Middle East Press On: Desert, Pharaohs, Gulf Monarchs, Massacre, Arab Muslim: New Age Islam's Selection, 6 May 2025
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
6 May 2025
Pro-Palestinian Shift: Expanding The Trump Plan to 1948 Refugees
The Desert Pharaohs: Gulf Monarchs, Trump, And The Great Betrayal of Palestine and The Islamic Conscience
Why VE-Day in Algeria Commemorates the Gaza-Style Massacre of Arab Muslim Civilians
Hamas Flames of Fury Vs Jewish Torches of Glory
Why Russia and Israel Should Celebrate Victory Day Over Nazis Together
The Real Challenge of Israel's Independence Is Our Unity
Israeli Gov't Must Lay Out Logic of Expanded Gaza Operation to The Public
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Pro-Palestinian Shift: Expanding The Trump Plan To 1948 Refugees
By Gol Kalev
May 6, 2025
Next week, Palestinians will mark the 77th anniversary of the Nakba ("disaster") – the displacement of Palestinians from Tel Aviv, Herzliya and other parts of Israel, during Israel’s War of Independence.
The Nakba is the cornerstone of Palestinianism, and the governing ethos of the Palestinian national movement. Descendants of Palestinians displaced in 1948 are still refugees in 2025, many living in refugee camps in Gaza, Bethlehem, Jenin, and throughout the Middle East.
While about 100 million 1940s refugees in Europe, the Middle East, and India have been resettled within years and prospered, the 800,000 displaced Palestinian from those same years have been singled out by the West and proactively kept as refugees. [According to a report by the BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, in 2021 there were 9.17 million Palestinians considered "displaced" worldwide.]
A special UN agency, UNWRA, was even created to perpetuate this Palestinian plight – their misery a necessary condition for the cultivation of the Palestinian national movement.
Golden opportunity
The year 2025 presents a golden opportunity for 1948 Palestinian refugees to end their suffering. First, President Donald Trump is leading a shift from a focus on Palestinian national rights, to a focus on Palestinian human rights.
This is most visible in Gaza: For 18 months, the Biden administration and Europe dehumanized Palestinians in Gaza, denying them a safe passage out, using the childish excuse that Egypt does not allow them to pass through. This while in other war-zones, the same Western powers were instrumental in facilitating escape routes.
This underscored the obvious: Western pro-Palestinians are not pro-Palestinians (as people), but rather are pro-Palestinianism (as a nation). Palestinians in Gaza were evidently sacrificed and forced into a humanitarian crisis in order to promote the Western objective of the “two-state solution.” After all, how can there be a Palestinian state without Palestinians?
Indeed, for decades, Palestinianism was cultivated, funded, and nurtured by Europe and its proxies as a vehicle to oppose the Jewish state, and through it, the United States. This was welcomed by Palestinians as long as it was in line with promoting their human rights.
Yet, in recent years it became clear that Palestinian human rights and national rights are an either/or. For example, Europe aggressively sabotaging Palestinian employment and mentorship in Jewish-owned businesses exacerbates the suffering of Palestinians as individuals, but promotes the Palestinian national cause, as the 25% unemployment rate is duly leveraged by Western media as resulting from the horrors of the Israeli occupation.
Indeed, the patronizing message to Palestinians has been clear: “Ask not what the two-state solution can do for you, ask what you can do for the two-state solution.”
The Trump relocation plan gives Gaza refugees an opportunity to not only have a better and safer life elsewhere, but also to emancipate themselves from such oppressive Western dogmas.
At the same time, it is becoming evident that Arab countries have an interest in the relocation of Palestinians. For example, Palestinians can be instrumental in blooming the desert in Eastern Jordan – a new strategic interest of Jordan and neighboring Arab countries, as the threat shifted from the West (Israel), to the East (Iran and Sunni extremism).
Desert 'Riviera'
While it would take an estimated 15-20 years to build the “Gaza Riviera,” it might take just a few short years to build the “Desert Riviera.” The insurmountable hurdle of labor shortage can be addressed immediately once a critical mass of Palestinians is there.
Building up the desert, such as along the Baghdad Road, is not just an economic, geopolitical and security priority, but would also address the global ecological challenge of population density, and therefore should be supported by the UN and Europe. It would open up the eastern wilderness of the Middle East, in a similar way that the expansion to the West did in the early days of America.
