Middle East Press On: Greta Thunberg, Gaza Conflict, Jews: New Age Islam's Selection, 9 June 2025
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
9 June 2025
Greta’s Gaza Voyage: A Symbol Of Selective Empathy
Why International Law Is On Israel’s Side In The Gaza Conflict
‘Area A’ Prohibition Is For Jews Not Just Israelis
The Real Reason Why Israel Is Arming Gangs In Gaza
‘We’re All On The Front Line’: How Film Brings Gaza To The World
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Greta’s Gaza Voyage: A Symbol Of Selective Empathy
June 9, 2025
On June 8, in the year 793, the monks of Lindisfarne Monastery on the north-eastern coast of England were shocked to see Viking long ships heading their way. The raid would mark the major beginning of the Viking takeover of Western Europe.
June 8, 2025, saw another Viking taking to the seas in the form of Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, with her Gaza-bound flotilla.
Thank God for Greta Thunberg. She offers us clarity and an unwavering moral compass pointed firmly at the usual villain: Israel.
The latest episode in Thunberg’s humanitarian theatre sees her aboard the Madleen, a ship carrying aid for Gaza that set sail from the Italian port of Catania on June 1.
The flotilla includes citizens with French and Swedish citizenship and a diplomat and is carrying supplies for Gazan Palestinians and protesting what they say is “Israel’s “illegal, decades-long blockade, and ongoing genocide” in the enclave.
Their voyage is operated by the pro-Palestinian nonprofit Freedom Flotilla Coalition, which has staged other naval efforts to reach Gaza by sea over the last 15 years. The latest trip comes as the Israel-Hamas War in Gaza enters an uncertain phase – and includes Thunberg, one of the most prominent progressive activists in the world.
Defense Minister Israel Katz directed the IDF on Sunday not to allow Thunberg’s flotilla to reach the shores of Gaza and to take any measures necessary to ensure that. “I have instructed the IDF to act so that the Madleen flotilla does not reach Gaza. To Greta the antisemite and her friends, I say clearly: ‘You’d better turn back – because you will not reach Gaza,’” Katz said in a statement.
A troubling pattern among many international voices
Thunberg has gained notoriety over the past seven years since her activities began in Sweden and has, in effect, become the “poster girl” for the anti-establishment camp.
Her activities since October 7, however, have left none in the dark on which side of the fence she sits.She posted on X/Twitter on the first anniversary of October 7 that Germany continues “financing and legitimizing Israel‘s apartheid occupation and genocide,” with zero mention of the massacres exactly 12 months earlier. Her message has been one that the world has become used to seeing: Israel is the villain. There is no other guilty party.None of the realities coming out of Gaza seems to trouble Thunberg.
To be fair, she has occasionally mumbled that “it goes without saying” that she condemns Hamas’s atrocities. But what actually goes without saying is her consistent silence when those atrocities involve Palestinians being sacrificed by their own government. Her public statements, protests, and flotillas never focus on the repression within Gaza. The target is always Israel.
This is not just about one activist. It is about a troubling pattern among many international voices, from NGOs to campus groups to celebrities, who speak with moral certainty about Israel’s role in Gaza’s suffering, while treating Hamas as, at worst, a regrettable footnote.
The world is told again and again that Gaza’s misery is due solely to Israel, the bombings, and the “occupation.” Search any number of foreign media reports or social media posts on the matter, and one would be shocked to discover that Hamas does indeed have a role to play in the failure of aid to reach Gazans and in the suffering ordinary Gazans are going through daily.
And yes, there is deep and undeniable suffering. But any honest accounting must include Hamas’s theft of aid, its exploitation of civilians as human shields, and its brutal repression of its own people. Ignoring that truth is complicity and ignorance of the highest order.
Thunberg’s narrative of the Israel-Hamas war leaves no room for the messy, devastating reality that Palestinians can also be victims of their own rulers. And that Hamas’s authoritarian grip is not the liberation that Thunberg stands for.
Thunberg isn’t malicious, just willfully blind. In her zeal to defend Gaza, she’s become a symbol of selective empathy, ignoring the brutal reality that Hamas brutalizes its own people.
The child who once stood for the planet now stands, knowingly or not, with a terror regime. And that makes her voyage one of dangerous, deliberate ignorance, not the gesture of hope she thinks it is.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-857012
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Fostering Love In Wartime: The Silent Struggle Of Israel’s Singles
By Naomi Marmon Grumet
June 9, 2025
As Israel enters its summer wedding season, the joy of celebration is tempered by the shadow of war and loss. In a time marked by pain and uncertainty, the yearning for connection, intimacy, and the safety of a loving home has only grown sharper. And yet, for many young men and women, there is a gap between their yearning and reality.
