Middle East Press On: Gaza Factor, Zohran Mamdani, Israel, Rape: New Age Islam's Selection, 6 November 2025
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
6 November 2025
The Gaza Factor And The New Political Map: How Zohran Mamdani Won New York
‘The Silence After The Screams’: How Western Media Helped Justify The Rape Of Palestinians
The Empire That Disregards History: Why Israel And The US Are Losing The Future
Why A Match With An Israeli Team Should Not Be Taking Place In My City
Why Israel Cannot Shape The Architecture Of The New Middle East
Israel’s Triumph Amid Tragedy: Why October 7 Strengthened, Not Shattered, The Nation
Jordanian-Palestinian Confederation: A New Potential Path To Peace
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The Gaza Factor and the New Political Map: How Zohran Mamdani Won New York
By Romana Rubeo
November 5, 2025
Zohran Mamdani’s election as Mayor of New York City on November 4 is being interpreted in familiar terms: the rise of a progressive coalition, the strength of tenant and labor movements, and the persistence of grassroots campaigning in an increasingly unequal city.
These narratives are not wrong, but they obscure a central dynamic that played a decisive role in this race and is already reshaping political behaviour far beyond New York: the influence of Gaza.
Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza over the past two years did not remain a foreign policy issue contained to Washington. It altered political consciousness across the United States, particularly among younger Americans and multiracial, working-class communities concentrated in cities like New York.
Mamdani’s victory is not simply a result of his individual platform or personality. It reflects the emergence of Gaza as a powerful organizing framework, one that connects global violence to domestic inequality and demands coherence across them.
While many candidates avoided the issue or approached it with caution, Mamdani has consistently referred to Israel’s actions in Gaza as a ‘genocide’, spoken consistently against US military aid to Israel and called for a permanent ceasefire.
This framing did not originate in campaign messaging rooms. It emerged from the ground.
Over the past two years, much of New York’s youth-led protest energy has centered on Gaza: university encampments, student walkouts, professional resignations, boycott campaigns, and neighborhood-based organizing. For thousands of young New Yorkers, Gaza became the issue through which they understood political responsibility and the nature of state power.
Polling during the 2024–2025 period consistently documented a generational shift: Americans under 35 were more likely to express sympathy for Palestinians than for the Israeli government, and more likely to oppose US military aid to Israel. These trends were strongest in major cities, and especially strong in New York.
What these numbers did not capture was the degree to which Gaza became a practical organizing infrastructure. Groups that had previously focused on housing, public space, policing, and labor conditions found themselves working alongside Palestine-focused mobilizations. Mutual aid networks became channels for ceasefire organizing.
This is where Mamdani’s campaign aligned with the movement that formed before him. He did not have to generate momentum around Gaza; it already existed. He did not have to persuade young voters that the war was relevant to municipal governance; they were already acting as if it was. His role was not to inspire the movement but to recognize it and speak in the language it had already established.
In contrast, candidates who attempted to bracket Gaza as “outside the scope” of city governance appeared out of step with the electorate that now understands political life as globally interconnected. The traditional division between domestic and international political responsibility has eroded. Gaza accelerated that process.
It also reshaped political trust. Politicians who refused to take clear positions on Gaza, or who softened their statements under pressure, were likely perceived as unreliable on other matters.
Whether Mamdani’s administration will satisfy those expectations is uncertain. Governing a city with entrenched financial interests, federal oversight constraints, and decades of policing infrastructure will place immediate limits on what can be achieved. The election result does not resolve those contradictions.
But it does make one reality unavoidable: Gaza has become a domestic political issue in the United States. Not in the sense of charity or humanitarian sympathy, but as a framework for understanding power.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/the-gaza-factor-and-the-new-political-map-how-zohran-mamdani-won-new-york/
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‘The Silence after the Screams’: How Western Media Helped Justify the Rape of Palestinians
By Romana Rubeo
November 5, 2025
On Monday, November 3, a group of Israeli soldiers stood outside the Supreme Court in West Jerusalem wearing black masks. They weren’t there to apologize; they were there to defend themselves.
The soldiers, accused of torturing and raping a Palestinian detainee at the notorious Sde Teiman prison, demanded “gratitude” for their actions.
“Instead of appreciation, we received accusations,” one said defiantly. Israeli media covered the scene while Western outlets mostly ignored it.
