Middle East Press On: Pre-military programs, Israel, Mockery, politics, Russian, young Israelis, Palestinians, Gaza, West Asia, Somaliland, Israeli, geopolitical weapon, New Age Islam's Selection, 1 January 2026
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
1 January 2026
Pre-military programs are Israel’s key to building future leaders
False narratives have framed Israel as guilty before the world
Novy God: Mockery, politics, and the Russian identity Israelis still argue over
After Oct. 7, young Israelis are the hardest to lecture about peace with Palestinians
After Gaza, no alliance is permanent: Justice and the reordering of West Asia
Will Chile hold the line on Palestine under Kast?
The recognition of Somaliland as an Israeli geopolitical weapon
Measuring Defiance in 2025: How Palestinian Sumud Challenged the Israeli War and the West’s Complicity
On the Politics of Possibility vs. The Hope that a Better World is Possible
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Pre-military programs are Israel’s key to building future leaders
By MORAN SEGEV
DECEMBER 31, 2025
On a recent tour of a high school with hundreds of students in the centre of the country, I was astonished to discover that not a single graduate had attended pre-military training. Not one young man or woman from this school considered it worthwhile to devote a year of their life to better understanding themselves, their country, and the diverse groups that live together within it, sharing a common destiny.
Is this due to a lack of exposure to such programs, the outdated belief that a pre-military preparatory year is a “waste of a year” or a “year of postponement,” or the perception that such preparation is a luxury for privileged groups?
Whatever the reason, this constitutes nothing less than a systemic failure to realize our national potential. In an era of social divisions and complex security challenges, the pre-military program – mechina – is becoming the only institution in Israel whose sole purpose is to bring about the necessary shift in consciousness, taking our boys and girls out of the cycle of mere survival and into positions of leadership
A 12-year educational framework does not always succeed in cultivating in children and teenagers a sense of identity and responsibility toward the whole.
Here, the pre-military program plays a vital role, creating the fabric that binds young men and women together in shared destiny within the State of Israel. The preparatory program does not simply train soldiers; it develops the next generation of leadership, provides the national resilience we so urgently need, and lays the groundwork for future civic initiatives.
Pre-military programs for everyone across society
For years, pre-military programs were seen as something for the upper class, reserved only for the children of Israel’s social and economic elite. This is a dangerous misconception that must be eradicated at its root. If pre-military programs are truly the incubators of Israeli society’s future leadership, they must be accessible to all sectors, especially those who need them most. Social disparities in Israel are not an inevitable fate but a national challenge that can be addressed through education.
For a young man or woman from the socioeconomic periphery, pre-military training is not just a way to get to know the country – it is a fundamental life transformation. It is often the first and only real opportunity to break away from limiting patterns, be exposed to role models previously unseen, and discover inner strengths previously unknown.
For these young people, preparatory programs are the ultimate bridge for changing mindsets – from survival to leadership. We empower those who have focused merely on day-to-day survival, teaching them that they not only can but should lead change and influence both their own lives and their communities.
The role of the mechina in Israel as an educational organization dedicated to societal advancement is to make this leap possible. The true measure of its success is the number of young men and women who have turned from hidden potential into transformative forces.
The shift from a survival mindset to a mindset of leadership is not magic but the result of a deep and intensive educational methodology that uses physical challenges as tools for personal development. Field workshops and demanding field marches dismantle self-imposed limitations, teaching participants that the boundaries they believed in can be overcome.
The pre-military preparatory environment is unique: Young people from diverse backgrounds spend a year together, daily engaging in meaningful discussions on identity, society, and values – without cynicism. Living arrangements, budgeting, and self-management place responsibility directly in the trainees’ hands, revealing that the group’s success depends on their individual contributions. This is not merely about self-improvement but about enhancing human capital and preparing optimally for both military service and life itself.
A year devoted to building values, self-discipline, and intensive teamwork produces better soldiers, commanders, and leaders. One year invested in preparatory training is essential for three years of meaningful national service, and, more importantly, for decades of productive citizenship. It is not a year lost but a lifetime won. This is not time given up – it is purpose gained.
All influencers – educators, school administrators, government officials – must elevate preparatory programs to the highest national priority, recognizing pre-military preparation as a strategic national asset. The education system must actively expose youth to these opportunities, ensuring that every counselor, teacher, and educator acts as a bridge connecting young people to the chance of a lifetime.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-881904
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False narratives have framed Israel as guilty before the world
By Asher Stern
DECEMBER 31, 2025
There is a temptation to believe that the way Israel is discussed globally is the result of confusion, ignorance, or emotional overreaction. That explanation is comforting. It suggests that if only people had better information, the conversation would eventually correct itself.
That explanation can no longer be accepted.
What we are witnessing is not simply a misunderstanding. It is the outcome of sustained narrative pressure applied over time. A mix of targeted campaigns, ideological incentives, and a media environment that rewards moral certainty over accuracy.
Israel has not just been criticized. It has been positioned.
In modern conflicts, perception often precedes events. Long before facts are established, the moral frame is already in place. Once that frame hardens, reality is expected to conform to it.
Israel has been assigned a role in this story, and it is not a sympathetic one.
October 7 massacre activated anti-Zionist narrative
This did not begin on October 7. That day did not create the narrative. It activated one that had been carefully cultivated. Within hours of mass murder, rape, and abduction of Israeli civilians, the language was already in circulation. Israel was not encountered as a society in shock and grief. It was treated as an obstacle to a conclusion already reached.
That speed matters. It reflects preparation.
For years, organized networks have invested in shaping how Israel is understood, particularly in activist spaces, academic environments, and online ecosystems. Language has been refined; symbols standardized; emotional triggers tested and reused. Terms like genocide and apartheid are deployed not as analytical descriptions, but as narrative shortcuts. Their function is not to clarify reality, but to collapse it.