And so, the Trump relocation plan addresses the needs of Arab regimes, Israel, the West, the UN, and mostly of Gazans: It gives those Palestinians who have been refugees for over a year now, since the beginning of the October 7 war, an option to build a better life elsewhere.
But what about Palestinians who have been refugees for 77 years? This question is becoming more pertinent in light of an inevitable shift of consciousness among Palestinians.
1948 refugees’ struggle revisited
For years, Palestinians refugees of 1948 championed the “armed struggle” as the way to go back home. October 7 ended the military option.
October 7 to Palestinians is perhaps akin to the 1973 war for Egypt: In-spite of astonishing initial success, it soon became clear to Egypt then, and to Palestinians now, that there is no military option to destroy Israel. Indeed, October 1973 led Egypt to the inevitable conclusion that their military will not bring back the Sinai. This led to a radical shift in strategy: Get Sinai through a peace agreement.
Similarly, October 2023 leads Palestinian 1948 refugees to the inevitable conclusion that the Palestinian national movement will not bring them back to Tel Aviv.
Not military, and certainly not diplomatically: After all, at the core of the “two-state solution” is the condition that 1948 Palestinian refugees sign away their right to go back home, after 77 years of promises that one day they will.The attempt to replace the deeply rooted “from the river to the sea” ethos with a Western-invented “from the river to the Green Line” one is absurd, especially after billions of Euros, hundreds of textbooks, and a dedicated UN agency indoctrinated 1948 refugees that sooner or later they will go back. Same goes for the idea that 1948 refugees should replace the promise to go back to Tel Aviv, with a new one to go “back” to Jenin.
Personal self-determination
On the other hand, the expansion of the Trump Gaza relocation plan to include 1948 refugees would allow Palestinians to have the best of all worlds. Not only would they have the option to build a better life elsewhere, but they will be able to do so, without waiving their right to go back to all of Palestine, “from the river to the sea.”
Moreover, post-October 7, Palestinians understand that if there is a military option to go back, it is not through Palestinian nationalism – a Western notion that served Western interests – but through rising forces in the middle East that are organic and have nothing to do with Palestinianism: Shiite Iran, the Muslim brotherhood, Sunni extremist groups such as ISIS, and the reemergence of Turkey as a regional powerhouse.
Indeed, those 1948 Palestinian refugees who wish “death to Israel” can wish it from Jordan, Indonesia, and Iraq, just as they can do so from Gaza and Jenin.
On the other hand, those 1948 Palestinian refugees who wish to benefit from the crisp light emanating from Zion and, like other Arabs in the Middle East, partner with the Jewish state, can do so much more easily in their new homes, without the paralyzing anti-Israel pressures imposed by European governments, European-sponsored NGOs, UN agencies and the Palestinian Authority.
Indeed, expanding the Trump relocation plan to include 1948 refugees would at last give Palestinians what was robbed from them by the West for decades: their personal self-determination – the right to make a choice.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-852731
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The Desert Pharaohs: Gulf Monarchs, Trump, And The Great Betrayal Of Palestine And The Islamic Conscience
by Ziyad Motala
May 5, 2025
In the annals of modern statecraft, there are few spectacles as garish, or as morally bankrupt, as the partnership between the Gulf monarchies and Donald Trump now serving his second term as President of the United States. These family dynasties, gilded in petro-wealth and at times draped in religious symbolism, have again proven that their governing creed is not Islam, humanity or values, but opportunism.
Trump, the perennial demagogue of American nativism, has returned to power with the same contempt for Muslims he displayed during his first term. And yet, far from being treated as a pariah by the self-proclaimed custodian of the Islamic holy sites and the other Gulf rulers, he has been embraced. Welcomed. Celebrated. Why? Because business is booming. Trump’s brand is now etched onto the glass and steel skylines of Doha and Dubai, where moral compromise is but the cost of doing business.
Last week, The Washington Post revealed that the Trump Organization had signed a new real estate and golf course deal in Qatar with Qatari Diar, a firm owned by the country’s sovereign wealth fund and chaired by a senior government minister. The project marketed with glitz and beachfront luxury follows closely on the heels of Trump-branded developments in Dubai and Saudi Arabia, all orchestrated by Dar Global, a firm with deep ties to the Saudi state. This is not free-market capitalism. This is transactional fealty: Gulf regimes trading national dignity for the personal access and protection from the White House.
