In 1975, film theorist Laura Mulvey coined the term “male gaze” to describe how women are portrayed on screen. The camera does not simply show reality — it frames women for a heterosexual male viewer. Women become visual objects, defined by how they serve the viewer’s pleasure, not by their own full humanity.
The concept applies far beyond film. A “gaze” is any dominant perspective that controls how another group is seen. The one doing the looking holds power; the one being looked at is flattened, reduced, and judged. The colonial gaze. The white gaze. The antisemitic gaze. In each, the subject is stripped of complexity and placed in a role that makes sense to the audience, not to themselves.
Israel is caught in such a gaze. Call it the “Israel Gaze.”
In the Israel Gaze, the Jewish state is the object, never the subject. It is to be observed, graded, managed — but rarely allowed to speak or act on its own terms. Its security concerns are minimized; its legitimacy treated as conditional.
Like the male gaze that zooms in on a woman’s body while ignoring the rest of her life, the Israel Gaze focuses on narrow, selective snapshots. Cameras linger on a checkpoint — but not the suicide bombings that created the need for it. They magnify airstrikes — but crop out the rockets that triggered them.
The framing serves the outside viewer, often a Western political elite, who want a morality play: powerful oppressor vs. powerless victim. Israel is assigned the role of aggressor. No matter the reality on the ground, the narrative is cast before the curtain rises.
And just as the male gaze reduces women to archetypes — seductress, mother, damsel — the Israel Gaze flattens Israel into “occupier,” “aggressor,” “settler state.” The country’s remarkable complexity — the ultimate decolonization project, a refuge for a persecuted people, a diverse democracy, a hub of innovation, a nation under constant threat — disappears from view.
This gaze is not neutral. It is a tool of power. In film, it props up patriarchy. In global politics, it reinforces the idea that Israel’s right to exist, defend itself, or define its own future depends on approval from outsiders who claim the right to judge.
Typical UN vote condemning Israel – lopsided
Mulvey noted in her analysis that “her visual presence tends to work against the development of a story line, to freeze the flow of action in moments of erotic contemplation.” So it is in global politics, with the viewer solely transfixed on Israel’s supposed evils that the actual storyline – and path to peace – is lost out of sight.
Both the male gaze and the Israel Gaze deny the subject the dignity of being whole. Both reduce identity to an image crafted for someone else’s satisfaction. And both sustain an imbalance in which the viewer’s comfort matters more than the subject’s survival.
Israel faces two battles at once: the immediate fight for security and the deeper fight to be seen truthfully. Until the gaze changes, the story will never be told honestly — and the verdict will be written before the trial even begins.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has once again proven himself to be a reckless ideologue, dangerously detached from reality. In his latest remarks on July 28, 2025 regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Guterres declared that Palestinians have a “right” to a state. This is not only false, but dangerously misleading at a time when thousands of lives hang in the balance.
No group of people has an entitlement to a state. International law does not guarantee statehood to any specific ethnic or religious population. What people have is the right to self-determination, which can be fulfilled through various frameworks — including autonomy, federation, or integration with existing states. The assumption that this must culminate in Palestinian sovereignty from the river to the sea is not a legal imperative; it is a political preference, and a deadly one at that.
Guterres framed the issue as a false binary: either Palestinians get a state, or they will be condemned to expulsion or second-class status. This is a silly strawman, ignoring the obvious alternatives. Palestinians could become citizens of Jordan or Egypt — both of which administered the West Bank and Gaza, respectively, before 1967. Or they could establish a state in Gaza and in Area A of the West Bank, which is already under Palestinian control under the Oslo Accords. But they have no right to demand Israeli land, nor a capital in Jerusalem.
His reference to “East Jerusalem” as if it were a legitimate, independent entity is equally misleading. “East Jerusalem” was never a recognized capital or separate city — it was a temporary result of Transjordan’s illegal occupation between 1949 and 1967. The 1947 UN Partition Plan, which Arabs rejected with violence, never designated it for an Arab state. There is no legal basis to call Israel’s presence there “occupation.”