At the same time, the broader information environment does much of the work on its own. Outrage is rewarded.
Certainty travels faster than doubt. Those who reinforce the dominant framing are amplified. Those who complicate it are treated as suspects. Over time, this produces a discourse in which Israel is no longer debated. It is presumed guilty.
Once that presumption takes hold, everything else becomes easier. Initiating violence fades into the background. The deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians is contextualized or explained away. Terrorist groups embedding themselves within civilian populations are treated as unfortunate but irrelevant. Israeli fear is dismissed as exaggerated or undeserving of empathy.
The moral standard shifts. Israel is expected to defend itself without force, absorb violence without protest, and mourn quietly in order not to disrupt the story. No other democracy is held to this standard, yet it is presented as self-evident.
Israel has struggled to respond effectively. Too often, its instinct has been to explain rather than to confront the narrative itself. Facts are offered where frames must be challenged. But facts do not survive long in an environment designed to neutralize them. Silence is interpreted as guilt. Caution is read as evasion. Technical language collapses in the face of moral theatre.
Over time, Israel has been flattened into a symbol rather than seen as a society. Internal debates, political failures, and genuine security dilemmas disappear. Israeli lives become abstract. Israeli suffering becomes negotiable.
None of this requires denying Palestinian suffering. Civilian pain is real and devastating. But an honest conversation must also acknowledge a difficult truth: Palestinian leadership has repeatedly demonstrated that it cares more about dead Israelis than for living Palestinians. Again and again, choices have been made that prioritize violence and spectacle over governance and life. Resources that could have built institutions and opportunities were diverted into weapons and tunnels.
Civilian casualties are not merely tolerated. They are instrumentalized.
Ignoring this reality does not advance compassion. It guarantees more suffering.
What is lost in the dominant narrative is human reality: Israelis raising children under constant threat. Families shattered by terror attacks and abductions. Communities living with the knowledge that the next siren may not be a drill. These are not abstractions. They are lives.
Public diplomacy is not about spin. It is about refusing erasure. Israel does not need to claim perfection. It needs to insist on being seen as real. That means speaking clearly about the choices forced upon a democracy facing adversaries who glorify civilian death and embed themselves among their own population.
Narratives shape perception long before policy is debated. Once a story hardens, changing it becomes difficult, but not impossible.
Israel still has agency. It still has a voice. But using it requires confidence, moral clarity, and a willingness to challenge false simplicity rather than accommodate it. The goal is not universal approval. It is honest engagement.
Stories can be rewritten, but only by those willing to tell them with patience and resolve.
Israel cannot afford to remain a passive character in someone else’s script. It must take responsibility for its own story, not as a symbol, but as a society.
And that work, difficult as it is, remains not only necessary, but possible.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-881898
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Novy God: Mockery, politics, and the Russian identity Israelis still argue over
By IDIT DRUYAN OHAYON
DECEMBER 31, 2025
Spoiler: I’m not Russian. Or at least, not the kind of “Russian” you think. My mother and siblings immigrated from Moldova, my grandparents came from Poland and Latvia. I grew up in an Israeli home where only Hebrew was spoken. Seemingly, a “typical” Israeli household.
And yet, at school, I was “the Russian.” Yes, even in a religious girls’ school, at the heart of the national-religious community. In Bnei Akiva, some people called me “Ukrainian,” and surprisingly enough, I was offered to convert to Judaism when I worked in the political arena. I was a child born here, who spoke only Hebrew, an Israeli in every way, and I couldn’t understand why I, of all people, was labelled as different. I couldn’t understand why my “Russian-looking” appearance made me a target of ridicule.
Only later did I understand: before I even knew this identity, it had already been imposed on me from the outside.
In the 1990s, during the great wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union, relatives I never knew existed suddenly appeared in Israel, and with them came the Russian accent that gradually emerged in my late mother’s speech. My mother, who headed a hospital department, was the one who trained the new immigrant nurses and helped them integrate at work in Israel.
Israeli society did not always know how to embrace the immigrants. Instead of opening its arms, it opened its cynical, cutting mouth. People who desperately wanted to become part of us hit a wall of stereotypes: “Russians,” “less Jewish.” And so, alongside a blessed immigration, a quiet pain was formed. A problematic image, a cultural scar.
New Year and Novy God
For years, as a religious child, the civil New Year was not celebrated in our home, because it wasn’t the Jewish New Year and therefore “not ours.” At some stage, perhaps influenced by the immigration wave of the 1990s, we began raising a glass of champagne at midnight, watching a concert on one of the Russian TV channels.
I didn’t talk about it publicly, because in the Israeli public sphere, Christmas trees began popping up, and with them the suspicion that Novy God was sneaking Christian symbols into the Jewish state.
Only when I grew older and researched did I learn that in the former Soviet Union, it was forbidden to celebrate religious holidays. So a civil holiday was created. One that marked the new year, gave people a day off, and mainly allowed for a joyful family gathering in the midst of a harsh reality. Families came together, ate traditional foods, toasted “L’Chaim,” laughed, told stories, and simply were a family.
No missionary intent, no attempt to replace anything Jewish. On the contrary, it was a way to spiritually survive in a regime that tried to erase identities.
And then, after years in which “Russian identity” was stuck on me from the outside, I chose to embrace it from within. My mother taught me to read Russian, I started speaking my broken Russian publicly, and I leaned into being “Soviet-Israeli.”
