The Social World

Tag: Gaza

  • Will Israel always have America’s backing?

    Will Israel always have America’s backing?

    Marc Lynch is angry. The word “rage” appears six times on the first page of America’s Middle East: The Ruination of a Region, and comes in response to Israel’s war in Gaza. This should be sufficient warning to anyone expecting a cool, calm, dispassionate analysis of the Middle East that they might have picked up the wrong book. That is not to say that Lynch, who runs the George Washington University’s Middle East program, is not worth reading. On the contrary, and despite the occasional lapse into the sort of political-science-speak favored by academics, he is a fierce and compelling voice.

    Lynch dates the beginning of America’s Middle East to 1991, the conclusion of a swift military campaign against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and the end of the bipolar era in which the US and the Soviet Union had for decades shared the responsibilities of international mediation. Contrast the hopes for the region then – Israeli-Palestinian peace, the spread of democracy and liberalizing economic reforms – with the reality of what followed: multiple wars between Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah; another war and a decade-long insurgency in Iraq; civil wars in Syria, Yemen, Libya and Sudan; and continued internal repression by regimes that can be classified as autocracies, if you are being kind, or varying shades of dictatorship if you’re feeling less charitable.

    Both Israel and the United States come in for a vigorous kicking, more so than the region’s Islamists, Hamas foremost among them. This is a pity, as well as a mistake, because it undermines a wider analysis of American policy towards the Middle East that is otherwise brave, bracing and original.

    It is Washington’s complicity with Arab autocracy combined with the impunity it allows Israel, irrespective of whether Republicans or Democrats are in government, which infuriates Lynch. And much of the rest of the world, too. The author is unsparing in his critique. The US, he writes, consistently likes to present itself as “seeking to liberate the people they are immiserating”. Washington’s inability or refusal to take regional public opinion seriously has long been its “fatal flaw”. “The starting premise of American policy has always implicitly been that Palestinians are not fully human beings.”

    As an avowed Obama fan who advised both presidential campaigns, he cuts the former president a lot of slack, though the title of this chapter, adapted from Obama’s memoir, gives the game away: “The Audacity, and Failure, of Hope”. Given Obama’s much vaunted hopes of changing both American policy in the region and the mindset behind it, the charge sheet against him makes depressing reading: a free pass to Gulf forces to help Bahrain’s monarchy crush its Arab Spring uprising in 2011; failure to uphold his “red line” in 2012 over Syrian president Bashar al Assad’s use of chemical weapons against his own people; the refusal to brand the 2013 Saudi- and UAE-backed rising against the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt a coup. In the words of a 2016 Brookings report, not quoted by Lynch, “when it comes to Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, no US president has promised more and accomplished less than Obama”.

    The years ahead, Lynch argues, should cause concern for Israelis. The younger generation of Americans, who do not have political memories extending to Israel’s foundation in 1948, are considerably more pro-Palestinian than their parents. When the US finds itself alone, again and again, wielding its Security Council veto in defense of Israel, that demographic shift should ring alarm bells in Jerusalem and Washington. Likewise, as Lynch observes, for decades the bipartisan consensus in the US on Israel barely needed to be openly defended. Today it is under active discussion at every level.

    There is a reason that Benjamin Netanyahu refuses to discuss “the day after” the war in Gaza has ended. We know that it does not involve the beginning of talks with the Palestinians leading to a two-state solution, because he has ruled out a Palestinian state. In many minds, the obvious alternative, a single state, will be tantamount to apartheid. Lynch notes that the quartet composed of Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem and the International Court of Justice considers “the international legal criteria for the crime of apartheid” to have been met already.

    On 16 September, a UN report accused Israel of committing genocide, adding to the country’s deepening international isolation days ahead of the planned recognition by a handful of countries, including the UK, France, Canada and Australia, of the state of Palestine at the UN’s General Assembly.

    What comes after Gaza? Like many experts, Lynch has already written off the two-state solution and reckons “an unsustainable apartheid may be a surer route towards the attainment of Palestinian rights than the perpetual pretense of the fantasy of two states”. To quote the title of the Egyptian-American writer Omar El Akkad’s excoriating book on the West’s complicity in the horrors of Gaza, One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This.

    The article first appeared in The Spectator’s UK edition.

  • The Nobel ‘snub’ suits Trump just fine

    The Nobel ‘snub’ suits Trump just fine

    Of course, Donald Trump has not won the Nobel Peace Prize. The Scandinavian grandees on the committee wouldn’t dream of honoring him. It was silly to think that they would.

