Middle East Press On: Children, War, Endgame, Isolation, Illusion, Aid: New Age Islam's Selection, 22 May 2025
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
22 May 2025
It Starts With Our Children: Healing The Deepest Wounds Of Israel's War
A President With Different Priorities: Israel And US Chart A New Course Under Trump
A Constructive, Forward-Looking Relationship: Giving Israel-Turkey Ties A Reset
The Vine Of Independence: How Israeli Wine Can Uncork A New Era Of Sovereignty
Minimal Aid, Maximum Harm: A Smokescreen To Shield Israeli War Crimes
Netanyahu’s Endgame: Isolation And The Shattered Illusion Of Power
A Western Diplomatic Offensive Against Israel: Why Now?
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It Starts With Our Children: Healing The Deepest Wounds Of Israel's War
By Yael Enav, Yael Mayer
MAY 22, 2025
On the day that Israel, father of five-year-old Gaya, first arrived at our Home Within the Heart program, he was still limping from the injuries he sustained defending his kibbutz on October 7. Gaya, who had once been inseparable from her father, now avoided his gaze and clung only to her mother. Israel, devastated by her distance, felt that he had fought through hell to return home – only to find himself a stranger to the daughter he loved most.
Through the structured, nurturing environment of the Home Within the Heart group, the two began to reconnect slowly. In one of the final sessions, Israel wept. “The group helped me get my daughter back,” he said. “I cannot thank you enough.”
Another father, Avi, returned from months of reserve duty to find his four-year-old daughter, Shir, quiet and withdrawn. She had seemed happy to see him but said little. That changed during a session in which the facilitator shared a story about a dragon. Suddenly, Shir turned to her father and said, “Daddy, I was afraid you were going to die.”
Avi was stunned. He had no idea his young daughter understood the dangers he had faced. But that moment of honesty became a turning point. With gentle support from the group’s facilitator, Avi and Shir began to have a raw and open conversation. “It was the first time I realized how much she was holding inside,” he said.
Since October 7, Israel has been grappling with one of the most profound mental health crises in its history. The trauma inflicted by the attacks has led to a significant increase in psychological distress across the nation.
More than 250,000 Israelis were internally displaced, either voluntarily or following government orders, affecting families in both the northern and southern regions of Israel. Internally displaced populations often experience economic instability, loss of social support, and exposure to violence and trauma, all of which lead to a significantly higher risk of mental health issues such as PTSD, depression, and anxiety.
The psychological impact of the conflict
As the war raged on, the Israeli army estimates that one-third of the 10,000 soldiers treated in its rehabilitation centers have been diagnosed with PTSD or similar mental health conditions. For parents at home, our own study found that younger parents struggle the most and experience a significant decline in parental efficacy under conditions of high war exposure.
These statistics highlight the extensive psychological impact of the conflict, underscoring the need for comprehensive mental health support.
While media attention often focuses on the physical destruction of war, the emotional toll is no less devastating. It’s hardest on children, who often cannot find the words to express what they’re feeling and are left to navigate trauma on their own.
As psychologists and researchers focused on child development and trauma, we knew that a different kind of intervention was urgently needed – one that would strengthen, rather than separate, the parent-child bond.
That’s why we created Home Within the Heart, a University of Haifa initiative grounded in our commitment to rebuild and restore Israel’s North following the devastation of the Israel-Hamas War. Instead of addressing trauma as an individual experience, we focus on the parent-child relationship as the most powerful source of healing.
In small, guided groups of six parent-child pairs, our program offers a safe space for children to process their feelings while being anchored in the presence of their caregiver. The name Home Within the Heart reflects our central belief: When homes are lost or unsafe, when daily life becomes unpredictable, children need to know there is still one place they can turn for safety – the emotional presence of a calm, responsive parent. But for parents who are themselves traumatized, this can feel almost impossible.
Giving caregivers tools to meet children's needs
Working in partnership with local municipalities and other frontline agencies, the University of Haifa has brought this model to families across Israel, especially in the northern communities most affected by evacuations, sirens, and threats of escalation. In every setting, the results have been deeply moving.
Sometimes the path is slow. One five-year-old boy, Eitan, refused to join any of the group’s activities in the first sessions. His father, Gidi, stayed patiently by his side, unsure whether the program was helping. But by the third session, Eitan was singing with the other children – and by the last, he was carrying his crocheted therapy bunny everywhere, sleeping with it under his pillow and reading aloud from the workbook he and his father had filled out together.
With support, parents learn to talk about difficult topics in an age-appropriate, emotionally attuned way, giving them the language and context they need to navigate this complex phenomenon.
We’ve seen how children flourish when their caregivers are given the tools and emotional capacity to meet their needs. And we’ve seen how parents, who so often arrive overwhelmed, emotionally numb, or ashamed of their own fragility, begin to thaw, reconnect, and heal themselves.
