While Secretary Blinken was in the Middle East, the Knesset discussed what to do about the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), an organization whose purpose is to perpetuate the Israel-Palestinian conflict and to keep Palestinians in a permanent state of dependence and penury. UNRWA is also deeply entangled with Hamas and other terrorist groups. But perhaps the greatest damage is done by its schools—and not only because they sometimes double as arms warehouses. Peter Berkowitz writes:

Given U.S. interests in Middle East stability in general and the post-Israel-Hamas-war reconstruction of Gaza in particular, American policymakers must grasp the preaching of hatred, violence, and Islamist supremacy woven into Gaza education. One obstacle is that many U.S. diplomats—even more the younger career foreign-service officers who staff them—will have been indoctrinated at American universities in opinions and ideas that bear an uncanny resemblance to certain ugly dogmas championed by the jihadists.

UNRWA teachers develop students’ reading comprehension through a story that celebrates suicide bombers and the decapitation of Israeli soldiers. A map for fourth graders in UNRWA schools erases Israel by placing a Palestinian flag over all the land between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea. A fifth-grade reading lesson, “Hooray for the Heroes,” glorifies Palestinians “associated with war, violence, religious extremism, and terrorism,” [according to a recent, detailed report], but “does not include scientists, doctors, engineers, or athletes.” UNRWA schools teach sixth-grade students that “the Zionists are the terrorists of the modern age, and they are fated to disappear.”

It may be the last message, even more than the anti-Semitism and the valorization of violence, that is the most damaging. So long as Palestinians believe history is inexorably on their side, they will continue to reject the sort of compromise that might bring peace.

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.