Middle East Press On: Israel, Gaza, hell, Netanyahu, Democratic: New Age Islam's Selection, 5 March 2025
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
5 March 2025
Israel Must Solidify Itself As A Key Connectivity Hub For The Middle East
Women’s Leadership: Key To Addressing Israel’s Crises
The Incoming Chief Of Staff Has Many Challenges He'll Need To Confront
The Middle East’s Problems: Israel Offers Answers And Opportunities
Gaza Faces Hell Or Hell
Whose Interests Do The Plans For Gaza Serve?
Netanyahu Is Gambling With Israeli Captives’ Lives
Assault On Israeli Democratic System Is In Full Swing
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Israel Must Solidify Itself As A Key Connectivity Hub For The Middle East
By Tom Koren
March 5, 2025
Sooner or later, Israel must consider the “day after” from an economic perspective and leverage its battlefield achievements into economic collaborations that will solidify its status in the Middle East, as well as globally.
Although Israel lacks vast natural resources, its renowned Jewish ingenuity and thriving hi-tech industry are in tremendous demand worldwide.
Israel can take a step forward and become a central hub for regional communication infrastructure, linking the region to the rest of the world and establishing a critical strategic asset for itself.
For several years, and with the growing reliance on artificial intelligence and digital communications, subsea and terrestrial cables have served as the backbone of global data flow between continents, forming the essential infrastructure for commerce, security, and intelligence.
As a technological powerhouse in the Middle East, Israel cannot afford to lag behind in this domain. Promoting subsea and terrestrial communication cables is a top economic, geopolitical, and security priority.
The subsea cable industry is one of the most critical infrastructures of the global digital economy. Over 95% of global Internet traffic flows through subsea cables rather than satellites, as is commonly assumed.
Unique opportunity for Israel
Israel has a unique opportunity to position itself as a key connectivity hub between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East by encouraging investment in new cable infrastructure. For Israel, this presents a dual benefit, both domestically and internationally.
Domestically, Israeli technology companies rely on fast and reliable connections to international markets. Enhancing communication infrastructure will enable these companies to expand their operations and attract global investors and entrepreneurs. Moreover, establishing new cables could lower Internet costs and boost competition in the local telecommunications market.
To achieve this, the government must adopt supportive regulations and remove bureaucratic obstacles that prolong the approval and construction processes for subsea and terrestrial cables. A fast-track, transparent investment framework must be established while ensuring secure routing that strengthens Israel’s credibility as a regional digital gateway.
Simultaneously, the government should incentivize private investments through tailored packages, including grants, tax benefits, and competitive financing arrangements. Ensuring a stable and affordable energy supply for these projects will also be a major advantage, especially given the energy-intensive nature of modern communication infrastructure.
Combining these measures will position Israel as a vital hub in the global Internet infrastructure and attract leading technology companies and international investors.
SUCH AN initiative would also serve Israel well in a shifting geopolitical landscape, granting it control over critical transit infrastructure in the region. Located at the crossroads of three continents, Israel has the potential to become a major communication gateway linking Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
Currently, most data traffic between Europe and Asia passes through Egypt, but a direct connection between the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf via Israel – whether through a new terrestrial or subsea cable – could provide a crucial, stable, and cost-effective alternative to existing routes.
Additionally, regional players such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are investing billions in communication infrastructure, aiming to become regional data hubs. Israel can integrate itself into these initiatives by forming strategic collaborations that strengthen its regional position and economic ties with neighbouring countries.
Over the past decade, investments in subsea cables have surged. Technology giants such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft are leading private cable projects to ensure fast and reliable connectivity to their data centres.
The EU, as well as the US and other countries, are actively promoting initiatives to reinforce critical communication infrastructure amid growing threats from China and Russia, which seek to expand their influence over global networks.
Creating the right conditions for the development of additional subsea and terrestrial cables will solidify Israel’s standing as a technology hub and allow it to leverage its regional and global advantages. Investing in this sector is not a luxury but a necessity – economically, in terms of security, and geopolitically.