One mother, Galit, joined the program with her daughter Avia after months of displacement. She told us she felt emotionally frozen: “I felt like I was behind a screen, unable to reach my own child.” But by the end of the group, she said something we will never forget: “Now, when I tell my daughter I love her, I actually feel it. I thought I had lost that. I thought the war had taken my daughter away from me, but you gave her back to me.”
At a time when Israel is facing one of the greatest mental health crises in its history, we must invest in interventions that recognize the full scope of trauma – interventions that treat the home, the heart, and the human bond as sites of healing.
Home Within the Heart is not just a program. It is a model for national recovery – rebuilding resilience in Israel’s North and beyond, from the inside out: one parent, one child, one story at a time.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-854855
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A President With Different Priorities: Israel And US Chart A New Course Under Trump
By Eric R. Mandel
MAY 22, 2025
My analysis that follows is a synthesis of my discussions in Congress, the US State Department, past meetings with the Qataris, Omanis, and Saudis, with members of the Knesset, think tanks, the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Israeli government leaders, and now my seventh time with Israeli forces since I was in Sderot on that horrible day of Hamas’s invasion and massacre on October 7, 2023.
My advice is from someone from the security-minded internationalist camp who sees Israel’s safety and image of strength in the Middle East as a priority for the US to stabilize the region and advance American interests.
However, as American democracy is now constituted, the executive makes foreign policy, and the Senate is either too fearful or weak to have much impact on an imperial-style president who values foreign allies in dollar transactions, and listens to American voices that are a throwback to the Republican isolationists of the past.
It has not been one of Israel’s strengths to strategize beyond short- to medium-term goals. It has always been easier not to do the heavy lifting of mapping contingencies for long-term stable foreign relationships, other than with the US.
In America’s defense, not many nations other than the US have cared about the Jewish state’s survival. Over the last 77 years, America and Israel have had a special relationship, despite their ups and downs, where democratic values, not transactions, were the guiding light.
Unfortunately, those days may be gone, as the Trump administration prioritizes deals and victories measured in dollars. American exceptionalism, its role as leader of the free world, is out, while America chastises its allies as free-loaders, especially the Europeans.
The new reality is expressed by Joel Rayburn, Trump’s nominee to be the State Department’s top Middle East official, who said Gulf countries are “becoming the partners of choice.” We hear praise for Qatar, which supports and hosts Islamists and jihadists of all stripes while pouring billions into the United States to influence American policy, targeting our halls of legislature and universities. Many influential people in the US are now beneficiaries of Qatari largesse.
Today, a grenade has been thrown into the American-Israel special relationship. At least for the next three and a half years of the Trump term, and probably much longer, no matter whether a Democrat or Republican follows Trump, the relationship will not be the same.
Trump sidelining Israel
The writing was already on the wall to reimage the partnership during the Biden administration. Despite the public protestations of his administration, Biden choked the supply of American munitions to Israel, impeding Israel’s path to a quicker military victory over Hamas. I was in the field reporting in early 2024 and I saw this firsthand.
Today, Trump has sidelined Israel in his deal with the Houthis, leaving Israel vulnerable to continued ballistic attacks, and removed sanctions against Syria’s Ahmed al-Sharaa, a passionate jihadist yesterday, professing to be a good neighbor today, despite Israel’s warnings to be wary of his Islamist group’s intentions.
Netanyahu and Israeli leaders of the future have no choice but to view this as an opportunity to chart a more independent course and develop a more balanced relationship with America. That would include developing alternative munitions and weapons supply lines.
The Trump administration’s diplomatic developments should push Israeli political, academic, and defense strategists to accelerate plans and diplomatic initiatives with countries such as India that do not instinctively hate Jews but value what Israel can offer them, while sharing their common interests in confronting radical Islamism.
Europe, sadly, is not Israel’s answer. With its growing Muslim population, throwing Israel under the bus is politically expedient and not inconsistent with its long history of ambivalence toward Jews in general, and the strain of animus toward the Jewish state today.
Israel should anticipate American pressure not only concerning hostage deals but also to withdraw from its nine forward-based positions in Syria and its five topographically advantageous positions in southern Lebanon. The US administration, unlike the populace of northern Israel, can afford to entertain the fantasy that the Lebanese government will contain Hezbollah quickly.
With deals and paper victories the measure of American success in the Trump administration, if it pressures Israel to withdraw from its one-kilometer buffer zone around the Gaza border communities, and even from the Philadelphi Corridor, the spigot of weapons supply for Hamas in Gaza would reopen.
If this happens, the Israelis who suffered the most from the October 7 massacre by Hamas – those living on the border around Gaza and have returned to their homes – will leave, knowing there is nothing between them and their families, and would-be murderers. I heard this during my meetings with officers.
