The Social World

Tag: Israel

  • 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.

  • Israel and Iran come full circle

    Israel and Iran come full circle

    On September 28, the UN again imposed wide-ranging economic sanctions on Iran. Earlier in the summer, European powers had notified the UN Security Council of their intention to trigger the snapback mechanism within the original nuclear deal, the JCPOA, citing Iranian non-compliance with the terms of the original deal – specifically, the eye-watering percentages to which Iran is enriching uranium. And without a new resolution being agreed upon, the same sanctions that crippled the Iranian economy from 2013 to 2015, effectively dragging Tehran to the table in the first place, will have a devastating effect on ordinary Iranians who will see the value of their currency plummet and the price of daily goods skyrocket. The Iranian Ministry for Finance is considering reintroducing ration cards, albeit on smartphones. Yet for those elements of the IRGC and regime-linked oligarchy which have benefited from a thriving black-market economy, it might just be business as usual. Likewise for China, which will continue to enjoy cheap Iranian energy products.

    The Islamic Republic today is a markedly different entity from that of ten years ago

    In many ways, we have come full circle from the pre-JCPOA days: Iran under sanctions, with no solution to the nuclear issue in sight. And yet, the Islamic Republic of today is a markedly different entity from that of ten years ago. Team Trump’s decision to blow up the nuclear facilities at Fordow and elsewhere may have been brilliantly executed by America’s Air Force. But it has not fundamentally altered the dynamics of the region.

    Tehran is still a significant power – and has the energy potential to be an extremely rich one – but it is immeasurably weaker, having seen protests, war and economic collapse in the past decade. The old idea that Iran projected fear and influence through its dreaded proxies has been ruthlessly stripped away by repeated failures on the battlefield and within its intelligence agencies.

    There is a whiff of the delusional in the rhetoric of the regime, which insists it won the 12-day war with Israel and continues to vow to destroy Tel Aviv, and so on. Esmaeil Khatib, Iran’s Minster for Intelligence, put on his best poker face as he proudly showed the world a documentary about how the Iranian intelligence services had successfully infiltrated Israel’s sensitive nuclear sites.

    But before long, the joke was on him. It turned out that none of the photos or videos were from secret Israeli nuclear facilities, and nothing revealed in the video was more secret than the first page of a Google search. All very “Comical Ali,” though it’s no laughing matter for the many dozens of Iranians currently being executed for supposed links to Israeli intelligence.

    The debate in Iran over the summer has broadly been split between two positions. One is to compromise on the nuclear issue and come to an agreement with the West that avoids another conflict with Israel. This, it is argued, would pave the way for Iran to return to the global economy as well as ushering in a measure of stability. Those we would label “moderates” or “reformists,” all of whom believe in the Islamic Republic, trumpet this position because they fear a revolution could follow the present situation.

    The other position, adopted by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, is to choose the path of resistance and trust that the Iranian people could absorb the consequences of sanctions and that the state could accept the increased risk of conflict with Israel and yet more diplomatic isolation.

    Khamenei’s decision to reject a compromise on uranium enrichment and Iran’s ballistic missiles program was understandable if one sees it from his perspective; without a nuclear program and ballistic missiles, Iran would be more reduced in stature. Any compromise with the hated West, Khamenei knows, would be a fatal sign of weakness that could lead to turmoil for the regime. The Islamic Republic is built on resistance to foreign “tyranny,” obsessed with its independence and morbidly afraid of enemies within and without, real or imagined. Just look at what happened to Colonel Gaddafi when he caved in to western demands and abandoned his nuclear dreams, they argue in the Iranian parliament. Dead in a ditch.

    Khamenei’s choice to pursue the path of rejection is not without risks. Put simply, Iran’s refusal to talk about its nuclear program, to decrease the percentages to which it enriches uranium and to pursue dialogue makes another war with Israel a matter of time, as certain Israeli politicians have said publicly and privately at that great diplomatic jamboree in New York that is the United Nations General Assembly. It sets these two adversaries on a collision course as Iran isolates itself from the world and Israel continues its rampage around the region’s sovereign nations.

    The rhetoric in the Iranian parliament has been bombastic, with MPs in their dozens claiming that Iran must withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty, ban official weapons inspectors and review their nuclear doctrine that forbids the creation of bombs. Much of this rhetoric calls to mind similar threats at the height of the 12-day war over the summer, when those same parliamentarians voted to close the Strait of Hormuz. Alas, the vote wasn’t ratified by the Supreme National Security Council. Khamenei has sensibly distanced himself from talk of specifics, preferring to remain in the realm of vague threats and adherence to a tired revolutionary ideology of resistance to the West.

