Middle East Press On: Israel, Rape, Assassination, Yitzhak Rabin: New Age Islam's Selection, 1 November 2025
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
1 November 2025
Israel’s ‘Right To Rape’: Leaked Video Investigated and Labelled Blood Libel
Targeting Those Who Practice ‘Do No Harm’: The Failure to Protect Gaza’s Healers
Cairo Talks On Gaza Fail To Forge Palestinian Unity
Two Years After Oct 7, All Palestinians Have Gained Is More Tragedy
Is A Political Assassination In Israel Possible Today?
Remembering Israel's Assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, 30 Years On
War Unlikely To Return To Lebanon And Gaza
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Israel’s ‘Right To Rape’: Leaked Video Investigated and Labelled Blood Libel
By Robert Inlakesh
October 31, 2025
Israelis are, again, furious about the infamous gang rape of a Palestinian hostage in Sde Teiman concentration camp, but not at the rapists themselves. Instead, they are demanding the prosecution of those responsible for leaking the video.
On July 29, 2024, ten Israeli soldiers from its Unit 100 were reported to have been involved in a brutal gang rape incident against a Palestinian hostage, who was being held without charge in the Sde Teiman detention facility. Outrage immediately erupted in Israeli society when the soldiers were subsequently detained by the relevant authorities, but not for the reasons most would expect.
Instead of an Israeli public outcry condemning the incident, thousands of Israeli protesters, accompanied by elected officials, broke into the military facilities, demonstrated outside the jail where the ten soldiers were being held and advocated for the right to rape Palestinian detainees.
Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir referred to the accused gang rapists as “heroes” and argued that any action is permissible against Palestinian detainees. Likud Party elected official, Hanoch Milwidsky, even passionately defended the rape of Palestinians with a stick, simply upon the accusation that they are Hamas fighters.
During a heated debate in the Israeli Knesset, MK Ahmad Tibi, from the Ta’al Party, asked, “To insert a stick in a person’s rectum, is that legitimate?” to which Milwidsky responded, “Yes! If he is a Nukhba, everything is legitimate to do to him!”
Meir Ben Shatrit, one of the released accused Israeli gang rapists, later stated on video that his arrest was a sham and proceeded to frame himself as receiving Israeli popular support. This soldier was later brought on Israeli broadcast media, where he was treated well, given softball interviews and defended his actions.
It was also not long before Israel’s Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, chimed in, asserting that “an immediate criminal investigation to locate the leakers of the trending video that was intended to harm the reservists and that caused tremendous damage to Israel in the world and to exhaust the full severity of the law against them”.
On Wednesday, Smotrich’s demands were finally fulfilled, as the Israeli military launched a criminal probe into the leaking of the video, which showed the gang-rape incident. The full video itself was officially broadcast on Israel’s Channel 12 in August of 2024, despite a shorter clip having been verified by Al-Jazeera at an earlier date.
Meanwhile, five of the accused soldiers were set free, while the remaining five were charged with “aggravated abuse and serious bodily harm” and are not being charged with rape, despite the incident being documented on video and the controversy surrounding it being centered on the issue of rape.
Initially, only two of the detained soldiers were released, after which Israel’s Honenu legal aid organization stepped in to represent four of the remaining eight accused gang rapists. Honenu reportedly argued that their clients were acting in self-defense.
What makes this case even more disturbing is that this is the most high-profile case of rape against a Palestinian hostage, yet this incident is turning into a witch-hunt against those who were potentially involved in leaking evidence of the horrific assault.
Copious evidence has emerged over the past two years, supporting the notion of mass weaponized sexual violence against Palestinians, held with no charges, both in Israeli prisons and in detention facilities. Countless cases of gang rape, rape using dogs, metal poles, sticks, and other objects, in addition to sexual humiliation and assault, are not only ignored by the Western media, but there is no accountability for those responsible.
Now, the Israeli Military Prosecutor, Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi has gone on leave, as investigators examine whether top legal officers and even the Prosecutor may have been involved in leaking the video of the gang-rape incident. A development applauded by Israeli Defense Minister, Israel Katz, who referred to the video’s release as one of the biggest “blood libels” against the occupation army’s soldiers.
Despite there being UN and Human Rights reports, along with investigative pieces published by distinguished media outlets, in addition to video and photographic evidence, on top of countless individual and even lawyer testimonies, there is little in the way of an international outcry over the issue.
When this is compared to the coordinated campaign, which could not produce a single victim or reputable witness testimony, let alone photographic or video evidence, to argue that Hamas had carried out a coordinated mass rape campaign on October 7, 2023, it demonstrates the clear double standards of not only Western media but also its political elites and institutions.
There must be an immediate push for an international investigation into Israel’s weaponisation of sexual violence against Palestinian men, women, and children. This should be impartial and seek to find answers as to whether Israel’s leadership simply allowed it to happen, or whether they were directly implicated in ordering what can be reasonably assumed to be a premeditated mass rape campaign against Palestinians.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/israels-right-to-rape-leaked-video-investigated-and-labeled-blood-libel/
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Targeting Those Who Practice ‘Do No Harm’: The Failure to Protect Gaza’s Healers
By Lori Maria Waton and Ikram Mezghani
October 31, 2025
Over the past two years, our Palestinian medical and academic colleagues in Gaza have been systematically targeted, killed, displaced, and their voices and stories silenced. Conservative reports estimate that over 2,000 healthcare workers, 700 humanitarian aid workers, 1200 professors, and more than 13,000 students have been killed by Israel during the Gaza genocide. Additionally, over 180,000 people have been critically injured, creating an even greater need for medical and healthcare professionals. Israel’s deliberate targeting has left all of Gaza’s hospitals and universities in ruins, systematically erasing life and learning. This destruction is partly funded by the US$21.7 billion in arms sent to Israel.
