Middle East Press On: Colonialists, Palestinians, UNSC, Gaza Resolution: New Age Islam's Selection, 19 November 2025
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
19 November 2025
No More Custodians And Colonialists, Palestinians Will Reject Even A Benign Western Control
A Mandate For Force: What The UNSC’s Gaza Resolution Means In Practice
Why Does Trump Want To Pardon Netanyahu, Would It Even Heal Israel's Divided Society?
Israel Must Pivot From US Partisanship Dependent On Republican Loyalty
Witkoff Must Meet With Hamas Directly, Or Gaza Risks Becoming The Quagmire Of 1982 Beirut
Germany’s Decision To Take In Donkeys From Gaza For Treatment – But Not Children – Has Sparked Outrage
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No More Custodians And Colonialists, Palestinians Will Reject Even A Benign Western Control
by Ranjan Solomon
November 18, 2025
The recent vote in the UN Security Council on Gaza – with Russia and China pointedly abstaining and the West once again attempting to choreograph the outcome – marked a moment that history may one day identify as a subtle but decisive shift. Not because the resolution itself alters the facts on the ground. It doesn’t. Gaza remains in ruins, Palestinians remain under the boot of an unrestrained occupying power, and Washington still acts as the global custodian of Israeli impunity.
Rather, this vote matters because it revealed something the West has long tried to conceal: that Palestinians no longer accept, and the world no longer believes in, the idea that Gaza is a space to be managed, administered, “stabilised,” or reconstructed by external custodians – feigning benevolence. Not by the United States. Not by Europe. Not by a Trump–Netanyahu blueprint dressed up in humanitarian language. Not even by international institutions that imagine themselves neutral while enabling the status quo.
The era when Great Powers could simply appoint themselves guardians of Palestine, deciding who governs Gaza and how, is culminating. The vote exposed the exhaustion of this imperial pretence. Gaza is not a Protectorate. It is not a failed territory awaiting trusteeship. It is not a strategic sandbox for Western experiments in “post-conflict governance.” Gaza is an occupied land belonging to a people who demand – and are entitled to complete self-rule.
To insist that Palestinians need custodians is not only politically fraudulent. It is legally unsustainable. Gaza is not real estate waiting for a landlord. Gaza is not a geopolitical vacuum into which global powers can insert their “solutions.” Gaza is Palestinian land, and under international law, Palestinians alone have the right to determine its future.
Everything else – the Western reconstruction plans, the “security mechanisms,” the talk of Arab-led stabilisation, the proposal to outsource Gaza to a foreign administration – is, but a thin repackaging of the same old project, to deny Palestinians sovereignty under the guise of responsible management.
The UNSC vote and the myth of neutral guardianship
The West desperately sought a resolution that would legitimise its vision of Gaza’s “day after” – a vision that both Trump and Netanyahu have crudely articulated, namely that Gaza must be contained, fragmented, and directed by powers other than the people who live there. The resolution’s language attempted to smuggle in the idea that Gaza requires a carefully supervised transition, with “acceptable” Palestinian actors vetted by Israel and the United States.
Russia and China abstained not out of indifference but to signal the obvious: this resolution was never about Palestinian self-determination. It was about manufacturing consent for externally designed governance structures. By withholding their support, Moscow and Beijing made clear that the West’s attempt to codify a custodial order over Gaza lacked legitimacy.
But more importantly, Palestinian society itself has rendered such proposals obsolete. Across Gaza, the West Bank, and the diaspora, the message is unmistakable: no more trustees, no more guardians, no more caretakers of the Palestinian will.
International law is unambiguous: Gaza is not yours to govern
Under the Fourth Geneva Convention and the core principles of the UN Charter, the right of a people under occupation is not to be administered by third parties but to exercise national self-determination. Every “transitional authority” imposed by foreign powers – no matter how humanitarian its vocabulary – violates this principle.
Gaza’s status is not ambiguous.
Israel is the occupying power.
The occupation is illegal.
The siege is collective punishment.
And the right to self-government rests solely with Palestinians not with international coalitions claiming to act on their behalf.
The West’s repeated attempts to design the administrative architecture of Gaza are not proposals; they are breaches of law dressed in diplomatic language. Even the insistence that Gaza must be governed by “reformed” Palestinian institutions vetted by Western capitals is a violation of the basic principle of self-determination. The political configuration of Palestinian governance is the exclusive domain of Palestinians. Not Tel Aviv. Not Washington. Not Brussels. And certainly not former colonial powers still struggling to reconcile with the fact that their era is over.
Gaza is not real estate: it is history, identity, and national continuity
The West continues to speak of Gaza as if it were a property problem. A place to be rebuilt, administered, secured, fenced, or leased. A space to be redesigned through “development packages” and “security compacts.” But Gaza is not a zone of crisis management – it is one of the oldest, most continuous communities of the Palestinian people. Gaza is, in poin5t of fact, an ancient historical entity with a continuous history of habitation spanning over 4,000 years, functioning as a vital trade hub and a crossroads of civilizations between Egypt and the Levant.