The same soldiers are part of a criminal case that Israeli prosecutors reluctantly opened in 2024 after video evidence surfaced showing Palestinian detainees stripped, beaten, and sexually assaulted at Sde Teiman.
One Palestinian man was hospitalized with seven broken ribs and a rectal tear, injuries consistent with violent sexual abuse.
The Times of Israel reported the indictment of five reservists for “severe abuse,” while other sources cited evidence of sodomy inside the facility.
Yet, in Western coverage, the word rape almost never appeared. Headlines spoke of “abuse” or “mistreatment,” as though sexual torture were a matter of workplace misconduct.
Contrast this silence with the wall-to-wall coverage of October 7, when Israel accused Hamas fighters of “mass rape.” Those claims, still unproven, became the moral foundation of Israel’s campaign of annihilation in Gaza.
In his latest interview with American journalist Candace Owens, political scientist Norman Finkelstein called the Israeli allegations “genocidal atrocity propaganda.”
After examining more than 5,000 photographs and fifty hours of footage from that day, Finkelstein said he found “not a single shred of evidence of even one rape.” Yet those unverified stories, repeated endlessly by Western outlets, were enough to cast an entire population as subhuman and to legitimize the killing of more than 68,000 Palestinians.
In December 2023, the New York Times published a sprawling investigation titled “Screams Without Words: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7.”
The article claimed Hamas fighters had systematically raped Israeli women during the attack. Its pages were filled with graphic descriptions and lurid imagery. The story relied on anonymous witnesses, unverified videos, and second-hand testimony, yet it was presented as conclusive evidence of mass rape.
Within days, it shaped international discourse. Then US President Joe Biden, European leaders, and prominent feminists invoked the Times’ story to condemn Hamas and morally justify Israel’s “retaliation”.
But when journalists and scholars began checking the evidence, the story fell apart. Forensic experts found no physical proof of rape. Several of the supposed witnesses cited by the Times contradicted one another or were later discredited.
In April 2024, more than 50 journalism professors sent a public letter demanding an independent review of the article’s sourcing and editorial process. The Washington Post reported internal dissent within the Times newsroom itself, where reporters said the piece had been “rushed” to meet political expectations.
Meanwhile, the Sde Teiman scandal, an Israeli atrocity supported by video evidence, medical reports, and judicial proceedings, has never received a fraction of the attention that the Times story did. This imbalance is not merely linguistic. It is structural, reflecting the hierarchy of human worth built into Western coverage of the war.
This is how “atrocity propaganda” works. It does not require lies to function, only selective truth. By repeating unverified claims of Hamas rape while downplaying verified Israeli sexual crimes, Western media transformed journalism into a weapon of war.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/the-silence-after-the-screams-how-western-media-helped-justify-the-rape-of-palestinians/
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The Empire That Disregards History: Why Israel And The US Are Losing The Future
by Ranjan Solomon
November 5, 2025
As settler power frays in Washington and Tel Aviv, the world does not merely witness geopolitical decline, it witnesses a moral and civilisational reckoning. The future is slipping away not because enemies are strong, but because empire has forgotten the human truth at the heart of justice.
Empires rarely fall with a single blow. They wither, slowly at first — then suddenly. The United States and Israel, long accustomed to exercising power with impunity, are discovering this truth in real time. Their decline is not merely military or diplomatic; it is moral, demographic, philosophical and civilisational. A project built on domination can win battles and still lose history. Today, the world witnesses two states clinging to supremacy by force and propaganda, yet bleeding legitimacy, people, and confidence. They are cheating to win, and in the process, losing everything that once made their power formidable.
Recent Israeli migration data tells a story deeper than numbers. Over 168,000 Israelis have left the country in three years, far outpacing returnees. Requests to cancel residency have more than tripled. Those who once emigrated for opportunity now flee insecurity, political breakdown, and the sense that the Zionist promise is collapsing from within. Even the celebrated uptick in “aliyah” after 7 October cannot conceal the nervous exodus of those with Western passports and alternative futures. They are voting with their feet, and the vote says: the Zionist project is no longer safe, stable, or certain. These are not mere numbers. They convey the hard truth about the country’s largest-ever loss of human capital in such a short period. And this becomes ever so crucial considering it was a report presented to the Knesset’s Immigration and Absorption Committee.