The Israeli government must advance a national strategy that encourages private investments, fosters regional partnerships, and enhances the security of the country’s critical networks. Israel’s future as a global technology centre depends on its ability to seize these opportunities now.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-844697
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Women’s Leadership: Key To Addressing Israel’s Crises
By Sivan Koren
March 5, 2025
The past year has been one of the most challenging in Israel’s history, particularly for women and especially for female students. An entire generation of women has been forced to navigate an impossible reality.
Students have shouldered the responsibility for their families while their partners were repeatedly called up for reserve duty; young women have struggled to make ends meet while juggling studies and an unforgiving economic climate; and mothers of students have been left without support, with the higher education system failing to make the necessary adjustments.
Women have played every conceivable role in this war, even if public discourse has rarely reflected it. They have fought on the front lines, led relief efforts, supported families, continued their studies, and maintained their jobs under impossible conditions – and yet their contributions have been largely unrecognized.
Over 60,000 women have served on reserve duty, including thousands of combat soldiers who played an active role on the battlefield. Thousands of mothers left their children behind to fulfill their military obligations, managing their households from afar.
Others bore the entire burden alone – raising children under fire while maintaining their careers and financial stability. While male reservists received widespread acknowledgment and support, women who served in the same roles remained invisible – as is reflected in both the recognition and assistance they received.
If there is one pattern that has repeated itself throughout this crisis, it is Israel’s reliance on emergency management.
There is no long-term planning and no infrastructure in place to prevent systemic failure – only last-minute, makeshift solutions that allow the system to “survive” until the next inevitable collapse. And so we must ask: Why do we keep making the same mistakes? Why do we insist on repeating a failed approach?
The answer is simple: For years, Israel’s political and administrative systems have been dominated by the same outdated mindsets: short-sighted, reactive, and tactical rather than strategic.
Women have been shut out of decision-making circles, and that is precisely why the country continues to repeat its failures.
Women’s leadership
The conversation about women’s leadership cannot be reduced to representation alone. The question is not whether there will be more women around the government’s decision-making table, but whether Israel will embrace a different leadership approach – one that goes beyond reactive crisis management and instead builds the structural foundations to prevent future crises altogether.
We already know that women in leadership handle crises differently because they tend to lead with a systemic perspective and long-term vision.
Women consider the full spectrum of consequences that their decisions may have, rather than focusing solely on immediate reactions. They listen, plan, carefully weigh their next steps, and act with a broad understanding of the realities on the ground. This isn’t just theory.
It is backed by research and data. From countries led by women during the COVID-19 pandemic to the responsible economic management of women in key financial roles, time and again, female leadership has been proven to create stability, prevent collapse, and foster long-term planning.
This is precisely what Israel is missing in 2024: leadership that doesn’t merely put out fires but prevents them from igniting in the first place.
This applies across all sectors, from economic crises to the healthcare system. Women are the ones carrying the weight of these crises on their shoulders, yet they lack the power to change how they are managed. While women take charge in wartime – whether in combat, on the home front, or in the workforce – they have remained sidelined when it comes to shaping national policy.
Will women be given a seat at the table just to create a more “diverse” picture, or will they be granted the mandate to lead and drive real change?
In this war, women have stood on the front lines in every sense, on the battlefield, in the workforce, in their homes, and in academia. They have led, sustained the economy, and raised children under fire. Women do not need symbolic “representation.” They need real power.
The state must recognize that reserve duty is not just assigned to soldiers – it mobilizes entire families. It’s time women have the authority to shape policies that prevent the next crisis, before it’s too late.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-844699
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The Incoming Israel Chief Of Staff Has Many Challenges He'll Need To Confront
By Amichai Cohen
March 5, 2025
The primary mission of the incoming chief of staff, Major General Eyal Zamir, is security-related. He must ensure that the IDF protects the State of Israel and its residents from its enemies. However, this is not his only mission.
In order to ensure the continued existence of the IDF as the people’s army — that is, an army built on universal conscription, reflecting Israel’s diverse population — he must confront three challenges pertaining to the relationship between Israeli society and the IDF that lie before him: the conscription of haredim (the ultra-Orthodox), maintaining the IDF’s moral backbone, and restoring trust in the military leadership.
Haredi draft
The first challenge facing the incoming chief of staff is the issue of ultra-Orthodox conscription. Israeli lawmakers have allowed nearly all young haredi men to avoid military service through repeated deferrals granted to those with a designation making “Torah study their profession.”
