The Palestinian Authority Still Shields Extremism

To read the Western press, one might believe that the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) in Gaza and the West Bank are reluctantly resigned to the idea that Hamas must go. Headlines routinely imply a growing consensus that Hamas is the past and some renewed Palestinian Authority is the future.

It could not be further from the truth.

The October 2025 PCPSR poll shows — unambiguously — that the Palestinian public has not turned away from Hamas. The majority would elect Hamas. The majority still supports the October 7 massacre. The majority wants Hamas to never disarm. This isn’t a fringe view or a warped reading of the data; it is the mainstream sentiment of Palestinian society two years after the massacre. Western analysts may avert their eyes, but the numbers do not.

And the Palestinian Authority knows this. That is why it continues to shield Hamas — not confront it.

A perfect illustration can be found in WAFA, the PA’s official news agency. In reporting on a session held by Canada and the European Union calling for a renewed diplomatic push, WAFA framed the story as a call for a “two-state solution,” “Gaza reconstruction,” and vague Western support for Palestinian aspirations and condemnation of Israeli actions.

What it didn’t report is the crucial part: those same governments insisted that the Palestinian Authority must undergo significant “necessary reform” and that Hamas must have absolutely “no role” in the future of Gaza. This was not an afterthought in the meeting; it was a headline demand. Yet WAFA hid it from the Palestinian public.

Joint declaration from EU- Canada on November 12, 2025

Why? Because telling the truth would expose the central problem: Palestinian society is not being prepared for peace. It is being insulated from accountability.

A healthy political culture would confront the society’s own extremism. It would publish the poll numbers honestly and begin the painful process of restructuring education, media, and institutions. The PA instead chooses the opposite — suppressing outside criticism of Hamas and pretending that international actors want a Palestinian state under current conditions.

Deradicalization and re-education are not optional. They are essential.
And it is unmistakably clear that Palestinian society is incapable of doing so on its own.

For decades the PA has relied on a strategy of deflection — blaming Israel, minimizing internal dysfunction, and shielding extremist factions to avoid backlash from the street. That strategy has produced a generation that celebrates massacre, rejects coexistence, and sees disarmament as betrayal.

The Western world may cling to the comforting fiction that Hamas is isolated and universally rejected by Palestinians. The data say otherwise. The PA’s deliberate omissions say otherwise. The very architecture of Palestinian political life says otherwise.

France may assuage the Muslim street when its Prime Minister has meetings and posts photos with PA President Mahmoud Abbas, but those actions make it complicit in promoting not only a fiction, but affirmatively dressing the wolf in sheep’s clothing.

French President Emmanuel Macron welcomes Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the Elysée Palace in Paris, France November 11, 2025. Abbas told the west “We are committed to a culture of dialogue and peace, and we want a democratic, unarmed state committed to the rule of law, transparency, justice, pluralism and the rotation of power.” No such statement appeared about the meeting in Wafa.

Until the international community confronts this reality — and insists on genuine deradicalization rather than polite diplomatic euphemisms — there will be no meaningful change in Gaza, the West Bank, or the prospects for peace.

Palestinian Authority Continues Blood Libel of Organ Heist

Even as the Israel-Gaza ceasefire struggles to take hold, the Palestinian Authority fuels the flames of Jew hatred with public smears that Israel is harvesting organs of Palestinian Arabs.

On October 18, 2025, Wafa, the official media of the Palestinian Authority penned an article that “Israel hands over remains of 15 slain Palestinians from Gaza.” In it, the PA claimed that the bodies of Arab prisoners handed over “appeared mutilated or missing organs.”

Article in Wafa, October 18, 2025

The only way forward for coexistence is to end the demonization and antisemitic attacks. The Palestinian Authority has repeatedly shown it is not up to the task.

The Second Israeli Victory in Gaza and the War on Diaspora Jews

For decades, Palestinians have believed there were three paths to statehood—and they pursued them simultaneously.

