Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: US-Israel Initiative”
August 13, 2026
*Since 1948, unrelated to Israel, about 11 million Muslims have been killed in intra-Muslim wars and terrorism from Pakistan and Afghanistan, through the Middle East to the Horn of Africa, North and Central Africa, compared to 100,000 Muslims killed during Arab-Israel wars. In fact, Refik Turan, Head of the Turkish Historical Society claims that 12.5 million Muslims have been killed in intra-Muslim wars since 1993. These Intra-Muslim wars have yielded mega-millions of displaced Muslims. For example, 20 million refugees during the Syria and Iraq civil wars, 10 million refugees resulting from the Pakistan-Bangladesh war, 8 million refugees in Africa’s Sahel region, etc.
*Since the 7th century, and irrespective of Israel, the absence of intra-Muslim peaceful-coexistence – religiously, ethnically, tribally, geographically and ideologically- has been a chronic and structural feature of the Middle East. It has fueled terrorism and wars among the Muslim “believers,” against the Sunnis/Shiites “apostates” and against the Western “infidel,” especially “The Great American Satan.”
*The intra-Muslim wars and terrorism have not been driven by despair, but rather by ideology and religion, transcending “money talks” and diplomacy.
*Examples of the Toll of Intra-Muslim Conflicts Since 1948
Sudan civil wars 1955-present: 2,600,000-3,000,000 killed
Afghan civil wars 1978-present: 1,500,000-2,000,000 killed
Bangladesh-Pakistan war 1971: 1,500,000 killed
Bangladesh post-independence civil war: 150,000 killed
Iraq-Iran war 1980-1988: 1,000,000-1,200,000 killed
Syria civil wars 2011-2025: 600,000-700,000 killed
Yemen civil wars 1962-present: 600,000-700,000 killed
Somali civil wars 1991-present: 500,000-850,000 killed
Iraq-Kurdish wars and civil wars 1961-present: 500,000-750,000 killed
Iraq-Syria Islamic State wars: 100,000-200,000 killed
Algeria civil war 1991-2002: 100,000-200,000 killed
Lebanon’s civil war 1975-1990: 100,000-150,000 killed
Sahel Jihadist terrorism 2009-present: 100,000-150,000 killed
Iran’s executed dissidents 1979-present: 100,000 (at least 30,000 in 2026)
Chad civil wars 1966-1990: 40,000-100,000 killed
Pakistan-Balochi civil wars 1948-present: 45,000-80,000 killed
Pakistan-Jihadist clashes 2004-present: 70,000 killed
Turkey-Kurdish war 1984-present: 40,000-50,000 killed
Nigeria-Boko Haram wars 2009-present: 35,000-50,000 killed
Libyan civil wars 2011-present: 25,000-50,000 killed
Libya -Chad-Jihadist wars 1978-present: 10,000-30,000 killed
Iran-Kurdish skirmishes 1979-present: 30,000 killed
Mali-Jihadist wars 2012-present: 15,000-30,000 killed
Jordan’s “Black September” civil war 1970: 10,000-2 5,000 killed
Egypt-Jihadist battles in Sinai, 2011-present: 10,000 killed
Etc.
*The aforementioned intra-Muslim reality is critically relevant to US policy in the Middle East – including the pursuit of negotiation and peace – which has always been jerkily spiral, violently intolerant, unpredictable, tenuously shifty, fragmented and ruthlessly non-democratic.
*The absence of intra-Muslim peaceful coexistence has been underscored by the litany of intra-Muslim conflicts, accompanied by a multitude of negotiation cycles, on-again and off-again tenuous ceasefire agreements and peace accords. This violently capricious reality showcases the Middle East as a region where negotiation is a tactical pause and an extension of warfare by other means, bolstered by Islam-sanctioned Taqiyya (dissimulation) .
*Moreover, accords with enemies, and certainly with “infidels,” cannot be less tenuous than the regimes and their policies. These accords are profoundly inspired by the Prophet Muhammed’s 628 AD tactical treaty of Hudaybiyya, which has enshrined victory over enemies through temporary agreements, to be abrogated upon achieving military superiority.