During the years I was in the Bayit Hayehudi party, I met Yonatan Dubov, who immigrated at the age of one from Moldova, and together we decided to connect worlds. We launched a “religious Novy God” celebration. An initiative meant to say, loud and clear: you can be Israeli, you can be a religious Jew, and you can also respect, embrace, and recognize this tradition as part of the Israeli mosaic. Not as a threat, but as richness; not as danger, but as opportunity. A doorway for Israelis to learn more about their brothers who came from the former Soviet Union, and to appreciate the beauty of the culture and food that arrived with them.
Because ultimately, my story is not just personal. It’s the story of an entire generation. In Israel and in America, a generation that had to justify its existence, prove its identity, and sometimes even erase parts of itself in order to belong.
I am Israeli. Hebrew-speaking. Fully part of this society. And at the same time, I am the daughter of immigrants of strong women who lived through a complex reality and held onto their hearts and their homes even when they were forbidden to speak their identity aloud.
And today, as the discussion around Novy God rises again, I am no longer the child who didn’t understand why they laughed at her. I am the woman who looks back and says: What a shame about the years of embarrassment. What a loss. Israel is supposed to be a place where cultures meet, not disappear. A country that celebrates diversity, not fears it.
Because in the end, a strong nation is not afraid of culture. A strong nation embraces it, gives it space, and becomes richer because of it.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-881897
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After Oct. 7, young Israelis are the hardest to lecture about peace with Palestinians
By GERSHON BASKIN
DECEMBER 31, 2025
On Sunday evening, I lectured to a group of about 40 university students at Reichman University. My talk was about negotiations and essentially how to make peace between Israel and Palestine – two states for two peoples.
For some reason, during the first half of my talk, I did not pay enough attention to the fact that many of the students spent most of the past two years in reserve duty fighting in Gaza. Their questions and comments made no attempts to hide how and where their opinions were shaped.
This was very challenging because the experience of being an Israeli soldier in Gaza over the past two years leaves little room for considering alternative thinking. There is a strong need to justify to oneself what they did in Gaza over two years, and October 7 is a strong motivation for believing that what was done by Israel in Gaza was entirely right.
It is also difficult to challenge the common thinking (very much groupthink) because almost all of the Israeli mainstream media is an echo chamber for the IDF spokesperson and members of the Israeli government. Adding to the difficulty, we tend to read and listen to what we already agree with and not challenge ourselves by listening to and reading things we don’t agree with.
In light of this, presenting alternative narratives for what we have been through – not just for the past two years but for the past decades – with a large amount of real data, facts, and actual events presents a new challenge to the listeners.
I don’t think I actually convinced any of the students who did not already agree with me. But I am quite sure that I presented real challenges to those who did not agree with me – and they were the majority.
From my presentation of the two-state solution as the only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (because the conflict is about territory and identity of the people and the land – the same land for both people between the river and the sea), one student responded by saying: I don’t care if there is a Palestinian state next to Israel, I just don’t want to see them anymore. Let them have a state, but we will build walls so high that they will never cross into Israel again.
Another student said: I have no mercy for them, let them rot, I don’t care. Israel doesn’t have to give them anything. Another student responded to me stating that the conflict was essentially a conflict between Judaism and Islam – not a political conflict. He said: Islam is against the Jews because the Muslims see Jews as heretics.
I responded that there is no solution to the conflict that is based on higher walls and stronger fences. Real peace can only exist when there is cross-boundary cooperation. There will be no peace if the Palestinians feel that they are living in a cage that dooms them to live in poverty. Even today, about 85% of what Palestinians buy comes from Israel, and 65% of what they export goes to Israel.
Peace has to be built by cooperation in every aspect of life possible – from culture to tourism, commerce, and even education. We have to learn about each other. For that, every Israeli should study Arabic from grade one and every Palestinian should study Hebrew from grade one.
I said that we don’t have to feel mercy for the Palestinians and we don’t have to give them anything. What we need to do is stop being an obstacle in the way of their economic and political development. Most of the obstacles on Palestinian economic development are Israeli blockages on the Palestinian economy, from banking to trade limitation on imports and exports, to movement of people and goods, and more.
We don’t have to show mercy, but it makes absolutely no sense for Israel to want to have poor Palestinian neighbours. Palestinian prosperity is an Israeli national security interest.
Regarding not having to give the Palestinians anything – I did not hide the fact that Israel will be held responsible, in a large part for the damage it did in Gaza. Even now, in this early stage, there is a demand that Israel pays for the removal of millions of tons of rubble from building and infrastructure bombed and bulldozed by Israel in Gaza. That is not going to escape us.
Regarding whether or not this is a conflict of religions between Islam and Judaism, my claim is that it is not, but it is a political conflict of territory and identity where a lot of the questions of identity are firmly based on religion.
Even Hamas, I said, is not exactly the Muslim Brotherhood from which it grew. Hamas is a Palestinian national Islamic movement, not a pan-Islamic movement. Its goals have been to liberate Palestine from the Zionists and not to make the whole world Muslim. Something many people don’t know is that in 18 years of full Hamas control in Gaza, Sharia (Islamic law) was never made the law of the land. Gaza was governed by Hamas with Palestinian civil law, not Islamic religious law.
How to make peace
I presented to the students what I see as a very logical and even simple equation between Israel and Palestine. Israel will never have real security if the Palestinians do not have real freedom, and Palestine will not have real freedom if Israel does not have real security. It is as simple as that. Israelis need security, the Palestinians need freedom.
One student asked: How can we trust them? They violated every agreement we made with them. To that, I answered: First of all, both Israel and the Palestinians violated every agreement that was signed. Neither side implemented the agreements that they signed. Secondly, Oslo was a very naïve process. There was a built-in assumption in the Oslo agreements that we would work together and build trust enough to negotiate the tough permanent status issues – Palestinian statehood, borders, Jerusalem, refugees, etc.