In a nation where every loss is a shared wound and where the personal is deeply entwined with the national, the act of building a home takes on profound significance. Every new couple, every relationship formed, is not just a private milestone – it’s a declaration of continuity, a quiet act of resistance in the face of destruction.
And yet, over the past months, I’ve received calls from worried parents, therapists, and kallah teachers, all echoing the same theme: our singles are facing an array of new challenges. I’ve heard of soldiers breaking off relationships under the weight of combat trauma.
Young men and women, just back from service, who feel too emotionally overwhelmed to date. Women who are hesitant to enter relationships with men who are still in active service. And others who have barely had a suggestion for the last year and a half.
While some are spurred by the urgency to build something meaningful amidst the chaos, many budding romances have dissolved – casualties of emotional fatigue, unpredictable schedules, and the relentless tension of national emergency. Relationships, by their very nature, require consistency, emotional availability, and a sense of safety. But how can these conditions exist when life is dominated by military call-ups, sirens, and constant uncertainty?
One of the most painful hurdles surfacing now is the challenge of moving from survival mode into a space of vulnerability and connection. For many, the ongoing existential threat and emotional strain have shut down their capacity to engage. Even those with the desire to pursue a relationship find themselves unable to open up, their hearts fleeing the very intimacy they crave.
Relationships require stable ground: space to meet, time to open up, and the rhythm of honest conversation and emotional growth. But the realities of war – physical distance, emotional highs and lows, and constant disruptions – create a fractured foundation. Even those not serving feel the pervasive tension, as do those in long-term, marital relationships. We are all carrying a weight, and it makes the emotional work of relationships that much harder.
And so, the war is undermining dating, making it harder to form serious relationships, and adding another layer of uncertainty. If dating is challenging at the best of times, the current war climate has upped the ante. Many are hesitant to begin new relationships, and others cannot commit during such a stressful, demanding time.
Tragically, I’ve heard many religious women say, “The men have disappeared.” Some have fallen. Some are wounded. Others have returned from combat emotionally distant and unavailable. And many are simply not in the mindset to begin or sustain a relationship. The loneliness this creates is real, and it runs deep. In a time when the desire for love is more needed than ever, the pathway toward building it has become increasingly difficult.
Beyond the personal challenge, there’s a deep social gap. Singles often lack the support systems that reservist soldiers with families receive – no communal hugs, no hot meals, and sometimes not even being acknowledged as part of the social whole. This can lead to feelings of invisibility and disconnection. When public and community discourse centers on soldiers and their families, those outside that circle feel even more alone. Their loneliness is not only emotional but structural. It’s a loneliness that says: you are not part of the story.
And then there’s the subtle hierarchy that’s emerged in the dating scene. Men in combat roles are rightly praised – often idealized – but this has left others behind. What of those serving in education, medicine, logistics, or simply doing their best to contribute from wherever they stand? Their value is no less. In a society where heroism has many faces, we must broaden our lens to recognize and honor all who give.
Supporting singles is our shared responsibility
Looking at the broader picture, it’s clear that dealing with singleness is not just a personal struggle – it’s a collective mission. The Eden Center, the organization I lead, is dedicated to strengthening relationships and helping build strong, stable marriages. We see this as part of national resilience. Building homes, creating families – this is our response to the enemy.
We are a people who maintain continuity in the face of destruction. Even amidst pain and challenge, strong and connected partnerships can be formed. This is not just about individual happiness – it is about our collective future.
But this mission cannot fall on singles alone. It is up to all of us – friends, rabbis, neighbors, and community leaders – to step up. We all have to support, suggest matches, open doors, and be part of the process. This is a shared responsibility. Whether it’s an invitation to a meal, a warm conversation, or community initiatives, every small gesture can become a meaningful measure in bringing hope and resilience.
The desire for love is not a luxury. It is a human need. And the more we listen to the voices of singles, the more we give space to their pain and their potential, and the more we can foster real change.