1. Violence.
Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah’s militias and several Palestinian Arab terrorist groups waged terror wars, convinced that bloodshed brought gains: the First Intifada led to the Oslo Accords; the Second Intifada drove Israel from Gaza and parts of the West Bank; the 2021 riots were hailed for halting evictions in Sheikh Jarrah.
The October 7 massacre, backed by roughly 75% of Palestinians, was the latest in that grim pattern.

2. International Pressure.
Even as rockets fell, Palestinian allies abroad pressed boycotts, divestment, sanctions, and United Nations resolutions, seeking to isolate Israel diplomatically and economically until it yielded territory.

3. Negotiations.
The Palestinian Authority claimed to prefer talks to gain legitimacy and foreign aid—but insisted on maximalist demands: all the West Bank, all of eastern Jerusalem, a Jew-free Palestine, and a mass “right of return.”
Yasser Arafat walked away from a state in 2000 and launched the Second Intifada instead.
His successor, Mahmoud Abbas, also spoke of peace while undermining it—keeping the notorious “pay-to-slay” stipends for terrorists’ families and, in a January 2018 speech, blessing those who chose violence even as he professed support for diplomacy.

Polling has consistently shown the order of Palestinian preference: violence first, global pressure second, negotiations last.

The Cost of Failed Strategies

Both violence and sanctions have brought suffering to Palestinians themselves.
Suicide bombings and rocket wars prompted Israel to build the security fence, which restricted movement and economic activity. The October 7 attack provoked a massive war in which Gaza was devastated and Hamas decimated.
Attempts to use international pressure backfired as well, leading Israel to withhold funds from the PA and tighten restrictions.

Israel fights like a cornered raccoon—fiercely, without backing down when attacked.
Every round of violence has left Palestinians weaker and poorer.

In the recent war, Israel scored a double victory:
It destroyed Hamas’s military capability, killing an estimated 25,000 fighters, and it refused to bow to global pressure, pressing on despite UN condemnations, ICC threats, and warnings of diplomatic isolation.

This shattered the long-held belief that if terror failed, the world could still coerce Israel into retreat.

A New Reality — and a Call to the Arab World

The old strategies of terror and economic warfare have failed and only deepened Palestinian misery. The third path—real negotiations—remains the only way forward.

Israel and the United States now hope the Arab world will engage Israel constructively, encouraging Palestinian leaders to abandon impossible UN demands and accept the reality of Israel’s permanence. Clinging to maximalist positions will only bring more rounds of bloodshed and despair.

And an Alternative Reality — Coming for Diaspora Jews

While Israel feels that it may have finally fought a war that could lead to long-term peace, there are those who still cling to eradicating the Jewish State. The international “Free Palestine” fighters do not want to see Israel holding onto the Old City of Jerusalem nor limiting the entry of millions of Arabs who claim UN’s mantle of “refugees.” The light at the end of the tunnel for them is not coexistence but a continued “Nakba,” a disaster.

So they are revamping the second front of international pressure, from targeting Israel to the soft targets of diaspora Jews.

They are chanting to “globalize the Intifada” to bring the war to every Jew and pro-Israel person and organization. The incineration of the kibbutzim in Israel on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah was echoed in the burning of the Jewish governor of Pennsylvania’s home on the holiday of Passover. Burning Jews alive in Kibbutz Be’eri was mirrored in burning Jews in Boulder, Colorado.

While Israel sees that it is in a strongest position in the region since its reestablishment which may finally enable an enduring peace, the anti-Israel horde has opened a new front on the global diaspora.

The international pressure of the BDS camp has not been defeated but inflamed. They are ratcheting up their smears of “apartheid” to “genocide,” and marking local Jews as co-conspirators.

While Israel won the Iranian proxies war, the Free Palestine camp is taking millions of new hostages – diaspora Jewry. Who will fight for them?

UNRWA, Hamas, and Genocide: A Lesson in Propaganda Over Truth

As accusations of genocide in Gaza dominate global headlines, it’s important to revisit a revealing episode that exposes the deeper priorities of Palestinian political culture—from Hamas to institutions like UNRWA and even the Palestinian Authority.

