The Terrorist State

The modern international system lacks a clear designation for what should be called a Terrorist State. While international law deals with terrorism and state responsibility, it stops short of applying a legal label to regimes that define themselves not merely by repression or aggression, but by the use of terror as a core instrument of rule and ideology. This gap leaves the global community without the vocabulary—or the policy tools—to confront regimes like Iran for what they truly are.

Iran is not simply a repressive theocracy or a regional aggressor. Since its Islamic Revolution in 1979, it has positioned itself as the vanguard of a transnational mission to remake the Muslim world in its own image. That mission is not economic or territorial, but ideological. It is rooted in a medieval, absolutist religious worldview that divides the world between believers and infidels, and that seeks to export the revolution by any means necessary—often through violence. Iran does not merely support terrorism; it defines itself through it.

What distinguishes a Terrorist State is not just the support it gives to militant groups, but its ideological commitment to political violence, its active sponsorship or direct engagement in terrorism beyond its borders, and its rejection of the legitimacy of the international system itself. In Iran’s case, this includes funding, training, and directing groups like Hezbollah and Hamas; open calls for the destruction of Israel; and a constitutional framework that enshrines the export of its revolution as a national duty.

Unlike other authoritarian regimes that may use violence internally, Iran wields terrorism as a tool of foreign policy, and it does so with doctrinal purpose. This sets it apart not just from democracies, but even from other autocracies. It does not participate in the international community in good faith because it does not recognize its legitimacy. To Iran’s leadership, institutions like the United Nations are products of an infidel world order that must be resisted and ultimately overthrown.

Given these facts, we need to articulate a clear, international definition of a Terrorist State—not just as a rhetorical flourish, but as a formal classification. Such a designation should be based on clear criteria: (1) a regime’s ideological commitment to violence as a central political tool, (2) its systematic support for terrorism beyond its borders, and (3) its rejection of sovereign legitimacy and international norms. Iran meets all three criteria.

Labeling a regime a Terrorist State would carry consequences: diplomatic isolation, expulsion from international organizations, global sanctions, and legal accountability for its leadership. But more than that, it would provide moral and strategic clarity. We cannot confront a threat we refuse to name. The inability—or unwillingness—of the international system to call Iran what it is has emboldened its leadership and endangered its neighbors. It's time to stop treating Iran like a normal country, and start treating it like the threat it openly declares itself to be.

The Golden Opportunity

Your neighbor has been stockpiling weapons in their house. This neighbor openly hates you—they call you their sworn enemy and have threatened your family for years. They say they want you dead. They call you evil and declare their commitment to your annihilation.

Meanwhile, you go about your life. You raise your family. You go to work. You try to live in peace. But every so often, they vandalize your property. They hire others to deface your home, disrupt your life, and make your existence miserable. You install alarms, cameras, and hire private security. You do everything you can to protect yourself. But the threats and harassment never stop—and the weapons keep piling up next door. At what point are you justified in striking back?

That’s been Israel’s situation with Iran for decades. After years of threats, attacks, and proxy wars, Israel is striking back. This is not the beginning of a conflict. It’s an escalation of a long, grinding, existential war that Israel has been forced to wage for years.

Iran’s nuclear ambitions, its open hostility, and its sponsorship of groups like Hezbollah are not abstractions for Israel—they are lived realities. The October 7th massacre—the single greatest security failure in Israel’s history—was a turning point. In the neighbor analogy, imagine one of your enemy’s henchmen broke into your house, murdered two of your children, and kidnapped another. Would that not cross a red line? Would you still feel safe doing nothing while your neighbor continued stockpiling weapons and plotting your demise?

But Israel's response wasn’t just reactive. It was also strategic. The crippling of Hezbollah, Iran’s most advanced frontline proxy, was a major military success. Israel is now saying that its goal is to eliminate the nuclear threat. In the short term, this might be achievable through airstrikes. But in the medium to long term, it can’t do it alone. It needs American assistance—specifically, the B-2 bombers and bunker-busting munitions that only the U.S. can provide. Will that help come? Probably not.

