Tag Archives: Palestine

The Red Herring: While America Fights Over Gaza, China Advances

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While Americans argue over Gaza, Beijing is watching Taiwan.

China wants to dominate Asia, control waterways carrying trillions of dollars in commerce, and bring Taiwan under its rule. Standing in its way is potentially the United States.

So as America commits military resources to Middle Eastern conflicts and Americans increasingly question their country’s overseas role, China is pursuing two opportunities: expanding its power abroad and exploiting political divisions inside America.

The Trillion-Dollar Prize

Taiwan produces much of the world’s most advanced semiconductors. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, approximately $2.45 trillion in goods passed through the Taiwan Strait in 2022, representing more than one-fifth of global maritime trade.

Bloomberg Economics estimated that a major war involving China and the United States could cost the global economy approximately $10.6 trillion in its first year, equivalent to 9.6% of global GDP. The modeled losses include 6.6% of American GDP and 11% of China’s. A Chinese blockade could reduce global GDP by approximately 5%. The consequences would reach American retirement accounts, employment, manufacturing, automobiles and everyday consumer prices.

Beijing has steadily increased military exercises, maritime patrols and operations around Taiwan and the South China Sea. China seeks the ability to impose its will on Taiwan while limiting American intervention.

China Sees an Opening

On October 7, 2023, Hamas invaded Israel, murdering approximately 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages. The ensuing war drew American aircraft carriers, missile-defense systems, intelligence resources and diplomatic attention into successive confrontations involving Gaza, Lebanon, Iran and the Houthis.

Within weeks, foreign-policy researchers identified the opportunity that Beijing will exploit.

On November 9, 2023, Emil Avdaliani of the Stimson Center published For China and Russia, the Gaza War May Be a Blessing in Disguise. He explained that the wars in Gaza and Ukraine interfered with America’s strategic focus on the Indo-Pacific, giving China greater freedom to maneuver and time to prepare for competition over Taiwan.

He compared the opportunity to the years following September 11, when American attention was consumed by the wars on terrorism. The Gaza conflict also threatened the proposed India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor, a potential competitor to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Two weeks after the Hamas attack, Ahmed Aboudouh of Chatham House published China’s Approach to the War in Gaza Is Not Anti-Israel. It’s Designed to Contain the US.

Aboudouh described Beijing’s posture as anti-Western neutrality. China avoided condemning Hamas’s atrocities while criticizing Israel and portraying America as a destabilizing force. Beijing was using sympathy for Palestinians to undermine American credibility, cultivate support among developing countries and strengthen its diplomatic position on Taiwan and Xinjiang.

Beijing also maintains an enormous economic relationship with Iran.

In April 2026, the U.S. Treasury Department reported that China purchased approximately 90% of Iran’s oil exports. The U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission estimated that Chinese purchases generated approximately $31.2 billion in Iranian oil revenue in 2025.

Those revenues support the Iranian government, whose military establishment finances and arms Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. Iran’s regional activities repeatedly demand American military resources and diplomatic attention.

China receives Iranian oil while Tehran’s confrontations with America complicate Washington’s ability to concentrate on Asia.

China’s American Information Campaign

China’s efforts to exploit the conflict have also reached American audiences.

In June 2024, Google’s Threat Analysis Group documented DRAGONBRIDGE, also known as Spamouflage, a vast online influence operation linked to the People’s Republic of China.

The network distributed videos, fabricated news-style broadcasts and social-media comments attacking American democracy and exploiting domestic controversies.

One of its targets was the American campus protests over Gaza.

Beginning in May 2024, Chinese-linked accounts circulated English-language material portraying American police actions against pro-Palestinian demonstrators as evidence of Western hypocrisy. The messaging contrasted the treatment of campus protesters with American support for demonstrations in Hong Kong.

The same network criticized American involvement in Ukraine and depicted American democracy as dysfunctional.

Google disrupted more than 10,000 instances of DRAGONBRIDGE activity across its platforms in the first quarter of 2024. During the first nine months of 2024, Google also terminated more than 22,000 YouTube channels linked to Chinese coordinated influence operations.

Although investigators found limited genuine audience engagement, the volume of fabricated content demonstrated Beijing’s capacity to manufacture political messaging and distribute it across thousands of accounts.

Follow the Money

An August 2023 New York Times investigation uncovered a sprawling financial network associated with Neville Roy Singham, an American technology entrepreneur living in Shanghai, with approximately $278 million in reported financial flows attributed to his broader network. Major organizations associated with the network include the People’s Forum, ANSWER Coalition, International People’s Assembly, CODEPINK and affiliated activist and media operations. These organizations have helped organize anti-Israel demonstrations, promote political campaigns and advance positions frequently aligned with Chinese Communist Party interests. The Times also documented Singham’s financial and operational connections to Chinese propaganda organizations. A July 2025 George Washington University study examined overlapping financial relationships, organizational cooperation and ideological alignment involving Singham-linked organizations and groups associated with Shut It Down for Palestine. The $278 million represents broader network financial flows rather than verified direct funding of each organization.

The People’s Forum’s organizing activities became visible immediately after October 7. It co-organized a Times Square demonstration the following day, helped mobilize the November 4 march in Washington, and joined the nationwide Shut It Down for Palestine campaign. On April 29, 2024, more than 100 activists, including Columbia protesters, reportedly gathered at its Manhattan headquarters, where executive director Manolo De Los Santos urged them to “give Joe Biden a hot summer.” These events demonstrate the organization’s participation in street demonstrations and campus-related organizing, alongside a much broader student-led protest movement.

Beyond activist organizations, Chinese government agencies, companies and associated entities have developed financial relationships with American universities, policy institutions, media organizations and Washington lobbying firms.