    It’s fashionable to ask, “What should be done?” at times like this, particularly in the pages of serious publications. But perhaps a more sensible question is, “What can be done?” The lines of communication appear to be closed. Khamenei has repeatedly ruled out dialogue as the West is asking concessions of Tehran it is simply unwilling to consider. Once able to choose where and how it operates in the region and strong enough to absorb sanctions and their social consequences, it seems that Tehran’s choices are between “bad” and “a bit worse.” This all feels like an impasse, beyond which there are few positive outcomes.

    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.

  • Do Jews have a future in Britain? 

    Do Jews have a future in Britain? 

    I was on my way to synagogue yesterday when I got news that was surprising and unsurprising at the same time. That there had been an attack at a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur was a shock, but only the location and the timing. The fact that terror had struck our community felt like the confirmation of our worst fears – and something that was grimly predictable. 

    For as long as I can remember, Jewish life in the UK has been closely guarded and protected. My childhood synagogue in the leafy London suburb of Surbiton was behind locked gates with security guards posted outside when anyone was in the building. My Jewish newspaper office today has similar protections and an address we’re told must never be made public. Every kosher shop in North London has a permanent security presence, twice or three times that of a supermarket in a dodgy area. 

    British Jews are always watching over their shoulders, silently clocking the escape routes out of synagogues and constantly feeling like a target when we congregate. We are a group that, by virtue of existing, is targeted. Jewish schoolchildren are told to change their uniforms when going home on public transport, observant Jewish men hide their kippahs with baseball caps when on the tube, everyone does the little things they can to try and feel safe. 

    All of this of course, was true before October 7 and it will be true for a long time after this war ends. But there has been a remarkable uptick in the last two years. The right-thinking consensus that anti-Semitism was bad is crumbling before our eyes, as the horseshoe theory that sees us hit from the far-left and the far-right becomes stronger every day.

    The Community Security Trust, a Jewish organization that collects data on anti-Semitism in Britain has recorded an unprecedented rise in all manner of attacks on British Jews, from casual anti-Semitic remarks to violent assaults on visibly Jewish people, buildings and communities. Just last month, a man was arrested in North London for a spate of attacks where he smeared his own excrement on synagogues. 

    The reaction to what’s happening in the Middle East is coming home to affect British Jews, making us feel like outsiders in a country that we’ve lived in and loved for centuries. I see it all the time in my own life and work. The social media channels of the Jewish Chronicle are inundated with hateful, anti-Semitic comments every day that have nothing to do with Israel. I’ve seen anti-Semitic graffiti appear all over my neighborhood in south London and I’ve been accused of “killing kids” at a friend’s birthday party by someone I had just met. 

    The nature of anti-Semitism means that it is ever-present, always under the surface. And it has been allowed to fester. Partially by a government that through its own poor politicking is pandering to extremists in its own party, but also by a media so desperate to raise the temperature of debate in Britain, that it forgets that Jewish people’s safety is at stake. Anti-Semites across the UK and in public life have been allowed to grow in confidence, to march on the streets of London, a city that Jews have thrived in, with placards of blood-drenched swastikas and depictions of Jewish leaders with horns. 

    Britain has always been seen as different to the rest of Europe when it comes to Jewish life. For years, our community has looked at violence in places like France, where Islamist terror attacks against Jews are a regular fixture and thought, “That wouldn’t happen here”. 

    But now it has. The events of yesterday will be a scar on Britain’s Jews, in the same way that the Tree of Life shooting, and the HyperCache attack, and the Boulder firebombing forever changed those communities. The Jews of Manchester and those across the UK will remember Heaton Park for years to come. There will also be soul-searching. Does this mean we should all go to Israel, to live among a different type of Islamist threat? What can we do to prevent this happening ever again? 

    There’s a certain feeling among British Jews that in any country other than Israel we are not in control of our own destiny, that our safety in the UK or in any other country is dependent on the government of the day listening to our pleas and taking our security seriously. To the credit of the police, they acted quickly to protect the Jews of Heaton Park. But many Jews today will be feeling that the attack was grimly predictable, and wondering why the government or the police allowed this country to become a place where Islamists’ toxic ideas and hatred of Israel are allowed to take the lives of British Jews. 

