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You are listening to an art media podcast.
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It's Friday, june 19th. This episode was recorded at 6pm new york time on Thursday. I'm deborah pardes and this is ark news daily. On paper, the war between the United States and Iran is officially over. Yesterday, at a candlelit dinner at the palace of Versailles, President Trump signed the Memorandum of understanding with Iran. Iran's president signed it separately, and officials say it goes into effect immediately. Three things will happen, right? Iran reopens the Strait of Hormuz, the US Lifts its naval blockade, and Iran is free to sell oil again. That last part is a big deal for them. It'll give Iran a consistent source of income and a chance to rebuild their economy before a final deal is reached. That's a major concession from the U.S. in return, the U.S. gets a commitment to begin 60 days of negotiations on Iran's nuclear program. The deal calls for the iaea, the international nuclear watchdog, to monitor the down blending of Iran's highly enriched uranium. But as we've noted before, it doesn't require Iran to surrender its stockpile, it doesn't dismantle Iran's ballistic missiles, and it doesn't end Iran's support for Hezbollah and other proxy groups. While Trump called the agreement very strong, he's also left the door open to abandoning it. And according to U.S. officials, that threat is the deal's main enforcement mechanism. If Iran doesn't comply with negotiations, the US Says it will reimpose the blockade. And Trump said he might go back to dropping bombs. The last time Iran accepted a ceasefire under this kind of pressure was in 1998, at the end of an eight year war with Iraq. Its supreme leader at the time compared making that compromise to drinking from a poisoned chalice. But Iran's leaders today are calling this deal a victory. Parliament Speaker Mohammad Galiboff told State tv, everything we sought to achieve through military action, we obtained several times over through negotiation. That tells you something about how they expect the next 60 days to go. On Wednesday, an explosive device from Hezbollah killed an IDF reservist in southern Lebanon. He was 29 years old. Seven other soldiers were wounded in the same blast. And what that points to is just how problematic the MOU is for Israel. It calls for an end to the fighting on all fronts, including Lebanon. And yet Hezbollah is still planting bombs. Communities in the north are still living under threat. Both Trump and Vice President Vance have been criticizing Israel over the fighting with Hezbollah, and they've demanded that Israel stick to the ceasefire. But so far, Netanyahu has remained defiant, at least on that point. He said this week the IDF will remain in Lebanon. The concern is that if Israel pulls back and the agreement allows Iran to start making money again, Iran will prop Hezbollah right back up and Israel ends up where it started, with a stronger enemy on its border. On the latest episode of Call Me Back, ARC Media contributor Amit Sehgal explained the political pressure Netanyahu is under. He said the northern communities are Likud strongholds, Netanyahu's base, and they are the ones absorbing the attacks. They're the ones demanding action regardless of a deal with Iran. Counterintuitively, Sehgal says that actually presents an opportunity for Netanyahu because Israelis are turning on Trump.
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Three weeks ago, President Trump was the most popular politician in Israel. He had 58 to 35 in his favorable ratings plus 23 points. Three weeks later, President Trump is minus 19. Why? Surrendering to Iran and insulting Netanyahu. So if Netanyahu becomes from the one who talks to Trump to the only one who can actually somehow stand to his yells and demands, he might might not lose from the sit.
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Polls also show that voters still think Netanyahu can stand up to the Iranian threat better than the top opposition leaders Naftali Bennett and Gadi Eisenkot. But he's still walking a fine line with the us he's remained firm on Lebanon, but he has not gone so far as to publicly criticize the MOU as a whole. Actually, in conversation with American officials, he reportedly said the deal could be a home run. Members of his coalition haven't been shy. Far right ministers Ben GVIR and Smotrich have both attacked the agreement publicly. And According to Channel 12, several top military officials in Israel have called the MOU a strategic disaster. That drew a response From Vice President J.D. vance at a White House press conference yesterday. Maybe even a veiled threat.
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If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world. Two thirds of the defensive weapons that have protected your homeland have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars.
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Israel is reportedly bracing for more pressure from the US to limit its action not only in Lebanon, but potentially also in Gaza and Yemen. We'll see how Netanyahu responds. We've been watching a case out of Boulder, Colorado, and this week it moved into federal territory. The Anti Defamation League has filed a formal civil rights complaint with the U.S. department of Education against the Boulder Valley School District, alleging the district failed to protect a Jewish 8th grader from two years of escalating antisemitic harassment and physical assault. The complaint invokes Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, a federal law that prohibits discrimination in schools. The harassment started with the classmates playing a game in PE class called Jew Touch Tag, telling the student that Jews were dirty and contaminated. A former friend threatened to bring his father's gun to school and shoot people, then told the student Spanish class that Hitler should have killed all the Jews when he had the chance. In December 2025, a classmate fashioned a computer charging cord into a lasso, threw it around the student's neck, and dragged him backwards from his chair while calling. The family reported every single one of these incidents to the school, and the school's response, according to the complaint, was to consistently move the burden onto the victim. The student was reassigned out of his own study hall. He was asked to leave the class early to avoid crowded hallways. The family eventually pulled him from the school entirely. The result was the kid stopped wearing his Star of David necklace and he stopped telling anyone at school that he was Jewish. The Boulder Valley School District says it takes all allegations seriously and is focused on improving its policies. It did not address the specifics. James Pash is the ADL's vice president of litigation. The lawyer who built the case and filed the complaint, he said this about the broader failure it represents. Quote, in the wake of the massive spike of antisemitism at our educational institutions over the last couple of years, there has been a real lack of leadership in meeting the moment. In 2025, the ADL recorded more than 6,000 anti Semitic incidents across the United States. That's an average of 17 every single day. The ADL's litigation team has now filed multiple complaints against school districts across the country. They say they want to address the failure. This case shows time and time again knowing that anti Semitic harassment is happening, but little is being done to stop it. I'm Deborah Pardes, and this is Ark News Daily. Have a good weekend.
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Hi, I'm Dan Senor, host of the Call Me Back podcast. These past few years have asked a lot of the Jewish world. We've been wrestling with pain, disagreement, and dilemmas. The war in Gaza, the war with Iran, the pressure on Jewish communities in diaspora societies, and the upcoming Israeli elections, which may bring many of these tensions to a head. These are not simple stories. And in a moment filled with bad information and overly simplistic answers, it can be hard to know who to trust. At CallMeBack, we know that trust has to be earned, and we know your time is valuable, so when you spend it with us, we take that seriously. We don't claim to have all the answers, but we do try to ask better questions with honesty and humility. Maybe that is where hope begins. Not in pretending this moment is simple, but in believing at a minimum, we must face it together. You can find Call me back on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you there.