U.S. Department of Education disclosures identify approximately $4.9 billion in Chinese-source gifts and contracts across roughly 8,000 transactions, making China the second-largest reported foreign funding source. These relationships reach institutions responsible for educating future American leaders and developing advanced technologies. The funding includes research, education and commercial arrangements, while its scale raises questions about academic independence, research security and foreign influence.

Chinese financial relationships have also reached American think tanks and policy institutes, where donor disclosures are less comprehensive and researchers help shape congressional testimony, national security debates and foreign-policy recommendations.

China’s presence in Washington is more directly measurable. According to OpenSecrets, Chinese government and other China-related foreign principals accounted for approximately $563 million in registered foreign-agent spending from 2016 through 2025, including approximately $453 million attributed to the Chinese government. Much of this money supported Chinese state-media operations, while other expenditures financed lobbying and public relations. U.S. Justice Department records, for example, document the Chinese Embassy’s engagement of Squire Patton Boggs to advise on congressional legislation, defense appropriations and other matters before Congress. Chinese-owned companies have separately spent millions lobbying over trade, technology restrictions and federal regulation.

From Gaza to Taiwan: The Same Organizations

CODEPINK‘s activism extends far beyond opposition to Israel. Its China Is Not Our Enemy campaign opposes American military preparations in Asia and criticizes U.S. support for Taiwan. Following Nancy Pelosi’s 2022 visit, CODEPINK characterized the trip as a dangerous escalation. Its Reject the US Militarism in the Pacific campaign challenges American military infrastructure and partnerships involving Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Guam and Australia.

The ANSWER Coalition similarly opposes American military expansion in the Pacific, including military bases and exercises involving Okinawa and South Korea. Both organizations describe their positions as opposition to militarization and overseas intervention.

The overlap is striking. Organizations mobilizing against American support for Israel also oppose military commitments and partnerships central to American deterrence in Asia. Beijing has its own reasons for welcoming those positions: weakening America’s regional alliances would make coercion of Taiwan easier. The alignment of these policy positions is documented; whether Chinese funding or direction caused them is a separate question.

The Real Strategic Contest

American deterrence around Taiwan depends on naval forces, regional bases, military cooperation with Japan and the Philippines, defense spending and the political willingness to confront Chinese coercion.

China’s military buildup raises the cost of American intervention around Taiwan. Its influence operations exploit the political divisions that could make such intervention harder to sustain. Meanwhile, conflicts involving Iran and its proxies continue to consume American resources and attention.

A Taiwan war could destroy $10.6 trillion in global economic output in its first year. China’s disclosed financial relationships with American institutions and media operations amount to billions of dollars across multiple years, much of it spent on activities unrelated to political influence. Even a relatively small, effective influence campaign could matter enormously if it altered America’s willingness to defend Taiwan.

For a few billion dollars spent influencing Americans to be anti-Israel and pro-Iran, China is targeting several TRILLIONS of dollars in Asia.

Sources

  1. Stimson Center — For China and Russia, the Gaza War May Be a Blessing in Disguise, November 2023.
  2. Chatham House — China’s Approach to the War in Gaza Is Not Anti-Israel. It’s Designed to Contain the US, October 2023.
  3. U.S. Treasury Department, April 2026, reporting on China’s purchases of Iranian oil.
  4. U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission, March 2026, research on Iranian oil revenues.
  5. Google Threat Analysis Group, June 2024, research on DRAGONBRIDGE.
  6. Google congressional testimony, 2024, coordinated Chinese influence operations.
  7. George Washington University Program on Extremism — CCP Influence in U.S. Pro-Palestinian Activism, July 2025.
  8. The New York Times — A Global Web of Chinese Propaganda Leads to a U.S. Tech Mogul, August 2023.
  9. CODEPINK — China Is Not Our Enemy.
  10. CODEPINK — Reject the US Militarism in the Pacific.
  11. ANSWER Coalition — Islanders Unite to Resist a New Pacific War.
  12. Center for Strategic and International Studies — Taiwan Strait maritime trade research.
  13. Bloomberg Economics — The $10 Trillion Fight: Modeling a US-China War Over Taiwan, February 2026.
  14. Congressional Research Service — Section 117 of the Higher Education Act: Reporting of Foreign Gifts and Contracts, March 2026.
  15. OpenSecrets — Foreign Lobby Watch, 2016–2025.
  16. U.S. Department of Justice — FARA semiannual reports, including Squire Patton Boggs’ representation of the Chinese Embassy.
  17. Harvard/University of Connecticut Crowd Counting Consortium — U.S. protest and campus encampment data, 2023–2024.
  18. The People’s Forum — October 2023 statements and protest mobilization announcements.
  19. Reporting on the People’s Forum’s April 29, 2024 organizing meeting in Manhattan.

The Revolution Is Local. It Waves a Foreign Flag.

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On February 20, 1939, more than 20,000 Americans packed Madison Square Garden beneath enormous swastikas, American flags and a portrait of George Washington. The German American Bund called its rally “Free America,” while its leader, Fritz Kuhn (1896–1951), promoted Nazi ideology, denounced Jewish influence and envisioned a radically different American society.

The crowd looked admiringly toward Hitler’s Germany, but its ambitions were directed toward America.

A large crowd gathered in an arena for a formal event, with a stage at the front featuring a prominent figure and decorative banners.
Crowd at Madison Square Garden allied with Nazi Germany, February 1939

On October 17, 2026, France erupted in demonstrations over living costs, public services and economic inequality. Rioters burned vehicles, looted businesses and attacked public buildings. In Paris, protesters climbed the monument to Marianne, symbol of the French Republic, and raised the French tricolor alongside a Palestinian flag.

The grievances were French. The revolutionary symbolism was international.

A person holding a Palestinian flag while walking through a foggy protest scene.
Crowd of protesters holding Palestinian flags and other banners, gathered near a monument with 'FREE PALESTINE' graffitied on it.

