The Free Press

Before President Donald Trump pulled the trigger on Operation Epic Fury, the restrainers in his administration were fighting a losing battle. This faction wanted to prevent the war for Iran that America and Israel are now waging.

The restrainers in the administration wanted Trump to make a deal with Iran’s Supreme Leader. And part of that deal would be to allow Iran to hold on to its uranium enrichment industry. In other words, it would be a redo of Barack Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the nuclear bargain forged at the end of 2015 and that Donald Trump ran against in 2016.

Despite the president’s long-standing disrespect for Iran’s right to enrich uranium, his second term has included quite a few powerful members who do respect it. One of them is the former chief of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent. He resigned last week and ever since he has been on a media tour to blame Israel and its American supporters for dragging America into another Middle East regime-change war.

There has been a lot of discussion today about my podcast episode with Glenn Greenwald—much of it revisiting the same arguments I debated with Dave Smith in October. Both claim that an all-powerful Israel lobby effectively controls American foreign policy.

The idea that the most powerful country the world has ever known is being puppeteered by a country the size of New Jersey—and by a group that collectively accounts for 0.2 percent of the world’s population—is an extraordinary claim. You would expect overwhelming evidence. In reality, there’s little to substantiate it.

Criticize America’s foreign and domestic policy as much as you want—there’s plenty to criticize. But don’t blame it on Israel or its supporters.

The centerpiece of this narrative is a historical claim: that Israel got the United States into the Iraq War. In reality, Israel’s prime minister came to the White House to caution President Bush against invading Iraq, warning that it would empower Iran, Israel’s real enemy. Bush listened politely, then ignored him and invaded anyway, because American presidents make their own choices, for good and for ill.

At the same time, the IDF chief of military intelligence said on TV in the fall of 2002 that Israel did not believe Saddam Hussein could obtain nuclear weapons, contradicting U.S. intelligence assessments. It’s hard to imagine a clearer discouragement. Again, the United States ignored this and proceeded for its own reasons.

So why did the United States invade Iraq in 2003?

The 9/11 attack created an atmosphere of extreme threat sensitivity among the U.S. security establishment. The failure to preemptively destroy al-Qaeda in the 1990s was suddenly seen as a huge mistake never to be repeated. The lesson that the U.S. took from this was that we must preemptively act against theoretical security threats, even if they’re low probability and thousands of miles away.

Saddam Hussein fit that framework. He had been reckless since the 1980s, invading multiple countries, and importantly, previously hiding his nuclear program from the CIA. In 1991, when the CIA discovered that Saddam was a year to a year and a half away from a nuke, they were stunned. That lesson led them to discount the absence of a smoking gun in the lead-up to 2003: If Saddam had hidden it before, he could be hiding it again.

People often cite Benjamin Netanyahu’s 2002 pro-war testimony before Congress as proof of Israeli influence. Netanyahu, while now the prime minister of Israel, was then a private citizen and had no power at the time. Meanwhile, Israel’s actual leadership expressed caution before the invasion. More importantly, Bush and crew made the final decision to invade Iraq before that testimony even happened. There is no evidence that Netanyahu’s testimony moved anyone’s needle.

If Israel did not get us into Iraq, where is the evidence for the “all-powerful” Israel lobby?

Glenn brought up in our debate that there are anti-BDS laws at the state level in some 38 states, as if this is proof of the Israel lobby’s incredible power. To be clear, I oppose these laws (designed to block a campaign to “boycott, divest from, and sanction” Israel) on principle: the government should not require contractors to take a position in a foreign conflict as a condition of doing business—a basic matter of freedom of conscience. But in reality, the anti-BDS laws perfectly demarcate the limits of the lobby’s power.

State governments are relatively easy to lobby. The federal government is far more difficult. Notably, all anti-BDS legislation has failed at the federal level. The idea that a lobby that is too weak to pass even a single federal contracting law could orchestrate the United States’ involvement in multiple wars is ridiculous.

For comparison, dozens of U.S. states—and the federal government, in 2019—have passed resolutions or legislation recognizing the Armenian genocide, largely due to advocacy from the Armenia lobby. These decisions arguably strained relations with Turkey, a NATO ally far more powerful than Armenia. Does that mean the Armenia lobby controls America? The logic does not hold.

The idea that a lobby that is too weak to pass even a single federal contracting law could orchestrate the United States’ involvement in multiple wars is ridiculous.

The Israel lobby is relatively small. According to OpenSecrets data on lobbying expenditures, industries like finance and energy spend many times more—finance, insurance, and real estate by about 142 times and oil and gas by almost 30 times. If raw spending translated directly into control, far larger domestic industries would dominate U.S. foreign policy.