For the West, real estate thinking comes naturally. Land is property. Property is power. And power belongs to those who can enforce it. It is a capitalist notion of tenure and tenants.
For Palestinians, the paradigm is in stark contrast. Land is memory, belonging, and the right to exist as a people. Gaza contains the living history of displacement: families rooted in villages across what is now Israel, carrying the trauma of the Nakba, holding keys to homes they were violently expelled from. Gaza is not an administrative unit. It is the beating heart of Palestinian nationhood.
This is why every attempt to partition, rehabilitate, internationalise, or reassign Gaza collapses. Because Palestine is not a managerial problem – it is a national question. The West keeps trying to govern land, while Palestinians insist on governing themselves.
Why the West cannot govern Gaza – not even “for its own good”
The West’s failure is not merely moral. It is structural. Its record in the Middle East is a catalogue of disasters rooted in the same patronising assumption: that Arabs and Muslims require guidance, supervision, and discipline from “civilised” powers.
In Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Lebanon, foreign custodianship destroyed far more than it built. But Gaza is an even more glaring case. For decades, Western states funded the siege, shielded Israel from accountability, armed the occupation, and vilified Palestinian political expression. These are not neutral actors. They are co-architects of the catastrophe.
A custodian cannot simultaneously be the enabler of oppression. Western claims to benevolent governance are incompatible with their decades-long support for Israel’s domination of Palestinian life. If the West truly wanted Gaza to be free, safe, and stable, it would stop arming the state that bombs its people, destroys its hospitals, starves its children, and flattens its neighbourhoods. Instead, it offers proposals for “responsible administration” that Palestinians are expected to accept with gratitude.
No occupied people in history have ever accepted such terms – and Palestinians will not be the first.
In the final analysis, Palestinian self-rule is not an aspiration; it is an inevitability. The West, in its sophisticated crudity, continues to behave as though Palestinian sovereignty is a privilege that may be granted once Palestinians mature into acceptable political actors. This worldview is a relic of colonial paternalism. It is the same logic the British used in Mandate Palestine, arguing that Palestinians were not yet capable of governing the land they had inhabited for centuries.
But history keeps asserting itself. Every uprising, every wave of resistance, every assertion of national identity is a reminder that Palestinians do not seek permission to exist as a people. They claim it by right. The UNSC vote may not deliver liberation, but it revealed a deeper truth: the world is no longer convinced by Western narratives of Palestinian incapacity. A growing global consensus recognises that Gaza cannot be governed by external powers because the external powers bear responsibility for the devastation. From trusteeship to liberation: the shift is already underway
The world is changing. Younger generations across continents are rejecting the old colonial storylines. South Africa’s leadership, Latin American states, African blocs, Asian alliances – all increasingly speak in a language the West hoped would disappear: the language of anti-colonial justice.
Gaza is not a humanitarian crisis to be managed. It is a liberation struggle to be recognised. This is why the Trump–Netanyahu vision for Gaza’s future – a patchwork of controlled zones, demilitarised enclaves, and externally appointed governors – is already dead-on arrival. Only those who misunderstand the moment believe that Palestinians will accept such an arrangement.
The vote at the UNSC did not resolve the struggle. But it exposed the limits of Western custodianship and the persistence of Palestinian determination. The imperial toolbox is empty. Whatever may remain of it is valueless and obsolete. The language of trusteeship has lost legitimacy. And Palestinians are making it clear that the future of Gaza will not be negotiated over their heads – it will be shaped by their own hands.
No more guardians. No more intermediaries. No more custodians
The world cannot govern Gaza. The West cannot stabilise Gaza. Israel cannot redesign Gaza. And no international coalition can administer Gaza without becoming part of the machinery that denies Palestinians their sovereignty.
Gaza’s future belongs to Palestinians – not as a concession, but as a right rooted in history, law, and the unbreakable continuity of a people who refuse to be erased. No more custodians. No more trustees. No more guardians.
Palestinians will rule Gaza – because Gaza is Palestine, and Palestine belongs to its people.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20251118-no-more-custodians-and-colonialists-palestinians-will-reject-even-a-benign-western-control/
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A Mandate for Force: What the UNSC’s Gaza Resolution Means in Practice
By Robert Inlakesh
November 19, 2025
Passing with 13 votes in favour and none in defiance, the new Security Council resolution has given the United States a mandate to create what it calls an “International Stabilization Force” (ISF) and “Board of Peace” committee to seize power in Gaza. US President Donald Trump has hailed the resolution as historic, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has stood in opposition to an element of the resolution that mentions Palestinian Statehood.
In order to understand what has just occurred, it requires a breakdown of the resolution itself and the broader context surrounding the ceasefire deal. When these elements are combined, it becomes clear that this resolution is perhaps one of the most shameful to have passed in the history of the United Nations, casting shame on it and undermining the very basis on which it was formed to begin with.