Israel needs to begin strategizing
Israel's ultimate fear is a weak American nuclear deal with Iran, which, based on history, Iran will ignore and continue with its atomic weaponization. It will leave Israel little choice but to go it alone, with or without Trump’s approval, and then wait to bear the wrath of Trump if it attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities after he concludes a deal with the mullahs in Tehran. Meanwhile, economic sanctions will be relaxed, allowing billions to pour again into the financing of Iran’s proxies.
Israel always lives in extraordinary times, and the Trump administration has already dealt the cards. Israel needs to play its hand now, even if the deck differs from just a few years ago, and begin strategizing in earnest, seeing beyond the immediate unprecedented challenges in its seven-front war, despite how difficult they are.
No matter what Trump decides to do with Iran, Syria, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, Israel has no choice in the near term except to work with the administration and make lemonade out of lemons.
My hope for American national security interests is that security-minded voices in the administration can convince the president that he can have trillion-dollar deals, but also needs a strong Israel for US security interests. Creating the perception of more daylight with Israel creates more instability, increasing the chance for wars – the exact opposite of what the administration should want.
If the Trump team thinks its transactional course, which relegates Israel to a more secondary status, is the best for America, I would recommend that they also choose to make it a priority to help Israel facilitate and strengthen new relationships with transactional American partners, from Saudi Arabia to India and beyond.
I know the president wants to do this with Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, the most populous Muslim nation. Still, they must remember that unless Israel is perceived as strong and has reliable American backing, those nations will not take the chance to engage diplomatically and economically.
A new foreign policy era is upon America and Israel. Still, I am cautiously optimistic that future administrations will return to the realization that America needs Israel as much as Israel needs the US, based on both shared national security and value-based interests.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-854861
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A Constructive, Forward-Looking Relationship: Giving Israel-Turkey Ties A Reset
By Gabriel Mitchell
MAY 22, 2025
Since the fall of president Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, analysts have increasingly warned that Israel and Turkey – two countries with a strained diplomatic history over the past 15 years – are at odds over Syria’s future. Without proactive engagement, their conflicting interests could trigger an unintended military escalation.
The same voices argue that the first step to preventing such a scenario is the establishment of a reliable communication channel between Jerusalem and Ankara to reduce tensions and avoid costly miscalculations.
Dialogue is the minimum requirement for avoiding disaster. The skies over Syria have long been the site of tragic confrontations, and the region remains dangerously unpredictable. While calls for Israeli-Turkish dialogue – facilitated by Azerbaijan or another third party – are a welcome starting point, they are currently focused on addressing short-term, operational considerations. This is a low bar for two states that have enjoyed formal diplomatic relations since 1949 and share a vested interest in regional stability. Israel’s aim should be more ambitious: to fully restore diplomatic and economic ties with Turkey.
To move toward this goal, Israel should implement a series of confidence-building measures that can lay the foundation for a more constructive, forward-looking relationship with Ankara.
A deconfliction mechanism
The first and most urgent step is the creation of a deconfliction mechanism that clearly delineates military red lines in Syria. This would involve setting up a secure hotline or a regular system of communication between Israeli and Turkish military officials to prevent the accidental convergence of forces in sensitive areas. Over time, this mechanism could evolve to include mutual understandings regarding operational zones and airspace management.
However, deconfliction talks – which have been ongoing since mid-April – should not stop at the technical level. It must open the door to broader discussions about the post-Assad regional landscape. Both sides need to articulate their national security priorities and explore possibilities for cooperation in containing Iranian influence, curbing arms smuggling, and countering the drug trade.
Both Israel and Turkey have publicly expressed a desire to avoid direct conflict. Establishing a robust deconfliction mechanism that paves the way for future joint strategic planning is the most concrete way to honor that commitment.
The new Syrian government
In parallel with its diplomatic outreach to Turkey, Israel should actively engage with Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa. These exploratory talks have already begun, with a secret channel reportedly facilitated by the United Arab Emirates and one meeting in Baku with the participation of Israeli, Syrian, and Turkish representatives.
Negotiations will be complicated – potentially addressing contentious issues such as Hezbollah’s access to Syrian territory, Israel’s military operations in southern Syria, and the protection of minorities, such as the Druze and Kurds – nonetheless, they present a critical opportunity to reshape regional perceptions and policies.
Tactically, engagement with Damascus helps counter the prevailing narrative in pro-government Turkish media, which claims that Israel favors a fractured and decentralized Syria. Strategically, it could reduce Ankara’s outsized influence over Syrian affairs and pave the way for constructive Israeli-Turkish discussions about Syria’s post-war reconstruction.