Independent demographic and political-risk assessments signal a quiet but irreversible exodus. The Economist Intelligence Unit notes a sharp rise in outward movement driven by insecurity, global censure, and collapsing political credibility. Gallup polling records historic lows in Israeli confidence in the future and significant expressed desire to relocate. The OECD warns of intensifying skilled out-migration pressures, while European Jewish demography studies show growing Israeli-born populations settling in Europe and North America. The United Nations migration lens describes this as a “de-Zionisation of diaspora movement patterns” – a historic reversal in which more leave than return, not as temporary evacuees but as emigrants in search of a different moral, political, and human future. According to Gideon Levy, an award-winning Israeli journalist and author, the current situation in Israel is unsustainable, and the state, in its current form, faces eventual demise if it continues its reliance on military force, occupation, and denial of equal rights to Palestinians. Levy argues for a radical change in attitude and policies, including the creation of a single democratic state where Jews and Arabs have equal rights, as the two-state solution is no longer viable.
The United States, meanwhile, convulses in a different storm. A country that once prided itself on absorbing the world’s talent now turns migrants into enemies. A society built by immigrants now campaigns to wall itself off from them. The irony is historic: the country that became a superpower because it welcomed the world is collapsing into paranoia, exclusion, and white-nationalist nostalgia. The election of a Muslim progressive like Mamdani in this imagined political moment would once have signified American self-confidence — a nation bold enough to embrace pluralism and dissent. Instead, it provokes threats, fear-mongering, and presidential hostility to public support, revealing a polity so fragile it cannot tolerate the democracy it preaches.
This is not only Islamophobia; it is civilisational panic. When a country loses its ability to imagine a future shared across difference, its power is already gone in essence, even if the military remains intact.
The crisis engulfing Washington and Tel Aviv is not sudden. It is the logical culmination of settler-colonial projects confronted by the limits of coercion. Modern history is cruelly consistent: states that build themselves through ethnic supremacy ultimately collapse under the weight of the humanity they try to erase. From Spain’s expulsion of Jews and Muslims to South Africa’s apartheid, exclusion produces brittle power. It generates resistance without end. It breeds internal decay: corruption, militarism, surveillance, extremism, and a politics of fear. Settler projects can survive long cycles — but eventually they confront a reckoning when global moral consciousness shifts and internal contradiction corrode unity.
Israel and the United States are not dying because they are weak; they are dying because they are wrong. The philosopher Frantz Fanon foresaw this fate: colonial power becomes a prison for the coloniser, who must constantly defend the indefensible. Violence weaponised against the other eventually corrodes the self. The oppressor’s soul becomes as occupied as the land they seek to hold.
Today, Israeli society is riven by messianic nationalism and militarised fatalism. The United States spirals into reactionary anti-intellectualism where books are banned before weapons. These are not signs of strength but signs of fear.
From a geopolitical perspective, the weaknesses are visible. Israel has not achieved its strategic aims in Gaza despite overwhelming force. It stands militarily exhausted, politically isolated, and morally disgraced. A state that must continually escalate brutality to maintain control is not secure — it is desperate.
The United States meanwhile discovers limits to sanctions, proxy wars, and financial coercion. The Global South forms new circuits of sovereignty outside Western tutelage. The American century has ended; the illusion simply persists in Washington’s rhetoric. The world no longer accepts the equation of Western dominance with global order. Palestine is now the ethical barometer of our era — and the verdict exposes Western hypocrisy beyond repair.
The tragedy is not merely geopolitical — it is moral. The United States could have embraced pluralism; Israel could have embraced coexistence. Instead, both chose supremacy over justice. They shrink inward, fortress-minded, afraid not of enemies but of equality itself. The more they cling to force, the more they unravel. The barbarism they claim to resist has emerged from within, not from without.
History also teaches that collapse is not only an ending — it is an unveiling. The fall of empire makes space for the rise of humanity.
When power forgets the sacred
History is not only a ledger of conquest; it is a moral theatre where civilizations prove their worth. Societies do not perish solely through defeat — they perish when they abandon the ethical foundations that once justified their existence.
Judaism warns against ḥurban, the ruin born of injustice. Christianity teaches that pride precedes destruction. Islam calls oppression a darkness that consumes the oppressor first. These traditions converge on a single truth: power that violates human sanctity ultimately collapses under its own weight.
Israel and America did not have to choose this path. Their founding scriptures called them to justice, mercy, humility, and care for the stranger. Instead, they sanctified strength and turned fear into doctrine. Their decline is therefore not simply political — it is spiritual.
