Middle East Press On: Palestinian Refugees, Debunking Genocide, UN: New Age Islam's Selection, 25 November 2025
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
25 November 2025
Palestinian Refugees’ Rights Have Become Disposable
The Palestinian Issue Is Not Just Gaza: Beyond The Headlines, A Systemic Crisis
Autopsy Of A Pseudo-Study: Debunking ‘Debunking Genocide’
UN Flaws And Paralysis Fuelled Gaza Atrocities, Brazil’s Ex-Foreign Minister Says
'Day After' Cannot Be Just A Slogan, Or Israel Could Emerge Same As Before The War
When Interests Align: Israel’s Strengths And US Interests
Guarding The Guardians: Will Israel's Leaders Accept Responsibility For October 7?
Hezbollah’s Zero Hour: Why Not Responding to Tabtabai’s Assassination Invites Israeli Occupation of Lebanon
Dissecting the UN’s ‘Comprehensive Plan’ for Gaza and the Inevitable Dead-end
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Palestinian Refugees’ Rights Have Become Disposable
Chris Doyle
November 24, 2025
The genocidal tendencies of the current Israeli government are well evidenced. But if there is one category of Palestinian that attracts premium focus in this bloody regard, it is the refugees. Israel has engaged in a forever war against them since 1948. Remember, while much of the media has ignored the issue, refugees constitute 70 percent of the Palestinian population.
For decades, overcrowded refugee camps have been magnets for Israeli aggression. In 1971, for example, Israel bulldozed 400 homes in Jabalia camp. All eight of Gaza’s official camps have been decimated during the past two years. And last week in Lebanon, Israeli forces bombed the Ain Al-Hilweh camp near Saida, killing 13 Palestinians. Refugee camps across the region have repeatedly borne the brunt of Israeli military operations.
Israel’s entrenched animus toward refugees is also why it has pursued an unrelenting campaign against UNRWA, the UN agency mandated to serve Palestinian refugees. As one Israeli official once told me, “It is not the work of UNRWA we hate. It is its mandate and mission.” That mandate — preserving the rights and status of refugees — runs directly counter to Israel’s long-term objectives. The campaign has succeeded: UNRWA cannot operate in Gaza and is barely functioning in the West Bank. Israel even forced the closure of the agency’s East Jerusalem headquarters.
A new report from Human Rights Watch, published last week, highlights how Israeli forces have this year escalated their long-standing war on refugees by destroying three UN camps in the northern West Bank: Jenin, Tulkarem and Nur Shams. The organization concluded that Israeli forces committed war crimes and a crime against humanity.
This devastation occurred under a full-scale military offensive known as Operation Iron Wall, launched on Jan. 21. Tanks, drones and Apache attack helicopters were deployed in dense civilian areas. More than 32,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced, with all three camps almost entirely emptied of their residents. According to Human Rights Watch, more than 850 homes and buildings were destroyed or heavily damaged. Streets were bulldozed and widened to allow armored vehicles easier access — an unmistakable sign of a long-term redesign of the camps rather than a temporary military raid.
Despite the absence of active fighting in the area, Israeli authorities have refused to allow residents to return. The military claims the operation responded to “security threats posed by these camps and the growing presence of terrorist elements within them,” yet provided no evidence to substantiate these claims. Human Rights Watch investigators, satellite imagery and eyewitness accounts point instead to a deliberate, systematic effort to depopulate the camps.
By any reasonable standard, this amounts to ethnic cleansing — a conclusion echoed by legal experts and human rights organizations. Israel also failed to meet its legal obligation to provide shelter or basic protections to those forcibly displaced.
No refugee was spared. In Tulkarem camp, Israeli soldiers prevented a man who uses a wheelchair from taking his more functional electric chair with him. Many families were given only minutes to flee, taking nothing with them but the clothes on their backs.
Camp residents interviewed by Human Rights Watch were unequivocal: they believed Israel was attempting to eliminate the “refugee question” by emptying and destroying the camps and thereby undermining their collective right of return to their original homes inside what is now Israel. Many described this as a second Nakba.
Two conditions made this massive operation possible. The first was that global political and media attention was focused on the genocide in Gaza. Israeli leaders and settler groups understood they could push the boundaries further while the world was consumed by events elsewhere. The second was Israel’s near-total impunity. Time and again, Israeli political and military leaders have faced no consequences for actions that would provoke international outrage were they committed in any other context.
The Human Rights Watch report goes further than most human rights investigations by naming senior Israeli officials it believes should be investigated for their roles, citing extensive evidence, including Israeli statements and satellite imagery. Those named include Avi Bluth, the commander who oversaw the raids, Herzi Halevi and Eyal Zamir, both former chiefs of staff of the Israeli military, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Defense Minister Israel Katz and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Some Israeli officials effectively implicated themselves. Katz openly declared: “I have instructed the IDF to prepare for a prolonged stay in the camps that have been cleared for the coming year — and not to allow residents to return and terrorism to grow again.” The policy intent is unmistakable.
Will the International Criminal Court issue additional arrest warrants? Given the scale of the atrocities, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the court has been constrained by US sanctions. Its year-long inaction is glaring.
Diplomats tried to visit the Jenin camp in May. But Israeli forces fired warning shots to deter them. With the camps standing empty, such behavior suggests the Israeli military knows it has much to hide.
The absence of accountability means Palestinians fully expect the expansion of this operation. Other West Bank refugee camps may soon meet the same fate. The message is clear: the rights of Palestinian refugees are openly disposable.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2623770
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The Palestinian Issue Is Not Just Gaza: Beyond The Headlines, A Systemic Crisis
by Tareq Alnajjar
November 24, 2025
When confrontations erupt in Gaza, global attention intensifies. Images of destruction dominate news cycles, political statements multiply, and diplomatic initiatives proliferate. Yet the moment violence subsides, international engagement fades just as quickly. This recurring pattern stems not from conflict resolution, but from a fundamental misunderstanding: the world reacts to visible escalations while overlooking the deeper system that produces them. Gaza captures headlines, but represents only one fragment of a much broader and more entrenched crisis. The narrow focus on the Strip distorts the overall political picture and obstructs sustainable solutions.
