Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, February 18, 2026

In September, AP reported on @UNRWA employees sexually abusing Gaza women. No one cared.

Throughout 2024, I reported on the UN admitting there was sexual abuse by aid workers in Gaza but how it admits that it does not want to publicize the issue.

A year later, on September 30, 2025, AP published its own investigation confirming everything — and going further. Buried deep in the story are details that should have been an international scandal.

Two UNRWA workers are directly implicated.

A 35-year-old widow gave her number to a man in a UNRWA uniform while standing in an aid line. He made sexually explicit late-night calls. When she refused him, she got no aid. She complained to UNRWA — and was told she needed a recording as proof in order to report it. Her phone couldn't record, so she could not file a formal complaint. (UNRWA headquarters told AP they don't require proof.)

Sounds like something worth investigating, no?

But the second case is worse. A 38-year-old mother of six was promised a job by a man who drove her in a UN-marked vehicle — not to an office, but to an empty apartment. He told her to remove her hijab. He said she couldn't leave until she had sex with him. She complied out of fear.

The "job" materialized as a six-month UNRWA contract. He also gave her 100 shekels ($30) and a box of food. He was still contacting her with sexual demands as recently as summer 2025.

She never reported it: "I told myself that no one would believe it. Maybe they would say I am only saying this so that they would give me a job."

UNRWA's response was boilerplate deflection: "zero-tolerance policy," can't comment on individual cases, will "seek more information." Meanwhile their own PSEA network acknowledged 18 formal allegations of sexual exploitation linked to Gaza aid in 2024 — which their coordinator called "the tip of the iceberg." Four psychologists told AP they'd heard from dozens of women, some of whom became pregnant.

No major news organization - The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, BBC, Guardian - ran the story. No feminist organizations issued statements. No "pro-Palestinian" groups amplified it. No academics studied it - I cannot find any academic papers on sexual abuse in Gaza by aid workers.

AP deserves credit for at least reporting it, but even so, it buried the lede. Its headline was "Women in Gaza say they were promised food, money or work in exchange for sexual interactions" That implies the threats came from random men - not UNRWA and other aid workers.

And AP never followed up, probably because so few of its affiliates decided the storywas important enough to run in the first place.

Even worse is other people quoted in the story, the very people who should be protecting women in Gaza. A Palestinian women's activist told AP, "Most of us prefer to keep the focus on the violence and violations committed by the Israeli occupation."

The director of the same organization went further: "Israel's siege on the Gaza Strip and the restrictions on humanitarian aid are what's forcing women to resort to this."

A UNRWA worker drives a woman to an empty apartment in a UN vehicle, tells her she can't leave until she has sex with him — and this is Israel's fault according to Gaza women activists. If this is support for Gaza women, I hate to know what reckless disregard looks like.

The contrast with how news media report on allegations of sexual abuse by Israel is striking. When allegations emerged from Sde Teiman detention, CNN produced seven investigations, the UN issued a dedicated report, academics published papers, Wikipedia created an article, and legal institutes published analyses.

But when UN and other aid workers sexually abuse women in Gaza - virtual silence, or blaming Israel.

These women are being failed three times — by the men who exploited them, by the UN and other Gaza NGOs, and by every international NGO and news media that decided their stories weren't worth telling. And it is hard to escape the conclusion that the reason for this suppression of coverage is exactly what the Gaza aid worker said - everyone prefers to keep the focus on Israel, and helping these women is seen as supporting Israel's case.

Which is how antisemitism hurts even the women of Gaza.

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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Part 3 of my analysis of the 2026 Draft Palestinian Constitution

Hamas senior official Bassem Naim denounced the new Palestinian draft constitution as "a violation of the noble rights of our Palestinian people" and "a failed attempt by the PA to save itself from the developments of history."

Why does Hamas object to a constitution that is designed to destroy Israel? Because its structure bans Hamas from having weapons - but allows terror groups under the PLO umbrella to continue to murder Jews.

And to Hamas, that's not fair.

Article 154 of the constitution states: "It is prohibited to establish any military or security formations or organizations or military or semi-military groups outside the scope of the security forces, whether they are individuals or units."

At first glance, this sounds comprehensive and reasonable - the state must have a monopoly on arms. This is pretty standard. (Let's ignore that Abbas promised European leaders that his state would be demilitarized altogether.)

But Article 154 is a state law. It binds entities operating within the state framework. And the constitution allows an entire tier of authority that operates above the state: the PLO.

Article 11 declares that the establishment of the state "does not diminish" the PLO's status (until Israel is destroyed via "right of return") The preamble specifies that the PLO "continues to perform its national responsibilities according to the National Covenant." The PLO operates under its own charter, not under the constitution. The state has no authority over it.

This distinction determines which armed groups the constitution can touch — and which it can't.

