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Former Israeli official leading Israel, Iran desk at the White House

Report comes amid sensitive talks over Tehran’s nuclear program

Reporting | QiOSK

A former Israeli Ministry of Defense official is leading the Israel and Iran desk at the National Security Council. The report from Drop Site News comes as the Trump administration is negotiating with Iran to curb its nuclear program amid strong opposition from many pro-Israel hawks in Washington who favor war over diplomacy.

The White House confirmed Merav Ceren’s appointment to the NSC calling her “a patriotic American.” Drop Site notes that with her in that role, Israel has “an unusual advantage in internal policy discussions just as the Israeli government has launched a new campaign to pressure the American government to start a war with Iran rather than continue with negotiations toward a nuclear deal.”

Indeed, the administration's internal deliberations on Iran flew out into the open last week when the New York Times reported that President Trump discouraged the Israelis from an impending attack on Iran’s nuclear sites. A wide range of senior Trump administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles supported Trump’s decision.

Ceren — who was once a "national security fellow" for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank that advocates for Israel — has previously shared content on X (formerly Twitter) that was either critical of President Obama’s nuclear deal reached with Iran back in 2015 or lifting sanctions on Iran, which would likely be necessary in any potential deal Trump makes with Iran.

Ceren's bio at FDD says, "Previously, she worked at Israel’s Ministry of Defense, where she participated in negotiations in the West Bank between Israel’s Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories and Palestinian Authority officials." Drop Site notes that the Israeli agency she worked for is “now refusing entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, sparking a humanitarian crisis of unspeakable proportions."


Top image credti: Runawayphill via shutterstock.com
Reporting | QiOSK
Daniel Noboa, Xi Jinping
Top photo credit: Beijing, China.- In the photos, Chinese President Xi Jinping (right) and his Ecuadorian counterpart, Daniel Noboa (left), during a meeting in the Great Hall of the People, the venue for the main protocol events of the Chinese government on June 26, 2025 (Isaac Castillo/Pool / Latin America News Agency via Reuters Connect)

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Marco Rubio is visiting Mexico and Ecuador this week, his third visit as Secretary of State to Latin America.

While his sojourn in Mexico is likely to grab the most headlines given all the attention the Trump administration has devoted to immigration and Mexican drug cartels, the one to Ecuador is primarily designed to “counter malign extra continental actors,” according to a State Department press release.The reference appears to be China, an increasingly important trading and investment partner for Ecuador.

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Top image credit: Lucky-photographer via shutterstock.com

Why does peace cost a trillion dollars?

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As Congress returns from its summer recess, Washington’s attention is turning towards a possible government shutdown.

While much of the focus will be on a showdown between Senate Democrats and Donald Trump, a subplot is brewing as the House and Senate, led by Republicans but supported by far too many Democrats, fight over how big the Pentagon’s budget should be. The House voted to give Trump his requested trillion dollar budget, while the Senate is demanding $22 billion more.

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Top image credit: Funeral in Sana a for senior Houthi officials killed in Israeli strikes Honor guard hold up a portraits of Houthi government s the Prime Minister Ahmed al-Rahawi and other officials killed in Israeli airstrikes on Thursday, during a funeral ceremony at the Shaab Mosque in Sanaa, Yemen, 01 September 2025. IMAGO/ via REUTERS

Israel playing with fire in Yemen

Middle East

“The war has entered a new phase,” declared Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a senior official in Yemen’s Ansar Allah movement, after Israeli jets streaked across the Arabian Peninsula to kill the group’s prime minister and a swathe of his cabinet in Yemen’s capital, Sana’a.

The senior official from Ansar Allah, the movement commonly known as the Houthis, was not wrong. The strike, which Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz promised was “just the beginning,” signaled a fundamental shift in the cartography of a two-year war of attrition between the region’s most technologically advanced military and its most resilient guerrilla force.

The retaliation was swift, if militarily ineffective: missiles launched towards Israel disintegrated over Saudi Arabia. Internally, a paranoid crackdown ensued on perceived spies. Houthi security forces stormed the offices of the World Food Programme and UNICEF, detaining at least 11 U.N. personnel in a sweep immediately condemned by the U.N. Secretary General.

The catalyst for this confrontation was the war in Gaza, unleashed by Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel, which provided the Houthis with the ideological fuel and political opportunity to transform themselves. Seizing the mantle of Palestinian solidarity — a cause their leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, frames as a “sacrifice in the cause of God Almighty ” — they graduated from a menacing regional actor into a global disruptor, launching missiles toward Israel just weeks after Hamas’s attacks and holding one of the world’s most vital shipping lanes hostage.

The chessboard was dangerously rearranged in May, when the Trump administration, eager for an off-ramp from a costly and ineffective air campaign, brokered a surprise truce with the Houthis. Mediated by Oman, the deal was simple: the U.S. would stop bombing Houthi targets, and the Houthis would stop attacking American ships. President Trump, in his characteristic style, claimed the Houthis had “capitulated” while also praising their “bravery.”

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