Trump, despite his bluster, is unlikely to commit U.S. forces to another Middle East war. At most, he will offer intelligence and weaponry. His MAGA base has no appetite for a new conflict. His foreign policy is driven by strategic incoherence because all he cares about is personal ambition—namely, his obsession with winning the Nobel Peace Prize. He fantasized about brokering deals to end the Russia-Ukraine war or the Gaza conflict in 24 hours of taking office. Predictably, those plans didn't materialize. Now that Israel and Iran are fighting it out, trump sees it as another shot at the Nobel. As if Iran would now return to the negotiating table with the U.S. It's craven and unserious. 

In the meantime, Israel is left to act alone.

Even if Israel succeeds in setting back Iran’s nuclear program a decade, that alone won’t guarantee long-term security. The only real solution, ultimately, is regime change in Iran. But that, as history has shown again and again, is a perilous and unpredictable road. Airstrikes won’t spark democracy. Killing leaders doesn’t guarantee transformation. And even if the regime collapses, what replaces it? A freer Iran—or something worse? No one knows. That’s the grim uncertainty Israel faces.

But one thing is clear: the United States, once the unshakable anchor of global order, can no longer be counted on to lead. Israel has offered it a golden opportunity to reassert moral leadership, strength and principle. But trump, and much of the political establishment, are unlikely to take advantage of it. And the worst outcome - which America's unwillingness to act could guarantee - is that Iran survives the war relatively intact and rushes to get nuclear weapons, probably with Russia's assistance.

Israel must press forward, alone if necessary. It has no choice. No nation can afford to live next door to someone who openly seeks its destruction—and does nothing.

American Weakness Playing Out

My first thought is that this is yet another example of American weakness—perhaps the most acute I’ve seen in my lifetime.

Israel’s so-called "preemptive" strike on Iran—Netanyahu’s term—is more accurately described as a 'preventive' attack. 'Preemptive' implies an imminent threat; this was a long-planned, calculated effort to prevent Iran from reaching a point where such a threat would become real. The strike was motivated by several factors, not least of which is the weakness of the United States, which has been attempting to quietly renegotiate terms of the JCPOA, the Obama agreement that trump cancelled in his first administration. Netanyahu was not going to allow that to happen.

The statements coming out of Washington have been astonishingly feeble—almost pleading with Tehran not to retaliate against the U.S. Officials emphasized that trump had been “informed” in advance, in order to allow American personnel in the region to prepare. This only reinforces what Iran already believes: that the United States and Israel are indistinguishable. And yet, despite that understanding, the U.S. under trump has once again demonstrated its willingness to throw even its closest allies under the bus. Israel knows this—and acted accordingly.

There are other reasons for the timing of the attack, both political and strategic. From Israel’s perspective, the window of opportunity was closing. Iran’s air defenses were compromised by previous Israeli strikes. The leadership and structure of Iran’s regional proxies—Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis—have all been severely weakened. Netanyahu’s government is teetering on the brink of collapse, and he is fighting for his political life. Trump, for his part, is mired in historically low approval ratings, domestic chaos, and a string of damaging headlines. All of this plays into the decision.

My sense is that this war will be protracted. Iran’s ability to absorb Israeli attacks, and respond in asymmetric and unconventional ways, should not be underestimated. Iran has a wide range of options: through proxies, cyberattacks, and possibly even sleeper cells. The stated goal of the strikes is to halt Iran’s nuclear program. Israel can damage and delay that effort but cannot destroy it without U.S. support. And the U.S. cannot be relied upon to participate, at least not overtly. Even if American forces are directly attacked, as seems likely, the response will be muted. Trump is full of bluster, but fundamentally weak.

If Israel’s unspoken objective is regime destabilization in Tehran, the outcome may be the opposite. Being attacked may well strengthen the hardliners, galvanize nationalist sentiment, and give the regime cover to crack down even harder on dissent.

The underlying reality is that Israel possesses nuclear weapons. It doesn’t officially acknowledge this, but everyone knows. If Iran succeeds in acquiring a nuclear weapon—and I believe it’s inevitable—it would not pose an existential threat to Israel unless one assumes Iran is suicidal. I don’t believe it is.

