After the president spoke at the Israeli statesman’s funeral last week, the White House issued a press release with the text of his remarks—and then, shortly thereafter, a correction. In the revised version, the location of the speech is given as “Jerusalem” instead of “Jerusalem, Israel.” Elliott Abrams comments:

The absurdity of this move is striking. The ceremony was at Mount Herzl, the Jerusalem cemetery where many of Israel’s greatest figures are buried: Theodor Herzl himself, Vladimir Jabotinsky, Menachem Begin, Golda Meir, Yitzḥak Rabin, and innumerable military heroes.

It lies in western Jerusalem, near Yad Vashem and Jerusalem Forest—a place Palestinians do not even claim when they claim a share of Jerusalem. Only those who seek to destroy Israel think this place will ever be anything but a part of the Jewish state. U.S. policy is that Jerusalem is a final-status issue, so we have our embassy in Tel Aviv. But there is no dispute about west Jerusalem, where the Knesset, the prime minister’s office, the Supreme Court, the National Library, and Yad Vashem—and Mount Herzl—all lie.

One wonders if President Obama, speaking about the meaning of Peres’s life for Israel, actually thought as he spoke those words at the gravesite that he was not standing in Israel, and that Shimon Peres was not being buried in Israel. I doubt it. Which suggests, again, how foolish the current and longstanding American policy really is.

Last week, the New York Times reported, based on unnamed sources within the Trump administration, that the president had asked Israel not to carry out a planned strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. That is, somebody deliberately gave this information to the press, which later tried to confirm it by speaking with other officials. Amit Segal writes that, “according to figures in Israel’s security establishment,” this is “the most serious leak in Israel’s history.” He explains:

As Israel is reportedly planning what may well be one of its most consequential military operations ever, the New York Times lays out for the Iranians what Israel will target, when it will carry out the operation, and how. That’s not just any other leak.

Seth Mandel looks into the leaker’s logic:

The primary purpose of the [Times] article is not as a record of internal deliberations but as an instrument of policy itself. Namely, to obstruct future U.S. and Israeli foreign policy by divulging enough details of Israel’s plans in order to protect Iran’s nuclear sites. The idea is to force Israeli planners back to the drawing board, thus delaying a possible future strike on Iran until Iranian air defenses have been rebuilt.

The leak is the point. It’s a tactical play, more or less, to help Iran torpedo American action.

The leaker, Mandel explains—and the Times itself implies—is likely aligned with the faction in the administration that wants to see the U.S. retreat from the world stage and from its alliance with Israel, a faction that includes Vice-President J.D. Vance, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and the president’s own chief of staff Susie Wiles.

Yet it’s also possible, if less likely, that the plans were leaked in support of administration policy rather than out of factional infighting. Eliezer Marom argues that the leak was “part of the negotiations and serves to clarify to the Iranians that there is a real attack plan that Trump stopped at the last moment to conduct negotiations.”