Additionally, there are numerous instances where Israel failed to get what it wanted. The United States did not recognize Israeli sovereignty over Golan Heights for almost 40 years, and that would have required only the stroke of a pen. In 2007, Israel asked the United States to bomb Syria’s nuclear program. Bush said no. Israel asked Condoleezza Rice to add one word to Bush’s Palestine speech in 2002—to change Palestine to New Palestine. Condi dismissed it out of hand. Most significantly, the Israel lobby pulled out the full extent of its power to block the Iran nuclear deal. It failed.

Glenn and Dave will dismiss this argument with the line “Yeah, those are exceptions that prove the rule. They don’t always get what they want. They just mostly do.” But when asked for evidence, they return to the same weak claims: the Iraq War, this Iran war, anti-BDS law, and foreign aid to Israel.

The United States annually sends $3–4 billion in military aid to Israel. To some, that seems extraordinary. In reality, it’s in line with America’s military posture all over the world.

The United States maintains hundreds of military bases worldwide and spends vast sums sustaining its global presence. For example, the U.S. stations 30,000 American troops in South Korea and loses $3–4 billion every year because of its deployment there. But no one argues that an all-powerful South Korea lobby controls American foreign policy.

Glenn tried to argue that the fact that we have troops deployed in South Korea makes the $4 billion a year we lose there a lesser commitment than the aid to Israel. But if the situation were reversed—if we had troops deployed in Tel Aviv and not Seoul—then he’d argue the opposite! Dave and Glenn are always reasoning backward from their conclusion—they start from the premise that Israel controls us, and fill in the reasons afterward.

An intellectually honest America Firster would question the entire global military posture, arguing to get out of South Korea, Europe, and the Middle East. Instead, they focus more on Israel than on any of the other spending that we do. There is no explanation for this other than Israel derangement syndrome.

By the way, approximately 80 percent of aid to Israel returns to the U.S. economy because it is largely spent with American companies. Legally, it’s foreign aid, but economically, it functions more like a domestic subsidy supporting U.S. workers.

Which brings us to the current Iran war. In my debate with Glenn, the only direct evidence he could give that somehow Israel had pulled us into the war was a comment from Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggesting the U.S. acted in part because it expected Israel to strike Iran first, and the resignation letter from counterterrorism official Joe Kent.

Rubio explained that “we knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. . . [and] if we didn’t preemptively go after them. . . we would suffer higher casualties.” This comment had nothing to do with the Israel lobby or Israel having power over our decision-making apparatus. It was that Israel was about to attack Iran, and U.S. bases in the Middle East would be affected, so it made sense tactically to attack first. His point was about war tactics and initiative, not Israeli control over U.S. decision-making.

As for Kent, he’s not credible. Kent wrote in his resignation letter that “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.” To put Kent’s conspiracy-filled theories into perspective, consider that Kent insinuated on Tucker Carlson’s show on March 18 that Israel might have been behind the Trump assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. Follow this logic: Trump is the most pro-Israel president in history. Why would Israel have tried to kill him in 2024—in order to get a President Vance or Harris? Kent is so far out of touch with reality that he cannot be taken as a credible witness.

There is a simple explanation for the Iran war: Trump has been tough on Iran for decades. He believes that Iran tried to kill him and he took that personally. Iran’s regime has been branding themselves as the common enemy of America and Israel since 1979. Iran is the number-one exporter of terror regionally and worldwide. No state is close. They’ve bragged about enriching kilograms of uranium to 60 percent—a fact verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Every single country that has made it that far has gone on to develop nukes. There are, literally, zero exceptions. We know they’re angling for a bomb. It was only a matter of when they chose to sprint from the 10-yard line to the end zone.

America benefits from a weaker, non-nuclear Iran. Lots of countries also benefit from a weaker Iran—Israel and Saudi Arabia, primarily. That’s what it means to have a common enemy. But just because they benefit too doesn’t mean they manipulated us.

Moreover, Trump, being amazingly shameless, is invulnerable to blackmail, and refuses to be told what to do. That’s why he fires every adviser who tries to push him around, and replaces them with yes-men. (That is not a great quality, but it does make the foreign influence theory that much more ridiculous.)

In sum, the Israel lobby is real, but not uniquely powerful. Like many other lobbies, it can secure modest legislative achievements—and mostly at the state level. The idea that it dictates, or even significantly influences, our foreign policy is total nonsense driven by ideology.