Trump’s son Eric has been touring the region like a monarch-in-law, promoting these ventures while attending cryptocurrency conferences and luxury branding galas. His father, meanwhile, prepares for a state visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, a return to the very capitals that fuelled the Trump family’s commercial revival during and after his first presidency.
What clearer indictment is there of these regimes’ priorities? Gaza lies in ruins, pummelled by American made weapons and Israeli impunity, while these potentates will smile for photo-ops with the very man who moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, cut aid to Palestinian refugees, and blessed Netanyahu’s maximalist vision. It is Kushner’s “peace” plan made manifest—one where Arab capitals normalise occupation in exchange for hotel towers, golf courses and the umbrella of American and Israeli protection for their family dynasties.
Let us be clear: this is not passive complicity; it is active collaboration. These deals are not arms-length commercial arrangements. They are strategic alignments, brokered by elites who view Palestine not as a moral cause, but as a stepping stool to their own ascent. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) warned of leaders who would betray the trust of their people and align with oppressors. The Qur’an describes them as mufsidun fi al-ard—corrupters on the earth.
These monarchs do not rule in the name of Islam. They rule in the name of wealth. Their palaces are not sanctuaries of justice but citadels of self-preservation. They have turned the Ummah into a market, the Prophet’s message into PR, and solidarity into a negotiating chip. When Trump denigrates Muslims or props up apartheid, they do not recoil—they invest.
In the UAE, a towering 80-story Trump International Hotel is planned to overlook Burj Khalifa. In Qatar, beachfront Trump villas promise luxury in a region where dignity is scarce. In Saudi Arabia, the same sovereign fund that bankrolls Trump’s golf courses also gave Jared Kushner $2 billion for his post-White House venture. Even Oman, long thought of as a neutral actor, is now implicated hosting a Trump-branded development on state-owned land, with the government taking a cut.
These rulers wear traditional garb, but their actions betray the prophetic legacy. They build mosques with one hand and bankroll normalisation with the other. Their wealth has insulated them from the consequences of their betrayal. But history, unlike investors, has a long memory.
When the reckoning comes, their names will not be remembered for wisdom, leadership, or piety. They will be remembered for selling the soul of a civilization to a country and a man who branded Muslim bans, cheered on settler colonialism, and used the sacred cause of Palestine as a bargaining chip in his family’s real estate portfolio.
Trump may be the current face of the empire, but the Gulf monarchs for decades are its enablers. And when the palaces crumble, when the towers fall, and when history delivers its verdict, their gilded complicity will shine no brighter than Pharaoh’s chariot beneath the sea.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250505-the-desert-pharaohs-gulf-monarchs-trump-and-the-great-betrayal-of-palestine-and-the-islamic-conscience/
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Why Ve-Day In Algeria Commemorates The Gaza-Style Massacre Of Arab Muslim Civilians
By Nabila Ramdani
May 5, 2025
Eighty years since the end of the Second World War in Europe will be commemorated all over the world on May 8th. Numerous nations will remember the most cataclysmic conflict in human history, and the multiple horrors that led up to the defeat of the Nazis.
In Algeria, the focus will certainly be on the fall of the Third Reich. Almost 30,000 Algerians were mobilised into the French Army, and some 7500 of them died battling Adolf Hitler’s forces. Among those who excelled were soldiers from the 7th Algerian Rifle Regiment, who were mainly from the city of Sétif.
Despite this, the return home of the 7th RTA heroes in time for VE-Day (Victory in Europe Day), 1945, did not stop it turning into one of the blackest periods in North African history. After so many Algerians made the ultimate sacrifice for the Allies in the fighting against Germany, many more were then slaughtered in some of the worst civilian mass killings ever.
The Sétif, Guelma and Kherrata massacres saw the French authorities who then ran Algeria as a settler colony launch ferocious attacks on the indigenous population, as a collective punishment for dissent. An exact figure for those killed and wounded was always covered up, but evidence-backed assessments today put it at around 45,000. Many victims were children and babies who were bombed to pieces alongside their mothers in what has been described as a genocide.