Let us be a society that doesn’t look away. One that understands that even now – especially now – love matters. From this place of resilience, we can build new homes, restore hope, and strengthen the soul of our nation.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-856939
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Why International Law Is On Israel’s Side In The Gaza Conflict
By louis René Beres
June 9, 2025
In essence, Israel’s war against jihadi terror must be fought on two separate but overlapping dimensions: operational and legal. Though each dimension presents challenging elements, the second, or jurisprudential, standard needs immediate clarification and support. Above all, such support should be drawn from refined legal scholarship, not from politics.
Often, concerning Gaza, starving and dying Palestinians are compared to tortured and murdered Israeli hostages. Under humanitarian international law, however, there is a consequential difference. Hamas and kindred terror groups always approach their intended Israeli victims with “criminal intent” or mens rea. However, Israel approaches potentially impacted Palestinian populations with no such intent.
International law is not a suicide pact. As is the case for every state in world politics, Israel has an incontestable right to survive. In order to protect itself against the sorts of lascivious harms perpetrated on October 7, 2023 – assaults that had nothing to do with Palestinian “self-determination” – Jerusalem has a core obligation to “stay alive.” On its face, this obligation is primary and extends beyond Israel to the entire community of nations.
In Gaza, but also in Yemen, Lebanon, Sudan, Syria, and Judea/Samaria (West Bank), Israel is acting on behalf of all states exposed to jihadi terrorism. Per the international law principle of “mutual aid,” each state is continuously obligated to assist other states imperiled by terror-violence. Plausibly, it is only a matter of time before certain state-supported jihadi criminals resort to chemical, biological, or nuclear (“dirty bomb”) terrorism.
Proportionality, self-determination, and law of war
A recurrent charge leveled against Israel’s conduct in Gaza concerns “proportionality.” But under pertinent international law, proportionality has nothing to do with inflicting symmetrical or equivalent harms. The obligations of “proportional combat” are contained in codified and customary rules governing the initiation of armed conflict (“justice of war”) and the operational conduct of armed conflict (“justice in war”).
Proportionality is a derivative principle. In law, it can be extrapolated from the generalized mandate that belligerent rights of insurgent groups and sovereign states have fixed limitations. The oft-cited declaration that Hamas is entitled to fight “by any means necessary” is manifestly contrived. Among other things, it contravenes the Hague Convention No. IV (1907): “The right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited.”
Unlike Israel, which regrets the collateral damage of its obligatory self-defense war, Hamas rocket fire and terror attacks (including civilian hostage-taking) are the evident product of “criminal intent.” Recent displays of mens rea by Hamas have been conspicuous in the terror group’s calculated sabotage of Gaza aid deliveries.
In part, at least, these displays have had nothing to do with Palestinian “self-determination.” Rather, they have been products of ordinary criminality.
Hamas, unlike Israel, intentionally seeks to target, maim, and kill noncombatants. Hamas leaders also encourage the mass dying of Palestinian noncombatants by Israeli military action, a defiling objective, but one that can create “martyrs” and keep jihadist masterminds safe and wealthy in Qatar, Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.
Under humanitarian international law, a belligerent’s use of armed force is limited to what is “necessary” to meet allowable military objectives. The legal notion of “military necessity” is correctly defined as that degree and kind of force required for the partial or complete submission of an enemy with a minimum expenditure of time, life, and physical resources.
There is more. We generally speak of “international” law, but belligerents include not only nation-states but also insurgent and terrorist armed forces. Even if Hamas and its sister terror groups had a presumptive right to fight against a so-called Israeli “occupation,” that fight would still need to respect the established limitations of “military necessity,” “proportionality,” and “distinction.”
Any deliberate firing of rockets into Israeli civilian areas or intentional placement of military assets amid Palestinian civilian populations represents a “perfidious” war crime. When Palestinian leadership cadres place their military terror assets within normally protected civilian spaces, the legal responsibility for Israel-inflicted military harms lies with these decision-making circles.
Deception can be lawful in armed conflict, but the Hague Regulations disallow any placement of military assets or personnel in populated civilian areas. Related prohibitions of perfidy can be found in Protocol I of 1977, in addition to the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949. These rules are also binding on the basis of customary international law, a principal jurisprudential source identified in Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice.
All combatants, including Palestinian insurgents allegedly fighting for “self-determination,” are bound by the law of war. This requirement is found in Article 3, common to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949. It cannot be suspended or abrogated.
Israel is also bound by the law of war, but its Gaza conflict is necessary to national survival, and its associated military actions impact Palestinian civilians because of Palestinian perfidy and without Israeli mens rea. It follows, inter alia, that unintentional harms resulting from Israel’s self-defense actions are the responsibility of the perfidious jihadi belligerent and its state supporters.