Starting in 2009, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) made multiple attempts to introduce Holocaust education into its school curriculum. Hamas, which governs Gaza, unequivocally rejected the idea. Its officials declared that teaching about the Holocaust would “poison the minds of Palestinian children.”

  • Yunes al-Astal, member of the Hamas faction in the Palestinian Legislative Council said teaching the Holocaust in UNRWA schools would lead to “marketing and spreading a lie.” He said that adding the subject to the curriculum was “a war crime” and “support and service of the Zionists” (Filastin al-Yawm, August 30, 2009).
  • Sami Abu Zuhri, Hamas spokesman in the Gaza Strip, said that Hamas opposed adding Holocaust to the curriculum because its objective was to justify the “Israeli the occupation” of the land of the Palestinian territories (Reuters, August 30, 2009).
  • Abd al-Rahman al-Jamal, head of the Palestinian Legislative Council’s education committee for Hamas, told a BBC correspondent that the Holocaust was “a big lie.”
  •  Mustafa Sawaf, editor of Hamas’ Felesteen, wrote an editorial (September 1) entitled slamming UNRWA’s intention to teach the Holocaust an attempt to brainwash the younger generation in the Gaza Strip and to “prettify the image of the murderous, criminal Jews.”
  • Jamila Al-Shanti, Hamas Minister of Education, said that “Talk about the Holocaust and the execution of the Jews contradicts and is against our culture, our principles, our traditions, values, heritage and religion.” (Washington Post, September 2, 2009).
  • The Hamas-affiliated Popular Committees for Refugee Affairs denounced UNRWA, claiming that the Holocaust had not yet been scientifically proven and that teaching it was liable to cause students to identify with the Jews. Members of the committee absolute refused to have their children “learn the lie invented by the Zionists” (Filastin al-‘An website, August 30, 2009). According to the Committees, “the Holocaust was not real and outstanding Western scholars have proved that.” (PalToday website, August 30, 2009). It added “Holocaust studies in refugee camps is a contemptible plot and serves the Zionist entity with a goal of creating a reality and telling stories in order to justify acts of slaughter against the Palestinian people.”

UNRWA teachers in Jordan also refused to teach about the Holocaust, saying “teaching UNRWA students about the so-called ‘Holocaust’ as part of human rights harms the Palestinian cause… and changes the students’ views regarding their main enemy, namely the Israeli occupation.”

The Palestinian Authority remained silent or dismissive about Holocaust education in the West Bank.

Consequently, UNRWA held back from pushing the issue, as its mantra is to work within the framework of the “host countries” in which it operates.

This episode illustrates three key realities:

  1. UNRWA and Hamas are not the same—but not separate either. UNRWA claims neutrality, but its own documents state that it must work with the local authorities—in Gaza, that’s Hamas. This means Hamas effectively vetoes what UNRWA can teach and what it can do, no matter what UN policy says.

2. Antisemitic attitudes aren’t limited to Hamas. The resistance to teaching the Holocaust spans Palestinian political and educational institutions well beyond Gaza.

3. Propaganda overrides fact. From Holocaust denial to blood libel-style rhetoric, the dominant trend has been the elevation of anti-Israel and antisemitic narratives over historical truth. Even Columbia professor Edward Said – who vilified the State of Israel – acknowledged the antisemitic and conspiratorial discourse in Palestinian circles regarding Holocaust denial. James Zogby went so far as to call the violent antisemitic obsession, a “tragic deformity in Palestinian political culture,” when speaking at the United Nations in June 2023.

Whether or not what is happening in Gaza today constitutes a genocide is a matter of intense debate. But what is beyond dispute is the long-standing, systemic preference in Palestinian political culture to weaponized falsehoods to spread propaganda to destroy the Jewish State.

Names and Narrative: “Two State Solution” Versus “Question of SAPs”

For decades, diplomats, academics, and international institutions have spoken in rote terms about a “two-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian Arab conflict. The problem is that such framing is intellectually dishonest and dangerously outdated.