Until October 7, the central framing of the issue was moral and economic: the violation of equality in the burden of military service and the significant impact on the integration of the ultra-Orthodox into the labor market.
Since the war began, however, it has become evident that the problem is even broader — the IDF is facing a manpower crisis. Without expanding the service base to include haredi men, the IDF relies on two pillars: reserve soldiers, many of whom have served hundreds of days since the war’s outbreak, and conscripts from the secular, traditional, and religious-Zionist sectors, who enlist in very high numbers and for whom the IDF seeks to extend their mandatory service to three years.
It is far from certain that these two pillars of the people’s army — reserve soldiers and non-Haredi conscripts — will continue to bear the growing burden of service while the ultra-Orthodox remain exempt. With regard to the conscription of haredim, the primary responsibility lies with the Knesset, while the chief of staff's job will be to present a professional stance on the IDF’s needs.
In this context, the IDF, under the leadership of the incoming chief of staff, will also have to find the right way to integrate the ultra-Orthodox into its ranks — a way that respects the values of their community while strictly maintaining the IDF’s unity, preventing its fragmentation into multiple armies with separate professional and ethical cultures, and avoiding a chain of command influenced by external rabbinical authorities.
Ethical code of the IDF
The second challenge facing Zamir in the realm of civil-military relations is the ethical challenge. A series of surveys conducted in recent years reveal that significant segments of the Israeli Jewish public support the use of force in ways that contradict IDF policy and even the “Spirit of the IDF” — the ethical code of the Israel Defense Forces.
For example, in a survey conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute, more than 63% of Jewish respondents agreed with the statement that “a neutralized terrorist should be killed even if they no longer pose a threat” — a position that stands in direct opposition to the law, IDF orders, and its core values.
In the same survey, 60% of Jewish respondents believed that adherence to the principle of “purity of arms” prevents the IDF from fulfilling its missions. This gap between societal values and IDF values is particularly significant in Israel, where mandatory conscription draws recruits from all sectors of society, and reserve duty is widespread. It is, therefore, incumbent upon the new chief of staff to preserve and enforce the values of the IDF.
Public Trust in IDF's senior command
The third challenge is public trust in the IDF’s senior command. Repeated surveys indicate that even after the failures of October 7, the IDF as a whole continues to maintain a high level of public trust among the Jewish population. However, when it comes to the senior command, trust levels decline, particularly among supporters of the political right in Israel.
In October 2024, while 86% of the Jewish public expressed confidence in the IDF, only about 66% expressed trust in the senior command. Among voters for the Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit parties, trust in the senior command dropped to below 50%. In another survey conducted in November 2024, only 44% of right-wing supporters responded that “the value system of the IDF’s senior command aligns with their personal values.”
At the root of all three challenges described lies a socio-political issue. Yet, all of them now wait at the doorstep of the incoming chief of staff. He must promote the proper integration of the ultra-Orthodox into the IDF, uphold its values, and restore public trust in the senior military leadership.
If he fails to address these challenges, the very model of the IDF as a national people’s army will be at risk. However, if he succeeds, his ability to tackle the security challenges ahead will be significantly strengthened. As we welcome Major General Zamir to his new role as the 24th chief of staff of the State of Israel, we wish him great success in the many complex tasks before him. His success is the success of us all.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-844657
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The Middle East’s Problems: Israel Offers Answers And Opportunities
By Eric R. Mandel
March 5, 2025
The US has been trying to leave the Middle East for years, especially after the controversial wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, the region has a way of always calling America back.
In reality, America still has substantial national security interests in the region that will not depart anytime soon. It is not a binary choice between pivoting to an adversarial China or remaining engaged in the quagmire of the Middle East.
The United States is a superpower, and its engagement in the region is essential for US safety, decreasing the risk of war, and providing more protection for its homeland.
One can be forgiven for thinking the region’s problems are intractable. But who would have thought a year ago that the Islamic Republic of Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terror, would be so vulnerable, with its air defense in tatters?
The visceral hatred for Israel led the mullahs to launch the two most lethal ballistic attacks in the modern era, which Israel was able to thwart with the help of the US and its allies.