    The award has gone instead to María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition figure, so well done to her.

    Still, it speaks to the fundamental vanity of our age that the Nobel is today’s big story, as if the complexity of world affairs can be boiled down to a yearly episode of Peace Has Got Talent.

    The headlines chirp that Trump has “failed in his bid” to secure the prize. And no doubt America’s Commander-in-Chief would have been thrilled at the honor, just as he was by the royal welcome he received from King Charles in Britain last month.

    But Trump and his team are not fools. The Nobel “snub” fits perfectly with the story MAGA wants to tell: Trump is busy stopping conflicts, from Nagorno-Karabakh to Kashmir, Ethiopia and Cambodia. His administration may also be on the brink of pulling off the seemingly impossible and resolving the conflict in Gaza. As if by magic – or careful PR orchestration – Israel declared the Trump-brokered ceasefire. It came into effect moments after the Nobel Committee announced the prize winner.

    And yet the old liberal world order still refuses to acknowledge Trump’s good work. The stuffy global elite is simply too self-congratulatory and prejudiced to recognize that their time is over and a new world order is being born, based not on “international norms” but on national interests.

    This Trumpian narrative has the advantage of containing more than a kernel of truth. Trump’s visit to the Middle East this week will also show the contrast between his effective action and all the liberal warbling about protecting democracy. The fact that the Nobel committee chose Machado, a Venezuelan, also looks a lot like a pointed dig at Trump’s military assertiveness (i.e., not peace) in the Western Hemisphere. Trump’s Defense Department, now referred to as the Department of War, has been conducting military strikes on the drug cartels in and around Venezuela.

    But the Nobel is a joke and has been for some time. The late Tom Lehrer was right to say: “Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize” in 1973, after Kissinger had, among other things, bombed Cambodia to smithereens. The Nobel honored Barack Obama just for winning a presidential election – a particular annoyance for Trump, as is widely noted.

    We are indeed now in a time beyond satire, a world of AI-reality, in which realpolitik plays second fiddle to the comedy of news. Trump will be quite happy to ham up the role of sore loser in the coming days. Because he knows he’s winning.

  • Why did Trump even want the Nobel Peace Prize?

    Why did Trump even want the Nobel Peace Prize?

    Did anyone seriously think that Donald Trump was going to emerge this morning as winner of the Nobel Peace Prize? First, there were the mechanics. Nominations for the prize closed on 31 January, at which point Trump was only 11 days into his second term and there was hardly a glint of hope in Gaza. The prize committee will have met for the last time around a week ago, when there was still doubt as to whether Hamas would accept this deal. The committee will have had to make its decision a few days before the announcement, because certain formalities have to be undertaken ahead of time, such as checking whether the recipient actually wants the prize.

    For those reasons, next year was always going to be a more appropriate time for Trump to win the prize. But even then, don’t hold your hopes. While the prize committee prides itself on its independence, it is not really free of outside pressure. As we have seen many times, part of the liberal mindset is a tendency to put yourself in a straightjacket of thought, sewn together by the opinions of other liberals. Had they awarded the prize to Trump, members of the committee would have faced cancellation. Dinner invitations would have dried up, high-powered jobs at universities and NGOs would have been denied to them. Norway has a pretty small establishment. There would have been nowhere to hide from angry liberal opinion. Even had the committee members been prepared to face up to that, it is only natural that a committee – even one not made up by liberals – would be a bit irritated by the brazen way in which Trump and his people have been lobbying for the prize, and be inclined to award it elsewhere as a result.

    That said, what Trump has achieved over the past couple of weeks is surely deserving of the prize. While other world leaders such as Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron dealt with the world they would like to exist, Trump dealt with the one which really does exist. It is hard to imagine anyone but him being able to moderate Benjamin Netanyahu and simultaneously being able to apply pressure on Egypt and other Arab countries to influence what is the effective surrender of Hamas. It is laughable to think that it could have happened under Joe Biden, and not much more far-fetched to think that Barack Obama – who really is a Nobel Peace laureate – could have achieved it.

    The big mystery, though, is why Trump actually wants the Nobel Peace Prize. He has spent his time in office scorning international bodies. He has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Agreement, from the World Health Organization. He has treated the United Nations pretty sniffily. His whole philosophy in international affairs revolves around the idea that international bodies have grown too big for their boots: they are run by unelected busybodies who deserve to be cut down to size. He likes to see the world as being run by strong men, not worthy NGO types. So why does he even want the Nobel Peace Prize? He should want to scorn the idea of a bunch of aloof worthies appointed by the Norwegian government trying to sit in judgment on who is good and who is bad in the world.