The U.S.-Israeli war against Iran has already achieved extraordinary military results. The regime’s supreme leader is dead. Its nuclear infrastructure is damaged. Its missile production has been severely degraded. Its command structure is fractured. Across every major military objective, decisive progress has been made.​

And yet, Iran has found a way to fight back. How? By closing the Strait of Hormuz, and shifting the battlefield from military targets to the global economy.

Roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil and a significant share of liquefied natural gas pass through that narrow waterway. Iran brought traffic to a near standstill not with formal naval blockade, but via selective drone strikes on tankers, the threat of mines and anti-ship missiles, and the resulting collapse of insurance coverage. Tanker movement has dropped by more than 90 percent. Brent crude has surged to as much as $120 a barrel. One of the largest disruptions to global energy supplies since the 1970s is now underway.

This was a predictable move. Iran has threatened to close the Strait for decades, and the logic was always clear: If the regime is struck hard enough, it will use its geographic position to inflict economic pain on the entire world. The question was never whether Iran would try. The question is what we should do about it.

When military commanders assess a situation, they examine three things: the environment, the enemy’s capabilities, and their own.

First, the environment. The Strait of Hormuz is narrow, crowded, and now likely partially mined, especially in areas near the Gulf States. That means tankers are pushed into a tighter navigational lane closer to the Iranian side, within easier range of missiles, drones, and fast attack craft.

Few journalists have dug as deeply into the Epstein files as Tanya Lukyanova. She has watched thousands of Jeffrey Epstein-related videos in the possession of the Department of Justice (DOJ), and she showed Free Press viewers—and readers—how “they paint the most vivid picture yet of Epstein’s dark world: his lavish lifestyle and twisted worldview, his mannerisms and quirks, his sense of humor—and sense of impunity.”

Earlier this month, Tanya also told the story of a woman named Liza Grinenko, who discovered her own name in the Epstein files. It turned out that someone she believed was a close friend had, in fact, tried to recruit her into Epstein’s web. That “friend,” Svetlana “Lana” Pozhidaeva had been one of his assistants for over a decade. But last week, The Wall Street Journal wrote a story portraying Pozhidaeva as an Epstein victim rather than an enabler. Tanya has since spoken to Pozhidaeva, and done more digging. Here is her latest report.

—The Editors

I recently received a LinkedIn message from Svetlana “Lana” Pozhidaeva.

“Hi Tanya, I’d like to connect with you,” it said. “I am planning a public interview next week—to tell everything that happened to me. Can I add you on [S]ignal please?”

Two days earlier, The Free Press ran my article “She Was Nearly Recruited into Epstein’s World—by Her Closest Friend.” Pozhidaeva was that “closest friend” from the headline. The former Russian model had worked for more than a decade as one of Jeffrey Epstein’s longest-serving and most trusted assistants. She now told me the reason she had not responded to my previous request for comment was because she had lost access to her social media accounts. I was, of course, eager to hear what she had to say.

Pozhidaeva appeared hundreds of times throughout the Epstein files. She was one of many women whose names had not been initially redacted, so I was able to read years of her email communications with Epstein. In those exchanges, she came across less as a victim, and more as a central member of Epstein’s staff, a trusted assistant who helped recruit young women for her boss.

If all the women in Epstein’s orbit are cast as victims, regardless of their role, it devalues the meaning of the word. . . . The real victims stand to lose the most, while their perpetrators dodge accountability.

But before I had a chance to speak with her, The Wall Street Journal published a lengthy profile of Pozhidaeva, now 42 years old, presenting her explicitly as an Epstein victim—“one of several women Epstein sexually exploited under the guise of ‘assistant’ roles.” The WSJ article offered no additional details, supporting facts, or corroborating evidence. It didn’t even define what “sexually exploited” entailed when it came to Pozhidaeva.

Pozhidaeva had begun working for Epstein in 2008, and remained with him until his arrest in the summer of 2019. At that point, she was at least 34 years old. Yet in the WSJ article, based on an interview with Pozhidaeva herself, she is portrayed as a powerless subordinate, pressured into carrying out her boss’s orders without fully grasping their criminal nature. “Confusion about how sex trafficking works and who qualifies as a victim has compounded the problem,” the article explained.

Having written a piece in which Pozhidaeva was attempting to recruit her friend, Liza Grinenko, for Epstein—even describing her in one email as “very sweet and might be naughty too”—I was taken aback to see Pozhidaeva portrayed so sympathetically.

So before I spoke to her, I decided to go back and take a second look at both what was already known about Pozhidaeva and what I learned about her from the Epstein files.