The Hippocratic Oath, “Do no harm,” is taught in universities and requires medical providers to act to preserve life and prevent suffering without discrimination. Medical providers, university professors, and students share an ethical commitment: to protect life, seek truth, and serve humanity. Healthcare workers dedicate their careers to saving lives, reducing suffering, and maintaining human dignity. Professors and students pledge to oppose misinformation, coercion, even silence, and to protect academic truth as a way to safeguard life and dignity. In Gaza, professionals – doctors, physical therapists, occupational therapists, nurses, social workers, faculty, and students – are trained, and train others, to preserve life and knowledge, yet they have faced relentless and targeted violence for the past two years.
There is no doubt that the destruction of Gaza’s health and academic infrastructure is a violation of human rights and, under the Geneva Conventions, constitutes war crimes and crimes against humanity. The deliberate targeting or killing of medical providers or the destruction of hospitals violates Article 18 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states that “hospitals must be respected and protected,” and Article 24, which states that “medical personnel must be protected and cannot be attacked.”
The genocide in Gaza has severely impacted women’s and children’s rights. Out of the confirmed 68,000 people killed, 200,000 are missing and presumed dead beneath the rubble, with another 180,000 critically injured. Of these victims, 78 percent are women and children. When healthcare workers in Gaza or anywhere else are killed in airstrikes, detained, or prevented from providing care, it constitutes a systemic breach of ethical and legal duties and a failure to uphold the universal medical vow to “do no harm.”
The silent response from universities, medical and health professional organizations, various human rights groups, women’s and children’s rights organizations, and other professional bodies during the ongoing and relentless human rights violations against our colleagues in Gaza signifies a severe moral and ethical failure. While the medical code of ethics requires healthcare professionals to protect and advocate for the most vulnerable populations, and academic freedom mandates defending scholars and students from political and physical threats, many institutions have remained silent or have actively silenced others. They have also punished, fired, expelled, and arrested professors, students, doctors, and others for speaking out about the genocide in Gaza across institutions worldwide.
Silence is lethal. By failing to advocate for healthcare workers, professors, and students in Gaza, these academic institutions and professional organizations sent a dangerous message – that it was acceptable to violate international laws and target our colleagues studying in schools and colleges or working in hospitals, clinics, and universities. This reveals a biased attitude about whose lives and rights are protected, and suggests that our lives, worldwide, are ultimately not safeguarded.
Support for justice in Gaza begins with justice for academic and healthcare professionals who dedicate their lives to healing and recovery, guided by the oath of “do no harm.” While systematic targeting and the lack of protection for healthcare workers in “medical neutral zones” became a routine during the Israeli-led genocide, we must not let this become the “new normal” for anyone moving forward.
We must remember that the genocide of the Palestinian people that escalated after October 7, 2023, was not the start of the siege for healthcare workers and faculty across Gaza. For the last 76 years, Palestinians in Gaza have endured the structural impacts of violence due to Israeli occupation, including multiple blockades – one lasting over 18 years before this current genocide. These blockades have caused shortages of medicine, electricity, and fuel, making it difficult or often impossible to provide basic medical care.
Showing up to work as a healthcare worker in Gaza has always been an act of courage and a demonstration of resistance and resilience that most people will never experience in their lifetime.
Yet, the destruction goes beyond hospitals and affects all of Gaza’s universities. Places like the Islamic University of Gaza and al-Azhar University, symbols of hope, heritage, and knowledge in the region, were destroyed, forcing students, faculty, and staff to leave classrooms, research labs, and learning behind indefinitely. Students training to become the next generation of doctors, nurses, dentists, physical and occupational therapists, social workers, scientists, teachers, and other essential societal pillars are, instead, coping with the ongoing trauma of repeated forced displacements and daily losses of family, friends, and colleagues.
The so-called ‘ceasefire’ has brought no relief. First, it is being violated by Israel every day; daily life in Gaza remains a nightmare. Palestinians face the erratic terror of Israeli violence, relentless drone surveillance (Ahmed Muin Abu Amsha, a music teacher in Gaza, created a song in sync with the drones to help children deal with the trauma), and the devastating aftermath of returning to homes that have been destroyed.
Many Gazans have family members still trapped under rubble, and the entire population lives under the haunting reality of a society that hunted them down, while simultaneously imprisoning them and preventing anyone from leaving to safety. Faculty, who once guided research on rehabilitation, neurology, or public health have become victims themselves, suffering from amputation, traumatic head injuries, and other critical injuries that leave them with lifelong disabilities and in need of ongoing medical treatment and care.
