The Consequences Of Israel’s Hegemony

The two-state solution is nailed to the perch. The settlement project is super-charged.

It’s still not entirely clear how seriously Iran’s nuclear weapons program has been damaged by the Israel-US attacks, but it’s hard to doubt, especially given the lackluster response from Iran, that the damage is real and lasting. It’s the final jigsaw piece in place, establishing a new and overwhelming Israeli hegemony in the region. Israel now continues as the sole nuclear power, has turned Hamas’ Gaza into an uninhabitable Mars, decimated Hezbollah, exposed Iran’s direct conventional military threat as a busted flush, and removed a potential nuclear danger. Add to that the US alliance, and Israel is now the undisputed regional superpower.

And that, of course, has many possible consequences. One is that Israel uses this enhanced clout to rally more Arab states to its side, having proven once and for all that it is going nowhere and that its possible disappearance is a fantasy. The trouble with that, however, is that Iran’s very humiliation makes the logic of joining the Abraham Accords less attractive. They were, in reality, a recognition of a shared threat from the Persian theocrats. But now that threat appears diminished, the incentives shift a little, especially for Saudi Arabia.

The other consequence is that Israel’s new clout gives them carte blanche in the occupied territories. Israel, of course, could use this moment to make serious concessions on a Palestinian state in order to facilitate a new deal with the Saudis and others. But with this theocratic, racist Israeli government, with its record and now with the wind at its back? The odds are overwhelmingly against it. In fact, even as Israel has been dealing with Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas, its project of sovereignty from the river to the sea has gone into overdrive.

Two nights ago, for example, a now familiar event occurred in the Palestinian village of Taybeh in the West Bank. Jewish theocratic terrorists, also known as “settlers”, launched an attack. Masked men showed up, setting fire to homes and cars, and shooting at residents, who are mainly Christian. Nearby, in another assault, in a village called Kafr Malik, more houses were set on fire, cars were burned and three locals killed, seven injured.

This is now the reality for many Arabs on the West Bank who have the gall to live in the homes and towns they have always lived in:

The UN says there were 487 attacks by settlers resulting in casualties or property damage in the first four months of this year, including 122 in April. At least 181 Palestinians were reportedly injured by settlers in the attacks.

The Israeli theo-terrorists, largely left to their own devices by the IDF and backed by the Netanyahu government, are trying to get the residents to such a state of misery that they leave: a rumbling low-level Nakba II. Ambulances carrying Arabs are cut off by settlers’ cars; IDF troops are sent to harass Arabs from picking olives where they always have; villages are surrounded by hilltop settler posts, from which harassment can take place; and city dwellers run the gamut of checkpoints and walls.

A recent documentary by the British journalist, Louis Theroux, The Settlers, is well worth a watch. (That’s hard to do in the US, but BBC Select has it.) In it, the leaders of the movement openly celebrate their belief in the inferiority of Arabs, and their claim to the entire region as theologically mandated. They are salivating over the prospect of expelling all the Arabs from Gaza and re-settling the place. They have parties on nearby hills to watch the enclave being destroyed.

It has been the policy of almost every US administration that these settlements not be built, and not be expanded, and certainly not far from Israel’s borders. And yet our “ally” has completely ignored us. We can give everything to the Israelis — the unsurpassed aid, the billions for the Iron Dome, the UN vetoes, the bombs and missiles, and even the big beautiful bunker busters that Trump just dropped on Israel’s target. But on the one thing the US has consistently asked for — an end to the settlements — Israel has, as always, told us to go jump in a lake. And they’ve never suffered any consequences for it.

Now, of course, all the pressure is off, and in Trump, Israel has a solid pro-settlement president, a super-zealous evangelical US ambassador, Mike Huckabee, and a presidential son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who has actually funded settlements. More than that: the Netanyahu government, since 2022, has dramatically upped the ante in its bid to annex the entire region.

