpopular war was egged on by Trump’s rapidly changing inner circle. What’s more, those who had been the most enthusiastic supporters of Trump’s America First platform, like Tucker Carlson, were now moving away from him and turning into his greatest critics. At the same time, new faces began appearing around the president and these new cheerleaders were shouting a very different message altogether. Trump found himself surrounded by a cabal of hawkish Zionist Jews including Mark Levin, Laura Loomer and former Trump critic Ben Shapiro. These individuals all egged Trump on, attempting to convince him that his new direction was the correct path and that voters weren’t bothered by the war and that they would support him and his agenda no matter what. These people were exactly the sort of ‘friends’ that any politician could do without, but all of them managed to gain the ear of Trump by playing on his greatest weakness – his ego.
But Trump hadn’t exactly been shy about his subservience to Israel and had been openly vocal about his ties to leading Zionist megadonors. In a 2025 Hanukkah reception at the White House, Trump famously brought Jewish megadonor Miriam Adelson on stage. While introducing her, Trump brazenly stated, ‘Miriam gave my campaign indirectly and directly 250 million. She was number one. When somebody can give you 250 million, I think that we should give her the opportunity to say hello.’ This is the kind of comment that a president would wisely only make in a very private circle of trusted friends; instead, Trump blurted it out on stage in front of a crowd of dignitaries, the press and the media. This statement of course raised a number of eyebrows and led to accusations about the transactional nature of Trump’s relationship with his pro-Israeli donors. During her time on the microphone, Miriam Adelson revealed she had been discussing the legality of a third presidential term with Jewish attorney Alan Dershowitz – this added further weight to the accusations that Trump was merely a tool of a group of very powerful and wealthy Zionist donors.
But while Trump had clearly abandoned domestic concerns over inflation in the costs of living, he had notably focused his time and energy on several domestic electoral races which added fuel to the fire regarding where his loyalties really lay. Earlier in the year, Trump came together with Miriam Adelson and several other Zionist megadonors to ensure that previous spending records were smashed in relation to a Republican primary election. This was of course the fierce battle that ensued over the re-election of Thomas Massie, a prominent anti-Zionist Republican who consistently opposed U.S. military aid to Israel, opposed the war in Iran and had worked tirelessly to ensure the full disclosure of the Epstein files, an issue that had made Trump uncomfortable, leading to him branding Massie as a ‘traitor’. Similarly, Trump also labelled Marjorie Taylor Greene as a ‘traitor’ and a ‘ranting lunatic’ after she condemned the administration’s alignment with pro-Israel lobbying groups and accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of dragging the US into a broader conflict with Iran.
This all painted a very clear picture. Trump was clearly accepting phenomenal sums of money from Jewish Zionists and openly bragging about the size of the donations, even going as far as admitting this money had granted those donors unprecedented access to the White House. These donations clearly looked transactional, and appeared even more so when Trump pivoted away from his anti-war America First pledges in order to take the U.S. into another deeply unpopular and damaging war in the Middle East, which directly affected the living standards of the average American family. But while doing all of this, Trump was focusing domestically not on attacking or unseating ‘woke’ Democrats in order to please his core voter base, but instead was engaged in a ‘night of the long knives’ where he viciously purged anti-Zionist America First Republicans. U.S. presidents have been accused in the past of being pro-Israel, but never before have such accusations been given so much weight by such obvious and shameless words and actions.
This placed Trump in an interesting position heading into the 2026 midterms. Despite the fact he had made good on a number of his domestic pledges regarding border control, travel bans and the U.S. system of processing asylum claims, he had completely pivoted on his anti-war pledges. Not only had Trump failed to bring the war in Ukraine to an end, but he had opened up a new front in Iran, and the Iranian response of asymmetric warfare targeting the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz was causing domestic havoc by means of creating a cost-of-living crisis in America. This all ensured that the stage was set for a perfect storm – midterm elections that would result in one of the greatest examples of a political collapse in post-war history. But while Trump had appeared on the surface to be blissfully ignorant of the coming storm, his surprise announcement on election day would suggest that even he knew what was coming, but more importantly, he knew that his pro-Israeli policies were the root of the problem. At the 11th hour, Trump issued a desperate proclamation as polls opened that he was about to end the annual $3.8 billion military aid package to Israel.
This was clearly not a principled policy change brought about due to a genuine concern for the American electorate and the America First policies that voters had elected Trump to enact; instead, it was a last-minute desperate capitulation aimed at stemming the electoral bloodshed. Trump clearly realised that the Republicans were headed for a humiliating midterm defeat, a fact that would undoubtedly hurt his fragile ego and mar his legacy. However, this election morning announcement most likely worked against him, as it simply served to remind the average voter exactly how much U.S. taxpayers were gifting to Israel as American families struggled to cover the cost of basic groceries. Rather than granting a last-minute reprieve, this policy announcement was likely the final nail in Trump’s coffin. Whereas midterms are often characterised as the electorates’ chance to place a check on executive power, this election would be different – being fought largely over the issue of Zionist power and U.S. subservience to Israel, with even the President himself playing into the narrative. What’s more, post-election, this was publicly acknowledged by Vice President JD Vance.