Israel degraded the lethality of Iran, one of the US’s most hostile adversaries – with so much American blood on its hands – by destroying Iran’s anti-missile defenses. This has created leverage for the Trump administration to negotiate a new nuclear deal or, if coming to terms with Tehran is impossible, to destroy their nuclear program.
Israel has put the US in a much stronger position to act or negotiate with Iran.
Hezbollah in Lebanon, the principal Iranian proxy and an American-designated terrorist group, also has the blood of American soldiers and civilians on its hands, most notoriously the 241 Marines killed in Beirut in 1982.
In September 2024, Israel decimated the leadership of the terror organization. It eliminated most of its missile capacity, reaping justice for itself and its best friend, America, something the Americans have not been able or willing to do for decades. Hezbollah has also kidnapped US citizens and kept them in inhuman conditions, like the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas, another US-designated terror group.
If the Israelis had not degraded Hezbollah, the genocidal Assad regime, supported by both Iran and Hezbollah, would likely not have fallen. Israel’s actions and strength in the region have done more as a catalyst for positive change and the possibility of a more stable region than we have been able to do with longstanding failed diplomacy.
Israel has given the US an opportunity in Syria that no one could have imagined a short time ago, weakening Iran and Russia, two members of the Axis of aggression.
Window of opportunity must be managed carefully
THE CAVEAT is that the newly created window of opportunity must be managed carefully, as the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rebels who now control Syria are Islamists, until proven otherwise. That means no sanctions relief until we get assurances that they will not open hostilities to Israel to their south or our Kurdish allies to their north.
As for the Muslim Brotherhood jihadists of Hamas, who have killed many Americans over the last 30 years, they are on the run, because Israel did what the Biden administration said they couldn’t do: massively degrade the terrorist group, opening up the possibility for President Trump to reimagine a Middle East in ways not confined to the failed recommendations of past decades.
Israel stands on the frontlines against radical Sunni and Shi’ite jihadism. In the future, Israel will present even more potential solutions in a region that seems, at first glance, to only offer problems.
America’s Gulf allies admire Israel’s strength; normalization with Saudi Arabia, with its economic benefits for both Israel and the US, will become possible as the projection of power by Iran, the number-one threat to Saudi security, is weakened.
On both sides of the aisle, Congress and the president know that the US’s national security interests align with Israel’s.
I am not Pollyannaish about the road forward. After two days of briefings in Congress and the State Department last week, I realized we handicapped advancing our interests by focusing only on problems and not new possibilities.
In the Congress of old, we accepted that “winning” was being satisfied with getting three-quarters of a loaf. Middle Eastern solutions aren’t pretty, but getting much of what you need to advance your interest should be considered a win.
However, ignoring the history of violence and religious zealotry that has cursed the region is a prescription for failure.
Taking advantage of opportunities
HOW SHOULD America take advantage of the opportunities Israel has made possible?
Israel has created the possibility of real change in Lebanon with its humbling of Hezbollah. But we must not have false illusions. Too many in Congress and the State Department think the new Lebanese government and the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) are willing and capable of reining in Hezbollah.
Before the US starts throwing money at the LAF, it needs to create benchmarks for the army to prove they are on a sustainable path to take on Hezbollah terrorists, who have controlled the nation for decades. As an example, a good start would be identifying Hezbollah-controlled officers in the LAF and demanding they be removed from any role in the reconstituted LAF.
In Syria, another opportunity created by Israeli strength, the US needs to recognize that the new Syrian leader is more likely to Islamize Syria as he did in Idlib province over the last seven years. The US should not prematurely end sanctions until it has a written guarantee for an armistice between Israel and Syria, and that Syria will not ethnically cleanse our Kurdish allies who help us fight ISIS and still control tens of thousands of ISIS members and their families in Syrian Kurdish territory.
ISIS will rise again if the new Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa and Turkey try to ethnically cleanse Kurds from northeast Syria, as Turkey did to the Kurds in northwest Syria a few years ago.