A Palestinian flag at a demonstration about Gaza represents a foreign cause. At a demonstration about French economic policy, it suggests something more: a foreign struggle adopted as a symbol of domestic upheaval.

Across different eras and ideologies, foreign struggles have supplied the symbols for movements seeking to remake their own countries.

A Generation Looking for a Different Future

Revolutionary politics becomes attractive when people lose faith in their institutions and their prospects for a better life.

The Great Depression shattered economic security for millions of Americans. The German American Bund exploited the resulting insecurity, offering national renewal, authoritarian certainty and enemies to blame for the country’s troubles.

Nearly a century later, Bernie Sanders’s 2016 campaign mobilized younger Americans disillusioned with an establishment they believed protected wealthy donors and political insiders. Revelations about Democratic National Committee favoritism toward Hillary Clinton reinforced those suspicions, while subsequent political upheaval deepened distrust of established leadership.

COVID disrupted education and livelihoods, inflation and housing costs eroded economic opportunity, and artificial intelligence raised fears about the future of employment. The concealment of Biden’s decline and Harris’s selection without a new nationwide primary reinforced perceptions of political decisions controlled by insiders. Harvard’s 2026 Youth Poll found that only 15% of young Americans trusted the federal government.

For people who believe established institutions protect the wealthy and powerful while their own opportunities diminish, promises to redistribute wealth, ownership and political authority become increasingly attractive. That dissatisfaction is producing electoral victories.

The Revolution Enters City Hall

The Democratic Socialists of America have translated economic frustration into electoral power, most visibly through Zohran Mamdani’s 2025 election as mayor of New York City.

A group of diverse protesters holding red signs and a banner that reads 'NEW YORK CITY DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS' during a rally advocating for socialism and against fascism.

Celebrating his victory, the DSA described a defeat for billionaires, corporations and the Democratic Party establishment. Its agenda connected housing, public transportation, childcare, policing and for some bizarre non-local reason, “Palestinian liberation,” within a campaign for what the organization explicitly called a “political revolution.”

The DSA advocates public ownership of major industries, higher taxes on wealth, stronger tenant protections and a larger government role in housing and essential services. These proposals would change who owns economic resources, who makes investment decisions and how much authority government exercises over everyday life.

The movement also reaches younger Americans through influential online broadcasters. Hasan Piker, one of the most prominent socialist commentators on the internet, combines criticism of American capitalism with outspoken support for Palestinian Arab violence. He promoted Mamdani’s successful mayoral campaign, hosted him on his livestream and appeared at campaign events. In April 2026, Piker extended his electoral involvement to Michigan, campaigning alongside Abdul El-Sayed in his U.S. Senate race.

Four men posing together with smiles at an event, with a microphone held by one of them, brightly lit stage in the background.
Anti-Israel influencers of the alt-left Mehdi Hasan, Hasan Piker and Jamaal Bowman celebrate Zohran Mandani’s victory for NYC mayor in November 2025

The revolution has an economic program, a political organization, influential broadcasters and elected officials. It also has a flag.

Why Palestine Became the Revolutionary Symbol

Palestine offers a ready-made narrative for movements organized around the struggle between privilege and liberation. The popular revolutionary image casts wealthy, technologically advanced, Western-backed White Israelis against poorer, brown Palestinians fighting dispossession. That imagery translates readily into American arguments about racial inequality, colonialism, policing and economic power.

The narrative fictionalizes history and present. Jews are indigenous to Israel, and its “white” Ashkenazi population is less than one-third of the Israeli population. But Israel’s prosperity makes the image of privileged rulers and dispossessed subjects politically compelling.

Pie chart illustrating the demographic composition of Israel, showing percentages of different ethnic groups: Arabs (21.1%), Mizrahi Jews (33.2%), Ashkenazi Jews (32.7%), Mixed Jews (5.8%), Black Jews (2.2%), and Others (5.0%).

Representative Rashida Tlaib and former Ohio state senator Nina Turner made the domestic connection explicit in their 2024 essay Black Liberation and Palestinian Liberation Are Interconnected, linking Detroit, Cleveland and Gaza through a common struggle against injustice. Others have done the same like CNN’s Marc Lamont Hill back in 2015.

The anti-Israel organization Within Our Lifetime has combined “Globalize the Intifada” with slogans including “Land Back,” “Kill Capitalism” and “Defund the Police.” The vocabulary connects Palestinian nationalism with American disputes over property, policing and political authority.

On October 8, 2023, one day after Hamas massacred Israeli civilians, demonstrators gathered beneath Palestinian flags in Times Square. A speaker mocked the victims of the Nova music festival, while protesters chanted slogans including “Resistance is justified” and “Globalize the intifada.”

The latter slogan called for extending a Palestinian Arab slaughter beyond its original geography, invoking a violent history which included suicide bombings and attacks on civilians.

Across Western democracies, Palestine has become more than a foreign policy cause for many revolutionary activists. It offers a common identity for movements seeking substantial changes to established economic and political institutions.

Canary Mission video on the socialist-jihadi alliance coming for the United States

The Old Accusation Returns

Every revolutionary narrative needs an explanation for why some people possess wealth and power while others struggle. When that explanation turns into a search for a privileged group supposedly responsible for everyone else’s suffering, an ancient accusation becomes available: Jews control the system.

The German American Bund accused Jews of exercising illegitimate influence over American finance, politics and public opinion. Father Charles Coughlin (1891–1979) brought similar conspiracies into millions of American homes through radio, presenting Jewish power as an explanation for the economic suffering of ordinary Americans.

The accusation survives across otherwise opposing political camps. On the far right, Nick Fuentes promotes conspiracies about Jewish control of American institutions. In entertainment, Ye has accused Jewish executives of controlling and exploiting Black performers. In a different context, American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten described American Jews in 2021 as part of the “ownership class,” arguing that Jews were keeping minorities down.