Tangibly, this identifies both the Hamas terror-criminals who cower behind “human shields” and the steadily nuclearizing Islamic Republic of Iran.
The PLO has genocidal intentions
The Hamas goal of Palestinian “self-determination” is expressly founded on an intended crime – that is, “removal” of the Jewish state by attrition and annihilation. This literally genocidal intention has its origins in the PLO’s “Phased Plan” of June 9, 1974.
In its 12th session, the PLO’s highest deliberative body, the Palestinian National Council, reiterated the terror organization’s aim “to achieve their rights to return and to self-determination on the whole of their homeland.”
In its 1974 plan, a proposed sequence of Palestinian violence was plainly identified: FIRST, “to establish a combatant national authority over every part of Palestinian territory that is liberated”; SECOND, “to use that territory to continue the fight against Israel”; and THIRD, “to start a Pan-Arab War to complete the liberation of the all-Palestinian territory.”
Ironically, this was and remains the annihilationist plan of a more “mainstream” Palestinian terror group than Hamas, an organization that Hamas has always considered too moderate.
For Israel, the core existential threat is no longer “Pan-Arab War.” At some still-ambiguous point, Hamas and other jihadi forces (plausibly, with Iranian support) could prepare to launch mega-terror attacks on Israel. Such potentially perfidious aggressions, unprecedented and in cooperation with allied non-Palestinian Jihadists (e.g., Shi’ite Hezbollah), could include chemical, biological, or radiological (radiation-dispersal) weapons.
Foreseeable perils could also include a non-nuclear terrorist attack on the Israeli reactor at Dimona. There is a documented history of enemy assaults against this Israeli plutonium-production facility, both by a state (Iraq in 1991) and by a Palestinian terror group (Hamas in 2014). Neither attack was successful, but various fearful precedents were established.
International law is not a suicide pact. Even amid long-enduring world-system anarchy, it offers a binding body of rules and procedures that permits any beleaguered state to accept its “inherent right of self-defense.”
But when Hamas celebrates the explosive “martyrdom” of manipulated Palestinian civilians and Palestinian leaders seek “redemption” (i.e., a presumed power over death) through the mass murder of “Jews” (sometimes “Zionists”), the wrongdoers have no rightful claims to immunity. Moreover, Hamas celebrations of “martyrdom” underscore the two-sided nature of Palestinian terror/sacrifice – that is, primal sacrifice of the reviled “Jew” and reciprocal sacrifice of the sacred “martyr.”
Significantly, this murderous reasoning is codified within the Charter of Hamas as a “religious problem.” Under international law, terrorists are considered hostis humani generis, or “common enemies of humankind.” This category of criminals invites punishment wherever the wrongdoers can be found.
Concerning their required arrest and prosecution, jurisdiction is now unambiguously “universal.” Correspondingly relevant is that the universality-declaring Nuremberg Principles reaffirm the ancient legal principle of “No crime without a punishment.”
Once again, Israel is waging mandatory war against an exterminatory foe, this time a jihadist terrorist organization and its allies. In assessing these difficult circumstances, the international community should finally take seriously the insidious truth of jihadi perfidy and the reciprocal falsehood of Israeli wrongdoing. While Israeli weapons harm Palestinian civilians in Gaza, the Hamas policy of “human shields” bears full responsibility for these harms.
In binding law, Palestinian perfidy is exculpatory for the Jewish state.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-856951
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‘Area A’ Prohibition Is For Jews Not Just Israelis
Byjudith Segaloff
June 8, 2025
In Israel, traffic is everywhere, but in Judea and Samaria, traffic can be deadly. A car stuck in traffic can literally be a “sitting duck” for a shooter, a Molotov cocktail thrower, or a rock thrower on the hunt.
To raise attention to the problem, Yonatan Kuznitz, the mayor of Karnei Shomron, “moved his office” to the entrance of Kalkilya. He says the problem begins with the big red sign.
Kalkilya is a sizeable Palestinian city designated as “Area A” that abuts Kfar Saba as well as the settlements of Alfe Menashe and Tzufim. A big red sign in front of every Area A village reads: “Entrance for Israeli citizens is forbidden, is dangerous to your lives, and is against Israeli law.”
Why, then, asks Kuznitz, are there hundreds of cars filled with Arab-Israeli citizens clogging access to the checkpoint, blocking the turnoff to Kalkilya and causing traffic holdups in both directions that sometimes snake all the way up Route 55 to the Maale Shomron traffic circle?