As hard as it may be to accept, the past 80 years have shown that nuclear weapons, in practice, tend to bring a form of stability. They deter large-scale wars, not provoke them. Of course, there are no guarantees. The fear is that nuclear weapons might fall into the hands of malign or irrational actors. And yes, fewer nuclear states make that less likely. But it’s important to remember that nuclear weapons aren’t like handguns. They’re incredibly difficult to develop, maintain, and deploy. Iran has been working toward this goal for decades and still isn’t there.

Much of the public discourse around nuclear weapons is shaped by our collective fears, fed by more familiar, intimate forms of violence: school shootings, church massacres, random acts of terrorism. But these are not the same as state-led nuclear strategy. One is chaos; the other is calculus.

We may be entering a new phase in the Middle East, one defined by long wars, proxy conflicts, and the slow erosion of American influence. Israel's actions are the clearest indication of that shift. It will take a while until we have a sense of the new order that will emerge. In the meantime the bloody human costs are likely to be heartbreakingly high. 

Brian Wilson is Gone

I was genuinely heartbroken to hear that Brian Wilson died. It feels like the passing of an era — in a different way than Sly Stone’s recent death.

Not that I was a huge Beach Boys fan growing up. The whole surf music scene was a bit before my time. By the late '70s, when I was saving up allowance money to buy albums by Elton John, Steely Dan, or Pink Floyd, the Beach Boys already seemed passé. At bar mitzvah parties, I’d cringe at the sight of parents dancing to “Surfin’ Safari” or “Surfin’ USA,” doing their best Chubby Checker moves, while I’d slink off to a corner and smirk.

It was only later, when many of my rock heroes — from Paul McCartney to Elvis Costello to even Van Halen — began citing Brian Wilson as a musical genius and an influence, that I started paying attention. Suddenly Pet Sounds was being hailed as perhaps the greatest rock album of all time — often listed just behind Sgt. Pepper. That made me reconsider. These guys weren’t just singing about California girls and beach parties.

“Good Vibrations” had bizarre, experimental, beautiful musical elements — mid-song key changes, and who puts a theremin in a pop song? And that arpeggiated bass intro (I was learning to play the instrument at the time) grabbed me immediately. Then came “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and “God Only Knows” — two of the most harmonically rich and emotionally sophisticated pop songs ever written. I began to understand: Brian Wilson, along with Lennon and McCartney, was one of the most important composers of the pop era, helping elevate rock music from commercial fluff to something resembling genuine art.

But back to those bar mitzvah parties.

These days, I keep hearing stories about musicians making much of their income playing private gigs for billionaires. Sure, there are still a few superstar acts — Bruce Springsteen can still sell out Wembley for five nights, and Taylor Swift, who has been building her following since the early 2000s — but they’re increasingly rare. For many others, the new live music economy revolves around corporate parties, weddings, and yes, bar mitzvahs.

When I was growing up, the idea that an act like Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones would play a private event was laughable. They were untouchable, living gods of music, flying around the world in private jets not to serve others but to fulfill their own debauched mythologies. We idolized them because they seemed so far beyond us.

Today, the script has flipped. Now it’s the tech billionaires who live the jet-set life of excess, while many musicians — some of them legit chart-toppers — are left to hustle for a living. Beyoncé, Drake, even someone named Flo Rida (apparently a huge star) — have all reportedly played bar mitzvahs for kids who’ll never understand how rare and absurd that once would have been.

It’s a commentary on our time. Back then, singer-songwriters were revered as mystics, poets and visionaries. We studied liner notes, memorized lyrics, lived inside their albums. A new tour announcement was like the coming of a prophet. Scoring a concert ticket felt like gaining entry to a holy rite. We sang every word together, our voices merging with theirs. Listen to any live album from that era — you can hear the devotion in the crowd.

That era is gone. Brian Wilson is gone. I’m now approaching the age where I might be invited to a grandchild’s bar mitzvah. I just wish I knew a few billionaires.