The danger intensifies when the language of liberation is used to excuse violence against people assigned to the category of oppressor.

Protesters march on a city street holding a large banner that depicts a masked figure with the word 'Revolution' written on it, alongside Palestinian flags and other protest signs.
“No Kings Rally and March” in Chicago on June 14, 2025 featured Palestinian flags and call for “Revolution” (Photo by The TRiiBE)

Following October 7, Cornell professor Russell Rickford described Hamas’s breach of the Gaza barrier as “exhilarating.” CAIR executive director Nihad Awad invoked Martin Luther King Jr.’s observation about riots on the morning of the massacre and later expressed happiness that Palestinians had broken through the barrier.

Quote from Martin Luther King Jr. stating 'A riot is the language of the unheard,' alongside a profile image of King.

The consequences of importing a foreign conflict into American life became terrifyingly tangible in March 2026, when an attacker drove a vehicle carrying incendiary materials into Temple Israel in suburban Detroit while children and adults were inside. Abdul El-Sayed, then campaigning for the United States Senate, condemned the attack but also discussed the attacker’s family losses in Lebanon, explaining that “hurt people hurt people.”

Abdul El-Sayed speaking with a microphone at an event, discussing the impact of trauma and violence.

The attacker brought a foreign war to an American synagogue. The political explanation brought the grievances of that war into the response. The victims were Americans, including children gathered in a place of worship who had nothing to do with a war thousands of miles away, yet the socialist-revolutionary lens pivoted longingly to the attacker.

The Stakes Extend Beyond Jews

The German American Bund’s vision in 1939 threatened far more than America’s Jews. Its members admired an authoritarian foreign power and sought to transform the political and social character of their own country.

Today’s movements pursue different visions through different means, including democratic elections. Their ambitions to change ownership, wealth distribution, policing, education and government authority will shape the lives of Americans far beyond those attending demonstrations.

“there’s plenty of money in the world… it’s just in the wrong hands” – NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio address in 2019

Jews have particular reason to recognize the danger when political movements portray them as privileged beneficiaries of an unjust system. History has shown how readily that accusation becomes collective blame. But the consequences of sweeping transformations of political and economic power extend far beyond the Jewish community. Jews will suffer twice – first as Jews and then as Americans – regardless of whether they refer to themselves as American Jews or Jewish Americans.

The revolution is local. It waves a foreign flag. And the country it seeks to remake is our own.

Will Western Governments Rescind Recognition of Palestine

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Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has once again postponed Palestinian elections, this time from November 2026 until September 2027. It is a familiar routine for the 90-year-old leader, who was elected in 2005 to a four-year term and has remained in power for 21 years. Palestinians last elected a legislature in 2006, when Hamas defeated Abbas’s Fatah party. Since then, Abbas has repeatedly promised elections, postponed them and continued governing by decree, knowing that he will be trounced in elections.

This latest postponement for the authoritarian leader has consequences far beyond Palestinian politics. In September 2025, Canada, France, Britain and Australia recognized a Palestinian state, citing commitments by Abbas to democratic elections and governance reform. Just over a year later, those promises have been broken.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney explicitly predicated recognition on Abbas’s commitment to fundamental governance reform, elections in 2026 excluding Hamas, and demilitarization. Australia’s Anthony Albanese similarly cited Palestinian commitments to elections, reform and demilitarization.

French President Emmanuel Macron secured written assurances from Abbas to hold presidential and legislative elections under international supervision. Britain’s Keir Starmer endorsed Abbas’s commitment to elections within a year of a ceasefire. Belgium tied further diplomatic implementation to elections and Hamas’s disarmament.

These Western governments knew Abbas’s record when they accepted his promises. He had already postponed national elections in 2021.

Meanwhile, only 32% of Palestinian Arabs are in favor of a two-state solution with a majority opposed according to an October 2026 Gallup poll. So what Palestinian state are western governments trying to recognize anyway?

The implications are straightforward. Western governments should announce that they are standing by their words and not going to recognize a Palestinian State headed by an authoritarian corrupt Holocaust denier, nor one with a genocidal jihadi legislature.

The Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) do not want a state to coexist next to a Jewish State; they want to control every inch of the holy land. Perhaps it is time for western governments to recognize what these regional Arabs have been saying consistently for a century.

Related:

Jews “In Any Part Of Palestine” (July 2025)

An Election for a Failed State

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Palestinian Arabs are scheduled to vote on November 28 in their first legislative election in twenty years. International observers will naturally ask whether the election is free and fair. But there is a more fundamental question:

Will Palestinians actually be electing a government capable of governing?

The problem begins with the Palestine Liberation Organization.

The PLO was established in 1964, decades before there was a Palestinian Authority. In 1993, it was the PLO—not the Palestinian Authority—that entered the Oslo process with Israel. Those agreements established the framework for Palestinian self-government in the West Bank and Gaza and contemplated an elected Palestinian Council. The Palestinian Authority and the executive institutions emerged from that process as the interim governing apparatus.

The PLO is the institutional skeleton on which the Palestinian political system was built.

And that makes the coming election peculiar.

Electing People Who Reject the System

The August modification to the election law requires candidates to commit to recognition of the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, as well as its political and national program and relevant international resolutions.

Yet Palestinians overwhelmingly reject that requirement.

According to the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, two-thirds oppose requiring candidates to accept the PLO’s commitments, including its agreements with Israel. Only 27% support the requirement.

That is not an opinion related to dissatisfaction with Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah or the incumbent government. That is an outright rejection of the entire government structure and institutions. Palestinians want to elect the government while leaving unsettled whether the people elected to run it accept the foundations of the system they are entering.

It is a election whose foundation is anarchy.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas

If insufficient, the Arabs want to vote for terrorism.

Ballots Without Giving Up the Guns

Democratic government requires more than elections. Ultimately, the elected government must possess political authority and a monopoly on legitimate force. Yet Palestinian politics continues to blur the distinction between a political party and an armed organization.