    A little note ought also to be added for Maria Corina Machado, the actual recipient of the prize. It was always likely, given the lobbying by the Trump, that the Nobel committee would go for someone few have heard of. But there is the possibility, of course, that Machado is actually a deserving choice. Had it not been for Trump and Gaza we would this morning be heralding the Venezuelan opposition leader who was robbed on victory in her country’s elections by Nicolas Maduro. Trump doesn’t need a Nobel Peace Prize and shouldn’t really want it. For Machado and the people of Venezuela, on the other hand, the prize might actually do some good, by rewarding someone who has stood up against dictatorship.

  • Give the Nobel to Jared

    Give the Nobel to Jared

    On a season eight episode of The Simpsons, newscaster Kent Brockman interviews a man who’s woken up from a 23-year-long coma, and lets him know that Sonny Bono is now a Congressman and Cher has won an Oscar. The man dies soon after. If someone were to wake up from a coma today to find out that Donald Trump, who 23 years ago was hosting The Apprentice, is now the leading candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize, it would have a similar result. 

    But who else deserves the award? If you can give Peace Prizes to Al Gore and Barack Obama for basically being Cool Liberal Guys Who Aren’t Dick Cheney, you can give one to Donald Trump. Look at who’s nominated him: Benjamin Netanyahu, the government of Pakistan, The Israeli Hostages Family Forum. It’s not exactly Rudy Giuliani, Kayleigh McEnany and an anonymous account from Barron’s burner phone. The “President of peace” does seem a little too eager to get his hands on the medal. “I should have gotten it four or five times,” he said in June. 

    But, again, who else should get it at this moment in history? Jimmy Carter deserved one in 1978 for brokering the Camp David Accords. What Trump’s done is equally significant. The list of other deserving candidates is pretty small: They could always give it to Pope Leo, who seems like a nice Pope, or to Chef José Andres, who’s fed millions of refugees in need. If the Nobel Committee hands it to Greta Thunberg, it might actually cause World War III.

    The only logical answer is Trump’s son-in-law, and the man who’s quietly done all the actual work on negotiating the Israel-Hamas peace accords: Jared Kushner. We’ve heard Kushner’s name in the Peace Prize conversation before. In 2022, Congressman Lee Zeldin nominated him for his role in brokering the Abraham Accords between Israel and the UAE, and the year before, Alan Dershowitz nominated him for the same reason. Then-CNN political writer Chris Cilizza, who’s never been nominated for anything other than “Weenus of the Year,” said that these nominations were “less of a big deal than you think.” But they were actually a pretty big deal. 

    In 2022, Jared Kushner was not anywhere near the seat of power. The Washingtonian wrote an article about him called “Javanka In Exile,” as he and Ivanka Trump tried to navigate their way in what a prematurely triumphant media considered to be a post-Trump Washington. And what was Jared Kushner doing in “exile”? Getting Nobel Peace Prize nominations while quietly going about his billionaire business trying to achieve an impossible 3,000-year-old dream of bringing peace to the Middle East. 

    Hamas’s horrifying October 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel and Israel’s response in Gaza were the opposite of peace in the Middle East. If anything, it created a situation where regional war could explode into world conflict, with calls to “globalize the intifada.” The war between Islamic militants and defenders of Israel spilled off computer screens and into the streets of the world, sometimes violently. Once the Trump Restoration occurred, Trump sent Kushner back into the fray. In his calm, patient, non-spotlight-seeking way, Kushner has once again sought to bring peace where, as long as any of us have lived, there’s been war. 

    Of course Trump is taking credit. That’s what he does. “All I can do is put out wars,” he said at the United Nations recently. “I don’t seek attention. I just want to save lives.” Trump always seeks attention, and it might be hard to sell him to the Nobel Peace committee on a week where he threatens to arrest the Mayor of Chicago, orders the National Guard to Portland and brags about blowing Venezuelan drug boats out of the water. Even if he goes to Egypt this weekend and parts the Red Sea, it still might not be enough. But peace in our time, despite all that, is still within reach. 

    The late Tom Lehrer once said “political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize.” And it’s true, they gave the prize for ending the Vietnam War to the architect of the firebombing of Cambodia. Political satire is now either obsolete, or maybe we all just live in it daily. Donald Trump didn’t start the fire in the Middle East, but he’s certainly doing all he can to end the conflict, or at least Jared Kushner is. Give Jared the Nobel Prize. Javanka is no longer in exile. 