Each year this government has been in power, the settlement drive has accelerated. 4,427 new housing units on the West Bank were allowed in 2022, and 12,349 a year later. Then 26,118 in 2024. And now in 2025: 50,000 new units planned — a record since 1993 — 40 percent of which are entirely out of the Israeli border areas. “This increases the number of recognized settlements from 127 to 140,” according to that April report from Israel Policy Forum. A month later, 22 new settlements were secretly authorized — another massive expansion. The regular attacks on non-Jews are just a part of this campaign of state terror, theft, and appropriation of land.

The settlers are at the heart of the government, and the IDF has delegated a lot of policing powers on the West Bank to bureaucrats loyal to the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who lives in an illegal settlement himself. Smotrich is not shy of his racism toward Arabs or his desire for ever-more expansion:

In a leaked recording captured by Peace Now last year, Smotrich, during a conference for his National Religious Party-Religious Zionism, disclosed that the land confiscations in 2024 surpassed previous years’ averages by approximately tenfold. He said: “This thing is mega-strategic and we are investing a lot in it. This is something that will change the map dramatically.”

And in all this, Netanyahu has always had the strong backing of Trump. Huckabee, along with many American evangelicals, believes that all of the land was given by God Almighty to the Jewish people and nothing else matters: “When people use the term ‘occupied’, I say: ‘Yes, Israel is occupying the land, but it’s the occupation of a land that God gave them 3,500 years ago. It is their land.’” What happens to all those non-Jews who were living there? Harassment, military rule, regular pogroms, attacks on their farms and homes, bombs from above, and in the worst case, near-total destruction, as in Gaza. Reports of atrocities and serious war crimes are becoming harder and harder to ignore. For many Arabs under Israeli hegemony, it’s apartheid in a blitz.

There may be good reasons for backing Israel over Iran’s disgusting regime, or the Saudis’ foul dictators. Everyone is better off without an Iranian nuke. But we should be clear-eyed: This is the Israel we have gone to war for. It is not the Israel of the 20th Century. It is a belligerent, ethno-nationalist country, run in part by ugly racists and those who wish Israel were Arab-free. It may well use this new power for very destructive ends. I hope for an Israeli domestic political miracle that makes this no longer true. But I am not optimistic.

New On The Dishcast: Paul Elie

Paul is a writer, an editor, and an old friend. He’s a regular contributor to The New Yorker and a senior fellow in Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. He’s the author of The Life You Save May Be Your Own and Reinventing Bach, and his new book is The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s — about crypto-religion in pop culture.

Listen to the episode here. There you can find two clips of our convo — on Martin Scorsese’s religious films, and the Catholicism of Andy Warhol. That link also takes you to a ton of dissents over last week’s pod with Batya Ungar-Sargon, as well as a back-and-forth over the McKinley pod. Plus some reader feedback on my Chase Strangio piece.

The Times They Are A-Changin’

Dishheads know I’ve been trying to get a grip on the queer and trans extremists who have run amok with the remnants of the gay rights movement these past few years. But as I watched the transqueers respond to the resounding election defeat with unreconstructed defiance, doubling down on gender extremism, and hurting acceptance of gay men, lesbians, and sane trans people, I felt I had no choice but to try to make a noise that could reach further than Substack, and get through the wall of disinformation that the MSM and queer and trans groups have been perpetrating.

I sent the essay to the NYT as a formality, never expecting it to be accepted. But they did. I expected the editing process to be like the woke-checking at New York Magazine, and I’d have to fight for every sentence. But the process, while it certainly wasn’t without its moments (they did try to water it down a lot), and took a good while to get into the paper, was fine. Even better: they allowed me to say my piece and write at length.

So I spent yesterday in a defensive crouch expecting an avalanche of hate and outrage.