*The intensity of the 1,400-year-old intra-Muslim wars and terrorism reveals that negotiation and accords are considered by radical Middle East entities (e.g., the Ayatollah regime, Hezbollah, Hamas) as a tactical pause, functional-not-covenantal, a Hudna (temporary ceasefire) – a means to bring enemies to submission, not peaceful coexistence – lacking a shared commitment to durability. Furthermore, Middle East powerful entities do not negotiate with weaker entities; they trounce and subjugate them. Therefore, an initiation of negotiation in the Middle East is perceived as insecurity and weakness, which emboldens rogue entities.
*The 14-centuries-old intra-Muslim wars and terrorism have been a Middle East fixture, while negotiation and accords have been Middle East variables.
*This reality has intensified Israel’s 78-year-old existential national security challenges, which must be assessed according to the violent Middle East reality, rather than the convenient Western-manufactured alternate reality. The overriding significance of the intra-Muslim wars and terrorism highlights the reckless proposal for Israel to trade its most critical national security component – the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria (fixed assets), which dominate 80% of Israel’s infrastructures and population – for normalization/peace accords (variable assets).
*Israel’s strategic posture has served as an indispensable anchor, and the most effective force-multiplier and dollar-multiplier for the US, deterring rogue entities, and constituting the most reliable “life insurance agent” of all pro-US Arab regimes in the face of existential threats by the Ayatollah regime and the Muslim Brotherhood. Furthermore, Israel’s posture of deterrence has induced six Arab countries to conclude peace treaties with Israel. It has also prompted additional pro-US Arab countries (e.g., Saudi Arabia) to enhance defense, technological, agricultural and irrigation cooperation with the Jewish State. Israel has been a uniquely reliable, effective, democratic and stable ally of the US – commercially, technologically, scientifically, agriculturally, medically and militarily – in a region which is top heavy on non-democratic, unstable, violence-prone, unreliable and strategically elusive entities.
*The ferocious magnitude of intra-Muslim conflicts, exposes the simplistic worldview which considers the Arab-Israeli conflict as if it were “the Middle East conflict,” and the Palestinian issue as if it were the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict, a cause of regional turbulence and a crown jewel of Arab policy makers, ignoring the Arab view of Palestinians as the role model of intra-Arab terrorism and treachery. Hence, the failure of dozens of Western-initiatives to solve the Arab-Israel conflict, including the Palestinian issue. In fact, the immensity of the intra-Muslim carnage dwarfs the regional and global significance of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian issue.
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative”
August 5, 2026
*Anti-Americanism is expressed by the Ayatollah regime’s Constitution, school curriculum, mosque sermons and official media, explicitly and through ideologically loaded terms such as “Global Arrogance” or “World Oppression” (Istikbar-e Jahani) and “The Great Satan” (Shaytan-e Bozorg). These terms form a cornerstone of the Ayatollah’s foundational doctrine and core ideology, including its policy toward the US.
*The Ayatollah regime views the US as the mega-hurdle on the way to achieving the Ayatollah’s mega-goal: establishing the Twelver Shiite doctrine as the globally exclusive, legitimate, divinely-ordained religion. The US is also perceived as a mega-threat, culturally, geo-strategically, ideologically and religiously.
The 1979 Ayatollah Constitution
*The Constitution avoids naming specific foreign nations, in order to maintain a universalist legal framework. However, anti-Americanism is encoded through such terms as – and inferring that the US is the core of – “imperialism,” “global arrogance,” “oppression,” “foreign domination,” “belligerent hegemony,“ colonialism,” “steadfastness,” “resistance,” etc. Anti-American animus is structural rather than merely rhetorical.