The most disturbing part of Guterres’ statement is his call for Hamas to be included in a unity government with fantasy notions of “we must support Palestinian unity around a peaceful, democratic and inclusive vision for statehood.” Let’s be clear: these are the same Hamas terrorists who committed mass rape, torture, and murder on October 7. This is a group with the most antisemitic and genocidal foundational charter ever written. To reward their atrocities with political power is not peacebuilding — it is moral depravity. It is the very definition of appeasement, sanitizing evil and encouraging further violence.
What kind of values is Guterres promoting when he elevates genocidal psychopaths into prospective leaders of a future state? It is not peace. It is not justice. It is not coexistence.
UNSG Antonio Guterres
Time and again, Palestinian leadership — whether Fatah or Hamas — has made its goals clear: no Israel, and no Jews. From school curricula to charters to chants in the streets, the obsession is not with borders, but with obliteration. The Secretary-General’s repeated attempts to whitewash this reality reveal either staggering ignorance or something much more nefarious.
Guterres is not a neutral peacemaker. He is actively endangering Israeli lives by proposing that Israel close its eyes to reality and pretend Hamas is a peace partner. He is fueling conflict under the guise of diplomacy and exposing the rot at the heart of the UN system.
They came for the Yazidis. They came for the Druze. They came for the Kurds. We came for the Jews.
Across the Middle East, ethnic and religious minorities have been hunted, uprooted, and erased. Yazidi women were rounded up and sold like cattle. The Druze were betrayed by neighbors and hunted in the streets. The Kurds—called terrorists for seeking sovereignty—were chased by Turkey with Western silence as a shield.
Thousands of Yazidi women sold as sex slaves in Iraq
We watched. We said nothing. We let them disappear, acknowledging—without saying it—that the Islamic Middle East had no place for ethnic and religious minorities. In our United Nations chairs, we shook hands with their butchers and waited for the news cycle to move on.
But not for the Jews.
The one minority whose return to sovereignty we supported—however begrudgingly many decades ago—was the Jews. We recognized their state, and in doing so, we made demands. MAKE demands. Demands no other people are burdened with.
We demand that Israel allow its citizens to be slaughtered and call for restraint. That it accept that others dictate its borders and immigration policy. That Jews be barred from praying at their holiest site. That any territory not clearly within historic armistice lines be judenrein, Jew-free.
And when Israel resists these demands – no, conditions we now apply for its existence – we condemn it. Not just at the UN, but in our schools, in our media, and on our streets—training citizens to treat diaspora Jews the same way: that they are alive only due to our grace. We are not equals; they owe us for everything.
We did not protect the Kurds. We abandoned the Yazidis. The Druze are being rounded up and killed. But we took action to help the Jews defy their extinction after the Holocaust. And for that, we believe they owe us—debtors with no right to complain. We pretend that Israel is a peer at the UN but we know the reality: it’s a vassal state and will be commanded by the order of the day.
Druze hunted in Syria
We don’t ask anything of the Gazans. Their genocidal rage toward Jews is seen as instinct, not ideology. Understandable. Natural. That’s why global protests erupt only when Jews defend themselves—not when they’re killed. Dog bites man, not the other way round.
To help Jews survive, we crafted Israel as a dam. It may shield its people inside from the massive jihadi flood—but only within walls we design.
However, once built, we insist that the floodwaters be let in. Millions of Muslim “refugees” must be allowed to “return” to the spring. The saltwater ocean that surrounds and crashes against the well’s walls, will mix with the spring water inside to become undrinkable.
We know it makes no sense. But we know we can’t contain the ocean, so we poison the well. It will happen eventually anyway, we reason.
The entrance to the United Nations’ Aida Refugee Camp, near Bethlehem, with a key on top showing that the doorway to get into homes inside Israel is via the UN
The world is watching—and learning. There is no future for Druze, Yazidis and Kurds. We silently move our lips, and our streets at home are silent. Yet when Jews retaliate when massacred, we rage and our people echo the screams.
Collectively we wonder whether maintaining the Jewish State is too hard.
Whether under dictatorship or democracy, religious zealotry or secular law, the story repeats: minorities are tolerated in the Global South only as long as they are passive, picturesque, and dying. The moment they survive and carve out self-determination, they are a threat to those with seats in the august UN chambers. Will these little tribes demand rights and sequester land too?