Why the world falls into the trap of “Gaza-centrism”
Gaza dominates international coverage not because it embodies the entire Palestinian issue, but because it is its most easily framed component. The Strip’s density, cyclical destruction, and geographical isolation enable global media to present it as a self-contained emergency. For policymakers, it offers a simplified narrative: a defined territory, clear actors, and a visible humanitarian crisis. This simplicity makes Gaza “legible” in ways that the broader Palestinian experience is not.
In contrast, the reality in the West Bank is bureaucratic, fragmented, and visually elusive. East Jerusalem’s legal complexities—where displacement occurs through administrative measures—rarely sustain global attention. Palestinians holding Israeli citizenship challenge binary categories and complicate conventional conflict narratives. Meanwhile, refugees in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan endure a normalised crisis through decades of inaction. This fragmentation allows Gaza to become a misleading shorthand that eclipses the interconnected dimensions of Palestinian reality.
The five Palestinian realities
Understanding the systemic nature of the conflict requires recognising that Palestinians live within five distinct sociopolitical frameworks, each producing different but interrelated forms of marginalisation.
Refugees in the diaspora:
Millions displaced since 1948 live in conditions of suspended temporality. Their legal status remains precarious, with severely limited socio-economic prospects. The gradual erosion of international commitment has turned their plight into a persistent yet overlooked crisis.
Palestinians inside Israel (Arab ’48):
Although formally citizens, they experience institutional discrimination. Restrictions in land allocation, housing, and political participation reinforce a hierarchy embedded in the state’s institutional design, creating a fundamental tension between citizenship and national identity.
Palestinians in the West Bank:
Here, control is enacted through an extensive administrative apparatus. The permit regime, settlement expansion, movement restrictions, and home demolitions shape everyday life. These function not as temporary security measures, but as permanent mechanisms defining spatial, economic, and demographic realities.
Palestinians in Gaza:
The Strip exists under a blockade that restricts movement, trade, and development. Chronic unemployment, collapsed infrastructure, and repeated military operations create a permanent humanitarian emergency—yet international discourse often reduces Gaza to a mere security file.
Palestinians in Jerusalem:
They inhabit a space of legal ambiguity. Residency rights face revocation, housing remains vulnerable to expropriation, and urban planning systematically diminishes Palestinian presence through calculated bureaucratic measures.
Collectively, these realities reveal that the Palestinian issue is not a simple territorial dispute, but a multilayered system of population management.
The hidden face of occupation: Bureaucracy as control
While international debates focus on rockets and ceasefires, the system’s foundation lies in its bureaucratic mechanisms. The permit regime functions not merely as security, but as a structure manufacturing dependency and reinforcing power asymmetries. Home demolitions operate within planning frameworks that restrict Palestinian development while enabling settlement expansion. Control over water, land, and movement transforms essential resources into instruments of pressure.
This bureaucratic dimension remains largely invisible to external observers, yet decisively shapes Palestinian daily life. Its effectiveness lies in regulating existence through administrative procedures rather than overt force. The cumulative effect is a predictable pattern of fragmentation and instability, even without open conflict.
Conclusion: The imperative of a systemic lens
The Palestinian issue transcends Gaza. The Strip represents the most visible manifestation of a wider structure encompassing the West Bank, Jerusalem, Palestinian citizens of Israel, and refugees across the region. Political initiatives that isolate Gaza from its context, or prioritise ceasefires over structural reform, will inevitably fail. A viable approach must acknowledge the interconnected nature of these realities and address the mechanisms that sustain them.
For international actors—including Russia, which seeks a stabilising regional role—the challenge lies in transitioning from crisis management to addressing root causes. The current approach of treating symptoms without curing the underlying condition guarantees only further cycles of violence and instability. Sustainable peace requires dismantling the system itself, not merely managing its periodic explosions.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20251124-the-palestinian-issue-is-not-just-gaza-beyond-the-headlines-a-systemic-crisis/
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Autopsy Of A Pseudo-Study: Debunking ‘Debunking Genocide’
By Dr. Mark Brauner
November 25, 2025
I read the Begin-Sadat Center’s monograph that claims to “debunk” genocide allegations in Gaza. I read it as a physician who has stood in crowded trauma bays at Nasser Hospital while children bled on the floor and families begged for food. I also read it as someone who cares about methods, evidence, and what words like “proof” and “no evidence” are supposed to mean. And I come to it as a basic scientist and journal reviewer who has spent years assessing whether data meet the minimal bar of reproducibility and integrity. What I found is not science. It is lawyering for power, dressed up in charts and confident prose.
Let us be clear about genre. This is a policy-center pamphlet, not a peer-reviewed study. No blinded reviewers. No pre-registered protocol. No data repository. No code. The report loudly accuses others of bad math, then withholds its own spreadsheets and core appendices for “later.” You cannot claim to have settled a mass-atrocity question while keeping your calculations in a locked drawer. That is not transparency. That is theater.
The monograph builds its case by selectively distrusting humanitarian sources while selectively trusting Israeli state actors. UN agencies and NGOs are painted as error-prone advocates. COGAT, the IDF, and unnamed “representatives of Israeli authorities” are treated as the gold standard. That is the axis on which the whole document turns. Skepticism for the other side, deference for your own. This is not a critical inquiry. It is home-team scoring.
Consider the headline assurances. “No evidence of deliberate bombing of civilians.” “Unprecedented precautions.” “Safe zones were by many orders of magnitude safer.”
These are extraordinary statements. They would require a declared universe of incidents, transparent inclusion and exclusion criteria, a replicable coding scheme, and uncertainty ranges that survive sensitivity checks. None of that is here. There is no denominator. There is no sampling frame. There is no error bar. There is only a tone of certainty that the evidence does not earn.
The aid section is a master class in sleight of hand. The report insists that pre-war Gaza needed about 73 food trucks per day, then declares that deliveries later “exceeded” that level, then waves toward missing appendices where the argued reconstructions supposedly live.
It scolds UN bodies for undercounts and celebrates Israeli figures as “more accurate,” yet never opens the black box. If your key claim hinges on a specific baseline and a specific reconciliation of competing ledgers, you must show your work. Without the raw manifests, the daily distributions, the double-entry checks against market prices and wasting rates, the claim is salesmanship.
