Israel Today

Thoughts for Shabbat:
The parashah Shelach Lecha describes one of the most dramatic moments in the history of Israel.
Sometimes a person fails not because of the magnitude of the challenge before them, but because of the image they carry of themselves. That is exactly what the parashah “Shelach Lecha” is about. The people of Israel are already standing at the threshold of the Promised Land. The promise lies directly before them. Yet precisely at this decisive moment, they defeat themselves from within. It is not the giants in the land that become the greatest problem, but the “grasshopper consciousness” in their own hearts.

The parashah Shelach Lecha describes one of the most dramatic moments in the history of Israel. Years of the exodus from Egypt, of miracles, of guidance, of hope and of promise lead the people to the threshold of the Promised Land. Moses sends out twelve spies to scout the land, its cities, its inhabitants, and its fruits. They return with an enormous cluster of grapes, as testimony to the richness of the land. The land is good, fertile, and full of promise. Yet alongside this description comes a sentence that changes everything: “And there we saw the giants … and we were in our own eyes like grasshoppers, and so we were also in their eyes.”

Perhaps this is one of the most revealing verses in the Bible. For here the real problem of the spies — and probably of the entire people — is exposed... [link in comments]

Israel, Lebanon agree on plan to drive Hezbollah north of the Litani River
“We brought the people of Lebanon to the understanding that we’re not the enemy. Hezbollah is,” said Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s U.S. ambassador.

After a marathon negotiating session of over eight and a half hours at the U.S. State Department, Israel and Lebanon announced an agreement to “swiftly advance the creation” of so-called pilot zones to gradually drive out the Hezbollah terror organization from south of the strategic Litani River in southern Lebanon, and immediately replace control of those positions with Lebanese Armed Forces troops.

The agreement, brokered by the United States, came at the conclusion of the second day of the fourth round of the historic direct talks between Jerusalem and Beirut in Washington... [to read more click on link in comments section]

[photo: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio joins working-level peace talks with Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter and Lebanese Ambassador to the United States Nada Hamadeh Moawad at the Department of State in Washington, D.C., April 14, 2026. Credit: Freddie Everett/U.S. State Department.]

Netanyahu: Ties with Trump airtight, 100% agreement on core issues
The Israeli prime minister said that he and the U.S. president agree that Iran must neither possess nuclear weapons nor ever be in a position to threaten the Jewish state, the Middle East, America and the world.

In an interview with CNBC‘s Sara Eisen on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reassured that the U.S.-Israel relationship has never been better, and that he and U.S. President Donald Trump share the same aims vis à vis Iran.

The interview, which took place at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, came the same day that Trump confirmed reports to The New York Post that he had called Netanyahu “f***ing crazy” during a Monday phone call over Israel’s continuing operations in Lebanon against the terror group Hezbollah.

Photo: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump at the Knesset, Oct. 13, 2025. Credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90.

When Leaders Stop Choosing –
From Pharaoh to TehranThere are moments in history when power no longer acts rationally. Moments when leaders no longer weigh their options, but simply press forward, even when the path leads directly into the abyss...

Photo: Propaganda poster in Tehran: Pictured are the now-DECEASED terror leaders (l. to r.) Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Qasem Soleimani, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. Photo: EPA/ABEDIN TAHERKENAREH