Targeting Gaza’s medical and academic infrastructure violates multiple international legal agreements. The Geneva Conventions protect hospitals and clinics, while UNESCO provides protections for universities, schools, and places of worship. However, these protections have been repeatedly ignored, leaving healthcare workers, faculty, and students exposed to ongoing violence, constant displacement, and the intentional destruction of the medical expertise needed to help a population experiencing active genocide and ethnic cleansing. Silence from major global organizations in the fields of academia, medicine, health, and human rights – including advocates for women’s and children’s rights – only worsens this injustice.
US healthcare organizations must show care. The American Medical Association (AMA), American Nursing Association (ANA), American Physical Therapy Association (APTA), American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA), and others, worldwide, failed to make clear statements and hesitated to speak openly about the issue in Gaza. It was as if their members were committing heresy by asking for our colleagues in Gaza to live! Universities across America contributed to creating an environment where pro-humanity, anti-war, and anti-genocide voices were silenced, gagged, gaslighted, and deflected on campus, simply for asking to stop the killing of Gaza’s people and to end US complicity by halting the use of tax dollars to send arms to Israel.
We all must continue to speak out and demand that the “Do no harm” oath be applied to protecting the people of Gaza and seeking justice for Palestinians through independent investigations into attacks on medical and academic staff. We all must also insist on substantial US-led support for rebuilding hospitals and educational institutions. Professional solidarity among medical workers, academic faculty, and students – with funding, partnerships, and policy advocacy – must accompany our moral clarity and outrage to ensure accountability and prevent future injustices and atrocities. Justice must mean ending the hypocrisy embedded in our own American society. The sanctity of life must be upheld for all people, regardless of their country of origin, race, background, or religion.
The lives and professional dignity of healthcare workers must be protected everywhere. If physicians, nurses, physical and occupational therapists, social workers, faculty, and students matter in New York City, London, or Tel Aviv, they must be protected just as much in Gaza City, Rafah, or Khan Younis. Professional medical organizations, medical boards, and academic unions need to find their voices, after months of silence, to condemn attacks on Palestinian educators, students, and healthcare workers, and actively advocate for safe humanitarian and educational access for everyone. They should oppose harmful visa-ban policies and push for entry visas so the most vulnerable patients can receive medical care from organizations like Heal Palestine.
Globally, meaningful aid is vital. Universities should establish fellowships for displaced Palestinian scholars and students, while governments must support open visa policies. Hospitals and rehabilitation centers need to provide telehealth, mentorship, trauma and mental health services, equipment donations, and ongoing medical education. These actions offer a path for Gaza to begin healing and for professional organizations and universities, which have remained silent during genocide, to contribute to healing, rehabilitation, and academic freedom that they claim to support.
Justice for Gaza’s healers is inseparable from justice for Gaza itself. The survival of societies depends on those who heal, nurse, rehabilitate, profess, research, teach, and uphold humanity’s highest oath of “Do no harm” by dedicating their lives to others’ welfare. If the world values human rights and professional integrity, then professors, students, medical and healthcare workers must be protected wherever they practice globally, and our professional organizations must use their voices to advocate for our colleagues both here and abroad.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/targeting-those-who-practice-do-no-harm-the-failure-to-protect-gazas-healers/
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Cairo Talks On Gaza Fail To Forge Palestinian Unity
Daoud Kuttab
October 31, 2025
Egypt’s efforts to craft a workable post-war plan for Gaza continue to face multiple obstacles. Beyond Israel’s repeated and unreasonable veto of any direct role for the Ramallah-based Palestinian government, even the more modest goal of achieving Palestinian consensus has proven elusive.
When Egypt’s intelligence minister invited select Palestinian faction leaders while excluding others, the Ramallah leadership, particularly the dominant Fatah movement, objected. The invitation extended to Samir Masharawi, a senior member of the Fatah Reformist Movement founded by Mohammed Dahlan, angered officials in Ramallah. Equally upsetting was the exclusion of Ahmad Majdalani, a member of the PLO Executive Committee and leader of the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front, a minor faction with little grassroots following.
Despite the absence of unanimity, those who did attend the Cairo talks agreed with their Egyptian hosts on certain criteria for a proposed technocratic governing body in Gaza. According to an Oct. 24 statement issued after the meetings, the plan envisions a “temporary Palestinian committee composed of independent technocrats from the Gaza Strip to manage essential services and daily life in cooperation with Arab partners and international organizations, based on principles of transparency and national accountability.”
However, the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority has expressed deep reservations about this process, which appears to follow the so-called “20-point Trump plan.” Palestinian officials argue that it disregards key international agreements, including the 1993 Declaration of Principles signed at the White House. This recognized Gaza and the West Bank as a single political entity under Palestinian law as legislated by the Palestinian Legislative Council.
As a compromise, the Palestinian government has offered to cede direct control, while insisting that the proposed committee be chaired by a member of the Palestinian Cabinet. But this idea seems to have been vetoed by Israel and is not supported by Cairo.
Another proposal gaining traction would place Amjad Shawa, the respected coordinator of Palestinian NGOs in Gaza, at the head of the committee. Hamas reportedly finds this acceptable. Yet critics on social media have voiced strong opposition, claiming that many of the NGOs involved lack transparency and accountability.
