Middle East Press On: Israeli Normalization, Saudi Arabia, Sun Tzu, Ceasefire: New Age Islam's Selection, 27 November 2025
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
27 November 2025
Israeli Normalization With Saudi Arabia Is Desirable But Not At Any Cost
Why Do Ceasefires Not Stop The Israeli Killing Machine?
Blocking Anti-Israel Forces In Gaza: Why Indonesia’s ‘Peacekeepers’ Must Stay Home
Fixing Israel’s Broken PR Strategy: What Zionism Can Learn From Sun Tzu
Despite Gaza Ceasefire, War Against Israel On College Campuses Rages On
UNSC 2803: The US-Israeli Scheme To Partition Gaza And Break Palestinian Will
Colombia’s Petro: From Liberation At Home To Solidarity With Gaza
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Israeli Normalization With Saudi Arabia Is Desirable But Not At Any Cost
By J Post Editorial
November 27, 2025
The tantalizing prospect of normalization with Saudi Arabia is something various US officials – including US President Donald Trump – have dangled before Israeli eyes for months. The idea was that after the Gaza war ended and after Washington re-engaged energetically in the region, Riyadh would finally take the fateful step and join the Abraham Accords.
That mirage flickered again last week, when Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) arrived in Washington for a lavish White House reception that provided the perfect backdrop for the announcement of a historic breakthrough. It wasn’t to be.
Despite the red carpet, the military bands, and Trump’s extravagant embrace – complete with promises of advanced weaponry, security guarantees, and talk of deepening US-Saudi strategic ties – MBS stuck to a firm, unmistakable line: Saudi Arabia is open to normalization, but only if Israel agrees to an “irreversible, credible” pathway to a Palestinian state.
In other words: not now, and not at a price that would be unacceptable to any Israeli leader for the foreseeable future.
According to accounts of the closed-door meeting between Trump and MBS, the president pressed hard – even bluntly – for movement.
He wanted a win, the next big expansion of the Abraham Accords, the centerpiece to the post-war regional diplomacy he is trying to drive. But the crown prince did not budge. He cited Saudi public opinion, deeply hostile to Israel after October 7, and said plainly that the kingdom could not advance normalization without a concrete political horizon for the Palestinians.
The public opinion argument is striking not because it is unfamiliar, but because it is treated so differently depending on who makes it.
When MBS points to public opinion as a restriction, it is heard in many circles in Washington and beyond as a solemn political reality.
When Prime Minister Benjamin NetanyahuOpens link in new window. points to Israeli public opinion, which is overwhelmingly opposed to a Palestinian state, as reflected in recent polls and Knesset votes, the same claim is received with impatience, as if it were little more than a negotiating posture.
The double standard is hard to miss. If Saudi public opinion is treated in Washington as an immovable obstacle, Israel deserves the same deference when it points to its own public’s deep, broad opposition to a Palestinian state.
Creation of a Palestinian state seen as a threat to Israel
A Palestinian state may sound nice on paper, but in Israel’s post-October 7 reality, it is widely seen as an existential threat. Normalization with Saudi Arabia has clear strategic, economic, and symbolic value, but not at the price of abandoning Israel’s core security doctrine or ignoring the hard lessons learned over the past two years.
There is another uncomfortable truth beneath last week’s spectacle. Saudi Arabia walked away with a great deal simply by showing up in Washington: public rehabilitation after years of being treated as untouchable; movement toward nuclear cooperation; the prospect of eventually acquiring fifth-generation American fighter planes; and the designation as a major non-NATO US ally.
All of this came without Riyadh taking a single meaningful step toward Israel. Much of this reflects Washington’s desire to anchor Riyadh firmly in the American orbit at a time when global competition with China has become a defining strategic priority.
This broader context is sobering for Israel. Saudi Arabia today has options — including dancing with Beijing and Moscow — and is using those suitors to negotiate with the US from a position of strength. MBS can afford to be patient. He can say “not yet” to normalization and can make no meaningful gestures toward Israel, yet continue to receive major dividends from Washington.
Israel, for its part, should keep the door to normalization open. Peace with Riyadh remains a historic opportunity. But Israel need not dance to Saudi Arabia’s tune, and certainly not with concessions that run counter to its basic security interests. There is nothing wrong with saying no when the price is too high.