The PLO is an umbrella organization made up of constituent factions. The major ones with active armed wings include:

Fatah (Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades) — Abbas's own movement
PFLP (Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades) — a Marxist-Leninist organization designated as a terrorist group by the US, EU, Canada, Japan, and others
DFLP (National Resistance Brigades)
Various smaller factions

But these groups are not PLO members:

Hamas (Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades)
Palestinian Islamic Jihad (Al-Quds Brigades)

The constitutional logic is straightforward. Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades can be characterized as a PLO faction activity. The PLO operates above the state, under its own charter. Article 154 doesn't reach it. The same applies to the PFLP — an organization that has carried out airplane hijackings, assassinations, and suicide bombings, and whose armed wing continues to operate. Under this constitution, its militia enjoys the same PLO shelter as Fatah's. The DFLP is not a designated terror organization under the US and EU, but it participated in the October 7 attacks. But - it's legal.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad have no such shelter. They are not PLO members. Their only legal existence is within the state framework, where Article 154 explicitly prohibits their armed wings. Hamas is a political party, Islamic Jihad is not. They can be disarmed, disbanded, and prosecuted — constitutionally.

Abbas told Macron he would ensure that Hamas disarms. The constitution delivers on that promise — and only that promise. It provides a constitutional basis for suppressing Hamas and Islamic Jihad while preserving the armed capacity of Fatah and every other PLO faction through a loophole the size of the PLO charter.

This isn't an accident or an oversight. It allows the Palestinian leaders to say that the constitution "prohibits militias." It provides a legal framework for disarming Hamas, which is what the US, France, and Israel all demanded. It checks those boxes.

But it also preserves Fatah's and the PFLP's armed capability entirely. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades have carried out shootings, bombings, and rocket attacks against Israeli civilians — yet they operate under PLO authority, not state authority, and are constitutionally untouchable.

And it ensures that if Hamas ever tried to join the PLO — as various reconciliation talks have proposed over the years — its armed wing would suddenly acquire the same constitutional protection as Fatah's. The door isn't closed; it's a mechanism for future leverage.

The irony is that Hamas's objection — that the constitution was "written under French supervision" to meet the demands of outsiders — accidentally highlights the real problem. The constitution was written to appear to meet French demands while actually doing the opposite. France wanted demilitarization; it got selective disarmament of Abbas's rivals. France wanted democratic reform; it got a democratic mirage under a PLO dictatorship. France wanted an end to pay-for-slay; it got pay-for-slay as an unamendable constitutional right.

The PFLP hijacked an Air France plane and separated Jews from non-Jews at Entebbe in 1976. A PFLP operativ, Carlos the Jackal, bombed Paris in the 1980s. . The PFLP participated in the October 7 massacre that killed 42 French citizens. And France helped draft a constitution that gives the PFLP's armed wing a constitutional safe harbor.

Someone should ask Macron how he feels about that.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

02/17 Links Pt2: The West's Suicidal Empathy; Emmanuel Macron: France Needs Jews in Order to Remain Itself; Trial of man accused of killing Paul Kessler in 2023 to begin

From Ian:

The West's Suicidal Empathy

Professor Gad Saad, 61, born in Lebanon to a Jewish family that fled during the civil war, is the author of The Parasitic Mind - How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense. In it, he uses the imagery of viruses and parasites to describe how harmful cultural ideas can hijack public discourse, academia, and social institutions, damaging freedom of expression, critical thinking, and basic logic of ostensibly rational human beings.

"Those who want to control us try to control both our cognitive system and our emotional system," Prof. Saad explained. "In my new book, Suicidal Empathy,...I focus on the way they try to manipulate our emotions."

"Empathy is a wonderful thing that every social creature needs. But like everything else in life, empathy must be applied in the right amount, in the right situation, and toward the right objects. When it's applied incorrectly, it harms the person possessing it to the point of threatening their existence. In my book, I examine a long series of domestic and foreign policy issues where the West adopts approaches that endanger its existence, and I show how they all stem from suicidal empathy."

Suicidal empathy works overtime when it comes to Israel. "If you go to study in Middle Eastern studies programs at any institution of higher learning in the West, they teach you that Israelis are white colonialists, devoid of any ancestral rights to the land they conquered, that they're evil exploiters oppressing the noble and peaceful Palestinians, who opened the door to white Jews from Austria and Russia, and the Jews exploited the opportunity to steal the land from its owners."

"Islamist groups don't hide that they intend to conquer the West through three methods - the womb, immigration, and exploiting the West's freedoms against it. Why does the West refuse to see this clearly?...The West tries to be understanding, compassionate, considerate, and generous toward other cultures, assuming they'll reciprocate in kind, while other cultures interpret the West's behavior as a sign of weakness....Blind Westerners mistakenly think that the values embedded in their culture are also dear to other cultures' hearts - and nothing could be further from the truth."

Two years ago, Prof. Saad was pushed out of Concordia University, which had been his academic home for many years. His presence on campus became too dangerous, literally. The same Jew-hatred he knew in Lebanon caught up with him even in distant Canada. Now he teaches at the University of Mississippi.

Emmanuel Macron: France Needs Jews in Order to Remain Itself

Too often, sentences handed down for antisemitic offenses and crimes seem derisory. Too often, the antisemitic nature of such acts struggles to be recognized. We will strengthen training for magistrates in this area. And to ensure transparency and truth, I want precise monitoring of sentences and sanctions to be established. On this basis, the Government and Parliament will work to strengthen penalties for antisemitic and racist acts.

Our elected officials are the sentinels of the Republic and must remain so. Justice has been seized regarding statements made by some of them, and the judiciary is doing its work independently. For the future, I wish to see the establishment of mandatory ineligibility penalties for antisemitic, racist, and discriminatory acts or statements.