An Illegal Regime Change Resolution
In September of 2025, a United Nations commission of inquiry found Israel to have committed the crime of genocide in the Gaza Strip.
For further context, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the most powerful international legal entity and organ of the UN, ruled that Israel is plausibly committing genocide and thus issued orders for Tel Aviv to end specific violations of international law in Gaza, which were subsequently ignored.
Taking this into consideration, the UN itself cannot claim ignorance of the conditions suffered by the people of Gaza, nor could it credibly posit that the United States is a neutral actor capable of enforcing a balanced resolution of what its own experts have found to be a genocide.
This resolution itself is not a peace plan and robs Palestinians of their autonomy entirely; thus, it is anti-democratic in its nature. It was also passed due in large part to threats from the United States against both Russia and China, that if they vetoed it, the ceasefire would end and the genocide would resume. Therefore, both Beijing and Moscow abstained from the vote, despite the Russian counterproposal and initial opposition to the resolution.
It also gives a green light to what the US calls a “Board of Peace”, which will work to preside over governing Gaza during the ceasefire period. The head of this board is none other than US President Trump himself, who says he will be joined by other world leaders. Former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who launched the illegal invasion of Iraq, has been floated as a potential “Board of Peace” leader also.
On February 4 of this year, President Trump vowed to “take over” and “own” the Gaza Strip. The American President later sought to impose a plan for a new Gaza, which he even called the “Gaza Riviera”, which was drawn up by Zionist economist Joseph Pelzman. Part of Pelzman’s recommendations to Trump was that “you have to destroy the whole place, restart from scratch”.
As it became clear that the US alone could not justify an invasion force and simply take over Gaza by force, on behalf of Israel, in order to build “Trump Gaza”, a casino beach land for fellow Jeffrey Epstein-connected billionaires, a new answer was desperately sought. Then came a range of meetings between Trump administration officials and regional leaderships, aimed at working out a strategy to achieve their desired goals in Gaza.
After the ceasefire was violated in March by the Israelis, leading to the mass murder of around 17,000 more Palestinians, a number of schemes were being hatched and proposals set forth. The US backed and helped to create the now-defunct so-called “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” (GHF) program, which was used to privatize the distribution of aid in the territory amidst a total blockade of all food for three months.
Starving Palestinians, who were rapidly falling into famine, flocked to these GHF sites, where they were fired upon by US private military contractors and Israeli occupation forces, murdering over 1,000 civilians. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and France were busy putting together what would become the “New York Declaration” proposal for ending the war and bringing Western nations to recognize the State of Palestine at the UN.
Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, here came Trump’s so-called “peace plan” that was announced at the White House in October. This plan appeared at first to be calling for a total end to the war, a mutual prisoner exchange and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza in a phased approach.
From the outset, Trump’s “20-point plan” was vague and impractical. Israel immediately violated the ceasefire from the very first day and has murdered nearly 300 Palestinians since then. The first phase of the ceasefire deal was supposed to end quickly, ideally within five days, but the deal has stalled for over a month.
Throughout this time, it has become increasingly clear that the Israelis are not going to respect the “Yellow Line” separation zone and have violated the agreement through operating deeper into Gaza than they had originally agreed to. The Israeli-occupied zone was supposed to be 53% of Gaza; it has turned out to be closer to 58%. Aid is also not entering at a sufficient rate, despite US and Israeli denials; this has been confirmed by leading rights groups and humanitarian organizations.
In the background, the US team dealing with the ceasefire deal that is headed by Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff has been juggling countless insidious proposals for the future of Gaza. Even publicly stating that reconstruction will only take place in the Israeli-controlled portion of the territory, also floating the idea that aid points will be set up there in order to force the population out of the territory under de facto Hamas control. This has often been referred to as the “new Gaza plan”.
As this has all been in the works, including discussions about bringing back the disastrous GHF, the Israelis have been working alongside four ISIS-linked collaborator death squads that it controls and who operate behind the Yellow Line in Gaza.
No mechanisms have been put in place to punish the Israelis for their daily violations of the ceasefire, including the continuation of demolition operations against Gaza’s remaining civilian infrastructure. This appears to be directly in line with Joseph Pelzman’s plan earlier this year to “destroy the whole place”.
The UNSC resolution not only makes Donald Trump the effective leader of the new administrative force that will be imposed upon the Gaza Strip, but also greenlights what it calls its International Stabilization Force. This ISF is explicitly stated to be a multi-national military force that will be tasked with disarming Hamas and all Palestinian armed groups in the Gaza Strip.
The US claims it won’t be directly involved in the fighting with “boots on the ground”; it has already deployed hundreds of soldiers and has been reportedly building a military facility, which they deny is a base, but for all intents and purposes will be one. Although it may not be American soldiers killing and dying while battling Palestinian resistance groups, they will be in charge of this force.
