In political and ideological debates, few words carry as much quiet weight as “counterproductive.” It is a term that cloaks deep moral issues in the language of strategy, substituting ethical clarity with tactical calculus.
Recent uses of the word by political figures and organizations—such as Cenk Uygur’s response to the murder of two Israeli diplomats in Washington, D.C., and J Street’s condemnation of the student takeover of Columbia University’s Butler Library—highlight the way moral outrage is increasingly filtered through the lens of utility.
Alt-left commentator Cenk Uygur comments about the murder of a young couple from Israel on the streets of Washington, DC by a man yelling “Free Palestine”
The Language of Outcomes
When Cenk Uygur called the murder of the diplomats “counterproductive” and “stupid,” he minimized his “obviously immoral” charge. He reframed the cold-blooded murder of two young Israelis at a Jewish event through a critique that the violence would “harm the Palestinian cause.” Similarly, J Street’s reaction to the Butler Library takeover focused not on the pain caused to students studying for finals but on the effectiveness of the mass action.
J Street commentary on violent takeover of Columbia University library during study week
Both statements imply a worldview where the ends can justify the means IF the means produce desired outcomes. Violence and disruptions aren’t inherently wrong, full stop; they’re wrong if they don’t work.
This mode of thinking belongs to a form of strategic utilitarianism—actions are weighed not on whether they are ethically sound, but whether they are instrumentally successful. Murder isn’t condemned for its cruelty or injustice, but for its inefficiency. Protest isn’t wrong because it defies norms, but because it alienates potential allies or invites political backlash as in: it “provide[s] the Trump Administration with ammunition…” and “it allows people to frame the whole peace movement as violent.”
The Profound Delusion
How is the October 7 massacre of 1,200 people and mass rape of women and butchering of babies a “peace movement?” a sane person would ask. How is the killing of a young couple in Washington – thousands of miles from Gaza – an issue of “framing” for the masses (read “potential allies”)?
The idea that victims’ deaths were simply “counterproductive” is chilling. It suggests they were not wronged, but miscalculated. Their humanity becomes a variable in someone else’s flawed strategy. The moral frame disappears; only the tactical one remains.
There is a profound gap between calculated language and moral reality. For the political commentators, everything is a chessboard; for the people on the ground, it is their lives.
Question If The Entire Movement Is Unjustified And Immoral
Uygur and J Street – different parts of the socialists-jihadi alliance – use of “counterproductive” is an attempt to separate the actions of the violent offenders in the United States from the Hamas-led war in Israel. It seeks to sanitize the Gazan war to “Free Palestine” as a noble goal, while the tactics of some people – including possibly the October 7 massacre itself – are flawed.
Lost on those absorbing this insidious narrative of “Free Palestine” is that the movement is immoral. The chants of an “ongoing Nakba” are not cries for peace but a desire of SAPs and their supporters to destroy Israel and ethnically cleanse the Jewish Promised Land of Jews, marketed under the banner of human rights. Yes, local Arabs deserve self-determination which can be achieved in multiple ways. No, they don’t have an “inalienable right” to their own country nor to move into houses where grandparents once lived.
The only way of achieving their stated desired goal of ending Israel is via violence, both there and here. The murder of two Israelis outside a Jewish event in America’s capital city isn’t “counterproductive” but an unspoken essential component of the global jihad. It is the definition of “by any means necessary.”
Conclusion
Language shapes how we see the world. When murder is called “counterproductive” – whether of two Israelis in Washington or 1,200 people in Israel – the victims’ moral worth is sidelined in favor of strategic impact. Worse, the soft wording obfuscates not only the evil of the immediate killings but that the entire “Free Palestine” mission is about the mass murder of Jews.
The issue isn’t optics. There is a reason the hordes are yelling “we are all Hamas,” “gas the Jews” and “Heil Hitler,” and it isn’t coexistence. The alt-left’s shielding of violent antisemites has made them complicit in both the violence against Jews and the ongoing trauma the Jewish community is enduring.
The world sees Gaza through the lens of curated sympathy – smoke trails from missile strikes, wounded children, crumbled buildings – rendered by the media and United Nations. The headlines scream “siege” and “occupation,” and the images are carefully framed to elicit tears, not questions. For them, Gaza is a tragedy.
But Israelis? They see something very different.
They see a terrorist enclave. A society ruled by Hamas – not just tolerated but elected – with a charter calling for genocide against Jews. They see neighbors who have fired over 30,000 rockets at them since Israel left Gaza in 2005, and who used humanitarian aid to dig terror tunnels and stockpile weapons.
Israelis are haunted by October 7, 2023 – the day when 1,200 of their people were butchered. Burned alive. Shot in their homes. Raped in front of their families. And they remember what came next: polls showing 75% of Gazans supported the massacre. The popularity of other Palestinian Arab terrorist groups skyrocketed as well, including Islamic Jihad, al Aqsa Brigade and al Qassam. This wasn’t some fringe radical cell that commited the vile pogrom – this was public approval for mass murder. It was the fulfillment of their long-standing desire to attack Jewish civilians inside of Israel since 2000.
They also see something deeper: three-quarters of Gazans consider themselves “refugees” living in temporary homes. Not because of displacement from this war but because they believe they’re entitled to homes inside Israel. They don’t see Gaza as their future – they see Tel Aviv.
To the United Nations, Gaza is a moral play where Israel is always cast as the villain. They see Gaza not as a failure of Palestinian leadership, not as a society hijacked by jihad, but as a tragedy authored entirely by Israel. Why? Because Israel won’t allow these “refugees” to move into the homes of Israeli Jews – the very homes where grandparents fled in 1948 after five Arab armies attacked the new Jewish state.