With war raging in the Middle East, we want to bring you as many trusted voices on the news as we can. One such voice is the Israeli journalist Amit Segal. He writes a daily newsletter, It’s Noon in Israel, which we’re pleased to publish in The Free Press.

When Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu walked into Donald Trump’s office for the first time during the American president’s second term, he brought a small gift: a golden pager embedded in a piece of cedar, dedicated to “our greatest friend and greatest ally.” It symbolized the successful attack on Hezbollah, showcasing the beepers that exploded simultaneously across Lebanon, within one of that country’s native trees. It was a thoughtful gesture.

Trump was delighted. What followed was a warm meeting, described by the Israeli delegation as “beyond our expectations and dreams.” The lesson? Trump likes gifts.

As part of our celebration of America at 250, we’ve started a weekly newsletter by historian Jonathan Horn. Learn what happened this week in American history, why it matters, and what else you should see and read in The Free Press and beyond. This week Jonathan looks at one of the most audacious raids in American military history. To get this newsletter in your inbox every week, sign up here. —The Editors

They traveled by gunboat and foot instead of helicopter; gained entry by forging letters instead of breaching computer systems; donned disguises instead of night-vision goggles; and communicated with smoke signals and flags instead of livestream. Long before the operation to extract Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, a band of U.S. soldiers and their Filipino allies pulled off one of the most daring ruses in military history and captured the Philippine insurgent leader Emilio Aguinaldo. The 125th anniversary of the raid this week is a reminder that such missions require cunning and courage—and rarely come without controversy.

It was hardly obvious in 1898, when the Spanish-American War first brought U.S. forces to the Philippines (then a Spanish colony), that Aguinaldo would become America’s most-wanted man in the archipelago. Not yet 30 years old but already the head of the Philippine nationalist movement, Aguinaldo had hoped that the country famous for the Declaration of Independence would support a declaration of independence for the Philippines. When President William McKinley dashed those hopes by claiming the islands for the United States at the end of the war (there was reason to think the Germans or Japanese might have seized the islands otherwise), Aguinaldo shifted from fighting the Spanish to fighting the Americans.

With U.S. forces putting the squeeze on the nationalist army in late 1899, Aguinaldo turned to guerrilla tactics and dispersed his men. The bloody Philippine-American War would drag on as Aguinaldo disappeared into the mountainous northeast of the Philippines’ largest island, Luzon.

The breakthrough in the search for Aguinaldo came in January 1901 via the same means that would later lead Navy SEALs to Osama bin Laden: a courier. When a messenger carrying dispatches from Aguinaldo surrendered to American forces, Brigadier General Frederick Funston took personal charge of the questioning. A diminutive Kansan known for making big headlines (he had received the Medal of Honor for his actions during a battle in 1899), Funston would deny ever employing an interrogation technique known as the “water cure.” Whatever the truth, Funston gained two key pieces of information: that Aguinaldo resided in a village called Palanan by Luzon’s northeast coast, and that he was hoping to receive reinforcements there shortly.

It’s Wednesday, March 25. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Coleman Hughes debates Glenn Greenwald. Suzy Weiss reviews a Broadway play about Roald Dahl’s antisemitic crashout. Plus: Did a trader get very rich on inside information about the Iran war? All that and much more.

But first: All of Israel’s friends and enemies.

Here’s a strange thing about the present moment: Even as the United States and Israel are fighting shoulder to shoulder against the Islamic Republic, Israel is more unpopular than ever in the United States.

Above the skies of Iran, Israeli and American forces coordinate more closely than ever. Back in the United States, for the first time since Israel’s founding in 1948, more Americans view the Jewish state negatively rather than positively.

It’s a paradox that defines our politics and, in many ways, world events today. And it’s one we’re taking a close look at with a series of stories in our pages today.

Up first, Michael Oren. No one knows the stakes of defending Israel in the public sphere better than Michael—it’s something he’s been doing for half a century, including as Israel’s ambassador to Washington. But as fringe ideologies move into the center and the trick mirror of social media makes lies and conspiracies seem like fact, that work is harder than ever. And the pursuit of truth can feel futile.

Today, Michael explains how the Iran war “further deepened America’s delirium,” why the madness surrounding Israel has a uniquely American quality to it, and how he finds the will to fight the lies, “even if it’s often like firing ping-pong balls at a tank.”

Despite the hatred, Israel continues to defy its detractors with military and diplomatic success. It has established diplomatic relations with Somaliland, allowing a more muscular position against its adversaries along the Red Sea. For the first time ever, six European nations opposed or withheld support for UNWRA—the Hamas-infested United Nations aid agency that has operated in Gaza for two generations. Even some of Israel’s most hostile neighbors are softening their positions. The Lebanese government recently expressed interest in the first-ever face-to-face negotiations between the two countries, and an agreement to disarm Hezbollah may be on the table.