Hamas is the clearest example.

The devastation of the Gaza war appears to have changed Palestinian calculations. Only 20% now say Hamas won the war, compared with 39% ten months earlier. Support for “armed struggle” (terrorism) as the most effective means of achieving Palestinian statehood has fallen from 41% to 27%, which was around two-thirds immediately after October 7, 2023. Meanwhile, support for negotiations has risen from 36% to 44%, its highest level in four years.

That all sounds encouraging. But look more closely at what changed.

Palestinians only moved toward negotiations as violence has proven devastating and unsuccessful. Yet even after that experience, 72% oppose Hamas disarming before Israel completely withdraws from Gaza. And 53% believe that even if Hamas gives up its weapons, it will remain both an armed resistance movement and a political movement. Only 36% expect it to become solely political. So 89% (basically everyone) thinks the group that most of the Global North has labeled a terrorist organization, will be part of the Palestinian government.

That holds true for the various Palestinian terrorist groups. A society established in which various militias will be free to operate their own foreign affairs and military engagements.

An Elected Government That May Not Govern

If not appalling enough, there is another revealing number.

If elections are held and a new Palestinian government is formed, only 28% of Palestinians say they would prefer that elected government to administer Gaza. Thirty-two percent prefer the separate National Committee, while 34% prefer neither.

Consider these three facts:

  • Palestinians are preparing to elect a legislature for a political system whose foundational commitments most do not want imposed on candidates.
  • They may elect factions that retain independent armed power outside the government’s control.
  • They do not want the resulting elected government to govern Gaza.

Combined, this is not merely an imperfect election in the shadow of war of a fledgling state.

It is a vote for anarchy with a veneer of cohesion.

Related:

Israel Is Surrounded by Failed States – and Failed States in Waiting (July 2026)

Before Palestinians Can Hold an Election, They Must Decide Who Is Palestinian (June 2026)

Israel By The Numbers

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Israel is discussed with hyperbole and adjectives: massive settlements, enormous American aid, rampant settler violence, Jewish encroachment, disproportionate war.

It’s a fiction. A ruse.

Skip the adjectives. Look at the numbers.

750,000 → 5.9 Million;
850,000 → 0
— Two Refugee Populations

Between 700,000 and 750,000 Palestinian Arabs became refugees when they fled the battlefield as they awaited fellow Muslim Arab armies to destroy the nascent Jewish State during the 1948-9 war. In the same era, roughly 850,000 Jews left or were expelled from Arab countries with many more leaving non-Arab Muslim countries like Iran and Afghanistan.

Even though the Jewish refugee population was larger, we never speak of it today.

Today, UNRWA registers 5.9 million Palestinian Arab refugees, predominantly consisting of descendants of the original refugees, and those who married or were adopted by refugees. The comparable number of registered Jewish refugees from Arab and Muslim countries and their descendants is zero.

The Jews were absorbed as citizens of Israel and other countries. Their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren were not perpetuated as refugees, they way Palestinian Arabs have been forced by those same “brotherly” Arab countries which went to war with Israel in 1948-9, in order to perpetuate the war they initiated and lost.

650 Times
— Arab League Territory to Israel

Israel covers roughly 22,000 square kilometers and the 22 members of the Arab League collectively cover roughly 13–14 million square kilometers.

The territory of the Arab League is approximately 650 times the size of Israel.

127 Times
— Muslims to Jews

There are roughly 2 billion Muslims in the world, twice the size of the entire populations of North, Central and South America.

There are roughly 15.8 million Jews.

That is approximately 127 Muslims for every Jew.

Muslims account for roughly one-quarter of humanity. Jews account for about 0.2%.

Yet people in the West refer to Muslims as a “minority.”

60 to 1
— Muslims to Jews Ascending the Temple Mount

Before COVID, roughly 1.8 million to 2 million Muslims visited the Temple Mount annually, compared with approximately 30,000 Jewish visits in 2019. That is roughly 60 Muslim visits for every Jewish visit.

The more recent figures of 2025 after the October 7 massacre launched by Gazans has roughly halved the visits by Muslims and doubled those by Jews, lowering the figure to about 15 times at Judaism’s holiest site.

57 to 1
— OIC States to the Jewish State

There are 57 countries in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation that perpetually lambasts Israel. There is one Jewish state.

The Jewish state exists alongside a Muslim world dozens of times larger in countries, population and territory.

25 to 1
— American Defense Spending Outside Israel

Israel receives about $3.8 billion annually under the U.S.-Israel security assistance agreement. For every dollar America spends annually on Israel’s defense, roughly $25 is spent on defense elsewhere—defending the United States, maintaining forces abroad, supporting allies and providing security assistance around the world.

Even more striking, there are over 220,000 military personnel stationed around the world, of which slightly over 100 are in Israel. The baseline ratio is over 1,500-to-1, rising to 2,200-to-1 when reserve personnel are included.

The anti-Israel discussion focuses solely on Israel while ignoring the enormous American monies and personnel in Japan, Qatar, Germany and elsewhere.

14 Times
— The Growth of Israel’s Arab Population

Approximately 156,000 Arabs lived in Israel in 1948 when the modern Jewish State was reestablished. Today, approximately 2.16 million Arabs live in Israel.

Israel’s Arab population has grown almost 14-fold since the establishment of the Jewish state. Meanwhile, the number of Jews inside Israel hasn’t even grown 12-times in that same time.

And people accuse Israel of “ethnic-cleansing.”

12 Times
— Israeli Arabs Killed by Israeli Arabs
Versus West Bank Arabs Killed by West Bank Jews

Thus far in 2026, Arab Israelis are murdered by other Arab Israelis at roughly 12 times the number of Palestinian Arabs killed by West Bank Jewish civilians in Judea and Samaria.