On starvation and intent, the monograph performs a neat trick. It downplays public promises of siege, reframes them as rhetoric, and then normalizes long aid stoppages as legally and operationally justified. This move asks the reader to ignore the lived consequences. I have watched what happens when fuel and trucks stop. Newborns die because generators sputter. Diabetics rot because insulin spoils. Families reduce to one meal a day and then start skipping days. You cannot audit intent without looking at outcomes and timing. The report wants a legal debate in the clouds and a statistical debate behind closed doors. The bodies are on the ground.
The casualty section is worse. The authors float a speculative reclassification that subtracts thousands of deaths as “natural” or due to misfires, subtracts many “missing” combat-age men, and then declares the result conveniently aligned with the IDF’s claimed number of enemy fighters killed. This is circular reasoning wrapped in an equation. They create a model that leans on unshared assumptions, tune it until it matches an official talking point, and then present the match as corroboration. That is not how independent verification works.
And then, there is their opening flourish, the smug Galileo line about not bowing to authority. It is meant to signal courage and empiricism. It, instead, signals hubris. They are not Galileo under house arrest. They are hired rhetoricians producing a defensive brief for the most heavily armed state in the region. If they want Aristotle, let us give them Aristotle: “The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousand-fold.” That is what their work exemplifies. They start with small sleights, unshared denominators, friendly sources elevated, unfriendly ones dismissed, and, by the end, those deviations have multiplied into a grotesque defense of the indefensible.
Even their claim to have “received critical analysis” after the Hebrew edition and to have “made changes” in response is disingenuous. That is not the humility of a scientific revision. That is propaganda laundering. It is the equivalent of a defendant rewriting his own alibi after reading the prosecution’s brief, then calling the revised lie a peer-reviewed correction. A real scientist invites critics to see the raw data, to pull apart the methods, to replicate the results. These authors lock the data away, revise their talking points in private, and then congratulate themselves on integrity. It is shameless.
What would a serious study look like in this space? It would pre-register a plan before touching the numbers. It would publish the data, the code, and the full appendices on day one. It would triangulate across sources that do not answer to either party in the conflict. Think independent satellite series, cross-border commercial inventories, truck GPS pings, facility-level patient censuses, price and malnutrition data from markets and clinics, morgue logs with verifiable metadata, and multi-wave surveys that are externally audited.
It would state its uncertainties in plain language and test any fragile assumptions with sensitivity analyses. It would show how its conclusions move when you change the imputation for missing persons, when you alter the proportion of unclassified deaths, when you vary the denominator for strike counts, when you swap in independent manifests for government-issued tallies. It would never hide the spreadsheets.
There is another tell. The report’s conception of ethics is procedural, not human. It speaks the language of doctrine and proportionality, as if rules on paper create realities on the ground. In triage, I do not have the luxury of doctrine detached from effect. If a so-called safe zone absorbs repeated strikes and epidemics and hunger, it is not safe. If a convoy count looks healthy while anemia and wasting climb, you are measuring the wrong thing or someone is cooking your ledgers. If you claim precision while the morgue is full of children, the burden is on you to prove that your math and your choices could not have been otherwise. You do not get to declare victory because your internal legal team signed off.
I am not naïve about propaganda. Every side tells stories. The measure of a story is what it dares to expose to public audit. This monograph dares very little. It hides its most important workings, wraps its assertions in confidence, and asks readers to trust a chain of custody that begins and ends with the state under indictment. That is not an inquiry. That is a closing argument.
Editors and readers should demand the missing appendices immediately, along with the raw data and the code. Demand the incident lists and the rules used to include or exclude them. Demand the truck manifests and the distribution logs. Demand the casualty microdata and the exact rules used to reclassify the dead. If the authors cannot deliver, treat the document as what it is. A policy brief for the defense presented as science.
I am a physician. I have held the hands of starving patients. I have cut away burned clothes from toddlers while their parents screamed. I do not accept a world where a glossy pamphlet launders mass suffering into a tidy conclusion. If you want to persuade the public that a war of this scale met an unprecedented standard of restraint and care, show us the full record and let independent investigators tear it apart. Until then, spare us the bravado. The morgue does not lie.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/autopsy-of-a-pseudo-study-debunking-debunking-genocide/
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UN Flaws And Paralysis Fuelled Gaza Atrocities, Brazil’s Ex-Foreign Minister Says
by Eman Abusidu
November 24, 2025
Latin America is advancing a coordinated push to elevate accountability demands against Israel within the UN system. In Chile, civil society groups are preparing to launch an international campaign invoking Article 6 of the UN Charter to call for Israel’s expulsion, citing what they describe as systematic violations of international law and UN resolutions. In Brazil, legislative institutions reinforced this momentum through a public session in Paraná titled “Silent Voices,” highlighting the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the West Bank and the UN’s failure to halt ongoing violations.
The session received input from leading human-rights and political figures, who examined the worsening landscape in the Palestinian territories, with a particular focus on Gaza and the West Bank. André Salmazo Bupel, an attorney and head of the Bar Association’s Human Rights Committee said that the Palestinian territories need urgent action on Israel violations. He framed the Palestinian question as one of the most enduring and severe human-rights crises globally and pointed to the persistent violence and harsh living conditions that continue to shape daily life for Palestinians.
Brazil’s ex-Foreign Minister, Francisco Rezek, stated that the global governance system has structural failures in managing humanitarian crises. Rezek, who served as a member of the International Court of Justice, cited the Gaza situation as evidence and asserted that the UN has consistently underperformed in conflict management. According to Rezek, accountability for human-rights violations in Gaza rests with the international community and major powers. He emphasised that international human-rights law must be enforced impartially, noting that durable political outcomes are impossible without credible enforcement mechanisms.
Rezek argued that UN leadership, from Secretary-General António Guterres to Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, attempted to uphold the institution’s core mandate of truth, dignity, and human rights. However, he described the UN’s inability to stop what he called “open-air genocide” as a consequence of structural defects in the UN Charter, specifically the veto power of permanent Security Council members.