Especially on Fridays, Saturdays, and holidays such as Eid Al-Adha (this year on June 6-9), Arab-Israelis enter Kalkilya to visit relatives and shop at much reduced prices in the Area A city where the prices are much lower than they are in Israel. If entry to Kalkilya is prohibited to Israeli citizens, asks Kuznitz, why are Arab-Israeli citizens exempt from the law?
The sign doesn’t lie. Area A is dangerous for Israeli citizens.
On June 22 last year, Amnon Muchtar, a 67-year-old Israeli from Petah Tikva, was shot and killed in Kalkilya while buying produce for his vegetable stall.
Two months later, another Jewish Israeli was shot and seriously wounded near a car repair shop in the same Palestinian Authority-controlled city.
'We must act now to protect our residents and prevent a tragedy'
“After the war [began], another crossing, Maavar Ayal (near Kochav Yair) was closed,” explains Kuznitz. “This was the standard crossing for cars and for PA workers who worked within the Green Line. Visiting Arab Israelis used to get in through that crossing as well. Since the crossing has been closed, traffic has been building. Especially with Tulkarm and Jenin experiencing army operations and becoming a war zone, Arab Israelis avoid them. Since Kalkilya is the closest and safest place to shop and bring family, the visiting crowds have increased.”
When Kuznitz confronted the army, it indicated that it was inhumane to keep Arab Israelis from visiting their families. Kuznitz suggested putting cameras in the entrances to Kalkilya and fining Israeli car owners who enter. This was opposed by the legal authorities, who won’t let that happen because such a law must apply to all cars crossing, not just Arab Israelis.
“The next attack is around the corner – it’s time to stop and enforce the [prohibition] of entry of Israeli citizens into Palestinian villages in Area A,” he wrote in a Facebook post.
“Failure to enforce the law that prohibits Israelis from entering Area A could lead to the next attack – that I want to prevent,” Kuznitz clarified.
“The mass entry of Israeli citizens into Palestinian villages every weekend leads to enormous congestion at the crossings, which creates huge traffic jams without any security on the roads. Vehicles stand in traffic jams for hours, in a threatening and intimidating environment. Standing on the road for hours without security is fertile ground for the next attack, God forbid.”
Kuznitz added that the IDF was “responsible for prohibiting the entry of Israelis into Area A.” He said, “The time has come to change the military directive on the matter, a decision that must be made at the highest levels in the army. We must understand that this problem creates immediate dangers for the residents of the entire central Samaria region,” warns Kuznitz. “I call on the most senior officials in the IDF to change their approach and not allow Israelis to enter Area A, which is against the law.”
“I moved my office here, on Highway 55 near the entrance to Kalkilya, a central location where crowds of Israeli citizens come every weekend for shopping trips and family visits, to put an end to a phenomenon that endangers the residents of the area and threatens all Israeli citizens. It’s time to stop this now.”
Tzufim, the settlement closest to Kalkilya (besides Kfar Saba, which is only separated from it by Route 6) has a checkpoint which is strictly monitored by the army. All non-residents who are not visiting specific families are prohibited from entering. Tzufim’s strict rules do not allow a detour for those seeking to avoid the Maavar bottlenecks.
Work being done on the roads includes a project to widen the road going from the Jit junction on Route 55 down to where 55 merges into Route 444; a bypass road beyond the town of Nabi Elias; another bypass road in Huwara; and one under construction in the stretch of 55 that goes through the town of Funduq, where three were killed, and eight wounded in January 2025 when armed terrorists ambushed a bus – an example of slow traffic making terrorist attacks easier to execute.
While bypass roads do not restrict Arab drivers, they reroute traffic away from busy, pedestrian-filled main routes.Kuznitz points out that in Samaria, where roads are shared, traffic can create security problems. He blames the army, but the army shifts the blame to the Civil Administration, which, in spite of the law, looks the other way when Arab-Israeli civilians show up at Area A checkpoints.
An army spokesperson declined to comment on the situation, although he confirmed that the law against entering Palestinian villages in Area A applies to all Israelis, not just Jews. When asked why, then, Arab Israelis are allowed to enter Area A cities, the army spokesperson suggested speaking with the Civil Administration. When The Jerusalem Post contacted the Civil Administration spokesperson, the reply was a suggestion to contact the army spokesperson.And this, says Kuznitz, is precisely the problem. No one takes responsibility for the unfair and potentially dangerous situation.