Saudi Arabia has made its conditions unmistakably clear. And Israel’s task is to respond with the same clarity: normalization is desirable and welcome, but not at the cost of committing to a Palestinian state that most Israelis – based on recent history and a sober reading of the current Middle East realities – believe would endanger their security and the country’s future.
Normalization with the Saudis? Yes, definitely. At any cost? No thanks.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-876334
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Why Do Ceasefires Not Stop The Israeli Killing Machine?
Daoud Kuttab
November 26, 2025
Despite the announcement and acceptance of ceasefire agreements in Gaza and Lebanon, the Israeli army — particularly its air force — has continued its deadly operations.
As of Monday, Israeli attacks carried out in Gaza since the US-brokered ceasefire took effect on Oct. 10 had killed between 318 and 342 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and the Gaza Government Media Office. UNICEF also reports that at least 67 children have been killed since the ceasefire began. In the same period, three Israeli soldiers were reported killed in incidents in or near the Gaza Strip. No Israeli civilian deaths inside Israel have been recorded in that time.
Meanwhile, in Lebanon, nearly 400 people have been killed since the ceasefire came into effect there a year ago, including five — among them a senior Hezbollah officer — in a blast that rocked a southern suburb of Beirut on Sunday.
Why? And who is being held responsible?
Unlike most traditional and successful ceasefire agreements, the US-led initiative in Gaza lacked key components. It failed to include two essential elements for a durable end to hostilities: a robust on-the-ground monitoring mechanism empowered to report violations; and a clear political roadmap addressing the root causes of the conflict.
To be fair, the US’ 20-point plan does mention the need for a temporary International Stabilization Force. But the agreement provides neither clarity on who will constitute this force nor a clear mandate for its operations. This ambiguity has handed Israel an easy escape route.
Israel unilaterally rejected the participation of troops from Turkiye, a NATO member with a majority Muslim population, and had earlier dismissed any role for Qatar, claiming both countries were too close to Hamas. It suggested Azerbaijan instead, but Baku quickly withdrew from consideration, as did Jordan and the UAE.
At the heart of this reluctance lies the absence of a clear mission. Most ceasefire monitoring forces are mandated only to observe and report — not to intervene, stop violators or disarm combatants. The US plan, later endorsed by the UN Security Council, calls for Gaza to become a demilitarized zone but fails to specify who will enforce this demilitarization.
Hamas insists that the question of armed resistance is a purely Palestinian matter and that no foreign force has the right to disarm its fighters. Even the issue of offering safe passage to some 200 resistance fighters sheltering in tunnels became contentious, as Israeli leaders — eager for images of Palestinian surrender — demanded they lay down their weapons before being allowed to leave.
There is little doubt that Israel is constantly throwing a stick in the wheel, searching for excuses to delay moving to the second phase of the agreement, which includes reopening the Rafah crossing and allowing significantly more humanitarian aid into Gaza. Last week, the head of the Gaza Chamber of Commerce revealed that Israeli restrictions have fueled a black market that has extracted nearly $1 billion in “coordination fees,” benefiting both Israelis and Palestinians involved in this corrupt system. His statement underscores a bitter irony: the only area of genuine cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians is in crime and corruption.
The second reason the ceasefire has failed is the absence of any serious political engagement. Israel adamantly rejects any role for the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority in Gaza and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly undermines prospects for Palestinian statehood. Washington’s growing frustration with Netanyahu appears to be behind the clause inserted into UNSC Resolution 2803 calling for Palestinian-Israeli dialogue, which the US has agreed to host, though no date or details have been announced.
What the failed ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon have ultimately revealed is a waning US commitment. The Trump administration invested heavily in the Gaza ceasefire as long as Israeli hostages remained in captivity. Once they were released and the northern front grew quieter, Washington’s attention shifted to Ukraine.
But sustained US engagement will inevitably be needed if the current stalemate persists. Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon are ticking time bombs. The region urgently requires two things: a credible peacekeeping force with a firm mandate to monitor and report violations, and a serious political process that tackles the core issues underlying the conflict. Without these, real ceasefires will remain elusive.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2624031
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Blocking Anti-Israel Forces In Gaza: Why Indonesia’s ‘Peacekeepers’ Must Stay Home
By Moshe Phillips
November 27, 2025
Recent news stories have revealed that Indonesia may send some 20,000 soldiers – troops it claims have been trained to be peacekeepers – to Gaza. On paper, this might look like a contribution to regional stability. However, for the United States and for Israel, allowing Indonesian soldiers to deploy in Gaza would be a strategic mistake.