I said that we cannot allow ourselves to sign naïve agreements. We cannot allow ourselves to make the same mistakes again. There must be an explicit and written agreed-to endgame – meaning that the agreements must begin with the understanding that the outcome will be the two states for two people’s solution.
Secondly, we cannot enter into a new peace process that does not ensure full implementation of obligations undertaken by both sides. This means that we have to create a trusted third-party mechanism to monitor and verify the implementation of the agreements.
There must be measurable and benchmarked steps and a third-party mechanism that will determine when we can move to the next stage, based on the implementation of obligations of both sides undertaken in the agreements. The next stages involve taking on more risks, so the third-party monitoring and verification mechanism significantly mitigates the risks.
There was a lot more very interesting discussion, but since I meet and lecture to groups of Israelis and Palestinians often, there will be more to share in the future.
I concluded my talk with the words that I often say when I meet students: Don’t believe anything that I said! Put a question mark at the end of every sentence that you don’t agree with and then check what I said. But don’t just go to sources that you agree with – search out other voices, other sources that you don’t agree with, and challenge yourself to face an alternative reality from the one you are very secure with in your life.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-881817
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After Gaza, no alliance is permanent: Justice and the reordering of West Asia
December 31, 2025
By Ranjan Solomon
The Gaza war has altered West Asia not merely by unleashing another cycle of destruction, but by exposing the fragility of the region’s political and justice architecture. What collapsed in Gaza was not only restraint, but the credibility of a global order that claims fidelity to international law while suspending it when inconvenient. In this sense, Gaza represents a justice rupture. It has forced states, movements, and societies to reassess relationships not through sentiment or inherited ideology, but through the political costs of visible and sustained injustice.
For decades, West Asian alliances appeared rigid, shaped by Cold War loyalties, oil security, and the strategic umbrella of the United States. Enmities were presumed permanent, friendships unbreakable. Gaza has shattered that illusion. It has revealed that power detached from justice does not stabilise the region; it corrodes it. As images of civilian devastation circulated globally, the gap between declared principles and applied practice became impossible to ignore. This exposure has accelerated a quiet but decisive recalibration across the region.
Saudi Arabia’s current trajectory illustrates this shift with particular clarity. The Kingdom is no longer operating within the certainties that once defined Gulf politics. Vision 2030 has tied Saudi Arabia’s future to economic diversification, foreign investment, tourism, and regional calm. All of these depend not only on security, but on legitimacy—especially in the Arab and Muslim worlds. After Gaza, overt alignment with Israel would place Riyadh in direct contradiction with widely held justice claims regarding occupation, civilian protection, and accountability. This is not a matter of rhetoric alone; it is a question of political sustainability.
Saudi Arabia’s recalibration should not be mistaken for ideological conversion. It is pragmatic and cautious, shaped by a recognition that legitimacy today cannot be outsourced to Western approval. The Gaza war has demonstrated that proximity to Western power no longer guarantees insulation from popular anger or reputational damage. Silence, ambiguity, and strategic delay have become tools of governance. In this sense, Saudi Arabia is changing not because it has embraced resistance politics, but because the costs of ignoring justice claims have become too high to absorb.
Iran, by contrast, appears steady, mature, and self-confident in this moment. That confidence does not arise from sudden advantage, but from long conditioning. For over four decades, Iran has existed under sanctions, diplomatic isolation, covert attacks, and economic pressure. This experience has produced a political culture anchored in endurance and strategic patience. Iran has long argued that the international system is structurally incapable of delivering justice to Palestinians, and Gaza has reinforced that claim in the eyes of many across the Global South.
This does not mean Iran is without contradictions or beyond critique. Its regional interventions have generated resentment, and its internal politics remain contested. Yet in the post-Gaza environment, consistency matters. Iran is not scrambling to redefine itself; it is allowing the contradictions of the existing order to surface on their own. This steadiness, whether one agrees with its politics or not, contrasts sharply with the visible anxiety of regimes whose legitimacy was once secured through Western alignment.
The evolving Saudi–Iran relationship must therefore be understood through this justice lens. It is neither reconciliation nor convergence, but a form of mutual risk management. Both states recognise that open confrontation now carries costs that far exceed potential gains. A regional war would expose Gulf energy infrastructure, disrupt global markets, inflame domestic vulnerabilities, and deepen instability without addressing the justice deficit at the heart of regional conflict. Restraint, under these conditions, becomes a projection of control rather than weakness.
Gaza has also altered how legitimacy itself is measured. The region is no longer divided primarily along sectarian or ethnic lines. The deeper fault line now runs between power exercised without accountability and power constrained—however imperfectly—by justice claims. Positions once considered neutral are now read as political statements. Silence is interpreted. Diplomatic gestures are scrutinised. States are judged less by their declarations and more by their willingness to acknowledge asymmetry, civilian suffering, and legal responsibility.
This shift has profound implications. It explains why normalisation projects have stalled, why regional powers are hedging rather than aligning, and why extra-regional actors like China are finding space to mediate. The appeal of China’s diplomacy lies not in shared values, but in its refusal to impose selective justice standards. In a region weary of conditional legality, that posture carries weight.
The Gaza war has also reinforced a broader civilizational transition already underway. West Asia is moving from dependency toward autonomy, from permanent enemies toward conditional rivals, and from externally imposed order toward regional self-balancing. This does not herald peace or harmony. Conflicts will persist, and power struggles will continue. But the grammar of power is changing. Justice, long invoked rhetorically and denied in practice, has become an unavoidable reference point in strategic calculation.