  • Has Trump won peace – or a pause? 

    Has Trump won peace – or a pause? 

    Donald Trump is on a roll. He not only wrangled Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu into submission, but also the terrorist organization Hamas, which has apparently agreed to release all remaining hostages. The war in Gaza, which has claimed the lives of at least 67,000 Palestinians, looks to be coming to an end. On Thursday evening, Trump took a victory lap as Israel and Hamas, who have been negotiating in Egypt, assented to the first phase of his 20-point peace plan.

    “I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first Phase of our Peace Plan. This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed upon line as the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS!”

    They are indeed. A jubilant Trump has indicated that he is planning to visit Israel and Egypt. So far, so good. His push for peace and readiness to confront Netanyahu has been vindicated. Netanyahu himself called the agreement “a great day for Israel.” The cessation of hostilities after two years of combat may be a testament to exhaustion on all sides as much as anything else. But will the agreement bring something more substantial than a temporary ceasefire?

    Vexed questions remain. Among them: will Hamas disarm? How far will Israel withdraw from Gaza? And who will run the denuded area and supervise its reconstruction?

    For Netanyahu, an end to the conflict will pose significant risks. He has been able to dodge accountability for the grievous national security lapses that took place on October 7, when Hamas attacked and murdered numerous Israeli civilians. His rickety right-wing coalition partners, who harbor the dream of expelling the Palestinians, may also abandon Netanyahu over the agreement. Still, they would lose their privileges and prerogatives should they exit the coalition.

    The most likely prospect is that a special election will take place in advance of the one scheduled for October 2026. This would almost surely result in a new and more centrist government. The possibility of a grand coalition that excludes far-right figures such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich would seem to be very much in the offing. For one thing, opposition leader Yair Lapid has supported Netanyahu over the past week, declaring that the fate of the hostages trumps any quotidian political concerns. Lapid is also intent on creating a unity government after elections take place. After the turmoil that Israel has endured over the past several years, it might well be a winning message, though Netanyahu’s skill at pulling electoral rabbits out of a hat should never be discounted. 

    But these considerations remain in the future. The most pressing issue is what will transpire with the Gaza strip itself, which has been largely reduced to rubble by Israel. When Trump travels to the Middle East later this week, he will be seeking to ensure that the temporary ceasefire becomes a permanent one, rather than devolving into a fresh round of violence. Nothing would please him more to accomplish what his loathed predecessor Joe Biden could not. And then there is the small matter of the Nobel Peace Prize he covets.

  • Make Peace Great Again

    Make Peace Great Again

    With typical assertiveness, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave his marching orders to the US military at the end of September. No more “fat troops” or “fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon.” No more woke. Make War Great Again.

    At the same time, with typical modesty, Donald Trump said of his proposed peace deal between Israel and Gaza, “This is a big, big day, a beautiful day, potentially one of the greatest days ever in civilization.” No more starvation, no more senseless death. Make Peace Great Again.

    In Trumpworld, these two agendas are not contradictory. A strong army at home guarentees peace abroad – or that’s the hope, anyway. But what happens when America’s enemies don’t play ball?

    Hamas – or what remains of it – has yet to respond to the President’s announcements. If Trump really can end the killing and return Gaza to some sort of peace, it will be an achievement of which he can be proud – and which everyone else can welcome with relief.

    But there is a very big “if” there. It is not obvious why a terror organization which has been waging war against the very existence of Israel for years, and which has shown its zealotry over and over again, should want to accede to a deal which does not appear to offer it very much. Hamas fighters and officials would be allowed to leave Gaza or even to continue to live there, providing they do so peacefully, with some degree of immunity. A thousand Palestinian prisoners would be released by Israel in return for the remaining living Israeli hostages held in Gaza.

    But there is no offer of Palestinian statehood, however much that would please Britain, France and other countries which have recently made a show of recognizing it as a nation. Trump has not talked of the deal’s leading to a Palestinian state, and Benjamin Netanyahu has been adamant that it is not part of the deal and will never happen.

    Trump’s claim to greatness is built onthe pretext that he can cut deals which no other US president could

    The best that can be said about it from Hamas’s perspective is that, in contrast to an earlier proposal from the President, the deal would not require Palestianians to leave the Gaza Strip for ten years before – supposedly – being allowed back to a land which would by then have been transformed by western property developers. Neither, as per the video reposted by the President, would Gaza be transformed into a ghastly Trump resort. But Trump would be the ultimate governor of the place, aided by other figures including Jared Kushner and former British prime minister Tony Blair. Only at some point in the future would Gaza be entrusted to the Palestinian Authority, whose current territory is restricted to the West Bank.