The world has condemned Israel for responding “disproportionately” to the October 7 massacre. The UN saw Israeli counterstrikes as war crimes, not defense. They ignored the slaughter of Israeli children and focused on fuel shortages in Gaza. They accused Israel of starvation, ignoring the trucks of aid Israel itself let in, even while its soldiers were under fire. They paid scant lip service to Israeli hostages kept in tunnels by Hamas, viewing them as collateral to Israel’s ongoing “Nakba”.
The Arab and Muslim world is not fooled but is not helping. They don’t see Gazans as brothers and sisters in need of refuge. They see them as Palestinians – a distinct, useful political weapon. If Gazans were Syrians, they would’ve been taken in by now. But they’re not. They’re left to fester – a long-term tool to weaken and delegitimize the Jewish state.
Even in America, Gaza has become a kind of geopolitical Rorschach test. Leaders like Donald Trump and Jared Kushner see opportunity: beachfront real estate with the potential to be the Singapore of the Middle East. A future riviera. But that future depends on changing a mentality – one that for decades has been more obsessed with destroying Israel than building Gaza.
Because this is the reality: Gaza could have been Dubai. It had the backing of the international community, billions in aid, and a chance to chart its own path. Instead, it chose jihad. It chose hate. It chose martyrdom over medicine, tunnels over technology, indoctrination over innovation.
The world sees rubble. Death. Tragedy. Not on both sides; for Palestinians.
They can’t see the Israeli hostages through their clouded moral lenses. They don’t see the Jewish parents still waiting for their children. They don’t see the decades of restraint Israel exercised before finally saying “enough”. They are caught in an empathy swamp and have mentally baptised Gazans as martyrs instead of genocidal jihadists.
The Global South sees Gaza not just as another flashpoint – but as a pawn in a bigger game. The narrative is not just about “liberation” but “redistribution.” From peace talks to class war. Israel, to them, is just the first domino in toppling the Western-led world order.
Gaza isn’t just a local issue anymore. It’s global. It’s ideological. And for Israelis, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
In this backdrop of viewpoints, an international conference at the U.N. headquarters in New York will take place from June 17 to 20 co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia. The Global North will join the Global South in trying to find near-term and longer-term solutions to the 100-year Arab-Israeli conflict.
In this Coliseum, the General Assembly serves as the unruly crowd seeking the torture of the Jewish State, while the Security Council acts as caesar empowered with the pen to draft international law. Will the United States protect Israel in such forum on the heels of Trump’s visit to the Gulf? Will Trump seek to trade an unwinding of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334 to get Israel to agree to short-term and longer term movements towards a permanent divorce between local Jews and Arabs?
Israel was blind to the October 7 attack. Does it see what the world sees in Gaza now and the positions being orchestrated for the June U.N. conference? Will the modern blind Samson bring down the house if it only hears calls for its demise and cannot see a path to live in peace?
Across Western cities, “Nakba” protests fill the streets in May, marking what Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) call the “catastrophe” of Israel’s founding. Protesters chant slogans of “liberation,” wave Palestinian flags, and brandish large symbolic keys—representing homes lost in the Arab-Israeli 1948 War, and a longed-for return.
In London, British actor Khalid Abdalla holds a key symbolising the supposed Palestinian “right of return” (photo: Middle East Eye)
To the casual observer, these demonstrations appear to be non-violent expressions of secular nationalism: a displaced people demanding justice and return. The rhetoric is packaged in the language of “anti-colonialism,” a phrase from the Global South marketed at western universities.
The terminology is secular and political but the facts on the ground tell a different story.
The actual war against Israel is not being led by nationalists. It is driven by radical Islamist groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The attack launched on October 7, 2023, was not called the “Nakba Response” or “Operation Liberation.” It was named “Al-Aqsa Flood”—a title soaked in religious meaning, not national aspiration. It invoked Islam’s third-holiest site which sits atop Judaism’s holiest site.
The strategic use of “Nakba” language in western cities is a deliberate effort to mask a religious war in secular terms. It is designed to resonate with Western leftists who are comfortable championing national self-determination but uneasy with theocratic zeal. It reframes an Islamic holy war as a freedom struggle, making it seem modern, rational, and even “progressive.”
But the religious reality will not remain buried forever.
Because just as SAPs speak of return, so do Jews. If Jews are forced to lose their sovereignty, perhaps diluted in a binational state, it will likely not lead to secular coexistence—it may unleash something far older and deeper: the demand for rebuilding the Third Jewish Temple.
Today, the Temple Mount is controlled administratively by the Jordanian Waqf, which bans Jewish prayer. Since the Second Temple was destroyed in 70AD, Jews have dreamed of rebuilding it, and while that has remained marginal in the modern secular Jewish state, it may surge forward in a post-Zionist situation in which Jews are compelled to relinquish so much.
If Israel is converted to a binational state in which everyone has equal rights, Jews would obviously insist on the same rights as Muslims enjoy today, to pray openly by the thousands on the Temple Mount. The demand to rebuild the Jewish Temple could move from the fringe to the center. The so-called “liberation” of Palestine would be matched by calls to liberate the Mount—from Islamic control.
In that light, the pro-Palestinian protest chants of “liberation” are a double-edged sword. They echo with reciprocal cries: not just the return of SAPs to Jaffa but the return of Jews to the Temple Mount. The religious war launched by Gazans wrapped in secular “Nakba” terminology in the west would be laid bare for what it is.
Muslims and Jews hold keys for places that don’t exist in the holy land anymore – for homes and a Temple. Should one side pursue a “right of return” to create a future-past, the mirrored key will do no less.