War Crimes

CLICK HERE TO HEAR THE SONG

(Dedicated to the largely ignored people of Sudan)

They're investigating war crimes,

Digging up mass graves.

The silence that you're hearing—

Comes from those we couldn't save.

You and I are here,

Witness to the cost.

Trying to count the broken ways,

That prove how much was lost.

There won’t be any trials,

Only the victims pay.

The ones who give the orders,

Will always walk away.

The headlines don’t mean nothing—

Just feed the scroll of fear.

They keep us glued to chaos,

Just thankful we're not there.

War crimes,

It goes by many names.

War crimes,

No one takes the blame.

War crimes,

The world’s gone up in flames.

War crimes,

We wear it like a stain.

We watch the ways they suffer,

In godforsaken lands.

Fertilized with hatred,

By warlords and their clans.

You can blame the leaders,

You can blame the banks.

Blame god and the gunmakers,

Who draw a moral blank.

War crimes,

It goes by many names.

War crimes,

No one takes the blame.

War crimes,

The world’s gone up in flames.

War crimes,

We wear it like a stain.

Greta, Greta, Greta

When did your mission turn from saving the planet from ecological destruction for your generation to freeing Palestine? I guess you started to realize that the whole climate change thing was becoming passé and turning into a sort of attention-getting dead end. So you decided to wrap yourself in the keffiyeh to stay relevant and in the news. For a 22-year old you're pretty savvy. Hard to believe you've been doing this for 10 years already. But most of us can see through it. The boat on a mission to 'feed' the Palestinians was too obviously a media stunt. I get it. Like so many who rise to fame in the era of social media you've become a brand, and whether you know it consciously or not, you're thinking about brand relevance and expansion. I find that sad. I liked you much better when you were an innocent, serious, earnest, well-meaning Swedish elementary school child who decided that you had to do something drastic to save the world. So you went on 'strike' and became a media darling. Now you're just self-important. My suggestion is, don't spread yourself too thin. Don't get involved in political matters you clearly know nothing about. It will only dilute your credibility and appeal. When you were a quizzical 11-year old calling for your elders to stop destroying your generation's future all you needed for credibility was sincerity. When it comes to complicated political issues - not that climate isn't political, but it's not like you have to take 'sides' - it behooves you to have some education. Seems like that's emblematic of your generation in the attention economy - the combination of activist theatrics and ignorance. I was hoping that you wouldn't fall for it. Become one of those jaded social media justice warrior types. It starts looking like careerism.

Hearing A Lot, Knowing A Little

The past three days have been the worst, in public relations terms, that Israel has suffered since the start of the Gaza war—and given how bad it’s been throughout, that’s saying a lot. There are reasons for this—some for which Israel is clearly responsible, and others less so.

We’re hearing a lot of information. What we actually know is far less.

What We Know:

New food aid distribution points have been set up in Gaza by an organization calling itself the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). It’s a U.S.- and Israeli-funded non-profit incorporated in Delaware. The goal of this new system was twofold: logistical and political. First, to stop Hamas from looting and reselling food aid originally distributed through the UN. Second, to displace the UN entirely, since Israel sees it as biased and sympathetic to Hamas.

But the UN had 400 small distribution points across Gaza, staffed by trained personnel with experience in large-scale humanitarian operations. The GHF, by contrast, is starting from scratch. It has taken a very different approach: opening a handful of large distribution sites—up to ten total—mostly in southern Gaza, staffed and secured by private U.S. contractors. The IDF is not directly involved but maintains a security perimeter at a distance.

One thing is clear: so far, it has been an unmitigated disaster.

What We Hear:

On May 27th, the second day of operations, GHF lost control of its first site when thousands of desperate people, including women and children, rushed to get food. Israeli troops fired “warning shots,” and staff were forced to flee to avoid casualties. According to the Hamas-run Media Office, Israeli tanks opened fire, killing 10 Palestinians and wounding 62.

More incidents followed: on June 1st, 31 people were reported killed and 170 injured near another site. On June 3rd, 27 more were reportedly killed, with 161 injured in Rafah. Hamas immediately blamed Israel, calling the events “massacres” and “war crimes,” and circulated video footage of chaos and wounded civilians—images that have been broadcast around the world.