This is why the assertion that no relationship is forever the same resonates so strongly today. Alliances formed under one global order cannot survive unchanged in another. Saudi Arabia is changing because it must navigate a landscape where justice deficits erode authority. Iran appears confident because it believes time and exposure favour its critique of the existing system. Gaza has accelerated this divergence, making old certainties untenable.
The post-Gaza Middle East is not witnessing the triumph of justice, but the collapse of the illusion that justice can be indefinitely postponed without consequence. Power still matters, but it is no longer sufficient. Strategies that ignore justice now generate instability rather than compliance. In that sense, Gaza has not merely altered alliances; it has altered the terms on which alliances are judged.
West Asia is entering a period of provisional relationships, contested authority, and strategic patience. The future will not be defined by fixed blocs, but by continual recalibration under the weight of unresolved injustice. Gaza did not create this reality. It revealed it—too starkly to be ignored, and too publicly to be reversed.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20251231-after-gaza-no-alliance-is-permanent-justice-and-the-reordering-of-west-asia/
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Will Chile hold the line on Palestine under Kast?
December 31, 2025
By Eman Abusidu
José Antonio Kast’s victory in Chile’s presidential election, with nearly 58 per cent of the vote against Carolina Jara’s 42 per cent, marks more than a routine change in leadership. For many Chileans, particularly within the country’s large Palestinian community, the result has been received with a mix of concern, caution, and unanswered questions about what lies ahead.
Kast is preparing to take office after a period in which outgoing President Gabriel Boric placed the Palestinian cause at the centre of Chile’s ethical and diplomatic discourse. Under Boric, Chile’s support for Palestinian rights was not abstract or symbolic; it was voiced clearly in international forums and resonated deeply with Palestinian-Chileans who saw their history and identity reflected in state policy.
With the rise of a far-right president known for his close alignment with Israel and sharp criticism of that stance, many now wonder whether this support and visibility will endure or quietly recede under the new administration.
According to the Chilean former ambassador Nelson Hadad, the election result reflects a broader transformation in Latin American politics; “The outcome signals a structural rightward shift in Latin America, taking into account developments in Argentina, Bolivia, and the election of other new presidents. At the same time, Brazil and Colombia remain anchored in the left-wing camp. The traditional left–right dichotomy is no longer fully operative, as segments of the left voted for Kast, including the People’s Party, a centrist-left, middle-class-based formation that obtained more than two million votes, a substantial share of which likely transferred to Kast.”
Outgoing President Boric was one of the most outspoken critics of Israel among Western-aligned leaders. His administration suspended diplomatic engagement with Tel Aviv following the events of 7 October 2023, recalled Chile’s ambassador, and excluded Israel from the FIDA International Air Show—moves that generated sustained diplomatic friction.
Kast positioned himself in direct opposition to this approach. During the campaign, he labelled Boric’s Israel policy “ideological and irresponsible,” pledged to reverse what he described as diplomatic mismanagement, and issued a “complete and unconditional” condemnation of Hamas’ 7 October attack. He also publicly accused the Boric administration of anti-Semitism following Israel’s exclusion from FIDA.
Hadad noted, Boric’s stance was exceptional rather than institutionalized “by openly supporting the Palestinian cause in international forums, particularly during the last two UN General Assembly sessions, where he called for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state living peacefully alongside Israel within internationally recognized borders, consistent with the two-state solution.”
However, Hadad cautions against assuming a radical policy pivot: “Regarding the Palestinian issue, Kast has not articulated a clear position. International affairs were largely absent from the presidential debates, making it unlikely that his administration will replicate the level of explicit support shown by President Gabriel Boric.”
Chile’s Palestinian community, one of the largest outside the Middle East, has issued formal warnings following reports of a planned phone call between President-elect Kast and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. While officially described as a protocolary post-election contact, the call is widely interpreted as a symbolic reorientation of Chilean foreign policy.
The community confirmed it had congratulated Kast on his victory, while stressing that engagement with Netanyahu, who is sought by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges, could be perceived as political cover for violations of international humanitarian law.
Hadad emphasized that “What is required at this stage is institutional dialogue with the elected president, not the pursuit of emotional or symbolic positions. Engagement should be grounded in international law, international criminal law, and international humanitarian law.”
He added that these principles are not discretionary: “These principles constitute state policy, remain constant across administrations, and are based on respect for human rights, adherence to United Nations resolutions, respect for international law, the peaceful settlement of disputes, the prohibition of the use of force, and international cooperation.”
Despite expectations of closer alignment with Israel, tangible outcomes remain limited. As Hadad noted: “As for relations with Israel, no concrete strengthening of Israeli support for the Chilean government has materialized as a result of Kast’s victory. While the Israeli prime minister and foreign minister, like many world leaders, extended congratulations, no substantive change in bilateral relations has occurred to date. The issue remains under development.”
“Kast’s presidency is likely to bring adjustment rather than an abrupt break with the past. While his language points to a clear shift away from Gabriel Boric’s confrontational approach to foreign policy, the reality of governing is shaped by institutions, legal obligations, and Chile’s established commitment to international law—factors that tend to outlast any single campaign or president”, Hadad added.
In the near term, symbolic gestures such as diplomatic outreach, official statements, and media-facing signals will set the narrative and attract scrutiny. But symbolism will not answer the central question. The real test will come in policy: how Chile votes in international forums, how it interprets its human rights commitments, and how it recalibrates trade, defence, and diplomatic relations. For Palestine, the transition period is not about words but about consistency. It will reveal whether Chile’s long-standing positions can withstand a change in leadership or whether they will quietly erode under President Kast.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20251231-will-chile-hold-the-line-on-palestine-under-kast/
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The recognition of Somaliland as an Israeli geopolitical weapon
December 31, 2025
By Sayid Marcos Tenorio
The recognition of the so-called Somaliland by Israel does not constitute a neutral diplomatic gesture nor a peripheral detail of its foreign policy.