Keeping Israel strong is in America’s interest because the Jewish state is the US’s only reliable regional ally, creating opportunities to advance US interests and opening possibilities for solutions to longstanding problems.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-844695
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Gaza Faces Hell Or Hell
By Suhail Kewan
March 4, 2025
It has become clear that the choice that Netanyahu and his government are giving the resistance and the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip is either hell or hell. In fact, it is a choice that he is giving all Arabs, not just the Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu has gone against the agreement that is supposed to start the second phase of negotiations that should culminate in the return of all prisoners and hostages, the declaration of a ceasefire, and the withdrawal of the occupation forces from the Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu’s turn against the agreement did not surprise anyone, as he is planning to recover the hostages and prisoners by extending the first phase, in order to free himself from the internal pressure of the captives’ families and the voices supporting them. He then plans to make any excuse to resume the war to achieve his goals of eliminating the rule of Hamas and disarming it, as well as displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from northern Gaza as a prelude to his plan to empty the Gaza Strip of most of its residents. This is based on Trump’s vision, who dreams of investing in Gaza’s beaches and geography to establish what he calls a “Riviera”.
If Hamas complies with Israel’s demands and completes the exchange deal as an extension of the first stage, it will have cancelled the second phase and will not have any pressure cards to use to achieve a permanent ceasefire agreement.
If it refuses and keeps the captives, Netanyahu and his government will use it as a pretext to unleash hell on them under the pretext of military pressure to release the captives. Trump is also hinting at this and is opening the weapons stores for Netanyahu.
By closing the crossings and preventing the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, which he has already declared, Netanyahu is taking the war back to square one and threatening tens of thousands more martyrs and victims, more destruction and the displacement of people once again to “safe areas” until the final displacement is completed.
The Arab and international response to the displacement project is not firm enough to deter him.
There is talk of an Egyptian-Arab plan to manage the Gaza Strip while disarming the resistance movements and removing their leaders from the Gaza Strip.
The resistance, which has paid a very high price in the form of its members and Gazans, will fight to the end, and this end will not be near, and it threatens to turn into a long war of attrition.
The feeling among Netanyahu’s government and large groups of the people in Israel is that this is a historic opportunity that may not be repeated to liquidate the Palestinian cause, because the president of the greatest country in the world seeks a world free of international laws that have been in effect since the end of World War II until today. These laws include respecting the right of peoples to self-determination.
Realistically, all that remains is the logic of force that governs international relations between peoples and countries.
Trump has threatened to withdraw from the UN and from the NATO Treaty, as he says he does not need these expensive allies.
This means that the world is facing a new era in the history of international relations, which, even though it lacked justice, had a minimum level of commitment to international norms.
Trump is now promoting America’s interests above all others, meaning that any international relationship or issue that does not bring profit to the American treasury is rejected. He seeks to achieve the strongest American empire of all time.
There are weak and oppressed peoples who will pay the price of the law of the jungle. The strong decide how the world’s wealth is distributed, and how the borders between countries are drawn.
What encourages Netanyahu now is the weakness of the Lebanese front, or rather, its disappearance from the equation, after the blows Hezbollah received. Likewise, Netanyahu’s ambition in Syria did not stop at the borders of the occupied Golan Heights. He is betting on sectarian differences in Syria, trying to incite them, and branding Ahmed Al-Sharaa as a Daesh member. He is also betting on Jordan’s weakness and its dependence on American support.
Netanyahu and those around him feel that the opportunity is ripe to achieve the dream of completing the Zionist project by displacing the people of Palestine to Egypt and Jordan, expanding the area of the occupying state, and nibbling away at Syrian and Lebanese lands.
The resistance movement in the Gaza Strip is facing a major predicament, as resuming the war means more destruction and victims without any Arab or other support for the resistance that has been under siege for years.
That is why it is clinging to the last card, to prevent the resumption of war by insisting on starting the second phase of negotiations that is supposed to lead to the completion of the exchange of all captives, the declaration of a permanent ceasefire agreement and the start of the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.
Egypt, Jordan and the Arab countries have announced their rejection of displacement, but this does not prevent displacement.
The entire Arab world must realise the seriousness of the coming stage for everyone and must act responsibly and courageously, not only towards Palestine, as the danger that is sweeping Palestine also threatens Lebanon and Syria, and will spare Egypt, Jordan or countries. The Arabs must now choose between hell or hell.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250304-gaza-faces-hell-or-hell/
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Whose Interests Do The Plans For Gaza Serve?