“It has failed to stop the open genocide that has flooded Palestinian territory with blood. This failure was not due to the institution itself, but to structural defects in the UN Charter, which still allow the Security Council’s authority to be blocked by the use of the veto”, Rezek told MEMO.
He further contended that institutional paralysis was aggravated by European democracies’ passive alignment and by the United States’ strategic decisions, which he characterized as criminal, supportive of genocide, and deliberately harmful to the UN and international law. He claimed that in 2025 the US government attacked legal norms abroad and domestically, undermining both international law and its own constitutional framework.
Rezek framed the current situation as a collective moral and political shock with reputational costs for states and institutions. He argued that denial is no longer sustainable for those who enabled or ignored these developments. “The sacrifice of the Palestinian nation is the painful price the world pays for the awakening of the global conscience. The truth can no longer be hidden. The sellouts, the intimidated, and the fools of every kind can no longer convince themselves, or anyone else, that they are not obliged to feel shame.”
Rezek concluded that the temporary breakdown of the UN will not derail its long-term trajectory toward strengthening international law and advancing the broader human cause. “The temporary collapse of the United Nations will not impede its steady march toward a final victory, that of international law, and the cause of humanity”.
The parliamentary sessions highlight Brazil’s bid to position itself as a credible mediator in efforts to secure a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and advance humanitarian reconstruction. Lawmakers framed this role as an extension of the country’s long-standing diplomatic posture centered on peace-building, multilateral engagement, and international solidarity.
In parallel, local initiatives such as the public hearing in São Leopoldo point to growing domestic mobilisation around the conflict, reinforcing political pressure for accountability and civilian protection. Together, these actions signal Brazil’s increasing involvement in shaping both national and international discourse on the Palestinian cause.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20251124-un-flaws-and-paralysis-fueled-gaza-atrocities-brazils-ex-foreign-minister-says/
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'Day After' Cannot Be Just A Slogan, Or Israel Could Emerge Same As Before The War
By Jpost Editorial
November 25, 2025
For two years, Israeli leaders spoke with confidence about “the day after the war.” They promised accountability, national repair, and a serious effort to rebuild public trust. Government ministries drafted plans, committees met, and commentators outlined ambitious frameworks for renewal.
Yet now that Israel is supposedly entering this long-discussed phase, much of the conversation has been misplaced. Rather than shaping a different future, the political system appears to be reverting to the conditions that prevailed on October 6.
To start, this is not the “after.”
Three hostages remain in Gaza as bodies whose deaths have been confirmed but whose remains have not been returned. Their families are not living in a postwar reality. They are waiting for the most basic function of state responsibility: bringing its citizens home for burial. It is difficult to speak credibly about a “day after” when a terrorist organization still holds the bodies of Israeli civilians.
Meanwhile, events in the North underscore that the conflict is ongoing. The IDF has acknowledged recent strikes on Hezbollah targets deep in Lebanon, even as northern communities remain vulnerable to rocket fire, infiltration attempts, and a general atmosphere of instability. Officials may describe this period as transitional, but on the ground, it continues to resemble active conflict.
Security will remain a dominant concern for the foreseeable future, but it was never the full extent of what Israel needed to confront. The real “day after” agenda involves the essential, less visible components of national resilience: mental-health care, long-term rehabilitation, support for displaced families, and a realistic plan for communities in the North and South. It also requires addressing the deep internal divisions that weakened public cohesion even before the war.
Troubling domestic situation
On these domestic fronts, the situation is troubling.
Recent figures presented to state bodies point to a severe mental-health burden, with tens of thousands formally identified as suffering war-related psychological wounds. Many more are seeking treatment in an already overstretched public system. Knesset committees have heard testimony about untenable caseloads in rehabilitation services, with individual staff members responsible for hundreds of trauma patients. The state comptroller has warned of a mental-health infrastructure that is fragmented, underprepared, and unevenly distributed – especially outside the center, where needs are acute.
Border-area residents face similar uncertainty. Many remain displaced, and those who have returned home often encounter communities that are damaged, understaffed, and economically weakened. Despite government statements regarding “resilience,” thousands of families continue to live in temporary housing, cope with interrupted schooling, and navigate the uncertainty of when – or whether – normal life will resume. Reconstruction plans remain largely theoretical, their implementation slowed by disagreements over budgets and policy priorities.
Politically, the contrast between rhetoric and action is stark. Instead of confronting the structural issues exposed by October 7, the government, as well as the coalition, has slipped back into pre-war habits: coalition bargaining, sector-specific demands, and delays on essential legislation. Economic planning for frontline communities is inconsistent, and proposals for targeted tax relief are tied up in political negotiations rather than grounded in long-term strategy. Even the significant effort invested in expanding tax credits for reservists – important on its own terms – highlights the absence of parallel attention to civilian recovery.
The result is a political environment that mirrors the one that existed before the war: the same disputes, the same competing interests, and the same reluctance to engage with the deeper social and psychological challenges confronting the country.
The “day after” cannot be reduced to a slogan or a talking point. It reflects the daily lives of families still waiting to bury their loved ones, communities living under continued threat, and tens of thousands of Israelis managing the psychological toll of the past two years.
Israel needs to invest heavily in its citizens. Whether it is children who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, or adults who have lost their businesses. Israel needs to rebuild itself, post-October 7, 2023, post-war.
If Israel continues to treat the “day after” as secondary rather than central to its national agenda, it risks emerging from this war with the same vulnerabilities that defined it on October 6 – only now, with additional layers of trauma and division.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-875082
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When Interests Align: Israel’s Strengths And US Interests
By Ruthie J. Lieberman
November 25, 2025
When American policymakers debate Middle East strategy from Washington conference rooms, they’re 6,000 miles from the rocket sirens of Sderot, the security checkpoints of Judea and Samaria, and the northern border towns within Hezbollah’s crosshairs. This distance isn’t just geographic. It’s experiential. It shapes policy in ways that sometimes run counter to American strategic interests.
The biblical homeland
The Jewish people’s connection to the Land of IsraelOpens link in new window. isn’t a modern political claim. It’s the foundation of Jewish identity itself. From Jerusalem to Hebron, from Shiloh to Beit El, these aren’t settlements in a foreign land. They are the heartland of ancient Israel, where Jewish communities maintained a continuous presence even through centuries of exile and persecution.