On Friday, May 14, 1948, Israel declared its independence—one day before the British ended their Palestine Mandate and left the region. The timing wasn’t accidental. Israel’s founding leaders wanted the moment to be marked with reverence, not paperwork, so the declaration was made in advance of the Jewish Sabbath, allowing the entire Jewish people to enter its rebirth with dignity and joy.
The joy wasn’t shared. Within hours, neighboring Arab armies invaded the nascent state, launching a war to crush Jews in the shadow of the European Holocaust. That contempt hasn’t faded. It echoes today in the halls of foreign governments, NGOs, and the mouths of extremist politicians thousands of miles from the region.
To “commemorate” Israel’s 77th birthday, the United Nations hosted a session dedicated not to peace or coexistence—but to “the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.” One speaker after another vilified Israel, slandering its conduct in defending itself in a war it never wanted. Accusations of “racism,” “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” flowed freely—from China, South Africa, Guyana, and others eager to hijack human rights rhetoric for anti-Israel theater.
Not to be outdone, U.S. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) introduced a resolution to formally mark Israel’s independence as Nakba Day—”the catastrophe.” The language mirrored the UN’s smear campaign, ignoring context, facts, and Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign nation. The resolution outrageously called on Israel to accept seven million Arab descendants of refugees and internally displaced people—almost all of whom have never set foot in Israel—negating a fundamental right of statehood by erasing Israel’s right to control its own borders. It called for the United States to withhold all diplomatic and military support from Israel as it defends itself in the midst of a multi-front war, to facilitate a genocide of Jews.
As Israel marked its 75th year in 2023, Jewish civilians were massacred by genocidal jihadi Arab terror groups on the Sabbath and Simchat Torah, a holiday celebrating the Jewish Bible. Rockets, kidnappings, and slaughter were launched from Gaza, with terrorists using Palestinians as human shields and Jewish hostages as bargaining chips—while cheering voices thousands of miles away offered rhetorical cover.
Today’s political war against Israel is led by the unholy alliance of far-left ideologues and Islamist extremists. They’ve inherited the mantle of the Arab armies defeated in 1948—and continue their campaign, not for coexistence, but for the erasure of the Jewish homeland. This is a Global Intifada dressed in human rights language but aimed at ethnic cleansing. In 1948, the horde successfully removed all Jews from eastern Jerusalem, the “West Bank” and Gaza. They strive to finish the job.
For them, Jewish sovereignty in the ancestral Jewish homeland remains a “catastrophe,” and Israel’s Independence Day is a day for revolutionaries to perpetuate the war. Not just for the 30 countries which continue to refuse to recognize Israel—but for shrill voices in the U.S. Congress who speak as if the past 77 years never happened.
After Arab armies failed to destroy Israel in 1967, the Arab League produced its “Three No’s“: no peace with Israel; no negotiations with Israel; and no recognition of Israel. It has an underlying three principles which continue to drive Jew haters: Jews have too much; Jews enjoying fundamental human rights is a provocation; and Jewish joy is triggering.
The trifecta of Israel’s Independence Day is too rich for global antisemites to ignore.
Anti-Zionism—the rejection of the legitimacy of a Jewish state in the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people—has existed since the dawn of modern Zionism. However, in 2025 it feels radically different from the 1975 United Nations incarnation. The rhetoric may sound similar, but the ideology, tactics, and alliances behind anti-Zionism have undergone a seismic shift. What once masqueraded as anti-colonial nationalism on the global stage has mutated into global terrorism fused with religious fanaticism. What was once a geopolitical power play of 6.4 billion people from the Global South has transformed into mob lynchings in the streets of Western capitals.
The 1975 Moment: Terrorism Wrapped in Nationalist Language
In 1975, while the United Nations was led by a former Nazi, Kurt Waldheim, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 3379, equating Zionism with racism—a resolution so grotesque and politically motivated that it was ultimately revoked in 1991 through the efforts of the United States. But that year also saw another dangerous precedent set: UNGA Resolution 3376 which declared that the Palestinian people have an “inalienable right” to statehood AND “to return to their homes and property.” This declaration, unprecedented in international law, granted Palestinian Arabs a right that is not afforded to any other specific ethnic group—no such resolution exists affirming an “inalienable” right to statehood for the Kurds, Tibetans, Basques, or countless others seeking independence, and no refugees anywhere have a right to “return to homes.”
This special treatment of the Palestinian cause, even while terrorism was a central strategy of their campaign, reveals a deep double standard in international institutions. Groups like the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), whose operatives hijacked planes and massacred Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, were welcomed at the UN with open arms. Their leaders were treated as statesmen rather than terrorists. The PLO’s largest faction, Fatah, founded by Yasser Arafat, waged a war not just on Israeli soldiers but on civilians worldwide—from airline terminals in Rome and Vienna to school buses and synagogues.
Yet, the PLO and other Palestinian factions successfully cloaked their violence in the language of anti-colonialism. They painted the Jewish State of Israel—a country with deep historical, religious, and legal claims to the land—as a European settler colony, despite the fact that Jews are indigenous to that specific land. In the bipolar Cold War world, the Palestinian cause was adopted by the Soviet bloc (which pretended it never had colonies despite the entire bloc being colonies) as a weapon against the West, and Israel became a convenient scapegoat for third-world grievances.
Today’s Anti-Zionism: From Nationalism to Jihad
The anti-Zionist movement in 2025 is no longer pretending to be about secular nationalism. Gone are the olive-drab uniforms and revolutionary manifestos of Arafat’s PLO. In their place are the colorful flags of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad—groups whose founding documents do not mention two states, borders, or peace but rather the annihilation of Israel, vile Jewish conspiracy plots, subjugation of Jews and the imposition of Islamic rule.