School, justice, elected officials—the mobilization must be general: that of the State, the Government, all public services, and everyone in the Republic. Ladies and gentlemen, there have been too many words; there have been too many deaths. The time has come for action and for an uncompromising patriotic and republican mobilization.

The mobilization that follows in the footsteps of Zola, Jaurès, Clemenceau, and Picquart, who defended Dreyfus. And on July 12 next year, for the first time, we will hold a national day of commemoration for Alfred Dreyfus.

The mobilization that honors Robert Badinter, his humanism, and his love of freedom.

That honors Marc Bloch—who will be inducted into the Panthéon on June 23—who liked to say that he claimed to be Jewish only in the face of an antisemite.

That recognizes itself in de Gaulle, who carried the Republic with him, far from the state antisemitism of Vichy, Pétain, and Laval.

The mobilization of all our contemporary struggles, from which we will yield nothing.

Ilan Halimi had his whole life ahead of him. The oak tree we plant here at the Élysée will not restore the years taken nor fill the void left behind. But through it, Ilan’s memory will live in the hearts and minds of all who pass through these halls—as a reminder and as a demand.

What does this tree tell us above all—ilan, meaning “tree” in Hebrew? That the place of this fight against antisemitism is here, because this fight is existential for France and for the Republic. For as Abbé Grégoire proclaimed when he affirmed the entry of Jews into French citizenship, “France without Jews is a tree without branches.”

And the Republic is unrootable, just like Ilan’s memory now rooted here. They may try to uproot them all; they will never exhaust the republican sap or the French spirit. In the end, there will always be one left—and one is enough. And let every French woman and every French man say it to themselves: They are that last person who carries the honor of all and must take up every fight.

To Ilan Halimi, to his family, to all victims of antisemitism, to all of you—I swear that in this struggle, the Republic will prevail. Because the Republic is you. It is us. It is, at every second, the person who fights for the dignity of another.

Yes—we will prevail.

Long live the Republic. Long live France.

Trial of man accused of killing 69-year-old Jew in LA area in 2023 to begin

Loay Abdel Fattah Alnaji, who is accused of killing a 69-year-old Jewish man at nearby pro-Israel and anti-Israel rallies on Nov. 5, 2023, is scheduled to go on trial on Feb. 18 in Ventura County Superior Court in California.

Alnaji, 52, allegedly killed Paul Kessler less than a month after the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7. He has pleaded not guilty to multiple felonies, including involuntary manslaughter by an unlawful act, per the court docket. He was released on $50,000 bail.

The district attorney’s office alleges that an altercation between Alnaji, a computer science professor at Moorpark College, and Kessler resulted in the latter’s death. Alnaji was among the anti-Israel protesters, and Kessler was part of a smaller contingent of pro-Israel protesters that day in Thousand Oaks, Calif., near Los Angeles.

Alnaji allegedly hit Kessler with a megaphone. The county medical examiner’s office determined that he died from blunt force trauma from the megaphone and then hitting his head on the pavement.

Ron Bamieh, Alnaji’s attorney, said on Oct. 16, 2025, that Kessler “put his cell phone in my client’s face and said, ‘Baby killer. Baby killer. Baby killer.’”

“My client, with his left hand, swiped at the cell phone to knock it out of his face; the bullhorn hit Mr. Kessler on the face and the head, and Mr. Kessler turned, stood for two to three seconds, and then collapsed to the ground,” he said.

A few months before that, Bamieh said that Kessler, whom he called an “Israel advocate,” had a brain tumor that caused him to have balance issues, so “we’re saying it’s just as reasonable that he fell because of the tumor.”

The lawyer also said it is “reasonable” for someone to attempt to swipe away a cell phone put in their face and that Alnaji hit Kessler in the face accidentally.

The district attorney’s office stated on May 15, 2024, that “while antisemitic hate speech was heard at the Nov. 5, 2023 rally, there is no evidence those words were said by Alnaji.”

Alnaji faces up to four years if convicted on all charges, the office said.

02/17 Links Pt1: The End of the Palestinian Authority; BHL: Francesca Albanese Must Go; Melanie Phillips: The Unholy Alliance - Why the Left Loves Jihad; The Child Soldiers of Gaza

From Ian:

Netanyahu: "Gaza Will Not Pose a Threat Ever Again to the State of Israel"

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jerusalem on Sunday:
In his recent meeting with President Trump, "I expressed my skepticism of any deal with Iran, because, frankly, Iran is reliable on one thing, they lie and they cheat. But I said that if a deal is to be reached, it should have several components that we believe are important."

"The first is that all enriched material has to leave Iran. The second is that there shall be no enrichment capability - not stopping the enrichment process, but dismantling the equipment and the infrastructure that allows you to enrich in the first place. And the third is to deal also with the questions of ballistic missiles....The fourth is, dismantle the axis of terror that Iran has built....The last thing is...distrust and always verify. So there has to be real inspections, substantive inspections."

"We also spoke about Gaza....Hamas must first be disarmed and then Gaza must be demilitarized. Disarmed means that it must give up weapons....They did the worst massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust with AK-47 [assault rifles], 60,000 of them. They have to go....Gaza will not pose a threat ever again to the State of Israel."