Surprise! I’ve been inundated with thanks and encouragement from my fellow gays and lesbians. NYT readers’ comments were overwhelmingly positive — especially the reader-selected ones. I was stopped in the street in Ptown and congratulated, not yelled at. Old friends, major gay donors, mere acquaintances clogged my mailbox to say things along the lines of: THANK GOD SOMEONE SAID THIS AT LAST. Here’s a text I got from a friend:

I’ve had conversations with a dozen friends today about the trans movement and our unquestioning obedience to it, many of whom had never really considered it before at all and were various degrees of horrified. Thank you for helping make this a conversation we can have, it’s helping.

And that is really the goal: to get a conversation started that should have been happening years ago; to tell gay men and lesbians that something truly dangerous is going on they may not know about; to encourage them to look at it more deeply; and to distinguish clearly between these gender extremists and the gay and lesbian rights movement — so we don’t all get tarnished with the intolerance and incoherence of the gender nutters.

It’s a start. All of which is to say: please speak up if you are hesitating. There is far less support for these crazy experiments on kids and ideological extremism than might appear. Face down the bullies. And face up to the facts. And rescue our cause from those who will otherwise destroy it with overreach.

Money Quotes For The Week

“Queer liberation means defund the police,” – Zohran Mamdani, November 2020.

“If a Muslim guy can even come close to winning New York City, that speaks well of our country even if you don’t like his policy platform and prefer a different candidate on merit. America is not nearly as racist as portrayed,” – Zaid Jilani.

“Israel says they don’t have the ability to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. They need America to do it for them. Then why did you start the war? They assumed — from the beginning — they could drag us into it. They knew our politicians would make Americans fight the war for them,” – Cenk Uygur. And they were right.

“Severely damaged versus obliterated — I’m not exactly sure what the difference is,” – vice-president JD Vance.

“So the U.S., a democracy, just attacked Iran without a vote or any input from Congress. Iran, an authoritarian regime, just held a debate and vote in parliament over whether to blockade the Strait of Hormuz,” – Ryan Grim.

“Bro, these ICE raids are fucking nuts, man. … They said we’re going to get rid of the criminals and the gang members first, right? And now we’re seeing, like, Home Depots get raided. Like, that’s crazy,” – Joe Rogan.

The View From Your Window

Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, 11.11 am

Dissents Of The Week

A reader writes:

Once again, the trend continues of you offering sharp, thoughtful, nuanced and unique analysis on topics outside of Israel — your piece on Chase Strangio — while writing shallow, one-sided, and reactionary criticism of Israel.

You condemn Israel’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities as against international law without any mention that Iran has vowed to wipe Israel off the map. And the legal question is not nearly as straightforward as you make it out to be. David French and Sarah Isgur offered the thoughtful and nuanced analysis you neglected in their June 17 episode of Advisory Opinions, noting that Iran clearly started this war on October 8, 2023. But more to the point, as French notes, “If you’re going to make the point that Israel doesn’t have a right to strike these Iranian facilities, you’re really undermining the very concept of the law of war.”

You obscured again when you compared plans for bombing Iran’s nuclear program with the invasion and long-term occupation of Iraq. It’s akin to conflating an ear piercing with a lobotomy. Trump launched several air campaigns in his first term, including against ISIS and Soleimani, and he recently led a brief bombing campaign against the Houthis. What is under debate is something much more akin to those than the invasion of Iraq, so why do you obfuscate between the two?

Also, you cite polls showing broad opposition to war with Iran. But when polls are more specific about strikes on the nuclear program, or about concern over stopping an Iranian nuke, there is wide support. The idea of an Iraq-style invasion and occupation is the strawman that opponents continually prop up to create a facade of support for their unpopular isolationist positions.

Finally, can we please stop using the term “neocon” when what we mean is “hawk”?

Iran started the war on October 8, 2023? Only if you call Hezbollah Iran, and it isn’t. October 1, 2024? That was in retaliation for Israel’s assassinations of IRGC general Abbas Nilforoushan, alongside assignations of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders. Nuclear-armed Israel’s war to target all of Iran’s potential nuclear capacity was not in response to an imminent threat. And low-level conflict between proxies, and even targeted assassinations, are not the same as a bomber campaign in Iran’s airspace, and the bombing of the capital. That’s a difference in kind, not degree.