Palestinian Arabs wave Palestinian and Islamic terrorist group flags in front of the Dome of the Rock atop the Jewish Temple Mount in Jerusalem, following the last Friday prayers of Ramadan, on April 29, 2022. (Photo by Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP)
This is not political “resistance”—it is Islamic terrorism, pure and simple. Hamas, recognized as a terrorist organization by the US, EU, and much of the democratic world, deliberately targets civilians with rockets, suicide bombings, and, most recently, the atrocities of October 7, 2023. That day saw the cold-blooded murder of over 1,200 Israelis—men, women, children, and the elderly—in a coordinated attack that included rape, torture, and hostage-taking. It was not a liberation struggle but a heinous pogrom.
The shift from secular nationalism to radical Islamism has had profound consequences. Today’s anti-Zionist actors no longer make appeals to human rights, self-determination, or even statehood. Their aim is not a Palestinian state alongside Israel but a caliphate instead of it. Hamas’ charter explicitly rejects any peaceful resolution and defines the conflict in religious, not political, terms.
This ideological transformation aligns Palestinian terrorism with broader jihadist movements including al-Qaeda, ISIS and the Taliban. Their ideological DNA is strikingly similar: the use of violence as a religious duty, hatred of Jews as a theological imperative, and contempt for the liberal values of democracy, pluralism, and gender equality.
The Reverse Flow: From Global South to Global North
In 1975, anti-Zionism was projected from the Global South outward, as newly independent states sought to reshape the international order. Israel was falsely cast as a proxy of colonialism. But today, the direction has reversed. Anti-Zionism now festers not only in Middle Eastern regimes and terror groups, but in the heart of the West including Paris, Berlin, London, and New York City.
Anti-Israel protests in front of Columbia University in New York City
This shift is in part the result of demographic and ideological changes in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. Starting in 2010, the wave of uprisings which once promised liberal reform, instead ushered in chaos, civil war, and Islamist resurgence. Millions fled failed states and collapsing economies, many ending up in Europe and North America. While many migrants seek peace and prosperity in their new homes, a shrill cohort brought the radical ideologies of their home countries—including deep-seated antisemitism and hostility toward Israel.
The result is that anti-Zionist marches in Western cities increasingly showcase imported hatred. Protests ostensibly about Gaza often devolve into anti-Jewish rhetoric, violence, and the open glorification of terrorism. In some cases, demonstrators chant slogans borrowed directly from Hamas propaganda. Far too many on the political left—who once stood for secularism, women’s rights, and LGBTQ+ protections—have aligned themselves with Islamist movements that stand for the exact opposite.
Anti-Israel protestors in front of New York City exhibit about those murdered at the Nova Music Festival in Israel on October 7, 2023
In 1975, college Marxists may have read the United Nations’ “Zionism is racism” resolution as simply a tool used by a group seeking national independence. In 2025, the kaffiyeh-clad protestors are shouting for an “intifada revolution” with the religious zeal of Hamas affinity groups. They have been baptized by the current conflict and converted to winner-take-all jihadists.
All Noisy on the Western Front
Palestinian terrorist groups cannot defeat the Israeli army on their own. To defeat Israel, local Arab leadership relies on two principal supporting actors: Islamist countries and groups on the military front, and stripping Israel’s defensive support from the west.
The Islamists countries of Iran and Turkey (both not Arab) and the jihadi groups of Hezbollah and the Houthis provide weaponry, training and funds to fight Israel militarily. Palestinian Arabs hoped for greater success in killing Jews, but appreciated those waging war on Israel.
Hamas continues to count on jihadists – old and new converts – in western cities to wage its bloody antisemitic war. Members of the Global South now residing in the Global North and their allies are an essential front to end support for the Jewish State. Actively removing defenses may appear to pass legal scrutiny by western laws compared to calling for violence, but the desired antisemitic goal is identical: the demise of half of global Jewry who live in their ancestral homeland.
Conclusion
Anti-Zionism in 2025 feels different than it did in 1975 because it IS different. Then, it was driven by secular radicals speaking the language of national liberation—even as they committed acts of terror. Today, it is led by Islamist extremists who openly seek genocide and global jihad. Then, it was framed as the Global South fighting colonialism. Today, it is the Global South bringing its biases into the heart of the Global North.
The “radical left” always carried the notion of anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism but over the last fifty years, it has adopted new comrades and approaches. As the far-left is loathe to call out the antisemitic, anti-gay, anti-feminist zealot allies – lest they appear insensitive to different cultures – they have absorbed new philosophies. Such is the war of “by any means necessary,” a Jew-hunt which is becoming localized by the socialist-jihadi alliance.
Anti-Israel protestors march in the streets in front of Columbia University
The movie “All Quiet On The Western Front” was about the brutality of trench warfare in World War I, and the impact on soldiers’ mental and physical well-being. People use the phrase as an expression of things outwardly appearing normal and unchanging while huge terrifying tectonic shifts occur beneath the surface.
Whether a secular nationalist bursts into a synagogue shooting worshippers or a jihadi fanatic does so, makes little difference to the Jewish dead. However, progressives’ abandonment of their own fundamental tenets when it comes to Jews – and doing so proudly and publicly – is a five-bell alarm about crumbling democratic norms.