Hundreds of Arab Israelis have been murdered amid the organized-crime epidemic inside Israel over the last few years. Yet the international narrative solely focuses on settler violence.

10 to 1
— Muslim Gates to the Jewish Entrance

Muslims have access to the Jewish Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem through ten gates. Jews and other non-Muslims enter through one: the Mughrabi Gate. There, Jews must pass through metal detectors and security clearance at only specified times of the day, even as Muslims ascend and descend at will through every other portal.

Muslim women descending from the Temple Mount through one of the many gates exclusively available for Muslims (photo: First One Through)

9
— Number of Times Hamas Charter Refers to Jews and Judaism

Hamas’s 1988 foundational charter is replete with antisemitic rhetoric. The opening lines begin with “Our struggle against the Jews…” and continues throughout its genocidal jihadist call to wipe out the Jewish people and Jewish State.

While the anti-Israel crowd pretends that the conflict is merely over land which can easily be compromised and carved up, they ignore the deep antisemitic ideology embedded in the Palestinian Arab culture.

8 Times
— U.S.’s Ukraine War Spending Versus Gaza War Spending

The United States has spent roughly eight times more in connection with the Ukraine war with Russia than the Gaza war against Israel.

America has made roughly $195 billion available for Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion. American expenditures associated with Israel and the Gaza war are a fraction of that amount.

Yet it is spending associated with Israel that is routinely presented as uniquely extraordinary.

6 to 0
— UN Bodies for Palestinians Versus Israelis

The United Nations maintains six standing bodies, offices or mechanisms focused specifically on Palestinian Arabs and Israel’s treatment of said Arabs: UNRWA; the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People; the Division for Palestinian Rights; the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices; the Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian territories; and the Human Rights Council’s permanent Agenda Item 7.

There is no comparable UN agency, committee or permanent agenda item devoted to protecting Israelis from the conflict, nor is there any group in the entire world (think the Kurds) so over-represented at the global organization.

5
— Gaza Wars Since Hamas Took Control

Israel withdrew every Jewish civilian and military asset from Gaza in 2005. Hamas subsequently took control of Gaza in 2007. Since then, it has launched five major rounds of war with Israel: in 2008–09, 2012, 2014, 2021, 2023-.

Five wars in sixteen years.

2.5 to 1
— Israel Versus the Rest of the World at the UN

In 2024, the UN General Assembly adopted 18 resolutions focused on Israel. It adopted seven country-specific resolutions concerning the rest of the world combined.

That is roughly 2.5 to 1. One country received more than twice as many resolutions as every other country combined.

1 to 1
— An Equivalency of 15 Kilometers Which Matters for One But Not the Other

At its narrowest along the pre-1967 lines, Israel is roughly 15 kilometers wide. It is a stretch that continues along its major population centers.

After Ma’ale Adumim to Jerusalem’s east, the remaining West Bank corridor is also roughly 15 kilometers wide at a single narrow point where virtually no West Bank Arabs live.

15 kilometers versus 15 kilometers. Over a million Jews in the narrow stretch versus a few thousand Arabs.

Israel’s narrow waist is never described as dangerously vulnerable, while the West Bank neck is cast as making a two-state solution “impossible.”

1
— The Jewish State Whose Capital the World Challenges

There is only one country in the world whose national anthem is all about its capital.

Israel’s national anthem, Hatikvah, expresses the Jewish people’s ancient longing for Zion and Jerusalem.

The Knesset is there. The president is there. The prime minister is there. The Supreme Court is there. The government ministries are there.

Yet most countries still refuse to locate their embassies in Jerusalem or fully accept Israel’s designation of Jerusalem as its capital.

The numbers are there. Before accepting the narrative which is infused with anti-Israel bias, look at them.

The Religious Formula for Ethnic Cleansing Jews

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WAFA, the Palestinian Authority’s official media, has spent years describing Jews who enter the Temple Mount as “storming Al-Aqsa.” I have written about that linguistic sleight of hand before.

Now WAFA is promoting something more dangerous: that Jews have no right to enter Judaism’s holiest site without Muslim permission, and that Jewish worship there is an assault on Islamic sanctity.

In April 2026, WAFA reported a Palestinian statement declaring the site one that “belongs exclusively to Muslims, to which no one else has any right of entry without their consent.”

On August 13, WAFA carried an Arab League statement condemning Jews entering the site and performing religious rituals as a “blatant violation of the sanctity of the mosque.”

WAFA promoted several lies:

  • Muslims do not control entry. Israel controls security and access to the Temple Mount. The Jordanian-backed Waqf administers Muslim religious affairs there. Presenting Muslim consent as a prerequisite for Jewish entry is totally false.
  • The compound does not “belong exclusively to Muslims.” That is a religious and political claim masquerading as settled fact about the Temple Mount—the holiest site in Judaism.
  • Jewish presence does not inherently violate Islamic sanctity. Islam does not have a general rule that a Jew entering Muslim sacred space desecrates it. Restrictions on Jewish prayer under the status quo are one issue; declaring Jewish worship itself an assault on Islam is another.

Then comes another sleight of hand.

Having defined Jewish presence as an offense against Islam, these organizations pivot to demanding action by the international community on behalf of Palestinians.

But those categories – Muslims and Palestinian Arabs – are not interchangeable.

Some 1.85 million Muslims live in Israel, nearly one-fifth of the country’s population. And the Muslim religious administration of the Temple Mount is handled by the Jordanian-backed Waqf. Palestinian Arabs do not exercise control over entry to the site, nor do they represent all Muslims in the region.

So why transform an asserted Muslim religious grievance into a Palestinian national claim demanding international intervention?

Because the lies are the tell.

The argument is no longer about protecting Muslim worship. It takes an assertion of Muslim religious exclusivity, converts it into a Palestinian territorial right, and then asks the world to enforce that right against Israel and Jews.