Yet another vote against Israel at the UN General Assembly
“Globalize the intifada” is not just a slogan; it is already in motion. Those floodwaters have breached the shores. The jihad is mowing down non-Muslims in the Middle East. It is teaching the Global North the chorus courtesy of Qatar, and dance moves via TikTok from China.
Marchers in the Global North demand an end to the Jewish State and persecution of Jews everywhere
The Global South – 42% Muslim outside of China and Latin America – will soon control the UN and is preparing to erase the exception of the Jewish state. Once America is convinced to step aside, the protective walls will surely collapse and the Jews will be slaughtered like other minority groups.
Druze mowed down outside hospital in Syria
Jews wonder why the streets are empty of protestors when various nations of the Middle East slaughter ethnic minorities, but are packed when Israel fights terrorists. It’s because Jews have still not internalized that the world views them as a minority which will ultimately be erased by the tide of the Islamic jihad, and it regrets making an exception for the most persecuted people on earth.
There are two wars taking place in Gaza: one is a textbook definition of a genocidal war while the other is a reluctant war of ethnic cleansing.
While critics of the Jewish State hurl the term “genocide” as a weapon, a blood libel designed to strip Israel of its legitimacy, it is an inversion: it is Hamas and only Hamas that is engaged in a genocide.
Hamas’s 1988 foundational charter is not a vague political platform. It is an open call to murder Jews. Article 7 quotes an Islamic hadith that urges Muslims to kill Jews wherever they find them. Article 13 states that “initiatives and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement.” Peace is forbidden. Coexistence is a crime.
And the Palestinian people did not reject this vision; they embraced it. In 2005, they elected Mahmoud Abbas as president — a man who wrote his doctoral thesis denying the Holocaust. In 2006, they voted Hamas into power, giving the genocidal group 58% of the parliament. These were not fringe votes. These were popular, democratic choices made in full view of Hamas’s open ideology.
Then came October 7, 2023.
In the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, Hamas — the ruling government of Gaza — unleashed its long-promised war of annihilation. They murdered 1,200 people, from babies in cribs to elderly women in wheelchairs. They burned families alive, filmed their atrocities, and broadcast their bloodlust to the world. The Palestinian street erupted in celebration. Polls showed 75% of Palestinian Arabs supporting the massacre of Jews.
This was not a surprise. This was fulfillment. A generation raised on genocidal propaganda in schools, mosques, and television carried out what they had been taught. They were not rebelling against Hamas — they were Hamas. Thousands of Gazans participated in the October 7 slaughter.
Israel, faced with an existential threat, responded. It had tried the diplomatic route. It had withdrawn from Gaza in 2005. It had allowed billions of dollars in humanitarian aid to flow into the Strip. It had mostly tolerated rocket fire and bus bombings and flaming kites with modest responses. But after October 7, there was no possibility of a tepid response with a group with an increasing capacity to carry out its genocidal intent.
Israel launched a war of necessity — a war to end the Hamas threat once and for all. The goal was not genocide, but defense. Not extermination, but eradication of a terrorist force.
But the nature of this war is highly complex. Hamas does not engage Israel’s army on an open battlefield but underneath hospitals, mosques and homes. It warehouses missiles in schools and launches them from playgrounds. There is no ability to eliminate the terrorists without severe destruction to dual-use civilian-military infrastructure and significant collateral damage.
And that looks a lot like ethnic cleansing.
Gaza ruins
Ethnic cleansing refers to the forced removal of an ethnic or religious group from a territory. And yes, it is possible that the outcome of Israel’s war will be a Gaza without many Palestinian Arabs. Gaza cannot be rebuilt atop terrorist tunnels and booby traps. The terrorist enclave that Gazans built since 2007 cannot remain nor be replicated.
It has long been a sign of instilled antisemitism that the United Nations has accused Israel of genocide, at least as far back as 2013, as a mask for Palestinian Arabs genocidal intentions. It is a classic form of the adage “the best defense is a good offense,” accusing Israel of the crimes of Palestinian Arabs, forcing Israel into a defensive posture, both militarily and politically.
But it is another level of tragic irony that in this defensive war, Israel is open to the accusation of ethnic cleansing.
No nation on earth has faced the choices Israel faces. No other country is expected to coexist with a neighbor whose elected leaders seek its annihilation. No one wants to see civilian suffering but Israel has tried every alternative — and the price has always been paid in Jewish blood.