No other people can document a 3,000-year connection through archaeological evidence, religious texts, linguistic continuity, and unbroken communal memory. When American policy treats Judea and Samaria as “occupied territory” rather than the historic Jewish homeland with legitimate legal claims under international law, we undermine our own credibility. How can the United States lecture other nations about respecting indigenous rights while dismissing the most thoroughly documented ancient claim in human history?
The Israeli difference
Religious freedom for all faiths exists in Jerusalem and throughout Israel only under Israeli control. Christians can worship freely at their holy sites. Muslims have access to their mosques. Jews can pray at the Western Wall. This wasn’t true under Jordanian occupation from 1948 to 1967, when synagogues were destroyed and Jews were banned from their holiest sites. It isn’t true in territories controlled today by the Palestinian Authority or Hamas.
When Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, ancient synagogues were destroyed within hours. In Bethlehem, once 80% Christian under Israeli control, Christians now make up less than 20% under Palestinian Authority governance.
Religious diversity and freedom exist where Israel maintains security and disappear where it doesn’t. American interests include protecting religious freedom and minority rights. Only Israeli control guarantees access to holy sites for all faiths.
Beyond the briefing room
American policymakersOpens link in new window. who are serious about crafting realistic policies must visit Israel and experience reality on the ground: Not scripted diplomatic tours – real visits. Stand on the hilltops of Judea and look down at Ben-Gurion Airport. Visit Sderot and see reinforced playgrounds built to protect children from Gaza rockets. Walk through Jerusalem’s Old City and witness the only place in the Middle East where a Jew, a Christian, and a Muslim can each access their holy sites freely. Drive the narrow width of Israel at its center and grasp what nine miles means when enemies are armed with rockets.
These experiences cannot be replicated in Washington briefings. The senators and representatives who truly understand Israel on the ground craft better policies. They ask different questions. They push back on simplistic solutions. They recognize that policies promoting genuine peace must account for actual geography, real threats, and lived experience.
Another Palestinian state?
American policymakers who advocate for an independent Palestinian state must confront uncomfortable truths. Firstly, such a state would reward decades of terrorism. Since Oslo, Palestinians have responded to Israeli peace offers with suicide bombings and rocket attacks. The Palestinian Authority pays salaries to terrorists. Hamas has a charter calling for Israel’s destruction.
Secondly, an independent Palestinian stateOpens link in new window. poses an existential security threat. The West Bank sits on high ground overlooking Israel’s coastal plain, where 70% of Israelis live. Israel’s narrowest point would be nine miles wide. An independent Palestinian state means no Israeli security control, no ability to prevent arms smuggling or Iranian entrenchment. October 7 demonstrated exactly what happens when Israel cedes security control: an Iranian proxy state emerges, dedicated to Israel’s destruction.
Israel took enormous risks for peace. The result was not a peaceful Palestinian state but a terrorist stronghold that has launched thousands of attacks on Israeli civilians. Why would any rational government repeat this catastrophic experiment in the strategic heartland?
Protecting US interests
Israel destroyed Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981 and Syria’s in 2007, preventing nuclear proliferation without costing a single American life. Israeli intelligence sharing has thwarted terror attacks against Americans. Israeli military innovations are shared with the US military and save American lives.
Consider the alternative. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. The result was 20,000 rockets and an Iranian proxy state on the Mediterranean. If American pressure creates similar outcomes in Judea and Samaria, Israel faces hostile territory nine miles from Tel Aviv. That means a destabilized Israel, regional chaos, and American military intervention. We saw this in Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Why voluntarily create those conditions in the biblical heartland?
The Iran test case
Nothing illustrates the Washington-JerusalemOpens link in new window. policy gap more clearly than Iran. For years, American officials argued that diplomacy could moderate Iranian behavior. Israel warned otherwise. Today, Iran operates proxy armies across the region and builds nuclear facilities. Israeli operations against Iranian nuclear scientists and facilities have done more to slow Iran’s program than any diplomatic initiative.
Iranian dominance threatens American interests directly. Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz threatens global energy supplies. Iranian proxies attack American forces in Iraq and Syria. Every Israeli action that weakens Iran’s regional position serves American strategic goals without deploying American forces.
Israeli decision-making
The greatest tension in the US-Israel relationship emerges when American administrations believe they understand Israel’s security needs better than Israelis themselves. These policies don’t produce peace. They produce emboldened adversaries who calculate they can win through violence what they couldn’t achieve through negotiation.
American interests are served when Israel acts from strength. The Abraham Accords proved this. Arab states normalized relations with Israel not because Israel made concessions, but because Israel demonstrated technological prowess and military capability that made partnership valuable.
What America gains
When the United States backs Israel’s security decisions, regional deterrence holds. Adversaries understand that attacking Israel means confronting Israeli military power with full American backing. Arab states see a reliable America. Israeli innovation continues to flow to the American defense and technology sectors. The Iron Dome, Israeli cybersecurity firms, medical devices, and agricultural technology all benefit American interests.
Israeli building in Judea and Samaria doesn’t obstruct American interests. Ma’aleh Adumim, Ariel, Gush Etzion – these are population centers in areas with profound Jewish historical significance, areas that will remain part of Israel in any realistic peace agreement.
The path forward
American policy should focus on outcomes that serve American interests: a stable Middle East with weakened Iranian influence, continued Israeli-Arab normalization, protected religious freedom, and a strong Israel capable of defending itself without requiring American military intervention.
This means backing Israel’s military edge without conditions. It means recognizing that peace cannot be imposed through pressure on the party that has repeatedly offered compromise. It means understanding that Israeli strength enables stability, while Israeli weakness invites aggression. And it means acknowledging that Jewish historic rights to the biblical homeland are the foundation of Israel’s existence.
Israel doesn’t need American troops. It needs American support for its defensive actions and independence to make decisions based on immediate security realities. Every dollar spent supporting Israeli military capability prevents far more expensive American deployments. Every Israeli operation against Iranian proxies weakens America’s primary Middle Eastern adversary. Every breakthrough in Israeli-Arab relations advances American goals of regional stability.