On November 4th 2026, JD Vance took to X and posted the following:
‘One of the things the data analysts on our side obsessed over was “composition”—whether the electorate looked close enough to 2024 for Republicans to win. And despite polls that showed a Democrat blowout, the data kept on telling us the same story: in some states turnout was merely OK, in other states it was downright amazing, and in no state was it catastrophic. There was a genuine sense of optimism on our team: our people were showing up.
So, I asked the smartest data guy I know, does that mean we’re going to shock the world? “No,” he told me. “We might do better than the polls suggest. But the data is telling us that a lot of Trump/Vance 2024 voters are pissed and planning to vote for the other guys. Our voters are turning out, but they may not vote for us.”
Well, that looks prophetic now. Our voters did show up. In Florida, for example, the electorate was 9 points more Republican than Democrat, just a couple points worse than 2024. Undoubtedly there were places we could have done better on turnout. But the main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026.
There will be a lot of infighting and arguing over what happened and why that is. One of the pollsters I really respect told me that our economic messaging wasn’t sharp enough down the stretch. I’m sure that’s true.
But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone.
Another pollster—one of the smartest people I know in politics, told me yesterday we’d lose the generic ballot by 13 points. I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by this. In his polling, he saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats. He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team. The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses were:
1. End the war
2. Focus on cost of living/inflation
3. Put America First
4. Change our relationship to Israel
Our voters showed up. And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats. This is according to a pollster who nailed the results. While many spent Monday attacking Rachel Campos Duffy for calling for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it turns out her political advice was sound. (She’s also a great person.)
In the next few months, there’s going to be a lot of gaslighting. Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty. I’m open to the idea that we should change enforcement—by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you.
The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.
If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest.
But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.
I remain hopeful about our country. To the people who are pissed off and want to say, “I told you so”: you’re right, you did tell us so. Take that energy into electing Republicans who share your worldview. To the people who are just pissed at the results, you should be. Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country.’
This lengthy admission as to what was at fault was unique. Not only is Vance the Vice President, but his lengthy post goes against what has been the central pillar of Republican foreign policy for more than half a century – the unconditional support of Israel. This was an example of someone at the highest level of political office admitting to the new political reality: there is a massive gulf between the voters who turned out in record numbers in 2024 and voted for America First, and the cabal of Republican Zionists who support the now deeply unpopular neo-conservative policy that has dominated U.S. decision making for decades. Vance’s admission was also unique because he went further and actually dared to blame Trump’s relationship with Israel for the Republicans’ recent electoral failures, going as far as to admit that the ‘blue wave’ was driven by slavish support for a war that is not in the interests of American families, but instead, wholly for the benefit of Zionist power in the Middle East. Had this statement been made by the likes of David Duke, it would have been scoffed at or dismissed, but these were the words of JD Vance.
But Vance was not issuing this statement blindly, swinging wildly and waiting to see what would come back; instead, he was playing to an increasingly large gallery – one which was stacked with powerful and influential pundits and politicians. This was Vance speaking an almost forbidden truth and opening the door to a larger and now-legitimised discussion over Israeli power and Zionist lobbying in America, a discussion which was already entering the mainstream thanks to Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie. But in another blow to Trump, this very discussion is one that he had tried to stifle and silence. This sets up a critical fight for the heart and soul of the Republican Party that will rage between now and the next presidential election. The battle lines are drawn: on one side stands the neo-conservatives and Israel first cheerleaders, on the other stands the America First movement and traditional, isolationist conservatives – with the prize being the reins of America’s oldest political party and control of its future direction.
Interestingly though, the American electorate – while at war over issues such as immigration, DEI and abortion – is increasingly united over the issue of foreign wars, Israeli power and Zionist lobbying. Which raises another issue that cannot be ignored: the role of the Democrat voter in creating the ‘blue wave’. While most of the post-election discussion has focused on the Republicans who ‘switched sides’, it is important to note that the ‘blue wave’ was not simply made up of passive Democrats benefiting from angry Republican votes. The Democrats won because their more radical, anti-war flank completely energised their base. Traditionally, the Republican base would slavishly support Israel, while the Democratic base would be far more likely to oppose interventions in the Middle East and scorn unconditional support for the Zionist state. But the combination of angry Republicans who felt betrayed and highly motivated anti-war Democrats created the perfect storm that powered the ‘blue wave’ and helped to achieve a clean sweep of both the House and the Senate. This was a bi-partisan vote, that achieved huge change, powered by a shared and unifying dislike of neo-conservative foreign policy.
Historically, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and other Zionist lobbying groups have played a decisive role in U.S. elections, often deciding the outcome in key battlegrounds and helping to unseat anti-Israel candidates, as was seen when Thomas Massie lost his place on the ballot in Kentucky. However, the blue wave witnessed at the recent midterms was so great, it completely broke AIPAC’s power, rendering them impotent or at least forcing their donors to make donations without any reference to Israel or AIPAC, despite their immense spending power. The primary example of this was seen in the Senate race in Michigan. Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed campaigned transparently against Washington’s subservience to Israel, centring his platform on an anti-war message and a demand that American tax dollars be spent on healthcare and infrastructure at home rather than being used to fund foreign conflicts. Sensing an existential threat, AIPAC and its super PAC, the United Democracy Project (UDP), went entirely on the offensive. They pumped a record-breaking $42 million into the electoral race in order to stop El-Sayed.