Indonesia does not recognize Israel, has never had diplomatic relations with Israel, and has consistently voted against Israel at the United Nations. The proposed deployment is not in the best interest of either the United States or Israel. The 20,000 Indonesian soldiers who have been supposedly trained to be peacekeepers in Gaza should stay home in Indonesia.
Indonesia’s government has publicly reaffirmed that there is no official relationship with Israel, and this position has remained unchanged for decades. Despite rare and unofficial contacts, Jakarta maintains a foreign-policy posture rooted in rejecting Israel’s legitimacy. It also has no embassy in Israel. This lack of diplomatic relations is not a technicality; it is a deliberate Indonesian policy that signals national opposition to Israel’s existence.
Indonesia diplomatically against Israel
In consistently voting against Jerusalem at the UN, often enthusiastically, Jakarta has supported resolutions condemning Israel for what it describes as an “unlawful occupation” of Palestinian territory. Indonesian officials publicly welcome UN resolutions calling for a full Israeli withdrawal and regularly state that Israel has no legitimate sovereignty in Palestinian-populated areas.
Indonesia has also condemned Knesset votes, reinforcing its long-standing pattern of hostility. These are not the votes or statements of a neutral nation capable of acting as an even-handed peacekeeping presence; they are the actions of a state that aligns diplomatically against Israel over and over again.
This all really matters when discussing the possible deployment of Indonesian troops into Gaza. Embedding soldiers from a country that refuses to recognize Israel, has no diplomatic ties with Israel, and consistently backs resolutions targeting Israel’s legitimacy introduces serious risks.
Peacekeepers must be trusted by all sides if they are to function effectively. Given Indonesia’s history, Israel cannot reasonably be expected to view these troops as neutral actors. Nor should the United States do so.
Legitimizes anti-Israel diplomacy
In October 2024, dramatic testimony revealed that Hezbollah terrorists captured by the IDF confirmed that they had paid members of UNIFIL (the UN Interim Force in Lebanon) to use their outposts and surveillance cameras along the border with Israel. What assurances are there that troops from a nation like Indonesia, when its citizens know full well that their government opposes Israel, would not similarly collaborate with Hamas?
There is also the practical question of what message the United States would send by supporting such a deployment. Washington consistently works to protect Israel’s security. Allowing troops from a nation that has taken every opportunity at the UN to oppose Israel would create an unnecessary contradiction in US policy.
It would legitimize Indonesia’s behavior: aggressive anti-Israel diplomacy paired with a sudden interest in placing thousands of soldiers in a territory vital to Israel’s security. Washington should be wary of giving political cover to states whose UN voting records consistently undermine US and Israeli interests.
Some might argue that Indonesia, as the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, could bring credibility or balance to peacekeeping in Gaza. Yet, Indonesia itself has made clear that even its hypothetical willingness to recognize Israel is conditional, based not on diplomacy or mutual respect but on Israel first recognizing an independent Palestinian state. That is not neutrality; it is a political ultimatum.
Other methods to help
Inserting troops from such a state into Gaza could lead to confusion, conflicting mandates, and serious security complications. Peacekeepers need to coordinate closely with the IDF in any post-conflict scenario. The introduction of a politically motivated military contingent would risk undermining Israel’s security and could embolden groups that oppose Israel’s right to defend itself.
If Indonesia wishes to contribute to humanitarian efforts in Gaza, it has many options: reconstruction aid, medical support, food distribution, or engineering assistance. These would be productive avenues that do not carry the political and military risks of placing 20,000 soldiers in the middle of a conflict zone adjacent to Israel.
The bottom line is clear. Indonesia is the wrong country to provide troops in Gaza. For the security of Israel, for the strategic interests of the United States, and for the prospects of genuine peace, the Indonesian soldiers should stay in Indonesia.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-876280
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Fixing Israel’s Broken PR Strategy: What Zionism Can Learn From Sun Tzu
By Natalie Masri
November 27, 2025
Chinese general Sun Tzu warned thousands of years ago that “if you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” Today, Israel finds itself losing, not because it lacks military strength, but because it has failed to come to terms with the nature of the modern battlefield.
The fight is no longer confined to any of Israel’s borders or traditional battlefields; it is taking place in universities, on social media, via influencers, NGOs, and activists who have all learned to dominate the narrative space. Israel has mastered kinetic warfare yet neglected the information war for far too long and the consequences of this are now impossible to ignore.
Israel has spent years trying to counter propaganda with facts, statements, and various spokespeople. Still the truth is simple: people don’t connect to governments; they connect to people. Facts alone rarely move people; humans psychologically respond to stories, faces, and lived experience.
Stories make the difference
It’s why the stories of Holocaust survivors shifted global consciousness: hearing from someone who survived atrocity activates empathy, not argument. It bypasses ideology and speaks to the primal human instinct to recognize suffering and moral injustice.
Hostages and survivors of October 7 carry that same truth. Their testimonies are not political, they are lived reality.
Their voices are the only ones capable of piercing the ideological fog on campuses globally and in Western media.
When a college student hears someone’s experience who was kidnapped, tortured or watched their family murdered – that person is no longer debating abstractions – they are hearing a human being.
This is what Charlie Kirk correctly identified; these testimonies need to be everywhere: in universities, podcasts and schools; not as political arguments, but as witness accounts; not as interviews on Hebrew TV aimed solely at Israelis.
Survivors of atrocities have always shaped history because they speak with moral clarity that can neither be faked nor ignored. This isn’t hasbara (public diplomacy); it’s just survivors telling their stories and it remains Israel’s most powerful tool in a world that increasingly struggles to distinguish fact from fiction.
Control of soldiers' social media
Next up, the IDF: Israel’s military strength remains unquestioned but its lack of discipline is a major problem. In the age of smartphones, livestreams and TikTok, the IDF’s image is being shaped not by strategy but by whoever happens to post first from the field. Soldiers filming inside conflict zones, dancing in uniform, leaking footage, and posting political comments – none of this is seen on the same scale in any other Western military. It sends the message that the IDF is unserious, chaotic and emotionally reactive.
Perception matters in modern conflicts. For global audiences, particularly among Gen Z, the line between behavior and morality is razor thin. All it takes is one undisciplined video on social media to quickly become “the truth” about the entire army, racking up millions of views.
Israel cannot afford for such impulsive uploads onto social media to be used to discredit the IDF’s military actions. The IDF needs to enforce zero phones in active combat units, a strict ban on unsanctioned filming and clear consequences for breaches. If it can remotely detonate beepers in foreign countries, it can prevent phones being used in active war zones.
This is not censorship; this is standard military practice in the 21st century. Israel cannot win the narrative war while being perceived as amateurish online.
Few topics are as emotionally and politically charged as the actions of extremist settlers in the West Bank. Still, avoiding the issue has become more dangerous than addressing it. While these individuals represent a tiny fraction of Israelis, their behavior dominates global attention.
Amplifying the right voices
Videos of settlers carrying out despicable acts dominate the typical anti-Israel social media page. It’s not surprising, considering that the human mind generalizes; when people see one extreme example that makes their blood boil, they instinctively assume that it represents a whole group.
For young Western audiences, unfamiliar with the makeup of Israel society, they create a simple yet false association that “Settlers = Israeli = Zionists.” This view, which could not be further from the truth, has gone viral online and Israel has allowed it to propagate by failing to draw clear boundaries.
Fixing this involves clear legal consequences for settler violence and visible enforcement that demonstrates values rather than excuses. People typically judge societies by how they police their worst actors, not by whether or not they exist. Israel needs to prevent these acts from taking place in order to prevent the world from believing that those individuals define us as a country.
While it is admirable that there are so many Zionist and Jewish influencers fighting online every day, the hard truth is that their audiences are mostly Jewish and pro-Israel already. I’m not telling these influencers to stop – it’s important to raise and inspire future generations to be proud Jews, especially online where pro-Palestinian bots often dominate the online sphere.
Yet, in order to make a difference, there needs to be a shift from speaking to supporters to reaching out to the undecided. Take groups like the Kurds or Iranians – many of whom support Israel, yet many do not. It is worth finding ways of appealing to the ones that do not, not by lecturing or moralizing but by showing them the familiar side of Israeli life.
Israel must invest in voices that can enter new spaces and speak in a way that resonates emotionally, not just politically. This requires diverse Israeli storytellers such as Mizrahis, Ethiopians, Druze, Arab-Israelis and LGBTQ+ Israelis.
Highlight Hamas
Lastly, if there is one message that resonates across the political spectrum in the West, it’s that people care about their own communities first. In the US, UK and in Europe, citizens are watching their own public services collapse – hospitals overwhelmed, cost of living increasing, homelessness rising and in the same sentences hearing their governments pledge billions to Gaza. While most believe they are funding humanitarian relief, in reality a significant portion of that money never reaches civilians.
Israel should show how much of the billions of Western taxpayers’ funding flowing to Gaza is siphoned off by Hamas and how little reaches civilians. People care deeply about their own countries and public services – when they hear about the “billions to Gaza” they wonder – why not us?
Israel should also highlight the work of NGOs like IMPACT-se, which reviews the UNRWA curriculum and textbooks provided to Gazan children that continue to glorify martyrdom and feature antisemitic content in children’s textbooks. This kind of stuff is impossible to deny.
The conventional battlefield has expanded beyond borders and into universities, social media feeds, and online echo chambers where perception matters just as much if not more than facts. Israel assumed that the world understood its story, its trauma and its moral foundations, but this assumption no longer works. These reforms are not cosmetic, they are strategic. As Sun Tzu warned, those who know neither themselves nor their enemy will lose every battle.
Israel cannot afford to continue losing the information war while winning on the ground. The stakes are too high and members of the next generation are too influential. The young people shaping today’s narratives will grow up to become tomorrow’s policymakers and world leaders. If they grow up viewing Israel as an outcast, Israel risks becoming one – isolated geopolitically not because of its actions but because of the world’s perception.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-876285
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Despite Gaza Ceasefire, War Against Israel On College Campuses Rages On
By Anna Miller
November 27, 2025
It was supposed to be over. The rockets had stopped; diplomats were congratulating one another, and the word “ceasefire” echoed across newsfeeds like a promise of calm. But that night in downtown Toronto, when the Jewish community was attacked once again, that illusion shattered.
A private gathering hosted by Students Supporting Israel (SSI) and featuring veterans of the Israel Defense Forces turned violent when a masked mob stormed the event. Glass exploded, guests were attacked, one speaker was beaten, and several were hospitalized.
Police made arrests, but the damage was done, and the truth is now seen; the event was another sign that campus activism has gone global, with the same chants and messages appearing in cities far from where they began.
Another example strikes at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Students Supporting Israel hosted an event featuring a former IDF soldier. Outside, protesters gathered waving flags, banging pots and pans, and chanting “No terrorists on campus.” Flyers had circulated in advance, calling on students to “make noise” and “stand with Palestine.”
The scene turned chaotic as a small but loud, keffiyeh-clad group disrupted the event until campus police intervened, escorting the protesters away and even confiscating a spoon used as part of the clamor.
What we once called “student protest” has metastasized into something darker: a transnational movement that has learned to outlast wars, borders, and even peace.
Supported by professors
Across North America, pro-Palestinian groups have remained active, aggressive, and unrelenting long after the guns went quiet. At UCLA, “solidarity encampments” descended into chaos. At Stanford, demonstrators barricaded themselves inside the university president’s office, refusing to leave until police forced them out.At Columbia University, dozens of students were arrested for occupying Butler Library in yet another show of defiance.
It’s a pattern of hostility that grows inside universities, pushed by ideology and supported by professors. Networks like Faculty for Justice in Palestine and campus chapters of Columbia University Apartheid Divest have learned to weaponize their credibility, turning classrooms into recruitment grounds.
So, even after the ceasefire, CUAD didn’t call for healing or diplomacy. It doubled down, tweeting defiantly: “Our task is to build an anti-Imperialist student movement no matter who is in power.” That’s the rhetoric of revolution. And this dynamic was developed in American campuses with the faculty support.
In April 2024, Northwestern students erected a pro-Palestinian encampment on Deering Meadow. It began as a protest, but by October 2024, the school was disciplining students for staging a walk-out on the first anniversary of Hamas’s massacre. Then came Washington’s attention. In April 2025, the US House committee investigating campus antisemitism demanded records from Northwestern’s law clinic for its role in defending protest organizers.
Dr. Alithia Zamantakis, a Northwestern professor, became a symbol of how far things have gone. She mixed activism with her academic role, was arrested during protests, and later praised Hamas leaders as “martyrs.” She is one of the professors who turned her position as an educator into a platform for extremism.
Ivy League hate
Another example is Harvard, where protest did not fade – it entrenched. We saw hundreds camping in Harvard Yard. By May, the school’s commencement was interrupted when graduates walked out chanting “Free, Free Palestine” after the administration barred 13 activists from receiving diplomas. A year later, a university task force reported that Jewish students continued to face harassment and intimidation, evidence that the hostility had become systemic.
At Harvard, Dr. Karameh Kuemmerle, a neurologist, shows how professional titles can be used for politics. As co-founder of Doctors Against Genocide, she has shared claims that echo Hamas talking points, accusing Israel of “targeting hospitals” and calling its actions “genocide.” Her group’s posts often mirror sources known for spreading pro-Hamas messages. This position is also reflected in her teaching.
Finally, at UPenn, activism hardened into defiance. The Gaza Solidarity Encampment of April 2024 consumed the college for weeks. By May 2025, disciplinary hearings and suspensions continued long after the tents came down.
Among its loudest defenders is Prof. Sukaina Hirji, a philosopher whose activism has blurred the boundary between academic inquiry and agitation. As a leader of Penn Faculty for Justice in Palestine, Hirji helped sustain the encampment, hosted “teach-ins” defending civil disobedience, and minimized the intimidation that Jewish students described daily. On social media, she echoed calls to “dismantle Zionism” and demanded leniency for arrested protesters.
Her advocacy extended to workshops like “Resistance and Oppression” and public signatures endorsing PACBI, the academic boycott movement criticized for institutional discrimination. Through such acts, Hirji transformed her department into a forum for activism, proof that radical ideology has found intellectual cover within the halls of learning.
The war continues
What began as campus protest has become a permanent infrastructure of confrontation. From Zamantakis’s “martyrs” at Northwestern to Kuemmerle’s “genocide” campaign at Harvard and Hirji’s ideological workshops at Penn, the through-line is unmistakable: a generation of academics using the privileges of scholarship to normalize hostility, justify violence, and erode safety in the name of liberation.
The ceasefire may have silenced the rockets, but on American campuses, and beyond the US – and now, even in Toronto – the war continues. Not with missiles, but with words, classrooms, and influence. And until universities are willing to draw the line between free expression and open incitement, they will remain the staging grounds for the next wave of extremism.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-876272
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UNSC 2803: The US-Israeli Scheme to Partition Gaza and Break Palestinian Will
By Ramzy Baroud
November 26, 2025
United Nations Security Council Resolution 2803 is destined to fail. That failure will come at a price: more Palestinian deaths, extensive destruction, and the expansion of Israeli violence to the West Bank and elsewhere in the Middle East.
The resolution, passed on November 14, 2025, was a consolation prize to Israel after failing to achieve its ultimate objective from the two-year Gaza genocide: the ethnic cleansing of the population and the complete takeover of the Gaza Strip.
Gaza shattered a core Israeli doctrine: the absolute certainty of its military supremacy to subdue the Palestinian people using far superior US and Western-supplied technology. Though the occupation was never expected to be easy – as Israel’s history of violence in the Strip attests – the complete takeover was, in the mind of the Israeli leadership, a certainty. In August, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated with total confidence that Israel aimed to “take control of all of Gaza.” That proved to be wishful thinking.
How Israel has failed to subdue an impoverished and besieged population of 2 million people, subjected to a blockade, a famine, and one of the world’s most horrific genocides, is a question for future historians. The immediate consequence, however, is political: Israel and its Western backers, especially the US, understand that an utter Israeli failure in Gaza would be interpreted by Israel’s victims as a pivotal sign of the times.
In fact, the notion of Israel’s implosion and the end of the Zionist project has moved from the margins of intellectual conversation into the center. These ideas are bolstered by the Israelis themselves and are a recurring topic in Israeli media. Such a headline in Haaretz on November 15 is hardly shocking: “At a Secret Harvard Site, a Massive Archive of Israeliana Is Preserved – in Case Israel Ceases to Exist”.
Thus, US President Donald Trump’s so-called “Comprehensive Stabilization Plan for Gaza,” signed in Sharm el-Sheikh on October 30, 2025, was the official start of the American scheme to save Israel from its own blunders. That supposed ‘ceasefire’ was meant to give Israel the chance to maneuver. Instead of occupying all of Gaza and pushing Palestinians out, Israel would now use social and political engineering to achieve the same goal.
The first phase of the plan, which placed most of Gaza under Israeli military control in anticipation of a gradual withdrawal, is already proving to be a sham. As of the time of writing this article, Israel, according to the Gaza government media office, has violated the agreement nearly 400 times, killing over 300 Palestinians. Israel continues to systematically demolish Palestinian areas and has increasingly begun operating west of the Yellow Line, which separates Gaza into two regions.
Worse still, according to Gaza authorities, Israel has been expanding its share of Gaza, estimated at approximately 58 percent, westward. The ‘ceasefire’ has effectively enforced a new mechanism that allows Israel to carry out a one-sided war – with further territorial expansion, destruction, assassination, and occasional massacres – while Palestinians expect nothing but the mere slowing down of the Israeli death machine. This is not sustainable, especially since Israel has also violated the most basic principle of the imaginary ceasefire: allowing vital aid to enter Gaza.
UNSC 2803 endorses the “Comprehensive Stabilization Plan for Gaza” without placing any legally binding expectations on Israel. It establishes a Transitional Administration and Oversight Council (TAOC), which entirely excludes Palestinians, including the Western-supported Palestinian Authority.
The executive branch of this TAOC would be the International Stabilization Force (ISF), whose sole job is to “stabilize the security environment in Gaza” on behalf of Israel, notably by disarming Palestinian groups. The ISF, according to the resolution, operates “in close consultation and cooperation,” meaning the force is tasked with achieving Israel’s military objectives, thereby allowing Israel to determine the timing and nature of its supposed gradual withdrawal.
Since Palestinians refuse to disarm – as unconditional disarmament without meaningful international guarantees would surely lead to the full return of the Israeli genocide – Israel will certainly refuse to leave Gaza. Netanyahu made that clear on November 16, when he stated that “Israel would not withdraw” without disarming Hamas, “either the easy way or the hard way”.
The partition of Gaza is a US-led attempt to change the nature of the challenge for Tel Aviv, but ultimately aims at achieving the same original objectives. The resolution has served Israel’s interests fully, hence Netanyahu’s enthusiasm, yet Israel is still refusing to respect it, making it clear there will be no phase two of Trump’s original plan.
The entire political scheme, however, is doomed to fail. Though Palestinian suffering will certainly worsen in the coming months, the US-Israeli gambit is fundamentally flawed: it is built on trickery and coercion, resting on the false assumption that Palestinians, fearing genocide, will accept any plan imposed on them. This premise ignores history. Palestinians have consistently defeated such sophisticated mechanisms designed to break them, meaning this new arrangement is equally unsustainable.
Ultimately, the failure of UNSC Resolution 2803 confirms one enduring truth: the Israeli war on Gaza has not stopped. It has simply changed form. It is crucial that people around the world understand this next phase for what it is: a diplomatic maneuver designed to facilitate the ongoing Israeli plan to control the Gaza Strip and ethnically cleanse its population.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/unsc-2803-the-us-israeli-scheme-to-partition-gaza-and-break-palestinian-will/
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Colombia’s Petro: From Liberation at Home to Solidarity with Gaza
By Ranjan Solomon
November 26, 2025
Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro has become one of the most principled moral voices of our time. His defiance of US hegemony, his insistence on justice for Gaza, and his transformation of Colombia from a battlefield to a peace project have placed him in a league of leaders who speak truth to power at immense personal and political cost.
Petro is not merely a politician; he is a visionary who dares to redefine statecraft around human dignity. In an age when most leaders shrink from confronting global injustice, Petro has chosen the harder path – one rooted in ethics, memory, and solidarity.
Liberation at Home
Before the world came to know him as a defender of Gaza, Petro had already earned his place in history by redefining Colombia’s national priorities. A former guerrilla turned democrat, he understood from experience that peace cannot be built by bullets. His government’s “Total Peace” policy seeks to end decades of internal conflict through dialogue, social investment, and land reform – shifting the logic of power from repression to reconciliation.
Where previous governments allowed US-imposed anti-drug militarization to devastate rural livelihoods, Petro took a revolutionary step: replacing the “war on drugs” with community-led crop substitution and rural rehabilitation. His model treats farmers not as criminals, but as citizens deserving of justice.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) acknowledged that, under Petro, Colombia has achieved significant reductions in coca cultivation and violence linked to trafficking. His anti-drug policy reclaims sovereignty from US control and restores dignity to peasants long trapped in poverty and criminalization.
Petro’s Colombia is turning away from dependency – not only on drugs, but on foreign dictates. His domestic reforms, from education and labor rights to ecological sustainability, are built around one conviction: a nation liberated from fear must also liberate others.
Solidarity with Gaza
When the bombs began falling on Gaza, Petro did not speak as a politician calculating risk; he spoke as a human being responding to atrocity. His words – sharp, moral, and uncompromising – shattered the silence of global diplomacy.
“The world cannot remain silent while a genocide unfolds before its eyes,” he declared. “If we must choose between relations with genocide and relations with humanity, we choose humanity.”
True to that conviction, Colombia, under Petro, became the first major Latin-American country to sever diplomatic ties with Israel in May 2024. He denounced the massacre in Gaza as a crime against humanity, invoking the world’s duty to stand with the oppressed.
Petro’s solidarity with Palestine is no political gesture. It springs from his lifelong commitment to liberation – the belief that no nation can be free while others are enslaved. His empathy for Gaza mirrors Colombia’s own journey from violence to peace. Both stories speak of occupied lives yearning for justice; both reveal the brutality of power and the persistence of hope.
US Retaliation and the Sanctioning of Conscience
Such moral courage comes at a price. In September 2025, the United States revoked Petro’s visa after he joined a pro-Palestinian demonstration in New York, accusing him of making “reckless and incendiary” remarks. A month later, Washington imposed sanctions on Petro, his family, and members of his government, citing alleged failures in anti-drug efforts – a charge that rings hollow against the backdrop of his evident success.
It is difficult to ignore the pattern: whenever a Global South leader stands up for Palestine or challenges US orthodoxy, punishment follows. From Cuba to Venezuela, from Bolivia to Colombia, Washington continues to weaponize finance and diplomacy against independent states.
Petro’s “crime” was not incitement, but integrity. He defied the empire in defense of humanity. His punishment reveals more about US insecurity than about Colombia’s policies.
The same nation that once dictated Colombia’s drug war now seeks to silence the man who redefined it – and who dared to call Gaza what it is: genocide.
The Meaning of Petro
Petro represents the moral reawakening of the Global South. His politics link the struggles of the poor in Latin America with the dispossessed in Palestine, Africa, and Asia. He reminds us that liberation is indivisible: social justice at home must be tied to solidarity abroad.
Civil society organizations across continents have recognized this courage. Many have nominated him for international honors, including the Right Livelihood Award – the “Alternative Nobel” – and supported his Nobel Peace Prize candidacy. They see in him a rare kind of leadership: intellectual, humble, and guided by conscience.
In Petro, Latin America’s historic call for dignity finds a contemporary voice. He stands in the lineage of Bolívar and Allende, of Fidel and Chávez, but speaks in the language of the 21st century – ecological, inclusive, and humane.
At a time when Western democracies have surrendered moral authority to militarism, Petro’s defiance restores the idea that politics can still serve truth. His vision offers a counterweight to cynicism: a reminder that states can be instruments of compassion rather than cruelty.
Conclusion
Gustavo Petro has shown that leadership is not measured by the applause of the powerful, but by fidelity to the powerless. His decision to stand with Gaza, despite the consequences, is an act of global conscience.
If the United States punishes him, history will absolve him. Petro is not merely defending Palestine; he is defending the idea of a humane world order – one that places human life above empire.
As Colombia heals its own wounds, Petro extends that healing to others, proving that liberation begins at home, but never ends there.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/colombias-petro-from-liberation-at-home-to-solidarity-with-gaza/
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