Last week, the Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte—known for his bloody war on his country’s drug traffickers and drug addicts as well as his outrageous statements encouraging violence and even seeming to praise Hitler—made a state visit to Israel, where he was warmly received by Benjamin Netanyahu. Easy as it is to criticize the prime minister for cultivating relations with such unpleasant characters, writes Daniel Gordis, the truth is that he has a sound strategic rationale for doing so:

Duterte had reasons for wanting to visit Israel. Tens of thousands of Filipinos are employed in Israel, many of them as caretakers for Israel’s elderly. So common is the phenomenon that the term filipinit has come to mean female caregiver regardless of the caregiver’s country of origin. Sentences such as “my mother’s filipinit is from Sri Lanka” are common. . . . Duterte promised to meet with some of these foreign workers and to discuss their conditions of employment. But he was obviously much more interested in purchasing Israeli arms. . . .

Duterte is but one of several strongmen to whom Netanyahu has reached out of late. The prime minister has met with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, to name but a few. Duterte is thus merely the latest in a string of seemingly strange relationships.

Netanyahu is hardly oblivious of the critique these visits have engendered, but he is also a master strategist. One of his key priorities is to ensure that Israel is not alone in the international arena. In the United Nations General Assembly, the Philippines (like Azerbaijan) has the same vote as do Germany or France. Smaller countries are also more likely to be sensitive to Netanyahu’s pressure to move their embassies to Jerusalem (though Paraguay’s agreement to do so backfired on him this week).

Israelis may grimace at Duterte’s presence in Israel, but they are all-too-accustomed to feeling internationally isolated. They take comfort in their prime minister building bridges to countries around the globe. [That’s one reason that], under Netanyahu, Israelis simply feel safer.

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.