Israel has scrambled to respond, releasing its own video from May 27th which appears to show that it was actually Hamas gunmen who opened fire on the crowd.

Let’s be clear: Hamas’s account cannot be taken at face value. It has every incentive to see the new aid system fail. That said, Israel’s response has been abysmal.

David Mencer, the Israeli government spokesman with the polished British accent, has been making the media rounds. His core message is that all reports coming out of Gaza are propaganda from the Hamas-run Health Ministry and should not be trusted. In every interview, the obvious question follows, namely, if that’s true, then why doesn’t Israel allow international journalists into Gaza to independently verify what’s happening? Mencer’s answer: “Israel’s job is not to get journalists in safely, it’s to get our hostages out safely.” It’s a terrible answer. It’s an obvious deflection. Worse, it highlights how unsuccessful Israel has been at getting hostages out. It also fuels the perception that Israel has something to hide.

Mencer knows full well that journalists have covered dangerous war zones for generations—from World War II to Vietnam to Iraq. It’s their job. Whether or not they go is a decision for their media organizations, not Israel. Yes, it's true that journalists being killed is damaging for Israel, which is perceived to be in control of Gaza. But that’s not an argument against access—it’s an argument for transparency. Mencer also points out that most "citizen journalists" in Gaza have to be favorable to Hamas or they will be killed. Probably true. But isn't that more reason to allow in independent professionals?

For all its flaws, replacing the UN was likely a mistake. Hamas fighters hiding in UN buildings was a military problem. But swapping a flawed but functioning system for a brand new, barely operational one has turned out to be both a logistical disaster and a public relations catastrophe. Hungry, desperate people are now being herded into a few chaotic sites with minimal infrastructure. The resulting images—chaos, stampedes, bodies—are deeply damaging, and not just to Israel’s image. They’re feeding doubts about the motivations of Israel’s leadership and giving its critics a devastating narrative: that Israel is deliberately making life unlivable to push for what it calls “voluntary, temporary displacement.”

The more these images circulate, the harder that accusation becomes to refute.

Asymmetries

I suddenly realized something about the conflict between Israel and Hamas — something so obvious that most of us overlook it. And yet, I believe it's central to the intense emotions many of us are experiencing: the anger, the moral outrage, the sense of injustice, futility, and helplessness.

We often say — and truly believe — that both Israel and Hamas should be held accountable for their actions. But then why does it feel like Israel is the one being relentlessly piled on? Is it simply because Israel is behaving worse?

I don’t think so.

The real reason, I believe, lies in a fundamental asymmetry of the conflict.

Israel can be held accountable — and is, every single day. By its own citizens, its own media, its courts, and by the international community. There are rules, standards, and legal frameworks we expect it to uphold. And so we scrutinize, we criticize, we protest, we judge.

Hamas, on the other hand, is a terrorist organization — a non-state actor, operating outside any accepted legal framework or governing norms. It has no courts, no free press, no civic institutions, no mechanisms of self-restraint. It is accountable to no one, not even to the Palestinian people who live under its rule. In fact, many of its supporters celebrate this lack of accountability as a kind of virtue — proof that it isn’t constrained by “Western values” or international law.

Let me be clear: I would never argue that we should lower the standards we apply to Israel in order to create a "level playing field." Quite the opposite. The solution is not to demand less of Israel — it’s to demand more of Hamas. To insist on the same level of accountability, transparency, and moral responsibility from all parties engaged in violence, especially those who claim to act in the name of justice or liberation.

Until we recognize and address this fundamental asymmetry, our debates about this conflict will remain emotionally charged and morally incoherent. If we want to discuss this tragedy honestly and productively, we need to keep this imbalance — between a state bound by law and a group defined by lawlessness — firmly in view.

How Worried Should We Be About the Latest Violence Against Jews?