Progress on any political arrangement has also been delayed by continued Israeli violations of the ceasefire agreement and its refusal to move into the second phase of the truce plan. Israel insists that the next phase can begin only after all the bodies of its dead soldiers are returned from Gaza. Eleven bodies remain unrecovered, and the locations of at least five are unknown — a fact acknowledged by both Israel and the US. Nevertheless, Israel continues to condition the formal end of the war on the return of all remains.
A degree of Palestinian national unity would undoubtedly help address the governance vacuum facing Arab and international mediators. But Israel’s continued refusal to release several leading Palestinian prisoners has perpetuated the political stalemate.
That impasse may shift, however, following a surprising comment by US President Donald Trump suggesting that he might support the release of the most popular Palestinian prisoner, Marwan Barghouti. The statement has raised hopes among Barghouti’s family, supporters, and much of the Palestinian public.
Reactions to Trump’s remarks have varied. Jordanian columnist Oraib Rantawi, director of the Al-Quds Centre for Political Studies, wrote a column titled “From Solitary Prison to Al-Muqata’a via Gaza,” arguing that the US leader’s statement may have been an attempt to ensure that Barghouti’s release would be credited to him and not to Hamas.
Meanwhile, Barghouti’s wife, lawyer Fadwa Barghouti, reportedly sent a letter to Trump, the contents of which remain undisclosed. Her action has stirred concern within the Palestinian leadership about what assurances she may have given on her husband’s behalf. The matter appears to have prompted an unusual and unexplained presidential decree in Ramallah addressing the issue of political succession.
According to a brief published on the official WAFA website on Oct. 26: “President Mahmoud Abbas issued a constitutional declaration stipulating that, in the event of a vacancy in the office of the President of the Palestinian Authority, and in the absence of the Palestinian Legislative Council, the Vice President of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization — also the Vice President of the State of Palestine — will temporarily assume the duties of the president for a period not exceeding 90 days.”
The decree adds that elections must be held within this period, though it allows for a 90-day extension in cases of force majeure. Observers believe this clause could be invoked to delay elections — even if Barghouti is released and Abbas steps down — thereby preventing an immediate vote that the popular Barghouti would likely win.
The attempts to force an agreement without respecting international law or the consensus of the main Palestinian factions appear to be an exercise in futility. The Cairo Arab summit common, not to mention common political sense, dictates the inclusion of the Palestinian leadership in all aspects of governing and policing. The sooner the Trump administration understands this and stops adhering to the unreasonable Israeli vetoes, the sooner we will be on the right track to end this ugly war on the people of Gaza.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2620985
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Two Years After Oct 7, All Palestinians Have Gained Is More Tragedy
By Amotz Asa-El
October 31, 2025
It was not their finest hour, but it was their boldest day.
More than a century after launching their struggle, the Palestinian people waged their war’s most brazen attack. The political effort that began in 1919, when the First Arab Palestine Congress rejected the Jewish people’s right to any part of its homeland; and the violence unleashed in 1920, with anti-Jewish riots in Jerusalem, reached their unpredicted climax.
The Palestinians had never really fully confronted the IDF. When the War of Independence broke out, the fighting was taken over by neighbouring Arab armies. Even more embarrassingly, as the war wound down, the Palestinian militias that survived it were dismantled by Jordan.
Palestinians standing by
Three more Arab-Israeli wars were fought, with the Palestinians effectively standing by. A Palestinian military did participate in the First Lebanon War but the main showdown was between the IDF and the Syrian Army.
This changed in 1987, with the outbreak of the First Intifada. Now the Palestinians were the ones fighting, and the rest of the Arab world was standing by.
Militarily, however, that violence was mostly performed by squads of fewer than 10 people. The Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, by contrast, unleashed thousands of gunmen arriving by land, air, and sea, who attacked military installations as well as entire communities, triggering a protracted, regional war.
Now, as this war winds down, the question is whether the Palestinians gained anything from the war their leaders spawned. And the answer is they achieved nothing, other than to extend their tragedy and multiply their despair.
Militarily, the war ended in Palestinian defeat. Unlike its engineers’ assumptions, Israel recovered from its initial surprise, pursued its invaders, and conquered their turf. Moreover, the Palestinian strategists’ hope that their Lebanese and Iranian allies would complete Israel’s defeat ended with both of those allies floored.
Politically, too, the attack was a failure. The war hinged the Palestinian cause to the Islamist zeal that guided the October 7 massacre’s masterminds. Consequently, the Palestinians emerged with a new tragedy of displacement and more fatalities than they had ever sustained.
Yes, the war made many governments recognize Palestinian statehood. Yet that changed not one Palestinian’s life, and also did not create a Palestinian state. What the war did change was most Israelis’ mindset.
Three generations of Israelis, lynch-pinned by the majority that voted repeatedly for the two-state solution by electing Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, and Ehud Olmert – no longer believe the Palestinians want peace. They chose jihadism, and they got jihad.
The result of this choice – leveled cities, thousands of deaths, and massive displacement – has not produced leaders with the guts to shout in Hamas’s face “not in my name.” Maybe such leaders do exist, but until they emerge, speak up, and confront the zealots who hijacked their people, they won’t matter. What matters is that most Israelis don’t believe such Palestinian leaders exist.
The war was a turning point in Palestinian warring, but in terms of Palestinian hope, it added up to a huge leap backward.