For example:
*The preamble of the Constitution frames the revolution as an “anti-despotic movement” and “anti-colonialist,” committing Iran to “the liberation of all deprived and oppressed peoples in the world.” In addition: “The Iranian [Islamic] Revolution, which was a movement for the victory of all the oppressed over the arrogant, provides a basis for the continuation of that revolution both inside and outside the country.…”
*Article 2(6)(c): The Islamic Republic negates all forms of oppression, both the infliction of and the submission to it, and of dominance, both its imposition and its acceptance.
*Article 3(5): The Islamic Republic is committed to the complete elimination of imperialism and the prevention of foreign influence.
*Article 3(6): The Islamic Republic is committed to eliminate “all forms of despotism and autocracy.”
*Article 152 (foreign policy principles) declares: “The foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran is based upon the rejection of all forms of domination—both the exertion of it and submission to it—the preservation of the all-around independence and territorial integrity of the country, the defense of the rights of all Muslims, non-alignment with respect to the hegemonial superpowers, and the maintenance of peaceful relations with all non-belligerent States.”
*Article 154: “While scrupulously refraining from all forms of interference in the internal affairs of other nations, it supports the just struggles of the oppressed (mustaz’afin) against the oppressors (mustakbirin) in every corner of the globe [including Latin America].”
School Curriculum
*While US policy makers rely heavily on commitments made by the Ayatollah negotiators – who are proficient in the art of the Taqiyya (dissimulation) – in the negotiation room and public arena, the most authentic and credible reflection of the Ayatollah’s apocalyptic and megalomaniacal anti-US strategy, tactics and vision is available in the Ayatollahs’ school curriculum.
*Since February 1979, dramatic US financial or diplomatic pressure and gestures have failed to induce moderation in the Ayatollah’s school curriculum and the Ayatollah’s rogue track record.
Impact-se, Iranian School Textbooks, May 2026:
*Grade 9, 2024-25, p. 31, Defense Readiness book highlights photographs, which depict 10 US sailors captured by the Iranian navy in the Persian Gulf, on January 12, 2016, in a humiliating and submissive position, kneeling with their hands behind their heads.
*Grade 8, 2024-25, p. 130, Social Studies (Civics, History, Geography) condemns Sunni regimes which reject the Ayatollah dominance, while maintaining strong ties with the US or the West. They are portrayed as collaborators and traitors.
Friday Mosque Sermons
*Friday sermons in Iran are coordinated by the Policy Council of Friday Prayer Imams under the authority of the Supreme Leader (Ayatollah). Friday sermons echo the Ayatollah’s anti-US rhetoric, which annually commemorate the November 4, 1979 takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran, resulting in more than 50 Americans held hostage for 444 days.
For instance:
*”America is the Great Satan (Shaytan-e Bozorg), the number one enemy of the deprived and oppressed people of the world. America will not stop at anything to secure its domination over the world’s resources.”
*On November 4, 2015 – three and a half months following the JCPOA, which showered upon the Ayatollah regime mega-billions of dollars worth of US-led financial and diplomatic bonanzas, Ayatollah Khamenei celebrated the “National Day of Fighting Against Global Arrogance” (the US Embassy takeover), telling students that “Death to America” is rational and constitutionally grounded.
*In Qom, on November 3, 2023, home of the country’s largest Shiite seminary, Imam Mohammad Saeedi claimed that “Iran has struck a hard blow against the United States with its Death to America slogan.” Saeedi added: “This is not simply a slogan. It is a revolutionary strategy.” Saeedi added: “The takeover of the US spy den was a manifestation of this strategy.” Imam Mohammad Mehdi Hosseini preached: “This [anti-US] slogan has created a strategic link between Iran and other countries and created a large front.”
*“The villainous U.S. government repeatedly says that it is standing by the Iranian people. They lie. If you are standing by the Iranian people, it is only to stab them in the heart with your venomous daggers… The enemy is the global center of arrogance and domination, one great manifestation of which is America.” (Tehran Friday Sermon, January 17, 2020).