In the past two weeks, we’ve witnessed two deeply alarming incidents in the United States: the cold-blooded murder of two Israeli Embassy staffers on the streets of Washington, D.C., outside a networking event, and this past weekend’s attack in Boulder, Colorado, where Molotov cocktails and a homemade flamethrower were used on a gathering for hostages, injuring twelve people. In both cases, the attackers reportedly shouted “Free Palestine,” making clear these were politically motivated hate crimes targeting Jews. Add to this the firebombing of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s house on Passover, and the pattern becomes harder to ignore.

It’s important to distinguish here between anti-Semitism as a broad category and anti-Jewish violence as a specific, physical threat. Anti-Semitic incidents come in many forms—defaced synagogues, swastikas on campuses, hate speech, and online harassment. The vast majority of them are intended to intimidate and harass, not to kill. When we talk about the documented rise in anti-Semitism over the past decade, we are usually referring to these non-violent, though no less toxic, acts.

According to the "State of Anti-Semitism in America 2024" report, published in February 2025, 33% of American Jews said they had personally experienced anti-Semitism—either in person or online—within the past year. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has tracked a steady increase in reported incidents since 2016, with the most significant spike—an estimated 360%—occurring between 2021 and 2022, coinciding with the intensification of the war in Gaza.

But acts of 'bodily violence' against Jews remain relatively rare, and deadly attacks even more so. If we’re looking at numbers—and I recognize the discomfort in reducing this issue to statistics—far more Jews in recent years have been harmed or killed by right-wing extremism than by leftist political violence. There are structural reasons for this: right-wing extremists tend to hold explicitly racist and anti-Semitic worldviews, and they often glorify violence and 'gun culture'. Combine those elements, and you get a high potential for lethal outcomes.

The deadliest attacks on American Jews in modern memory remain the Tree of Life synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh (October 2018, 11 killed), and the shooting at a synagogue in Poway, California (April 2019, one dead, three injured). These followed the 2017 “Blood and Soil” white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia—a rally whose open Nazi iconography and anti-Jewish chants signaled a turning point in mainstreaming hate.

What makes the most recent attacks so unsettling is that they don’t fit the profile we’ve come to expect. Protest slogans and campus activism are usually where leftist anger over Israel and Gaza manifests—not Molotov cocktails and targeted killings. The question naturally arises: is this a new trend?

I don’t think so.

One commonality links the violent attacks of 2018 and those we’ve just seen: Donald Trump is President. While the Colorado attacker reportedly told authorities he had been planning an attack for a year, it’s not a stretch to suggest that he chose this particular moment to act because the political climate now feels opportune.

The President sets the national tone. Traditionally, presidents have used the authority of their office to calm tensions and unite the country. Trump does the opposite. When he isn’t providing comfort to right-wing extremists—offering them a permission structure for their hate—he’s promoting conspiracies that demonize immigrants and minorities. In true form, trump responded to the Colorado attack by posting, “He came in through Biden’s ridiculous Open Border Policy, which has hurt our Country so badly... This is yet another example of why we must keep our Borders SECURE, and deport Illegal, Anti-American Radicals from our Homeland.” No expression of sympathy for the victims. No condemnation of violence. No call for calm. Just more gasoline on an already smoldering fire.

Do I believe something fundamental has changed in America? Is America a more anti-Semitic society now than ten or twenty years ago?

Actually, no. I’d argue the opposite is likely true: most Americans today are more tolerant and open-minded than in previous generations. But extremists—on both ends of the spectrum—have become more emboldened, particularly under trump. And that’s why we are seeing more mass violence across the board. According to the Gun Violence Archive, there were over 488 mass shootings (defined as four or more victims) in the U.S. in 2024 alone—more than one per day.

Viewed in that context, the recent attacks in Washington and Colorado, as horrific as they are, may not be signs of something new. They are signs of something worsening: a political and cultural atmosphere in which hate is not just tolerated but activated.

The threat to Jews in America right now is real. But it’s not rooted in a sudden surge of popular anti-Semitism. It’s rooted in the dangerous convergence of extremism, impunity, and a political leadership that fuels division instead of diffusing it.

We should be concerned. Not because America has become a nation of anti-Semites, but because we are failing to contain those who are.