There already is a state—Israel. It is not a hypothetical solution; it is a living reality. A sovereign nation with a vibrant democracy, a powerful military, a thriving economy, and a diverse citizenry, including over two million Arab citizens. Israel has fought for its survival, defended its borders, absorbed Jewish refugees from around the world, and became the most advanced and liberal society in the Middle East.

It is not a concept to be debated—it is a geopolitical fact.

Framing Israel as one part of a “two-state solution,” as if it were an idea or obstacle fundamentally misrepresents the situation. It inherently delegitimizes the struggle of millions of Israelis who sacrificed to build their nation since 1948 and casts their future into uncertainty.

We are not in 1947.

So let’s reframe the question. The only real debate is about the SAPs—the stateless Arab from Palestine. What is the just, secure, and realistic political future for them?

That opens multiple options—not a binary choice between creating “Palestine” or “occupation,” but a nuanced discussion based on facts on the ground and historical behavior. It reorients the discussion to the SAPs who seek an answer and thereby considers THEIR statements, sentiments, and actions rather than placing the scrutiny and opprobrium on Israel, which inherently strips SAPs of agency and responsibility.

Should the SAPs get a full sovereign state even after the dominant political party engaged in genocidal acts? Can SAPs be trusted with statehood and a military while state media glorifies terrorism and denies both Jewish history and Israel’s right to exist, and tramples on human rights?

Now, under the misguided focus on Israel as part of the “two-state solution,” the United Nations Human Rights Council has a standing item (Agenda 7) focused only on Israel. Similarly, UN Security Council passed Resolution 2334, which only reviews the actions of Israel. Nowhere does the UN focus on the actions and statements of SAPs and their leadership to consider the best course for their future. It’s a fatal flaw, one of many self-inflicted tragedies that the UN has instilled into the region.

The UN fails to comment and address:

  • The Palestinian Authority (PA) priority on paying salaries to the families of terrorists.
  • The barbaric attack of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad on October 7, 2023, and overwhelming support it had amongst SAPs.
  • The vile antisemitic Hamas foundational charter which brought the party to 58% of parliament.
  • The ongoing failure of Palestinian parties to reconcile under a single governing entity.
  • The deeply corrupt and unpopular PA.
  • A deformity in local culture in which the majority of SAPs have always wanted to kill Jewish Israeli civilians.
  • A PA media and school system that promotes antisemitism and incites hatred.
  • A society with various armed groups which refuse to disarm that are more popular than the PA.

Instead, the UN focuses on misdirection towards Israel and masquerades the reality of SAPs. It gives the PA seats at UN panels and committees even though it has no power, support or authority, parading a fake caricature of the situation. This does nothing to help SAPs address the failure of its society nor hold it accountable for its actions.

For the UN, the answer to the question of SAPs is the creation of a new state for local Arabs which should be Jew-free. Remarkably, the global body cannot ponder that such goal is deeply antisemitic. Equally as pathetic, the failure to consider any other solution to statehood grants SAPs a free hand to commit any sort of atrocity.

The Question of SAPs must not have a forgone conclusion. That approach has failed for years at the price of thousands of lives.

Maybe SAPs can have a state-minus—something akin to post-WWII Japan: self-governance, civil services, education, cultural autonomy—but demilitarized, with security handled by an external guarantor to prevent further war and terror.

Or perhaps certain areas of the West Bank could be confederated with Jordan, whose population is majority SAPs already. Maybe Jordan itself should be divided whereby a section would be part of a Palestinian State together with parts of the West Bank.

The area east of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49AL) might remain under Israeli sovereignty with SAPs having semi-autonomous status—akin to Native American reservations in the U.S., which have self-rule in many areas but rely on the larger state for defense, currency, and diplomacy. Or the areas get annexed and the residents get Israeli citizenship.

These are serious, legitimate proposals worthy of debate.

Buildings on both sides of Security barrier in Jerusalem (photo: First One Through)

But let’s be clear: any outcome is about solving the question of what to do with the SAPs. It is not about creating two states. Israel is already there.

The time has come to retire the “two-state solution” slogan. Not because peace is impossible—but because clarity and focus are essential.