This is not a “UN peacekeeping force” and is not an equivalent to UNIFIL in southern Lebanon; it is there to carry out the task of completing Israel’s war goal of defeating the Palestinian resistance through force. In other words, foreign soldiers will be sent from around the world to die for Israel and taxpayers from those nations will be footing the bill.
The only reason why Israel has reservations about this plan is because it included a statement claiming that if the Palestinian Authority (PA) – that does not control Gaza and is opposed by the majority of the Palestinian people – undergoes reforms that the West and Israel demand, then conditions “may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.” A keyword here is “may”, in other words, it is not binding and was simply added in to give corrupted Arab leaderships the excuse to vote yes.
Hamas and every other Palestinian political party, with the exception of the mainstream branch of Fatah that answers to Israel and the US, have opposed this UNSC resolution. Hamas even called upon Algeria to vote against it; instead, the Algerian leadership praised Donald Trump and voted in favor. Typical of Arab and Muslim-Majority regimes that don’t represent the will of their people, they all fell in line and bent over backwards to please Washington.
It Won’t Likely Work
As has been the story with every conspiracy hatched against the people of Gaza, this is again destined to fail. Not only will it fail, but it will likely backfire enormously and lead to desperate moves.
To begin with, the invasion force, or ISF, will be a military endeavour that will have to bring together tens of thousands of soldiers who speak different languages and have nothing in common, in order to somehow achieve victory where Israel failed. It is a logistical nightmare to even think about.
How long would it take to deploy these soldiers? At the very least, it’s going to take months. Then, how long would this process take? Nobody has any clear answers here. Also, what happens if Israel begins bombing again at any point, for example, if there is a clash that kills Israeli soldiers? What would these nations do if Israeli airstrikes killed their soldiers or put them in harm’s way?
Also, tens of thousands of soldiers may not cut it; if the goal is to destroy all the territory’s military infrastructure, they may need hundreds of thousands. Or if that isn’t an option, will they work alongside the Israeli military?
It is additionally clear that nobody knows where all the tunnels and fighters are; if Israel couldn’t find them, then how can anyone else? After all, the US, UK, and various others have helped the Israelis with intelligence sharing and reconnaissance for over two years to get these answers.
Finally, when Arab, European, or Southeast Asian soldiers return to their nations in body bags, how do their regimes justify this? Will the President or Prime Minister of these nations have to stand up and tell their people… “sorry guys, your sons and daughters are now in coffins because Israel needed a military force capable of doing what they failed to do, so we had to help them complete their genocidal project”. Also, how many Palestinian civilians are going to be slaughtered by these foreign invaders?
As for the plan to overthrow Hamas rule in Gaza, the people of the territory will not accept foreign invaders as their occupiers any more than they will accept Israelis. They are not going to accept ISIS-linked collaborators as any kind of security force either. Already, the situation is chaotic inside Gaza, and that is while its own people, who are experienced and understand their conditions, are in control of managing security and some administrative issues; this includes both Hamas and others who are operating independently of it, but inside the territory under its de facto control.
Just as the Israeli military claimed it was going to occupy Gaza City, laying out countless plans to do this, to ethnically cleanse the territory and “crush Hamas”, the US has been coordinating alongside it throughout the entirety of the last two years. Every scheme has collapsed and ended in failure.
It has been nearly a month and a half, yet there are still no clear answers as to how this Trump “peace plan” is supposed to work and it is clear that the Israelis are coming up with new proposals on a daily basis.
There is no permanent mechanism for aid transfers, which the Israelis are blocking. There is no clear vision for governance. The “two Gazas” plan is not even part of the ceasefire or Trump plan, yet it is being pursued in an incoherent way. The ISF makes no sense and appears as poorly planned as the GHF. Hamas and the other Palestinian factions will not give up their weapons. There is no real plan for reconstruction. The Israelis are adamant that there will be no Palestinian State and won’t allow any independent Palestinian rule of Gaza, and the list of problems goes on and on.
What it really looks like here is that this entire ceasefire scheme is a stab in the dark attempt to achieve Israel’s goals while also giving its forces a break and redirecting their focus on other fronts, understanding that there is no clear solution to the Gaza question for now.
The United Nations has shown itself over the past two years to be nothing more than a platform for political theatre. It is incapable of punishing, preventing, or even stopping the crime of all crimes.
Now that international law has suffocated to death under the rubble of Gaza, next to the thousands of children who still lie underneath it, the future of this conflict will transform. This UNSC vote demonstrates that there is no international law, no international community, and that the UN is simply a bunch of fancy offices, which are only allowed to work under the confines of gangster rule.
If the Palestinian resistance groups feel as if their backs are against the wall and an opportunity, such as another Israeli war on Lebanon, presents them the opportunity, then there is a high likelihood that a major military decision will be made. In the event that this occurs, it will be this UNSC resolution that is in large part responsible.