On June 4, mayors Eliyahu Gafni of Emmanuel, Uziel Vatva of Kedumim, Kuznits of Karnei Shomron, Israel Ganz of Yehuda/Shomron and Yossi Dagan, head of the Samaria Regional Council, together wrote a letter warning that illegal entries into Area A puts residents of the area at risk and endangers public order.
“We request that immediate action be taken to stop illegal entries into Area A and to include drastic measures to enforce order and security in the area, including increased patrols by the army and police to prevent illegal access and reduce the severe traffic congestion.”
Kuznitz called on the IDF and security authorities to strictly enforce the ban on Israelis’ entry into Area A.He added, “Effective enforcement is not only a matter of law – it is a matter of life and death. We must act now to protect our residents and prevent a tragedy before it happens.”
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-857007
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The Real Reason Why Israel Is Arming Gangs In Gaza
8 Jun 2025
For months, Israel and its defenders have insisted that Hamas is stealing humanitarian aid. They used that claim to justify the starvation of two million people in Gaza – to bomb bakeries, block food convoys and shoot desperate Palestinians waiting in bread lines. We were told this was a war on Hamas and ordinary Palestinians were just caught in the middle.
Now we know the truth: Israel has been arming and protecting criminal gangs in Gaza that engage in stealing humanitarian aid and terrorising civilians. One group led by Yasser Abu Shabab, which is reportedly linked to extremist networks and has engaged in a variety of criminal activities, is directly receiving weapons from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
And Netanyahu is proudly admitting to it. “What’s wrong with that?” he said when confronted. “It saves the lives of [Israeli] soldiers.”
What’s wrong? Everything.
This isn’t just a tactical decision – it’s an admission of true intent. Israel never wanted to protect Palestinian civilians. It wants to break them. Starve them. Turn them against each other. Then blame them for the resulting chaos and suffering.
This strategy isn’t new. It’s colonialism 101: create anarchy, and then use it as proof that the colonised cannot govern themselves. In Gaza, Israel isn’t just trying to defeat Hamas. It’s trying to destroy any future in which Palestinians might govern their own society.
For months, Western media repeated the unverified claim that Hamas was stealing aid. No evidence was shown. The United Nations repeatedly said there was no proof. But it didn’t matter. The story served its purpose – it justified the blockade. It made starvation look like a security tactic. It made collective punishment look like policy.
Now the truth is out. The gangs terrorising aid routes were the ones Israel supported. The myth has collapsed. And yet where is the outrage?
Where are the stern statements from the governments of the United States and United Kingdom – the same ones who claimed to care about humanitarian delivery? Instead, we are getting silence. Or worse – a shrug.
Netanyahu’s open admission isn’t just arrogance. It’s confidence. He knows he can say the quiet part out loud. He knows Israel can violate international law, arm criminal gangs, bomb schools, starve civilians – and still be welcomed on the world stage. Still receive weapons. Still be praised as an “ally”.
This is what total impunity looks like.
And this is the cost of believing Israel’s PR machine – of letting it pose as a reluctant occupier, a humane military, a victim of circumstance. In truth, it’s a regime that doesn’t just tolerate war crimes – it engineers them, funds them and then uses them as propaganda.
It’s not just a war on Palestinian bodies, homes or even survival. It’s a war on the Palestinian dream – the dream of ever having a state, of building a future with dignity and self-determination.
For decades, Israel has systematically worked to prevent any form of cohesive Palestinian leadership. In the 1980s, it quietly encouraged the rise of Hamas as a religious and social counterweight to the secular Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). The idea was simple: divide Palestinian politics, weaken the national movement and fragment any push for statehood.
Israeli officials believed that supporting Islamist organisations in the occupied West Bank and Gaza would create internal conflict among Palestinians – and it did. Tensions between Islamist and secular groups grew and resulted in clashes on university campuses and in the political arena.
Israel’s policy wasn’t driven by a misunderstanding. It was strategic. It knew that empowering rivals to the PLO would fracture Palestinian unity. The goal wasn’t peace – it was paralysis.
That same strategy continues today – not just in Gaza but in the occupied West Bank too. The Israeli government is actively dismantling the Palestinian Authority’s (PA’s) ability to function. It withholds tax revenues that make up the majority of the PA’s budget, bringing it to the brink of collapse.
It protects settler militias attacking Palestinian villages. It conducts daily military raids in PA-administered cities, humiliating its forces and making them look powerless. It blocks international diplomatic efforts by the PA while mocking its legitimacy.