If Israel and Turkey share a mutual interest in promoting a stable, sovereign Syria that limits Iranian and Russian influence and curtails the operations of extremist groups, this raises an important question: Could they – in coordination with the US, EU, and Gulf states – collaborate to develop conditional frameworks for easing international sanctions, thereby opening the door for Syria’s reconstruction? Can they work together with Washington in order to ensure that future withdrawals of US troops are coordinated with America’s regional partners?
Syria’s uncertain trajectory poses significant security challenges for both Israel and Turkey. As indicated following US President Donald Trump’s historic meeting with Sharaa in Riyadh, the Syrian government must address its myriad domestic challenges before joining the Abraham Accords. Still, establishing a diplomatic track with Damascus is an essential step for any long-term regional realignment to be realized. At the very least, it would signal to Ankara that Israel is serious about promoting regional stability and is willing to pursue coordinated, proactive measures to that end.
Economic ties
These steps – deconfliction with Turkey and diplomatic outreach with Syria – could pave the way for the restoration of the robust bilateral trade relationship that existed before May 2024, when Turkey suspended economic ties in response to Israel’s war against Hamas. That move, while ostensibly a foreign policy decision, was largely driven by domestic political pressures on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and hasn’t borne much fruit.
Turkey continues to struggle with high inflation, volatile currency fluctuations, and widespread economic uncertainty. These factors have weakened investor confidence and downgraded the country’s credit ratings. The trade boycott against Israel has had limited practical impact, and Turkish officials have already hinted that economic relations could resume once humanitarian aid corridors in Gaza have been reestablished.
Restoring commercial ties would yield tangible benefits for both countries and could also extend economic advantages to the broader region. Joint ventures and cross-border projects involving Israeli and Turkish companies could directly or indirectly support the economies of the Palestinian Territories, Syria, and Jordan – as long as the two governments can once again separate their political disputes from economic cooperation.
Turkey and the Palestinians
The steps outlined above will require time, patience, and commitment from both sides. If managed effectively, they could serve as a platform for Israel and Turkey to address a broader range of issues, including their differing perspectives on the Palestinians.
Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians and Erdogan’s decision to embrace Hamas lies at the heart of bilateral tensions. As long as Erdogan and Prime Minister Netanyahu remain in power, this divide may remain unbridgeable. Even after one or both of them exit the political stage, Israel and its regional allies are unlikely to welcome Turkish involvement in Gaza’s reconstruction or Palestinian domestic affairs.
Therefore, the most realistic near-term goal is for Israel and Turkey to prioritize resolving their differences in Syria and to use any resulting progress as a foundation for engaging in more respectful dialogue about the Palestinian issue.
Still, the path to normalization must be laid now. If both sides can recognize that their long-term interests – regional security, economic growth, and connectivity – are better advanced through cooperation than confrontation, then mediation over military deconfliction today can open the door to broader and more meaningful engagement tomorrow.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-854835
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The Vine Of Independence: How Israeli Wine Can Uncork A New Era Of Sovereignty
By Adam Scott Bellos
MAY 22, 2025
What if I told you the key to Israeli economic independence wasn’t hidden in a military contract, a Silicon Wadi start-up, or a round of natural gas exploration – but in a bottle of wine?
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently declared that Israel must “wean itself off American security aid.” It’s a necessary and long-overdue recognition. American aid has served its purpose, but it has also entangled Israel in the political storms of a foreign empire. And now, with America’s ideological extremes converging into a strange and dangerous alliance of anti-Zionism, dependence is not just undignified – it’s deadly.
Because let’s be clear: Support for Israel is no longer guaranteed from either side of the American political aisle. The far Left is openly hostile, equating Zionism with colonialism and Israel with apartheid.
And a new and uncomfortable reality is also emerging on the far Right. Some of the loudest voices among the very coalition that elected the current US president are beginning to echo anti-Israel conspiracies. And their criticism, increasingly, points to one thing: the aid.
We have to deprive them of that talking point.
Supporting Israel through the wine industry
That’s why now – right now – is the time for Israel to invest in true economic sovereignty. And that sovereignty can, and should, be built on the back of the Israeli wine industry.
This isn’t a gimmick. This is strategy.
Let’s do the numbers.
There are approximately 60 million evangelical Christians in America. If just 20% – that’s 12 million – bought one bottle of Israeli wine per year, we’d see 12 million bottles sold annually. At an average of $36 per bottle, that’s $432 million a year flowing directly into the Israeli economy.
Now consider the Jewish community.
There are about six million Jews in the United States. If just 25%1. – 5 million people – bought one bottle of Israeli wine per week, that’s 78 million bottles a year. At a modest $25 per bottle, that alone would generate $1.95 billion annually.
