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Addressing the Troubling Situation of Qatar and American Universities

Yoni Tobin — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 20:25:34 +0000

The United States prides itself on being the most open society in the world, with our colleges and universities serving as great catalysts for scientific development, cultural advancement, and economic prosperity. Yet this very openness creates risks. Foreign entities, especially foreign governments, are increasingly using their wealth to turn American higher education institutions into channels of political influence, a development that demands serious legal and institutional scrutiny.

China’s efforts in this regard are well documented and rightly draw government scrutiny. But China, despite its escalating strategic competition with the United States, is not the largest foreign donor to American universities. That honor belongs to the tiny Gulf emirate of Qatar. And given the insignificant size of Qatari industry and scientific research, we should wonder what it is the Qataris are buying.

More than merely a generous donor or grant making entity, Qatar is a wealthy, non-democratic state that has spent years and billions of dollars cultivating influence in Washington while often pursuing foreign policy goals antithetical to core American interests and those of our key allies in the Middle East.

Moreover, some of these anti-American, anti-Israel, and pro-Islamist goals themselves are now supported and pushed through American institutions over which Qatar holds significant leverage, fueling an environment of student radicalism on American college campuses.

Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, the main legal instrument with which the government regulates foreign gifts to American universities, is not up to the challenge of meeting this growing threat. Its transparency and reporting mechanisms merely require universities to report foreign donations above $250,000. Aside from the fact that universities often fail to disclose the full amounts they receive, much of the foreign funding comes not in the form of outright donations but in opaque grants and contracts.

Recent releases from the House Education Committee show that Qatar’s agreements with American universities are carefully designed to provide access to intellectual property, governance boards, and academic credentialing, access Qatar then uses to promote its interests and ideological scholarship.

A name of an American university is a credential of trust. When that name is sold out to the highest bidder — in this case a non-democratic state with well-documented support for Islamist terror movements — the implications reach far beyond campus.

The Qatari contracts obtained and released by Congress also revealed that the appearance of full American control is maintained, even while embedding Qatari stakeholders in governance structures and providing Qatar access to research output and institutional know-how developed under the university’s name. Some were even directly signed by the Qatari foreign ministry –and completely abolish the line between academic research and state propaganda.

Moreover, agreements with state run media networks like Al Jazeera and elite American journalism schools provide reputational benefits, help whitewash the reality of the company as an instrument of narrative control, and raise serious questions about independence.

American universities have been immensely successful because of their commitment to academic freedom, open inquiry, and independence. Unfortunately, many of the countries that are writing the big checks do not share those values. It is therefore critical that we examine these relationships carefully and determine whose interests will be protected if a clash of values occurs. Too often, it will not be those of the United States.

The U.S. government carefully regulates foreign investment in strategic sectors, such as ports, telecommunications, energy, and defense, because access to these sectors can have serious national security implications. This regulation takes many forms, such as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).

Yet, consider the national security implications of allowing a foreign government access to our educational infrastructure. Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service educates a large proportion of the U.S. diplomatic corps, intelligence community, and Congressional staff. Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism educates a significant portion of America’s journalists. Should not the Qataris’ negotiation of these two “investments” be treated like any other attempt by a foreign government to gain a foothold in our critical infrastructure?

At a minimum, Congress should update Section 117 of the Higher Education Act to require full disclosure of foreign gifts, including the source of the gift and any agreements or contracts related to the gift.

Second, we should develop a certification process that ensures that these programs will maintain academic independence and will not lead to foreign government control (formal or informal) over hiring, curriculum, admissions, research, or other aspects of university governance. There should be penalties for false or misleading certifications.

Third, the U.S. Department of Education should develop a special review process for the most risky foreign country-university partnerships, including those from countries that are not democratic, that operate state-owned companies and media distribution networks, or that have ties to extremist or terrorist movements.

Finally, American universities need to recognize that what began as a public relations issue has become a national security issue. They should consider whether they want to accept these contracts at all, given their potential implications for national security. In the meantime, they should review all major contracts with foreign governments and disclose the terms of those contracts.

An important bipartisan step in this direction would be passage of the DETERRENT Act (H.R.1048/S.1296), currently before Congress. It would be the first step needed to address this urgent problem.