Related:

The Distant Fantasy Of Two States Living Side By Side In Today’s Reality (August 2024)

The Three “Two-State Solution”s (December 2023)

“Two States For Two People” And An Arab “Right Of Return” Are Mutually Exclusive (September 2023)

Jew Not Jew

Let’s state something openly and clearly: “Anti-Zionism” deserves to be in quotation marks. Israel exists. It is not a theory. Being “anti-Zionism” is anti-Israel, so be clear.

Under this framework of anti-Israel feelings and behavior, “anti-Zionists” claim they are just against the government of Israel or policies of the government of Israel. That’s fine. Many people dislike their own government and some policies. However, it is a curious thing to be consumed by hatred of government policies far away from your own shores, flagging something deeper like a potential hatred of Jews, but let’s just put a pin in that observation for now.

The ongoing deliberate mislabelling of Jews as something other than Jews – say “colonists” or “settlers” – is part of a vilification campaign and clearly antisemitic.

It is true on college campuses, in the media, at the United Nations and of course, from the Palestinian Authority itself.

When Jews – whether from Israel, east of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49AL), or around the world – visit the Jewish Temple Mount during regular visiting hours, it should not be news. Yet it is for the supposedly moderate Palestinian Authority.

Wafa, the official media of the PA, repeatedly stated that a handful of Jews were “colonists” because they dared to step over the 1949 Armistice Lines. Walking around the Temple Mount was called “storming Al- Aqsa compound.” Their presence disturbed “Palestinian worshippers,” a.k.a. Muslims.

The blatant antisemitism was marketed under a political struggle. Jews were transformed into a combative illegal horde under a political monicker. The PA is not antisemitic, just anti-colonists. It is a mere coincidence that all Jews are considered colonists (Israeli Arabs are called Palestinian citizens of Israel to shed them of potentially being called “settlers.”)

Concealing the word “Jew” does not hide the antisemitism. They are not illegal people and they are not doing anything nefarious. The veneer of United Nations-sanctioned political obfuscation does not wash the religious animus nor absolve the antisemitic hatred.

The “al aqsa flood” being waged by the popular jihadi extremists of Hamas is being vanquished by the Israeli army. It is time to terminate the political and libelous “al aqsa storm” fought by Fatah and the PA, by all people of good conscience.

Related articles:

The Dangerous ‘Settlers Storming Al Aqsa’ Fiction (October 2023)

Palestinian Authority Continues To Incite Violence Against Jews On Temple Mount (May 2023)

The Noxious Anti-Semitism Of “European Settler Colonialism” (September 2022)

“Settlers” Now Means Jews Stepping Over The Green Line (July 2021)

Replacing the Jordanian Waqf on The Temple Mount (July 2020)

Visitor Rights on the Temple Mount (October 2015)

The New Palestinian Authority Talking Points (And Writers?)

Hamas stole the spotlight of the local Arabs in the Middle East when it launched a war against Israel on October 7, 2023. Remarkably, members of the Muslim world, western academia and others tied to the socialist-jihadi alliance rallied to the political-terrorist group, leaving its rival Fatah which holds the presidency of the Palestinian Authority, in the shadows.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas has tried for eighteen months to push himself into the center of the discussion and relevance. A few months ago he began to crack down on terrorists in Area A east of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49AL), hoping to show the West that he is capable of governing Gaza after the war.

On April 23, 2025, he gave a long speech in Ramallah, which he hoped would craft a new narrative and make the PA a political force throughout the region. Here are some highlights:

There have been FOUR Nakbas. While Arabs normally reserve the word “Nakba” for the 1948 loss of the war they initiated against Israel, Abbas added the 1917 Balfour Declaration of the Judeo-Christian western world recognizing the history of Jews in their holy land and right to reestablish their homeland as the primary “catastrophe.” He added the loss of the 1967 war to destroy Israel in which Jordan lost E49AL/”West Bank”, Egypt lost Gaza and the Sinai, and Syria lost the Golan Heights. Noteworthy, Abbas added the 2007 Hamas “treacherous coup” in Gaza in which it expelled the PA as a fourth Nakba, setting back the mission of Palestinian statehood.

