Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will fly to Washington this week to meet with US President Donald Trump on Iran, his office announces.
The meeting will take place on Wednesday, as the US and Iran appear set for a second round of nuclear talks.
“The Prime Minister believes that any negotiations must include restrictions on ballistic missiles and an end to support for the Iranian axis,” says the Prime Minister’s Office
Netanyahu was originally scheduled to be in Washington from February 18-22.
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| The original Lufthansa company, founded in 1926, was shuttered after the fall of the Nazi regime. |
After decades of dismissals, the German airline is taking responsibility for its ties to the Nazi Party during the Second World War, after commissioning a study into the company’s own history.
“Lufthansa was clearly part of the system,” said Carsten Spohr, Lufthansa’s CEO, during a press conference at Frankfurt Airport on Tuesday, revealing the company relied on forced labour to build a “clandestine air force” for the National Socialist government to commit “war crimes and criminal activities.”
The study was done as part of a retrospective on Lufthansa’s history during its 100th year of operation, which includes a forthcoming book on the subject.
Previously, the company ignored its ties to the regime — on a technicality/
Deutsche Luft Hansa AG, a German state-subsidized carrier and armaments company founded in 1926, was dissolved and liquidated as WWII came to a close. In 1953, Deutsche Lufthansa AG was founded by staff from the previous iteration after acquiring the rights to the shuttered company name and logo.
Author Lutz Budrass previously wrote a book on Lufthansa’s history.
In a 2020 interview, he told Deutsche Welle, “Lufthansa, like most companies, was not held accountable for its actions.”
Despite the original airline’s closure, Budrass noted that key players in the new Lufthansa had been highly involved with the previous, namely, Kurt Weigelt, vice chairman, and Kurt Knipfer, a former Purssion officer who led Lufthansa until 1945. “There was a strong continuity in its staff.”
“With the new founding, the company wanted to distance itself from the horrors of the past and the crimes committed under National Socialism, which were perpetrated by Lufthansa.”
Budrass further claimed at the time, “It’s clear that Lufthansa is not ready to take this step,” referring to the airline’s reluctance to formally acknowledge its problematic origins.
In its mea culpa on Tuesday, the airline wrote in a statement, “In examining its history, Lufthansa does not limit itself to the post-war chapters of its history. The years from its founding to the decline of the first Lufthansa are also part of the company’s history.”
“It is already three years that I am calling upon you, Polish Jewry, who are the crown of world Jewry. I continue to warn you incessantly that a catastrophe is coming closer. I became gray and old in these years. My heart bleeds that you, dear brothers and sisters, do not see the volcano which will soon begin to spit its all-consuming lava."
"I see that you are not seeing this because you are immersed and sunk in your daily worries. Today, however, I demand from you trust. You were convinced already that my prognoses have already proven to be right. If you think differently, then drive me out of your midst! However, if you do believe me, then listen to me in this twelfth hour:
"In the name of God! Let anyone of you save himself as long as there is still time - and time there is very little. And what else I would like to say to you on this day of Tisha B’Av: whoever of you will escape the catastrophe, he or she will live to see the exalted moment of a great Jewish wedding - the rebirth and the rise of a Jewish state. I don’t know if I will be privileged to see it; my son will! I believe in this as I am sure that tomorrow morning the sun will rise."
Tzfat Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu has offered an explanation for the decline in the number of Arabs ascending the Temple Mount.
According to Rabbi Eliyahu, the number of Arabs visiting the Temple Mount is now down by half.
Sharing a conversation that one of his friends had with a senior Arab official on the Temple Mount, Rabbi Eliyahu said that the Arab official claimed that Jews bowing on the ground on on the Temple Mount caused less Arabs to visit the site.
Rabbi Eliyahu quoted the Arab as saying to his friend, "The reason is that you started bowing on the ground to the Holy One, Blessed Be He. When we see you bowing, we are afraid of you, because you humble yourselves before G-d. If you humble yourselves before G-d, who can stand against you? So, we don't come anymore."
The Temple Mount Yeshiva issued a statement: "Blessings to Minister Ben-Gvir for restoring governance and honor to the Temple Mount, the holiest and most important place for the People of Israel. Since Ben-Gvir took office, the Temple Mount has returned to being a holy and pleasant place, and instead of chants inciting the murder of Jews, we now hear wedding songs, prayers, and Torah lessons. It is moving to witness the awakening of the rabbis ascending, and the bowing which is growing stronger. The People of Israel have returned to the Temple Mount."
Cryi'n Schumer would rather the Gateway Tunnel never be built then to G-d Forbid name it after Trump!
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) rejected an offer from President Trump last month to release $16 billion in federal funds for the Gateway tunnel project in exchange for backing the renaming of New York’s Penn Station and Washington’s Dulles International Airport after him.
Schumer reportedly told the president that he didn’t have the power to deliver on the unusual request, according to CNN.