Regular French Army units supported by armed settlers turned the three northeastern provincial cities, and surrounding countryside, into bloodbaths. Their principal targets were Algerian Muslims, and all the technology of the West’s burgeoning industrial security apparatus was used to obliterate them.
Such facts have seen many comparing the atrocities to Israel’s non-stop killing and maiming of Palestinians in occupied Gaza and the West Bank. As 80 years ago, the Israelis are using overwhelming savagery, combined with unlimited weaponry supplied by compliant allies, and especially the United States, to carry out acts of collective punishment. They too have been branded a genocide, while causing horror around the world.
Meanwhile, Israeli propagandists use grotesque jargon to try and pretend that never-ending barbarity against the most vulnerable members of society is a fitting reaction to any form of resistance.
The Algerian massacres of 1945 started after the May 8th VE-Day gathering in Sétif turned into a protest against European settlers who were known as pieds-noirs, for black feet. Such colonials had been exported to Algeria when it was the pride of the French Empire – not just a conquered land turned into a trading outpost, but a fully-fledged extension of mainland France, complete with members of the Paris parliament.
One of the principal roles of the pieds-noirs and supporting military was to extinguish the traditional make up of Algerian society. This meant Arabs and Berbers being viewed, at best, as a servant class, as their land was stolen, and any hopes of national self-determination crushed. At worst, if angry voices turned into violent resistance – as often happened under military occupation – then savage repression was triggered immediately. The coloniser’s vengeance was never proportional – it just meant massacring as many people as possible, however innocent of any wrongdoing.
In 1945, tensions were at boiling point. The Second World War had intensified resentment against French occupiers who were nominally committed to the global fight for liberty from dictators such as Hitler, while hanging on to their colonies. Algiers had literally become the capital of Free France in 1943, yet Algerian nationalists seemed no nearer their dream of an independent homeland.
When Algerians peacefully unfurled anti-colonial banners and waved Algerian flags in Séfif on VE-Day, they came under the live fire of local gendarmes. This led to rioting, which spread to other parts of the country. Accounts are blurred, but it is estimated that around 100 colonial settlers were killed, and about the same number wounded, in fighting that lasted until late June.
In turn, the French unleashed hell in a campaign of mass reprisals. They organised a strategy of ratissage – “raking over” Muslim villages to “restore order”, according to the propaganda messages. Beyond ground troops carrying out search-and-destroy missions, dozens of bombers dropped tons of bombs on hundreds of villages, while Navy ships in the Mediterranean joined in the shelling. Crimes ranged from the random shootings of civilians to the use of primitive gas chambers to wipe out hundreds of them at once. Mass graves enabled the French to hide the corpses as quickly as possible.
In this sense, the parallels with Israel’s response to the Hamas-led ground raid from Gaza of October 7th 2023 are unmistakable. Almost 1200 Israelis were killed, including unarmed civilians and members of the security services. Some were victims of the so-called Hannibal Directive, a procedure which condones the Israeli army killing their own if it prevents soldiers being kidnapped. In turn, the number of Palestinian raiders dispatched on that one day alone was 1609. Since then, well over 50,000 Palestinians are recorded killed, with many more maimed, or unaccounted for under the rubble of villages and towns that have been completely destroyed.
The Arab-Israeli conflict has been an appallingly asymmetrical one since 1948. This is principally because of Israel’s high-tech armoury, and its determination to – like the French before them – view all Arab Muslims as a underclass who are easily disposed of. Thus, any act of armed resistance led by Hamas – whether the taking of hostages or the firing of rockets towards Israel – becomes an alleged justification to eradicate all living Palestinians.
In recent weeks, direct and illegal attacks on medics, aid workers, broadcasters, and a host of other innocents, have all been part of Israel’s onslaughts that have further destroyed its international reputation. Israeli leaders including prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself are the subject of criminal arrest warrants, and its pretence to being a “civilised” western-style democracy is viewed with disgust.
Israeli mouthpieces who appear in the media to try and mitigate the carnage meanwhile use expressions such as “the right to defend ourselves,” without once conceding that the Palestinians have a legal and moral right to do exactly the same thing. This is especially so following almost 80 years of brutal military occupation underpinned by unlawful land theft and ethnic cleansing.
As in Algeria in 1945, there are obscene attempts to try and pretend that the vast majority of Palestinians are combatants, and that all of the population’s homes, mosques, hospitals, schools and even tented camps are “command and control centres” full of arms. No evidence is ever offered showing how the poorest communities in the Middle East allegedly managed to set up this advanced military infrastructure, and then maintain it.