The world is watching a premeditated war of genocide – which it enabled and encouraged through the United Nations’ statements and actions – be defeated by a small, determined country. The contours of that victory may appear to the casual viewer as ethnic cleansing, and will certainly be marketed as such by Israel haters, as a cruel collective punishment against civilians and so-called “refugees.”
The Global North will consider “ethnic cleansing” as the lesser charge relative to the smear of “genocide” long advanced by the Global South. Will the resulting actions encourage and enable the next genocidal war against the Jewish State remains to be seen.
The United Nations Security Council is comprised of five permanent members (P5) and ten elected members (E10) who try to pass resolutions to promote global and regional peace and cooperation. It fails repeatedly regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict as it prioritizes protecting the political-terrorist group Hamas above all else.
On June 4, 2025, E10 put forward a draft resolution which “demand[ed] an immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire in Gaza; the immediate, dignified, and unconditional release of all hostages held by Hamas and other groups; and the immediate and unconditional lifting of all restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid into the territory.”
The acting US Representative Dorothy Shea vetoed the draft resolution saying “US opposition to this resolution should come as no surprise – it is unacceptable for what it does say, it is unacceptable for what it does not say, and it is unacceptable for the manner in which it has been advanced. The United States has been clear: we would not support any measure that fails to condemn Hamas and does not call for Hamas to disarm and leave Gaza.” She added “We cannot allow the Security Council to award Hamas’ intransigence. Hamas and other terrorists must have no future in Gaza. As Secretary [Marco] Rubio has said: ‘If an ember survives, it will spark again into a fire’.”
Knowing that the United States would use its veto right to reject the resolution, one is left with two conclusions: the rest of the Security Council wanted the US to veto the resolution, or they care more about protecting Hamas than civilians in Gaza.
Perhaps the fourteen UNSC countries want Israel to continue the war but want to placate their pro-Palestinian constituents, appearing to support Gazans while knowing that no relief would happen until Hamas is defeated. Maybe the countries want Israel and the United States to both look isolated – the “little Satan” and “Big Satan” as the Islamic Republic of Iran calls them – hoping to curry favor among the Global South, with 80% of the world’s population.
Either way, the world cannot really believe there is a genocide happening in Gaza, if the path to a ceasefire was simply adding two lines calling for Hamas to surrender.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres is first and foremost a politician, not a human being. What else can be the reasons behind his ignoring the slaughter of 1,200 people in Israel, burning entire towns, raping women and kidnapping 250 people, other than serving his constituents of the Global South whom he has learned are rabid antisemites?
When a radical socialist-jihadi gunned down two young Israeli diplomats outside a Jewish event in Washington, D.C. in May 2025, Guterres immediately issued a statement condemning the murders. It was something he did not do after the massacre in Israel on October 7, 2023. Or October 8. Or October 9. Or October 10.
But he rose to the occasion in May 2025 after the targeted killing of the Israeli couple by a lunatic yelling “Free, free Palestine,” as if he were surrounded by fantom college campus agitators. Perhaps anticipating blowback from the anti-Israel horde he leads (read serves), Guterres explained this statement “reiterat[ing] his consistent condemnation of attacks against diplomatic officials.”
THIS particular antisemitic murderer should be “brought to justice” because he killed diplomats, a Bozo no-no. In this circumstance, the UN “extends sympathies to the Government of Israel,” because members of the sacred circle of high brow governmental officials were gunned down, not Jews having breakfast with their kids in their kitchens.
The thousands of butchered and injured people in Israel by over 3,000 Gazans in October 2023 were just Jews and therefore deserved no sympathy from the United Nations. Guterres could not offer any words of condemnation or consolation to the Jewish State for such barbarity; he has been so trained by the Global South. His office would not demand that thousands of Gazans “be brought to justice”; they are the UN’s protected wards.
When the head of the United Nations explained to the world that he decided to quickly condemn the murder of two Israelis when he ignored the butchering of 1,200, because of unity among diplomats, he further exposed the profound inhumanity of the cancerous global institution.