Together, these two groups alone could generate over $2.3 billion in direct wine revenue every year – without touching a dollar of foreign aid. That’s over half of what Israel currently receives annually from the US government in military assistance. With moderate growth, strategic reinvestment, and infrastructure expansion, the Israeli wine industry could scale to replace it entirely.
Israeli wine is rooted in identity
But this is about more than just math. This is about mindset.
Israeli wine is rooted in identity. It is grown in the same earth as our prophets and kings. It is bottled by Jews and Arabs who have a shared stake in the land’s future. It is the liquid expression of sovereignty.
When American Jews replace generic kosher wine with bottles from the Galilee or Judea, they aren’t just upgrading taste – they’re investing in freedom. When Christian Zionists toast to the peace of Jerusalem with Israeli red, they are reaffirming a covenant of mutual destiny – not one built on charity, but commerce.
And most importantly, when critics – Left or Right – ask why Israel deserves their taxes, we will respond: We don’t want your money. We want your business.
Detaching from US aid is not just a tactical move. It’s a survival strategy.
We must act now, before the horseshoe of American extremism unites around a shared hatred of Jewish power, Jewish presence, and Jewish peoplehood. The Israeli wine industry is a firewall against that convergence. It is the antidote to dependency. It is the economic answer to the political question of Zionism’s permanence.
Here’s what needs to happen:
• Every synagogue in North America should make Israeli wine the default for every kiddush, every simcha, every holiday.
• Evangelical churches should stock their communion tables with wine from Judea and Samaria – not only as a spiritual act, but as an economic stand.
• Jewish federations and Christian advocacy groups alike should launch “Buy Israeli Wine” campaigns as a matter of national security.
We don’t need another billion-dollar bailout. We need a billion-dollar buy-in.
Every bottle sold is one less excuse for America to dictate our policies. Every purchase is one more step toward a self-sustaining, sovereign Jewish future. The wine is ready.
The world is shifting. And the vines are waiting to carry us home.
L’chaim – to life, to freedom, and to a future uncorked from dependence.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-854831
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Minimal Aid, Maximum Harm: A Smokescreen To Shield Israeli War Crimes
By Jamal Kanj
May 21, 2025
Israel’s decision to allow only minimal food into Gaza is a small reprieve—not a solution. It does nothing to reverse the widespread malnutrition ravaging Gaza’s children or the irreversible health collapse among its elderly. This is not charity. It is an attempt to normalize starvation as a weapon of war. Indeed, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has openly admitted that the limited aid is necessary to maintain an “international umbrella” protection from Israel’s allies to continue its genocide.Hours after announcing the aid relief, Israel launched new military operations, expanding its occupation and mass displacement of civilians yet again. This came on the heels of a three-day massacre that left over 500 civilians dead. The limited aid is not a policy shift—it is calculated savagery intrinsic in the Zionist ideology: inflict maximum pain, then offer the bare minimum to deflect outrage. This is not aid. It is barbarity with a countdown — starvation management, not relief.
It is yet another Israeli manipulative political maneuver — one we’ve seen time and again: apply unbearable pressure, then selectively ease it for “practical and diplomatic reasons,” all while maintaining control over the basic conditions of survival. Allowing crumbs of aid is not an end to war crimes. This is merely a shift from killing people on empty stomachs to killing them on half full ones.
Let us be clear: it was Benjamin Netanyahu who broke the most recent ceasefire—just as he has repeatedly violated international norms throughout this war of annihilation. There is no reason to believe he will not reimpose the blockade once political pressure and scrutiny subside. This pattern of intermittent blockade has persisted for nearly 20 months. In the absence of a decisive international response, Netanyahu is likely to repeat this tactic—using food and medicine not as humanitarian necessities, but as tools of coercion and collective punishment.
By reducing a systematic policy of deprivation to a discussion about supply chains or distribution, Israel tries to rebrand a war crime as a bureaucratic glitch. This is not new. In 2012, documents revealed that Israeli authorities had calculated the minimum caloric intake necessary to keep Gazans alive without sparking international outrage — a policy that turned an entire population into subjects of a wicked experiment. A grotesque reminder of the Nazi experimentations on Jewish concentration camps during WWII.
Now, in coordination with the U.S., Israel proposes aid distribution centers in southern Gaza—areas under its military control. The pretext? Preventing chaos. The reality? Israel itself has orchestrated past aid breakdowns. Its presence doesn’t ensure order; it deepens the desperation bred by enforced starvation.
The U.S.-Israel negotiation over so-called “safe” distribution zones is merely a continuation of the ongoing cruelty. These zones are not intended to alleviate suffering but to exert control and inflict humiliation on a starving population. By forcing displaced Palestinians to cluster near Israeli-controlled aid points—closer to the Egyptian border—a sinister plan to depopulate urban centers in both northern and southern Gaza, paving the way for their eventual “voluntary” expulsion. These so-called “food safe zones” risk becoming human traps, designed to detain or even kill desperate residents in search of aid—much like Israel’s use of hospitals to arrest or murder the sick seeking medical care.