Nor do the Israelis explain why “human shields” (more deceitful jargon that the propagandists use all the time) would be used to try and deter notoriously savage soldiers who evidently never have any qualms whatsoever about killing civilians, including thousands of infants. Social media is full of Israeli Defense Force operatives – including ones from countries such as Britain and America – boasting about their atrocities.
On the contrary, the Israeli PR machine simply pours out misinformation, as happened in March, when it lied repeatedly about the cold-blooded murder of 15 paramedics in Gaza. The Israeli military tipped the bodies into a mass grave, before their depravity was exposed by footage on a retrieved mobile phone that had belonged to one of the dead medics.
After the Sétif, Guelma and Kherrata massacres, France’s wartime leader, Charles de Gaulle, also instructed his Interior Minister, Adrien Tixier, to “bury the whole affair”, and it took years for the truth to come out. This was, of course, a long time before instant video filming and other technological breakthroughs made it much easier to track and record crimes against humanity in real time, as in Gaza now.
Despite this, the savagery of 1945 ultimately strengthened the resolve of aggrieved Algerians. The resistance movement grew stronger and more effective, and achieved ultimate victory in 1962, when the French lost the most treasured jewel in their Empire.
As the Israelis pursue their genocidal policies across occupied Palestine, while continuing to illegally grab land, they might want to use VE-Day to reflect on French history, and how a seemingly indestructible, ruthless oppressor was finally defeated.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250505-why-ve-day-in-algeria-commemorates-the-gaza-style-massacre-of-arab-muslim-civilians/
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Hamas Flames Of Fury Vs Jewish Torches Of Glory
By Richard Shavei-Tzion
May 6, 2025
The source of the word for “black” in English is the same word for “white” in Italian (bianco) and in Spanish (blanco). The Proto-Indo-European word they originate from, "bhleg," means to burn, gleam, shine or flash. Our ancient linguistic forbears stared at their cooking and heating fires. Some saw the bright flames and utilized the term to designate sparkling white, while others saw the charcoaled aftermath and saw black.
On Independence Day, I was reminded of this esoteric example of how sectors of our species derive opposite meanings and inspiration for blessing and curse, from the same source.
We Israelis, like many other nations around the world, have come to use fire and flame as symbols for both commemoration and celebration. We kindle candles on personal and national days of mourning. We light six memorial torches on Holocaust Remembrance Day and 12 celebratory beacons on Independence Day.
First noted as a custom around 600 years ago, we light bonfires on Lag Ba’omer, which commemorates, among other events, the passing of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai. Rabbi Tsvi Elimelech Shapira (1783-1841) notes that in the Zohar, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai is referred to as butzina kadisha, “the Holy Candle,” since he brought to light the secrets of the Torah. (Thankfully, we have begun to understand the adverse effects this custom has on the environment and have curtailed the blazes to some extent, but that is another subject.)
Another manifestation of the symbiotic relationship between light and learning is the Hebrew University’s logo, designed in 1954 by the Zelig Segal, which comprises a flaming torch.
The contrast between the Jewish ethos of celebrating life and the Hamas and Jihadi death cult widely supported by the self-named Palestinians, was brought into black-and-white relief over the recent holiday season. The opening ceremony of Memorial Day for our fallen included the lighting of a central beacon at the holy Western Wall.
Flickering candles were ubiquitous in cemeteries across the country in recognition of the ultimate sacrifice that so many have made to ensure the establishment and defense of our state.
Fires of hate
As we collectively paid homage to our fallen, word began to emerge of huge fires that were engulfing large swathes of our countryside. At least some of these blazes appear to have been instigated and/or abetted by Palestinian arsonists, designed to inflict as much pain and suffering on our people and land as possible.
Families were evacuated from villages, kibbutzim and moshavim. Members of the Protea Behar retirement facility were moved out by the devoted employees as cars were being abandoned on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway by fleeing drivers.
And as the flames grew in intensity spurred on by strong winds, so Palestinians rejoiced, spurred on by malicious hatred. As reported in The Jerusalem Post by Ohad Merlin, social media posts encouraged followers to join in the orgy of hate and light fires with the stated goals of burning down forests, cars and homes.