After a few months of not being able to conduct a poll of Arabs in Gaza and the “West Bank,” the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research released its latest findings on May 6, 2025. As summarized by PCPSR, “favorability of the October 7 attack, the belief that Hamas will win the war, and support for Hamas continue to decline, but the overwhelming majority is opposed to Hamas disarmament and does not believe that release of the hostages will bring an end to the war. Nonetheless, about half of Gazans support the anti-Hamas demonstrations and almost half want to leave the Gaza Strip if they could.”
Unpacking the May 2025 findings when the Hamas military is almost wiped out and the surviving members spend their time boobytrapping buildings and stealing food and aid from Gazans, Palestinians:
support the October 7 massacre;
do not want Hamas to disarm;
prefer the Hamas over Fatah
Figure 1 in the poll shows that support for the barbaric attack of October 7 has declined more in Gaza, from 71% in March 2024 to 37%, while support in the West Bank only declined from 71% to 59% over the same time. As of May 2025, half of all Palestinian Arabs still believe that the attack was “correct”, down from three-quarters right after the massacre.
The pollsters speculate that “most of the public continue to believe the attack and the following war have placed the Palestinian issue at the center of global attention. Unlike previous polls, today’s findings show that the majority of the public does not believe Hamas will win the current war. Still, a plurality of the public believes that Hamas will continue to control the Gaza Strip after the war.”
Despite virtually the entire command structure of Hamas being killed, 57% of Palestinian Arabs are satisfied with Hamas’s performance, with 67% believing as much in the West Bank, a much higher figure than the 39% in Gaza. For those who believe that Gazans are reluctant to express negative opinions about Hamas because of threats from the ruling party in Gaza, the high figure from the West Bank where Hamas holds no power tells a different story. Palestinians like Hamas.
Further, “when asked whether it supports or opposes the disarmament of Hamas in the Gaza Strip in order to stop the war on the Gaza Strip, an overwhelming majority (85% in the West Bank and 64% in the Gaza Strip) said it is opposed to that; only 18% support it.” Palestinian Arabs would rather fight until the last bullet, rather than end the war with a surrender.
Overall, the opinion of Gazans about Hamas has barely changed from before the war until today. In September 2023, Gazans supported Hamas over Fatah by 38% to 25%, compared to 37% to 25% in May 2025. West Bank Arabs have generally become more supportive of Hamas since 20 months ago, but the favorability has been declining, as shown in Figure 13 of the May poll. Third parties are becoming a bigger factor in Gaza.
Overall, “40% (compared to 43% seven months ago) believe that Hamas is the most deserving of representing and leading the Palestinian people today while 19% (compared to 19% seven months ago) believe that Fatah led by president Abbas is the most deserving,” a two-to-one ratio, despite Hamas leading to the destruction of Gaza and becoming a shell organization.
While Gazan support for two states has remained relatively constant since before the war, West Bank support has increased from 30% in September 2023 to 45% today. Overall, 57% oppose a “two state solution.”
But the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) still think the best way to GET Israel to end the “occupation” is via war, albeit now less than half of the population (41%).
Some other notable findings in the poll:
“While the majority says it does not want to leave the Gaza Strip after the war ends, a large minority wants to do that. Similarly, about half of Gazans are willing to apply to Israel to help them emigrate to other countries via Israeli ports and airports”
Among “satisfaction with Arab/regional actors, the highest satisfaction rate went to Houthis in Yemen, as we found in our previous polls, today at 74% (84% in the West Bank and 61% in the Gaza Strip), followed by Qatar (45%), Hezbollah (43%), and Iran (31%).”
“Al Jazeera is the most watched TV station in Palestine”
Vast “majority (87%) said it [Hamas] did not commit such atrocities [on October 7], and only 9% said it did.”
What can account for these statistics? Nazi Germany ultimately surrendered after it was pummeled in the war, so why do the local Arabs still support the war and want Hamas to continue to fight on, much like the Houthis in Yemen where over 250,000 have died over the last decade of war?
An interesting question was added to this poll which may provide a clue. “A majority of 57% (70% in the West Bank and only 38% in the Gaza Strip) believes that the steadfastness of the residents of the Gaza Strip despite heavy human losses and massive destruction is due to their deep belief in God, fate and destiny while 25% (40% in the Gaza Strip and 15% in the West Bank) believe they have no other option, and 15% (22% in the Gaza Strip and 11% in the West Bank) believe it is due to their belief in their Palestinian national identity.” A majority of SAPs are holding on to the war because of religious conviction, not because of nationalist aspirations. It is a belief held more widely OUTSIDE of the Gaza Strip (70% to 15% in the West Bank) where people are not facing the consequences, then inside (38% to 40% in Gaza). It may also be that Gazans know better than West Bank Arabs that they committed vile sexual assaults and brutal torture of children and the elderly.
Such observation may add clarity as to why 9 out of 10 local Arabs do not believe Hamas committed the atrocities of October 7 despite the video and forensic evidence: because they believe that members of Hamas are deeply religious warriors. Perhaps the antidote would therefore be for the U.S. to pressure Qatar’s Al Jazeera to showcase the evidence.
The other takeaway from the poll is that Palestinian Arabs know that they cannot beat Israel militarily on their own. They need other actors joining the fighting (like the Houthis) and “global attention” to apply pressure on the small Jewish State.
While the world bemoans the destruction of Gaza, the local Arabs remain supportive of launching the war and for Hamas. Western empathy for radical jihadism may stop when the victims are no longer Jews, but at that point, it will be too late to stop the scourge.
ACTION ITEMS
Contact the White House to 1) get Qatar’s Al Jazeera to make clear that Hamas committed heinous crimes against humanity on October 7, including raping women and burning children alive; 2) insist that whichever entity assumes control of Gaza (if not Israel) must disarm Hamas; 3) facilitate Gazans leaving the strip to other countries; and 4) condemn the socialist-jihadi alliance attacking Israel and democratic values.
