On the opening night of the Republican National Convention, Harmeet Kaur Dhillon offered a traditional Sikh prayer, provoking criticism from some, mostly online, corners of the right. (Perhaps the most fervent attack came from the anti-Semitic social-media personality Nick Fuentes.) As Jack Jenkins points out, Dhillon did the same at the 2016 convention, as did another Sikh in 2012. Jenkins then turns to the first Jew to lead prayers at a party convention:

The tradition of including non-Christian voices at the major party conventions goes back more than a century at least, to an invocation given by Rabbi Samuel Sale, of St. Louis, when the Republican convention was held there in 1896. Sale’s appearance, according to a New York Times report from the time, was the result of a political compromise: the Republican Party’s Catholic and Protestant factions were so bitterly opposed to each other that a rabbi was a safer choice than a pastor or a priest from either Christian tradition.

Sale, who was known for advocating for a “universal day of rest” in the way of the Jewish Sabbath, said in his prayer, “Fill us with a deep and abiding sense of the transcendent dignity and nobility of American citizenship and of the sacred obligations that should attend it. . . .”

Four years later, Democrats called on a rabbi at their convention as well, and ever since, rabbis have been regular guests at gatherings for both parties.

Yesterday, the Iranian foreign minister flew to Geneva to meet with European diplomats. President Trump, meanwhile, indicated that cease-fire negotiations might soon begin with Iran, which would presumably involve Tehran agreeing to make concessions regarding its nuclear program, while Washington pressures Israel to halt its military activities. According to Israeli media, Iran already began putting out feelers to the U.S. earlier this week. Aviram Bellaishe considers the purpose of these overtures:

The regime’s request to return to negotiations stems from the principle of deception and delay that has guided it for decades. Iran wants to extricate itself from a situation of total destruction of its nuclear facilities. It understands that to save the nuclear program, it must stop at a point that would allow it to return to it in the shortest possible time. So long as the negotiation process leads to halting strikes on its military capabilities and preventing the destruction of the nuclear program, and enables the transfer of enriched uranium to a safe location, it can simultaneously create the two tracks in which it specializes—a false facade of negotiations alongside a hidden nuclear race.