As of May 20, Israel allowed five aid trucks into Gaza—only 0.8 percent of what’s needed to feed 2.3 million people. However, none of the aid was distributed because of last minute logistical obstacles created by the Israeli army. This brings to mind the Biden–Blinken floating pier: a theatrical distraction from the Israeli blockade. As Trump emulates Biden, Netanyahu takes it even further—weaponizing spectacle to anesthetize the starving, deflate Trump and international pressure, all while doing nothing to end the siege.
In my last op-ed, I cautioned that the release of the Israeli soldier could be misinterpreted by Israel not as a gesture of goodwill but as an entitlement. Sadly, that warning has proven correct, as Israel has intensified the air and shelling of schools and civilian centers, murdering more than 600 civilians in the last five days. Typical of Netanyahu, he hardened his stance, treating the release of the Israeli soldier as weakness to be punished —murdering one Palestinian every 12 minutes.
The Israeli blockade is not a logistical issue; it is a form of narrative warfare. It blurs intent, dilutes responsibility, and numbs global outrage. If the problem is logistics, then the solution is better trucks and tighter coordination. But if the problem is policy — a conscious decision to starve a civilian population — then it is a glaring war crime. Israel’s siege is a political choice—not a matter of “coordination,” “security vetting,” or “distribution inefficiencies.” Such framing is not just misleading; it is an intentional deception.
Therefore, allowing a trickle of food into Gaza must not absolve Israel of responsibility for the nearly three-month-long starvation blockade. There can be no negotiations over how to manage starvation—it is a deliberate method of warfare. The only acceptable response is accountability and prosecution. Bureaucratic smokescreens serve one purpose: to shield a war crime in progress.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250521-minimal-aid-maximum-harm-a-smokescreen-to-shield-israeli-war-crimes/
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Netanyahu’s Endgame: Isolation and the Shattered Illusion of Power
May 21, 2025
There was a time when Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to have all the cards. The Palestinian Authority was largely passive, the occupied West Bank was relatively calm, Israel’s diplomatic reach was expanding, and the United States seemed ready to bend international law to accommodate Israel’s desire for complete control over Palestine.
The Israeli prime minister had also, at least in his own estimation, succeeded in subduing Gaza, the persistently defiant enclave that had for years struggled unsuccessfully to break the suffocating Israeli blockade.
Within Israel, Netanyahu had been celebrated as the nation’s longest-serving prime minister, a figure who promised not only longevity but also unprecedented prosperity. To mark this milestone, Netanyahu employed a visual prop: a map of the Middle East, or, in his own words, “the New Middle East.”
This envisioned new Middle East, according to Netanyahu, was a unified green bloc, representing a future of ‘great blessings’ under Israeli leadership.
Conspicuously absent from this map was Palestine in its entirety—both historic Palestine, now Israel, and the occupied Palestinian territories.
Netanyahu’s latest unveiling occurred at the United Nations General Assembly on September 22, 2023. His supposedly triumphant address was sparsely attended, and among those present, enthusiasm was notably absent. This, however, seemed of little consequence to Netanyahu, his coalition of extremists, or the broader Israeli public.
Historically, Israel has placed its reliance on the support of a select few nations considered, in their own calculus, to be of primary importance: Washington and a handful of European capitals.
Then came the October 7 assault. Initially, Israel leveraged the Palestinian attack to garner Western and international support, both validating its existing policies and justifying its intended response. However, this sympathy rapidly dissipated as it became apparent that Israel’s response entailed a campaign of genocide, the extermination of the Palestinian people in Gaza, and the ethnic cleansing of Gaza’s population and West Bank communities.
As images and footage of the devastating carnage in Gaza surfaced, anti-Israeli sentiment surged. Even Israel’s allies struggled to justify the deliberate killing of tens of thousands of innocent civilians, predominantly women and children.
Nations like Britain imposed partial arms embargoes on Israel, while France attempted a balancing act, calling for a ceasefire while suppressing domestic activists advocating for the same. The pro-Israel Western narrative has become increasingly incoherent, yet remains deeply problematic.
Washington, under President Biden, initially maintained unwavering support, implicitly endorsing Israel’s objective – genocide and ethnic cleansing.
However, as Israel failed to achieve its perceived objectives, Biden’s public stance began to shift. He called for a ceasefire, though without demonstrating any tangible willingness to pressure Israel. Biden’s staunch support for Israel has been cited by many as a contributing factor to the Democratic Party’s losses in the 2024 elections.