On May 23, 2025, France said it is “determined to advance the implementation of the two state solution.” The June conference in New York that it will chair with Saudi Arabia titled “the International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Palestinian Question and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution” is designed to focus on IMPLEMENTATION. France made clear that it expects “Irreversible steps and concrete measures for its implementation” to make the future a reality.
The combined effort of a western country and the dominant force in the Arab world to spearhead the effort, might lead to a balanced consensus that can help the parties forward. To be successful, the team must be realistic about the goals and constraints of both Israel and Palestinian society, and move on a realistic timeframe. Most importantly, it must work on an ENDURING peace that will last, not simply getting to an agreement.
Here are seven constructive steps that could lead to a stable two-state solution:
1. Disarm All Palestinian Militias
Peace starts with law and order. The Palestinian Authority has no monopoly on violence in the territories it claims to govern. Hamas and Islamic Jihad still run Gaza. In the West Bank, terrorist groups like Lion’s Den and the Jenin Brigades run wild with guns and explosives.
France needs to lead an international push to fully disarm all terrorist militias, not just generic phrases of “condemning violence.” All arms must be placed under the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA), or there’s no point in talking about sovereignty. No state — and certainly not Israel — can accept a terror enclave as its neighbor, as has existed in Gaza since 2007.
2. Elections With Rules
The last Palestinian elections were held when Justin Beiber became legally allowed to drink alcohol. Mahmoud Abbas was elected in 2005… for a 4-year term. He’s now on year 20.
New elections must be held, but not every group gets to play. Hamas — a terrorist organization by U.S., EU, and Israeli designations — should not be allowed to run, just like Nazis weren’t allowed to run in post-war Germany. The party should be outlawed.
France and Saudi Arabia should insist on clear criteria: no party that promotes violence, antisemitism, or the destruction of Israel gets a seat at the table. There is no pathway to an enduring peace if there is an underlying state of war.
3. Reform Education — Stop Teaching Hate
An Enduring Peace isn’t signed on paper; it’s taught in classrooms and instilled in society.
As part of de-Hamasification of Palestinian society, schools — especially and including those run by UNRWA — a complete overhaul of Palestinian education, with international oversight to remove antisemitic and violent content. IMPACT-SE has written about this problem for years, and concrete steps must be taken to allow a future of coexistence.
4. Stop Treating Jews Like Foreigners in Their Homeland
Palestinian schools aren’t the only problem. The United Nations is rank with Jew-hatred and one cannot expect Palestinians to be less anti-Israeli Jews than the global body.
UN Security Council Resolution 2334 outrageously declared that Jews living in eastern Jerusalem and east of the 1949 Armistice Lines with Jordan (E49AL) are somehow illegal — a modern form of antisemitism dressed up in legalese. UNSC 2334 should be renounced and rescinded as part of the steps towards an enduring peace.
France must reject the idea that Jews should be banned from parts of their ancestral homeland. At the same time, to facilitate compromise, a cap on Jewish residents east of the 1949 lines — say 15% of the overall population — could be introduced to avoid major demographic shifts in a future Palestinian state.
5. End the So-Called “Right of Return”
The Palestinian demand that millions of descendants of refugees be allowed into Israel is not about peace — it’s about destroying Israel demographically. It’s a fantasy rooted in grievance, not reality.
France must take the lead in declaring the Palestinian “right of return” over. In its place, a compensation fund should be set up — funded by Israel, Arab countries that started the 1948 war, and international donors. A similar fund should be set up for the descendants of Jews from Arab countries which were expelled in the decades after 1948. Work should begin now to compile a list of the properties which were lost and the related descendants who will collect associated reparations.
6. tighten the border framework, including jerusalem
The Saudi Peace Plan of 2002 suggested that Israel retreat to the 1949 Armistice Lines — a temporary ceasefire line, not a border. That’s not a starting point. That’s a non-starter.
France and its partners should endorse a realistic territorial framework: borders will fall somewhere between the current Israeli security barrier and the 1949 lines, through mutual negotiations. Land swaps are fine — as long as they reflect demographic realities and security needs.
UNRWA, the UN agency that was supposed to help refugees, has become a sprawling, corrupt bureaucracy that perpetuates dependency and fuels incitement. Its existence undermines the Palestinian Authority and entrenches the myth of perpetual refugee status.
