Keveney told Van Erem that he believed a settlement with Harvard would be easy to achieve because the University was “over a barrel,” according to the filing. Van Erem pushed back, warning of “potential First Amendment problems” if the government was monitoring curriculum and arguing that the proposed reforms extended beyond measures directly tied to antisemitism.....................
In August, the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) publicly took credit for shaping “multiple provisions” now in this year’s defense policy bill, stating that many were “impacted by prior JINSA policy recommendations,” including “proposals to strengthen U.S.-Israel defense industrial base integration” and “renew pre-existing joint U.S.-Israel programs.”
Among the provisions JINSA takes credit for is the controversial Section 219. In the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), this section mandates the creation of a single executive agent tasked with “synchronizing cooperative efforts” between the U.S. and Israel across nine basket categories, including AI, quantum technology, biotechnology, and virtually every category of weapons.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has argued that such provisions would transition the U.S.-Israel security relationship from aid to partnership. But pro-Israel advocates have emphasized the leverage it would provide over Washington’s military policy.
Mark Dubowitz, the CEO of the pro-Israel Foundation for Defense of Democracies, appeared to reference this provision in an article arguing that the U.S. and Israel must “deepen their military, technological, intelligence and economic integration to such an extent that inflicting financial harm on Israel would also carry a significant cost for Washington.”
Other initiatives JINSA has advocated for likewise read like an Israeli government wishlist. They include a pending provision to “extend the existing War Reserve Stockpile Authority for Israel,” which provides a secretive and high-speed pathway for funneling weapons to Israel, as well as Abraham Accords provisions including “Improvements to Air and Missile Defense Acquisition” and a “United States-Abraham Accords Defense Cooperation Initiative.”
The policy wins JINSA is trumpeting are a result of its strong foothold within the military-industrial complex, and are perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of the pro-Israel lobby. The group says it achieves these goals “by conducting both educational programs that build ties among American, Israeli and other Middle Eastern partner military leaders, along with in-depth research and actionable recommendations to influence U.S. policy.” JINSA’s “Our People” webpage includes a long roster of retired U.S. military officials.
One of JINSA’s most important programs, which has existed for more than four decades, is its “Generals and Admirals Program.” The initiative involves flying recently retired U.S. military officials to Israel. Many of the trip’s participants were already sitting on defense-industry boards when they went, while others joined soon afterward. At least 55 of the 83 alumni from the 2019–2026 G&A program cohorts (about 66%) have held or currently hold positions in the defense industry spanning board seats, executive jobs or advisory roles at defense contractors and defense-tech firms, or posts at defense-focused investment funds, consultancies and lobbying shops.
JINSA hopes that, when these former military officials return from Israel, they will use their credentials and defense industry power to become Israel’s advocates...................
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Yemen's Houthis: Who They Are and How Many They Number Today, on the Eve of the Bab al-Mandab Seizure
Who are Yemen's Houthis, and how many of them are there today? They are a Shia insurgent movement that officially calls itself "Ansar Allah." The group controls territory home to 60-65% of Yemen's population. Its armed forces number up to 350,000 fighters. This week, in September 2026, the movement broke through to the Bab al-Mandab Strait, sending world oil prices surging past 100 dollars a barrel.
Who the Houthis Are and Where the Name Comes From
The Houthis are a religious-political movement representing the Zaydi branch of Shia Islam. It is concentrated in northern Yemen, in the mountainous province of Saada, which borders Saudi Arabia. Zaydism occupies an intermediate position between Sunni and Shia Islam and has been practiced in Yemen for centuries. Notably, Zaydism was historically Yemen's state religion for nearly a thousand years. The Zaydi imamate survived until 1962, when a republican revolution overthrew the last imam. This historical memory of its own statehood noticeably fuels the political ambitions of today's movement. But in the 1990s, the Zaydi elite felt an existential threat to its own identity from the growing encroachment of Saudi Wahhabism.
It was then that the religious figure Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi founded the "Believing Youth" movement — initially a purely cultural and theological project. The movement gradually became politicized, turning into opposition to then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The Houthis considered him corrupt and excessively pliant toward outside influence, above all Saudi influence. A curious detail: the Houthis themselves categorically reject any characterization of their uprising as a separatist project. The movement presents itself as a force fighting for the interests of all of Yemen, not just the Zaydi minority.
The name "Houthis" was given to them after the movement's founder, though they themselves prefer the official name "Ansar Allah" — "Supporters of God." In 2004, Hussein al-Houthi was killed in clashes with government forces, after which the movement was taken over by his younger brother, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, who still leads the organization today.
From Local Uprising to the Capture of the Capital
The Houthis' armed uprising against Yemen's government began in 2004. Over the following decade, they gradually expanded their control over territories in the north of the country. The 2011 Yemeni revolution, which forced President Saleh to resign, played a notable role in strengthening the movement.
The turning point came in September 2014, when the Houthis seized Yemen's capital, Sanaa. The formal pretext was protests against cuts to fuel subsidies, but behind it lay a far more ambitious goal — an effective seizure of power in the country. By 2014-2015, the movement had established a parallel system of governance across a significant part of the country's territory.
The Saudi Coalition and Eleven Years of Unfinished War
The rapid rise of the Houthis seriously alarmed Saudi Arabia, for which any growth of Iranian influence right on its border looked like a direct threat to national security. Reports of growing ties between the Houthis and Iran emerged from around 2012-2013. Riyadh saw the Yemeni crisis as a regional confrontation with Tehran fought by proxy through local insurgents.
In late March 2015, Saudi Arabia formed and led a military coalition. Formally, that operation continues to this day — more than eleven years on — making the Yemeni conflict one of the most protracted wars in the modern Middle East. Tellingly, even the term "civil war" does not fully capture the specifics of the conflict: at various stages it has drawn in the separatist Southern Transitional Council and local tribal militias, turning the confrontation into a multi-sided conflict with a hard-to-predict dynamic of shifting alliances......................
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