It is a deliberate political operation, embedded in a broader strategy of power projection by the Zionist state, aimed at legitimising unilateral processes of secession that corrode central principles of international law, especially that of the territorial integrity of states, enshrined by the African Union.
By replacing collective norms with opportunistic recognitions, the Zionist regime turns sovereignty into a geopolitical bargaining chip. This is not about self-determination, but rather the instrumentalization of territorial fragmentation as a tool of power.
Rupture is rewarded when it serves external strategic interests, and international legality is ignored when it becomes an obstacle. This practice collides head-on with the post-colonial African architecture, built precisely to contain the arbitrary reopening of borders inherited from European colonialism.
The Israeli gesture is part of a broader strategy to expand military and intelligence influence and to control logistical corridors. Analysts point to the advance of Mossad operations in the Middle East and Eastern Africa, under the direct guidance of the government of Benjamin Netanyahu.
The central objective is to secure influence over vital maritime routes, from the Gulf of Aden to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, passing through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, through which a decisive portion of Israeli foreign trade flows. To dominate routes is to dominate flows; to dominate flows is to impose power.
In this context, consistent reports have emerged regarding negotiations for the military use of infrastructure in Somaliland, particularly the airport and port of Berbera. What is confirmed is the strategic value of the region and its historical use by foreign forces.
Israel intends, through this, to operate advanced facilities capable of monitoring Bab el-Mandeb, surveillant the Red Sea, and reducing dependence on politically sensitive overflights through countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Jordan.
The regional dimension becomes even more explosive when Yemen and Iran are taken into account. An advanced presence in the Horn of Africa would function as a platform of strategic depth for surveillance and potential military projection, increasing indirect pressure on Tehran and drawing Israel closer to Yemeni conflicts, especially in the context of Houthi activity in the north of the country.
The structural contradiction is evident. Israel seeks to recognise an artificial political entity, founded on colonial arrangements and imposed balances of power, when its own historical creation is inscribed in a similar logic, marked by colonial partitions, ethnic cleansing and the systematic expulsion of an indigenous people.
This is a colonial mirroring: Zionist colonialism recognising another process of colonial fragmentation, replacing legality with strategic convenience.
It is worth recalling that Somaliland has existed de facto since 1991, in north-western Somalia, with its own institutions and relative stability. Even so, it remained for decades without broad recognition precisely to preserve Somali territorial integrity and avoid destabilising precedents on the African continent. The Israeli announcement breaks this consensus and triggers an immediate reaction.
The League of Arab States convened an emergency meeting to formally reject the recognition, warning of threats to regional security and to Somalia’s territorial unity.
In the same vein, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation condemned the decision as a dangerous act, intended to foment chaos and support separatist tendencies. Several members of the UN Security Council also expressed concern about the regional impact of the measure.
The recognition of Somaliland emerges as a possible precedent for a similar initiative in southern Yemen. There are indications that Israel is considering recognising a secessionist entity linked to the Southern Transitional Council, supported by the United Arab Emirates, as part of a strategy to contain the Houthis and consolidate a presence along the Red Sea coast.
Finally, the unavoidable political point: instead of recognising secessionist entities according to its strategic convenience, Israel should recognise the State of Palestine and cease the daily killing of its people.
Any discourse on legitimacy that ignores occupation, apartheid, and systematic violence is cynical, colonial, and morally bankrupt.
The recognition of Somaliland does not promote self-determination, but instrumentalises fragmentation. It does not strengthen international law; it corrodes it. It does not build peace; it deepens instability to dominate routes, resources, and narratives.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20251231-the-recognition-of-somaliland-as-an-israeli-geopolitical-weapon/
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Measuring Defiance in 2025: How Palestinian Sumud Challenged the Israeli War and the West’s Complicity
December 31, 2025
By Ramzy Baroud
2025 started and finished with two declared ceasefires in Gaza, both instantly and brutally shattered by Israel, operating with absolute, unquestioned impunity.
The operational definition of a ceasefire, from an Israeli perspective, is a de facto one-sided campaign where the opposing party — be it the Palestinians or the Lebanese — is forcibly stripped of the right to fight back or defend itself.
For Israel, its relentless war machine is always framed as an act of self-defence, even as the primary victims of these campaigns, as clearly evidenced by the two-year Gaza genocide, are women and children. By the end of 2025, over 70,000 Palestinians had been killed in Gaza, more than 170,000 wounded, and thousands more remained missing beneath the rubble.
The year, however, did not begin with such a gloomy outlook. Many had desperately hoped that the January 19 ceasefire would bring the Palestinian agony to a decisive end. The agreement briefly halted the genocide to allow prisoner exchanges and limited aid entry amid a rapidly spreading famine.
The brief respite among Palestinians proved tragically temporary, as Israel began violating the ceasefire almost immediately upon its implementation. By early March, Israel had suspended humanitarian aid, triggering acute food shortages and a crippling medical crisis. Even during the purported halt, Palestinians perished in massive numbers from engineered starvation and disease.
On March 17, Israel officially re-engaged the conflict, commencing with intense military strikes and expanded ground operations. Palestinians mounted fierce resistance across the Gaza Strip, although. Hundreds of thousands who returned to northern Gaza during the ceasefire were displaced once again, and thousands were killed.
Israel’s deadly wrath did not spare the occupied West Bank in 2025, yet the region’s tragedy went largely unreported due to the catastrophic scale of killing in Gaza. The occupied region, nonetheless, endured a tremendously high casualty toll, witnessing the expulsion of entire communities in the northern West Bank and the razing of whole refugee camps.