At its founding after World War II, the United Nations was declared a bold and righteous institution designed to bring about world peace. To accomplish its mission, it granted itself certain powers under the presumption that the agency’s role and workers were impartial and noble.
Alas, people are people, and the UN’s corruption and partiality grew over the years. It has made the UN not only a deformed shadow of its mission but a deeply dangerous and immoral tool cloaked in nobility.
When United Nations “peacekeepers” were deployed in Africa and Haiti, their role was to stop fighting between warring groups. However, during the deployment, many soldiers raped local women and some young boys. Investigations of the incidents confirmed multiple accounts of sexual assault, and noted that the UN’s shield of immunity protected the rapists, putting the local population at further risk.
Many UN “peacekeepers” have been accused of rape and shielded from prosecution by the UN’s cloak of immunity.
Over the past decades in Gaza, thousands of local Arabs join UNRWA, the UN’s “temporary” agency to house and educate the descendants of internally displaced Arabs who left homes a few miles away. It pays well and provides protection to carry out rapes and massacres like the one they perpetrated on October 7, 2023 in Israel.
Or so the UN terrorists hoped.
After many UNRWA workers were proved to have taken part in the barbaric massacre and provided material support to the U.S.-designated foreign terrorist group Hamas, victims of the atrocities and their families sued the UN. The UN claimed “immunity” from prosecution and the U.S.’s Biden administration agreed, stating “Because the U.N. has not waived immunity in this case, its subsidiary, UNRWA, retains full immunity, and the lawsuit against UNRWA should be dismissed due to lack of subject matter jurisdiction.”
In a pathetic attempt to mask its complicity, the UN fired some of the UNRWA workers, several of whom were already dead. It would not prosecute the fired living workers and left such matter of justice to local Gazans and Hamas to manage. UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said he fired the workers “in the interest of the Agency,” not as a matter of justice for thousands of butchered, raped and injured civilians in Israel.
It was a despicable display of inhumanity cloaked in virtue.
UNRWA’s Philippe Lazzarini
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) had enough. On April 14, 2025, he introduced legislation called the LIABLE Act to strip immunity from toxic bodies like UNRWA. Upon introducing the legislation, Cruz said “The United Nations Relief and Works Agency officials have for decades knowingly provided support to Hamas terrorists, including salaries and materials. That support facilitated Hamas’s terrorist attack on October 7th, which was the worst one-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and included the murder and kidnapping of dozens of Americans. Those victims and their families deserve the ability to hold UNRWA accountable, and the LIABLE Act would give them that opportunity.“
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)
The United Nations has morphed into something deeply corrupt and unjust long shielded from prosecution, even for heinous actions. Perhaps the LIABLE ACT is the first domino to end the invincibility of barbarism under cover of white hats.
Israel is conducting a thorough review of what internal failures led to the massacre on October 7, 2023. The inquiries and analyses are designed to both assure accountability for mistakes, as well as to prevent future tragedies. The primary focus is on Israel’s military deployment and readiness, which will likely conclude with several changes inside the military.
Another analysis is needed externally – focused on Hamas and Gaza. The timeline below is meant as a framework to better consider how to address the conflict going forward.
Timeline of Key Moments in Gaza That Set October 7 Massacre
1948-9: There are two principle differences between the area east of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49AL/ West Bank) and Gaza:
The majority of E49AL/WB Arabs are locals, whereas the majority of Gazans used to live in Israeli towns and villages;
E49AL/West Bank was annexed by Transjordan and all Arabs were given Jordanian citizenship; Gaza was only administered by Egypt
The Arabs in the much larger E49AL had citizenship and sovereignty. While most of the world considered Jordan’s annexation illegal, the local Arabs had pride in their Muslim Arab country. They also had control of Jerusalem/al Quds, the third holiest site for Muslims.
Not so for Gazans, who were in a much more confined space without citizenship, sovereignty or holy sites. Instead, they were wards of the United Nations which promised them that they would move into the Israeli towns in which they once lived.
1967: The 1967 war was a much bigger loss for West Bank Arabs than Gazans, as the Gazans already had less. Still, being under the rule of the Jewish State made the lack of sovereignty much more bitter.
2000: The Second Intifada started at the collapse of the Oslo Accords. While pundits point to a Temple Mount visit by Israeli Ariel Sharon as the trigger for the multi-year Arab riots, it was the failure of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to secure all of Arab demands in the negotiations, including moving millions of descendants of refugees and internally displaced people into Israel. This was especially true for Gazans.
2004: As Israel put down the Second Intifada, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon secured a letter from U.S. President George W Bush on April 14 that in exchange for pulling all Israelis out of Gaza, the United States would back Israel in assuring that all Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) would move to a new Palestinian State and not into Israel, and that new borders of Israel would account for new major Jewish population centers to be incorporated into Israel.
President George W Bush 2004 letter to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
2005-7: Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005 and the Palestinians elected Hamas to 58% of its parliament in 2006. In 2007, Hamas took over full control of Gaza, outsing its rival political group Fatah. In response to the antisemitic genocidal group sworn to its destruction taking over Gaza, Israel imposed a blockade of strip to halt the flow of arms. Gaza, now with self-determination, opted for radical Islam.
2008-14: Under the banner of jihad, independent Gaza did not focus on building up its economy and society but instead focused on destroying Israel. It launched wars against the Jewish State in 2008-9, 2012 and 2014, each put down by Israel. Meanwhile Hamas began to heavily invest in its underground infrastructure inside of Gaza, which in the past was principally used outside of Gaza for raids into Israel (like kidnapping Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006) and smuggling goods from Egypt.