And this policy doesn’t stop at the boundaries of the occupied territory. Inside Israel, Palestinian citizens face a similar tactic: intentional neglect, impoverishment and engineered chaos. Crime is left to spiral out of control in their communities while infrastructure and services are underfunded. Their economic potential is stifled – not by accident, but by design. It’s a quiet war on Palestinian identity itself: a strategy of erasure that aims to turn Palestinians into a silent, faceless minority stripped of rights, recognition and nationhood.
By engineering instability and then pointing to that instability as proof of failure, Israel writes the script and blames us for living it.
This is not just military policy – it’s narrative warfare. It’s about ensuring that the Palestinian people are forever seen not as a nation striving for freedom but as a threat to be contained.
Israel thrives on chaos because chaos discredits Palestinian agency. It allows Israel to say, “Look, they can’t govern themselves. They only understand violence. They need us.”
It’s not just brutal. It’s deeply calculated.
But Gaza and the West Bank are not a failed state. They are places that have been systematically denied the chance to become one.
Gaza is my home. It’s where I grew up. It’s where my family still clings to life. They deserve better – better than a colonial regime that bombs them, starves them and funds the very people stealing their food.
The world must stop treating Gaza and the West Bank as testing grounds for military doctrine, propaganda and geopolitical indifference. The people of Palestine are not a failed experiment. They are a besieged people, relentlessly denied sovereignty. And still, they try – to feed their children, bury their dead and remain human in the face of dehumanisation.
If Netanyahu’s government can admit to arming criminal gangs and still face no consequences, then the problem is not just Israel. It is us – the so-called international community that rewards cruelty and punishes survival.
What’s needed – urgently – are concrete actions to protect Palestinian lives and safeguard the right to Palestinian statehood before it is erased entirely. Threats to recognise a Palestinian state just won’t do.
If the world continues to look away, it’s not only Palestine that will be destroyed – it’s the very credibility of international law, human rights and every moral principle we claim to stand for.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/6/8/the-real-reason-why-israel-is-arming-gangs-in-gaza
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‘We’re All On The Front Line’: How Film Brings Gaza To The World
June 8, 2025
In their 1988 book How the War was Remembered: Hollywood and Vietnam, Leonard Quart and Albert Auster noted that there were very few fiction films that dealt directly with the war. It took some time to reflect on the many aspects of that period before the appearance of low-budget, meaningful films, including Coming Home (1978), The Deerhunter (1978), and Apocalypse Now (1979).
During and after Iraq, Quart and Auster explain that most films focused more on returning soldiers whose trauma impacted their lives as well as that of their families.
Elaborating on the Valley of Elah (2007), the authors quote director Paul Haggis, who saw the film as “asking questions about where we are in America right now and what’s happening,” a metaphor of the place in the bible where David defeats Goliath.
“What monsters are being fought?” Quart and Auster ask. “It’s hard to say” because “there’s never an unambiguous picture of who the monster is.”
For Palestinians, there is no ambiguity about the identity of the monsters that they face. They have had plenty of time since the Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948 to confront the harsh reality of life under Occupation, ethnic cleansing that has only escalated after October 7.
There is no safe refuge for Palestinians–and by default their supporters—in what Ramzy Baroud calls in Gramscian terms the “Interregnum,” also known as the “age of monsters.”
An intermediary period in which the old guard fights for relevance while more suitable alternatives strive for meaning, this current period is one in which Palestinian film suggests an urgency that is unique to time and place.
Farah Nabulsi’s film The Teacher was made before Oct. 7th but was released during the time of genocide. Though it depicts events around the year 2011, it remains relevant today.
While the focus now is on Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Nabulsi’s film reminds viewers that life in Palestine’s Occupied West Bank remains precarious. Based on a true story, it opens with Basem (played by Saleh Bakri) driving to his school. By the side of the road is an Israeli soldier cradling his rifle, a harbinger of things to come.
Several other film reviewers focused on what they saw as fragmentation, too many sub-plots that are not seamlessly brought together. For example, Peyton Robinson charges that “Nabulsi’s film touches the heart but loses grip on the mind as it journeys to juggle more subplots than its hands can handle.”
What Robinson calls “a fractured mosaic of ideas” is what life is like for many Palestinians, whether in the West Bank, the ’48, or Gaza.