Abbas did not condemn Hamas’s October 7 barbaric attack in Israel which was celebrated by the vast majority of Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs). Instead, he attacked his rival group’s expulsion of the PA. It implied that there would have been no war with Israel and no destruction of Gaza had the PA been in charge of the strip. Such adept speechcraft was likely penned by western political advisors.

The “Right of Return” is a hill to die on. Literally. Abbas said that the right of millions of SAPs to live inside of Israel is non-negotiable and that Arabs would rather die than sacrifice such right. The fact that it is a non-starter for Israel is seemingly of little concern. The United Nations has blessed such principle and the PA can do no less.

Israeli Arabs and Palestinian Arabs are Refugees. This is a curious mind-bending twist of language. In different sections of his speech, Abbas said that there are “over eight million” “Palestinian refugees… inside Palestine and in the diaspora.” UNRWA lists 6 million wards in its five areas of operation, Gaza, E49AL/West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. The two million Arabs in Israel would get to Abbas’s 8 million.

Only in Palestinian mythology can people be a refugee living in the same house and town where prior generations lived. The new Palestinian narrative is that a country of Palestine always existed, and Israel’s creation made everyone a refugee by definition, even if every local Arab didn’t move an inch. How these Arabs weren’t “refugees” under British or Ottoman rule is beyond reason, but that is the beauty of mythology.

The PA may allow Jewish prayer on the Jewish Temple Mount. Or very much not. Abbas voiced a conspiracy theory that “Al-Aqsa is now facing the most horrific conspiracy from the occupation, as incitement continues to destroy it and build a Jewish temple in its place.” Jews seeking basic human rights to pray at their holiest location – which is in the spot of the Dome of the Rock, not al-Aqsa – has nothing to do with destroying the current structure.

Towards the end of his remarks, Abbas stressed the need for “religious freedoms and… unfettered access to all places of worship for all religions,” suggesting Jewish prayer at the Temple Mount. Abbas may feel he danced around this in claiming the Temple Mount is a purely Muslim site and therefore beyond any claim of Jewish rights for prayer.

Elsewhere in the speech, Abbas repeated many of his past derogatory comments about Israel and the splendor of the PA which are not noteworthy.

CONCLUSION

The long orchestrated speech was made while Egypt and Jordan craft plans for Gaza, and before a much-anticipated June summit in New York chaired by France and Saudi Arabia in which Palestinians hope to become a full member state at the United Nations. Abbas is fighting for his personal future and the Palestinian Authority, so laid out some new markers. It will be important to find out who worked with Abbas on the speech and what impact they are having behind the scenes.

The fact is that Mahmoud Abbas in April 2025 is like Joe Biden in April 2024: people who pay attention know that the leader is a cutout figurehead but willfully pretend otherwise. There are puppeteers behind the scenes controlling the performance, leaving the frontman in place as a convenience to blot the knowledge that the alternative is worse, a losing hand.

A new Palestinian narrative is being drafted before our eyes as parties vie for roles in Gaza and the region. Abbas and others are attempting to rewrite history to seize power as the vacuum nears on the horizon. Now is a particular moment to recall facts we know to be true, and watch how society will bend historic reality to accomodate a different future.

Hopefully we will also identify the scriptwriters before it’s too late.

Related articles:

Abbas Pays Tribute To Murderers Of Jews Before The United Nations General Assembly, To Applause (September 2023)

Mahmoud Abbas And The Rubber Room Tango (September 2022)

Mahmoud Abbas’s Particular Anti-Zionist Holocaust Denial (July 2017)

Gaza’s Defenders Condemn It

The war between Hamas and related Palestinian militant groups in Gaza with Israel has evoked many passions. Defenders of both sides point to either the barbaric October 7 massacre and the taking of hostages on one side, or the lack of freedom of movement, dignity and sovereignty on the other.

Where the defenders of Gaza and those in Israel agree is that Hamas has not been completed eliminated and its ideology remains popular among Palestinian Arabs. Lost among Gaza’s defenders is that their comments and philosophy condemn any prospect for peace and should prevent any rebuilding efforts.