Strong support for Israel isn’t about values alone. It’s about recognizing that Israel’s security serves America’s interests in concrete, measurable ways. It’s about standing with the only nation in the Middle East that protects religious freedom and maintains stability in the lands where Western civilization’s religious heritage was born.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-875044
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Guarding The Guardians: Will Israel's Leaders Accept Responsibility For October 7?
By Ronen Shoval
November 25, 2025
Since the Simchat Torah massacre by Hamas on October 7, 2023, Israel has struggled to regain its sense of direction. The issue is not only pain and fear, but a profound sense that our entire national defensive wall cracked at once.
At 6:29 a.m., we lost our national sovereignty for several hours, and the result was unbearable. We were reminded again of the unimaginable price of losing national liberty – the destruction of individual liberty. Anyone who, during those hours, was not under Jewish sovereignty became utterly vulnerable. Murder, rape, and abduction were all symptoms of a brief collapse of independence.
How did this happen? How did the state, with all its agencies, fail in its most basic duty: protecting our lives? How and why did we lose our sovereignty, even for a few hours? The security doctrine collapsed, but this was merely the final symptom of a deeper malady.
The army, Shin Bet, judiciary, Knesset, government, media, academia, the cultural sector, and extra-parliamentary bodies all took Israel’s national existence for granted. Instead of cultivating a shared good with responsibility, each became preoccupied, in its own way, with small-minded politics driven by the pursuit of power, money, and prestige.
The devastating result of this collective failure was written in blood. Our blood was spilled like water. In the days that followed, it therefore seemed obvious that we must examine ourselvesOpens link in new window. honestly and rigorously, not to hunt for culprits, but to improve and avoid such disastrous mistakes in the future.
Yet, as time passed, we slid back into old habits. Former chiefs of staff are already arming themselves with slick lawyers. Political factions have resumed tearing each other apart over what kind of commission of inquiry should be established.
The importance of separation of powers
This returns us to a foundational problem in political thought: Who will guard the guardians? Who oversees those who hold power? Plato trusted in the education and virtue of the guardians themselves and offered no robust institutional answer. Modern democracies attempted a different approach: separation of powers, mutual oversight, a free press, and commissions of inquiry.
In Israel, however, the boundaries between branches of government have blurred in unhealthy ways. The dispute over a commission of inquiry illustrates this vividly.
Instead of soberly identifying the national interestOpens link in new window., each side seeks to maximize its own gains. The opposition demands a state commission of inquiry, because in such a case, the president of the Supreme Court, whom the opposition views as sympathetic, appoints the members.
The government prefers a different mechanism in which it would have significant influence over the appointments. This alignment of interests between the opposition and the judiciary distorts the democratic process.
Instead of negotiation, persuasion, and compromise between the coalition and opposition, most disputes have migrated to the courtroom. Within such a structure, the opposition has little incentive to agree on a compromise regarding the commission. It assumes, with considerable justification, that by refusing all compromise, the court will eventually grant it the outcome it desires.
Yet, the court itself is among the institutions that must be investigated. The opposition’s argument that those responsible for failures should not appoint the investigators applies equally to a state commission of inquiry appointed by the court, which would then be asked to examine itself.
The question of who guards the guardians is thus not an abstract philosophical puzzle. It is a concrete political and civic challenge: How can authority be constructed in a society in which nearly every central institution is entangled in struggles over the rules of the game themselves?
The necessary mechanism
If we take this challenge seriously, the conclusion follows. The government alone cannot appoint the commissionOpens link in new window., and the judiciary cannot appoint a state commission by itself either. We require a mechanism that recognizes the existing mutual distrust and creates institutional distance from each of the competing sides. Such a mechanism could unfold in two stages.
First, the coalition appoints one representative, and the parliamentary opposition appoints another. Second, these two representatives must jointly and unanimously select all commission members who are independent of both sides. No actor can impose its own loyalists, because every appointment requires the consent of its rivals. This is an institutional answer to the question of who guards the guardians: no one appoints the investigators unilaterally.
A commission formed in this manner cannot limit itself to the military and intelligence domains. It must also examine the media’s role in fostering the illusion of stability; the ways segments of academia contributed to a language that blurs distinctions between aggressor and victim; the political incitement and refusals to serve that sought to shatter the rules of the democratic game; and the permissiveness shown by law enforcement authorities toward the erosion of the rule of law.
It must examine the diplomatic conception and the security doctrine, from the flawed ethical code, through force building, to the application of military power. The massacre by Hamas on Simchat Torah was not merely a border failure; it was a failure of national consciousness. If we investigate only operational failures on the front line, we will miss the heart of the matter.
Still – and this is the heart of it – even the most courageous and professional commission cannot replace something else: leadership. Ultimately, the central question is not only who will investigate, but who is willing to stand before an investigation. Here, our tradition offers a sharp lesson.
Both Saul and David sinned. Both stood before a prophet. Saul, when asked to give an account, shifted blame onto the people, onto circumstances, onto public pressure. In doing so, he relinquished the backbone of leadership. One who refuses responsibility loses legitimacy. Therefore, the prophet Samuel removed the crown from Saul.
David, by contrast, after the sin with Bathsheba, hears the prophet Nathan’s parable of the poor man’s lamb. He is horrified by the injustice and calls for the guilty man to be punished. Then he hears the words: “You are the man.”
This is the moment of truth. David could have, like Saul, escaped responsibility. This would have been a natural human response. Instead, he responds: “I have sinned before God.” Only after this confession does the prophet grant him life. Though the punishments are severe, the dynasty endures.
David embodies a different model of leadership, not one of feigned righteousness that pretends to be immune to error, but of strength to bear responsibility rather than flee it. This is the kind of leadership Israel needs today. Leaders who will stand before the commission and say not only “others erred,” but “here is where I erred.”
Taking responsibility
Any commission that is established faces a dual challenge of national healing. First, it must possess broad legitimacy across the nation, which depends on a mechanism not controlled by those under investigationOpens link in new window.. Second, it must compel those investigated to take responsibility and face the public with the simple words: I was wrong.
Without an agreed-upon mechanism, any commission will be dismissed as a partisan document. Without cultivating responsibility rather than scapegoating, we will not learn from our mistakes.