Today, Eli Lake unpacks how Israel is stacking up wins amid falling support, whether its successes can turn the tide of public opinion, and whether it can stand alone as a regional superpower in future conflicts.

Back in the U.S., a recent University of California, Berkeley settlement is another example of how the Gaza war and its aftermath have stoked hostility toward Jews everywhere. The case marks an important milestone, argues Adam Louis-Klein, with Berkeley admitting that excluding “Zionists” is a form of discrimination. Anti-Zionism, writes Adam, is a distinct form of Jew-hatred. And unless universities see it for what it is, they’ll be unable to “withstand another crisis like the one that followed October 7.”

Finally, in the latest episode of Conversations with Coleman, Coleman Hughes debates one of the most hard-line critics of Israel in the public sphere: independent journalist Glenn Greenwald. They discuss U.S.-Israel relations, Tucker Carlson, the line between criticism of Israel and antisemitism, and why Trump chose to strike Iran.

As Coleman writes of the conversation, “If claims this serious are going to be made—and repeated—they deserve close scrutiny, and to be tested in a debate that’s equally serious, direct, and grounded in evidence. That’s what I aimed to do here.”

—The Editors

• “We’ve won this. This war has been won,” Trump declared in the Oval Office Tuesday after reporting that Iran made a favorable offer for a peace deal with the U.S. in negotiations that the Islamic Republic said did not take place. The president’s announcement came just hours after news broke that he had approved the deployment of approximately 1,000 additional troops from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division.

• Senate Republicans sent Democrats a new proposal yesterday to fund 94 percent of the DHS budget and restore pay for TSA workers. “It seems like things are getting back on track,” Senator Chuck Schumer said after receiving the proposal, which left out more controversial budget items—including $5.5 billion for ICE deportation efforts.

• The Supreme Court appeared poised to rule in favor of the Trump administration on a major deportation case yesterday that could significantly tighten border controls. At the heart of the case is the constitutionality of “metering,” a border policy that allows officials to indefinitely stall the processing of asylum claims made at overwhelmed points of entry to the U.S.

• The Israeli military plans to push its forces further north to occupy all land south of the Litani River—potentially placing about 10 percent of Lebanon under Israeli control. Lebanon has reported over 1,000 deaths and more than a million people displaced since the war began, while two Israeli soldiers have been killed in Lebanon in the same time frame.

• A New Mexico jury found Meta guilty of misleading users about the safety of its platforms and enabling child sexual exploitation, a ruling that entails a $375 million fine that the social media company plans to appeal. State attorney general Raúl Torrez accused the company of giving predators unrestricted access to minors and enabling real-world abuse and trafficking.

• The Taliban released unlawfully detained American academic Dennis Coyle yesterday after holding him captive in solitary confinement for over a year. Coyle, a researcher studying languages in Afghanistan, was freed “based on humanitarian sympathy and goodwill, and believes that such steps can further strengthen the atmosphere of trust between countries,” the Afghan foreign ministry said in a statement.

• Want to fly economy and still stretch out? United Airlines just unveiled its new “Relax Row” that lets travelers book three adjacent seats and turn them into a bed after takeoff. The flat-lying seats are set to debut next year on select flights, though pricing details remain unclear.

Earlier this year, I was set to debate the influence of the Israel lobby on the U.S. at a live event in New York. That event was canceled. So instead, I invited my would-be opponent, journalist Glenn Greenwald, onto the podcast to have the conversation anyway.

Glenn and I disagree on a lot, including how much influence Israel has over American foreign po…

Between 6:49 a.m. and 6:50 a.m. on Monday, somebody—or several somebodies—bought 6,200 oil futures contracts with a notional value of $580 million. Twenty-four minutes later, at 7:04 a.m., President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to announce that the administration was holding off on bombing Iran’s oil fields, and was instead in the process of negotiating a deal.

The effect of this on the markets was exactly what you’d expect. Stocks soared, while the benchmark Brent crude fell from $113 a barrel to $96, according to the Financial Times. Whoever that somebody—or several somebodies—was, the timing of their trade right before Trump’s announcement made them a lot of money.

Was it just good luck? That seems a little unlikely. As one trader for a major hedge fund told the Financial Times, “My gut from watching markets for the last 25 years is this is really abnormal.” He added, “It’s an unusually large trade for a day with no event risk. . . . Somebody just got a lot richer.”