Their definition of "Flames of Freedom" was not symbolic lanterns, but rather destructive conflagration designed to torture and murder Israeli settlers. Of course we all know that their definition of “settler” includes every single Jewish Israeli.
Thankfully, to the great credit of our firefighters and volunteers and to the providence of changing winds, despite the dire predictions, the fires were contained within a day, and by the morning of Independence Day, most people had reverted to different flames – the festival barbecue ritual – as if the devastating fire was a distant memory.
Such is the bounce-back resilience that has served us so well throughout our history. And in the course of time, by natural rejuvenation and proactive planting, the blackened fields and forests will return to vibrant life.
This malevolent phenomenon has accompanied us from the dawn of our existence as a people. The Midrash tells us that before embarking on his mission to bring monotheistic enlightenment to the world, our forefather Abraham survived a fiery furnace, into which he was cast by Nimrod, for refusing to worship idols. Jews have been murdered by fire through the millennia, from temple times, through crusade, inquisition, pogrom, Holocaust and more.
Now in the continuum, it is our great misfortune, but also the self-inflicted tragedy of so many of those who live in our region, that they would rather lay their children on the sacrificial altar of antisemitism than see them thrive and prosper in a live-and-let-live society. Even when dormant, their enmity smolders on despite all efforts to extinguish its embers.
The fiery fury we experienced on of October 7 was a tragically unwelcome reminder that to ensure our survival, we must be like the lookouts who constantly scan the forests for the first hint of smoke.
At the same time, we will continue to bear aloft the torches of freedom and sanctity of life.
After all, those seemingly puny, yet oh-so powerful “eternal lamps” that have glowed through night and day in our synagogues over millennia are proof that even the greatest fires that rage around us through the darkest of hours will never extinguish the shining countenance of our unique nation.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-852701
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Why Russia And Israel Should Celebrate Victory Day Over Nazis Together
By Anatoly Viktorov
May 6, 2025
May 9 this year will be the 80th anniversary of the great victory in World War II, a day that has become the heritage of all mankind, is approaching. It is the celebration of those who crushed Nazism, as well as of Veterans’ Day in Russia, and it commemorates all those who survived the Holocaust and withstood the siege of Leningrad.
It would be hard to find a similar date on the common calendar that combines the depth of patriotism and sincere pride in the heroism of one’s ancestors with the immense sadness and bitterness of irreparable losses. It is truly, as we say in Russia, “a holiday with tears in its eyes.”
Since the time of that great victory’s 50th anniversary, holiday parades on May 9 have become a tradition in Russia, indicating the continuity and inviolability of the memory of the feat of the Soviet people and their victorious Red Army.
Official date in Israel, too
In Israel, this day has been established as the official date of the victory over Nazi Germany, enshrined in law since 2017. For me, as well as for many representatives of the first post-war generation, and all those affected by war, this is especially valuable.
The horrors experienced during the troubled years of war have become lessons for the world for all times and must never be repeated. It is our sacred duty to do everything in our power so that our descendants firmly remember: Never again! This is both a covenant and a crucial moral guideline.
The scale and consequences of that terrible war for the former USSR were so significant that the conflict has been burned into our national consciousness as the “great war.” Ever since that first celebration of victory, the date has acquired the character of a patriotic anniversary. It also became the most important and decisive part of WWII.
Even years later, the strength of the spirit of the overwhelming unity of the multinational Soviet people in their struggle for a common victory has not waned. It has become the quintessence of the holiday we celebrate.
All nationalities
During that difficult time, people of all nationalities and religions fought side by side: Russians and Belarusians, Ukrainians and Jews, Kazakhs and Uzbeks, Azerbaijanis and Armenians, followers of Christianity and Judaism, Islam and Buddhism, and many others. All of them, like those heroes who liberated Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps, called themselves simply “Red Army soldiers.”
The war claimed the lives of approximately 27 million Soviet citizens, including 18 million civilians. Almost half of the six million who perished in the flames of the Holocaust were citizens of the USSR.
Around 10 million fell on the battlefields, including 200,000 Jewish Red Army soldiers, or nearly 80 percent of all fallen Jewish soldiers of the allied armies.