Another reader on the Iraq comparison:

For starters, claims regarding Saddam’s possession of, attempt to acquire, or capacity to create WMDs was always disputed. The international community repeatedly stated there was, at best, specious evidence. But in the case of Iran, nobody is disputing that they are enriching uranium past civilian or medical purposes; nobody is disputing that they are enriching uranium to percentages used for weapons. Iraq was based on evidence that wasn’t there, but the current campaign against Iran is based on evidence that is there. That’s a meaningful difference.

But plenty of people, including the US government, were disputing that Iran was preparing to make a bomb. Another writes:

On congressional authorization, you advocate for a Senate vote, but the War Powers Act of 1973 allows the president to deploy forces for up to 60 days, with a 30-day withdrawal period, after notifying Congress within 48 hours, without prior approval. This provides flexibility for rapid threats — unlike the prolonged Iraq War you reference.

I’m not disputing that democratic control of war in the US is highly constrained, and that presidents have become used to doing what they want. I just object to it. Another dissent:

Comparing Iran with Ukraine and Taiwan is ridiculously flawed. Neither Ukraine nor Taiwan present in any form a threat to their (potential) invaders, but Iran has repeatedly attacked Israelis and Americans since 1979. They call us the Great Satan and vow to wipe Israel off the map. In fact, Russia is proof that you can get away with incredibly bad behavior if you have a nuke, so imagine how much more dangerous Iran will be when they have a nuke.

My point is that once you have sanctioned war in one region, it is hard to maintain credibility when you oppose it in another. One more dissent for now:

You mentioned in your episode with Batya Ungar-Sargon that you thought that since Israel has nuclear weapons, then Iran should too. Please keep in mind that Iran has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; Israel has not. So Iran would be violating international law by obtaining a nuclear weapon. Since Israel has not signed the treaty, it is not violating international law. Since you care so much about international law (at least when Israel violates it), then this is an important distinction.

Debater’s point. “We don’t even sign international agreements so we can’t be accused of breaking them” is not quite the clincher you seem to think it is.

Many more dissents over the Batya episode are on the pod page, arriving in your in-tray shortly. As always, please keep the criticism coming: dish@andrewsullivan.com.

Mental Health Break

After 48 years, Talking Heads finally releases the first music video for “Psycho Killer”:

In The ‘Stacks

• Will Saletan compiles the “babbling, bumbling, and bluster” of Trump on Iran.
• Sy Hersh is hearing that the US bombs were only meant to seal the entrance to Fordo.
• Noah Smith isn’t too worried about economic fallout of bombing Iran.
• Looking back to the ‘70s, Richard Galant profiles “the man who tried to rein in presidential war powers.”
• Why is Elizabeth MacDonough “the Most Powerful Woman in Washington”?
• Ross Barkan details Zohran’s “surreal and smashing victory”; Gabe Fleisher addresses the “fun factor”; and Rob Henderson hits Zohran’s “luxury beliefs.”
• Islamists just slaughtered over 200 Christians in a Nigerian town.
• “Sarah McBride is right about trans activism,” writes Tara Ella, “just 7 years too late.”
• Judith Butler’s statement on Skrmetti is “as stupid as you’d expect,” says Ben Appel.
• Tina Brown tackles “the Bezos Bunker-Buster Wedding.”
• It’s personal for Ted Gioia when he asks, “How Much Money Does Silicon Valley Make from Stolen Video?”
• Tyler Cowen is critical of a new paper claiming that AI make us stupid.
• Copyranter assembles “six of the most powerful PSAs ever produced.” He also covers “The Wild Un-Woke World Of 1970s Advertising.”
• MDMA for narcissism?
• A Substack writer was detained and deported for his views on the Columbia protests.
• Gavin Newsom is the latest pol to join Substack.
• Derek Thompson leaves The Atlantic after 17 years to launch a ‘stack. A sign of the times. Welcome!

The View From Your Window Contest