2018-2022: Under the banner of the “Great March of Return,” Hamas led Gazan society to prepare to invade Israel. With United Nations support, thousands of students from UNRWA schools would march to the fence with Israel, familiarizing themselves with the terrain and normalizing their presence for Israelis watching their movement.
2021: When Israeli courts approved the eviction of Arab squatters from Jewish owned homes in the Sheik Jarrah section of Jerusalem, Hamas launched missiles into Israel. The action caused Israel to put the evictions on hold, educating Hamas that terror pays.
2023: By this time, Hamas’ underground infrastructure was in place and it had stockpiled thousands of missiles. It had gotten Israel accustomed to “peaceful” protests along the Gaza border fence. Better, it watched Israeli society fight amongst itself about judicial reform, and for the first time ever, a majority of Democrats favored SAPs over Israelis. With Iran on the verge of nuclear weaponry breakout and Hezbollah in Lebanon well armed with roughly 150,000 missiles, Hamas was poised for an all-out war, well beyond the limited skirmishes of prior years.
Gazans are more religious than West Bank Arabs and many more consider themselves entitled to move into Israel as UNRWA wards (81% vs. 49%). Those supporting Hamas were much more likely to understand the “Great Marches of Return” were about external political matters than those from Fatah (59% to 24%, according to a September 2023 PCPSR poll).
While the devastation to Israel on October 7 happened over a single day, it took years of planning. Just as importantly, there was societal buy in for the attack.
Key Takeaways
Israel – and the world – should consider the events that led to Hamas’ genocidal invasion of Israel and formulate strategies beyond eliminating Hamas and its military infrastructure.
The UN and Saudi Arabia must adopt the contours of the 2004 Bush letter. Over 80% of Gazans believe that the world supports their moving into Israel, validating their storming the fence. There will not be peace until the UN and Saudi Arabia make clear that a two state solution means SAPs move into a new Palestinian State, not Israel.
Dismantle UNRWA in Gaza and the West Bank. The United Nations has encouraged generations of students that Israel is not really a sovereign entity and that the UN will dictate that Israel will be forced to accept millions of Arabs. With clarity that Arabs will be settled in Gaza and the West Bank, there is no reason for UNRWA to exist in those territories.
Decimation and Vilification of Hamas. As Gazans suffered more over the course of the war, a greater percentage became interested in forging peace with Israel. Additionally, people who supported Hamas were more likely to have not seen any of the footage of the October 7 massacre and did not believe that Hamas conducted rapes. Therefore, Hamas should not only be defeated militarily, but vilified clearly so it will be abandoned by Gazans and West Bank Arabs.
Reroute funding. Gaza’s principal backers have been from Qatar, Iran and Turkey. All of these countries have hostile or tense relationships with Israel and foment anti-Israel hatred. Future funding for Gaza should principally come from countries with good relationships with the Jewish State.
No immediate plans for a Palestinian State. Gazans had internalized that terror pays, as the Second Intifada made Israel abandon Gaza, and the 2021 war stopped the evictions in Sheik Jarrah. The devastation of Gaza must terminate that notion. The only immediate plans for Gaza should be how to rebuild. Engaging in a discussion now about statehood would once again make local Arabs believe that there is nothing beyond the pale in pursuit of self-determination.
The timeline of how Gazans got to October 7 should inform the world about future actions, just as Israel’s inquiries into its military failures will change its practices.
Nothing sounds so lofty as the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC), a global organization that should theoretically be at the vanguard of protecting civilians around the world. Alas, it made itself into a highly biased joke by having ten standing items during each session to cover broad matters, with an exception for a single region – Item 7 – being dedicated to the “Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories.”
On April 5, 2024, amid the Gazan-initiated war on Israel, the UNHRC went to town on Israel, passing the outrageously biased Resolution 55/28 with a vote of 28 in favor, 6 opposed, and 13 abstentions. The Global South was joined in voting for the resolution by Belgium, Finland and Luxembourg from Europe. The chickens which abstained were: Albania, Benin, Cameron, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, France, Georgia, India, Japan, Lithuania, Montenegro, Netherlands, and Romania.
The eight pages of vitriol went well beyond actions during the war. It went beyond settlements. It went beyond withholding taxes.
It implicitly backed Gazans’ genocidal war against Israel stating that the council “reaffirm[s] the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation in accordance with international law.” This statement labeled the State of Israel as a “colonial” power, stripping it of rights of defense and designating it a rightful target for attacks.
The antisemitic text even decried Jews living in their holiest and capital city of Jerusalem. It criticized Israel for archeological excavations near the Temple Mount.
Only in three spots (marked in light blue) in the long list condemning Israel was there any expression that Gazans were doing anything wrong. Each related to the immediate situation of war and none condemned the thousands of Gazans who initiated the war killing 1,200 people, raping women and abducting 251 people, nor the Gazan leaders who threatened to commit the barbaric attacks again and again.
In multiple locations (highlighted in orange), the UNHRC demanded that countries withhold supplying arms to Israel and not take any actions against groups around the world which support the Hamas-led war against Israel. It urged countries to not supply Israel with “dual use” items like jet fuel or facial recognition software which could have both civilian and military purposes.
The text is a sickening farce, especially considering the heading of the resolution which highlighted “the obligation to ensure accountability and justice.” The text of the resolution clearly showed the HRC’s belief that only Israel should be held accountable, while Gazans should be absolved of their actions under the UN’s ode for the Stateless Arabs of Palestine (SAPs)‘ “legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence.”