Official & State-Aligned Media (Kayhan, IRNA, Press TV)
*Kayhan (disambiguation) is Iran’s prominent hardline newspaper, whose editor-in-chief is appointed directly by the Ayatollah. Just like Iran’s State TV, Kayhan regularly portrays the US as “satanic, treacherous, arrogant, despotic, corrupt and warmongering.” “We will not rest until we have raised the banner of Islam over the White House.”
The Bottom Line
*Are US policy makers determined to avoid – or repeat – the wave of critical errors of the last 47 years, underlined by the negotiation option (launched during the 1978 negotiation with Ayatollah Khomeini), rather than regime-change?
*While preoccupied with the cost assessment of regime-change, are US policy makers considering the catastrophic cost of refraining from regime-change?! For example, the dramatic erosion of the US posture of deterrence, which would eventually yield the first ever apocalyptic (Ayatollah) nuclear power, emboldened Islamic terrorism on US soil, bolstered Chinese posture in Latin America, the toppling of all pro-US Arab regimes, which have the Ayatollah’s and the Muslim Brotherhood’s machetes at their throat, etc.
*Are US policy makers aware that – irrespective of negotiation and agreements – snakes may shed their skin, but not their nature?!
Negotiation With “Death to America”? Beware of the Ayatollah Trap!
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative”
August 2, 2026
*The 47-year-war launched against the US by the Ayatollah regime, since 1979, predates – and is independent of – any specific US President or policy, as demonstrated during the Administrations of Carter and Reagan, Obama and Bush, Biden and Trump.
*The 47-year-track record of the Ayatollah regime – as underscored in its Constitution, school curriculum and mosque sermons – provides a body of evidence that the regime’s core Shiite orientation highlights anti-Americanism as a foundational pillar of identity, rather than a temporary foreign policy.
*The Ayatollah track record has been a derivative of a fanatical, apocalyptic (Twelver Shiite) ideology. It mandates the exportation of the Islamic Shiite Revolution (1979 Constitution, article 154), establishing a globally exclusive, “divinely-ordained” Shiite Islamic governance, in preparation for the return of the Hidden Twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, which is to be preceded by chaos, suffering, rivers of blood and martyrdom. The Ayatollah’s ideology frames political conflicts in metaphysical, non-negotiable terms, yielding civilizational and religious battles in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and inside the US.
*The Ayatollah ideology mandates the toppling of the “apostate, treacherous” Sunni regimes, and bring the “infidel” West – and primarily “The Great Arrogant and Oppressive American Satan” – to submission. The US is viewed as an existential, moral, irreconcilable, illegitimate adversary. Since 1979 – despite the fact that it was a US President, who paved the road to Ayatollah Khomeini’s toppling of the Shah – Anti Americanism has functioned as a key ideological glue of the Ayatollah regime, a metric for domestic political loyalty. In fact, the annual commemoration of the November 4, 1979 US Embassy takeover isreinforced by the chant “Death to America” (“Marg bar Amrika“).
*While the Ayatollah regime frequently displays tactical flexibility, when under extreme pressure, its strategic trajectory demonstrates that ideological objectives transcend financial and diplomatic bonanzas, as well as international norms. For example, the Jihad-driven doctrine of the “Resistive Economy” (eqtesād-e moqāvematī) accepts economic austerity and isolation as a price for maintaining ideological independence. In defiance of the mega-billion-dollars of financial pressure/sanctions and temptations, the Ayatollah regime prioritizes the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its expeditionary arm, the Quds Force, the funding of proxy terror organizations (e.g., Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis), and the 46-year-strategic entrenchment in Latin America.
*The negotiation process provides the Ayatollah regime with the time to lick wounds, relieve pressure, gain tactical concessions, restore and upgrade conventional, ballistic and nuclear capabilities, in cooperation with China, Russia and North Korea. These countries are eager to prove their reliability and effectiveness as strategic allies, notwithstanding the devastation of their air defenses, combat aircraft and missile batteries during the 2025 and 2026 Iran wars.