When the suffering in Gaza finally ends, whether that is because Israel obliterates all of its regional opposition and exterminates countless other civilians in its way, or Israel is militarily shattered, the UN should be disbanded as was the League of Nations. It is a failed project just as that which preceded it. Something new must take over from it.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/a-mandate-for-force-what-the-unscs-gaza-resolution-means-in-practice/
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Why Does Trump Want To Pardon Netanyahu, Would It Even Heal Israel's Divided Society?
By Susan Hattis Rolef
November 19, 2025
The involvement of US President Donald Trump in the campaign to get President Isaac Herzog to pardon Prime Minister Benjamin NetanyahuOpens link in new window. of the charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, for which he is standing trial in three separate cases, has drawn more attention to the pardon issue than it would have received if he had acted more conventionally.
In conventional international relations, the leader of any state is expected to avoid meddling in the internal affairs of other states. Intervening in the domestic legal travails of the leader or a prominent figure in a foreign state is considered to fall under the category of “it isn’t done,” even if the latter has sought such intervention, as seems to be the case regarding the issue of Trump and Netanyahu’s pardon.
The problem in Trump’s case is that he is intent on pooh-poohing most aspects of conventional international relations, including international law, international convention, and the institutional aspects of the post-World War II international order, of which the United States was the chief architect.
On three occasions since last June, Trump called for ending Netanyahu’s trialOpens link in new window. or giving him a pardon. On June 26, Trump wrote on his Truth Social account: “Bibi Netanyahu’s trial should be CANCELLED, IMMEDIATELY, or a Pardon given to a Great Hero, who has done so much for the State [of Israel].”
He followed by describing Netanyahu’s trial as a “witch hunt.” Former Supreme Court chief justice Aharon Barak, who in the past supported reaching a plea bargain with Netanyahu or pardoning him under certain strict conditions, stated at the time that Trump’s intervention was unprecedented and “very disturbing.”
The next two times Trump spoke on the issue, he approached Herzog directly. The first time was during his speech in the Knesset plenum on October 13, when he turned to Herzog, who was present, and said, “Mr. President, why don’t you pardon him (as he pointed to Netanyahu),” and received a burst of applause from members of the government, coalition MKs, and a few opposition MKs. The second time was in an official letter sent last Wednesday – a letter full of paradoxical statements and factual inaccuracies.
One of the paradoxes was the following: “While I absolutely respect the independence of the Israeli Justice System, and its requirements, I believe that this ‘case’ against Bibi... is a political, unjustified prosecution.”
One of the many factual inaccuracies was, “it is time to let Bibi unite Israel by pardoning him, and ending that ‘lawfare’ once and for all.”
However, it is not Netanyahu’s trialOpens link in new window. that prevents him from trying to heal the divisions in Israeli society. It is he himself who increases these divisions by means of the Likud’s “poison machine” directed against all critics of Netanyahu personally and his government.
Trump's motivation: justice or power?
His main motivating force seems to be his desire to stay in power at any cost, with the help of his coalition, and a policy of doing away with Israel’s liberal democracy and liberal legal system. Pardoning Netanyahu is more likely to encourage him to further divide society than to heal it.
If Netanyahu were to stop refusing to take responsibility for any of his political and personal lacunae and faux pas, to ask for a pardon himself or by means of a close relative (as the law prescribes), to agree to admit to at least some of the charges brought against him (especially within the framework of Case 1000Opens link in new window.), and to exit from public life – Herzog would gladly pardon him. But none of this is likely to happen, according to Netanyahu himself.
It is quite likely that Trump sincerely believes that Netanyahu is totally innocent of any wrongdoing and that pardoning him is an act of pure justice. However, we know of at least one recent case in which Trump demanded that charges be removed from a former foreign leader – former Brazilian president Jair BolsonaroOpens link in new window., who on September 12 was found guilty by the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court on charges of plotting a military coup designed to keep him in power after he had lost the 2022 election to his left-wing rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
One may recall that following the 2020 presidential election in the US, Trump was also accused (but never tried) of the violent attack on the CapitolOpens link in new window. that took place on January 6, 2021, in an attempt to overturn the electoral victory of the Democratic candidate Joe Biden, which he believed to have been fraudulent.
At any rate, Trump reacted to the decision of the Brazilian court in July to prosecute Bolsonaro by announcing a 50% tariff on Brazilian exports to the US (the tariff was reduced to 40% the following month), and after Bolsonaro received a 27-year and three-month prison sentence, he accused the court of engaging in a “witch hunt.”
Whatever Trump believes or feels about Netanyahu, there is no doubt that his interest in a pardon for Netanyahu is based, at least in part, on his own ambition to receive a Nobel Peace Prize. Since establishing a settlement between Israel and the Gaza Strip is an important part of his peace-making efforts around the world, and Trump believes that at this stage, without Netanyahu, this cannot be achieved, releasing Netanyahu from his trial and from the possibility that he might be found guilty if he is not pardoned, is of the highest importance to him.