    Killing Jews in Manchester or London or Paris or Washington DC will not bring this war to an end. Not a single Palestinian life is saved by the taking of one from a synagogue worshipper. Yesterday’s attack feels like a turning point. If British Jews can be killed simply for being Jewish, then do the rest of us have a future here?

  • Can Trump turn Gaza into the ‘Riviera of the Middle East?’

    There are plenty of legitimate questions to be asked about the Trump-Blair peace plan for ending the conflict with Israel. Will Hamas ever agree to it? Will any peace deal hold? Will the wider Middle East get behind it? But there is also another question that we must ask. If this peace does hold, can Trump and Tony Blair turn Gaza into a cross between Dubai and Singapore – or is that completely deluded?

    All the immediate attention will, of course, be on whether this new deal actually ends the fighting. We will find out over the next few weeks. But assuming it does, the President and the former British prime minister have ambitious plans for the strip of land that has been fought over so fiercely.

    There will reportedly be a “Trump economic development plan to rebuild and energize Gaza” crafted by a “panel of experts who have helped birth some of the thriving modern miracle cities in the Middle East.” It will be a “special economic zone… with preferred tariff and access rates to be negotiated with participating countries.”

    It is not hard to work out what President Trump has in mind. Back in February, he declared he wanted to transform Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East” and put out an AI video of a new Gaza complete with a Trump tower, golf courses, luxury hotels, and gleaming, air-conditioned offices and apartment complexes. Meanwhile, earlier this year there were reports that staff from the Tony Blair Institute had worked on plans for a “Trump Riviera” in the region.

    It is not hard to work out what President Trump has in mind

    Could that possibly work? On the surface, of course, it sounds completely crackers. It is hard to imagine that anyone is going to want to play a leisurely round of golf over land best known for its tunnels, hostages and booby traps. Or indeed that the Palestinians want their country to be turned into a strip of casinos and condos, or a tax haven for jet-hopping expats. And, in fairness, it certainly faces plenty of obstacles. 

    And yet, this plan not entirely crazy. After all, the booming statelets of the Gulf have clearly shown that entirely new financial and business centers can be built out of a desert in a remarkably short space of time. From 2000 to 2022, the GDP of the United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai and Qatar, grew from $157 billion to $550 billion. Work has already started on the Ras El Hekma Project, a $35 billion joint venture between Egypt and the UAE to build a new city on its Mediterranean coast, while Saudi Arabia is building new cities and business centers as well. 

    With its prime Mediterranean location and closer flying times to Europe, Gaza might well be able to do at least as well. Of course, it will take complete peace and security to have a chance of success, plenty of American and Israeli money, and tariff-free access to the US market. But low tax, entrepreneurial statelets are one of the boom industries of the 21st century. There is no necessary reason why the Trump-Blair vision of Gaza should not join them – as far-fetched as it might sound right now.

  • Trump pitches Gaza peace plan

    Trump pitches Gaza peace plan

    Donald Trump is perhaps one of the world’s most gifted salesman. But as he was speaking at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today, even he had trouble selling his 20-point peace plan to end the war in Gaza.

    This wasn’t for a lack of trying. “Today is an historic day for peace,” Trump told the assembled press corps. Calling today “a beautiful day, potentially one of the great days ever in civilization,” Trump went on to outline in broad strokes his diplomatic initiative, which aimed to thread the needle between Netanyahu’s vocal objections to a Palestinian state and the Arab world’s demand that any plan put forth provide the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank with an opportunity to take control of their own future. Trump earned Netanyahu’s support and received buy-in from the Arab states, but the positions of those two actors will eventually clash. And that even assumes Hamas, which wasn’t given a copy of the White House’s draft agreement and is now only digesting the material, agrees to play along.

    There is some good in Trump’s 20-point plan. For instance, it stresses that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) will pull out of Gaza in a staged fashion as Palestinian police officers and their international supporters, presumably led by the Arab states, stabilize the enclave. Hamas will demilitarize and hand over its weapons, and those who renounce violence will be allowed to leave Gaza for a third-country. The hostages still in Hamas’s grasp will be released 72 hours after the accord comes into force, and humanitarian supplies will surge into the territory. Gaza, meanwhile, won’t be annexed by Israel; instead, it will be ruled by a consortium of Palestinian technocrats and international figures, where they will preside over a reconstruction and rehabilitation process until a reformed Palestinian Authority is up to the task.