"The first requirement to defeat antisemitism is to fight antisemitism. It's the only way. There's no other way....In front of these vilifications, do not cower. Do not bend. Do not bow your head. Fight back, because people respect those who respect themselves....Silence will not help. Looking askance will not help, fight back."

Seth Mandel: The End of the Palestinian Authority

Every so often, Israel takes actions that the Palestinians object to on specious grounds. Recently, for example, Israel repealed a Jordanian regulation that prohibited Jews from buying private land in Judea and Samaria, and proposed an extension of Jerusalem-adjacent construction. These, we are told, endanger the possibility of a contiguous Palestinian state. But since the Palestinians have repeatedly rejected an offer of sovereignty over that land, we know that objection is a lie meant for public consumption.

Whatever the Palestinian leadership is after, it sure isn’t statehood on the West Bank. And that is why Bandar wanted to cry. That is why Clinton never forgave Arafat and never wavered from the truth of Camp David, despite the fact that his party became so hostile to hearing it.

What the spurned leaders realized at Camp David was not that the Palestinian leadership drives a hard bargain, but that the Palestinian leadership isn’t bargaining. It isn’t negotiating at all. It’s for show.

Looking back, among the most ridiculous excuses for Arafat’s rejection of the deal is that the deal itself was lacking. It wasn’t, but once Israel signed on, Arafat would’ve been in the driver’s seat until his dying day anyway. The world would consider Israel to be locked in, and there is no way the deal would be allowed to collapse over a square kilometer here or there. Not single person on earth believes otherwise.

The reason the Palestinian leadership turned down the offer was not because the offer was worth turning down statehood for. It was because the Palestinians would not sign a permanent record that said they had agreed to end the conflict and live in peace with Israel.

The Palestinian leadership doesn’t want a little more land here and there. It wants to be in a state of perpetual conflict in which Israel’s erasure remains on the table. Which means not only that, yes, Oslo is dead. It also means the Palestinian Authority exists in name only.

NYPost: Trump’s Board of Peace and Hamas cannot co-exist

One huge question hangs over Thursday’s meeting of President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace: What’s the plan to de-Hamas-ify Gaza?

The president tells The Post the gathering will focus on how to direct the $5 billion that board members have so far committed to spend to rebuild the war-torn strip, with the full bill estimated to hit $70 billion.

Gaza is just the first test; Trump hopes the Board of Peace can play a role in resolving all manner of global crises where the United Nations simply flounders.

But first it’ll have to succeed in moving the prez’s Gaza peace plan to its next stage.

Nickolay Mladenov, the board’s director-general, cites three priorities: effective government, weapons decommissioned and Israeli withdrawal.

None of that’s possible if armed and organized terrorists remain; all Hamas’ fighters (and those of smaller terror groups) must disarm in exchange for amnesty, or accept exile.

Right now, they’re not just sticking around, they’re controlling the half of Gaza that Israel has pulled out of, and regularly attacking the IDF across the yellow line.

If they’re not defanged, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza will be a thin fiction, unable to stop the terrorists from continuing to call the shots.

And diverting much, maybe most, “rebuilding” money to re-arming for a larger assault on Israelis, as ever with a preference for raping, killing and otherwise terrorizing civilians.

Last night I published an analysis of the new Palestinian draft constitution showing how its interlocking provisions make peace with Israel not just unlikely but unconstitutional. The response has been significant already.

Several readers and journalists pointed out that the constitution also appears to enshrine the "pay for slay" system — payments to terrorists and their families. They're right. But they're missing the deeper story.

Article 44 of the draft constitution states: "The law organizes the provision of comprehensive care for the families of martyrs, the wounded, and prisoners, and those released, in preservation of their national dignity and their humanitarian and living needs."

That's pay for slay written into constitutional law. "Martyrs" is the Palestinian term for those who died carrying out attacks. "Prisoners" includes those convicted of murdering Israeli civilians. The constitution doesn't just permit these payments — it mandates "comprehensive care" as a matter of constitutional obligation.

But here's what most of the reporting has missed.

On June 9, 2025, Mahmoud Abbas sent a letter to Emmanuel Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman making a series of commitments designed to secure European recognition of Palestinian statehood. Among them, according to France's own official statement: "He confirmed the end of allowances for the families of prisoners convicted of terrorism offences."

France cited this promise — on its own government website — as one of the specific commitments justifying recognition. Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot repeated it at the UN conference on July 28. In November, when Abbas visited Paris, Macron announced that France would join an audit authority to verify that the pay-for-slay system was being dismantled. Abbas even fired his finance minister, Omar Bitar, for authorizing payments through the old mechanism — a gesture designed to show Macron he was serious.

Then Abbas drafted a constitution that makes payments to prisoners and martyrs' families a fundamental constitutional right.

Normally, constitutions can be amended. But significant parts of this one cannot.

Article 44 sits within Chapter II of the constitution — "Public Rights and Freedoms." Article 156 states: "It is not permissible to conduct any constitutional amendment to any of the following: 1. The provisions related to the guarantees of fundamental rights and freedoms provided for in this Constitution."

Pay for slay is not just constitutional law. It is unamendable constitutional law. No future Palestinian government, no matter how reform-minded, no matter what it promises Western donors, can constitutionally eliminate these payments. A Palestinian president who tried to end the system as part of a peace deal could be challenged in the Constitutional Court — and the Court would be legally obligated to rule against him.