By Ramona Wadi
March 4, 2025
While US President Donald Trump’s plan to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza and create the “Riviera of the Middle East” has been largely opposed by the rest of the world, the proposal put forth by Egypt leaves much unanswered. What stands out from the details revealed so far is the insistence to eliminate Hamas from the political scene.
“There will be no major international funding for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Gaza if Hamas remains the dominant and armed political element on the ground controlling local governance,” Reuters has reported.
The plan envisages the creation of a Governance Assisted Mission to replace Hamas in Gaza. To fill in the void of local security, the plan puts forth an International Stabilisation Force with Arab states’ participation, which would be regulated by an international board that includes Arab and Muslim countries, the US, the UK and the EU and its member states. The Palestinian Authority also seems to have been side-lined in the Egyptian plan for Gaza.
“Hamas rejects any attempts to impose projects or any form of non-Palestinian administration, or the presence of any foreign forces on the land of the Gaza Strip,” insisted senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri.
The PA, which made its presence felt throughout the genocide by grovelling to world leaders to take over Gaza, has also rejected the non-involvement of Palestinians. An unnamed official told Reuters that an agreement was reached with Egypt on a committee of Palestinian experts that would advise the PA “and doesn’t answer to non-Palestinian bodies.”
Albeit for different reasons, Hamas and the PA have agreed on non-interference by international bodies. The PA, however, relies heavily on remaining in the international community’s good books for funding and extending its own hierarchy through the violence of its security services, which collaborate with the Israeli occupation forces.
And there are many other examples of such collaboration.
Hamas, on the other hand, has attempted several times to engage diplomatically with the West, making certain compromises along the way but not stooping as low as the PA. What the West refuses to concede is that as long as colonialism exists in Palestine, the need for legitimate resistance movements, be they Hamas or any other faction, will not disappear.
From the details that have emerged so far, the main significance of Egypt’s plan is that it draws closer to the international community in eliminating Palestinian political input over Palestinian lives. What Hamas has termed “non-Palestinian administration” with reference to foreign impositions and presence, is what created the conditions for the current genocide in Gaza. Is it not reasonable after decades of Palestinians being ethnically cleansed, forcibly displaced, mass murdered, harassed, tortured, detained and abused, that a resistance movement calls for non-interference?
Furthermore, opposing Trump’s plan for Gaza by creating another that is more favourable to the rest of the international community, does not score points for Palestinians. The proposed non-involvement of Palestinians only extends Israel’s colonial rule and entrenches international complicity in keeping Israel’s genocidal options open. Whose interests do these plans for Gaza really serve?
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250304-whose-interests-do-the-plans-for-gaza-serve/
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Netanyahu Is Gambling With Israeli Captives’ Lives
Osama Al-Sharif
March 04, 2025
Most Israelis know by now that almost all Israeli captives in Hamas’ custody since Oct. 7, 2023, could have been released many months ago. They also know that one man has stood in the way of an agreement for their safe return, just as they are convinced that those who perished under the Gaza rubble died because of that man’s intransigence, as he put his self-interest above those of his citizens.
Benjamin Netanyahu has never wanted the war to end, while knowing full well that prolonging it would mean that none of the captives would return alive.
In fact, and despite the national trauma caused by Hamas’ attack on southern Israel, poll after poll — going back as far as the summer of last year — found that the majority of Israelis wanted a hostage-for-ceasefire deal to be reached sooner rather than later.
Egypt, Qatar and the US tried a number of times to push for a deal. By the admission of senior Israeli negotiators, Netanyahu backed down at the last moment. In the process, tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian lives were lost, as well as tens of the Israeli captives as a result of Israel’s indiscriminate bombings.
Donald Trump’s November victory changed the dynamics. President Joe Biden never mustered the courage to put a stop to the Gaza genocide. Trump had a different approach. He threatened all parties and told them to come to a deal before his Jan. 20 inauguration. Netanyahu, wary of provoking Trump, agreed to a deal: a three-phase ceasefire agreement that would eventually end the war, pull the Israeli army from war-torn Gaza and free all remaining captives — dead and alive.
But Netanyahu could never be trusted. Phase one, which expired on Saturday, saw the release of more than 30 Israelis and hundreds of Palestinians, including women and children, held in Israeli prisons. While Hamas said it was ready to begin negotiations on phase two of the agreement under the auspices of Qatar, Egypt and the US, Netanyahu was getting ready to do an about-face.