The tragedy of the Palestinian people has been that their leaders, besides choosing violence and cultivating hatred, nurtured a culture of denial.
The lies were about the basics. They lied – to their people and to themselves – that the Jews are foreigners in this land, that the Jews are not a nation, and that the Jews conspired to rob, evict, and destroy the Holy Land’s Arab towns and Muslim shrines. This culture of denialism did not change even as the Jewish population grew exponentially, from 50,000 in 1919 to more than 7.5 million today, thus underscoring the historical roots and national attachment that, according to Palestinian leaders – from Haj Amin el-Husseini and Yasser Arafat, to Mahmoud Abbas and Yahya Ayyash – did not exist.
The war changed none of this. The number of Jews in Israel has grown by 0.5 million during this war. The Palestinian response to this consolidation has been to intensify the lying, shouting they are the victims of colonialism, apartheid, and genocide, instead of questioning their own choices’ assumptions, realism, and morality.
The war also retained the Palestinian pattern of making dreadful diplomatic choices.
It started with Nazi Germany. Logic suggested that the Palestinians would realize Hitler was actually accelerating Jewish immigration to Palestine, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that the Nazis hated the Jews. So blinding was the Palestinian leaders’ hatred that they didn’t reverse course even when the German tiger they rode raced to colossal defeat.
The syndrome then repeated itself during the Cold War, when a new generation of Palestinian leaders sided with the Soviet Union. Then, after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, they took Iraq’s side even when it faced the West, the East, and the entire Arab world.
Now the pattern repeated itself, as the Palestinians who waged this war cultivated a strategic alliance with the world’s biggest leper, the Islamic Republic of Iran.
To see the light, the Palestinians will have to do what the early Zionists did, when they told the Jews that their abuse is the fault of their own leaders; the leaders who for centuries told the Jews that their defeats and misery were God’s will, and that salvation will come through divine miracle and religious faith.
The defiance of these axioms meant turning where most Palestinians refuse to turn, even after their most disastrous war: introspection. The willingness to ask not where everyone else wronged us, but where we were wrong: tactically, strategically, and morally.
A day will come when remorse, reason, and accommodation will prevail, but the chances that it will come during this two-state advocate’s lifetime have never been lower. Yes, the Palestinians, too, will someday challenge the leaders who led them where they have arrived – but until that day, denial will blossom, hatred will rage, despair will fester, and violence will rule the day.
Last in a five-part series.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-872249
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Is A Political Assassination In Israel Possible Today?
By Yedidia Stern
October 31, 2025
Exactly 30 years ago, my life was turned upside down. On Saturday night, at midnight, the phone rang insistently. On the line was a CNN correspondent: “We’ve heard that the assassin is a student in the law faculty at Bar-Ilan University, where you are dean.”
That is how I learned, with revulsion, of the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin z”l (may his memory be a blessing). The next morning, I ran into a neighbour from my building, a professor at the Hebrew University. He looked at me angrily and snapped: “What have you done to us?” That is how I first encountered the idea that there is an “us,” the murdered, and a “you,” the religious among whom I am counted – the murderers.
I was shocked that the murderer acted, by his own account, out of religious motives. It was a dramatic illustration of the difficulties religion – shaped over two thousand years of exile – faces when confronting the most important Jewish phenomenon of our generation: the State of Israel.
I was shocked that the killer of statehood, embodied in the prime minister, drew legitimacy for his despicable act from ideological allies, including secular ones, who shared his ultra-nationalist positions. I was shocked by the social polarization that followed the assassination, which opened an ugly, jagged-toothed mouth against the “other” along sectoral lines.
In the wake of Rabin’s assassination, I decided to shift the focus of my work and research from corporate and financial law to public and religious law, out of an understanding that there is a danger of losing our national independence once again – like in the time of the destruction of the Temple – through the eruption of an Israeli war of brothers, a civil war.
Dangers of extremist tension since Rabin's assassination
Could a political assassination still occur in Israel today? Has the danger passed? Thirty years have gone by, full of fierce internal struggles, yet without an outbreak of extreme violence. Two events from those 30 years are noteworthy for not breaking into violence.
During the Gaza Disengagement, the “orange” camp, which experienced a humiliating expulsion, the destruction of a life’s work, and the reversal of a messianic-redemptive movement, showed incredible restraint and evacuated without violence. During the judicial overhaul period, the hundreds of thousands who demonstrated against what they perceived as the wrecking of democracy and the loss of their future also showed great restraint.
Few democratic societies have seen struggles over the very soul of a broad public conducted with such fervor, yet without resorting to firearms. It seems the lesson of Rabin’s assassination was learned.
YET, A recent survey by the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) shows that 81% of Israelis fear that there is a chance of a political assassination, and roughly half of the public thinks the likelihood is high. This fear is justified, as the root causes of the political violence that led to Rabin’s murder have not been addressed, and therefore, the danger remains.
Rabin’s assassination had a religious motive. The Oslo Accords created a conflict between some rabbis and the sovereign. The proclamation by hundreds of rabbis decrying the Oslo Accords under the banner of da’at Torah [the Torah’s opinion], treating it as a binding halachic ruling, is etched in infamy. Although there has been a certain sobriety about the destructive consequences of mixing Halacha and politics since Rabin’s assassination, it is clear that a body of serious religious thought on the meaning of sovereignty has yet to be developed.