    But even if Hamas agrees to such a scheme – and given the plan’s call for what is in effect Hamas’s complete and total surrender, it’s hard to picture the militant group doing so – the implementation problems will be gargantuan. The plan is loose on timelines and execution mechanisms. Although the so-called International Stabilization Force will cooperate with vetted Palestinian police officers to dismantle the tunnels and terrorist infrastructure that still exist in the enclave, the criteria for what is considered adequate demilitarization – and which party determines whether demilitarization has succeeded or failed – is a big red flag. If Netanyahu holds veto power over this decision, then the phased troop withdrawals the Israeli military signed onto will be delayed for as long as possible. We can say this with a reasonable degree of certainty because Netanyahu was very reticent to pull the Israeli military back during the January truce. The reticence has thinned out with age.

    Trump doesn’t want Israel to annex Gaza, and he made that position clear in his plan. Commentators will refer to this item as a big deal. In reality it’s the definition of low-hanging fruit. First, rejecting Israeli annexation is simply a reiteration of decades of bipartisan U.S. foreign policy on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Second, Trump has a personal interest in kicking the annexation can down the road because whatever hopes he may have of expanding the 2020 Abraham Accords will be extinguished the moment Israel goes down that path. He can kiss an Israeli-Saudi normalization agreement goodbye in such a scenario, and you can bet that somebody in the president’s orbit – perhaps his son-in-law Jared Kushner – brought this to Trump’s attention.

    Netanyahu, however, isn’t following Trump’s schedule. As important as retaining Trump’s support is, it’s not the be-all, end-all in the Israeli premier’s calculations. The people who hold this honor continue to be the hardliners, nationalists and extremists in the Israeli cabinet, including Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich and Israel Katz, who could destroy Netanyahu’s career by imploding his government. The first two men continue to harbor the dream of kicking out all of Gaza’s more than two million Palestinians, formally annexing it into the State of Israel and rebuilding – and expanding – the very Jewish settlements that were torn down back in 2005. Yes, Netanyahu accepted Trump’s plan and everything in it, but he’s a canny political operator and knows how to throw wrenches into a diplomatic process. It’s likely Netanyahu will play a similar game, as he’s done repeatedly when other Gaza peace negotiations were nearing the finish line.

    The biggest error in Trump’s scheme, however, was something that wasn’t even written into the plan. In essence, Netanyahu was gifted an escape clause. Trump stressed that Israel would have Washington’s full support for continuing the war if Hamas rejected the agreement.

    Many won’t find this comment objectionable. Yet for a guy who is supposedly a master negotiator and understands the power of leverage, Trump effectively killed whatever leverage he held over Netanyahu by giving the Israeli premier an incentive to do anything in his power to push Hamas into saying “no.” Even if Hamas accepts the deal with reservations, Netanyahu can now claim to Trump that the terrorist group is an intransigent party that can’t be reasoned with. The only alternative, the logic goes, is a resumption of the war.

    Sharing a stage with Trump in Washington, DC, Netanyahu laid it on thick and claimed that peace was just around the corner. But mark these words: once he lands back in Israel, Netanyahu will tell his coalition allies that the deal he agreed to is merely a general framework whose details are still to be negotiated. Trump will then have a decision to make: tether the United States even closer to Israel’s war in Gaza, try diplomacy again or wash his hands of the conflict.

  • Why does Trump want Tony Blair to run Gaza?

    Why does Trump want Tony Blair to run Gaza?

    The former British prime minister Tony Blair is a man for all seasons, a political operator who knows precisely on which side his bread is buttered, the side of the super-rich oil and gas sheikhs and the well-connected elites of the Middle East. It is no coincidence, then, that his name has emerged as a potential candidate for a role envisioned by President Donald Trump’s administration: effectively serving as governor of Gaza if, and when, the ongoing war there comes to an end.

    Driving his candidacy is Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, who continues to accumulate vast wealth from investments backed by Saudi, Qatari and Emirati funds. Kushner is once again returning to mediation in the Israeli-Palestinian-Arab arena, though unlike during Trump’s first term – when he acted as an official advisor and diplomatic envoy – he now operates largely behind the scenes, wielding influence in a more informal but potent capacity.

    Alongside them, Steve Witkoff serves officially as the Trump administration’s envoy to the Middle East and other global conflicts, including the Ukraine-Russia confrontation. Collectively, this group – Trump, his sons, Kushner, Witkoff and Blair – shares a common thread in their extensive, interwoven networks. They operate in the twilight zone between the formal and the hidden, between the visible and the opaque. Their potential conflicts of interest are glaring.