This is the true challenge that October 7 presents us with: not merely establishing a commission, but meeting the moral test of accepting responsibility. An independent commission, one that is not subordinate to the government, the opposition, or the judiciary, can create the conditions for national repair.
If we can construct an inquiry mechanism unbound by vested interests, and empower leadership willing to bear responsibility for its actions, then perhaps from the catastrophe of October 7 a path to renewal may yet emerge.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-875026
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Hezbollah’s Zero Hour: Why Not Responding to Tabtabai’s Assassination Invites Israeli Occupation of Lebanon
By Ramzy Baroud
November 24, 2025
If Hezbollah fails to deliver a decisive response to the Israeli assassination of its senior military commander, Haitham Ali Tabtabai (Sayyed Abu Ali), on November 23, 2025, Israel will seize upon an irreversible conclusion: the gates of maximal escalation are now wide open. Furthermore, Israel will operate under the belief that not even the elimination of the Lebanese resistance group’s Secretary-General could fundamentally alter the strategic balance.
But how was this dangerous precipice reached? And what agonizing options confront Hezbollah?
Inevitable Post-Truce One-Sided War
Immediately following the ceasefire agreement reached between Israel and Lebanon on November 27, 2024, which concluded a devastating three-month war between Israel and Hezbollah, Israel exhibited an immediate intent to escalate.
The subsequent Israeli expansion, which commenced with the occupation of five locations, was directly tethered to the nature of the agreement. This accord extorted a major concession from the Lebanese resistance: the mandatory withdrawal of all forces north of the Litani River, a relentless and historical Israeli objective.
Israel’s Colonial Obsession with the Litani
Indeed, since its very inception, Israel has fixated on controlling South Lebanon, with the Litani River serving as the ultimate territorial marker.
It has repeatedly launched wars and maintained brutal, prolonged occupations specifically to attain this boundary. The hollow Israeli justification that this maneuver is a security necessity is unequivocally false. Instead, the true aim is twofold: linked directly to Israel’s drive for colonial and territorial expansion, and its desperate, strategic interest in usurping more sources of water.
While the Lebanese resistance has perpetually striven to liberate every square inch of Lebanon from Israeli subjugation, the Litani River, owing to Israel’s objectives, has also become a critical strategic fault line for the resistance. Therefore, Hezbollah’s retreat north of the Litani represented a seismic concession, wrung out by multiple, converging pressure fronts.
Converging Forces of Erosion
The first pressure front was the sheer brutality of the war, which resulted in the slaughter of over 4,000 people and the grievous wounding of over 17,000 people.
Second, Israel’s successful, targeted campaign to decapitate Hezbollah’s leadership, culminating in the assassination of iconic Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on September 27, 2024. The killing of Haitham Ali Tabtabai—a central figure who had just assumed supreme military command is the latest stage of this systematic purge of the military hierarchy.
Third, and perhaps most corrosive, is the ingrained Lebanese disunity and the overt US, and even Israeli, manipulation of the resistance’s traditional domestic enemies. These factions eagerly sought a weakened Hezbollah, viewing its vulnerability as their golden opportunity to savage a traditional adversary that has fundamentally altered the nation’s political and demographic power structure.
The Damascus Factor
Syria, too, weighs heavily on Hezbollah’s strategic calculus in overlooking the Israeli ceasefire violations, which now number in the thousands. The collapse of the former Syrian government, a long-standing ally of Hezbollah and the indispensable land bridge between Iran and Lebanon, was a crushing strategic blow.
Compounding this disaster, the new Syrian regime now aligns closely with Hezbollah’s historical opponents, namely the Gulf region. This regime, since its ascendancy in December 2024, has secured the full endorsement of the Trump Administration.
Despite Syria itself being brazenly violated by Israel numerous times since the rise of Mohammed Shari’s government, Damascus has offered no meaningful retaliation to the Israeli incursions and the expanding occupation of Syria’s southern border areas and the Golan Heights.
A Nationally and Strategically Exposed Position
While Hezbollah is believed to have fully rebuilt its core military capabilities after the war, it remains in a profoundly weakened position, both nationally and strategically. The latter vulnerability is a direct consequence of the shifting political dynamics in the Middle East, where the Arab regimes continue to slavishly execute Washington’s designs, even at the fatal expense of their own national interests and the region’s future.
On the national stage, countless forces in Lebanon continue to prioritize their narrow sectarian political interests over the nation’s survival. Instead of forging a united front against Israel’s continuous war on the country—which has inflicted ceaseless deaths, injuries, and the deliberate targeting of homes and infrastructure—they are instead united in their opposition to Hezbollah.
The Fatal Demand for Disarmament
On September 5, 2025, the Lebanese government, acting under intense pressure from Washington and its envoy to Lebanon, Tom Barrack, passed a decision to implement UN Resolution 1701 to disarm Hezbollah and fully deploy the Lebanese Army in the South. The grim, bewildering mockery here is that the mere attempt to forcibly disarm Hezbollah will almost certainly trigger a devastating civil war.
Regardless of the ensuing carnage, Israel would then be able to permanently and uncontestedly seize parts of Lebanon, advancing relentlessly up to the Litani River. This is the tragic state of affairs in Lebanon, where national survival is deemed marginal in the face of sectarian rivalries, allowing foreign powers, starting with the US, to dictate the nation’s political, economic, and security agendas.
The Ultimate Test of Will
Israel assassinated Haitham Ali Tabtabai, a commander vital to the resistance’s field operations, as the ultimate test of will for Hezbollah and Lebanon. If Hezbollah retaliates, Israel and its American patrons will exploit the resulting conflict to fatally weaken the group against its traditional Lebanese enemies.
But not retaliating is an infinitely greater catastrophe, as it will send an unmistakable signal to Israel that the time is fully ripe for a major military conquest, which will inevitably result in the occupation of more Lebanese territories, progressing inexorably toward the Litani River.
In a blistering address delivered last March, Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem issued a definitive ultimatum, declaring that: “The chance given to the government to defend Lebanon is not endless, and we are not weak in the face of the US-Israeli schemes.”
