Watchwords: Sunday, March 1

The pressure this week is about reframing a preemptive war of defense as an illegal act of aggression — and making you own the civilian cost before you’ve had time to assess the military facts.

Khamenei is dead, the IRGC leadership is decimated, and the arguments arriving at your door sound nothing like last week's. "Assassination," "war crime," an 80-dead figure from a girls' school, "Netanyahu dragged America into war" — each one engineered to feel verified and to make pushback sound like a defense of the indefensible. Watchwords walks each claim down to why it sticks, what it obscures, and the exact sequence of facts that breaks it. Members get the full brief before these land on your campus and city council.

Every conversation that starts with “was it legal?” is a conversation that doesn't start with “what was Iran building?”

The Israel Brief is the Mitzpe Institute's read on Israel and the region — most mornings, Sunday through Thursday. More at mitzpe.org.