At least at the moment, Trump seems to be deliberately ignoring the fact that, after all the hostages – alive and dead – will be returned to Israel, Netanyahu might decide not to move to the next stage of Trump’s 20-point settlement planOpens link in new window. for the Gaza Strip, which – rightly or wrongly – Netanyahu views, in its current form, to be opposed to the most basic Israeli interests.
At this stage, most of the Israeli commentators seem to agree that the chances for Herzog deciding to pardon Netanyahu are at best meager, primarily because Netanyahu is unlikely to accept the most generous conditions Herzog is capable of offering him, without losing whatever respect and prestige he still possesses in the liberal/Left circles from which he emerged.
At the same time, it should be added that if Netanyahu’s trial will be allowed to linger on at its current snail pace and style, it is likely to last for at least another five years, and no matter how the trial will end, the damage this will cause to Israel’s already rickety legal system, and fractured society, is likely to be severe.
This consideration should not be taken lightly.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-874318
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Israel Must Pivot From US Partisanship Dependent On Republican Loyalty
By Ofer Israeli
November 19, 2025
For over 50 years, US support for IsraelOpens link in new window. was the singular constant in American foreign policy, a commitment that transcended party lines.
That era is definitively over. American politics has transformed Israel from a strategic ally into a volatile symbol of domestic partisan identity, a change accelerated dramatically by the conflict following October 2023. Jerusalem now faces a fractured Washington, where consensus has dissolved into ideological rivalry.
This strategic uncertainty is no longer abstract. While core military aid still passes, legislative debates, such as recent roll-call votes on aid packages, reveal measurable political contestation along ideological lines that were previously unthinkable. For Israel, this mandates an urgent strategic pivot away from nostalgia and toward aggressive diplomatic adaptation.
Diagnosing the two rifts
The collapse of consensus stems from two divergent, yet equally dangerous partisan trends in the United States.
Within the Democratic Party, a generational realignment has fundamentally shifted perception. Israel is no longer viewed universally as a fellow democracy under siege but often recast through the lens of identity and oppression, seen as a privileged power aligned with “Western systems of inequality.”
This ideological reframing is the source of pressure for conditional aid and arms restrictions.
The most critical manifestation of this shift is the collapse of centrist Democratic attachment. Recent data show that 68% of Democrats now believe the US should avoid taking a side in the conflict. This move toward active neutrality, driven by younger and college-educated voters, severely shrinks the political window for unconditional US support.
2. The Republican Right’s personalized loyalty.
Support from the Republican Party remains robust, particularly among Evangelicals and MAGA conservatives. However, this loyalty is increasingly tribal and personalized, often framed as part of a broader culture-war narrative. This dependence is strategically shortsighted for Israel, as it ties its fate to a specific political faction.
Should a future populist movement fully embrace isolationism, the stability that Israel relies upon would be immediately jeopardized, having lost the necessary bipartisan buffer. The short-term benefit of robust right-wing support does not guarantee the long-term, institutional stability that decades of bipartisan consensus once provided.
Rebuilding institutional channels
Israel cannot reverse American polarization, but it must meticulously adapt to it. The first strategic imperative is to secure its long-term viability by rigorously decoupling from the Republican populist wing and rebuilding institutional relationships with the pragmatic Democratic center.
Jerusalem must move beyond relying on nostalgia for the old consensus. The priority must be an intensified and creative engagement with centrist and moderate Democrats: governors, senators, and rising representatives who still value pragmatic foreign policy and strategic continuity. This outreach cannot rely solely on security imperatives and counterterrorism narratives, which alienate the new Democratic base. Instead, diplomacy must emphasize shared liberal-democratic values, such as pluralism, civil rights, and technological innovation.
Framing Israel as a pluralistic society struggling to balance democracy and defense resonates far more effectively with moderate sensibilities than arguments grounded solely in threat perception. Furthermore, this deliberate cultivation of a stable centrist relationship mitigates the political cost of the ideological fracture within the American Jewish community, which once served as a stabilizing “moral bridge” but is now fractured by partisan rivalry.
Mitigating alignment risk
The greatest immediate danger for Israel is the political cost of perceived partisanshipOpens link in new window.. Overt political or ideological affinity with the right-wing populist movement is strategically perilous and shortsighted. The more Israel is perceived as a purely partisan Republican project, the harder it will be to restore cross-party trust, risking the long-term erosion of legitimacy.
Political favoritism transforms support from a matter of US national interest into a partisan wedge issue, which exposes Israel to abrupt policy reversals with every election cycle. Israel must prioritize maintaining visible ties across the political spectrum, particularly with moderate Jewish and non-Jewish liberals, to preserve its image as a strategic partner to the entire United States, regardless of which party controls Washington. The goal is to cultivate maximum diplomatic flexibility, ensuring that dialogue and cooperation channels remain institutionalized and continue across all party caucuses, even when Middle East policy is hotly debated.
