Thanks to climate change, fungal infections, and other factors, cocoa prices have in the past few years increased from about $2,500 per ton to $10,000. Ellen Graber, an Israeli scientist who studies soil chemistry, recently began researching cocoa plants, hoping to find ways to cultivate varieties that will be able to withstand these threats, much as Israeli agronomists have done with other crops. Sue Surkes documents Graber’s discovery:

On October 4 last year, she sent 140 of a planned 300 plants, aged around five months, to a research and development station a few kilometers from the Gaza border in southern Israel. Three days later, on October 7, thousands of Hamas terrorists invaded border communities. . . . The area where the R&D center is located became part of a closed military zone.

“There was no electricity, and the plants received no fertilizer or water until mid-January,” Graber said. “It rained a bit, but not much and not regularly. They were in a net house left to their own devices. We expected to find 140 dead cocoa plants.”

But when the staff scientist Talli Ilani returned, she discovered that twenty of the plants had survived and were even having new leaf flushes. “Most of the survivors came from one of five or six varieties that I had sent. This indicates that this variety has a huge ability to survive under severe drought conditions.”

She added, “I call them superheroes.”

Graber . . . said that despite keen interest from Israeli farmers, the country is too small to become a chocolate superpower. But it could become a key global supplier of cocoa plants and cultivation know-how.

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.