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← The Jerusalem Post Column

How the Jerusalem Post Column Spread

Evidence rating: CONFIRMED for each post and article below. The column was published on 30 August 2026; within four days it was being read by hundreds of thousands of Americans, covered by conservative and military outlets, and answered by a foreign government.

The first four days​

  • 3 September, Reza Nasri (international lawyer), viewed more than 292,000 times: "Israel's Jerusalem Post has published a proposal every American should read. The argument runs like this: the war on Iran cannot be sold to the American public. A ground campaign would need somewhere between 750,000 and 1.5 million troops. The active Army has about 452,000. So the gap should be closed by offering to erase the student loans, credit-card balances and car notes of Americans aged 18 to 34 in exchange for two or three years in uniform." His conclusion: "Cut the aid to Israel" (Reza Nasri on X).
  • 3 September, Armand Domalewski: "the jerusalem post has an op-ed advocating for the pentagon to recruit half a million americans to invade Iran by offering them debt forgiveness" (X). His "half a million" is shorthand; the column's range is 750,000 to 1.5 million.
  • 2 September, Blaze Media headlined it an "immodest proposal": "deploy the indebted American to fight in Iran" (Blaze Media).
  • 3 September, The New American: "Ground Troops Needed to Defeat Iran. U.S. Army 1M Short" (The New American).
  • 3 September, VPP News: "A recent opinion piece published by The Jerusalem Post proposes using debt forgiveness as an incentive to recruit large numbers of young Americans into the US military for a potential ground invasion of Iran" (article page).
  • 4–5 September, Iran's Foreign Ministry answered it (Who answered the column).

The following weeks​

  • 8 September, @RStevensPOTUS: "This is an Israel oped calling for the U.S. to raise an army of 1.5 million soldiers to invade Iran. It makes no mention of any IDF soldiers participating in this invasion" (article page). That observation matches what Israel's Channel 12 reported in March: no Israeli infantry for a US ground operation (Israel Keeps Its Infantry Home).
  • 9 September, Military.com: "Israeli op-ed turns debt bait into American recruiting plan for Iran," with Jaff's own words, "The debt was the trap." "The forgiveness is the bait" (Military.com).
  • 14 September, @jamesfrenc38958: "In a Jerusalem Post column, security analyst AJ Jaff wrote that airstrikes will not win the war with Iran and a ground invasion would require up to 1.5 million troops. He proposed the US should wipe out student loans and credit card debt in exchange for 24 or 36 months of service" (article page).
  • 15 September, the author himself: the Pentagon "would likely need somewhere around 750,000 to 1,500,000 American soldiers (or mercenaries) to launch its next phase which would likely be a ground invasion by Q3 2027" (AJ Signal on X).
  • 24 September: a reader described it as "an israeli memo (if to be believe) was leaked that stated the US would need 750k - 1.5mil footsoldiers to take Iran. there is most definitely a draft coming" (X). It was not a leak; it was printed openly, which is the point.

Not one column: a family of them​

Military.com placed Jaff's column next to another Jerusalem Post opinion piece, by Rafael Castro on 6 May 2026, proposing "organizing Iranian Americans into specialized U.S. Army units and inserting them into Tehran and Isfahan." It also quoted Jerusalem Post columnist Mark Lavie: "If the US is afraid of getting army boots dirty, or, more seriously, taking some casualties in a legitimate military operation, then its army is a waste of time and money." And on 7 September JNS ran Joseph Puder's column saying Trump's second option is "to put boots on the ground and overwhelm IRGC forces around the Strait of Hormuz while pushing inwards toward Tehran." See Israeli Press on US Ground Troops.

Military.com added that "These opinion columns do not represent every Israeli journalist, citizen or government official. Several contributors are American, Canadian or European." That is true of every opinion page. What these pages have in common is the paper that chose to print them, the audience they addressed, and the soldiers they proposed to send: Israeli English-language outlets, arguing to Americans, for American boots in Iran.

Status: AJ Jaff is alive. Reza Nasri is alive. Armand Domalewski is alive. Rafael Castro is alive. Mark Lavie is alive. Joseph Puder is alive.

Sources​

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

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