Indeed, the West Bank simultaneously endured a parallel campaign of calculated collective punishment and aggressive territorial seizure. Starting in January, the refugee camps of Jenin, Balata, Ain Shams, among other areas, were subjected to repeated, large-scale military incursions, leaving critical infrastructure pulverized and hundreds dead. In other areas, like Ein Shibli and in the southern Hebron Hills, entire Bedouin communities were violently expelled, their homes deliberately demolished, effectively formalizing the annexation process under the guise of ‘security’ operations.
The year saw extreme Israeli violence and a record number of newly approved settlement units. Despite international condemnations and firm rejections of Israel’s obvious attempts at colonizing and annexing large parts of the West Bank, the Israeli onslaught remained utterly undeterred.
The war’s scope in Gaza also grew rapidly, reaching every last part of the Strip, where forced displacements returned with the same, and, at times, even higher, ferocity than in the first year of the genocide.
In May and again in July, the Israeli cabinet approved Operations Gideon’s Chariots I and II, following the first iteration launched in May, both aimed at fully occupying northern Gaza, a mission Israel had repeatedly failed to achieve since the war began.
The protracted, calculated Israeli siege eventually culminated in August in the formal declaration of famine, extending its grip not only over Gaza City but across the entire northern Gaza Strip. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classifications (IPC) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), among others, confirmed that famine conditions had been met. Yet no meaningful pressure was applied on Israel to break the siege. Despite this international alarm, no forceful, substantive pressure was placed on Israel to break its deadly siege.
The relentless slaughter in Gaza and the West Bank rendered hollow the wave of Palestinian state recognition by Western capitals. France, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, among others, officially recognized the State of Palestine between September 21 and 25.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scathingly dismissed the recognition as a “grave mistake”. “You are giving a huge reward to terrorism,” he said. Following the announcements, he and his extremist ministers, Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, vowed to accelerate the annexation of Area C in the West Bank and pass legislation establishing sovereignty over the Jordan Valley.
The Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas clutched at the recognition, attempting to utilize it as a means of reviving its increasingly marginal role in Palestinian politics, while other Palestinian political factions saw the recognition as a necessary, albeit late, acknowledgement of the agency and fundamental rights of the Palestinian people.
International solidarity, meanwhile, escalated dramatically. In Italy, which is governed by a pro-Israeli right-wing government, several general strikes were declared across the country. The first major strike, on September 22, was called by grassroots trade unions — USB, CUB, and others. The strike directly targeted the government’s complicity with Israel through the continued authorization of arms flow to the Israeli army.
Later that same month, on September 29, what became known as the ‘Trump Gaza Plan’ was unveiled and was presented as a comprehensive peace framework divided into three phases.
While intense talks mediated by the US and several Arab and Middle Eastern countries continued, global protests erupted on October 4 and 5. Millions demonstrated across Europe demanding an end to the war and an immediate arms embargo on Israel.
The ceasefire was finally declared on October 10. It was followed by the release of all Israeli captives and nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. Some prisoners stayed in the West Bank, while others were deported outside Palestine or returned to Gaza.
On October 13, an international summit convened in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, chaired by US President Donald Trump and Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. The summit endorsed the newly declared ceasefire, established a roadmap for the reconstruction in Gaza, and controversially established an ‘International Stabilization Force’.
Eventually, UNSC Resolution 2803 was approved on November 17, despite early protests from China and Russia. The resolution confirmed the ceasefire and called for the establishment of a Board of Peace in Gaza, a governing body to be led by Trump himself. Though desperate to end the war that had claimed the lives of countless civilians, Palestinians rejected any return to mandate-style governance, insisting Gaza would be ruled by its own people.
These diplomatic overtures did not quell international solidarity. Spain declared a general strike on October 15, insisting on the demands of holding Israel accountable. More protests followed on the occasion of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on November 29, as millions rallied in the streets of many capitals and cities across the world, marking a decisive global paradigm shift against Israel and in solidarity with Palestine.
The year concludes with some somber numbers, but also much hope and the legendary sumud among ordinary Palestinians.
On November 25, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) released a report that warned that Gaza’s GDP had collapsed by an “unprecedented and catastrophic” rate of 80 percent since 2023.
On November 25, researchers from the Germany-based Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research and the Spain-based Centre for Demographic Studies found that life expectancy in Gaza in 2024 fell by 47 percent compared with what it would have been without the war. This sharp drop reflects catastrophic increases in mortality.
Yet, despite the overwhelming destruction, on November 29, refugees in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza organized a football match. Played amid pulverized concrete and upturned earth, the game marked the defiant return of football in Gaza. Before kickoff, players and excited fans observed a moment of silence to commemorate the 320 athletes and sports personnel killed throughout the genocide.
While Israel measures its success and failures in wars based solely on the body count of its enemies, Palestinians employ a different type of measurement: the indomitable spirit of a people that refuses to die despite the total and utter destruction resulting from Israeli wars.
The last few years have brought some of the most painful experiences in Palestinian collective memory. We hope that the coming year will be that of a lasting just peace, that Israel will be compelled by global force to respect the ceasefire, and that the profound sacrifices of the Palestinian people will finally usher in a long-awaited age of justice and accountability.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/measuring-defiance-in-2025-how-palestinian-sumud-challenged-the-israeli-war-and-the-wests-complicity/
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On the Politics of Possibility vs. The Hope that a Better World is Possible
December 31, 2025
By Benay Blend
New Year’s Eve is a traditional time for making resolutions for the coming months, personal promises to oneself to do better. Given the state of the world, in particular Palestine and the Global South, perhaps this year should be a time to make collective resolutions to work for a better world.