In the Occupied West Bank, where Nabulsi’s film was made, everyday life is fragmented by checkpoints and illegal settlers who are committing daily violence that Palestinians must endure.
Prison is almost a rite of passage for Basem’s students, as it was for him, who like many others, learned the value of education while inside. Basem knows that literacy holds the key to defining individual as well as national history, thus providing a counterpoint to Israel’s official story.
In an interview with Amy Goodman, Nabulsi elaborates on this notion of fragmentation as she describes the making of the film. “We struggled on many levels, you know, the normal pragmatic things of checkpoints and roadblocks, but really dealing with the oppression and the very blatant abuse and humiliation of Palestinians is something that weighs on you when you’re trying to carry out cinema.”
In the same interview, Bakri adds: “We are scattered all around, not able or not allowed to gather and to work together, to learn from each other, to tell our story in a way, in a perfect way, in a way that — in a complete way.”
Unlike American directors, creative artists like Nabulsi and her cast are directly involved in the story. For the former, it is not a matter of their life or death as it is for Palestinians, plus they seldom focus on the real victims of American imperialism—the Vietnamese, Iraqis, and Afghanis, to name a few.
In the interview with Goodman, Bakri explains that his work involves turning tragedy into creative energy, and this he sees as “a form of resistance that in the same time it cures …our souls.”
Moreover, it is possible with cinema to challenge Israel’s version with a counter narrative that shifts the focus from conqueror to ordinary people’s stories. In Gaza, journalists do the same.
Mahmoud Atassi’s Eyes of Gaza (2024), for example, portrays the risks that journalists take to tell the truth about the genocide in Gaza.
While more than 200 journalists have been killed during the Gaza genocide, Eyes of Gaza follows three who had survived as of the making of the film: Abdul Qadir Sabbah, Mahmoud Sabbah, and Mohammed Ahmed.
Unlike Nabulsi’s work, Atassi was not physically in Gaza when he made the film. In an interview with the New Arab, he explains that they communicated via the internet when service was available. Nevertheless, because he had lived through strife in Syria, Atassi has an understanding of living in a war zone that most Western directors lack.
“The Israeli army has built an image of being peaceful and protective, marketing themselves as soldiers who like to live and dance,” Atassi claims. “They spend millions on this image. But when you see videos from Gaza showing the destruction and the suffering of the people, the truth is exposed.”
“It’s part of a broader plan, not just for Palestine, but for Syria as well. Israel wants to create areas with no people, so they can take control of the land,” he continues. “They’re bombing areas, demolishing them, and then taking over the land.”
The film focuses on this bombing of civilians, and the journalists who rush to cover it.
It begins with a missile strike, then follows the three as they walk to film it. These are not scenes shown on Western media—injured children, both physically and psychologically; apartment buildings that once held vibrant life, now in rubble with its inhabitants trapped below; children picking grass and herbs that their mothers might cook for dinner.
Journalists film the tragedies in hopes that the world will act, but they insist on portraying their people as more than victims. Aware that their own lives are constantly at risk, the three stop to play with kids who are playing a make-shift game, all grabbing at life when possible.
On the way to Al-Shifa Hospital to visit an injured colleague, they stop to talk with the father of an injured journalist. “We’re all on the front line here,” he tells them, especially his son who was documenting the destruction that the Israelis caused when they deliberately targeted him.
Journalism is a weapon, the older man says, it is a weapon of resistance. Indeed, Eyes of Gaza is a harrowing film to watch, but it also conveys hope, like when a child says that her wish is to return to school so that she can resume her studies, but also play soccer and draw.
One of the journalists jokes that he will set up a tent with solar and a bag of flour so that he can attract a bride. Throughout the film he expresses this desire. Despite the current horror, he looks forward to better times when the “war” is finally over.
Commenting on a short list of Palestinian films that can be viewed online, Nehad Khader explains that
“Palestinian stories create space for us to love each other, to love ourselves, to love our cause. They document the history of my people’s freedom struggle. Palestinian stories also do something more radical: they help us think both more broadly and deeply about racism, incarceration, resistance, resource theft, apartheid, and even climate change.”
The films described above do all of these things and more. By showing the world what it does not want to see, they take their place within a space that the late revolutionary fighter/journalist Ghassan Kanafani called cultural resistance, a means that provides a counternarrative to Israel’s official story.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/were-all-on-the-front-line-how-film-brings-gaza-to-the-world/
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URL: https://www.newageislam.com/middle-east-press/greta-thunberg-gaza-conflict-jews/d/135809
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