France and Saudi Arabia should lead the call for a phased shutdown of UNRWA, starting in Gaza and the West Bank. Services should be handed over to the PA — and resettlement should begin for Palestinians in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan, with annual caps to avoid regional overload.
UNRWA offices in Jerusalem (photo: First One Through)
Bottom Line
France says it wants permanent changes on the ground. Good. The Middle East has had enough of circular negotiations, terrorism-as-usual, and international hypocrisy.
If France is ready to be honest, clear-eyed, and courageous, it can help move the region toward peace. But if it sticks to the same old script — blaming Israel, indulging Palestinian rejectionism, and hiding behind the UN — then we’ll just keep getting the same instability, bloodshed, and failure.
Peace will not be achieved overnight and “concrete” steps must be phased with reality. France and Germany gradually became allies after World War II with the benefit of the deNazification of Germany. Germany even made peace with the Jewish State over time once it was committed to avoid the hatred of its past. An overhaul of the Palestinian mindset and rejection of radical jihadism and goal of eliminating the Jewish State, under the sheepherding of Saudi Arabia can help map a better course for the region.
France must internalize the needed overhaul of the “deformity in Palestinian culture,” to quote James Zogby, President of the Arab American Institute who spoke to the UN in June 2023. Saudi Arabia must overlay the Abraham Accords on top of its 2002 Peace Plan to refine it to account for the reality of the last several years.
The emphasis of the France-Saudi chaired conference must be on the direction, not on the permanence of “concrete” and “irreversible” steps, to find a less violent and just future for the region.
How many generations should someone be called a “refugee?” Two? Ten? My parents were refugees and I consider myself the son of refugees. But not a refugee. To do so would be a mockery of millions of people fleeing homes to faraway lands where they have no family, infrastructure or knowledge of the local language.
Alas, while every year the world adds and removes refugees from the global tally, there is a permanent exception.
There are roughly 122 million displaced people worldwide (68 million internally displaced, 38 million refugees and millions of others seeking protection), and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is tasked with helping them. Its mission is clear: assist people fleeing conflict or persecution to either return home when it’s safe, or resettle in a new country where they can rebuild their lives and become citizens. Refugee status, according to UNHCR, is meant to be temporary. A tragic but manageable step toward normalcy.
But for one group of people, the rules were rewritten.
In 1949, the United Nations created a separate agency: the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). Its job was not to help all refugees, but a specific set—Arabs who left or were displaced from what became the State of Israel during the 1948 war.
Unlike the UNHCR, UNRWA never intended to help these refugees resettle or gain citizenship elsewhere. In fact, when Jordan annexed the to be named “West Bank” in 1950 and granted full Jordanian citizenship to the Arabs living there in 1954 (Jews were specifically excluded from Jordanian citizenship) —including the so-called refugees—UNRWA still kept them on its refugee rolls. Why? They were no longer stateless, no longer displaced from their community, and in most cases, were living just miles from where they or their families once resided.
No other refugee population in the world is treated this way.
The Palestinians under UNRWA are not counted based on where they live or whether they’ve rebuilt their lives. They’re counted based on ancestry—any descendant of someone who lived in Mandatory Palestine in 1946 and left during the war is considered a “refugee.” That includes people who are now citizens of Jordan who have never set foot in Israel, and those who live under Palestinian rule in the West Bank and Gaza.
This isn’t about resettlement. It isn’t about a “two-state solution.” It’s about return. Not return to a country they fled—but to homes where their grandparents once lived, in a country that has since fought multiple wars for its survival and established itself as a sovereign nation.
This has locked the Middle East into a perpetual state of conflict. UNRWA doesn’t just preserve the status of Palestinian refugees—it amplifies it, funds it, and builds an international bureaucracy around it. It has denied Israel’s right to control its own immigration, and basic principle of sovereignty.
Worse, the UN’s actions have turned a situation normally considered a humanitarian issue into a real estate dispute. By insisting that people return to a house—not a country, as outlined in international human rights law—the global political body has exceeded its own mandate. This isn’t a question of national self-determination, but one of personal property claims. UNRWA isn’t so much a champion of the creation of a state beside Israel; it champions individual return to specific homes, decades abandoned or destroyed, now occupied by others in a sovereign country.
