On March 15, the Iraqi Jewish orthopedic surgeon Dhafer Fouad Eliyahu died at the age of sixty-one, leaving only three Jews remaining in the country. Lyn Julius writes:

Known as the “healer of the poor,” [Eliyahu] ran a private clinic, but treated those who could not afford medical care for free. His mother was among the first female doctors in Iraq. . . . Before their mass exodus in 1950-51, Jews contributed beyond their numbers to modernity in 20th-century Iraq, [and] comprised 40 percent of the medical profession. When the Royal Medical College opened in 1927, seven out of 21 students were Jews. In 1932, only twelve graduated of these graduated, but all seven Jews stayed the course.

The vast majority [of Iraq’s Jews] fled to Israel [and] were stripped of their Iraqi citizenship and much of their property was frozen without compensation. The most recent bone of contention has been the so-called Iraqi Jewish archive. The U.S. administration has pledged to return to Baghdad this random collection of Jewish books, correspondence, and school reports, which was seized from the community by the Iraqi regime, but shipped in 2003 to the United States for restoration.

Iraqi Jews [in Israel and the U.S.] have been fighting to keep this last vestige of their former lives, arguing that their memorabilia are of no interest or value to the rest of the Iraqi people. While Iraqis themselves are increasingly acknowledging the selfless loyalty of Jews like Eliyahu, the return of the archive to Iraq would rub salt in the wound, adding yet another injustice to a very long list.

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.”