Thus, the religious-Zionist rabbinate ridicules the state courts as “gentile tribunals” and undermines their legitimacy. Thus, the haredi rabbinate characterizes the IDF as a place “whose entrants do not return” – that haredi soldiers do not return from the military as haredim. These are expressions of the state’s lack of religious internalization. These are seeds of disaster, from which the conceptual leap to deadly violence, on religious grounds, against state officials, could be short.
Rabin’s assassination also had a political motive: The Right was pushed into a corner, and some of its extremist leaders, including the secular ones, claimed that the processes that led to the Oslo Accords lacked legitimacy, thereby implicitly “permitting” recourse to violence.
The situation today is even more serious: Social developments (the ongoing democratic crisis that drives the sectors apart), media dynamics (the ease of incitement and falsehood in the rough seas of social media), and geopolitical shocks (the October 7 massacre) have greatly raised the temperature of public life in Israel, and the possibility of a slide into violence hovers over us. Public trust in the state’s institutions – all of them – is at a historic low, which lowers inhibitions to act against the leaders who operate within them.
In light of these dangerous developments, are Israel’s authorities adequately dealing with inciters on both the Left and the Right? According to the JPPI survey, 80% of Israelis think the response is “less than it should be.” In other words, there is broad agreement that the mounting incitement must be addressed much more decisively.
We were privileged to be born as Jews in the generation of sovereignty. This imposes on all of us an enormous responsibility to treat the country and its leaders with respect. Sin crouches at the door.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-872227
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Remembering Israel's Assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, 30 Years On
By Liat Collins
October 31, 2025
Over the past 30 years, I have often shared my memories of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. The memories haven’t changed. But I have – and so has the country and the prism through which we recall events.
I grapple with the fact that while many Israelis remember exactly where they were when they heard about Rabin’s assassination on November 4, 1995, there is an entire generation that knows him only from history and civics lessons.
If Rabin’s assassination was Israel’s “Kennedy moment,” the Hamas invasion and mega-atrocity on October 7, 2023, was Israel’s “9/11” on steroids. It has colored the way we look at everything, “before” and “after.”
An AI search – the stuff of science fiction in Rabin’s day – describes him as “an Israeli statesman, military general, and two-time prime minister who pursued peace with the Palestinians and other Arab neighbours. His career culminated with the signing of the Oslo Accords, for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize, before he was assassinated by a right-wing extremist in 1995.”
It is, of course, a simplified version of his life. Had Rabin died of natural causes, he would be remembered by Israelis mainly as chief of staff in the 1967 Six Day War; the prime minister who helped the IDF recover after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and who ordered the stunning Operation Yonatan hostage rescue in Entebbe during his first term in office.
During his second term in office, he became an international icon after signing the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians, led by arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat, with whom he was awarded the Nobel together with Shimon Peres, although the accords were hugely divisive in Israel. The peace treaty with Jordan was far more popular.
As The Jerusalem Post’s parliamentary reporter, I regularly saw Rabin close up. I grew familiar with his distinctive half-smile, dismissive hand gesture, and dry wit. I also wrote about the massive failure by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) to protect the prime minister and the later revelations that it had operated agents provocateurs like Avishai Raviv (“Champagne”) to whip up the anti-Rabin rhetoric at rallies opposing the Oslo Accords.
I was present at the brief ceremony in the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem in September 1993 when he initialed the First Oslo Accord, recognizing the PLO. This was not a festive event, and journalists far outnumbered the “celebrants.” There were no Palestinians, just a few Israeli officials, and the four Norwegian diplomats who put the “Oslo” into the accords’ name.
I might have been the only person present who had publicly warned about the Oslo process – concerned about where the “Gaza and Jericho First” concept would end up. Rabin did not look any happier than I did. Oslo was largely the work of his political nemesis, Peres.
UNLIKE OSLO, I wholeheartedly celebrated the peace with Jordan, which I followed from the initial talks in an air-conditioned tent at Ein Evrona in the Arava desert. The signing of the peace treaty, 31 years ago this week, was truly historic and – although the peace is cold and far from Rabin’s vision – it has withstood even the tests of the post-October 7 war on seven fronts.
I had the opportunity to see the clear chemistry between Rabin and Jordan’s King Hussein, as they strolled together on the grounds of the Winter Palace in Aqaba, not long after the peace treaty was signed.
Incidentally, one of my memories from the ceremony is of the prime minister’s wife, Leah Rabin, mobilizing soldiers to search for a brooch that she lost somewhere at the desert site. I can just imagine what the headlines would say were Sarah Netanyahu to do something similar today.
It was the discovery that his wife had a dollar bank account in the US, in violation of Israeli foreign currency regulations, that caused Rabin to resign from the Labor Party leadership ahead of the 1977 elections. These were the elections that brought the Likud, under Menachem Begin, to power and changed the political face of the country.
That Israel managed to reach agreements with Egypt, Jordan, and with the Abraham Accords countries (for which US President Donald Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize), shows that peace is possible when there are partners who are genuinely willing to accept the existence of the Jewish state.