    If Hamas does accept the deal, it will be because the Israel Defense Forces have degraded the group to the point at which the zealots are no longer quite so much in charge. Then again, even those who remain may well choose death over what would amount to surrender. If the deal is rejected and the war recommences it would be a tragedy for the Gazans. But that’s the all-too-likely scenario.

    Trump’s claim to greatness is built on the pretext that he can cut deals which no other US president could. His methods might be unconventional, alarming even. But at the end of the process he can shake hands and achieve things which would have eluded more earnest and straightforward leaders. In his first term, he lived up to this image. In contrast to Barack Obama, Trump realized that the way to deal with Kim Jong-un was to flatter him. Where other presidents would have shunned the North Korean leader, Trump went to meet him and appeared to succeed in containing his expansionist ambitions, at least for a while.

    There was success, too, in persuading Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates to recognize Israel. It promised a new era of relations between Israel and the Arab nations, which no other president had achieved – and few saw coming under Trump.

    In Trump’s second term, however, his foreign-policy magic seems to have deserted him, even if he does boast about “ending seven un-endable wars.” He misjudged his ability to talk Vladimir Putin into a ceasefire in Ukraine, with the fundamentally untrustworthy Russian President treating his overtures with contempt. Trump, who famously told President Volodymyr Zelensky that he had “no cards to play,” has since performed a backflip and told Ukraine to keep fighting.

    If Trump were to fail in Gaza, too, he could well retreat from the global stage and immerse himself entirely in domestic politics. His fantasy of winning the Nobel Peace Prize would be over – if it was ever a remote possibility given its long history as an award given by the liberal establishment to the liberal establishment. Success, on the other hand, would vindicate Trump’s way of doing things while showing the error of formally recognizing a Palestinian state. What has that achieved? Nothing, other than to give Hamas an opportunity to claim success.

    The world is a messy place. Trump realizes that if you want to do a deal to end a war you have to appeal to both sides. That seems to have been lost on other world leaders.

    Whatever Hamas’s response to Trump’s peace deal, there remain intractable problems. Many in Israel, such as Netanyahu, are dead set against there ever being a Palestinian state. Israeli settlement of the West Bank over many decades and under many governments has brazenly attempted to render this impossible by pockmarking it with areas occupied by Israelis. Tensions and grievances will remain.

    But if Hamas accepts the deal, at least the brutality of the past couple of years will be over. On this, even Trump’s many enemies should want him to succeed.

    This article was originally published in The Spectator’s October 13, 2025 World edition.

  • Has Israel won?

    Has Israel won?

    The deliberate slaughter of Israeli Jews on October 7, 2023, was the most consequential event in the modern Middle East. It sent powerful reverberations across the region and well beyond it to the United States, the UK, Europe and Russia. Those tremors, like the war begun by the massacre, continue to this day.

    On that fateful day, Hamas terrorists left Gaza, crossed into Israel in a carefully-planned attack, designed to kill as many Jews as possible and take others captive for negotiating leverage. The terrorists attacked young, unarmed concert-goers at an Israeli music festival and the residents of a nearby town. The attack killed 1,195 innocents. Approximately 250 more were taken hostage, dragged back to Gaza and held for ransom by their kidnappers. Some hostages remain there, living and dead, held for political ransom. Among those killed were 38 children, some of whom were beheaded. It was theatrical depravity.

    The next day, October 8, Islamists in Lebanon launched a second attack, this one on Israel’s northern border. (Gaza is on Israel’s southern, Mediterranean border, next to Egypt.) The northern assault was conducted by Hezbollah, the heavily-armed terror organization in control of Southern Lebanon and a powerful actor in the rest of the country. The goal of this second attack, approved and funded by Hezbollah’s patron and financier, Iran, was to open a second front in the war, divide the resources of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), and inflict still more civilian casualties.

    As Israel mourned its dead and grieved for its hostages, they also witnessed another shocking sequence of events: the most virulent anti-Semitic demonstrations in Europe since the Holocaust. The celebrations in some European capitals and a few American cities complemented those by Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Significantly, all these celebrations began before the Israelis responded militarily to the attack. They were full-throated endorsements of the terrorist attack in New York, London and Paris, not a response to Israel’s counter-attack, which had not yet happened.

