AIPAC holds its annual conference next week and, as it does every four years, has invited presidential candidates from both parties to speak. Donald Trump is among those who accepted the invitation. While many Jewish leaders, activists, and journalists have called on AIPAC to disinvite him, Jonathan Tobin contends that the organization must stick to its usual policy of bipartisanship:

AIPAC can’t afford to write off either party. Its job is to fight for support for Israel on both sides of the aisle, and it has been largely successful in that effort even in an era where many rank-and-file Democrats are increasingly likely to be hostile or indifferent to it. . . .

[I]t’s important to understand that AIPAC as an organization—as opposed to what some of its members think—must do its best to stay away from partisan warfare. Expecting it to fight other battles is a formula for its dissolution, not one that can save its soul. Once it starts down that path, there will be no stopping.

Of course, some on the left would like nothing better than to see AIPAC dissolve or be weakened. That cannot be allowed to happen. The lobby will continue to play a responsible role in speaking up for Israel no matter who wins in November. But, as they always have, its members are free to speak out as they like about the candidates.

Examining the effects of Iran’s decision to launch nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on October 1, Benny Morris takes stock of the Jewish state’s strategic situation:

The massive Iranian attack has turned what began as a local war in and around the Gaza Strip and then expanded into a Hamas–Hizballah–Houthi–Israeli war [into] a regional war with wide and possibly calamitous international repercussions.

Before the Iranians launched their attack, Washington warned Tehran to desist (“don’t,” in President Biden’s phrase), and Israel itself had reportedly cautioned the Iranians secretly that such an attack would trigger a devastating Israeli counterstrike. But a much-humiliated Iran went ahead, nonetheless.

For Israel, the way forward seems to lie in an expansion of the war—in the north or south or both—until the country attains some sort of victory, or a diplomatic settlement is reached. A “victory” would mean forcing Hizballah to cease fire in exchange, say, for a cessation of the IDF bombing campaign and withdrawal to the international border, or forcing Iran, after suffering real pain from IDF attacks, to cease its attacks and rein in its proxies: Hizballah, Hamas, and the Houthis.

At the same time, writes Morris, a victory along such lines would still have its limits:

An IDF withdrawal from southern Lebanon and a cessation of Israeli air-force bombing would result in Hizballah’s resurgence and its re-investment of southern Lebanon down to the border. Neither the Americans nor the French nor the UN nor the Lebanese army—many of whose troops are Shiites who support Hizballah—would fight them.