Palestinian Arabs believe that ALL of the land is being “occupied” and that Jews are foreigners with no rights as illegal invaders. They oppose the existence of Israel and that peace with Israel is a disgrace and insult to their dignity.

A majority of Gazans have always favored killing Jewish civilians inside of Israel, so the enormous support for the October 7 massacre is not surprising. Gaza’s endorsement of Hamas has allowed the rump of Hamas that remains to continue to rule the strip, even though the two million Gazans could easily overwhelm them, despite liberal media stating that Gazans hate Hamas.

Unmentioned is the Palestinian Authority, deeply unloved by local Palestinians. The United Nations and American Democrats pretend that the PA President has support and power among the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) but he doesn’t. Even The New York Times finally shared opinions of a range of Palestinian Arabs from around the world who mock the PA as worthless and must be reconstituted to include the voices of the “resistance” against Israel, like Hamas.

The New York Times Opinion piece sharing voices from Palestinian Arabs who mock the Palestinian Authority and support Hamas and its viewpoints

Even after a war in which Hamas and Gaza got obliterated, its supporters of Hezbollah in Lebanon had to sue for a ceasefire and Iran became defanged, Palestinian Arabs still refuse to accept the legitimacy of the Jewish State. After the local failures to destroy Israel, SAPs pray for global efforts from the United Nations and antisemites worldwide to end the “Zionist project” and enable Arabs to retake all of the Jewish Promised Land.

The United States under President Trump has made clear that it will not let that happen. Trump has pulled money and the U.S. out of United Nations groups which condemn Israel. He has expedited military equipment to Israel. And he has made clear that he expects American allies to do much the same.

Hamas’s defenders want the war against Israel to continue, which will likely delay any rebuilding of Gaza and holding elections which would likely see Hamas gain power. Those opposing Hamas do so silently, and focus on pushing the world to embrace the charade of the Palestinian Authority to fast-track aid into Gaza.

Palestinian Arabs have condemned themselves to an ongoing ‘Nakba’ since they continue to reject the Jewish State. Until that ideology ends, the only rebuilding of Gaza that should happen is the wall separating the enclave from Israel.

Related articles:

The Only Way The Conflict Can End (November 2023)

NakbaWashing Crimes Against Jews (April 2023)

The Parameters of Palestinian Dignity (August 2016)

What “All Hell Will Break Out” May Look Like

President-elect Donald Trump issued a warning to the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hamas to release the 101 hostages it stole from Israel on October 7, 2023, or “all hell will break out” for them and the region. He would not comment further on what that meant for Hamas or its allies but reiterated that it would be severe.

Below are some thoughts on what actions the Trump administration might take, which fall into two principal categories: military and non-military.

Military

Trump’s first term in office did not see much activity in the way of American forces and action. While he did increase spending for the military over the Obama administration, his actual use of force was targeted and limited to particular strikes, such as the assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani and missile strikes on Syria for using chemical weapons. It is possible that Trump would order targeted attacks on Hamas operatives as well.

The general argument against this is that Israel has already pulverized Hamas in Gaza and there is little else that the U.S. could do. That is not true.

The United States has several things that Israel doesn’t have: massive bombs; incremental intelligence; and global influence.

At various points of the Hamas-initiated war, the Biden administration withheld some armaments to Israel, fearing it would harm civilians. Those bombs and other tools of warfare could be used against Hamas and its allies. Hezbollah tunnels in Lebanon and Iran’s nuclear program could be eviscerated with advanced weaponry, whether given to and launched by Israel or used by American forces directly.

U.S. intelligence and reach spans beyond the immediate actors. One of Hamas’s leaders, Khaled Mashal lives openly in Qatar, where the US has its largest military base in the Middle East. The Trump administration may give Qatar the option of green-lighting the elimination of Mashal and his associates or watch the US move its over 10,000-person force to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as the administration advances the Abraham Accords with a normalization agreement between Israel and KSA.