LtGen (ret.) Karsten Heckl most recently served as the Commanding General, Marine Corps Combat Development Command (MCCDC)/Deputy Commandant for Combat Development and Integration (CD&I) for the United States Marine Corps. LtGen Heckl is a Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) Generals & Admirals Program participant.

Hussein Mansour is JINSA’s Gemunder Center Fellow for Arab Affairs and the author of the Abrahamic Metacritique Substack.

Read the original piece in Algemeiner.

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Taunting Trump Over Gas Prices, Iran Braces for Aftermath of U.S. Vote

Nolan Judd — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 13:52:29 +0000

In the run-up to the midterm elections, Iranian state media is gleefully chronicling high prices at American gas pumps — and their impact on President Trump’s political standing.

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“While Trump is unpredictable, there are certainly signs that he might hit Iran hard” after the midterm vote, said Michael Makovsky, the president and chief executive of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, a hawkish think tank in Washington.

Mr. Trump may hold out “slim” hope for striking a deal before Election Day, Mr. Makovsky added. “But he doesn’t seem to think it’s likely.”

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Read the full piece in the New York Times.

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Exclusive: What Israel’s Underground War Can Teach Other Militaries

Nolan Judd — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 15:27:04 +0000

Few if any Western militaries are prepared for underground warfare: the kind of visceral, claustrophobic fight that’s reminiscent of Vietnam War tunnel rats and plays out year after year across the Middle East, according to a Jewish Institute for National Security of America report shared with Axios.

Why it matters: The lengthy document, littered with warnings, was co-authored by a man known as “Col. David,” an elite combat engineer who commanded Israel’s counter-tunnel and subterranean warfare operations after the Oct. 7 attack.

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What’s inside: The report lists five key takeaways from Israel’s experience. They include:

Synchronizing above-ground and below-ground operations and viewing both fights as a “single, cohesive effort.”
Updating military concepts, language and structure to treat subterra “not as a specialized issue, but one that impacts the entire conflict.”
Monitoring and disrupting knowledge transfer and supply chains, even in peacetime.

Threat level: China, North Korea, Iran, terror groups and drug smugglers alike operate and exploit these underground warrens.

They also share best practices.
“We know there’s so much cooperation between them on so many different fronts,” Tobin said, “and this is one of them that often gets overlooked.”

The intrigue: A report published by the U.S. Army in 2025 concluded American forces “may not be able to avoid a subterranean fight in the future” and recommended studying the IDF’s successes and failures.

My thought bubble: Remember Northeast drone chaos?

Among the problems then were slapdash policies, reporting chains and countermeasures. The same is true here.

The bottom line: “We’re at a political moment where we actually are risking losing access to some of those lessons that our frontline partner has learned,” Blaise Misztal, JINSA’s vice president for policy, told Axios.

The report, he said, is “about raising the profile — or the alarm — on these subterranean threats” as well as “recognizing the hard-fought lessons that Israel has learned.”

Read the full article in Axios.

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PRESS RELEASE – New JINSA Report: Israel’s Wars Highlight Underground Domain U.S. Must Prepare For

Yoni Tobin — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 15:05:36 +0000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 20, 2026
Contact: Blake Johnson
bjohnson@jinsa.org

Washington, DC – The United States must urgently prepare for subterranean warfare as adversaries increasingly exploit underground networks to offset American military superiority, protect strategic assets, and threaten U.S. forces and homeland security, warns a new report released today by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA). To do that, the United States should learn the hard-won lessons from Israel’s operations to counter Hamas’s tunnel threat in Gaza.

The Subterranean Front: Lessons for Defeating Underground Threats from a Commander on the Front Lines, co-authored by IDF Colonel David, the former commander of Israel’s elite Yahalom combat engineering special forces unit who led their counter-tunnel and subterranean warfare operations after October 7, and JINSA’s Yoni Tobin, provides an unprecedented window into Israel’s nearly three years of intensive operations against Hamas and Hezbollah tunnel networks. The report outlines how the United States and our allies can prepare for an increasingly consequential domain of modern warfare.