It is often overlooked that Rabin’s last term as prime minister was also marked by the rift caused by talk of leaving the strategic Golan Heights. The shocking and tragic nature of his death changed the way the public remembered him. The soundbite of Rabin in the Knesset comparing “settlers” opposed to withdrawal to “spinning propellers” has faded with time.
Today, we can understand just how disastrous handing the Golan Heights over to the Assad regime in Syria would have been. In the same way, even those who ardently supported Ariel Sharon’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 now realize that it was a stepping stone to the October 7, 2023, calamity. Indeed, the roots of October 7 can be traced back to the Oslo days.
ONE OF MY favorite Rabin recollections is from a 1993 tour of the Mandate-period detention camp at Atlit, where the British authorities used to imprison newly arrived Jews. Rabin told of his experiences as the deputy commander of a Palmach operation that helped more than 200 immigrants break out one night.
The Palmachniks had to get the newcomers up Mount Carmel to the safety of Kibbutz Beit Oren. He placed a two-year-old on his shoulders and set off as fast as he could. “Halfway up, I thought, ‘I’m really sweating,’” Rabin recounted. “Then I realized the warm, wet trickle down my back was coming from the toddler.
“But this is just one of the things I had to do to serve my country,” he added, with that trademark half-smile.
This was obviously a pleasanter memory for him than the shooting of the Altalena – a ship carrying arms for the Irgun in the early years of the state. It was largely the response of opposition leader Menachem Begin that prevented civil war.
Just after Rabin’s assassination, I met Likud MK Dov Shilansky, a former Knesset speaker, who was distraught. He had arrived as an immigrant on the ship on that fateful journey, but told me he had forgiven Rabin after Rabin had paid a shiva call to the Shilansky family when their son was killed in the military reserves.
One of my last memories of Rabin was of the prime minister joking and in unusually good spirits at the Labor faction meeting, just days before he was fatally shot at the peace rally in Tel Aviv. I remember, too, the incredible parade of international leaders who passed by his coffin at the Knesset, paying their last respects.
What would have happened if Rabin had never been assassinated?
THERE IS NO way to know what would have happened had Rabin not been assassinated. (And I can’t help wondering what would have happened had Trump not survived the two assassination attempts ahead of his last election.)
While the Left often claims that Rabin’s assassination killed the peace process, Palestinian suicide bombers were blowing it up from the start. Would Rabin have continued along the path that Peres was pushing him down or backtracked? After all, as defense minister during the First Intifada, Rabin deported hundreds of Hamas terrorists to Lebanon and was known for his “Iron Fist” policy.
The Israeli “pro-peace” camp has never forgiven Benjamin Netanyahu for beating Peres in the elections that followed Rabin’s assassination. In fact, the Left has never forgiven Begin for beating Rabin in the 1977 “Upheaval.” Among other things, this was the catalyst for the shift of power from the government and Knesset to the attorney-general and courts.
This led to its own chain reaction. The turmoil over the proposed judicial reform and the response to it that preceded October 7 considerably weakened the country and contributed to the disaster.
Political assassinations threaten democracy, whichever side they come from. Earlier this year, a woman was arrested for allegedly plotting to kill Netanyahu. In an era when hate speech is literally viral, courtesy of social media – in a way that was unimaginable 30 years ago – much greater care must be taken to avoid demonizing the country’s political leaders. They are human beings, neither saints nor satanic.
Rabin’s legacy has been eroded over the past three decades, but the lesson about the dangers of political extremism must not be allowed to die.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-872243
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War Unlikely To Return To Lebanon And Gaza
by Dr Sania Faisal El-Husseini
October 31, 2025
A return to war in southern Lebanon or Gaza now seems improbable, despite the fragile ceasefire in both regions. The United States, which brokered and enforced the truces, appears determined to give Israel the time and space to finish what it could not achieve on the battlefield. What Israel failed to secure through war, it now seeks to achieve in a low intensity warfare a one characterised a steady pressure on Beirut and Gaza, and marked by instability and tension. Washington’s approach appears to be rooted in a strategy of sustained pressure on Beirut and Gaza.
There is little doubt left about where the United States stands. Its support for Israel is absolute, but its strategies evolved and shifted toward a new ones. Rather than supporting an escalation, Washington now seems to favour a subtler method that keeps lines of communication open while tightening pressure on Israel’s rivals, and permitting only limited and controlled clashes. Lebanon has become the testing ground for this new approach. The truce brokered late last year was violated by Israel within hours; Beirut, for its part, chose to keep silent.
Nevertheless, Washington has continued to exert pressure on the Lebanese government to comply with conditions that extend well beyond the scope of the ceasefire. These conditions intrude into Lebanon’s domestic sphere and carry implications for its internal stability and security. Rather than addressing Israel’s violations of the truce, the United States has largely justified them while cautioning Beirut that further Israeli actions could follow if it fails to meet Washington’s expanded expectations.