    Israel was, of course, determined to respond to this unprovoked slaughter, just as America was after Pearl Harbor. And, just like America, the goal was not to engage in some minimal tit-for-tat rejoinder. Israel had more consequential, strategic goals, just as America did.

    Israel’s primary goal was (and still is) to end its encirclement by Iran’s proxy forces (known as the “ring of fire”) and to end their constant attacks on Israel, which gave cover to Iran as it secretly finished developing nuclear weapons, which could exterminate Israel’s entire population and wipe the Jewish State off the map.

    It is these larger, strategic goals – entirely “negative” ones of wiping out imminent threats – that Israel has implemented systematically in the two years since the October 7 attacks.

    This comprehensive response has been led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with strong backing, at least initially, from his Cabinet and the public. Over time, however, that strong backing has eroded for four reasons. The first is war weariness, which always occurs in protracted conflicts. Second is the desire for the return of all hostages, living and dead, and the fear that continued military action in Gaza will lead Hamas to slaughter the remaining hostages and keep all of them as negotiating leverage. Third, some key IDF leaders are worried about rising casualties among their troops if door-to-door fighting continues in Gaza. Hamas has continued to fight because of its extreme ideology and continued to hold hostages because Hamas fighters fear they will be killed if they give up the hostages without clear commitments from Israel, backed by the US. Fourth, and most difficult of all, support within Israel for the war has decline because there is no clear, achievable goal for Gaza after the war ends. 

    The problem of post-war Gaza is not just the enormous cost of reconstruction, which will be borne, at least in part, by rich Western nations and Arab Gulf states. There are two even deeper problems.

    ·      Who governs? There is no clear, benign successor to Hamas as Gaza’s governing authority; and

    ·      Will the Jew-hatred in Gaza ever stop? Most Gazans endorse the same anti-Israel, anti-Semitic ideology as that terrorist organization. If that doesn’t change, then future Gazan governments will have public support for a staunch, anti-Israel stand.

    True, Gazans are sick of the war and sick of Hamas, but that doesn’t mean that they have given up their hate for Israel and for Jews. It was their votes in an election demanded by the George W. Bush administration that gave Hamas the power to govern Gaza after Israel withdrew completely. Hamas could have used that new-found “democratic authority” to build a state that lived in peace with the Jewish state. Instead, they built a terror state in partnership with Iran and significant funding from Qatar. Hamas consolidated its control by killing all its local opponents, eliminating alternative governance possibilities, aside from tribal groupings. The absence of those alternatives is a major problem for the future of Gaza.

    International support for Israel, which was strong in Western capitals in the months after October 7, has ebbed significantly as the destruction of Gaza has continued. The clearest indication of that erosion is the decision by France and the UK to recognize an imaginary Palestinian state that lacks clear borders or a unified government. The US has rejected that move, so far, but polls show declining support for Israel, especially among young people.

    Despite these strains, the long war has not been all bad news for Israel. The good news is that Israel’s tough, consistent military strategy has extinguished the “ring of fire” and delayed Iran’s nuclear program by years. The Jewish State has clearly emerged as the strong horse in the region and done so without permanently ending the chances for renewing ties with Arab-Muslim states, embodied in the Abraham Accords. It has sustained its stunning economic growth, grounded in high technology, despite calling up huge numbers of reserves from the civilian workforce. This combination of economic and military power is why Persian Gulf states want closer ties with Israel.

    But Gulf Arab states cannot take the next step until the Gaza War is finished. For Israel, that means Hamas must be crushed and the hostages returned.

    Those are the continuing obstacles of a war that began on October 7, with the Hamas slaughter of innocents, and expanded the next day when Hezbollah, backed and funded by Iran, attacked northern Israel. The dark shadow of those acts lingers over Israel, the Middle East, and the western world on this, the anniversary of that unprovoked terror.

  • Did Bibi miscalculate?

    In her new memoirs, 107 Days, Kamala Harris recounts that in July 2024 she had an important meeting about Israel and the Gaza Strip. Harris, who was running for the presidency, hoped to show that she could pressure Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu into reaching a ceasefire with Hamas. “Netanyahu’s hooded gaze and disengaged demeanors,” she writes, “made it clear to me that he was running out the clock.” His only goal was a temporary ceasefire and to undermine the Biden administration. “He wanted Trump in the seat opposite him,” Harris recalls. “Not Joe, not me. Netanyahu wanted the guy who would acquiesce to his every extreme proposal for the future of Gaza’s inhabitants and add his own plan for a land grab by his developer cronies.”