On Sunday, he announced that Israel was halting the passage of all humanitarian aid into Gaza because Hamas had refused to accept a US proposal to extend phase one of the agreement for a few more weeks. Netanyahu wanted Hamas to release more captives without Israel committing to withdraw from Gaza and end the war, as was stipulated in phase two. He claimed that he got US backing for the proposal, even though it was unclear if Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, had made such a proposal. He called off a trip to the region since the two sides had failed to begin the second round of negotiations.
Egypt and Qatar accused Israel of violating the ceasefire deal. Hamas charged that Israel had violated the first phase tens of times already. It prevented heavy earthmoving equipment from entering the enclave and failed to deliver thousands of caravans to replace makeshift temporary homes.
On Monday, Netanyahu doubled down, threatening to cut off water and fuel supplies to Gaza, while hinting that Israel was ready to resume its aggression against the enclave. His ministers said Israel would force tens of thousands of Gazans to again be displaced toward the south of the territory.
The UN and other aid agencies warned that cutting off humanitarian supplies would bring back the specter of mass starvation. The EU, Canada, Russia, Japan and others called on Israel to maintain the ceasefire and allow peace talks to resume. In Israel, thousands of Israelis, especially the families of freed captives and those who had been released, protested against their own government’s decision to suspend talks.
Netanyahu made an impassioned attempt to explain his decision, but he had run out of excuses. The opposition said Netanyahu wanted to resume the war to save his coalition from collapsing. Ultranationalist minister Itamar Ben-Gvir resigned when the government embraced the ceasefire agreement. Now, the ultrareligious Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has threatened to bring the coalition down if phase two of the deal is negotiated.
Netanyahu sees war and chaos as the guarantors for his political survival. He has sanctioned the wholesale destruction of West Bank refugee camps, resulting in the displacement of more than 50,000 Palestinians, to keep his far-right partners in line.
And now the PM is threatening to bring down the ceasefire agreement to preempt a plan for the reconstruction of Gaza without the mass displacement of more than 2 million Palestinians. That plan, which will be presented to President Trump as an alternative to the fanciful Gaza Riviera scheme, which the US president proposed a few weeks ago, will weaken Netanyahu’s arguments to resume the war.
There is every reason to believe that, without Trump’s endorsement of Netanyahu when the Israeli premier visited Washington last month, the ceasefire deal would have moved on to the second phase and delivered a coda to more than 15 months of bloodshed.
While Trump has promised to end the war in Gaza, his administration has shown little interest in pushing for a genuine path to a settlement that would give the Palestinians an honorable peace. Israel has dispatched tanks into the West Bank and its military has demolished tens of houses in refugee camps after gutting civilian infrastructure, but the US administration is yet to comment on this blatant violation of international law.
Netanyahu believes he can manipulate the Trump White House and US Congress to support his forever war strategy to keep him in power. However, Netanyahu cannot count on the backing of the Israeli public. The mood in Israel is not in sync with his agenda. The Israeli public wants to see all captives returned and the ceasefire agreement honored. They know that, if the war resumes, the remaining living captives will soon be dead. They know that Hamas has kept its side of the deal and that Netanyahu has not.
The Trump White House should differentiate between what Netanyahu, the seemingly charismatic manipulator, wants and what the Israeli public demands at this stage. It is worth noting that Netanyahu is attacking his own security and military chiefs simply because they are siding with the Israeli people. A return to war would be catastrophic for the Palestinians and the remaining Israeli captives.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2592393
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Assault On Israeli Democratic System Is In Full Swing
Yossi Mekelberg
March 04, 2025
It would not have been much to expect of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government to take a long, hard look at themselves after a disaster such as the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, took place on their watch. One of the questions they should have asked themselves is how the divisions among Israeli society that they sowed during the months before the attack contributed to the lack of preparedness for such a cataclysmic event.
An honest government would have recognized that the divisive, rapid and radical attempts to weaken the country’s democratic foundations, especially the assault on the independence of the judiciary, was a major contribution to that lack of preparedness, when they should have been searching for a more consensual reform of the judiciary.
