Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a rousing speech at the UN General Assembly meeting in New York on Tuesday. His speech included warm praise for US President Donald Trump and also covered familiar themes including Israel’s vast contributions to the improved standard of living for people around the world, the danger from Iran, and Israel’s determination to continue thriving despite all the opposition to it. He concluded by quoting from the Prophet Isaiah and wishing the assembled delegates a happy Rosh Hashana.

Volunteers from ZAKA Mexico, trained by Israel’s volunteer emergency response teams, were participating in recovery efforts early Wednesday morning in Mexico City, following the deadliest earthquake to hit that country in a generation. The latest reports put the death toll of the 7.1 magnitude quake at 217, with Israel and many other countries around the world rushing aid and rescue teams to the region as quickly as possible.

Israeli sports fan were thrilled this week to learn that the Giro d’Italia, one of the three “grand tour” races in professional cycling, will be held in Israel in May, 2018. The race has three stages including a start in Jerusalem, a leg between Haifa and Tel Aviv and another one between Beersheeba and Eilat. Government officials and race enthusiasts who helped bring the Giro to Israel cheered the decision as yet another devastating defeat for efforts to Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) Israel.

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman spoke at a ceremony in Jerusalem Monday to mark the laying of a cornerstone for a new military college, praising what he called the “unprecedented” level of preparedness and training the IDF has achieved and adding “the Land of Israel was bought not by virtue of force, but by force of right (quoting Menachem Begin) and Jerusalem is our right and the source of our strength and power, and we are simply going to exercise it.”

The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, a Jerusalem-based think tank, issued a report Tuesday which quoted Zaher Birawi, a British-Palestinian activist who has been heavily involved in anti-Israel activities in several countries, from a recent interview he gave with Felesteen, the daily newspaper of the Islamist terror militia Hamas. Birawi admitted in the interview that the flotillas of small boats which have, in recent years, set sail for the Hamas-occupied Gaza Strip were not seriously meant to bring relief to Palestinian civilians, but rather to embarrass Israel and score propaganda victories for Hamas and other enemies of the Jewish State.

U.S. support for regional order normally would be self-evident, particularly given America’s stakes in the Middle East. The region continues to be a major contributor to global energy and, when not managed, remains a breeder of terrorism and a dangerous source of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Yet the combination of two U.S.-led military interventions having gone badly and deep dismay about the Middle East’s constant violence has undercut American willingness to play offshore balance for the region.