Meanwhile, the descendants of every other refugee group in the world—from Sudan to Ukraine—are helped by the UN to find a path forward. Only the Palestinians are encouraged to walk backward, into the houses of their grandparents.
UNHCR helps refugees stop being refugees. UNRWA helps them stay that way.
Every year, new wars create new displaced people. But only one group stays on the list year after year, generation after generation.
For Palestinian Arabs, the 1948 war is still being fought. Generations of people haven’t been birthed into refugee status as much as the region is in a 100 years war. While the world may use political terminology of an UNRWA ward who has never been to Israel as a descendant of a “refugee,” Palestinians simply see a permanent property right which will never be forfeited. The UN simply provides cover under the “refugee” monicker.
The world sees Gaza through the lens of curated sympathy – smoke trails from missile strikes, wounded children, crumbled buildings – rendered by the media and United Nations. The headlines scream “siege” and “occupation,” and the images are carefully framed to elicit tears, not questions. For them, Gaza is a tragedy.
But Israelis? They see something very different.
They see a terrorist enclave. A society ruled by Hamas – not just tolerated but elected – with a charter calling for genocide against Jews. They see neighbors who have fired over 30,000 rockets at them since Israel left Gaza in 2005, and who used humanitarian aid to dig terror tunnels and stockpile weapons.
Israelis are haunted by October 7, 2023 – the day when 1,200 of their people were butchered. Burned alive. Shot in their homes. Raped in front of their families. And they remember what came next: polls showing 75% of Gazans supported the massacre. The popularity of other Palestinian Arab terrorist groups skyrocketed as well, including Islamic Jihad, al Aqsa Brigade and al Qassam. This wasn’t some fringe radical cell that commited the vile pogrom – this was public approval for mass murder. It was the fulfillment of their long-standing desire to attack Jewish civilians inside of Israel since 2000.
They also see something deeper: three-quarters of Gazans consider themselves “refugees” living in temporary homes. Not because of displacement from this war but because they believe they’re entitled to homes inside Israel. They don’t see Gaza as their future – they see Tel Aviv.
To the United Nations, Gaza is a moral play where Israel is always cast as the villain. They see Gaza not as a failure of Palestinian leadership, not as a society hijacked by jihad, but as a tragedy authored entirely by Israel. Why? Because Israel won’t allow these “refugees” to move into the homes of Israeli Jews – the very homes where grandparents fled in 1948 after five Arab armies attacked the new Jewish state.
The world has condemned Israel for responding “disproportionately” to the October 7 massacre. The UN saw Israeli counterstrikes as war crimes, not defense. They ignored the slaughter of Israeli children and focused on fuel shortages in Gaza. They accused Israel of starvation, ignoring the trucks of aid Israel itself let in, even while its soldiers were under fire. They paid scant lip service to Israeli hostages kept in tunnels by Hamas, viewing them as collateral to Israel’s ongoing “Nakba”.
The Arab and Muslim world is not fooled but is not helping. They don’t see Gazans as brothers and sisters in need of refuge. They see them as Palestinians – a distinct, useful political weapon. If Gazans were Syrians, they would’ve been taken in by now. But they’re not. They’re left to fester – a long-term tool to weaken and delegitimize the Jewish state.
Even in America, Gaza has become a kind of geopolitical Rorschach test. Leaders like Donald Trump and Jared Kushner see opportunity: beachfront real estate with the potential to be the Singapore of the Middle East. A future riviera. But that future depends on changing a mentality – one that for decades has been more obsessed with destroying Israel than building Gaza.
Because this is the reality: Gaza could have been Dubai. It had the backing of the international community, billions in aid, and a chance to chart its own path. Instead, it chose jihad. It chose hate. It chose martyrdom over medicine, tunnels over technology, indoctrination over innovation.
The world sees rubble. Death. Tragedy. Not on both sides; for Palestinians.
They can’t see the Israeli hostages through their clouded moral lenses. They don’t see the Jewish parents still waiting for their children. They don’t see the decades of restraint Israel exercised before finally saying “enough”. They are caught in an empathy swamp and have mentally baptised Gazans as martyrs instead of genocidal jihadists.