But the pro-Israel lobbyists went far further than just providing huge sums of money. In a stunning escalation of the establishment’s panic, El-Sayed’s pro-Israel primary opponent, Haley Stevens, crossed party lines just days before the election to endorse the Republican candidate, Mike Rogers. Yet AIPAC’s record spending and the other dirty tricks they employed all failed to influence the outcome and El-Sayed easily overcame the pro-Israeli opposition. El-Sayed went on to mock AIPAC during his victory speech, stating: ‘To AIPAC, who spent $42 million against us: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to beat you twice.’ The midterms were not just a referendum on Zionist power and Israeli control of America; they were not simply a ‘blue wave’, but they were an indicator that pro-Israel super PACs are starting to lose their formerly vice-like grip over U.S. elections. This provides proof that when angry Republicans and energised Democrats vote together over a shared issue of concern relating to Israeli influence, AIPAC loses its position as kingmaker. But the breaking of the Israel lobby’s power in Michigan was not an isolated anomaly, but instead part of a nationwide phenomenon that saw voters reject candidates backed by Zionist money.
Ultimately, the results of the U.S. midterms point to the fact that despite differences over domestic policy, there is a growing consensus among both Democrats and Republicans that whichever way America chooses to go, it should do so under its own direction, rather than that of the Israeli state. What’s more, this consensus is so great that even record super PAC spending cannot overcome it. But interestingly, for this mass awakening, the new voter consensus and the rejection of the Israel First agenda, there is only one man to thank: Donald Trump. Trump’s naked, brazen and often shameless support for Israel has woken up millions of normal Americans to the stranglehold that the state of Israel and Zionist lobbyists have over U.S. politics. In many ways, Trump has lifted the curtain on this pressing issue – whether that is by design or by accident, through his often brash and bumbling behaviour is another matter – but the effects remain the same nonetheless. Trump was so obviously slavish to those he served, that he inadvertently alerted the entire nation to an issue that had, for most voters, flown under the radar for decades.
As a result, political discussion centered on Israel’s power that was once confined to less frequented corners of the internet, banned from YouTube and other mainstream social media platforms, is now being openly espoused by the U.S. Vice President, Tucker Carlson and numerous other notable public figures. Ideas that were once branded as ‘dangerous’ conspiracy theories about Jewish lobbyists, Israeli influence and Zionist power are now becoming more mainstream and are actually influencing voting patterns and helping to decide major elections. As such, Donald Trump, through his total lack of restraint, has become at the very least an accelerationist president who has brought a once taboo topic under the spotlight. What’s more, it is often true that people are moved primarily by economic factors – when the populace starts to feel the financial pinch, they react at the ballot, venting their anger by changing their voting habits. And for the first time since the Second World War, American voters are joining up the dots and connecting their financial woes to Zionist power and the American establishment’s support for Israel, firmly placing pro-Israel foreign policy in direct contradiction with the good of the American people.
The fundamental paradox of the second Trump administration is that a president who swept to power on the promise of ‘America First’ ultimately chose to uphold the values of the old neoconservative consensus. By abandoning his populist mandate in order to wage a catastrophic, proxy conflict on behalf of Israel, Trump did not merely commit a strategic foreign policy error; he shattered the economic security of the very middle-class families who were the electoral backbone of his political resurrection. The resulting ‘blue wave’ that characterised the 2026 midterms was not a routine swing of the electoral pendulum, but a unified, bi-partisan rejection of Zionist power and neo-conservative policy. However, through his shameless behaviour and total lack of restraint, Trump performed an unintended civic service: he permanently lifted the curtain on the mechanics of the Israel lobby, forcing a historic convergence of angry populist Republicans and energised anti-war Democrats. The ultimate irony of the 2026 ‘blue wave’ is that Donald Trump did indeed fundamentally alter American politics forever – not by successfully executing an ‘America First’ agenda, but by proving to millions of voters that true domestic sovereignty can only be reclaimed by decisively rejecting the politicians, lobbyists and megadonors who wish to put ‘Israel First’.
By Tim Kirby | Strategic Culture Foundation | November 14, 2026
Did Vladimir Putin just wake up one day on the wrong side of the bed and decide to invade Ukraine in February of 2022 or is there a lot more to this single decision that has been reshaping the 21st century geopolitical landscape?
Obviously, from the way that I just posed the question you can see that I am on the side that views the causes for the war in Ukraine to be very deep, long-term, historical and consciously nefarious, and most importantly, not from within the halls of the Kremlin. So it was a pleasure to take a look at the book “Boiling Point, How America Brought War to Ukraine” by author Stephen Kinzer, who like myself, also believes that the real reasons behind military conflicts around the world are not what CNN and the BBC have been telling you. The main thesis of this book was stated clearly by its creator; the war “may have been illegal, but it was definitely not unprovoked.” … continue
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