Abbas promised Macron he would end pay for slay. Then he drafted a constitution that makes it permanent and irrevocable. France helped him write it.

The "right of return" is similarly unamendable. Article 40 says ""No Palestinian may be deported from the territory of the homeland, prevented from entering it or returning to it." The constitution does not define "homeland" but Palestinian rhetoric, the PLO logo, schoolbook maps and logic itself shows that Palestinians regard all of Israel as its "homeland" - that is exactly what "right of return" means. Article 12, which is not the unamendable part, can be shown to help with the definition: "ensuring the right of return for refugees according to international legitimacy resolutions" uses the same word, "return," and clearly refers to all of British Mandate Palestine.

Western diplomats have spent decades treating Palestinian maximalist positions as opening bids — things that would naturally be compromised in negotiations. This constitution shows that their maximalist positions are also their minimalist positions - the 2026 constitution prohibits amending the "right of return," paying terrorists, and even recognizing Israel itself because it is a genocidal state according to the document.

The pattern is always the same. A Palestinian leader tells a Western audience what it wants to hear: we want peace, we want democracy, we'll reform, we'll demilitarize. The Western leader announces a breakthrough. Recognition follows, or funding, or diplomatic support. Then the Palestinian leader goes home and does exactly what he was always going to do.

Abbas told Macron he would:

Condemn October 7 ✓ (in the letter — but the constitution celebrates "the continuous Palestinian struggle that has never ceased")
End pay for slay ✗ (the constitution makes it an unamendable right)
Reform textbooks to remove hate speech ✗ (the constitution embeds "genocide" as foundational fact)
Demilitarize ✗ (the constitution never mentions demilitarization and places the PLO, which has never renounced armed resistance, permanently above the state)
Hold elections ✓ (within a constitutional framework that makes peace illegal)
Accept the two-state solution ✗ (the constitution claims all the land and defines no borders)

Macron got two checkmarks out of six. And even those two are hollow — condemning October 7 in a private letter while drafting a constitution that celebrates perpetual struggle, and promising elections within a constitution that enshrines that the real entity that controls all decisions is the PLO, not the "State of Palestine," and the PLO self-appoints its leaders regardless of what the people want.

This isn't a failure of Palestinian reform. It's a success of Palestinian strategy. Abbas extracted recognition, funding, and diplomatic support from the most powerful nations in Europe, and in exchange he delivered a constitution that enshrines everything those nations claimed they were working to change.

For thirty years, the international community has operated on the assumption that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a territorial dispute that can be resolved through negotiation, compromise, and mutual recognition. The 2026 constitution is a definitive statement that the Palestinian leadership does not share this assumption and never has.

Every nation that recognized Palestine in September 2025 did so in the name of the two-state solution. The state they recognized has now produced a constitution that makes the two-state solution unconstitutional. They need to decide which commitment they take seriously — because they cannot honor both.

The 60-day public comment period on the constitution closes around April 11. Every government that recognized Palestine should be demanding answers. Starting with France, which didn't just recognize the state but helped draft the document that makes peace impossible and pay for slay permanent.

Part 1 of this analysis, covering the full constitutional framework, is here. The full text of the Draft Constitution of the State of Palestine (February 2026), in unofficial English translation, is available here.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

The new Palestinian constitution makes peace illegal

On February 10, Mahmoud Abbas published the draft of a new Palestinian constitution for public comment. The document was produced by a committee he appointed in August 2025, drafted over seven months with French assistance, and presented to Emmanuel Macron in Paris last November. It is being hailed as a step toward democracy and statehood.

I read all 162 articles. What I found should alarm not just Israelis, but Europeans, Christians, and anyone who believes in the possibility of Middle East peace.

Beneath a surface layer of democratic provisions — separation of powers, free elections, human rights protections — the constitution contains an interlocking architecture of provisions that, taken together, constitutionalize permanent conflict with Israel, criminalize coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians, create binding obligations that cascade through international law to nearly every country on earth, and make themselves virtually impossible to repeal.

This is not a constitution for a state that wants peace. It is a legal machine for permanent war — and Europe helped build it.

It Claims All of Israel

The constitution never defines the borders of "Palestine. "There is no reference to the 1967 lines. There is no mention of the West Bank and Gaza as the state's territory. There is no acknowledgment that any other sovereign entity exists on any part of the land.

This is a deliberate regression. The Arafat-era 2003 draft constitution explicitly defined the territory as "an indivisible unit within its borders on the eve of June 4, 1967." The 2026 draft dropped that language entirely.

Instead, the constitution anchors itself to the PLO National Covenant — which claims all of Mandatory Palestine — by stating that the PLO "continues to perform its national responsibilities according to the National Covenant." Article 25 declares the constitution and the 1988 Declaration of Independence to be "a single indivisible unit." Article 12 commits to "the unity of the land." Article 40 references "the territory of the homeland" without any geographic limitation.

The word "occupation" appears throughout the text but is never qualified — never "the occupation of the West Bank," never "the occupation since 1967." It is always just "the occupation." And the preamble characterizes it as a "colonial settlement occupation" — language that frames Israel's very existence, not just its post-1967 presence, as illegitimate.

Israel is never mentioned by name. It is simply "the occupation." Which means that this document agrees with Hamas that all of Israel is "occupied land."