    But did Bibi miscalculate? Right now, Trump is pressuring him to stop bombing Gaza and to reach an accommodation with Hamas as the two sides negotiate in Egypt. On Truth Social, Trump declared, “I am told that the first phase should be completed this week, and I am asking everyone to move fast.” Trump was right. Speed is of the essence. The longer the negotiations last, the greater the chance of a hiccup.

    But for Netanyahu and his chums, Trump’s pressure could not be more unwelcome. The dream of expelling the Palestinians from the Gaza strip and even annexing the West Bank remains just that. For Netanyahu’s truculent coalition partners it is a cold dose of reality administered by an American president prepared to strong-arm his Israeli counterpart.

    Trump’s sudden embrace of a peace plan shouldn’t come as a big surprise. It is further testament to his unencumbered approach to foreign affairs, whether it’s Ukraine, NATO or the Middle East. “The heart wants what it wants,” Woody Allen once remarked. Something similar could be said about Trump. He wants what he wants. And he often gets it.

    Netanyahu should have been more perceptive. The Middle East was Trump’s proving ground in his first term, the region where he struck the Abraham Accords. Now Trump wants to build on them in the hopes, however evanescent, of securing a Nobel Peace Prize. To accomplish that goal, he has no compunctions about chastening Netanyahu and insisting upon an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

    How successful he will be remains an open question. Hamas is apparently demanding the release of some of its most sinister figures – terror chiefs Marwan Barghouti, Ahmad Saadat and Abdullah Barghouti.

    Will Hamas actually surrender its remaining hostages, not to mention its weaponry? Will it accede to an international board running Gaza? Its sanguinary record provides ample reason for doubts about its intentions, no matter what Trump and his vice president J.D. Vance may aver about the prospects for an agreement.

    Meanwhile, Israel is about to release further members of the Global Sumud Flotilla. Led by the activist Greta Thunberg, the flotilla had hoped to break the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. The convoy of 42 boats was intercepted by Israel and the prisoners are alleging inhuman conditions. They will be able to amplify their claims to a receptive western press when they are deported to Greece today.

    Their self-appointed mission, however, is likely to be overshadowed by the ongoing negotiations in Egypt. Even Iran has welcomed the termination of the conflict, though it was careful to stipulate that any agreement “does not negate the responsibility of governments and competent international institutions to pursue legal and judicial action against the crimes of the Zionist regime.” Zionist regime? Some things never change in the Middle East.

  • The celebrity guide to selective outrage

    The celebrity guide to selective outrage

    In the West, outrage has become performance art. It’s not about real causes, but about carefully branded ones that play well in pastel Instagram carousels. Climate change? Of course. A vague plea for “justice”? Naturally. A curated “Free Palestine” hashtag? Absolutely. But when it comes to standing with their peers in the Middle East – singers, actors, writers who are literally jailed or executed for their art – the voices vanish.

    This isn’t about Israel. The point is larger: why do so many Western artists reserve their outrage for one convenient villain while ignoring regimes that jail, torture and kill their peers? Syria’s Christians and Druze are being ethnically cleansed. Yemen is enduring a famine. The Uyghurs in China and Christians in the Congo suffer horrors that make Western protest slogans look like parody. But those crises don’t trend on TikTok. And so our moral guardians stay silent.

    Take Turkey. Pop star Mabel Matiz was dragged into court, slapped with a travel ban for a song with LGBTQ themes – branded as “immorality” by Erdoğan’s government. Where was Lady Gaga, a self-proclaimed advocate for the LGBTQ community, when this happened? Actor Cem Yiğit Uzumoğlu, known from Netflix’s Rise of Empires: Ottoman, faces seven years in prison for posting an Instagram story calling for a boycott after Istanbul’s opposition mayor was arrested. Where were Mark Ruffalo and Javier Bardem? These are not rebels with guns – they are artists with words, punished as if they were criminals.

    Iran is even darker. Musician Mohsen Shekari was publicly hanged in 2022 – his “crime” nothing more than protesting against the regime. Rapper Toomaj Salehi was sentenced to death the same year for lyrics critical of the authorities, accused of “enmity against God.” He was spared only after global outrage forced the regime’s hand. Where’s Hollywood when this happens?

    These are the true causes that should evoke outrage: a song punished as immoral, a post punished as treason, lyrics punished as blasphemy. In the Middle East, art itself can be a death sentence. And yet from Hollywood? Silence.