For the first few months of the war, the shock of the Hamas surprise attack and the immense loss and pain it caused slowed down the main culprits among those who were cynically and tirelessly trying to compromise the system of checks and balances and harm the gatekeepers of good governance and transparency. However, in recent months, Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Simcha Rothman, chair of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee — two of the chief architects of the onslaught on the independence of the judiciary — have renewed those efforts with unfortunate vigor.
In one of the more public acts of trying to delegitimize the judiciary, Netanyahu, Levin and Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana boycotted last month’s swearing-in ceremony of Justice Isaac Amit as Supreme Court president. This is the first time in Israel’s history that the heads of the executive and the legislative have shown such extreme disrespect to the legally elected head of the judiciary — and only because they wished to install someone else who they believed to be more “convenient” for the government.
If that was not bad enough, far-right demonstrators protested against the new president of the Supreme Court outside President Isaac Herzog’s residence, where the ceremony was held, in a concerted effort to intimidate Amit and the rest of the judiciary and hence persuade them to better cooperate with the government. Amit’s appointment ended more than a year’s standoff between the judiciary and the politicians, leaving the Supreme Court with no permanent president due to the government’s unscrupulous efforts to change the rules of electing the top judge in the country to suit its political agenda.
But failing to appoint a Supreme Court president of its liking has not deterred the government from its drive to control the appointment of all judges in Israel. At a time when the entire nation has been mainly concerned with the fate of the hostages held in Gaza, Levin and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar agreed on a raft of changes to Israel’s judicial system that will increase political power over judicial appointments and curb the High Court’s ability to strike down legislation.
Their measures are not dissimilar to the one that sparked massive antigovernment protests in 2023. This indicates that, in their brutish march to compromise Israel’s democracy, prolong their stay in power indefinitely and in the process ensure that Netanyahu’s corruption trial will never be concluded, they have learned nothing about the damage they caused to the cohesiveness of the nation and, by that, to its security.
They continue to weaken the independence of the judiciary and they constantly smear the names of democracy’s gatekeepers. No one suffers more from Netanyahu’s toxic machinery than Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara. The far right simply cannot stand her devotion to the rule of law and accountability and transparency in government. The attorney general blocks appointments to senior positions in the civil service of those who do not meet the necessary criteria. She also continues to remind the government of its responsibility to appoint a state commission to investigate the failures of Oct. 7 because it is necessary to learn from the catastrophic mistakes made. And she generally reminds ministers that they need to operate within the boundaries of the law.
The response by ministers has been a concerted effort to fire Baharav-Miara and replace her with someone more convenient for their purposes.
Ronen Bar, head of the internal security agency Shin Bet, is also walking with a target on his back. He is another whom this extremist government would like to get rid of. Bar admitted his responsibility for the failures of Oct. 7 and that he should leave this sensitive job when the time is right, but Netanyahu’s people are now trying to hasten his departure because the organization he leads is investigating severe breaches of security within the prime minister’s office. Again, they would like to replace him with someone who would be prepared to turn a blind eye to the alleged law-breaking among Netanyahu’s inner circle that compromised the country’s security.
And then there are the attempts to damage civil society organizations by singling out those whose activities concentrate on promoting peace or human rights, especially those of minorities (mainly Arabs), those who live in the Occupied Territories and women and workers.
According to a new bill proposed by a ministerial committee, the government will be able to tax donations from foreign governments to domestic non-profits at a rate of 80 percent, while also instructing that courts need not consider petitions by groups “primarily financed by a foreign political entity.” Unlike right-wing groups that are mainly financed by wealthy private donors, this is not the case with those who support peace and human rights, which rely more on institutional funders, and this is another brutal attempt to silence them.
All these measures add up to a crude and barely concealed attempt to diminish the oversight of government activities by the courts, civil society and even the media. From there, the path toward a democracy in name only is quite short. It also opens the way for the government to further deprive the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories of any rights and access to those organizations that could help them stand up to the arbitrary nature of the occupation and further discriminatory acts against those who are citizens of Israel.
The vision of the founding fathers of Israel as a democratic state is quickly evaporating. Under Netanyahu, Israel is becoming less and less democratic with almost every day that passes, as it is hijacked by the actions of religious zealots — actions that, it should be pointed out, are also putting the lives of democracy’s gatekeepers in jeopardy.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2592392
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