As Israel prepared to mark Yom HaShoah last night, remembering the Holocaust, the American blockade of the Strait of Hormuz moved into enforcement. At Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust remembrance centre, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tied the present conflict directly to historical memory, declaring that Israel had ‘crushed the evil regime in Iran to dust’, framing the campaign as the fulfilment of a promise that there would not be another Holocaust. His language placed the current war in existential terms, in a clear continuum of Jewish history – a marked contrast with the sceptical and critical tone that continues to dominate much western coverage.

At the same time, President Trump confirmed that the United States was now actively enforcing the blockade, in lieu of fighting: ‘Right now, there’s no fighting,’ he said. ‘Right now, we have a blockade … Iran is doing absolutely no business, and we’re going to keep it that way very easily.’

All of this looks like part of an ongoing negotiation process, rather than a replacement for it. The collapse of talks in Islamabad did not end engagement. Accounts from participants suggest the two sides came close to a framework, even........

© The Spectator