It Constitutionalizes "Genocide" as Fact

The preamble asserts as foundational fact — not allegation, not claim, but constitutional premise — that "genocide continue in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank."

Article 24 then creates a constitutional duty to "pursue the perpetrators of these crimes before the judiciary." Article 69 establishes that genocide and crimes against humanity "are not subject to a statute of limitations and may not be pardoned." And Article 156 prohibits amending fundamental rights provisions — making this entire framework permanent.

Think about what this means. If genocide is constitutionally occurring across all of Gaza and the West Bank, then every Palestinian in those territories is a victim of genocide. The state has a permanent obligation to prosecute the perpetrators — meaning Israel — forever. No future government can stop it. No pardon is possible. No statute of limitations applies.

A Palestinian leader who agreed to drop genocide prosecution as part of a peace deal would be violating his own constitution.

It Makes Peace Illegal

Any peace agreement requires defined borders — the constitution has none. It requires mutual recognition — the constitution doesn't acknowledge Israel exists. It requires compromise on refugees — the constitution makes the right of return unamendable under Article 156. It requires ending criminal claims — the constitution mandates perpetual genocide prosecution. It requires accepting the other side's legitimacy — the constitution frames Israel as a criminal entity.

Article 82 explicitly prohibits treaties that violate the constitution. A Palestinian Constitutional Court faithfully applying this document would be obligated to strike down any peace treaty with Israel.

This is not an unintended consequence. It is the point. The constitution converts the political positions that Palestinian leaders have always held — non-negotiable right of return, rejection of Israel's legitimacy, claims to all of the land — and hardens them into unamendable supreme law. What was once a negotiating stance is now a constitutional straitjacket that binds all future governments.

Every Israeli Is a Target - and Europe/Canada/Australia Are The Enforcers

Israel has universal conscription. Virtually every Jewish Israeli adult is an IDF veteran. The constitution mandates prosecution of genocide perpetrators with no statute of limitations. Connect the dots: every Israeli who ever served in the IDF — as a combat soldier, a medic, a cook, a clerk, whether in Gaza or the West Bank, and probably even desk jobs in Israel — is a presumptive war criminal under this framework.

This isn't limited to Palestinian courts. Palestine has been a member of the International Criminal Court since 2015. The constitution's mandate to pursue perpetrators "before the judiciary" encompasses every available legal forum. The ICC has already demonstrated its willingness to issue warrants against Israeli leaders.

But now it applies to hundreds of thousands of Israelis.

The constitution creates a permanent obligation to file cases. The ICC processes them. And under Article 86 of the Rome Statute, every member state — virtually all of Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan — is legally obligated to cooperate with ICC warrants, including executing arrests.

An Israeli backpacker in Paris. A tech executive in London. A professor in Brussels. A grandmother in Toronto. If they ever served in the IDF, they are all subject to arrest by countries that are treaty-bound to enforce warrants generated by a constitutional machine that can never be switched off. And there are plenty of Israel haters who have already shown that they want to create lists of Israelis in their countries for exactly this reason, to charge them with "genocide."

The practical burden on Rome Statute member states would be immense. Each ICC warrant must be entered into border control databases — Interpol, the EU's Schengen Information System, and national immigration systems. Each arrest requires a domestic judicial surrender proceeding, with the detained person entitled to legal representation, a hearing, and the right to appeal. Each case demands the involvement of ministries of justice, prosecutors, courts, police, and diplomatic channels. These systems are designed to handle a few cases at a time. A constitutionally-mandated campaign generating thousands of warrant requests against citizens of a single country would overwhelm the administrative, judicial, and diplomatic infrastructure of every cooperating state. European, Canadian, and Australian governments would face a choice: allow their legal systems to be consumed by an endless stream of cases they never anticipated, or refuse to comply with their own treaty obligations — exposing themselves to legal challenges from Palestinian authorities and human rights organizations for non-compliance.

The constitution's drafters have engineered a system in which the cost of compliance is paralysis and the cost of non-compliance is legal liability. The world has to pay the price.

The countries that recognized Palestine and helped draft this constitution would be legally obligated to enforce the consequences of what they built.

It Criminalizes Coexistence

The implications extend to every form of Israeli-Palestinian cooperation. Any Israeli on Palestinian territory — which, under this constitution, means any territory — is a presumptive genocide perpetrator on Palestinian soil. This means:

Israelis driving through the West Bank to reach Jordan could be arrested in transit. Israeli tourists visiting Bethlehem or Jericho would be subject to detention. Israeli academics visiting Palestinian universities, Israeli doctors volunteering at Palestinian clinics, Israeli businesspeople meeting Palestinian partners — all of them are IDF veterans on the soil of a state constitutionally mandated to prosecute them.

The grassroots peace organizations that bring Israelis and Palestinians together — Seeds of Peace, the Parents Circle, Kids4Peace — become constitutionally untenable. An Israeli mother at a joint dialogue is a citizen of the genocide state. A Palestinian mother who meets her is normalizing relations with her people's genocide perpetrator.