Adapting to volatility
The bipartisan consensus has fractured, and it will not be easily restored. Israel’s challenge is not to win the partisan battle but to transcend it.
Navigating this new terrain demands a flexible strategy that accepts volatility as the new normal.
By systematically seeking to preserve its democratic credentials and strategic value to the liberal order, and by avoiding the trap of ideological alignment, Israel can preserve its crucial backing even as Washington continues to polarize.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-874290
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Witkoff Must Meet With Hamas Directly, Or Gaza Risks Becoming The Quagmire Of 1982 Beirut
By Lev Stesin
November 19, 2025
It was the summer of 1982. Israeli forces were besieging the Palestinian Liberation Organization with its leader Yasser ArafatOpens link in new window. in Beirut. The city was cordoned off and the situation for the PLO inside the city was hopeless.
Then came the American mediation and the agreement. Under the agreement, the terrorists and specifically their leader were guaranteed a safe passage and relocation to Tunisia and other Arab countries.
More than 40 years have passed since those tragic events. Yet those echoes of history remind us of today – the Gaza situation and the political drama around it. The escape from Beirut was a military defeat for the PLO. It was forced to leave the battlefield under foreign protection.
But it turned out to be, as irony usually plays itself, a huge strategic victory for the organization. The mediation created the first real direct contact between Washington and the PLO. It was a de facto recognition that set the path for the actual one toward the end of the decade when president Ronald Reagan issued a waiver to allow contact with the PLO. The Madrid Conference and the Oslo Accords followed. Hamas is counting on the same dynamics.
The US has already engaged directly with the leadership of Hamas. During the negotiations of the Gaza ceasefire in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, US President Donald Trump’s special envoys, Steven WitkoffOpens link in new window. and Jared Kushner, met at least once with the Hamas negotiating team. That meeting appeared, based on publicly available information, to be a clever ruse instigated by the intelligence services of Turkey and Qatar.
The short version of that story is that the negotiations were “deadlocked” and Ankara and Doha “felt” that the only way to salvage the negotiations from their inevitable collapse was to have a direct meeting between Hamas and the American envoys where Messrs. Witkoff and Kushner would vouch for the seriousness of their intentions.
A repeat of Beirut in 1982
Turkey and Qatar were absolutely capable of “convincing” Hamas of its hopeless situation, but Hamas, Turkey, and Qatar wanted a repeat of Beirut 1982. Messrs. Witkoff and Kushner likely recognized the ruse, but decided to go along with the act anyway as they were sent to Egypt by the president to push his agenda no matter what.
The story about a few hundred Hamas fighters trapped in the tunnels of RafahOpens link in new window. is not much different. They could just surrender and then be repatriated to some Arab or Muslim countries. But the story is developing along the line of Beirut.
The American administration has been applying constant pressure on Israel to allow the trapped terrorists a victorious march, perhaps even with their weapons, out of the tunnels to freedom. As the result of the “deadlock” around this issue, Mr. Witkoff is about to directly meet Hamas representatives again to discuss possible solutions. Why he needs to meet with the heads of a terror organization directly and not through the “trusted” channels of Turkey and Qatar is explained as the penchant of the president for direct diplomacy.
It is also clear that the legitimization of Hamas, as a serious and recognized negotiating partner, is underway and perhaps has already been completed. That may explain why the president of the United States would personally guarantee the safety of Hamas leadership in Qatar. Those guarantees go beyond what president Reagan offered Yasser Arafat back in 1982. Then, Israel had no direct commitments to the United States and did strike at the PLO in Tunisia later when the situation demanded action.
There will be, in the coming days and months, more and more instances where direct contacts between the US and Hamas are “necessary.” To be fair to the current administration, it does not contradict any postulates of its foreign policy. Trump’s approach to all foreign conflicts, without any exceptions, is to reposition the US from being an ally of one side, where that is the case, to being a neutral facilitator of possible peaceful resolutions.
The peace agreement between Armenia and AzerbaijanOpens link in new window. was an example of the success of the strategy. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine is, on the other hand, an example of how dangerously naive this strategy could be.
The ceasefire in GazaOpens link in new window. is still a work in progress. It is already clear that the Arabs have gained from the agreement a lot more than Israel. Israel got much needed breathing space after two years of war. The Arab States, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, and Turkey have achieved an unprecedented status and leverage with Washington. Yet the slow rebranding of Hamas, making it a legitimate partner and presenting it as a representative of the Palestinian Arabs, is the most dangerous strategic development for Israel’s future.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-874281
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Germany’s Decision To Take In Donkeys From Gaza For Treatment – But Not Children – Has Sparked Outrage
by Leon Wystrychowski
November 18, 2025
The news reads like a dark joke—but it isn’t. “Rescued little Donkeys from Gaza Find a Home in Oppenheim,” reports Allgemeine Zeitung, a regional newspaper in western Germany. On Instagram, the comment section on the post was quickly disabled due to “numerous inappropriate and hateful comments”– likely criticism of Germany’s decision to take in four donkeys. But what’s the broader context?