The implications become darker when the same logic is applied beyond the Temple Mount. Hamas’s 1988 charter declared all of Palestine an Islamic waqf. Combine that doctrine with the claim being promoted around Al-Aqsa—that Jewish physical presence and worship offend Islamic sanctity—and expelling Jews can be transformed into protecting Muslim holy land.

“the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up.” – Hamas Foundational Charter, Article 11

That is why the Arab League and WAFA’s language matters. By repeatedly publishing these false assertions, it helps turn a Palestinian territorial claim into a purported Islamic prohibition against Jewish presence.

And it begins at the most perverse possible location: Judaism’s holiest site.

The progression is stark:

  • Declare the Jewish holy site exclusively Muslim.
  • Deny Jews the right to enter without Muslim permission.
  • Call Jewish presence and worship a desecration of Islam.
  • Turn that religious claim into a Palestinian territorial right.
  • Ask the world to enforce it.

The Arab League and Palestinian Authority are building a religious and political case for removing Jews from their own holy land.

Changing the Map, Changing the Politics

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The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as frozen. It isn’t.

Both Israelis and Palestinians appear to believe that now is NOT the moment for a final peace agreement. Instead of negotiating, each side is using this period to improve its position for whatever comes next.

They have adopted two very different strategies.

Israel’s strategy is physical.

The settlement movement is racing to create new facts on the ground – approving settlements, establishing outposts, extending infrastructure, and expanding the Israeli presence in disputed territory of Judea and Samaria. The calculation is straightforward: when negotiations eventually resume, the map itself will have changed.

The pace has been striking.

ACTION20252026 (through April)What it Measures
Official settlements approved5434 additional approvals (bringing the current government’s total to 102 since January 2023)Government approval of new settlements or legalization of existing communities.
New unauthorized outposts established86Total outposts reached 363, with 212 created under the current governmentNew communities established before formal authorization.
Agricultural (herding) outposts60Continued expansionAgricultural communities that often extend practical control over large surrounding areas through grazing, roads, fencing, and infrastructure.
Outposts established in Judea and Samaria since 1991, according to Peace Now

Every month that passes without negotiations leaves more roads, homes, infrastructure, and communities for future negotiators to contend with.

New communities in Judea and Samaria approved by Israel according to Peace Now

The Palestinian strategy is political.

Rather than altering the geography, Palestinian leaders have concentrated on shifting international opinion. They have sought additional recognition from foreign governments, expanded support within international organizations, pursued legal and diplomatic campaigns against Israel, and strengthened ties with constituencies – particularly within the U.S. Democratic Party – that may wield greater influence under a future American administration. Their calculation is equally straightforward: when negotiations eventually resume, the political environment will have changed.

That effort has also produced measurable gains.

Diplomatic MilestoneSince October 7, 2023Why It Matters
New recognitions (2024)Norway, Ireland, Spain, Slovenia, Armenia, Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad & TobagoExpanded formal recognition beyond the Global South.
Major Western powers (2025)France, United Kingdom, Canada, AustraliaFirst major Western/G7 countries to recognize Palestine, signaling a shift among traditional allies of Israel.
International legal initiativesExpandedIncreased reliance on the UN, the International Court of Justice, and the International Criminal Court to advance Palestinian objectives.
Political supportIncreasedGrowing support in parts of Europe and among segments of the U.S. Democratic Party.

Measured by their own objectives, both sides can point to progress. Israel has expanded its physical footprint while the Palestinians have expanded their diplomatic footprint. One strategy seeks to change the map while the other seeks to change the politics surrounding the map.

What is striking is what neither side is emphasizing.

Neither is devoting comparable energy to the difficult work of strengthening governance at home: confronting corruption, reforming institutions, addressing political dysfunction, or building the domestic political consensus that any lasting agreement would ultimately require.

Instead, each is attempting to improve its negotiating position by changing the external environment. It is a race between geography and diplomacy.

The next round of negotiations will not begin where the last one ended. It will begin with a new map and a new political landscape.

Fiction vs. Fact: Palestine 1948 and PLO 1964

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There is a popular belief that Palestine was a country stolen and occupied by invading Jews in 1948. This has no basis in fact.

When the British Mandate ended in May 1948, there was no sovereign Palestinian Arab government waiting to assume power. There was no functioning Arab parliament, cabinet, constitution, or national administration prepared to govern an independent state.

The Jewish community took a different path. Over decades it had built the institutions of self-government: representative political bodies, courts, schools, hospitals, financial institutions, and a defense force. When Britain withdrew, those institutions became the foundation of the State of Israel.

The local Arab leadership did not establish comparable institutions of national government. Not before 1948 nor after.

Instead, neighboring Arab armies invaded the newly declared Jewish state. Transjordan assumed control of the West Bank. Egypt administered Gaza. A short-lived All-Palestine Government was announced later that year, but it exercised little authority and never became an effective sovereign government.

For the next sixteen years, there was no effort to start a Palestinian State.

Only in 1964 did the Arab League create the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Even its name is revealing.

It was not called the State of Palestine. It was not called the Government of Palestine. It was called the Palestine “Liberation” Organization.

Governments are created to govern. Liberation movements are created to liberate territory from an existing sovereign.

First Chairman of the PLO, Ahmad al-Shukeiri, was born in Lebanon and served as both Syrian and Saudi Arabian delegate to the United Nations at different times. He had to resign in shame after failing to destroy Israel in 1967.

The PLO’s founding charter reinforces that distinction. Rather than outlining the institutions of a future Palestinian state, Article 24 declared:

“This Organization does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip, or in the Himmah Area [where Israel, Jordan and Syria meet].”