In Gaza, Hamas abided by the terms of the truce, promptly releasing living detainees once the agreement took effect. It also began efforts to recover the bodies of those killed beneath the ruins due to Israeli bombardment, even allowing external actors to assist in locating those bodies. Israel, however, breached the ceasefire under tenuous pretexts, resuming airstrikes and maintaining strict control over the entry of essential humanitarian supplies, including food and medicine. The United States has threatened Hamas with destruction if it failed to return those Israeli bodies, while Israel continues to occupy the Gaza Strip, target civilians, and restrict the entry of essential goods, all in blatant violation of the ceasefire terms. Although recent remarks by President Donald Trump rejecting Israel’s formal annexation of the West Bank and insisting that he “would not allow it,” his administration has refrained from criticising Israel’s declared measures or its silent annexation on the ground. The US does not recognise the West Bank as occupied territory, nor does it condemn the violence of Israeli settlers, violence openly backed by the occupation government. Notably, the annexation plan has been part of Trump’s “Deal of the Century” declared during his first term in office.
Meanwhile, Washington continues to exert political and financial pressure on the Palestinian Authority, while adopting increasingly confrontational positions toward countries that have recently recognised the State of Palestine. In Lebanon, a number of analysts have interpreted Israel’s recent military escalation as a potential prelude to a renewed war. However, other indicators point in the opposite direction. Israeli operations along the border have continued to be intermittent since the ceasefire began, but the fluctuating intensity of these actions does not necessarily signal that a full-scale war is imminent. On the ground, the picture is more restrained: Israel has reduced the number of reserve troops stationed on the northern front, cancelled earlier mobilisation orders, and initiated the return of Jewish settlers to northern settlements near the Lebanese border.
Statements from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his cabinet officials, and Israeli military experts indicate that Israel now prefers to pressure the Lebanese government into disarming Hezbollah entirely, going beyond what was stipulated in the most recent ceasefire terms. The provisions of the ceasefire concerning Hezbollah’s armament are linked to UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which mandates the group’s disarmament south of the Litani River, a commitment observed by the Lebanese government in coordination with Hezbollah. However, the US envoy to the Middle East has now set a new, explicit condition: that the Lebanese government must ensure Hezbollah’s complete disarmament across all Lebanese territory. The demand mirrors Israel’s public position, and the American message is clear: failure to comply could invite further Israeli attacks and new economic sanctions on a country still struggling with the aftermath of war. Meanwhile, Israel has maintained pressure on Lebanon through continued, tacit violations of the ceasefire and by conducting daily air raids. It also remains present in five new positions it captured inside Lebanese territory following the war, altering their geography in ways that suggest a longer-term presence, despite the truce’s requirement for full withdrawal. In addition, Israel continues to hold the territories it occupied before the war.
Israel has also been targeting agricultural lands and civilian movements in southern Lebanon, deliberately impeding their return to normal life, another layer of pressure on the Lebanese government. It therefore appears that Israel, in concert with its American ally, has chosen to consolidate the gains it made on the battlefield in the recent conflict rather than pursue a wider war that would require a ground invasion to eliminate Hezbollah. Instead, Washington and Jerusalem seem to be relying on a strategy of sustained pressure on Beirut to achieve what they failed to accomplish militarily: the dismantling of Hezbollah’s arsenal. Ultimately, the question of disarmament and Lebanon’s domestic security arrangements should be resolved by the Lebanese people, their government and political actors in accordance with national interests; no external actor is entitled to exploit Lebanon’s post-conflict economic and humanitarian vulnerabilities to impose conditions. Conversely, the annexation or occupation of foreign territory constitutes an international concern, warranting the attention and potential intervention of the international community and its institutions to re-establish security and stability.
The Palestinian situation appears far more complex than Lebanon’s. The ceasefire brokered by the United States guaranteed Israel the return of all living Israeli detainees and the search for those still buried under the rubble. Nevertheless, Israel maintains effective control over Gaza’s security structures while continuing airstrikes and lethal operations that have resulted in significant civilian casualties. Thousands of Palestinians remain imprisoned in Israeli prisons, and Israel continues to withhold the bodies of hundreds of Palestinians in its custody. The situation in Gaza remains dire. The cessation of active hostilities has not brought an end to the humanitarian crisis confronting its population. Indeed, the persistence of the present conditions may enable the Israeli army’s to advance their strategic objectives over the population without the political and military costs of renewed large-scale warfare. Conversely, Israel and its allies have sought to achieve the disarmament of Hamas and other Palestinian factions in Gaza, yet such an outcome remains elusive.
Efforts to establish a Palestinian administrative committee to govern the enclave have not materialised, nor have the contours of potential Arab participation been clearly delineated. These unresolved issues lie at the heart of Gaza’s long term stability, remain undefined and politically opaque. At the same time, Palestinians in the West Bank are called upon to undertake “reforms,” while those in Gaza equipped with only rudimentary means of defence face mounting pressure to relinquish their arms under Israeli occupition. The United States continues to exert political pressure on the Palestinians, even as Israel operates largely unrestrained, impeding Palestinian life across the board.
The United States appears to be employing a similar strategy of calibrated pressure in both Lebanon and Palestine, seeking to enable Israel to attain objectives that eluded it through war. Through a mix of ceasefire arrangements, economic constraints, and controlled Israeli escalation, Washington and Tel Aviv rely on the passage of time as a strategic instrument to consolidate gains in two war weary states.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20251031-war-unlikely-to-return-to-lebanon-and-gaza/
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URL: https://www.newageislam.com/middle-east-press/israel-rape-assassination-yitzhak-rabin/d/137475
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