In the words of journalist Arundhati Roy, taken from her speech “Come September” (2002): “The time has come, the Walrus said… Another world is not only possible, she’s on her way. Maybe many of us won’t be here to greet her, but on a quiet day, if I listen very carefully, I can hear her breathing.”
On a recent edition of Democracy Now, Roy spoke about her support for Palestine despite the reversal of India’s decade’s decades-long policy, which in the past did not favor Israel’s Occupation.
Though conceding to an almost universal sense of helplessness, she also states that “we have to be unreasonable, and we have to hope, and we have to do what we have to do.” Her message is not meant to be “some cute, you know, person saying, ‘Oh, everything will be all right,” but rather acknowledging that while Israel has devastated Gaza, it has also destroyed itself, despised as it is in the eyes of the world for war crimes beyond the scope of human imagination.
In “The Optimism of Uncertainty,” the late Howard Zinn reiterates a similar point. “An optimist isn’t necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time,” Zinn explains. “To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.”
“What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives,” continued Zinn. “If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something.”
On Palestine Chronicle’s TV show, commemorating one year of Al Aqsa Flood, Dr. Ramzy Baroud asked what gave me hope during a time of genocide. Admittedly, I was stumped. Prof. Zinn’s philosophy had guided me through all the years of teaching, but that had been over for some time.
For me, a necessary ingredient for my efforts was a sense of hope, because if there is no faith in the next generation what was the point of teaching? Instilling in my students the belief that nothing would ever change felt like outright nihilism, an attitude that has never worked for me nor would it most likely have worked for them.
Turning from teaching to full-time writing requires a rereading of Zinn’s reflection on optimism and hope. By looking to other writers, particularly those who provide a platform for the Palestinian narrative and challenge the depiction of Palestinians as mere victims, it becomes easier to answer Baroud’s question.
In an article for People’s World, written nearly a year ago today, Dr. Baroud defined what he called a “cultural revolution” happening now in Gaza, a “defiant and rebellious narrative” in which “people see themselves as active participants in the popular resistance, not just mere victims of the Israeli war machine.”
For example, shortly after the ceasefire, Gazans took to the street to celebrate their “collective victory, steadfastness (sumud), and resilience against the powerful Israeli military, supported by the US and other Western countries.”
Baroud does not deny the anguish that Gaza feels after years of unimaginable trauma, but he qualifies that in order to overcome such grief, “they emphasize their identity, unity, and defiance” as a means to ensure a future better world.
This kind of resilience endures today as Palestinians in Gaza continue to further their education, celebrate their holidays, and prepare food for hundreds of the displaced—all while resisting Zionist efforts to force them from their land.
Despite the collapse of Al-Shifa Medical Complex, Gaza’s Health Ministry oversaw the graduation of 168 doctors, all of whom defied the destruction of their building by holding their ceremony amid the rubble.
“The event was marked by a mixture of price and mourning”—pride that Palestinians demonstrated their determination to rebuild, sorrow over the ongoing genocide that saw so many health workers and doctors killed during Israel’s genocide.
With schools destroyed and families fleeing from one danger zone to the next, Gaza’s children, too, show determination to continue their education. As Anan Tello notes, education has always been “a cornerstone of Palestinian identity. In 2022, literacy in Palestine surpassed 97 percent, with near parity between men and women, according to Statista.”
Defying the destruction, schools are often set up in makeshift tents, where groups offer “creative learning programs, including puppet theatre, storytelling, sports, and community play days, to offer both education and psychological relief.”
One of the children’s favourite songs focuses on rebuilding the families’ homes using their own labour, a testament to Gaza’s strength that does not depend on charity.
Like the Al-Shifa graduation, groups held a commencement ceremony in Northern Gaza for the children. “Kids waving their certificates in the air amid bombing — an act of both defiance and celebration,” said one of the volunteers.
Foodways, too, have become what Samar Awaad calls “not just been a means to survive but the connective tissue to our culture, identity, liberation, resistance, and to our land.”
“Adapting and handing down recipes in spite of a decades-long history of erasure and dispossession is a way of resistance and for traditions to endure,” Awad continues. Despite Zionist-enforced deprivation, Palestinians in Gaza have organized hundreds of soup kitchens that provide cooked meals for the displaced population.
“What is happening in Palestine today, the starvation and bombardment of Gaza by the Israeli occupation, not only threatens people’s immediate food security, dignity, and health,” Awaad states, “but severely imperils Palestinian food sovereignty.”
Envisioning a path to a better future, Awaad recommends adapting to the current state of affairs while continuing to practice Palestinian traditions as much as possible. “They are a means to survive both as people and as a culture,” she concludes, while also “serv[ing] as a stark example of Palestinian resilience, resistance, and sense of community.”
During the recent Christmas season, there were few children’s gifts in Gaza. Nevertheless, as Romana Rubeo writes, Holy Family Church in Gaza City continues to hold daily prayers and Mass, “not as a celebration, but as a means of preserving cohesion amid devastation.”
For Palestinian Christians, this Christmas is no different than past years in many ways. Indeed, it has “reinforced a long-held truth,” Rubeo explains. “Their faith, history, and future are inseparable from the broader Palestinian condition.”
In his closing talk at the Gaza Tribunal in Istanbul, Dr. Baroud addressed the need for hope in the face of impossible odds. Summarized by Romana Rubeo, his speech acknowledged that Israel’s goal has always been the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.
But “the fact that people are still there, even if they are sitting on the ruins of Gaza, means that the heart of Palestinian resistance is still beating,” he said. “And as long as it is beating, resistance in Palestine will remain alive.”
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/on-the-politics-of-possibility-vs-the-hope-that-a-better-world-is-possible/
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