Max Abrahms
@MaxAbrahms · Think tanks & analysts — US/UK
Max Abrahms is an international-security professor who researches terrorist organizations.
The global intifada the kids chanted is a continuation of 9/11. Let’s not pretend they’re unrelated.
An even better example is Islamic State which broke out as America was reducing its footprint in the region. Islamic State took advantage not of occupation but of a power vacuum. And its stated goals were explicitly expansionist and global not to mention its target selection. https://t.co/2dye303Qc9
“Palestinians are increasingly questioning the effectiveness of “armed resistance” in achieving their national ambitions, with only 13.3% now viewing violence as the most useful way to achieve those goals.” This helps validate my longtime thesis. https://t.co/p1MdrKacw7
This is an illustrative example of how anti-Zionism is a cloak for antisemitism. https://t.co/G9bnf2g7Ob
Outside Israel, the big criticism of Netanyahu is that he was too heavy-handed against Hamas. Inside Israel, the big criticism of Netanyahu is that he wasn’t tough enough against Hamas.
On Monday, the U.S. dollar was trading at 2.22 million rials.
An Iraqi national carried out 20 reported terrorist attacks in Europe & Canada against U.S. & Israeli interests, including the stabbing of an American Jew.
I won’t flesh this out too much here but I think the emergence of Islamic State challenges the conventional wisdom that emerged immediately after 9/11 about the motives of Al Qaeda.
Global intifada 🚨 https://t.co/teURTouE1z
54 years ago today, eight Palestinian terrorists from the Black September terrorist group attacked the Israeli Olympic team at the Olympic Summer Games in Munich. Democrats and Groypers blame Netanyahu.
The Trump administration keeps threatening to inflict greater costs on Iran if it attacks. And yet it does. As promised, we then inflict greater costs. The cycle of violence repeats. The core assumption that Iranian leaders are deterrable is manifestly quite questionable.
Pundits like Robert Pape said the war turned Iran into a superpower. I don’t see it.
There are a couple faculty job ads for Israel studies this season. That is a huge number compared to the 0 which typically run in American higher education. This compares to hundreds of anti-Israel searches, the norm. But a noticeable improvement for those who value pluralism.
It’s often asserted as fact that Netanyahu didn’t topple Hamas many years ago because he wanted to build up Hamas to reduce pressure on negotiating with the Palestinian Authority. But @Martin_Kramer shows that Netanyahu instead repeatedly emphasized that he exhibited restraint to spare Israeli lives in a protracted occupation. Here’s an excerpt: “It is important to note the motive that Netanyahu did not offer. He did not provide the grander strategic rationale of building up Hamas as a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority (PA). Over the years, some of his supporters and critics have claimed that leaving Hamas in place constituted an ingenious or diabolic strategy to avoid negotiations with the PA. But Netanyahu himself never said so. In his memoirs, he speaks instead about Israeli casualties (“many hundreds on the Israeli side,” “the cost in blood,” “the toll in lives”), the burden of occupation (“tie down the IDF in Gaza for years ,” “govern two million Gazans for an indefinite period”), and the cost in Palestinian lives and property (“many thousands on the Palestinian side,” “the wholesale destruction of Gaza, with tens of thousands of civilian deaths”), for which Israel would be condemned.”
Remember all those pundits like Robert Pape who told us a million times that Iran was becoming a truly great power from the war? In absolutely no sense is that true.
Increasingly, I’m seeing on X Iran watchers who believe the goal is again regime change.
Vance says that American supporters of Israel should explain why Israel is in the U.S. interest. This is another ignorant Vance statement because that has been and remains the primary strategy since the Six Day War. I wrote my Oxford M.Phil. thesis on this. https://t.co/3JbxoEraTY
The Vance wing insisted Israel—not the IRGC—was the big threat to the Iran peace plan. CENTCOM: Iranian IRGC forces were observed preparing to launch rockets carrying sea mines into the Strait of Hormuz today.
I’m going to call it. It could turn out wrong. It’s falsifiable. But the Iran war seems like a “forever war,” not literally, but a war that goes on and on and on, way longer than initially intended. The belligerents in the conflict don’t need to be maxing out for it to be a “forever war.” Surely, the nature of the conflict will change in major ways over time. But I don’t see the back and forth kinetic operations subsiding any time soon. What does the end even look like?
The war has been a net negative for both the U.S. and Iran. Any winners must be found outside this dyad.
Mr “America First” says Russia and Iran aren’t threats to world peace. He says only America is a threat to the world. The “America First” movement is an anti-America op with Orwellian marketing. https://t.co/6xjY5SoLLP
Tucker & Kent in defiance of all information maintain their thesis that it was Israel who sabotaged the agreement with Iran rather than the IRGC which publicly rejected it. This is what antisemites do—unmovable by a wall of incontrovertible evidence. https://t.co/6t1nqhhEUV
What’s shocking about this story is there are any pro Israel staff at Michigan. https://t.co/W8ZvjUmozE
Academe was already suffering a massive credibility problem but the global intifada against Jews intensified the reality-detachment.
The big criticism of allies by the “Restraint” camp has long been that they don’t pull their weight and take action to defend themselves, depending 100 percent on U.S. security investment and action. When Israel exhibits the opposite the same camp decided to completely contradict itself by condemning the very independence it long called for.
Connected stories
- Trump Renews Threat to Strike Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain Very Soon
- Netanyahu Says Israel Is Working to Bring Down Iran’s Regime
- Netanyahu Says Toppling Iran’s Regime Is Israel’s Main Remaining Task
- Iran Reports Missiles Fired Toward U.S. Vessels in Strait of Hormuz
- U.S.-Israel War With Iran Reaches Six-Month Mark
- Pezeshkian Says Iran-U.S. MoU Would Prevent U.S.-Israeli Regional Action