    Their agenda is ambitious: to end the war in Gaza and establish a regional framework linking Israel with the Arab states, supported by Qatar, the Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Simultaneously, their companies, foundations and investment funds continue to receive vast sums from these very same states.

    In Israel, there is notable support for appointing Blair to head the transitional administration that would govern Gaza’s more than two million residents, 70 percent of whom have lost their homes in Israeli bombings and are displaced, cramped into tented camps. This administration is intended to replace the Hamas government.

    Should Trump succeed in compelling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept his 25-point plan for ending the Gaza conflict, and Blair – keen for the post – is appointed, the role will undoubtedly extend over many years, until the Gaza Strip is stabilized and rendered liveable.

    “Tony is a worthy candidate,” Danny Ayalon, former Israeli ambassador to Washington and deputy foreign minister, told me. “He knows the Middle East intimately from his time as prime minister and from the other roles he has held since. He is acceptable both to Netanyahu and Trump and to leaders across the Arab world.”

    Even more enthusiastic about the idea of Tony Blair heading a kind of international management and oversight body is Ehud Barak, Israel’s former prime minister and defense minister. “I know him well and remained in contact with him even after our official roles ended. Although I haven’t met with him in the past year,” he told me. “This is a good idea that will allow Arab states, including Egypt, to create a kind of buffer between themselves and Israel. If a year ago Trump’s plan was to save Gaza and its people, now, after the destruction, Trump’s plan is in effect an attempt to save Israel from the quagmire – without the Arabs being criticized at home for essentially coming to Israel’s aid.”

    Barak added: “Tony maintains informal ties with the key players in the Middle East, and he knows how to use them as political and economic levers to promote stability and arrangements.”

    Yet not all in Israel welcome his potential appointment. Far-right circles remember his long-standing support for a two-state solution and fear that Blair will implement Trump’s plan, which envisions the Palestinian Authority – led by Abu Mazen, whom they view as a thorn in their side – as part of Gaza’s transitional administration. Meanwhile, extremist Jewish settlers continue to push for the destruction of the Palestinian Authority, annexation of the West Bank, the expansion of settlements and the displacement of its three million Palestinian residents to Jordan.

    The Palestinian perspective is decidedly cooler still. Many see Blair as a staunch friend of Israel. “Tony is clearly pro-Israel,” a senior Palestinian Authority official told me, “but we have few alternatives. If Trump succeeds in ending the war and channeling Arab funds into the rehabilitation of the Palestinian people, Blair is certainly a reasonable default choice.”

    The central question remains whether Blair is suited to this nearly impossible task. It should not be forgotten that he faced a similar task in the past – and did not succeed.

    Upon leaving Downing Street in 2007, Blair accepted the position of special representative for the Middle East on behalf of the Quartet (US, EU, Russia, UN), a post he held until 2015. His mandate focused primarily on Palestinian economic development and institution-building rather than political negotiations, and his tenure sparked debate over its effectiveness.

    Through the Tony Blair Institute (TBI), Blair has advised Palestinian institutions and Arab governments on governance, public administration and economic reform. TBI’s involvement in Palestinian projects, and its commercial links, have been a recurring source of controversy. Blair consistently emphasized the importance of building Palestinian institutions and economies as prerequisites for progress, at times prioritizing these over a visible push for immediate political settlements.

    In 2010, the Daily Mail published an investigative report connecting Blair to Wataniya, a Palestinian mobile telecommunications company launched in 2009 as a joint venture between the Palestine Investment Fund and Wataniya International (a subsidiary of Qatar Telecom, with JP Morgan involvement). The report suggested that Abu Mazen and his sons benefited financially from the company, and alleged that Blair had used his official position to serve the interests of one of his employers.

    At the time, Blair’s spokesman said: “Tony Blair raised Wataniya at the request of the Palestinian Authority in his role as Quartet Representative. He has no knowledge of any connection between QTel [Qatar Telecom] and JP Morgan and has never discussed the issue with JP Morgan nor have they ever raised it with him. Any suggestion that he raised it for any reason other than the one stated to help the Palestinians or that in some way he has benefited from Wataniya is untrue and defamatory.”

    The longevity of Blair’s mission stands as a stark indicator of the stagnation and bankruptcy of what is commonly referred to as the “peace process”.

    Yet for Blair to assume another complex, long-term role, he must clear the ultimate hurdle. Trump, his son-in-law and Witkoff must bend Netanyahu’s will, as the Israeli prime minister fears that any agreement ending the war could also mark the end of his own time in office.