The PLO’s founding charter expressly declined to claim sovereignty over the parts of historic Palestine then under Arab administration. Yet throughout the document, its central mission was the “liberation of Palestine” – a struggle directed at Israel, the Jewish State. At its core, local Arabs wanted Arab rule, wherever it may come from. They opposed the so-called “Zionist invasion” and Jewish sovereignty “in any part of Palestine.“

When the first lasting Palestinian national organization finally appeared in 1964, it was constituted not as a government-in-waiting or a reclamation government but as a liberation movement, and its own charter expressly disclaimed sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza while solely focusing its mission on Israel.

Within three years of its founding, the PLO and surrounding Arabs countries initiated their plan to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. They failed then as they failed in 1948.

The Palestinian “liberation” movement is a pan-Arab effort to remove the Jewish state first and foremost. Current efforts to portray it as a people seeking to reclaim their historic country is without any basis in fact.

One UN Agency for Every Nation in Waiting

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If you want to understand an institution, don’t begin with its speeches. Begin with its organization chart.

Permanent agencies, permanent committees, permanent staff, permanent budgets, and permanent mandates reveal what an institution considers exceptional.

The United Nations generally operates through universal institutions. Refugees fall under the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Racism is addressed through broad human rights mechanisms. Humanitarian crises are handled through agencies with global mandates.

Except in one case.

The Palestinian cause has an institutional architecture unlike any other.

Palestinian refugees have their own dedicated refugee agency, UNRWA. Every other refugee population in the world falls under UNHCR.

UNRWA offices in Jerusalem (photo: First One Through)

The General Assembly maintains the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, supported by the Division for Palestinian Rights within the UN Secretariat. Their mission is not to monitor or audit the Palestinian national movement, but to advance Palestinian rights, organize conferences, maintain documentation, and sustain international engagement.

The Human Rights Council appoints a permanent Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, dedicated exclusively to that issue. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs maintains a permanent office for the occupied Palestinian territory. The Human Rights Council also has Agenda Item 7, the only standing country-specific agenda item focused on a single member state.

That is the institutional asymmetry.

Institutions produce what they were built to produce. Permanent offices generate permanent reports. Permanent committees convene permanent meetings. Permanent mandates create permanent attention. The result shapes which stories are told, which voices are amplified, and which narratives become part of the world’s diplomatic conversation.

Since October 7, Palestinian voices have benefited from this enduring institutional infrastructure, while Israeli victims have had fewer dedicated mechanisms through which their experiences are consistently presented.

This institutional framework for the vilification of Israel was built over decades, setting the stage for antisemitism to permeate societies thousands of miles from the Middle East and those with no Jews even living there.

It is time for a fundamental change.

The United Nations is home to MANY peoples who aspire to statehood.

Kurds. Somalilanders. Sahrawis in Western Sahara. Tibetans. Kosovars. Taiwanese. Independence movements persist in Catalonia, Scotland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and elsewhere.

Flags of Somaliland hang in streets of Jerusalem, June 2026 (created by First One Through)

If the United Nations truly believes in the universal principle of self-determination, it should apply that principle universally.

Abolish the maze of Palestinian-specific institutions and replace them with a single body: The United Nations Agency for Nations in Waiting (UNNW).

Its mission would be straightforward: evaluate every national movement using the same transparent standards: effective governance, respect for human rights, peaceful conduct, democratic legitimacy, protection of minorities, and economic viability.

The Stateless Arabs from Palestine would remain part of the process – but alongside Kurds, Somalilanders, Tibetans, Sahrawis, Taiwanese, Kosovars, and every other people seeking recognition.

One standard. One agency. No exceptions.

Such a reform would move the UN away from political favoritism and toward institutional fairness. It would reward good governance instead of diplomatic influence and demonstrate that universal principles truly are universal.

If the United Nations wishes to champion nations in waiting, it should do so for all of them – not just one, and stem the tide of antisemitism at the same time.

Why Doesn’t Anyone Call for a State of Boko Haram?

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For more than fifteen years, Boko Haram has waged one of the world’s deadliest terrorist insurgencies. Since 2009, the group has been responsible for the deaths of more than 35,000 people, with some estimates placing the toll significantly higher when indirect deaths from the conflict are included. It has massacred civilians in villages, churches, mosques, schools, and marketplaces. It has bombed public places, murdered those who refused to submit to its rule, and driven millions from their homes across Nigeria and neighboring countries.

Kidnapping has been one of its defining tactics. The 2014 abduction of 276 schoolgirls from Chibok drew worldwide attention, but it was only one of thousands of kidnappings. Women and girls have been forced into marriage and been raped. Boys have been recruited as child soldiers. Entire communities have lived for years under the constant threat of murder, abduction, and terror.

Boko Haram rejects the legitimacy of Nigeria, a United Nations-member state. It seeks to replace it with its own extremist Islamist regime.

Yet almost no one argues that Boko Haram deserves its own country. No demonstrations demand that its leaders be rewarded with sovereignty. No governments argue that decades of massacres, hostage-taking, and terrorism should culminate in international legitimacy.

And then there is Hamas. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Dozens of other Palestinian terrorist groups. And the Palestinian Authority that pays for terrorist acts they commit.

The Bibas family taken hostages and murdered by Hamas on October 7, 2023

As Israelis buried over 1,000 people brutally killed by Hamas, anti-Israel activists took to Times Square and college campuses to express their glee. As Hamas supporters in Iran, Lebanon and Yemen joined the fight against Israel, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia recognized the State of Palestine.

There are now 157 countries that recognize Palestine. That look at the war between Israel and Palestine as one between two sovereign states, one which invaded another, raped and burned people alive, and took 251 hostages. These nations didn’t pause to question whether Palestine has a right to exist, but got three more countries to join in their sadistic effort.

Perhaps it is time for the 36 countries which do not recognize Palestine to put a resolution before the UN to recognize Boko Haram as the legitimate government of Nigeria, or at least a breakaway state in the northeastern corner which they control.

Boko Haram in Nigeria