In April 2025, one year after this shameful resolution passed, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) tried to pass two resolutions in the U.S. Senate to block America’s sale of arms to Israel. His introduction to the vote lambasted AIPAC as a nefarious organization, and then called the Israeli government “racist and extremist” engaged in a “barbaric war against the Palestinian people,” even though the Israeli military constantly warns civilians to move out of battlefields and has the lowest civilian-to-combatant death toll of any modern urban war.
Fourteen senators joined Sanders in voting to block the arms sale to Israel in the middle of the multi-front war, including Sens. Richard Durbin (D-IL), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Tina Smith (D-MN), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Peter Welch (D-VT).
The fact that all fifteen senators voting against supplying Israel weapons during the war were Democrats should not be a surprise. According to a March 2025 Gallup poll, Republicans favor Israel over SAPs by 75% to 10%, while Democrats favor SAPs over Israelis by 59% to 21%. This is a continuation of a trend that started BEFORE Gazans’ October 7 atrocities, as highlighted in Gallups’ February 2023 poll.
It begs us to answer the framework of “the obligation to ensure accountability and justice” in general, even before applied to war. What is the baseline that the UNHRC and Democrats (HRC & D) see the Arab-Israeli conflict?
The HRC&D seemingly believe that Israel is a colonial power and SAPs have a legitimate fight for “liberation.” In such framework, even leaders of Hamas’ “political bureau” are regular “civilians entitled to protection,” (as stated by HRC). HRC&D prioritize imposing sanctions on Israeli Jewish “settlers” in the immediate aftermath of October 7 (as urged by Sen. Van Hollen in November 2023).
The HRC&D baseline for considering “accountability and justice” is that Arabs are justified in fighting Israel, while Israeli Jews are wrong for just living.
Anyone and everyone should be upset with the loss of so much civilian life in the war which started eighteen months ago. But the number of dead on each side obscures the fundamental issue in the conflict is the competing views that Israel is a legitimate sovereign state or a colonial outpost which should be combated by “any means necessary.”
Masked anti-Israel agitators at Columbia University call for the destruction of Israel
While the UN Human Rights Council and fifteen Democratic senators have not gone so far to endorse a genocide of Jews in Israel, they are actively seeking to shield Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups and their supporters which seek the destruction of Israel from proper measures of justice.
The expression of being “stuck between a rock and a hard place” relates to being in a very difficult spot between two equally terrible bad choices.
It has been used to describe the situation of the Arab civilians in Gaza, caught between Israel and Hamas. On one side, is an enormous military which Gazans view as interlopers on their land, bombing them to pieces. On the other is their leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Hamas, who rules the Strip with an iron hand.
The Israeli military is accused of “starving” the population and advancing a “genocide” to “ethnically cleanse” the region of Arabs. On the other, Gazans have an organization which may torture and shoot those who protest against them.
On one side, there is an Israeli military that offers financial rewards for information about hostages, bounty for Hamas leaders, millions of dollars to disrupt the “financial mechanisms” that prop Hamas, and billions of dollars to Hamas to disband. On the other is martyrdom.
Leaflets dropped by Israel offering rewards for Gazans who provide information on hostages
From the Israeli side, Gazans hear a party that will end the war immediately if the hostages are returned and Hamas surrenders. From Hamas, they hear that the Arab fight is a holy one sanctioned by Allah, as they ask Gazans to sacrifice their children for the holy mission of cleansing the land of Jews.
Are Gazans truly between two EQUALLY terrible choices?
For the devout, they are asked to decide between a peaceful and prosperous life in this world, and one of holy jihad to rid “Palestine of filth of the Jews.” The Global North (3% Muslim) would immediately chose the former while the Global South (26% Muslim and 42% Muslim excluding Latin America and China) would urge Gazans to chose the latter.
Global North in blue and Global South in red
The Gazans are similarly divided according to devotion. In a PCPSR poll conducted in November 2023, soon after the October 7 massacre of 1,200 people in Israel and abduction of 251 people, support for the massacre was correlated to religious beliefs, with “religious and the somewhat religious (76% and 71%, respectively) compared to the non-religious (42%)” supporting Hamas’s attack.
The calculus is changing now that Hamas’s power is collapsing.
Gazans are not numb after 18 months of war, having experienced ceasefires. They see that Israel is not intent on a “genocide” the way portrayed by their leaders but are intent on achieving the aims of releasing the hostages and ending Hamas’s rule. Gazans also see a severely weakened Hamas which cannot round up opponents en masse and drag their bodies through the streets or toss them off buildings.
So Gazans have started to protest Hamas’s rule.
But Hamas will not go quietly. It has begun to execute protestors, including 22-year old Odai al-Rubai.
So Israel reentered Gaza with ground forces and tanks, intent on applying maximal pressure on Hamas to give up the hostages and surrender, and hopefully inspiring Gazans to pressure Hamas to end the war.
Gazans see that they are no longer between a rock and a hard place, at least as it relates to the PHYSICALthreats from Hamas. They will still have to square whether their Islamic beliefs will permit coexistence alongside a Jewish State, or will accept a short-term “hudna” truce and patiently wait for the Islamic world to rally for “the cleansing of Palestine of the filth of the Jews” in the years to come.
From a Global North’s perspective, there should not be a divide between religious faith and coexistence. Gazans should not feel torn between practicing Islam and living in peace alongside a Jewish State.
But the tension is very real as preached by “Muslim Scholars” based in Qatar and elsewhere. Radical Islam is poisoning the Middle East, placing Muslims in a quandary of life, land and belief, which can only be resolved by killing every Jew in Israel.
The end of the current physical war is approaching. The ideological war remains.
First One Through 