*In the Middle East, a strong party’s proposal to negotiate reflects insecurity, hesitancy and weakness, which emboldens rogue entities, as demonstrated by the waves of unprecedent terrorism, that was triggered by Israel’s negotiation cycles with the PLO (Oslo 1993) and Hamas (since 2007). The Ayatollah regime would never propose to negotiate with a devastated enemy, but proceed to deal a knockout blow to such an enemy.
*The 47-year-policy of negotiation with the Ayatollah regime has not induced Iranian moderation, but bolstered the anti-US capabilities of the Ayatollah regime. The policy of negotiation has played a key role in catapulting Iran from a second/third rate strategic power to a major global strategic player. In addition, the negotiation policy has played a major role in transforming Iran from “The American Policeman of the Gulf” (1971-1978) to a chief global epicenter of anti-US terrorism, wars, drug trafficking and money laundering.
*The tendency to kick the can down the road has reflected Western policy makers’ inclination to sacrifice medium/long-term national security on the altar of short-term convenience, as has been demonstrated by multiple precedents. For example, the 1981 Algiers Accord yielded the release of 50 American hostages, but was followed by the 1983 Beirut US Embassy and Marines barracks Iran-Hezbollah car bombs, which murdered 258 Americans. This pattern was repeated by the US-led 2015 JCPOA, when the Ayatollah regime invested most of the hundreds of billions of dollars, gained through the accord, in bolstering its ballistic capabilities, and cultivating its global terror and drug trafficking network, including in Latin America and on US soil. Moreover, Western policy makers tend to overlook the clear and present lethal threat posed by the Ayatollah regime.
*Western policy makers have taken lightly the structural contradiction between the incompatible definitions of negotiation by Western policy makers and the Ayatollah regime. Thus, while the West views negotiation as a win-win, deal-making, problem-solving, conflict-ending, mutually-accepted solution, and a process of permanent strategic reconciliation, the Ayatollah regime approaches negotiation as a confrontational, conflict-perpetuating, temporary ceasefire-like process – an extension of warfare by other means.
*Western policy makers view a signed agreement as an achievement, but the Ayatollah regime views a signed agreement as a time stalling tactic, in order to advance the strategic achievement – bringing the “infidel” to submission.
*While Western policy makers approach negotiation as eager sprinters, the Ayatollah regime approaches negotiation as patient marathon runners.
*Approaching the Ayatollah regime as a transactional party overlooks the reality that anti-Americanism is not merely a negotiable policy, or a bargaining chip, but the core identity of the Islamic Republic.
*The 47-year-negotiation with the Ayatollah regime has enhanced the legitimacy of that rogue entity, paving the road to intensified violence, which could eventually usher-in the first ever apocalyptic nuclear power.
*Is the US determined to learn from critical mistakes by repeating, or avoiding, them?!
US “Foreign Aid” to Israel? US’ Smartest Investment!
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative”
July 26, 2026
*The annual US $3.8bn “foreign aid” to Israel – which is earmarked to purchase only US-made military systems – has been framed under a misleading banner: “foreign aid.” To most Americans, “foreign aid” evokes images of charity, one-way transfers, funded by hard-working Americans, serving needs in foreign lands, rather than satisfying dire US domestic needs. That framing is not just imprecise; it is a most consequential misnomer in the US budget.
*Setting the record straight on “foreign aid” to Israel, in particular, and US-Israel relations, in general, behooves one to discard that misnomer. A thorough due-diligence through a clear-eyed balance sheet, documents that the annual $3.8 billion is neither “foreign aid”, nor a handout. It is the smartest of US investments.
For example:
1. A professional auditing reveals that the $3.8bn is an annual high-yield investment, which provides the US with an unprecedent Return-on-Investment (R-o-I). Moreover, it serves as an irreplaceable force-multiplier for the US homeland and national security, and a booming dollar-multiplier for the US economy, bolstering US global dominance, economically, militarily and technologically.