Non-military

The United States power can bring the world to pressure Hamas through political, economic and judicial actions. This is the opposite approach of the Biden administration and the world which put pressure on Israel to the detriment of the hostages. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken admitted as much that “every time we put pressure on Israel, Hamas backed off from the hostage deal.”

The initiatives start with a simple order: label every government, agency, business or person associated with Hamas a terrorist entity.

The Palestinian Authority‘s parliament, the Palestinian Legislative Council, is led by Hamas. The PA would immediately become a designated terrorist group unless it fires every member of Hamas. All members of the PA would be subject to arrest and no organization would be permitted to send material support to the PA. Every US charity that sends money to the PA would lose tax-exempt status and/or be shut down.

The United Nations considers Hamas a legitimate political Palestinian party and its main agency in the region, UNRWA, closely coordinates with Hamas. UNRWA offices in the United States would be closed and the US would push allies to similarly halt funding to UNRWA and close its offices. UNRWA would not only lose all US funding and standing, but possibly the United Nations as well, if the organization continues to legitimize Hamas.

In addition to the “axis of resistance” of the Iranian proxies already on the terrorist list, Qatar and Turkey would be forced to chose between the United States and Hamas. Each would see its economies and regional aspirations quickly collapse should they side with terrorists. Ramifications could include not only moving all US assets out of Qatar to Saudi Arabia, but also supporting Israel and Cyprus to all energy claims in the Mediterranean Sea which Turkey covets.

In the United States, people who provide material support to not just Hamas, but the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA would be committing a criminal act. People would go to jail for up to 20 years or be deported. Entire groups, or perhaps just senior leadership of organizations like the Democratic Socialists of America, Students for Justice in Palestine and others could be impacted, depending on their level of support.

In April 2024, Congress enacted the Hamas and Other Palestinian Terrorist Groups International Financing Prevention Act which requires the executive branch to impose sanctions on foreign states or persons that provide certain types of support to Hamas, and other Palestinian terrorist groups. Trump’s version of “hell” for Hamas supporters will be to not only enforce the will of Congress but to expand its targets by capturing the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA as Hamas affiliates.

The Bookend of Sheikh Jarrah Eviction?

In May 2021, Israeli courts ruled that Arab squatters would be evicted from homes owned by Israeli Jews in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood north of the Old City of Jerusalem. This action set off a mini war with Hamas in Gaza, and law enforcement never proceeded with the eviction.

There was another property dispute going on at that time in Silwan, just southeast of the Old City, a neighborhood founded by Yemenite Jews in the 1880s. The eviction of the Arabs, the Ghaith family, was similarly postponed and the family appealed the decision in Israeli courts and lost. For the past few weeks they have been advised to vacate the two-story building but refused. December 10 was set as the eviction date, and it happened this morning according to the Palestinian Authority-run media site, Wafa.

Wafa reporting on eviction from Silwan

Wafa reported the story from Gaza, a strange dynamic as the PA has no presence there. Presumably it was done to make the action look like a military takeover by “Israeli colonists, under the protection of the Israeli Occupation Forces.”

The United Nations had weighed in against Israel about the evictions on July 30, 2024 when it said “These [eviction] cases are examples of an ongoing systematic settlers’ campaign and application of a range of laws discriminatorily, to uproot Palestinians from their homes, take over their property and implant Israeli settlers in the heart of Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem.” Israel’s court disagreed and stated it was simply a real estate matter in returning the property to the rightful owners who had been ethnically cleansed from Silwan when Jordan invaded and illegally seized the land in the 1948/9 war.

The May 2021 mini war launched new terrorist groups east of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49AL, “West Bank”) and set local Arabs on a genocidal path to kill Jewish civilians inside Israel. In March 2021, 18% of West Bank Arabs wanted to kill Jewish civilians; it rose to 57% by March 2023, close to the level of Gazan bloodlust.

The failed eviction of Arab squatters from Sheikh Jarrah in May 2021 initiated the soft launch of the massive war engulfing the region. Perhaps the December 2024 actual eviction of squatters from Silwan will mark the beginning of the end to the war.