The Global South sees Gaza not just as another flashpoint – but as a pawn in a bigger game. The narrative is not just about “liberation” but “redistribution.” From peace talks to class war. Israel, to them, is just the first domino in toppling the Western-led world order.
Gaza isn’t just a local issue anymore. It’s global. It’s ideological. And for Israelis, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
In this backdrop of viewpoints, an international conference at the U.N. headquarters in New York will take place from June 17 to 20 co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia. The Global North will join the Global South in trying to find near-term and longer-term solutions to the 100-year Arab-Israeli conflict.
In this Coliseum, the General Assembly serves as the unruly crowd seeking the torture of the Jewish State, while the Security Council acts as caesar empowered with the pen to draft international law. Will the United States protect Israel in such forum on the heels of Trump’s visit to the Gulf? Will Trump seek to trade an unwinding of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334 to get Israel to agree to short-term and longer term movements towards a permanent divorce between local Jews and Arabs?
Israel was blind to the October 7 attack. Does it see what the world sees in Gaza now and the positions being orchestrated for the June U.N. conference? Will the modern blind Samson bring down the house if it only hears calls for its demise and cannot see a path to live in peace?
On Friday, May 14, 1948, Israel declared its independence—one day before the British ended their Palestine Mandate and left the region. The timing wasn’t accidental. Israel’s founding leaders wanted the moment to be marked with reverence, not paperwork, so the declaration was made in advance of the Jewish Sabbath, allowing the entire Jewish people to enter its rebirth with dignity and joy.
The joy wasn’t shared. Within hours, neighboring Arab armies invaded the nascent state, launching a war to crush Jews in the shadow of the European Holocaust. That contempt hasn’t faded. It echoes today in the halls of foreign governments, NGOs, and the mouths of extremist politicians thousands of miles from the region.
To “commemorate” Israel’s 77th birthday, the United Nations hosted a session dedicated not to peace or coexistence—but to “the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.” One speaker after another vilified Israel, slandering its conduct in defending itself in a war it never wanted. Accusations of “racism,” “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” flowed freely—from China, South Africa, Guyana, and others eager to hijack human rights rhetoric for anti-Israel theater.
Not to be outdone, U.S. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) introduced a resolution to formally mark Israel’s independence as Nakba Day—”the catastrophe.” The language mirrored the UN’s smear campaign, ignoring context, facts, and Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign nation. The resolution outrageously called on Israel to accept seven million Arab descendants of refugees and internally displaced people—almost all of whom have never set foot in Israel—negating a fundamental right of statehood by erasing Israel’s right to control its own borders. It called for the United States to withhold all diplomatic and military support from Israel as it defends itself in the midst of a multi-front war, to facilitate a genocide of Jews.
As Israel marked its 75th year in 2023, Jewish civilians were massacred by genocidal jihadi Arab terror groups on the Sabbath and Simchat Torah, a holiday celebrating the Jewish Bible. Rockets, kidnappings, and slaughter were launched from Gaza, with terrorists using Palestinians as human shields and Jewish hostages as bargaining chips—while cheering voices thousands of miles away offered rhetorical cover.
Today’s political war against Israel is led by the unholy alliance of far-left ideologues and Islamist extremists. They’ve inherited the mantle of the Arab armies defeated in 1948—and continue their campaign, not for coexistence, but for the erasure of the Jewish homeland. This is a Global Intifada dressed in human rights language but aimed at ethnic cleansing. In 1948, the horde successfully removed all Jews from eastern Jerusalem, the “West Bank” and Gaza. They strive to finish the job.
For them, Jewish sovereignty in the ancestral Jewish homeland remains a “catastrophe,” and Israel’s Independence Day is a day for revolutionaries to perpetuate the war. Not just for the 30 countries which continue to refuse to recognize Israel—but for shrill voices in the U.S. Congress who speak as if the past 77 years never happened.
After Arab armies failed to destroy Israel in 1967, the Arab League produced its “Three No’s“: no peace with Israel; no negotiations with Israel; and no recognition of Israel. It has an underlying three principles which continue to drive Jew haters: Jews have too much; Jews enjoying fundamental human rights is a provocation; and Jewish joy is triggering.
The trifecta of Israel’s Independence Day is too rich for global antisemites to ignore.
First One Through 