He then dramatically escalated the warning: “If we reach a point where the Israeli actions are nothing except killing, destruction, and occupation, we cannot remain spectators. Don’t underestimate our words. If ‘Israel’ does not comply, we will have no choice but to resort to other options.”
This position has been reiterated relentlessly since that speech, yet the Lebanese government has proven incapable of defending the nation, and Israel has only intensified its campaign of killing and property destruction. If the resistance group fails to treat the assassination of Haitham Ali Tabtabai as a non-negotiable red line demanding a decisive response, Israel will undoubtedly be crowned the victor in Lebanon and will operate with permanent, total impunity. The very future of Lebanon—its territorial integrity and political sovereignty—is now hanging by a thread.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/hezbollahs-zero-hour-why-not-responding-to-tabtabais-assassination-invites-israeli-occupation-of-lebanon/
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Dissecting the UN’s ‘Comprehensive Plan’ for Gaza and the Inevitable Dead-end
By Jamal Kanj
November 24, 2025
US policy documents on the Middle East do not reach the daylight before Israel is given the chance to filter them and gut them. The latest UN Security Council (UNSC) 2803, Comprehensive Plan, is no exception. The Resolution perpetuates the same failed logic that has governed international diplomacy for decades. One in which Palestinian rights are conditioned, while Israeli obligations are delayed with no mechanism, timelines, or accountability for violating agreements.
Following two years of using food as a weapon of war and genocide, the UNSC adopted a US-sponsored resolution, not to condemn weaponizing food, but to reward the perpetrator. The UNSC “Comprehensive Plan” for Gaza is anything but comprehensive. It is narrow, short on details, rich in contradictions, and utterly lacking any overarching purpose.
Take Paragraph 2, for instance. The Resolution “welcomes the establishment of the Board of Peace (BoP)” as a transitional international administration that will manage Gaza’s redevelopment “until such time as the Palestinian Authority has satisfactorily completed its reform program.”
In other words, the recognition of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people is contingent, sequenced, and time-bound: reform first, demonstrate worthiness, satisfy outside evaluators, and then – maybe – they can “securely and effectively take back control” of their land. Meanwhile, Israel’s commitments are, at best, deliberately vague, crafted with such ambiguity as to allow varying interpretations, much like UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338, written purposefully in a nebulous language that enabled Israel to evade compliance for decades.
There is not one single concrete or enforceable requirement placed on Israel: none to halt its extrajudicial assassinations, military attacks, timeline to complete withdrawal, or stop the expansion of Jewish-only colonies established on the same land reserved for the supposed Palestinian “self-determination.”
The Resolution weakens Item 7 of “Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan,” which had called for “full aid (to) be immediately sent into the Gaza Strip.” The new Comprehensive Plan replaced “immediately” by expressing only “the importance of the full resumption of humanitarian aid.” Israel’s already inexplicit obligations are further watered down to mere “consultation” and “cooperation,” giving the occupying power wide latitude to dictate its own interpretations and evade any real accountability.
The distortion becomes even more evident in Paragraphs 3 through 8. These sections deepen the asymmetry: Israel, whose leaders are indicted war criminals, is elevated to a co-supervisor, with veto power, over every stage of Gaza’s future. In effect, this Resolution upends international law by granting war criminals the final word on Gaza’s fate.
Paragraph 3, which addresses humanitarian aid, orders stringent monitoring of aid distribution inside Gaza. At the same time, there are no unequivocal demands on Israel to fully open all crossings or stop hindering humanitarian aid delivery. The limited aid must be policed in Gaza, but the state that used food as a weapon and starved the population is not required to do anything differently.
In Paragraph 4, a foreign-controlled “operational entities” strips Palestinians of their political agency by placing them under a technocratic committee selected from abroad and subordinate to the misnomer, BoP. Yet, there is nothing in the Resolution on the freedom of ingress and egress, no mention of opening the seaport or rebuilding the airport. Furthermore, there are no tangible punitive measures if and when Israel fails to adhere to the UNSC Resolution.
The funding structures in Paragraphs 5–6 absolve Israel of responsibility. Gaza’s reconstruction is handed to donors and the World Bank, financed through voluntary contributions. Israel, the power that destroyed Gaza, is not asked to contribute a dollar, let alone pay reparations or assume legal responsibility for murdering and injuring 241,000 Palestinians, destroying all the universities, 97% of schools, 94% of the hospitals, and 92% of the residential homes.
The heart of the resolution’s inequity is found in Paragraph 7, which authorizes a foreign military force (ISF) tasked with enforcing Palestinian demilitarization. The Palestinian Resistance must disarm, surrender weapons, accept foreign security supervision, and undergo vetting. Israel’s withdrawal, however, takes place only “when conditions allow” and is to be negotiated between its army and ISF, guarantors, and the United States. Palestinians are entirely excluded from determining the terms of the Israeli withdrawal from their own land.
Even more alarming, the resolution normalizes Israeli occupation, “that will remain until Gaza is properly secure from any resurgent terror threat.” An open-ended clause granting Israel a permanent military footprint in and around Gaza, while granting Israel alone the power to define and determine any so-called “resurgent threat.”
Finally, Paragraph 8 mandates that any extension of international presence in Gaza must be done “in full cooperation and coordination with Egypt and Israel.” Once again, Palestinians are excluded from determining their own future. It is all left for Israel, since its consent is conditional on the “full cooperation.”
Taken together, these provisions expose the true nature of the so-called Comprehensive Plan: a political instrument designed to entrench, not end, the structural inequality of occupation. And less than 72 hours following the UNSC Resolution, Benjamin Netanyahu appointed Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, two Jewish racist ministers who openly called for the ethnic cleansing and building Jewish-only colonies in Gaza, to be in charge of, or more likely to undermine, the second phase of Trump’s 20-point plan.
In short, the UNSC Comprehensive Plan whitewashes Israel’s genocide and ties the future of Palestinian self-determination to a checklist that Israel is neither bound to accept nor prevented from obstructing. A Plan that will lead to exactly where previous UN Resolutions, mainly 194, 242, and 338, had gone, to an inevitable dead-end.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/dissecting-the-uns-comprehensive-plan-for-gaza-and-the-inevitable-dead-end/
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