And the Palestinians who participate in these programs? They face their own constitutional jeopardy. If Israel is constitutionally a genocidal colonial entity, then cooperating with Israelis can be characterized as normalizing genocide. Article 69 punishes "conspiracy against the unity and integrity of the territory of the State of Palestine." Article 18 frames defense of the homeland as "a sacred duty." Palestinian academics collaborating with Israeli colleagues, Palestinian doctors training in Israeli hospitals, Palestinian workers employed by Israeli businesses, Palestinian peace activists who believe in coexistence — all of them risk being cast as traitors to a constitutional order that demands rejection of everything Israeli.

The constitution doesn't just prevent peace between governments. It criminalizes peace between people.

It Erases Judaism and Downgrades Christianity

The 2003 Basic Law, currently in force, protects "all other heavenly religions" — a phrase that implicitly includes Judaism. The Arafat-era 2003 draft constitution explicitly guaranteed "sanctity and respect" to "Christianity and all other monotheistic religions" and protected religious worship sites for "followers of all monotheistic religions."

The 2026 draft strips all of this away. Article 4 mentions only Christianity — and downgrades it from "sanctity and respect" to the vague formulation that it "has its status" and its followers' "rights are respected." Judaism is not mentioned once in the entire document, not even as a "heavenly religion."

Which means that the Palestinian constitution would allow dismantling every synagogue and Jewish holy place in Jerusalem and elsewhere.

Article 3 protects only "Islamic and Christian sanctities" in Jerusalem. Jewish sanctities — the Western Wall, the Temple Mount, the Mount of Olives — receive no mention and no protection. The same applies to Jewish holy sites throughout the claimed territory: the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem, Joseph's Tomb in Nablus. Under this constitution, Israeli administration of any of these sites is an illegal alteration of the land's "character and historical identity" (Article 3). Jewish worship there takes place under the authority of an entity the constitution identifies as a genocidal occupier. And any Jews who want to visit these sites are subject to arrest and prosecution as participating in genocide.

Islamic Sharia is established as "a primary source for legislation." Christians will live under a legal system whose primary source is the religious law of another faith, with only the vague assurance that their "rights are respected." This is a big step backwards from previous Palestinian documents.

France — the country of laïcité — helped draft a constitution more Islamic supremacist than anything Arafat proposed.

The PLO and the State: Sovereignty Without Accountability

The Palestinian Authority has always been subordinate to the Palestine Liberation Organization. The PA handles day-to-day governance — education, health, policing, tax collection — but political decisions are made by the PLO Executive Committee, an unelected, self-perpetuating body. Mahmoud Abbas holds both positions simultaneously, as PLO Chairman and PA President, which obscures the fact that these are separate institutions with the PLO firmly on top.

The new constitution does not change this hierarchy. It formalizes it.

The constitution creates an elaborate democratic architecture: a directly elected president limited to two five-year terms, a prime minister and cabinet accountable to parliament, a House of Representatives as the sole legislative authority, an independent judiciary, and a Constitutional Court with binding authority over constitutional interpretation. Chapters III through VII read like the framework of a serious parliamentary democracy. It all sounds impressive, and it seems to be dazzling the Europeans who want to see a modern Palestinian state.

But above all of it sits the PLO, untouched.

Article 11 declares that the establishment of the state "does not diminish" the PLO's status. The preamble specifies that the PLO retains supremacy "until the achievement of full national independence and the realization of inalienable rights, primarily the right of return" and that it "continues to perform its national responsibilities according to the National Covenant."

Which means that the PLO makes all the important decisions until Israel is destroyed, since Israel will never allow the "right of return."

The constitution defines in meticulous detail who controls the state. It never defines who controls the PLO. The PLO operates under its own charter, which the state has no authority to amend. The relationship is one-directional: the constitution protects the PLO from the state, but nothing protects the state from the PLO.

The constitution also erases the legal framework that has governed Israeli-Palestinian relations for three decades. Oslo is never mentioned and the agreements that the PLO and PA made over the past 30 years are not formalized. The letters of mutual recognition are never referenced. Israel is never named. This is a deliberate regression: the 2003 Basic Law explicitly referenced "the interim self-governing arrangements resulting from the Israeli-Palestinian agreement." The new constitution replaces that foundation entirely, grounding itself instead in the 1988 Declaration of Independence and the PLO National Covenant — documents that predate and are incompatible with mutual recognition.

Nor does the constitution renounce armed resistance. Article 154 prohibits military formations outside the state's security forces, but Article 18 declares defense of the homeland and "the safety of its land" a "sacred duty," and the preamble celebrates "the continuous Palestinian struggle that has never ceased" against "colonial settlement occupation." More fundamentally, because the PLO operates under its own charter rather than under the constitution, the state's restrictions on armed groups do not bind the PLO or its constituent factions. Fatah's longstanding position that armed resistance remains legitimate is a PLO matter, not a state matter, and nothing in this constitution touches it.

In fact, Mahmoud Abbas told Macron in the November 2025 press conference that "we want a democratic, unarmed state committed to the rule of law, transparency, justice, pluralism and the rotation of power." The constitution never mentions demilitarization.

The result is a structure in which Palestinians can vote for a president and a parliament, but the body that holds ultimate political authority — the body that determines the national position on borders, refugees, Jerusalem, and relations with Israel — answers to no electorate, is governed by a document that rejects Israel's existence, has erased all prior commitments to peace, and retains the right to pursue armed struggle.

