Burak Bekdil, a journalist who once wrote for a leading Turkish newspaper, recounts being harassed and hounded from his job after writing an article critical of Hamas:

[I]n the summer of 2014, . . . friends told me that my picture was on the front page of [Turkey’s] most militant Islamist newspaper, Yeni Akit—whose editors always find a seat aboard Erdogan’s private jet during his state visits abroad.

I was accused of undermining Turkey’s defense industry and promoting the Israeli weapons lobby. But my greatest sin was to argue: “The fact that there are no Israeli casualties [in the Gaza war thus far] does not mean Hamas does not want to kill; it just means Hamas, for the moment, cannot kill.” . . . [Shortly thereafter] a pro-government columnist, in [a] tweet, called me “the disgrace of humanity,” several others joined in a lynching campaign on social media. . . .

The campaign annoyed my editors and boss, but I was kept writing provided that I would not write on “explosive” subjects. . . . After a few attempts I stopped writing about the Arab-Israeli conflict [for Turkish publications]. . . . But things went from bad to worse in Turkey. . . . The increasingly difficult rules meant that my column could not contain any of the words “Jew, Israel, Israeli, Hamas, Hamas and terror, and Palestine.”

The last straw for Bekdil came in December, when he criticized President Erdogan and his editors, under direct pressure from the regime, fired him.

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”