The Trump administration made the ask as part of continuing talks to release funds earmarked for the massive Hudson River rail tunnel project that would connect New York and New Jersey, a source with knowledge of the discussion told The Post.
Schumer huddled with Trump at the White House on Jan. 15 to discuss the Gateway tunnel project. It’s unclear if the president made the offer to the senator during that meeting.
The Senate minority leader “emphasized the urgent need to promptly release the already-secured funds for the Gateway Program — the most important infrastructure project in the nation employing thousands of workers and vital to New York and the entire Northeast economy” during the meeting, his office said at the time.
Trump froze a combined $18 billion in funding for the Gateway tunnel and New York’s Second Avenue subway project last October – on the first day of the Schumer-led government shutdown, during which Democrats held up federal funding for a record 43 days.
New York, New Jersey and the Gateway Development Commission are suing the Trump administration over the freeze, arguing the withholding of the funds is unlawful and a breach of contract.
The funds were approved by the federal government in 2021 and construction on the tunnel began in 2023. It’s not expected to be completed until 2035.
A line of credit used to keep work going on the tunnel amid the funding freeze will run dry on Friday and construction will come to a total halt, according to the New Jersey Monitor.
“It is critical to the region, it’s critical to jobs, it’s critical to the economy. That’s why we’re fighting,” New Jersey Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill told reporters Wednesday. “Let me be clear: This is a political decision by the president to cancel money that’s already in a pot being ready to be put to work.”
The prospect of renaming Penn Station after Trump first arose last April, when the Department of Transportation took over a project to renovate the transit hub and New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul indicated she’d be fine calling it “Trump Station” when completed.
House Republicans have also previously introduced legislation that would rename Northern Virginia’s Washington Dulles International Airport to Donald J. Trump International Airport.
U.S. President Donald Trump is an arch pragmatist. His “art of the deal" is based on beating down the other side through negotiations in which he plays a superior hand.
This approach characterizes his foreign policy. Over both Iran and Gaza, however, it’s currently threatening to derail his intention to restore respect for American power-not to mention his much-desired legacy as the world’s principal peacemaker.
At the time of writing, a negotiation process still seems to be underway between the United States and the Iranian regime as an alternative to war. Trump’s terms include the regime giving up its nuclear program, ballistic missiles and sponsorship of terrorism-a demand for nothing less than surrender, to which the regime will never agree.
If Trump attacks Iran, we’ll finally know that he realizes that deal-making among nations has its limits. The fact that he keeps being persuaded to continue with these talks, however reluctantly, has created fears that he’s being played by the world’s supreme masters of tactical concessions, delay and manipulation.
In Gaza, where Trump prevented Israel from finishing off Hamas and forced the Israelis into a negotiated ceasefire, Hamas has regrouped and strengthened, daily breaking the ceasefire by attacking Israeli troops.
The documents, published as part of Netanyahu’s response to a state inquiry, were submitted to State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman on Dec. 25, 2025, and were made public on Thursday. They form part of the prime minister’s effort to shift responsibility for the Oct. 7 collapse toward Israel’s military and intelligence leadership.
Among the most striking revelations is a transcript from a Sept. 12, 2023, cabinet meeting, less than a month before the Hamas invasion. In that session, then-defense minister Yoav Gallant described the security situation in Gaza as “stable” and urged Israel to “hold back its forces” against Hamas.
Gallant, who was later fired by Netanyahu during the war, also pushed for a long-term arrangement with Hamas to preserve calm along the border.
The document shows that senior officials were convinced that deterrence and limited engagement were working and that escalation should be avoided.
There are many images burned into the Israeli consciousness from October 7. One of the most painful is the fate of the IDF surveillance soldiers—the tatzpitaniyot.
Mostly eighteen and nineteen years old, these young women were tasked with watching Hamas. They saw the preparations and warned their superiors—and were promptly ignored. When Hamas stormed their bases on October 7, they paid the price for the IDF’s failure. Fifteen were murdered. Seven were kidnapped. All were eventually returned to Israel alive—except one. Corporal Noa Marciano’s body was recovered by the IDF in November 2023. An autopsy determined that she had been wounded during an IDF strike on the apartment where she was being held. Her captor was killed in the strike, and Marciano was rushed to al-Shifa Hospital. There, she encountered Muhammad al-Habil—a doctor by day, and a Hamas commander by night. Faced with a wounded Israeli hostage, he made a choice to abandon humanity. Sensitive readers may wish to skip what happened next. According to Marciano’s father, there exists a video showing the medical professional at al-Shifa deliberately killing his wounded daughter—injecting air into her veins—while she begged for her life. I recount it for one reason: yesterday, the doctor of death, Muhammad al-Habil was eliminated by an IDF strike in response to repeated violations of the ceasefire. Israel can never repay its debt to the tatzpitaniyot—for what they warned, how they were ignored, and for how they were abandoned. But the elimination of those who tormented and murdered them is the least it can do.
