Increasingly, the island nations of the Pacific are becoming a crucial area of competition between the U.S. and China, as seen by Beijing’s recent, and apparently successful, efforts to bring the Solomon Islands into its orbit. Many of these small states also have good relations with the Jewish state, and several have outstanding records of voting with it at the UN. Avi Kumar writes:

This year, Papua New Guinea and Fiji announced that they would establish embassies in Israel. . . . Countries that have voted in Israel’s favor over several resolutions are the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, and Nauru, [the last of which recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital].

President Chaim Herzog was the first Israeli president to officially visit Fiji and Tonga in the 1980s. In 2020, then-president Reuven Rivlin visited the two nations. He would later tell then-Samoan prime minister Susuga Tuilaepa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi that he regretted not having visited his country. The previous year, Samoa and Israel arranged a visa-waiver scheme under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Most Oceanians are now Christian, so they have read biblical stories and are familiar with Jewish history. . . . Over the last two decades, Israeli trade with Papua New Guinea has doubled in volume, with these ties culminating in the creation of the future embassy. Papua is very resource rich. The continent holds deposits of lead, zinc, cobalt, and gold that Israel could import for its industries.

Many Oceanian countries have agriculture-dominated economies, with fishing and production of crops such as coconut and sugar. Israel could import these products and also assist with agricultural innovations. In addition, underutilized crops from the Australian desert that were historically consumed by aboriginals may possibly also be grown in the Negev Desert. . . . Oceanian islands are prone to disasters such as tsunamis and active volcanoes. Israel’s ability to assist with relief—as witnessed during the February 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquake—could prove critical.

This week, there have been numerous unconfirmed reports about the fate of Esmail Qaani, who is the head of the Quds Force, the expeditionary arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Benny Avni writes:

On Thursday, Sky News Arabic reported that Mr. Qaani was rushed to a hospital after suffering a heart attack. He became [the Quds Force] commander in 2020, after an American drone strike killed his predecessor, Qassem Suleimani. The unit oversees the Islamic Republic’s various Mideast proxies, as well as the exporting of the Iranian revolution to the region and beyond.

The Sky News report attempts to put to rest earlier claims that Mr. Qaani was killed at Beirut. It follows several reports asserting he has been arrested and interrogated at Tehran over suspicion that he, or a top lieutenant, leaked information to Israel. Five days ago, the Arabic-language al-Arabiya network reported that Mr. Qaani “is under surveillance and isolation, following the Israeli assassinations of prominent Iranian leaders.”

Iranians are desperately scrambling to plug possible leaks that gave Israel precise intelligence to conduct pinpoint strikes against Hizballah commanders. . . . “I find it hard to believe that Qaani was compromised,” an Iran watcher at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, Beni Sabti, tells the Sun. Perhaps one or more of [Qaani’s] top aides have been recruited by Israel, he says, adding that “psychological warfare” could well be stoking the rumor mill.

If so, prominent Iranians seem to be exacerbating the internal turmoil by alleging that the country’s security apparatus has been infiltrated.