This is all a direct result of recognizing "Palestine" - and the French directly helped

Here is the timeline that European capitals do not want to discuss.

In June 2025, Abbas wrote to Macron promising reforms — condemning October 7, pledging to reform textbooks to remove hate speech, committing to demilitarize, accepting elections. Macron, satisfied, announced in July that France would recognize Palestine in September. Other European nations followed.

On August 18 — three and a half weeks after Macron's announcement, with recognition locked in — Abbas issued the decree establishing the constitution drafting committee.

In September, France, the UK, Canada, Australia, Belgium, and others formally recognized Palestine at the UN General Assembly, launching the "Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution."

In November, Macron hosted Abbas in Paris, announced a joint French-Palestinian committee to help finalize the constitution, and pledged €100 million in aid. Abbas told Macron he wanted "a democratic, unarmed state committed to the rule of law."

In February 2026, the constitution was published. It mandates perpetual legal warfare against Israel, claims all the land, defines Israel as a criminal entity, erases Judaism, downgrades Christianity, and makes peace unconstitutional.

Abbas told Europe exactly what it wanted to hear. Then he drafted the opposite.

Every state that recognized "Palestine" used the reasoning that somehow this would advance a peaceful two state solution that everyone knows is the only way forward. Mahmoud Abbas smiled at them, promised reforms, and spat in their faces with a constitution that cannot ever allow peace or even co-existence with Israel.

Why This Cannot Be Fixed

The constitution is designed to be self-protecting. Article 156 prohibits amendment of fundamental rights provisions — which is exactly where the most problematic provisions are embedded. The right of return, the genocide prosecution mandate, and the criminal law framework all sit within the protected zone.

A Constitutional Court with binding authority (Article 143) enforces these provisions against all state institutions. Even a peace-seeking government with moderate judges would find that honest jurisprudence requires striking down peace measures that conflict with unamendable text.

The PLO National Covenant is incorporated by reference, and the preamble is declared inseparable from the constitution. The genocide premise — once embedded as constitutional fact — poisons every possible avenue of coexistence: you cannot negotiate, trade, share infrastructure, cooperate, or even talk with your genocide perpetrator.

The drafters didn't accidentally create these interlocking traps. They engineered them.

Conclusion: A Constitution for Destruction, Not Construction

The 2026 draft constitution answers a question that has defined the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades: does the Palestinian leadership want to build a state, or destroy one?

The drafting of a constitution is the moment when a national movement reveals its true purpose. It is the moment you define the territory you intend to govern, establish relations with your neighbors, create legal frameworks for economic development and foreign investment, and build institutions designed to deliver services to your citizens. A constitution is a declaration to the world: we are ready to govern.

The 2026 constitution does none of this.

It defines no territory to govern. It establishes no framework for relations with the only neighbor its economy depends on. It creates no legal basis for the thousands of commercial relationships that already exist between Palestinian and Israeli businesses. It provides no mechanism for diplomatic recognition of the state next door — or any acknowledgment that the state next door exists.

Instead, every major structural choice in the document points outward — toward Israel, toward the ICC, toward international legal warfare — rather than inward, toward the actual work of building and running a country. It constitutionalizes victimhood rather than sovereignty. It creates obligations to pursue enemies rather than serve citizens. It builds legal machinery for prosecution, not for governance. The democratic architecture is real, but it is a shell around a weapon, not a government.

The PLO superstructure is the clearest tell. When a liberation movement achieves statehood, it absorbs itself into the state's institutions. The ANC became South Africa's governing party within a constitutional framework. SWAPO became Namibia's government. The state replaced the movement. This constitution does the opposite: it permanently elevates the liberation movement above the state, operating under its own unreformed charter, answerable to no electorate, and constitutionally immune from the state's authority. That is the choice you make when the struggle is not a phase you are transitioning out of but the permanent purpose of the enterprise.

This is not a constitution for a state. It is a constitution against a state — the one next door.

Abbas told Macron he wanted "a democratic, unarmed state committed to the rule of law." What he produced is a legal architecture for permanent war, designed to be irreversible, built with European money and diplomatic support, and aimed not at governing Palestinians but at dismantling Israel through the international legal system.

This draft constitution proves, as clearly as possible, that the Palestinians never wanted to build a state, but to destroy one.

Every government that recognized the "State of Palestine" in the hope it would bring peace should be outraged at how they have been manipulated and lied to. And they should make it clear to Mahmoud Abbas that their recognition was conditional - and since the Palestinians have spit on those conditions, the recognitions are null and void.

The full text of the Draft Constitution of the State of Palestine (February 2026), in unofficial English translation, is available at: https://constitutionnet.org/sites/default/files/2026-02/2026.02%20-%20Draft%20constitution%20%28English%29.pdf

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02/16 Links Pt2: Sen. Graham: Trump, Netanyahu are of one mind on Iran; Where is the fury over the plot to massacre Manchester Jews?; Green Party activists say Zionism is a form of racism

From Ian:

Brendan O'Neill: Where is the fury over the plot to massacre Manchester Jews?

Then there’s the left. ‘Fascist!’, these people cry at everyone from the mums in pink tracksuits who protest outside migrant hotels to those northern communities that are planning to vote for Reform UK. Yet when two men are jailed for an advanced plot to carry out the bloodiest of pogroms, they go schtum. For the first time ever the word ