Middle East Press On: Mayoral Election, Zionist, Palestinian : New Age Islam's Selection, 11 November 2025
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
11 November 2025
Post-Mayoral Election, Israel Is Now A Prime Investment Destination For New York's Elite
Israel Won’t Be Saved From The Haredim. It Will Be Saved With Them
Offering Israeli Citizenship For Some Gazans Presents A Path To Survival, Rebuilding
World Zionist Circus: A Funhouse Mirror Of Israeli Politics
Back To School Or Back To Death? The Missing Rights Of Palestinian Children
Netanyahu Cabinet’s Complicity In The Gaza Genocide
Is It Possible To Restore Sports In Gaza? A History Of Destruction, Survival, And Return
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Post-Mayoral Election, Israel Is Now A Prime Investment Destination For New York's Elite
By Meggie Tempelman Itzhak
November 11, 2025
With New York concluding one of its most closely watched mayoral election campaigns in recent times, the city now looks toward a new chapter. The newly elected mayor, whose views and positions have been clearly articulated throughout the campaign, will shape the city’s social, economic, and civic landscape in ways that are already being felt across the business community.
Among investors and high-net-worth families, the tone is measured but forward-looking. This is not a moment of concern but rather one of reassessment – an opportunity to diversify portfolios, balance risk, and strengthen long-term financial security. Within that context, Israel is once again emerging as a natural destination, not only as a symbol of identity but as a tangible economic opportunity.
A resilient market in Israel
While the United States remains the world’s strongest and most innovative economy, Israel has demonstrated remarkable resilience throughout a year of geopolitical and financial challenges. Most of the immediate threats have been neutralized or significantly reduced, and the country’s financial system has continued to operate efficiently. Developers, banks, and investors have maintained stability and professionalism even under uncertainty, a reflection of a mature and disciplined market.
As of January 2025, the supply of new apartments in Israel has reached a record of roughly 78,000 units, including nearly 9,000 in Tel Aviv alone. The high-interest-rate environment is motivating developers to sell, creating a genuine window of opportunity for buyers and international investors, ranging from premium coastal towers in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to emerging residential and community projects in cities like Ramat Gan, the Sharon area, and Modi’in.
Naturally, as with any major international investment, investors should seek local counsel to navigate the specific tax and regulatory environment, but the underlying fundamentals of the Israeli market remain highly attractive.
Growth in New York and Tel Aviv
For investors in New York, this moment offers a chance to think strategically: While the city adjusts to a new political reality and redefines its urban and fiscal priorities, Israel is quietly rebuilding a balanced, transparent, and opportunity-rich real estate market. Two global financial centers – New York and Tel Aviv – stand at different crossroads, yet both hold pathways to growth and renewal.
Once again, Israel proves that it is not only a center of identity and security, but also a resilient, modern, and well-regulated real estate market, one that allows investors to build on solid ground.
In a rapidly changing world, whether for a home, an investment, or long-term strategy, the safest real estate project for investors around the world is in Israel.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-873329
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Israel Won’t Be Saved From The Haredim. It Will Be Saved With Them
By Yehudit Miletzky
November 11, 2025
Behind the headlines and the panic about the “haredi [ultra-Orthodox] threat” lies a very different story, one about values, community, and quiet transformation. Those who look at the haredim only through fear are missing one of the most important stories shaping Israel’s future.
A recent Makor Rishon article declared that “the [social] pact with the haredim has become a national existential threat.” It no doubt struck a chord with many Israelis worried about the country’s direction, reflecting a growing mood of frustration, fatigue, even despair.
The haredim are often portrayed as one faceless mass: unchanging, demanding, detached. Yet anyone who actually peers inside sees something else, a community of strong internal values: Torah study, rich community life, mutual aid, and a spiritual mission anchored in responsibility for the continuity of the Jewish people and its tradition.
The role of haredim in Israel
The haredim are not a burden on Israel’s back. They are woven into its social DNA. It did not emerge here by accident, nor did it arrive as a settler looking to exploit public resources. It was built out of a sense of purpose and moral commitment, to preserve values that the modern world often loses sight of. This ethos inevitably encounters Israel’s broader society at sensitive crossroads, again and again. It is a community that prefers stability over change, continuity over novelty, and spirit over materialism.
The real challenge, then, is not the existence of such a community but the erosion of trust and communication between sectors. When secular Israelis feel that haredim only take and never give, they grow resentful. When haredim feel they’re being forced to change who they are, they retreat inward. Both sides have a point, but together, they create a destructive loop – every debate about education, the economy, or civic duty becomes another front in a war of religion and identity.
Treating the haredim as the problem may be politically convenient, but it’s sociologically blind. Instead of asking what’s unraveling in Israeli society as a whole, we point at one group and call it the culprit. In doing so, we miss something remarkable, a quiet revolution already underway. More haredi men are joining the workforce. More haredi women are earning degrees and entering diverse professions.
That means more taxes paid, more economic participation, more engagement. Yes, haredi families still pay less in taxes and compulsory fees, but their contributions have been growing faster than those of any other group in Israeli society.
Haredim in the labor market
Haredi society is among the youngest in the developed world, an enormous future workforce brimming with energy, creativity, and a willingness to learn. The potential for growth is immense if we can together find frameworks that meet the needs of all sides.
The young ultra-Orthodox entering the labor market bring with them discipline, reliability, commitment, and an exceptional capacity for learning – qualities every employer seeks. Properly integrated, they could become one of Israel’s greatest engines of economic growth.
Of course, criticism about education gaps, military service, and economic inequality is fair. The challenges are real. Still, labeling an entire community as a threat ensures that no solution will ever take root. Declaring that the social pact with the haredim is an existential danger is not only morally wrong, it’s strategically self-destructive. It deepens the rift that’s already tearing at Israel’s social fabric.
A healthy society doesn’t erase difference; it learns to live with it. The haredim don’t need to give up their identity to be equal citizens. The rest of Israel doesn’t need to give up on expecting shared responsibility. Real partnership isn’t blind sameness, it’s the ability to see the other as whole, even when they’re not like you.
If Israelis can start seeing one another not through fear or contempt but through understanding and shared purpose – mapping the gaps honestly, building bridges deliberately, and choosing trust over suspicion – then the future shifts.
Israel won’t be saved from the haredim. It will be saved with them.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-873334
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Offering Israeli Citizenship For Some Gazans Presents A Path To Survival, Rebuilding
By Salem Alketbi
November 11, 2025
Who could have possibly believed that the one true prophecy from the deranged Yahya Sinwar would be the one about the coming ruin? He promised a “regional religious war that will change the face of the Earth and burn everything to the ground.” He got his wish – but in a grim irony for his own people.
The fire he started with the October 7 massacre of Israeli civilians did not just burn his enemies; it consumed Gaza and its people. After he was killed and his family fled to a nearby country, one that still chants slogans of resistance while hosting terrorist leaders in its finest hotels, his prophecy was fulfilled. Gaza was irrevocably altered, physically and demographically, but in the exact opposite way he had envisioned.
What is unfolding in Gaza today is a watershed moment, changing the entire conflict and the region’s balance of power. The area known as the Yellow Line, covering nearly 57% of the Strip and under direct Israeli army control, has become a separate reality. It is an enclave entirely different from the territories still crushed under the thumb of the Hamas terror organization.
In the parts under direct Israeli supervision, people are finding a semblance of normalcy. Humanitarian aid is finally reaching families without the theft or monopoly that defined the past. This foundation of stability, however limited, has given people a taste of daily security that they have not known for years.
The chaos in Gaza
The chasm between the two zones is now undeniable. While some neutral areas are slowly finding their human rhythm again, the parts controlled by Hamas are trapped in a maelstrom of chaos and internal vengeance. Following the truce agreement on October 10, 2025, the movement launched a so-called “blessed” campaign of purges, targeting civilians accused of collaborating with the enemy.
Verified reports tell of public executions in Shujaiya, Beit Lahia, Khan Yunis, and the Nuseirat camp, with 180 to 220 people murdered in a single week. Victims were forced to their knees and shot in the head in broad daylight, a spectacle of utter depravity. It is a testament to the fact that brute force remains the only language the organization uses to speak to its own community.
These rapid changes force us to ask existential questions about the future of Gaza and its people. We have to consider every possible path out of this deep alienation. One of these paths is the recently discussed proposition of offering Israeli citizenship to some Gazans in the areas controlled by Israel. This would not be a political statement, but an individual prerogative for anyone seeking safety and stability, far from the ideologies of conflict.
It is a delicate idea, but viewing it through a humanitarian lens reveals an entirely different dimension. It becomes an opportunity to rebuild a life protected by laws and institutions that offer order.
Like their fellow Palestinians who are already Israeli citizens, they would have access to schools, healthcare, and social support. They would have the right to work in a stable economy, providing a reliable income and a clear future for their families. And the freedom to travel, once a fantasy, would become a reality within a lawful system. These everyday details would represent a metamorphosis for people who have spent decades trapped between empty slogans and real deprivation.
Integrating a part of Gazan society
I believe this path could also open new strategic prospects for Israel. Integrating a population into a stable civil framework creates common interests built on security and growth, not perpetual strife. This could help turn a part of Gazan society from a threat into a foundation for stability, making new violence less likely. A successful effort would also show the world a model of humanitarian action, demonstrating a commitment to rebuilding lives rather than letting chaos and suffering continue.
Of course, this path is not simple. Blending two societies with such a legacy of trauma and mistrust will take time and great mutual understanding. Some people will naturally struggle with the transition, and others will view it with suspicion.
We can also be sure that Palestinian and Arab powers who oppose this will try to paint it as treason. The hypocrisy is stunning, especially when over two million Israelis of Palestinian descent already live as full citizens with political rights. They have their own parties in parliament and the freedom to protest, even recently demonstrating and openly bashing Arab countries. The same hypocrisy reveals the political charade that denies people freedom when it comes from the heart, not from a slogan.
In the end, offering citizenship is not a panacea. Still, it is a pragmatic, humane path forward through a human tragedy of immense complexity. It gives individuals the freedom to decide their own future, and the future of their children, in a way that provides safety and dignity. And it moves beyond the slogans that have consumed generations to no effect.
Ultimately, this is a personal decision, one that must be made in an environment of freedom and responsibility, respecting a person’s right to survive and live a life of dignity. For dignity is not found in slogans; it is forged through an act of courage when silence becomes a form of death.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-873342
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World Zionist Circus: A Funhouse Mirror Of Israeli Politics
By Michael Starr
November 10, 2025
What was supposed to be a three-day World Zionist Congress event to determine the agenda and power-sharing agreements for Israel’s National Institutions has turned into almost two weeks of internal and inter-party squabbling. Although the congress is supposed to host the champions of the Zionist movement, it has demonstrated that it is just another front for the Knesset’s internecine politics.
The appeal for unity was the underlying theme of the 39th WZC, praising soldiers for their sacrifices, praying for the release of hostages, and wishing for healing for the victims of Hamas’s October 7 massacre and the war.
Yet, for all the calls for unity, the result was a fight entirely unrelated to the war that has still not truly come to a close.
The convention ended a day early, seeking to avoid forcing delegates home during haredi (ultra-Orthodox) anti-military draft protests.
A coalition agreement that excluded one Likud faction that was in dispute with others over a failure to hold party elections collapsed at the end of the day after the Culture and Sport Minister, Miki Zohar, proposed the prime minister’s son, Yair Netanyahu, for the position of World Zionist Organization executive.
Many slates decried Netanyahu’s appointment as a red line, a clear example of nepotism and clientelism.
Instead of a vote to officiate the coalition agreement, which would have accepted slate members into key positions in the WZO, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund, and United Israel Appeal, the WZC delegates instead voted to extend the convention by two weeks.
This was a technicality, as the delegates were still going home and the congress was over, save for the opaque dealings of party leaders over how to divide the Zionist pie.
Several dignitaries and WZO representatives expressed doubt that a full two weeks would be needed to agree, but Wednesday will mark the end of the extended convention, with no end in sight. There may be another time-extension vote, or, more likely, a consensus to ignore the deadline.
A fourth agreement is reportedly on the cusp of finalization – but confidence was also placed in the three other agreements that fell apart.
After Zohar’s faction pushed too far with the Yair Netanyahu proposal, the different factions turned to another Likud caucus, led by WZO chair Yaakov Hagoel, to develop a new understanding. A vote on the second agreement was announced on Sunday, but right-wing factions united in opposing it, demanding a delay.
No source could explain how an agreement was developed under the noses of right-wing factions, but some suggested that the Prime Minister’s Office had pressured them to challenge it.
The vote continued, but a concurrent renegotiation rendered the exercise obsolete. The vote to officiate the agreement was extended from Tuesday morning to the next day to facilitate the renewed backroom dealings. The vote of hundreds of delegates was, in essence, used to legitimize the spirit of agreement between the parties, who would organize the National Institutions among themselves after the fact.
Yet even as the third agreement was all but finalized, Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid announced that his party was withdrawing from it. The party had been set to secure several important positions within the National Institutions, but Lapid determined that the system was too corrupt, as evidenced by the Yair Netanyahu controversy.
Lapid instead called for the nationalization of the institutions, urging other factions to join him. None did, and negotiations commenced anew without Yesh Atid.
Perhaps come Wednesday, there will be a deal, but the legitimacy of the National Institutions has been harmed, and it is not solely because Lapid railed against their corruption, picked up his toys, and went home.
While ostensibly, the WZC holds a democratic process that is supposed to make its delegates and slates feel as if they were influencing the future of the Zionist movement, the last two weeks have cast aside the pretense for some.
Resolutions were furiously debated in a committee and then in the final plenary. Yet delegates complained that any compromise or personal understanding disappeared as soon as slates issued orders to form up into their political phalanxes.
New delegates stated that, despite all the arguments over the resolutions, they did not believe they would be adhered to or would define the WZO’s future. Like the coalition agreement, deliberated in other rooms and closed to the media and the majority of delegates, the agenda would be decided in the backrooms.
The sense that the delegates were “only new slates” led them to grumble that they were excluded from many of these backroom proceedings, as they were at a disadvantage to the old guard, who knew how to navigate the labyrinth of written and unwritten rules.
The two-week WZC saga is probably not of much interest to the average Israeli or Diaspora Jew, and perhaps it should not be if the National Institutions, the inheritance of Zionist Jews worldwide, did not control billions of shekels in assets.
As frustrated as new delegates were about being left in the dark by WZC’s leadership, it is difficult for the average person to grasp the purpose of the four odd organizations and their relations, or the arcane manner in which they operate, or the way the WZC chooses who wields their assets.
The only time that there is some semblance of interest or comprehension is in the moments when the quarrels breach the opaque surface. The gulf of understanding and interest is bridged by familiarity with the same squabbles that define Israeli politics.
All the most contentious resolutions also touched on the same controversial issues as those that perennially occupied Israeli leaders while the rest of the country fought a war.
As ultra-Orthodox protesters prepared to defy the military draft, the WZC voted to pass a resolution urging the WZO to encourage a more universal draft.
The Knesset still waffles on a state inquiry into Hamas’s October 7 massacre – WZC delegates, meanwhile, have passed a resolution calling for the establishment of such a review. Several resolutions demanding greater egalitarianism in religious sites or in the National Institutions were passed, a nod to the scandals about the conditions of holy sites that rear their head every few months.
Weeks after Noam MK Avi Maoz’s bill to apply sovereignty to the West Bank, the WZO passed resolutions against supporting settlements in Gaza or the E1 area of the West Bank. The E1 resolution did not pass easily, as right-wing delegates left the chamber to attempt to disrupt the quorum needed to legitimize the vote.
Lapid's decision to withdraw was seen as extension of Israeli politics
Lapid’s decision was also seen by many dignitaries as an extension of Israeli politics, evoking an image of a crusader battling corruption and trying to extend a controversy to score political points against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Netanyahu controversy itself reeks of the never-ending prosecution of the prime minister for corruption. It includes allegations of a quid pro quo: That he was given gifts, such as cigars and champagne, in return for aid to a political ally.
Netanyahu backed Zohar during his feud with Hagoel, and the surprise appointment of the leader’s son could appear as a homage to Zohar’s patron. Showering Yair Netanyahu with the benefits of a cushy job, a paycheck, a car, and a travel budget is at odds with the imagery of the torches of sacrifice wielded during the WZC opening ceremony.
Indeed, the executive suddenly introduced a resolution to expand the ever-growing executive ranks from 14 to 24. Yet, there were no seats for a reservist, or a bereaved mother, or a returned hostage.
Likud’s infighting, Netanyahu’s personal benefits, and Lapid’s tantrum are all artifacts of the same politics that exist in an alternate reality to a nation embroiled in a multifront war. For all the talk of unity and standing by soldiers and the war-ravaged, Jewish Israeli and Diaspora politicians still engage in the luxury of squabbles over tired old issues.
Meanwhile, reservists are sent back for their fourth and fifth tours of duty. “Unity” was nothing more than a euphemism for everyone agreeing with the policies of those who used the word.
As with the WZC resolutions, more broadly, there was never an attempt at actual compromise, nor an attempt to recognize the nation’s actual priorities in turbulent times.
Throughout the war, the Knesset still found time to rehash the same policies from the Judicial reform to the clash with the Attorney-General’s Office.
As for the lack of influence and distance felt by so many WZC delegates and the parallels of political drama between the WZC and the Knesset, these show that Lapid’s diagnosis was wrong. The same symptoms that afflict the WZC afflict other bodies in Israel and Diaspora politics: An insulated elite that is inwardly focused on personal interests.
The problems with the WZC that were demonstrated over the last two weeks are not that it is a corrupt or decayed system that needs to be reformed, but that it is occupied by the same dynasties and organizations that ran the state around in October 2023.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-873400
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Back To School Or Back To Death? The Missing Rights Of Palestinian Children
by Dr Ayşe Duran Yılmaz
November 10, 2025
September is a month of excitement in many parts of the world: children start new schools, open fresh notebooks, shoulder their school bags, and celebrate the joy of “back to school.” For all children, education is considered the cornerstone of their rights, and governments as well as international institutions repeat the slogan of “education for every child.” Yet, amid this universal rhetoric and the beginning of a new season, a completely different reality unfolds in Gaza.
For Palestinian children, September does not mean “back to school,” but cruelly, “back to death.” Their most fundamental right—the right to life—is taken from them every day under the shadow of bombs and conflict. According to UNICEF, more than 13,000 children in Gaza have been killed and over 25,000 injured since October 2023. Each day, an average of 28 children lose their lives—equivalent to an entire classroom being wiped out daily. For some, this right is denied even before they are born, stripped from them while still in the womb. At the same time, access to basic food is blocked, leaving children to die of hunger, with the number of those who perish from starvation increasing by the day. We witness Palestinian children photographed in tears at aid distribution lines, clutching empty containers.
For these children, the right to health is also trapped between blockades and closed borders. Hospitals are bombed, medicines are scarce, and most tragically, health workers themselves are killed. More than 80 per cent of health facilities in Gaza are either non-functional or severely damaged, leaving one million children without reliable access to medical care. Under such conditions, even mentioning the right to education becomes impossible. Schools have been reduced to rubble, playgrounds have turned into heaps of debris, and childhood takes place under the shadow of tanks. Nearly 88 per cent of Gaza’s schools have been damaged or destroyed, and at least 625,000 children have been deprived of formal education for months. UNICEF reports that over half a million children have now gone more than a year without access to classroom learning.
The right to protection is proclaimed for every child around the world, yet international institutions remain silent in the face of Gaza’s devastation. The same bodies that declare children’s rights to be universal fall silent when it comes to Palestinian children. This silence threatens not only Gaza, but the future of children everywhere. Because when rights are applied selectively, they are no longer “universal”, and they lose their credibility.
On 20 November 1989, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child, promising universal rights for all children: to life, to protection, to education, to health. On paper, every child is equal. But in Gaza, where dozens of children are killed or injured every single day, the claim of universality is reduced to an empty slogan.
When war broke out in Ukraine, the international community mobilized immediately. Funds were opened, schools were prepared for refugees, and the media kept the issue at the center of attention for weeks. In Palestine, however, the same childhood, the same rights, are ignored. This silence proves that children’s rights operate differently depending on geography.
It is not only states or international institutions that remain silent. Academia, too, shares in this double standard. While special issues, conference panels, and articles on the war in Ukraine were quickly produced, the losses of Palestinian children are too often overlooked. Even researchers working in the field of children’s rights hesitate to mention Palestine. This academic silence reproduces the limits of politics and further empties the claim of universality. Such silence in academia shows that “science” itself is trapped under the dominance of political agendas.
If Palestinian children are ignored, the very foundation of children’s rights—universality—crumbles, collapses, and becomes nothing more than hollow rhetoric. A right can only be called a right when it is applied equally to all children. When it is implemented selectively according to geography, politics, or strategic interests, it ceases to be a right and becomes a fragile privilege. This selectivity leaves not only Palestinian children but all children in the world without security. The collapse of universality means that in future conflicts or crises, children everywhere will be left without the international guarantees they depend on. Once trust begins to erode, there are no limits: the same institutions that remain silent in Palestine today may ignore the rights of other children tomorrow.
This is why the silence over Palestine is not just a regional issue—it is a global threat. As long as international institutions claiming to defend children’s rights remain silent, humanity’s shared values are eroded. As universality turns into selectivity, trust also erodes; treaties, declarations, and campaigns lose their credibility. This is not merely a political choice—it is a permanent wound in humanity’s conscience.
What must be done today is to break the silence, to raise our voices, and to fight so that rights can truly be universal. UNICEF itself has warned that over half a million people in Gaza are trapped in famine conditions, with children facing the highest risk of starvation. This struggle is not just a temporary campaign or a passing call for solidarity—it is the only way for humanity to secure its own future. For when the rights of Gaza’s children are quietly shelved, it means that tomorrow, in another part of the world, other children may share the same fate.
All this raises an uncomfortable question: Are children’s rights truly universal, or does a child’s place of birth determine their right to life, education and play? If rights are determined by geography, then they are no longer rights, but privileges.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20251110-back-to-school-or-back-to-death-the-missing-rights-of-palestinian-children/
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Netanyahu Cabinet’s Complicity in the Gaza Genocide
By Dr. Dan Steinbock
November 10, 2025
Recently, a classified report by a US government watchdog discovered that Israeli military units have committed “many hundreds” of potential violations of US human rights law in the Gaza Strip. The findings by the State Department’s Office of Inspector General mark the first time a US government report has acknowledged the scale of Israeli actions in Gaza that fall under the purview of the Leahy Laws that bar US assistance to foreign military units credibly accused of gross human rights abuses. Indirectly, these findings also highlight US complicity in the Gaza genocide, due to continuing arms transfers and financing.
Conveniently, the story was released only after two years of Israel’s genocidal atrocities in Gaza. In light of an avalanche of international reports during the period, the classified report represents the tip of the iceberg.
And yet, in November 2024, after an investigation of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for only two Israeli government leaders: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and his former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant. The two were alleged to be responsible for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and for crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts in the early part of the Gaza war (genocide was not included).
Notably, the warrant against Netanyahu was the first against the leader of the US-led West-backed country for war crimes. But were the two really the sole cabinet leaders responsible for the genocidal atrocities?
Effectively, there are circles of Israeli officials who share complicity for the Gaza genocide, including high-profile ministers, internationally lesser-known enablers, military and intelligence architects of obliteration, Netanyahu’s veteran advisor and the President.
Israel’s War Cabinet
The Key Ministers
Supporting Netanyahu and Gallant, there were at least half a dozen cabinet members who contributed to those brutalities, with some insisting on more destructive measures and protracted bombardment.
Even before Israel’s genocidal atrocities in Gaza, the Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the leader of the far-right and supremacist Jewish Power party, had long promoted the expulsion of “non-loyal” Arab citizens, the full blockade of Gaza, the Judaization of Israel-occupied Palestinian territories and total elimination of Hamas and all who support Palestinian resistance.
Ben-Gvir has been seconded by Bezalel Smotrich, the far-right leader of the national religious Zionists and Netanyahu’s Minister of Finance and Defense, who has tried to use the Gaza War to annex the West Bank to the pre-1967 Israel. A self-proclaimed racist and fascist, Smotrich promoted the blockade of the Gaza Strip, calling for the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza.
Still another hardliner is Netanyahu’s Foreign Minister, Israel Katz. As Netanyahu’s Energy Minister in October 2023, Katz had famously declared a complete siege of Gaza: no “electrical switch will be turned on, no water hydrant will be opened and no fuel truck will enter.” More recently, now-Defense Minister Katz, pledged that Gaza will be destroyed, and that anyone who stays in Gaza City will be considered “terrorists and terror supporters.”
Objecting to any humanitarian aid to Gaza, Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu, Ben-Gvir’s party colleague, suggested “nuking” the Strip to get rid of the “monsters of Gaza,”, including women and children. Despite global objections, Netanyahu did not fire Eliyahu. In May 2025, the emboldened minister said Israel should bomb Gaza’s food and fuel reserves to starve the population.
Like Eliyahu, Settlement Minister, Orit Strook, believes that death and devastation in Gaza served God’s purpose: Israel’s national redemption. That is why she opposed all ceasefire efforts. Hamas and Palestinians had to be eradicated so that the Messianic Jewish settlers can rebuild Azza; that is, the Judaized Gaza.
The Enablers
Though less known internationally, another set of cabinet members contributed to the protracted genocidal atrocities. After October 7, then Information Minister Galit-Distel Atbaryan posted her infamous tweet: “Erase Gaza from the face of the earth… and fire and brimstone on the heads of the Nazis in Judea and Samaria (the Hebraized term for the West Bank).”
Transportation Minister, Miri Regev, a former IDF brigadier-general and IDF spokeswoman who likes to describe herself as a “happy fascist,” criticized efforts to detain Israeli soldiers in the notorious Sde Teiman detention camp – the Israeli version of Abu Ghraib and the best-known node of “a network of torture camps.”
Promoting the full removal of all Palestinians from Gaza, Minister of Communications, Shlomo Karhi, had a central role in the censure of international media in Israel and the occupied territories, including the shutdown of Al Jazeera’s Israel bureau. Many of these views were supported by Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, a promoter of the West Bank’s annexation.
Months before October 7, Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli stated that the Palestinian Authority was a “neo-Nazi entity” and anti-Semitic and that it was necessary to “examine alternatives to its existence.” Chikli has built special ties with European far-right movements and led over 100 civil initiatives to align international sentiments with the cabinet’s view that Hamas is a collection of human animals and Nazi anti-Semites. In October, he invited Tommy Robinson, a British far-right anti-Islam activist with a dark history of criminal convictions, to Israel – despite objections and criticism by the Jewish Leadership Council and the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
Then, there was the Minister for Social Equality and as Minister for Women’s Empowerment, May Golan, long haunted by bribery and fraud allegations. Golan is Netanyahu’s openly racist appointee, who had hoped to serve as Israel’s consul general in New York City, until her appointment was rejected. She called for another “Nakba” (lit. “Catastrophe” in Arabic, referring to the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians in 1948), to cleanse all Palestinians from Gaza.
Despite their supportive roles and accessorial liability in the Palestinian genocide, none of these cabinet members have been charged by the ICC.
The Architects of Obliteration
Another set of decision-makers features those Israeli leaders who have had a direct or indirect role in the military doctrine that was deployed in Gaza. Gila Gamliel belongs to Netanyahu’s set of key ministers, but as the Minister of Intelligence, she also represented the country’s intelligence elite. Since October 2023, she has been in charge of plans of Gaza’s ethnic cleansing to cash on the expulsion via real estate development and by resettling far-right Messianic settlers in Gaza.
The Netanyahu cabinet has also included veteran military leaders whose role was crucial long before and after October 7. They pioneered what can be called the obliteration doctrine, a lethal mix of scorched earth policy, collective responsibility and civilian victimization, coupled with massive indiscriminate bombardment and systematic use of artificial intelligence. As Prof. William Schabas, a leading scholar of genocide, has noted, the obliteration doctrine “adds a new term to the lexicon on genocide, notably in the application of international law and its judicial mechanisms.”
As I have demonstrated, this doctrine accounts for the decimation of urban infrastructure and the genocidal atrocities in Gaza. Already in 2006, it was first tested in Dahiya, a Shia Muslim enclave in Beirut. Gadi Eisenkot, the former IDF chief of staff, was its architect who pledged it would be used “in the next war.”
In spring 2024, Benny Gantz, the leader of a center-right party and former IDF chief of general staff, was portrayed as a “moderate” alternative to Netanyahu by the US Secretary of State, Blinken. And yet, Gantz sat in Netanyahu’s cabinet through the most devastating phase of Israel’s assault against Gaza. Worse, in the past, he has been haunted by several war crime allegations.
Then, there was the controversial and tough-talking Avi Dichter, a former head of Israel’s internal security, Shin Bet, and veteran politician whose brutal methods in the occupied territories have sparked charges of extrajudicial killing and war crimes since the early 2000s. Soon after October 7, Dichter disclosed the Israeli goals: “We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba,” adding “Gaza Nakba 2023, that’s how it will end.”
None of these architects of obliteration was featured among the ICC warrants, either.
Netanyahu’s Right-Hand and the President
The portrait of Netanyahu’s cabinet also features Isaac Herzog, the Israeli President. Right after October 7, Herzog condemned all residents of Gaza for “collective responsibility” in the Hamas attack on Israel. In this view, there were no innocents in Gaza. The doctrine legitimized the killings of Palestinian women and children who account for 70 percent of the perished in Gaza.
The portrait also includes Ron Dermer, Netanyahu’s Minister of Strategic Affairs, who recently left the cabinet but remains the PM’s close advisor. He was intimately linked with the PM’s fatal decisions regarding Gaza. These included a covert plan to “thin” the Palestinian population in Gaza “to a minimum,” by the creation of a “humanitarian crisis” to transfer the refugees away from the area.
Neither Herzog nor Dermer has had to worry about an ICJ warrant.
Furthermore, these high officials represent just the tip of their bureaucracies in which armies of subordinates implemented their decisions, from Netanyahu’s close confidant, Dermer, to soldiers who were guided to target women and children, including emergency workers who sought to save the victims; journalists who were silenced; and children who were deliberately shot in the head or the left side of the chest.
In light of the track record of these and other high-level officials, the ICC arrest warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu and his ex-defense minister, Gallant, would seem to be largely symbolic.
Symbolic Justice
Normally, a prosecution team would draw a long list of potential indictees and then decide who could be prosecuted, relying on the strength of available evidence and the resources of the prosecution team.
In light of the ICC’s arrest warrants, the Prosecutor’s office reportedly had a wider net of names that were considered. The decision to zoom in on just Netanyahu and Gallant was likely motivated by the view that they represented the apex of Israel’s military campaign against Gaza and its people.
Furthermore, the two were charged mainly with war crimes and crimes against humanity, not genocide.
Presumably, the ICC Prosecutor’s office may wait until there is a final ruling on South Africa’s charge of genocide – likely in late 2027 or early 2028 – before deciding whether to add genocide to the list of charges against Netanyahu, Gallant and anyone else that they add to the list.
The effort to charge two Israeli leaders rather than the entire cabinet, whose members have had a substantial role in the genocidal atrocities, does not represent the pursuit of “victims’ justice.” In substance, it is still another instance of “victors’ justice,” as the former colonial powers continue to undermine appropriate genocide prosecution.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/netanyahu-cabinets-complicity-in-the-gaza-genocide/
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Is It Possible to Restore Sports in Gaza? A History of Destruction, Survival, and Return
By Issam Khalidi
November 10, 2025
Since October 2023, athletes and sports infrastructure have been impacted by the genocidal assault that Israel has inflicted upon Gaza’s people and its built-up environment. In addition to the athletes and coaches who have been killed, sports clubs and arenas have been destroyed, and stadiums have been used for mass arrests and mass graves.
Among the reasons I have hesitated to write this article was the fact that there is a sense of ambivalence among many (a mixture of pessimism and optimism) regarding Israel’s violation of the ceasefire, the return of the genocidal war in Gaza, and the continuing suffering of Palestinians there.
Will it be possible to rebuild the destroyed and damaged sports infrastructure? And will sports in the Gaza Strip ever be the same as it was before the deaths of more than one thousand athletes, sports leaders, and administrators, in addition to the destruction of the infrastructure?
The answers to these questions are challenging, and speculating about the Gaza Strip’s political future is particularly difficult at this stage. Several factors contribute to the restoration of sports to their former state, including the political situation, security, stability, and the mechanisms and pace of the reconstruction process.
Sports restoration is directly related to the restoration of the educational, health, economic, social, and cultural sectors, and all other sectors as well. Every single one of these sectors, as well as the sports sector, in particular, will have its very own unique characteristics as it recovers and returns to the pre-genocidal war state. Additionally, it is necessary to recall the destruction that was caused by the occupation during its aggressions of 2008-2009, 2012, 2014, and 2021, during which the sports infrastructure was specifically targeted for destruction by the occupation.
It is necessary to rely on certain facts (and some data) on the ground to make predictions concerning the future of Palestinian sports in the Gaza Strip. Several negative aspects of these facts raise a number of concerns for us:
First, it is imperative to acknowledge the fact that there has been massive destruction of sports infrastructure, such as stadiums, sports facilities, buildings, and other structures, over the past two years. Approximately 90 percent of the sporting infrastructure in Gaza has been destroyed as a result of the genocidal war in Gaza, according to the Palestine Football Association. This is equal to the overall destruction in the sector, which is estimated to be 92 percent. The losses in the sports sector are estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Second, there was the martyrdom of about a thousand athletes and sports administrators. When compared to the total number of athletes and administrators in this sector, this is a significant number.
Third, the majority of athletes will also need to be able to recover their skills that have been interrupted due to interruptions in training and competition, as well as their physical and psychological suffering, which will certainly have a long-term effect on them, especially after the period of famine, food shortages, and the physical and psychological trauma they have endured.
It is well-known that school sports represent a vital part of the Palestinian sports movement and are a very important part of it. According to Palestinian data, Israel’s genocidal war has also destroyed over 200 government facilities, and 136 universities and schools (particularly UNRWA schools whose playing fields and grounds were destroyed).
Thus, it is expected that the recovery of the education sector in the Gaza Strip will have a positive impact on the revival of the sports movement as well. Many prominent Palestinian athletes have emerged from the school sports scene, which is worth noting since it is the breeding ground for Palestinian sports, from which many prominent Palestinian athletes were born.
It is still true that there are some positive facts and aspects that can be relied upon and that give us a feeling of optimism:
Among the many characteristics that distinguish our people is their ability to recover from the harsh blows dealt to them. This is exactly what happened after the Nakba (catastrophe of 1948), when the Gaza Strip became the focal point of the Palestinian sports movement during this period, and it became the center of gravity for the Palestinian sports movement after the Nakba.
Moreover, sports in the Gaza Strip have a long history and roots that stretch back decades, demonstrating steadfastness against the ravages of war. Despite occupation and the obstacles, Palestinian sports continued to grow and progress.
In addition, Israel’s destruction of Palestinian sports may inspire Palestinian athletes to compete in the future and fight in the sports arena as a means of proving themselves. Certainly, they will work hard to achieve the success they desire. In spite of the genocide, Palestinian youth still have desires, hopes, and ambitions for the future.
Finally, it should be noted that, at the end of the day, the Arab and international community’s solidarity and support in response to the suffering of the Palestinian people will have a significant impact on the rebuilding of Palestinian sport and its infrastructure in Palestine as a whole.
It is worth noting that Palestine’s FIFA ranking, which was 191 in 1999 (one year after joining in 1998), rose to 73 in 2018, and now stands at 94. Furthermore, despite this war of annihilation, the Palestinian national football team reached the second round for the first time in its history of the 2023 AFC Asian Cup in Qatar, as well as reaching the third (decisive) round of the World Cup qualifiers for the first time in its history.
The Palestinian delegation to the 2024 Olympics was the biggest ever. The Palestinian Taekwondo player, Omar Ismail Hantouli, qualified for the Olympics through qualifying and ranking points, becoming only the second Palestinian athlete in history to have made it to the Olympics through qualifying and ranking points.
In October 2024, Marian Bsharat became the first Palestinian to win the World Karate Championship in the +61 kg final title. Initially, it was expected that the Palestinian football team would be taking part in the World Cup in 2026. Unfortunately, Palestine lost to Oman, which scored the winning goal in the 97th minute of the game.
Restoring sports to their former state is a challenging task and requires effort, commitment, and favorable conditions to be implemented successfully. In addition, it is difficult to separate the Gaza Strip from the West Bank, as well. This is due to the fact that sports in the Strip are an integral part of the Palestinian sports scene, in general.
After the occupation ends, the goal is to bring all sports in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank under one sports administration and one unified national government.
In the end, sport may not return to its former glory. However, as demonstrated throughout history, every time Israel attempts to destroy the Palestinian people, they come back stronger and more resilient than ever before.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/is-it-possible-to-restore-sports-in-gaza/
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