Silent archival figures conceal the screaming torments of those barbarously murdered in the dungeons of concentration camps; the inhumanely starved residents of besieged Leningrad; the residents of the Belarusian Khatyn mercilessly burned alive by Hitler’s henchmen; the Jews of Lvov massacred by Banderites. The list of human suffering is endless.
The genocide of the peoples of the Soviet Union committed by the Nazis can neither be justified nor forgotten.
Russia opposed to revisionism
Among those who did not live to greet the day of the great victory, every second victim was a citizen of the USSR. That is one of the reasons that today’s Russia is so sensitive to – and resolutely opposes – any attempts to falsify history and glorify Nazi criminals and their accomplices. For our part, we are confident that any headway, all state security, and the unity of society largely depend on preserving the national memory and educating young people in the high standards of patriotism.
On Victory Day over Nazism, both in Russia and in Israel, we honor the memory of all those killed by the Nazis and their accomplices in the bloodiest conflict. At the same time, it is important to pay tribute to those who allowed us to live. We bow our heads before the feats of soldiers and officers of the entire anti-Nazi coalition and especially the Red Army fighters, who made a decisive contribution to the defeat of Hitler’s Germany, liberated European countries from Nazism, and put an end to the extermination of European Jewry.
Today, for Russia and Israel, common historical memory is not just words. It is a common value and a system of coordinates determined by the fates of our heroic ancestors.
Fighting moral decadence
Back in 1943, the future first president of the State of Israel, Chaim Weizmann, noted: “Our sons, like the Russians, who have gone forth on the field of battle, know that they are fighting against the ways of physical enslavement and moral decadence... I take pride in the fact that 600,000 Jews are serving in the Soviet Army and countless others are braving danger in the guerrilla units that attack the Germans behind the lines.”
We have remembered and will remember those brave people who wrote glorious pages in the chronicle of the common struggle against an enemy driven by a misanthropic ideology. For their heroism during the great patriotic war, more than 32,000 Jews received state awards, and some 160 of them were awarded the highest degree of distinction – the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
The victory over Nazism was of fateful importance for both our countries. It became part of the historical process that led to the establishment of the United Nations and the State of Israel.
As the son of a Red Army soldier who celebrated May 9, 1945 in defeated Berlin, and as a Russian diplomat, I am pleased that our countries view both the events of the past and the affairs of the future from a common standpoint.
This is especially important when most of the unparalleled heroes, including those who lived in Israel, have already passed away, forever bequeathing their high ideals. We proudly remember them and fully understand the need to do everything possible to ensure that neo-Nazism, antisemitism, and xenophobia in any of their manifestations can never again raise their heads and bring the world to the brink of a new global catastrophe.
For our part, we will be loyal to all the goals of that special military operation in order to reconstruct and strengthen the security system in Europe – where a threat to international peace originated twice in the last century.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-852707
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The Real Challenge Of Israel's Independence Is Our Unity
By Idit Druyan Ohayon
May 6, 2025
In the aftermath of two years marked by social rifts, mass protests, deep suspicion, and ongoing national trauma, the word “unity” has become something of a magic phrase in Israeli public discourse. We all yearn for it, but it seems to slip further from our grasp.
Unity is not born of good intentions or catchy slogans. Its seeds are planted much earlier – in our ability to truly see and understand the other, especially those on the “other side.”
In the Israel of 2025, 77 years after its founding, the social divide is no longer about one or two groups. It’s far more fractured: religious and secular, Right And Left, center and periphery, traditional and liberal, Jewish and Arab.
Too often, each side views the other not just as a rival, but as a threat. And when that happens, unity becomes a distant dream.
In public discourse, instead of listening, we attack. Instead of seeing the other as someone who wants good for this country, we label them an enemy. Instead of seeking to understand, we choose hatred. This is not how nations build unity – or survive: It’s how they fall apart from within.
Heralding change
If we truly want to make this year's Independence Day count, let it have heralded change. Let us begin in the painful places, stop being afraid, and start listening.
Understanding the other is not a sign of weakness.
It is not betrayal, nor is it surrender. It is courage – both personal and civic. It is taking responsibility. The philosopher Martin Buber once wrote that the person in front of you must be seen as a “thou,” not an “it.” That is, not as an object or a mistake to be erased, but as a partner in conversation. Without that, there is no dialogue – and no society.