There comes a threshold in every empire’s life where weapons cannot save it, and legitimacy cannot be manufactured by force. At that moment, power stands naked before history. And in that silence, it learns too late that domination without justice is not security – it is suicide.
The future will belong not to those who dominate, but to those who coexist; not to those who rule by fear, but those who practice mercy; not to those who hoard power, but those who humanise power.
As Elie Wiesel reminded us: “There must never be a time when we fail to protest.” For protest is not merely resistance, it is fidelity to the sacred truth that sustains civilisation: the world endures not by might, but by conscience. And on that foundation, a new order is already being born.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20251105-the-empire-that-disregards-history-why-israel-and-the-us-are-losing-the-future/
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Why A Match With An Israeli Team Should Not Be Taking Place In My City
by Professor Kamel Hawwash
November 5, 2025
As a British Palestinian Brummie (hails from Birmingham), I am troubled that Maccabi Tel Aviv, an Israeli team is coming to play Aston Villa in my hometown. Our peaceful town which is made up of people from all religions and none and from many different ethnicities, prides itself on its residents’ tolerance for others. It also prides itself on its solidarity with the weak and oppressed, including the people in Palestine.
We have had major marches and weekly protests to show our solidarity with the people of Palestine, which we consider have been subjected to war crimes, ethnic cleansing and a genocidal war since 7th October 2023. The people I have spoken to over the months accept that atrocities took place against Israelis on the 7th October but have seen Israel’s barbaric attacks on civilians, aid workers, doctors and journalists for the past two years. They have also been angered by Israel’s lies portraying its brutal behaviour as self-defence.
They recognise that 7th October 2023 was one day, one date in the history of the Israeli injustice inflicted on the Palestinian people. They recognise the Nakba of 1948 in which the terrorist Zionist groups and then the Israeli army evicted more than 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland. Since then, Israel continued to expand its occupation and to build settlements illegally on Palestinian land without accountability for its breaches. In addition to the daily cruelty Palestinians face, the Apartheid policies and the repeated attacks on Palestinian holy sites in Hebron and Jerusalem, Israel has attacked Gaza repeatedly over the last couple of decades. Its claim that there was a ceasefire on the 6th October 2023 is simply a lie.
If it wasn’t for the blind support it receives from the West, especially the United States, which almost considers it as its 51st state, Israel would not be sustainable in its current format. Otherwise, how is it that although there are as many Palestinians as Israeli Jews between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, the two peoples do not enjoy equal rights. If it was any other area, the world would not accept the supremacy of one people over another and would insist on equal rights in one democratic state. Otherwise, the occupying state would be castigated and isolated until it accepted equal rights for the entire area and the people it rules.
However, Israel’s naked barbarism and genocidal policies towards the people it occupies and the superiority of its Jewish citizens towards Palestinians has not resulted in enough condemnation and isolation. That is except for the people of the world who have seen its actions and expressed their disgust on the streets of world capitals like London and Berlin. I estimate that in London alone 10 million people have attended the 33 marches that have taken place so far.
Not only have people been moved by the atrocities committed by Israel, but they have also been appalled by the double standards shown by the West when dealing with Russia and Israel. Both countries are in breach of International Law because they illegally occupy another people’s land. Yet Western people have supported Ukraine through their taxes but hardly any taxes have supported the Palestinian people in any part of Palestine.
Exceptionally in Israel’s case, while it is not located in Europe, it takes part in the European music competition, EUROVISION and plays in football competitions in Europe.
Coming back to the forthcoming match, the people of Birmingham wonder why it is that while Russia and Russian clubs have been banned by FIFA and UEFA for occupying and oppressing Ukraine and Ukrainians while Israel and its clubs continue to play in FIFA and UEFA competitions. Surely, Israel and its clubs should have been banned years ago, even before October 2023 because more than 6 Israeli clubs are based in illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and play matches on another Football Associations land, contrary to FIFA rules.
If the rules were applied equally on Russia and Israel, the forthcoming match would not be taking place on 6th November and the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, acknowledged to be violent hooligans, would not be coming to cause trouble in my city. However, the match will take place as planned, but instead of the British government accepting a police ban on safety grounds, it decided to side with hooligans calling on the West Midlands Police to reverse their decision, claiming this was a ban on Jews. That was disingenuous, wrong and dangerous.
The issue of Jews never came into the demand made by local independent member of parliament for Perry Barr, Ayub Khan. He did not want the Israeli team to come to Birmingham for the argument made above but who also respected the police decision to ban the Israeli fans for fear of the safety of his constituents. He has been vilified and accused of being antisemitic, an accusation that further devalues the term. The Government and Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy refused to accept the police advice was correct following the cancellation of the Tel Aviv Derby due to the fans’ violence on the night a few days ago.
With Birmingham being home to a large Muslim population and the area of Aston mirrors that, I am concerned by the framing of right wingers of the whole issue as being a Muslim vs Jew issue. It fits the growing narrative being peddled by them, the Reform Party and the Zionist extremist Tommy Robinson, that Islam is responsible for so many problems in the UK, which is simply not true. Some have even labelled Aston as run by Islam. That is also not true.
A demonstration by the people of Birmingham calling on the match to be cancelled, even at the last minute will be taking place prior to the match and the organisers have promised that it will be peaceful. There is likely to be a counter demonstration on the night, which appears to have little to do with match and more to do with the right wingers’ attitude towards Muslims. The police have announced there will be 700 officers to manage the demonstrations. I sincerely hope the night passes off peacefully and Birmingham shows the world that it stands in solidarity with the oppressed, rejects double standards, and that it demonstrates peacefully.
While the football team I support is not Aston Villa, I will be supporting the Villa on the night, Come on the Villa.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20251105-why-a-match-with-an-israeli-team-should-not-be-taking-place-in-my-city/
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Why Israel Cannot Shape The Architecture Of The New Middle East
November 5, 2025
As the world undergoes sweeping geopolitical realignments, the Middle East, too, is transforming rapidly — but not in the way Israeli and American officials had imagined. Even if the fragile Gaza truce holds, the current convergence between Washington and Tel Aviv is unlikely to last. Israel believes it stands at the peak of its regional power, yet a deeper look reveals the opposite: the country lacks both the capacity to construct a “New Middle East” and the ability to impose an order of its own design.
Israel today faces a dual crisis — of existence and legitimacy — that extends far beyond external challenges. The country’s internal divisions, mass protests against Prime Minister Netanyahu, the collapse of public trust, and political disarray after the Gaza war have exposed the fragility of its democratic and social foundations. Such internal fractures render Israel incapable of acting as an “architect” of a new regional order.
The devastation of Gaza has dramatically eroded Israel’s standing in the world. Meanwhile, a renewed wave of global attention to the Palestinian cause — from North Africa to the Gulf — has left Israel more isolated than at any point in recent history. The belief that legitimacy can be substituted with sheer military power is proving to be an illusion. No regional order built on coercion can endure.
In an age dominated by global media, social networks, and civil movements, Israel cannot bomb or occupy its way into a “stable order.” For its potential Arab partners in the Gulf, Israel has lost not only its aura of power but also its credibility and the ability to provide meaningful security guarantees — both essential elements for any sustainable regional system.
Despite its efforts to project strategic independence, every major regional player — from Tehran to Riyadh — knows that Israel remains deeply dependent on the United States. Its most crucial military, economic, and political capabilities are intertwined with Washington’s support.
The Gaza war made this dependency explicit. Israel’s shortage of Iron Dome interceptors before the conflict’s end revealed how heavily it relies on American logistics and supply chains. Repeated emergency requests for US weapons and ammunition over the past two years have shown that Israel cannot sustain prolonged military operations on its own.
The Wall Street Journal bluntly noted that Israel’s ties with Gulf states are eroding due to this dependence and the internal turmoil it faces. Arab governments — particularly the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar — have closely observed these vulnerabilities. They increasingly doubt that Israel can serve as a stable pillar of regional security, let alone lead the creation of a new Middle East order.
Since its founding, Israel has been driven by a survivalist logic in which military force is seen as the ultimate solution to every problem. Its security doctrine remains based on “overwhelming superiority” and “deterrence through preemption.” Yet recent experience — from Gaza to Lebanon to the West Bank — shows this doctrine no longer works.
Israel’s failure to resolve the Palestinian question is not tactical but structural. The country’s internal political evolution — toward greater religious fundamentalism and ethnonationalism — has locked it into a permanent state of conflict. The ruling coalitions’ alliances with far-right religious factions have rendered any genuine peace initiative politically impossible.
A state that defines itself in exclusivist religious and ethnic terms cannot build a “new regional order.” In a region as socially and demographically diverse as the Middle East, such a vision only breeds more instability, violence, and political paralysis.
Israel’s statehood is deeply rooted in a Zionist ideology that emphasizes Jewish ethnic and religious superiority while marginalizing Arab and Palestinian citizens. From its inception, this ideological foundation has cast Israel as a “civilisational outsider” within the region.
How can a state defined by religious exclusivity and military occupation lead a regional order composed mostly of Arab and Muslim societies? No lasting order can emerge around a state that millions of Arabs view as a symbol of occupation, apartheid, and systemic discrimination.
This trust deficit has worsened dramatically since the Gaza war. Arab governments — acutely aware of domestic public opinion — now fear that overt alignment with Israel could undermine their own legitimacy. The “normalisation” momentum that followed the Abraham Accords has stalled, replaced by caution and recalibration.
One of Israel’s post-Abraham Accords ambitions was to build an Arab–Israeli security bloc. That dream has faded. Following Israeli airstrikes near Doha, regional media reported that Qatar is reassessing its security ties with Tel Aviv. Kuwait has issued formal security warnings; Oman has openly called Israel a source of instability; even the UAE is quietly re-evaluating its relationship.
Gulf leaders now recognise a hard truth: Israel can neither guarantee their security nor contain Iran, nor construct a credible and lasting security umbrella. Consequently, the Israeli project for a “New Middle East” — a US- and Israel-centered regional order — is now in steep decline.
Israel’s strategic thinking suffers from a recurring historical error — the same hubris that preceded the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when it assumed no Arab state would dare to strike again. Today, it believes that because it has avoided severe punishment for Gaza’s destruction, no real costs will follow. This is a dangerous delusion.
The Gaza war has revealed Israel’s limits:
Its economy buckles under prolonged conflict,
Its military depends on foreign resupply,
Its global legitimacy is eroding, and
Its domestic unity is fracturing.
Under these conditions, Israel cannot construct a “new Middle East.” Instead, it has become one of the main obstacles to the emergence of a sustainable regional order.
Israel’s vision of a “New Middle East” has proven to be little more than a political myth. Regional governments may exchange polite diplomatic smiles with Tel Aviv, but none view it as the legitimate architect of the region’s future.
If Israel continues down its current path — defined by militarism, occupation, dependence on Washington, and disregard for legitimacy — it will not only forfeit its claim to regional leadership but also see its broader international position further erode.
The path ahead for Israel, and for the region, is clear. Either it accepts an order based on legitimacy, justice, and genuine peace — or it faces deepening isolation, instability, and an even larger crisis that it will ultimately be unable to contain.
In short, the “New Middle East” imagined by Israel was stillborn — undone by the very contradictions within the Israeli state itself.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20251105-why-israel-cannot-shape-the-architecture-of-the-new-middle-east/
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Israel’s Triumph Amid Tragedy: Why October 7 Strengthened, Not Shattered, The Nation
By Avi Weiss
November 6, 2025
Almost a month into the ceasefire, it is clear that it will take time – much time – to assess the outcome of Israel’s two-year war against Hamas.
On the surface, as many have noted, the constellations of the Middle East have been profoundly altered. Gaza lies in ruins; Hezbollah is degraded; Assad of Syria is gone; and Iran’s nuclear program is set back.
Beyond the physical lies the spiritual – the emotional standing of the Jewish state itself.
To be sure, the country as a whole is suffering from deep PTSD. Almost one thousand soldiers were killed, forever altering the lives of their families and friends. Thousands of wounded face months, years, perhaps lifetimes of rehabilitation.
Residents of the South, so brutally attacked on that October 7, will need time to regain trust in the IDF. Yet there is another side to the story. Although these years have been painfully dark, they have also radiated a penetrating light.
Stepping up
From the moment of the pogrom that took 1,200 lives, young people snapped to attention. Soldiers in sadir – their primary years of service – fought valiantly.
Reservists (miluimnikim) donned their uniforms again, some returning from abroad, putting their lives and limbs on the line.
While antisemitism spiraled around the globe, Jews everywhere stood tall. Not since the Soviet Jewry movement has world Jewry been so galvanized: confronting antisemitism on campus, marching weekly for the hostages, and volunteering in and outside Israel, each doing whatever they could to make a difference.
‘Never Again’
Some say October 7 proved that Israel’s founding purpose was breached, that Jews were once again slaughtered mercilessly. I contend the reverse: the raison d’être of Israel was reaffirmed.
In the past, when attacked in pogroms and massacres, Jews lacked the means to fight back. Now we did.
Israel fought like lions and lionesses – with courage and with a moral compass unmatched in the history of war – proving to the world, and to ourselves, that Jewish blood would never again be cheap.
Nation as family
It wasn’t as if everything was perfect – far from it.
Israelis often clashed bitterly: some denouncing the government, others defending it; some demanding an immediate ceasefire to free the hostages, others insisting the war continue until Hamas was forever destroyed.
Yet despite the fractures, there remained a deep sense that we are not only a nation but a family – and families that endure find ways to love through their differences.
Every morning brings something new
Years ago, when speaking to my father in Jerusalem from my home in Riverdale, I’d begin each call: “Abba, how are things going – ma inyanim?”
Quoting the prophet, he would always reply, “Chadashim la’bkarim – every morning brings something new.” Sometimes it’s a new challenge, a new twist, a new setback, or a new victory.
Assessing the post-war chadashim la’bkarim will not come easily. It comes, after all, in the shadow of an existential war of survival. And yet, it is a new day.
Walking through the streets of Jerusalem these days, one senses a weight lifted from the nation’s shoulders. We can finally breathe again: the living hostages are home.
The nightmare seems behind us – seems – for bodies, including that of Hadar Goldin, whose remains have been held by Hamas since the 2014 war, have yet to return.
With Hamas still shooting at our soldiers, there is great concern that it will never lay down its arms. Meanwhile, Israel’s release of convicted terrorists raises another specter: that new Sinwars are already plotting in the shadows.
The oxymoron of life and death
I felt this tension at Mount Herzl, at the burial of Daniel Perez, one of the hostages whose body had just been returned.
Perhaps the most searing moment came when Matan Angrest, newly freed from Gaza’s tunnels, found the strength to eulogize Daniel, his commander in the same tank.
He spoke of feeling Daniel’s presence beside him for the rest of his life and of his readiness to return to Gaza to bring back those whose bodies have yet to come home. In that instant, one could feel the oxymoron of it all – the collision between the agony of death and the exhilaration of life.
In no small measure, we as a people are once again simulating the breaking of the glass beneath the wedding canopy – the ritual that concludes the Jewish marriage ceremony.
On one hand, we cry out “mazal tov” as hostages are reunited with parents, siblings, and children, and there is hope – hope that the war has ended and life can begin anew.
Yet alongside those mazal tovs echoes the crackling sound of shattered glass in the air, a reminder that even our moments of joy are marred with loss.
Our sacred task, as the Kabbalists teach, is to gather and fix the broken pieces. As Leonard Cohen, the great poet and singer, put it: “There is a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in.”
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-872798
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Jordanian-Palestinian Confederation: A New Potential Path To Peace
By Chuck Freilich
November 6, 2025
France, the UK, and other leading states recently recognized a Palestinian state, bringing the total number to do so to 157. Most explicitly support a two-state solution, although it is questionable how many truly understand what issues must be resolved in practice and what the prospects are.
After decades of failed attempts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the October 7 massacre, and war in Gaza, these acts of political theater will not advance the peace process one iota. Instead, it is time to acknowledge a sobering truth: The classic two-state solution to the conflict is no longer viable and new approaches are required.
The following tripartite paradigm is based on long-established proposals. Their combination together in a coherent whole, with some necessary modifications, is what may make this the most effective path forward.
Key points of the paradigm
A Jordanian-Palestinian confederation is the heart of the proposed paradigm: two sovereign states that share foreign and defense policy, while maintaining their own national identities and separate civil governance. The Palestinian state would include both the West Bank (excluding a few percent of the territory to incorporate the major settlement blocs in Israel) and Gaza.
For Jordan’s Hashemite monarchy, the confederation model offers a chance to address a major, even existential, demographic and political challenge: The kingdom already has a Palestinian majority, the king’s heir is half Palestinian, and absent a solution, the Hashemite minority’s future is increasingly doubtful. Nevertheless, Jordan is deeply wary of the confederation proposal, fearful that it could destabilize the kingdom, or become a Trojan horse for a Palestinian takeover.
Rather than undermining the Hashemite monarchy, however, the confederation would be explicitly designed to secure its future. Constitutional guarantees would ensure that Jordan remains the Hashemite Kingdom in perpetuity. They would also provide Jordan’s king with emergency authorities and veto power. Strong security partnerships with Israel and the US would provide further assurances.
The Palestinians would gain an essentially independent state, tightly linked to a functioning extant one, with a viable economy and effective military, and far larger than the tiny and landlocked West Bank. Palestinian refugees would gain an unlimited right of return to the Palestinian state, but not Israel, with compensation for those who do not choose to exercise this option. The confederation would constitute the “end of claims” and formal conclusion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The confederation model would provide Israel with a more trustworthy security partner than a nascent and likely hostile Palestinian state. During a transitional period, Jordan would retain overall control over the confederation’s military and intelligence apparatus and ensure that the Palestinian state remain demilitarized, although Israel would retain the right to conduct counterterror operations, as necessary, in coordination with it.
Jerusalem would remain Israel’s capital, with a Palestinian capital in its outskirts, e.g. in Abu Dis or Ramallah. Jerusalem’s Old City, including the sensitive holy sites, would be administered jointly by Israel, the Palestinians, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the US, pending final resolution of its status.
Details of the confederation proposal
The confederation proposal has been openly supported by Jordanian and Palestinian leaders ever since the 1970s, including King Hussein, Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli leaders, and American leaders from Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan to President Donald Trump. It has never had its moment, however, perhaps until now, when the old paradigms are crumbling and new thinking is desperately needed.
Multilateral land swaps: No solution is viable without addressing the unique challenges posed by Gaza. With one of the world’s highest population growth rates, doubling approximately every 20 years, Gaza is unsustainable socioeconomically. Multilateral land swaps could provide the solution.
Egypt would give the Palestinians land adjacent to Gaza, doubling or even tripling its size. Israel would compensate Egypt with equal-sized land along their common border. The Palestinians, in turn, would provide Israel with equal land in the West Bank (6%-12%, depending on whether the land transferred to Gaza was doubled or tripled).
What makes this swap so effective is that no party gains or loses net territory, but the Palestinians and Israel gain territory where they need it the most: An expanded Gaza becomes viable for the long term; Israel retains key settlements and defensible territory in the West Bank. Egypt, for its part, would gain economic incentives and support from the international community, along with infrastructure links through Israel to Jordan.
Egypt has long opposed any changes to its territory and refused to assume responsibility for Gaza. Egypt, however, like Jordan, must be reminded that it, too, bears historical responsibility for the creation of the Palestinian issue and thus for its resolution. It is not just Israel’s problem.
Civil separation in the West Bank: Given the current security climate, particularly after the October 7 atrocities, few in Israel, including the Left, are prepared to completely withdraw from Palestinian territory, even in exchange for peace and security guarantees. This is particularly true of the West Bank, which abuts all of Israel’s major population centers. Conversely, the status quo is untenable for the long term.
As a first step, which might be a prelude to the above measures, Israel would conduct a civil, but not military, withdrawal from the West Bank. This would involve transferring civil control to the Palestinians in approximately 90% of the West Bank (subject to the land swap above), while maintaining full military deployment and security prerogatives, as necessary, pending a final status agreement. Incentives would be provided to settlers to voluntarily relocate.
This proposal would reduce day-to-day friction between the sides and greatly expand Palestinian self-governance, without compromising core Israeli security needs. It could also help pave the way for the establishment of the confederation. In Gaza, Israel would withdraw to the security perimeter currently envisaged or, preferably, transfer it to Egyptian trusteeship, as per the preceding section.
None of the above can happen in the current political context. A new government would have to be elected in Israel, as appears likely next year; the Palestinians would have to undergo more fundamental political reform, which will take time; Jordan and Egypt would have to demonstrate new policy flexibility.
The Gulf states and international community would have to provide political and economic backing. The United States would have to take the lead and leverage its influence to bring the parties on board.
Critically, however, this paradigm shift aligns with Trump’s preference for dramatic out-of-the-box solutions, unconstrained by conventional wisdom and bearing his personal imprint. It may not be ideal and is certainly not a panacea; it does not fulfill the sides’ every aspiration. But in a region where the perfect has always been the enemy of the good, it may be the most effective formula for addressing the core security, demographic, and political concerns of both the Israeli and Palestinian publics.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-872824
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