2. Israel functions as the largest, real-world, most experienced and most intense battle-tested laboratory for the US defense and aerospace industries, which employ 2.5 million people. Hence, each of the dozens of advanced US military systems, supplied to Israel, benefits from Israel’s unique existential challenges, which stress-test advanced US military systems. This Israeli battle-tested laboratory yields daily lessons and improvements – operations, maintenance, repairs, mechanical and technological – which are promptly shared with the US manufacturers. These lessons are integrated, by the US manufacturers, as modifications and upgrades in the next generation of the US military products. This process saves the US many years of research and development (10-20 years in the case of the F-35, F-16 and F-15 each), which amounts to mega-billion dollars (e.g. the total research and development cost of the F-35 was $55bn).
3. The Israel-driven upgrades enhance the US competitiveness in the global competition, which generates billions of dollars in US export. Furthermore, Israel constitutes a global “Showroom” and a “Triple-A-Store” for the US defense and aerospace industries, demonstrating the superiority of the advanced US military systems. For instance, when US-made combat aircraft and other defense systems perform flawlessly, in combat, in Israeli hands, global and US demand surges, bolstering the US’ overall production and export, expanding domestic manufacturing employment (e.g., the F-35 related employment has expanded by 35% since 2018, when Israel received the aircraft for operational use), and increasing corporate and individual tax revenues for the US Treasury.
4. Over 250 US commercial high-tech giants – including Intel, Microsoft, Google, John Deere, Nvidia, Facebook, Johnson & Johnson, Dell, Intuit, General Electric and General Motors – operate research and development centers in Israel. These US giants leverage Israel’s can-do, defiance of odds and innovative spirit and brainpower, which bolsters the US technological dominance in the global market.
5. Israel’s intelligence has systematically shared with the US vital data on enemies’ and rivals’ weapon systems, proliferation networks, and operational and pre-emptive counter-terrorism that would otherwise require the output of several CIAs. The annual budget of one CIA is around $15bn (a multiple of 400% R-o-I on the $3.8bn).
6. Israel’s strategic effectiveness has deterred and weakened anti-US rogue entities, tilting the global balance of power in favor of the US. It has been demonstrated – since the Cold War era – by clipping the wings of the anti-US Sunni and Shiite terrorism, constraining the strategic maneuverability of China and Russia/USSR, while identifying the vulnerabilities of their air defenses and combat aircraft, and by enhancing the stability of all pro-US Arab regimes. Israel’s strategic effectiveness has resembled the largest US aircraft carrier, combat-ready, with no US boots on board, deployed in a critical area between the Mediterranean, Red Sea, Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf. It spares the US the need to manufacture a few more real aircraft carriers, and deploy them to the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean, accompanied by 5-7 ground divisions. Constructing and deploying one advanced aircraft carrier costs $13bn, in addition to the $1bn required for every ground division deployed to the Middle East (a multiple of over 300%).
7. Israel constitutes an innovation center for the US Armed Forces, sharing with the US military counterparts its unique battle experience. This process has upgraded the battle tactics of the US air force, air defenses, special operations, counter-terrorism, urban warfare, naval operations, cyber warfare, combat medical care, etc.
8. While European allies frequently pivot their foreign policy stances and defense cooperation, depending on whether left-leaning or right-leaning coalitions take power, Israel’s commitment to the US is a rare common-denominator in the otherwise highly polarized Israeli society. Whether governed by the Israeli Left or Right, Jerusalem’s alignment with Washington remains rock-solid. Israel offers something increasingly rare among allies of the US: unwavering Israeli bipartisan reliability.
9. The US maintains its military bases in Western Europe at an annual cost of $35bn annually, including 80,000 American troops. At the same time,the annual US investment in Israel is $3.8bn with no large stand-alone US military bases, yielding to the US an annual Return-on-Investment of well over 1,000%.
10. The $3.8bn appropriated to Israel annually is not an expense, but a rare, low/no-risk, outsized-yielding investment. It is a windfall to the US taxpayer, and a most productive line-item in the US budget, underscoring the mutually-beneficial two-way-street US-Israel cooperation.
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