Trump’s NSC Director for Israel and Iran Previously Worked for Israeli Ministry of Defense
The story below is co-reported with my Breaking Points colleague Saagar Enjeti. We’ll be covering it on the program Monday morning.
The American official overseeing White House policy toward both Israel and Iran inside the National Security Council formerly worked for the Israeli Ministry of Defense, Drop Site News has learned. Merav Ceren’s appointment as Director for Israel and Iran at the NSC has not previously been reported, but her work with Israel’s MoD is well known among GOP circles.
Ceren’s appointment gives Israel 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.
NSC spokesperson Brian Hughes confirmed that Ceren is now an official at the NSC and defended her as “a patriotic American.”
“Merav is a patriotic American who has served in the United States government for years, including for President Trump, Senator Ted Cruz, and Congressman James Comer,” said Hughes. “We are thrilled to have her expertise in the NSC, where she carries out the President’s agenda on a range of Middle East issues.”
Ceren includes her time with Israel’s Ministry of Defense in her bio at the pro-Israel think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).
The Israeli campaign has forced the issue into the top echelons of government. At a high-level meeting reported on recently by the New York Times, Vice President J.D. Vance, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth all pushed back against Israel’s plan for a major strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. They were even joined by NSC Director Michael Waltz, who warned that Israel’s effort would not succeed without ample U.S. support. Waltz and CENTCOM commander, Gen. Michael Kurilla, the Times reported, had previously been open to entertaining the Israeli idea and were briefed by Israeli military officials on a range of plans.
It’s rare for a foreign country to be able to pitch American policymakers on a joint war effort and look across the table to see a former member of their own Ministry of Defense working for the Americans. As Trump debates his tariff policy, for instance, there are no high-level officials who previously worked for the Chinese Communist Party present.
Ceren’s FDD bio says that while working for the Israeli military she participated in negotiations in the West Bank between Israel’s Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) and the Palestinian Authority. COGAT is the Israeli agency now refusing entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, sparking a humanitarian crisis of unspeakable proportions. Ceren is the sister of Omri Ceren, a bellicose neoconservative and longtime foreign policy adviser to Sen. Ted Cruz.
In 2021, she authored the article “The Moral Case for High-Tech Weapons” for The New Atlantis, a long-form style publication that seeks to “understand the core anxiety about tech as the threat of dehumanization.”
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Perhaps the Gulf of America, formerly the Gulf of Mexico, should now be redesignated the Gulf of Israel?
It's amazing that now the "tail wagging the dog" phenomenon is complete as pro-Israeli -- and formerly Israeli military -- officials are deeply embedded inside the foreign policy halls of our government.
Add to this that Google just "bought" for $32 billion dollars an Israeli tech company, leaving most Israeli executives in charge, and Microsoft provides tech support for the Israeli military, and many other such interconnections.
Israeli interests -- not American interests -- drive our foreign policy and censor our speech regarding criticism of Israel.
I'm still grateful that Trump waved off Netanyahu's long-standing dream to have the U.S. attack Iran.