Then, Trump arrived. Netanyahu and his supporters, both in Israel and Washington, anticipated that Israel’s actions in Palestine and the wider region—Lebanon, Syria, etc.—would align with a broader strategic plan.
They believed Trump’s administration would be willing to escalate further. This escalation, they envisioned, would include military action against Iran, the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, the fragmentation of Syria, the weakening of Yemen’s Ansarallah, and more, without significant concessions.
Initially, Trump signaled a willingness to pursue this agenda: deploying heavier bombs, issuing direct threats against Iran, intensifying operations against Ansarallah, and expressing interest in controlling Gaza and displacing its population.
However, Netanyahu’s expectations yielded only unfulfilled promises. This raises the question: was Trump deliberately misleading Netanyahu, or did evolving circumstances necessitate a reassessment of his initial plans?
The latter explanation appears more plausible. Efforts to intimidate Iran proved ineffective, leading to a series of diplomatic engagements between Tehran and Washington, first in Oman, then in Rome.
Ansarallah demonstrated resilience, prompting the US on May 6 to curtail its military campaigns in Yemen, specifically the Operation ‘Rough Rider’. On May 16, a US official announced that the USS Harry S. Truman would withdraw from the region.
Notably, on May 12, Hamas and Washington announced a separate agreement, independent of Israel, for the release of US-Israeli captive Edan Alexander.
The culmination occurred on May 14, when Trump delivered a speech at a US-Saudi investment forum in Riyadh, advocating for regional peace and prosperity, lifting sanctions on Syria, and emphasizing a diplomatic resolution with Iran.
Conspicuously absent from these regional shifts was Benjamin Netanyahu and his strategic ‘vision’.
Netanyahu responded to these developments by intensifying military operations against Palestinian hospitals in Gaza, targeting patients within the Nasser and European Hospitals. This action, targeting the most vulnerable, was interpreted as a message to Washington and Arab states that his objectives remained unchanged, regardless of the consequences.
The intensified Israeli military operations in Gaza are an attempt by Netanyahu to project strength amidst perceived political vulnerability. This escalation has resulted in a sharp increase in Palestinian casualties and exacerbated food shortages, if not outright famine, for over two million people.
It remains uncertain how long Netanyahu will remain in power, but his political standing has significantly deteriorated. He faces widespread domestic opposition and international condemnation. Even his primary ally, the United States, has signaled a shift in its approach. This period may mark the beginning of the end for Benjamin Netanyahu’s political career and, potentially, for the policies associated with his horrifically violent government.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/netanyahus-endgame-isolation-and-the-shattered-illusion-of-power/
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A Western Diplomatic Offensive against Israel: Why Now?
May 21, 2025
Over the past week or so, the European leaderships have seemingly shifted their attitudes towards Israel. This rift between Tel Aviv and its partners on the European continent also appears to have taken hold in the corporate media, too. But why now, and will this end up reflecting positive changes on the ground in Gaza?
On Monday, the foreign ministers of 22 nations, including Germany, France, the UK, Canada, and Japan, all signed onto a joint statement urging Israel to allow the full resumption of aid to the Gaza Strip.
This came after moves such as Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, had previously called Israel a “genocidal state” and France’s Emmanuel Macron was accused of supporting terrorism for condemning Israel’s “unacceptable” behaviour.
France, Canada, and the UK even threatened “targeted sanctions” after Israel launched a renewed ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, to which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded by accusing the three nations’ leaderships of offering a reward for terrorism.
On Tuesday morning, a flood of updates then poured in. The United Kingdom announced it would be suspending its Free Trade Deal talks, summoning the Israeli ambassador to London and applying sanctions to Israeli settler extremists in the West Bank, including the “godmother of the settlement movement,” Daniella Weiss.
Then, the European Union would go on to announce a review of Israel’s trade ties over the Gaza blockade, an effort spearheaded by the Netherlands, which also threatened possible sanctions.
France’s Le Monde news reported this Tuesday that the UK and Canada had joined its initiative to recognise a Palestinian State. Later the same day, the Spanish parliament unanimously voted to pass a motion calling for a weapons embargo on the Israelis.
Israeli daily, Yedioth Ahronoth, later released an article in which it quoted an Israeli Foreign Ministry official as calling the European moves a “diplomatic tsunami”. The source qualified this with the following analysis:
Speculated earlier this week has it that the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which has ruled that Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza, will officially rule on this in early 2026, although these reports are early assessments.
Why is This Finally Happening?
As we veer closer to the two-year mark of the Gaza war, labelled by UN experts, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Israel’s own top rights group B’Tselem as Genocide, the European nations and in fact, the majority of the collective West, have started to shift their position.
There is likely to be a range of different motivating factors behind the move, but the key ones are as follows:
The deprivation of all aid.