Subterranean warfare has evolved far beyond isolated tunnels. Hamas transformed Gaza’s underground into a sprawling, interconnected military system spanning hundreds of miles, with command-and-control centers, weapons production facilities, intelligence hubs, logistics networks, and hostage-holding sites. Hezbollah built sophisticated underground fortifications in southern Lebanon, while Iran has invested in deeply buried facilities to shield its missile, drone, and nuclear programs.

“This one-of-a-kind report, co-authored by the commander of Israel’s underground warfare special forces, is an example of how American forces can benefit directly from Israel’s hard-won operational expertise,” said JINSA President and CEO Michael Makovsky. “The threat is poorly understood but growing, from cross-border tunnels like the recently discovered 1,800-foot passage used by narcoterrorists to infiltrate the United States, to subterranean networks that pose a challenge to American forces abroad. The United States cannot afford to ignore it—or the lessons Israel has learned in confronting it.”

These threats extend well beyond the Middle East. China and North Korea have developed extensive underground military networks designed to protect strategic assets and sustain combat operations against the United States and our allies. Meanwhile, sophisticated tunnels along America’s southern border underscore the immediate homeland security implications: U.S. authorities have discovered at least 236 illicit cross-border tunnels entering the United States since 1990.

Just as Ukraine’s battlefield experience has accelerated advances in drone warfare, Israel’s sustained combat against Hamas and Hezbollah has produced hard-won lessons in detecting, mapping, and neutralizing sophisticated underground networks. The report argues that the United States should capitalize on this operational experience now, rather than wait for a future conflict to expose critical gaps in American readiness.

The report warns that, as with the advancements in drone warfare, it has never been easier for nefarious actors to procure commercially available equipment and expertise for tunnel construction through near-frictionless international networks.

To address these challenges, JINSA recommends that the United States:

Make subterranean warfare a core military planning priority. Adapt U.S. doctrine, operational concepts, and training to prepare ground forces for sustained underground combat, rather than treating it as a niche engineering or special operations challenge.
Integrate intelligence, technology, and operations. Establish dedicated subterranean intelligence-fusion capabilities that combine underground and aboveground intelligence, improve detection and mapping, and synchronize ground maneuver, engineering, electronic warfare, and precision strikes.
Accelerate technology development and acquisition. Invest in advanced tunnel-detection and neutralization systems, robotics, and new approaches to holding deeply buried strategic targets at risk, including promising research into weapons that use shockwaves to penetrate hardened underground facilities.
Strengthen U.S.-Israel defense cooperation. Expand joint research and development, intelligence sharing, training, and testing; explore a shared subterranean research and development center, a joint training center, and a dedicated joint operations center. Advance congressional initiatives, including Sections 1222 and 219 of the FY2027 National Defense Authorization Act, to deepen collaboration.
Close gaps in U.S. border security. Improve Customs and Border Protection’s ability to fuse sensor data continuously, detect and map cross-border tunnels, and deploy effective detection and neutralization technologies. Disrupt the illicit supply chains, equipment transfers, and expertise that enable sophisticated underground networks to be built and sustained.
Expand cooperation with U.S. allies and partners. Work with countries including South Korea and Taiwan on shared doctrine, standardized mapping, joint technology development, multinational training, and preparations for adversaries’ subterranean operations.

Israel itself, despite years of experience confronting underground threats, had to adapt rapidly to the scale and sophistication of the networks it encountered in Gaza and Lebanon. The United States should learn from those successes and setbacks before facing a comparable challenge.

The United States and Israel should lead a broader effort to ensure that American forces, law enforcement agencies, and allied militaries possess the doctrine, intelligence, and technology needed to detect, disrupt, and defeat adversaries operating underground.

Read the Report

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Genocide: When Accusation Replaces Evidence

Nolan Judd — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 15:29:44 +0000

History teaches us that if you repeat something often enough, people may begin to believe it, even when the evidence is missing.
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On October 7, 2026, 78 retired American military leaders and legal experts signed an open letter rejecting the claim that Israel committed genocide in Gaza. They pointed to evacuation warnings, humanitarian measures, legal reviews of military operations, and efforts to limit civilian casualties. In their view, those actions cut against the claim that Israel intended to destroy Palestinians as a people.”

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Read the full piece in the Times of Israel.

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Iranian Cyber Operations

jinsa-shavdala — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 19:04:54 +0000

Americans have long found comfort in the two oceans that separate us from Middle East wars, but the vulnerabilities Iranian cyber operations pose bring these conflicts much closer to home. Through cyber intrusion, Iran has already disrupted our water supply and healthcare sector while continuing to threaten our energy and telecommunications infrastructure. If we fail to force an end to Iran’s cyber warfare, collaborate with our partners to alert the public on Iranian threats, and help communities address key cybersecurity concerns, the Iranian state and cybercriminals may cause irreversible damage to American infrastructure.

Attempting to disrupt U.S. military operations and the American government, cybercriminals within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Cyber Economic Command and Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS), such as Handala Hack Team and APT Iran, launched direct cyberattacks targeting American troops and officials. These attacks not only demonstrated Iran’s intent to harm the American warfighter, but also compromise our defense apparatus. Handala claimed responsibility for seizing the personal information of U.S. servicemembers stationed in the Middle East and hacking the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations Director’s email, while APT Iran claimed to steal details on the F-35 fighter jet from Lockheed Martin.

Iran has also carried out cyberattacks on critical infrastructure in the continental United States, demonstrating its reach and determination to harm noncombatants. Attacking infrastructure can quickly undermine our way of life, such as threatening our school safety, clean water, food access, and heating and cooling systems. In a horrifying incident in March, Handala likely launched the most significant wartime cyberattack against the United States, with hackers claiming to have wiped between 80,000-200,000 devices, prompting surgery delays at hospitals and panic amongst patients nationwide. Then, in July, several American towns issued water advisories after a coordinated cyberattack struck water facilities across the United States, with cybersecurity experts noting that the techniques mirror past Iranian hacking operations.

As Iran openly hacked U.S. infrastructure, the regime also launched cyberattacks on Israel and America’s Arab partners, pressuring them to curtail relations with the United States. While claiming responsibility for cyberattacks on military and critical infrastructure systems across the Middle East, including in Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.), Iranian forces also combined cyberoperations with kinetic strikes to maximize their damage. Handala has claimed to have hacked the facility and stolen around 430,000 classified documents.

While the Trump administration has recently expanded the U.S. government’s jurisdiction to combat foreign cybercriminals, Iranian cybergroups’ recent threats to our water, energy, and telecommunications sectors suggest they feel empowered to continue launching attacks.

As U.S. forces in the Middle East combat Iranian missiles and drone attacks on our troops and allies, the United States must counter the full range of Iranian aggression, including the regime’s use of cyberwarfare. Until we do that, Iran will continue to have a means of pressuring the United States and targeting Americans. Therefore, U.S. officials should publicly signal a firm position that Washington will only agree to end the war and will hinge any future deal with Iran if the regime halts cyberattacks on U.S. and partner infrastructure.

But linking a deal may not entirely stop Iran from finding loopholes to resume its malign operations. Therefore, the intelligence community and U.S. foreign partners should exchange common tactics, techniques, and procedures of Iranian cybercriminals and inform the public on these identifying features. By exposing Iran’s common hacking signatures, government’s can prepare their people to recognize and thwart Iran’s operations.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) should lead a nationwide hands-on cybersecurity educational initiative with state, local, and tribal governments, as well as major infrastructure stakeholders, such as telecommunications, water, and energy companies aimed at identifying zero-day vulnerabilities and providing them with the necessary tools and resources to fix them. Within this initiative, any organization CISA assesses to have a direct role in operating our critical infrastructure must meet a series of cybersecurity conditions CISA sets, and must undergo annual reviews ensuring full compliance with CISA safeguards.

Iran’s kinetic attacks and assault on the Strait of Hormuz aren’t the only actions causing international chaos. Iran’s cyber warfare has infiltrated the daily lives of American citizens and disrupted military operations overseas. It is essential that Washington treat any cyberattack targeting our military assets, civilians, and international partners like any other kinetic strike. Therefore, we must hold Iran accountable for its cyberattacks while actively collaborating with our foreign partners and rigorously bolstering our cyber defenses nationwide.

Edited 10/19

Lt Gen Michael Groen, USMC (ret.) was Director of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) and was a participant in the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) 2023 Generals and Admirals Program.

Sarah Havdala is a policy analyst at JINSA.

Read the original piece in RealClearDefense.

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To Squeeze Iran, Washington Must Go After Halkbank

Jonah Brody — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 13:39:24 +0000

When U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent launched Operation Economic Outcast against Iran, he promised to target its “enablers” and “sever every economic lifeline that sustains this tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone.” Washington has since sanctioned everything from foreign banks to Iranian airlines. Yet it has spared one of the most prominent institutions ever accused of helping Iran evade U.S. sanctions: Turkey’s state-owned Halkbank. This Iranian lifeline, too, must be severed.

In one of the biggest sanctions-evasion cases ever, U.S. prosecutors charged in 2019 that, between 2012 and 2016, Halkbank violated U.S. sanctions by transferring roughly $20 billion in Iranian oil proceeds into gold and cash while disguising the transactions as legitimate food trade. Washington spent years prosecuting Halkbank, only to settle the case through a deferred prosecution agreement in March and drop it in June without the bank paying a fine or admitting to any wrongdoing.

Halkbank’s reprieve, according to Justice Department filings, was tied to Turkey’s help in brokering the October 2025 ceasefire in Gaza. With this trade, Washington told Ankara that it can buy immunity from U.S. sanctions enforcement and signaled to Tehran that Turkish banks remain a safe channel for its money.

Turkey and Iran got the message. A financial architecture like the one that enabled Halkbank’s sanctions evasion once again operates from Turkey.

On September 4, the Treasury said Istanbul-based Golden Global Yatirim Bankasi was established to enable Iran’s rahbar network—the front companies Iran’s sanctioned banks use to move money abroad—to transfer oil revenues from China to Turkey, where exchangers could convert them into cash and gold and move them to Iran. That is the route Halkbank was accused of running a decade earlier.

And, soon, Halkbank itself could restart funneling money to Iran. Turkey’s 25-year gas contract with Iran expired in July, but the pipeline network in eastern Anatolia was built around Iranian supply and Iranian gas met nearly 13 percent of Turkish consumption. Neither government has said whether the contract’s automatic five-year extension was triggered. But if it was, Halkbank, which historically processed Turkey’s payments for Iranian energy, could again be handling Iranian revenue.

Despite this exposure of its financial institutions to Iranian sanctions evasion, Ankara has acted only when Washington applies pressure. On September 18, Turkish regulators revoked the operating license of Bank Mellat’s Istanbul branch, an Iranian state lender under U.S. sanctions that Turkey had allowed to operate for years. Two days earlier, regulators placed nearly all shareholder rights at Golden Global under state control, roughly two weeks after the U.S. designation. When the Treasury went after Iran’s aviation sector, Ankara halted Mahan Air flights and Turkey’s flag carrier Turkish Airlines suspended flights to Iran. Yet, none of these steps touched Halkbank or the exchange houses that convert Iranian revenue into gold, and Iranian trade still moves through Turkish intermediaries and informal networks.

Washington, too, so far, seems uninterested in Halkbank, or Turkey’s, possible role in aiding Iran, even after Economic Outcast began. After the Golden Global designation, U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack stressed that the action was no indictment of Ankara, saying “the health of the Turkish financial system is not in question.” That reassurance clashes with the Treasury’s warning that foreign institutions facilitating Iranian sanctions evasion risk losing access to the U.S. financial system. A warning that loses force if it stops at institutions with clout in Washington.

Washington should apply pressure most forcefully on Halkbank to close the channel Iran has used before for its energy revenue and show Ankara that political influence no longer buys exemption from U.S. law. After all, American pressure has worked in Ankara before. In 2018, sanctions on two Turkish ministers and higher steel and aluminum tariffs secured the release of detained American pastor Andrew Brunson that October.

First, the Treasury should require Halkbank, as a condition of its access to U.S. correspondent banks, to accept a U.S.-selected monitor with access to any accounts held for Iranian entities, a safeguard the deferred prosecution agreement left to a reviewer of Halkbank’s own choosing.

Second, the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network should publicly state that any Iranian payment routed through Halkbank outside a transparent, U.S.-monitored channel will trigger a Section 311 finding—which can bar U.S. banks from maintaining correspondent accounts for the targeted institution—as it has already proposed for Banque Misr’s United Arab Emirates branches. More broadly, Washington should hold the Turkish state responsible for the conduct of the banks it owns and the exchange houses it regulates.

Economic Outcast rests on the premise that no foreign institution can safely facilitate Iran’s access to international finance. That premise holds only if it applies to the largest state banks of an American ally, which just so happens to have been one of Iran’s largest economic lifelines. That lifeline must be severed.

Blaise Misztal is the Vice President for Policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA).

Jonah Brody is a policy analyst at JINSA.

Read the original piece in RealClearWorld.

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‘United States Looking At All Possibilities’ on Iran

Nolan Judd — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 15:47:16 +0000

Approximately 3,000 U.S. military personnel are reportedly deployed in Israel as the Pentagon positions additional forces in the Middle East in preparation for the possibility of further regional escalation with Iran.
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Jonathan Ruhe, a fellow for American strategy at JINSA, said the reported troop numbers point to an evolving but still incomplete shift in U.S. posture, falling short of a full commitment by either side to a “semi-permanent U.S. presence” in Israel.

“The recent, sudden expansion of U.S. presence reflected ready-made opportunities in Israel: certain bases like Ovda are built to U.S. specifications, Israel maintains high readiness at its bases, and it already had some surge capacity for the rapid influx of American aircraft, personnel, and materiel for [Operation] Epic Fury,” he said.

“But a more permanent and shared basing posture entails tough political decisions from both sides to fund it. Especially after its recent losses, the United States is trying to lessen its dependence on permanent bases in the Gulf, in favor of rotating forces through multiple countries, like Israel, that are farther from Iran.”

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Read the full piece in JNS.

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Refuting the Genocide Claim Is Not News

Nolan Judd — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 15:38:10 +0000

On Oct. 7, the third anniversary of Hamas’s barbaric invasion of Israel, more than 75 retired senior American military officers and legal experts issued an extraordinary open letter rejecting categorically that Israel is guilty of genocide in the Gaza Strip.
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The open letter, organized by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), is not only about Israel; it is about America, as well. Falsely accusing Israel of genocide, the letter explained, threatens America’s national security by setting a dangerous precedent for future American military operations.

No major American news organization has reported on the JINSA letter. In the days since its release, there has been no media coverage outside the Jewish and Israeli press and social media.

To be sure, Israel’s and Jewish groups’ rejection of the genocide charge has been reported, but the open letter is qualitatively different. It reflects the informed and independent judgment of former leaders of the U.S. military rebutting the charge. It stands alone.

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Read the full piece in JNS.

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Trump WH Sends Mixed Signals Over Response to European Sanctions Against Israeli Settlements

Nolan Judd — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 15:58:42 +0000

The assistant attorney general for civil rights, Harmeet Dhillon, warned last week that countries participating in boycotts of Israel could face U.S. retaliation, raising the prospect of sanctions against Britain and other European governments.

But Washington still has yet to clarify its policy, and it remains unclear whether the Trump administration plans to move forward with retaliatory measures.

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Jonathan Ruhe, a fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, said the uncertainty comes against a complicated history of U.S. policy toward Israeli settlements and BDS.

“Israeli settlements have always existed in a gray area when it comes to U.S. opposition to BDS. President Obama excepted West Bank settlements from his enforcement of anti-BDS laws, and Biden sanctioned certain settler activities while officially opposing BDS.”

He said that ambiguity appears to have carried into the Trump administration as tensions between Israel and European governments over settlement policy have increased.

“This gray area now seems to be carrying over to the Trump administration, where coherent and consistent policymaking has never been a strong suit, precisely as the West Bank and U.S.-European ties become particularly tense more generally,” Ruhe said.

Ruhe also pointed to the administration’s previous responses to European actions targeting Israel as a possible indication of how Washington could respond to the latest measures.

“Though Amb. Huckabee repeatedly called settler violence ‘acts of terror’ and ‘criminal activity’ over the summer, Europe’s latest threats follow a pattern where the administration jumps at the opportunity to retaliate for sanctions, embargoes, and arrest warrants aimed at Israel from Europe,” Ruhe said.

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Read the full piece in JewishInsider.

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