We’ve already seen that it’s possible. In the aftermath of October 7, across the devastated South, people from all corners of Israeli society came together. Settlers built sukkahs for secular Israelis. Haredim (ultra-Orthodox) raised funds for kibbutz families. Leftists embraced religious reservists. It wasn’t because they agreed on everything – it was because they recognized one another. Because the pain was shared. Because in the midst of the deepest darkness, they saw a human being before a political opinion.
As the physical fires have dimmed, as Independence Day ends and the news cycle moves on, we’re left with the real question for Israel’s 78th year: can we still see and hear each other when war no longer forces us to? Can we recognize the person – not just the position?
Unity without understanding is a pretty wrapping for an empty box. If we want to build a future here, we must begin with understanding. Without it, there can be no true independence – and not even a real chance; only risk.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-852711
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Israeli Gov't Must Lay Out Logic Of Expanded Gaza Operation To The Public
By Jpost Editorial
May 6, 2025
The security cabinet unanimously approved a plan Sunday night to significantly widen the military campaign in Gaza – one that will demand additional sacrifices from the public.
The IDF has already begun sending out emergency call-up orders – tzavei 8 –to tens of thousands of reservists, many who have already completed 250 days or more of reserve duty since October 7. For these soldiers and their families, the burden is real, mounting, and increasingly difficult to bear.
The approved plan, drawn up by Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir, marks a turning point in the 19-month-old war and signals a shift in tactics and philosophy.
Under Zamir’s predecessor, Herzi Halevi, the army’s approach was to take control of specific areas in Gaza, destroy the Hamas infrastructure there, and then withdraw. Zamir’s strategy is different: return to those areas – but this time, remain to prevent Hamas from returning and reconstituting itself there.
Government officials are now speaking openly about a “conquest of Gaza,” believing this is the way to dismantle Hamas’s military and civilian capabilities and secure the hostages’ release. The underlying assumption is that if Hamas is made to realize its rule is collapsing and territory is being permanently lost, it will be more inclined to free hostages.
Will it work? No one can say with certainty.
What is clear, however, is that the previous approach – while effective in degrading Hamas’s military capabilities – failed to dislodge its civilian rule or bring about the release of the captives. The government and chief-of-staff are now betting that a more aggressive and sustained strategy may accomplish what the previous phase of the war did not.
If the government once again asks the public to brace for a prolonged and intense campaign, it owes it a clear explanation of intent. This is particularly critical given the frustration many reservists feel, believing their earlier sacrifices – going into enemy territory at great personal risk, only to withdraw and return again and again – have been undermined by indecision, inconsistency, and a lack of strategic clarity.
This time, the government cannot count on the same automatic legitimacy it enjoyed in the immediate aftermath of October 7. Back then, hundreds of thousands of reservists reported for duty, many without even being called, because the cause was clear: Israel was fighting a war of survival, barbarically thrust upon it.
Nineteen months later, the landscape has changed. A significant segment of the population, whose voices are heard loudly at protests and amplified by a largely sympathetic media, now questions the wisdom of continued fighting. For them, the war’s central goal should be freeing the hostages, and they argue that intensifying the military campaign may not advance that goal but actually undermine it.
This is no longer a black-and-white moment. The Israeli clarity of October 8 has given way to complexity and doubt. In such an environment, it is not enough for the government to announce an expanded military operation and expect unquestioning support, especially when polls show this government does not enjoy broad public backing.
There may well be sound reasons behind the security cabinet’s decision. The government may indeed have a solid plan for how to proceed in Gaza and what should follow. The push to intensify fighting and to conquer and hold territory appears driven by a sober recognition that as long as Hamas remains intact, no sustainable future can take root in Gaza, and that no one but Israel will do the work of removing them.
But this rationale must be communicated. Not everyone will be persuaded, but the government must lay out the logic behind its move.
Otherwise, opponents may succeed in painting this campaign as a “messianic” quest for territorial expansion when, in fact, its stated purpose is to defeat Hamas. If the goal is to remove Hamas and then ultimately withdraw when someone or something else that Israel can live with takes its place, then that needs to be made clear.
The government is asking much of its citizens. In return, the public deserves to understand the mission, not the operational details that must remain classified, but the broad outlines. What is the vision? What is the intended outcome?
It is far easier to rally people when they know what they are being asked to fight for. That “for” must now be clearly articulated.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-852767
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