    Contrast that with the U.S. this month. Jimmy Kimmel faced backlash for comments about Charlie Kirk’s murder. His temporary suspension triggered an avalanche of headlines. Disney reportedly lost between $4 and $5 billion in market value. That was one man, one career, one late-night show. Meanwhile, artists across the Middle East aren’t just losing jobs – they’re losing their freedom and their lives. Where was the celebrity chorus for them?

    Mark Ruffalo and Susan Sarandon have plenty of time for press conferences about Gaza. Billie Eilish can summon her fans to demand a ceasefire. But for their fellow artists – their actual peers – who risk prison or the gallows for a song, a lyric, or a post? Not a word. Apparently solidarity stops where the headlines end.

    The truth is that many of these artists aren’t radicals or rebels at all. They are brand managers. Their conscience extends only as far as their fanbase and their ticket sales. They pick causes the way others pick outfits: whatever flatters them, whatever gets applause, whatever comes risk-free. Supporting Gaza? Safe. Supporting Uyghurs? Risky. Speaking up for a jailed Iranian rapper? Not worth losing a Spotify stream.

    Artists were once dangerous to tyrants. Solzhenitsyn in the Soviet Union, Václav Havel in Czechoslovakia – their art was truth-telling in the face of power. Today’s artists, by contrast, pen open letters to guarantee free PR and social media applause. They confuse hashtags with heroism.

    And so one can’t help but wonder: do these celebrities care about justice at all? Or is it simply self-interest, attaching themselves to a fashionable cause to stay relevant? As long as the slogan looks good on a T-shirt and the cause is safe to support, they’ll perform their outrage. But when bravery is required – when it might cost them something – they retreat into silence.

    Art is supposed to speak truth to power. Today’s celebrities speak only to the algorithm. And for their fellow artists, silence isn’t neutrality. It’s betrayal.

  • Trump has boxed in Netanyahu and Hamas

    Trump has boxed in Netanyahu and Hamas

    Hamas did not wait long to accede to Donald Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan – or at least accept it with conditions. It didn’t really have a choice. The same can be said for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu who was forced to accept a deal that he never wanted in the first place. Give credit where it’s due: Trump boxed in both Netanyahu and Hamas. For Trump, the pending agreement is a big accomplishment. It may not win him a Nobel but the aim is noble.

    With his usual flair for the dramatic, Trump responded to Hamas’ offer to release the remaining hostages by declaring, “I believe they are ready for a lasting PEACE.” He stated that “the bombing of Gaza must stop immediately.” He added that the details are being worked out, but breathed optimism about the outcome.

    Netanyahu, who presides over a fractious right-wing coalition, has been intent on prolonging the war. The crafty prime minister may have preferred to continue pounding Hamas, but his very audacious moves have created the context for Trump’s peace plan. He neutered Hezbollah in Lebanon. He attacked Iran. Add in the ouster of the Assad regime in Syria and you have a far more propitious moment for an actual Middle East peace deal.

    The blunt fact is that with the horrific October 7, 2023 attack, Hamas ended up isolating itself. The terrorist organization believed that it could topple Israel. The reverse occurred. Hamas was forced to accept the Gaza agreement because the Arab world has largely united against it. In particular Egypt and Qatar have pushed for a resolution to the conflict, one that will preclude Israel going on from Gaza to annex the West Bank (something that Trump himself has vowed he will not allow to occur).

    The pressure is now on for Israel and Hamas to reach a lasting agreement. Hamas stated that it supports the release of “all Israeli prisoners, both living and dead, according to the exchange formula contained in President Trump’s proposal, provided the field conditions for the exchange are met. In this context, the movement affirms its readiness to immediately enter into negotiations through the mediators to discuss the details of this.” The key questions are how far Israel will withdraw from the Gaza strip and what role, if any, Hamas would play in a future government.

    Then there is the issue of who gets to run Gaza in the interim. Trump has tapped former British prime minister Tony Blair, who has his own injudicious record in the region, to serve as the head of a board of peace. Not surprisingly, Hamas is balking at the prospect of an interim governing body, but it is more than likely to have to surrender on this point.

    Might Blair work to transform the Gaza strip into a new Trump Riviera? Rumors of a manufacturing zone named after Elon Musk are percolating in Washington. This past February, Trump released an AI-generated video of him and Musk cavorting on a beach called “TRUMP GAZA.” Perhaps the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change will prove more influential than anyone had hitherto contemplated.