The impact that the Israeli agenda will have on regional actors.
The US position on this issue.
The first issue at hand is the Israeli total blockade imposed on the people of Gaza, which has lasted over 80 days at this point. Although a trickle of aid was allowed to enter earlier this week, it was roughly 1% of the daily number of trucks needed to properly support the besieged population. We are only around a week away from the food aid completely diminishing in some areas of Gaza, which will begin to inflict mass famine on a horrifying level.
Already, images and videos of babies and children who have died due to malnutrition have begun to go viral on social media. Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the UN’s humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, stressed that 14,000 babies in Gaza could die within the next 48 hours if there is no sudden influx of aid into the Gaza Strip.
A minimum of 53,500 Palestinians have been murdered directly as a result of Israel’s assault on Gaza since October 7, 2023, with another 14,000 missing and presumed dead under the rubble. For some 18 months, the majority of the Western World’s leadership sat by and supported what they called Israel’s “right to defend itself”. However, at this point, the starvation policy provides them no room for plausible deniability; this is manufactured famine and extermination.
The problem for the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is that he decided the blocking of aid into Gaza would be the right-wing hill to die on. Thus, his right-wing base internalised this, which even led to Israeli soldiers currently in Gaza recording videos of themselves protesting 5 aid trucks entering the territory. This, as far-right Religious Zionism alliance officials in Netanyahu’s government had threatened to collapse the coalition if humanitarian aid entered the besieged coastal enclave.
Therefore, pressure needed to be applied to Israel in order to force the entrance of aid into the Gaza Strip. Now, there are two ways of looking at this pressure. Either it is a genuine reaction to Israel’s appalling crimes, or, it is at least partly performative in order to demonstrate to the Israelis that they will have to concede on the issue of withholding aid. Some may say that so far, the actions of the Europeans will have no tangible impact, only symbolic, if Tel Aviv caves under the pressure.
It is very likely that Netanyahu’s new military operation, “Gideon’s Chariots,” is in large part a political offensive, as it appears to have no real goals or strategy. The aims of the operation are still speculated upon in the Hebrew press day after day, as broad statements from Israeli officials indicate it is about “crushing Hamas” and returning the soldiers held in Gaza.
There are also statements about the occupation of Gaza, the ethnic cleansing of its people, and the usual genocidal rhetoric, except it’s on steroids right now. Moshe Flieglin, a former Israeli Knesset member, even told Israel’s Channel 14 this week that “every child and infant in Gaza is an enemy. We are at war with the terrorist entity of Gaza. Every child you give milk to now will slaughter your child in 15 years. Gaza needs occupation and settlement.”
This leads us to the second motivating factor behind the actions of the European nations, which is the potential impacts of Israel’s new offensive on surrounding nations. In reality, Israel does not have the ground force capable of fully occupying Gaza, yet it clearly seeks to carry out ethnic cleansing.
If the Israeli military seeks to try and ethnically cleanse Gaza, it will have to be coupled with the mass slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people. Even then, Egypt is not likely to open its border, and no regional country will take in over a million Palestinian refugees.
This move by Israel would destabilise multiple nations and likely lead to the collapse of Israeli relations with Egypt and Jordan, not as a morale gesture, but as a regime-saving measure.
The next reason to consider is the actual position of the Trump administration, which has found itself in this current position with the Israelis, due in large part to their own diplomatic failures. It is likely that Washington could be influencing their Western allies into assuming a more adversarial position towards Israel, as a means of pressure itself.
Famine is not a good look for the United States, which is seeking to transform the region and doesn’t look to dismantle Israel’s relations with its neighbours, but rather to expand upon them. It has even influenced Syria to sit down for normalisation talks, while pressuring Saudi Arabia to do the same, despite Riyadh’s refusal to publicly entertain this idea and recent hardened stance on demanding a Palestinian State.
Furthermore, the US is being forced to adopt a strategy that could end up closing the “7-front war” that the Israeli PM is constantly pledging he will win. This means controlling any confrontation with the Iranians when the time comes, or perhaps preventing this altogether, despite how unlikely that seems as of now. The Gaza Strip is only one front in a wider regional war, yet it is this conflict’s heart.
Multiple fronts are still open in this war, the most concerning of all for the US and Israel is the Lebanese front. Hezbollah is far from over, despite the statements from Western think tanks and leaders claiming otherwise, which is why the US is constantly monitoring Lebanon. This Lebanese front threatens to blow up in Israel’s face in a very dramatic way, and the veracity of the war will in many ways be dictated by the predicament of the Gaza Strip.
Israel will be forced to allow aid to enter the Gaza Strip; if it does not, the manufactured famine will blow up in Benjamin Netanyahu’s face.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/a-western-diplomatic-offensive-against-israel-why-now/
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