Animals welcome – Gazawis not
For many, the story of four donkeys “rescued” from Gaza is further proof of the inhumane cynicism of Germany’s leaders. Since October 2023, hardly any humans from Gaza have been admitted to Germany. Berlin did not prioritize rescuing Palestinian citizens with German passports from the genocide in Gaza, despite the Foreign Ministry’s stated duty to evacuate its own nationals from war and crisis zones. Meanwhile, Germany has even granted citizenship to Israelis who were taken prisoner during Gaza operations after October 2023, loudly advocating for their release as “German hostages.”
While various Western countries in recent months – Spain, for example, as early as summer 2024 – took in contingents of injured or sick children from Gaza for medical treatment, Germany has done almost nothing. Only two children from Gaza are believed to have received treatment in Germany in more than two years. Several German cities had offered to take in larger numbers of minors from Gaza and claimed to be ready to do so – but the federal government blocked these plans, citing the “very unpredictable” situation in Gaza even after the official ceasefire. The Foreign Office and Interior Ministry also referred to “complex procedures” and the need to vet accompanying family members. NGOs helping patients from abroad are required to guarantee the return of patients and their guardians; if asylum is later sought, the NGOs must cover costs for the often multi-year legal process.
Even the Allgemeine Zeitung piece exemplifies the grotesque double standard in German discourse on Gaza. The article opens: “They have endured hunger and misery, beatings and toil.” Setting aside how this framing suggests that Gazans are not only potential “Hamas terrorists” and “Jew-haters” but also animal abusers, it ignores the systematic torture of Palestinians by the Israeli army, as documented in recent reports by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) – virtually absent from German media coverage. The empathy shown for donkeys in this piece far exceeds that extended to humans in Gaza over the past two years. Unsurprisingly, the article fails to mention who is responsible for the donkeys’ hunger – or the deprivation of nearly two million Palestinians.
The article celebrates that the donkeys, “despite all they have endured, are remarkably trusting” and “have even started to blossom a little.” Comparable attention to the psychological state of Gaza’s human population in German media is virtually nonexistent.
Germany’s greenwashing of genocide
There is, however, another dimension beyond the obvious cynicism: the story of how these donkeys reached Germany. “These donkeys were abandoned, injured, mistreated, or destined to die,” says the zoo in Oppenheim. (No word on why they were abandoned, or what happened to their original owners.) The animals were “rescued” by Israeli animal welfare organizations – specifically, a group that reportedly has “rescued 50 donkeys from Gaza.” How an Israeli NGO operates in an active war zone is unclear, but it likely required coordination with the IDF.
Already last summer, media outlets reported that the Israeli army was transporting hundreds of Gaza’s donkeys to a farm called the “Starting Over Sanctuary”. Israeli media labeled this “animal rescue.” According to the Belgian News Agency, there had been 10 such transports by early August. The Israeli “aid organization” boasts of having “rescued” around 600 donkeys.
In another report about four more donkeys brought to a ranch in northern Germany’s Lower Saxony, it is revealed that the organization ‘Starting Over Sanctuary’ is actually behind the transports to Germany. The article also claims: “The donkeys had to work hard, were very poorly treated, and had no rights. Their illnesses were not treated.“
Since the genocide in Gaza, donkeys have become a vital transport resource. With fuel shortages and damaged roads, they reliably carry the injured and sick to clinics, transport people and belongings during flight or return home, and deliver essential water, food, and supplies. Far from being senselessly abused or left to die, sick and injured animals in Gaza are treated and rescued. A Guardian report from April 2025 noted that one medical team alone rescued over 7,000 donkeys since October 2023. Meanwhile, journalist Tarek Baé pointed out on X that, according to the UN, as early as August 2024, 43 per cent of all livestock in Gaza had been killed as a result of Israel’s war of destruction.
Seen in this light, the “rescue” of donkeys by Israeli actors appears more as theft or abduction. It forms part of the IDF’s ongoing strategy: denying Palestinians the means of production – especially land, olive trees – and of transport is central to settler-colonial control and the systematic displacement of Palestinians. Ecological justifications have long been used to mask this agenda, critics also speak of “Environmental Warfare“: from tree planting by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) to creating nature reserves that displace Palestinians and endanger lives, to the ostensible “rescue” of Gaza’s donkeys. Germany is now supporting the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the genocide in Gaza not only politically, economically, through arms supplies to Israel, and by withholding aid from Gazans, but also by destroying the last means of survival in the Gaza Strip under the guise of ‘greenwashing.’
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20251118-germanys-decision-to-take-in-donkeys-from-gaza-for-treatment-but-not-children-has-sparked-outrage/
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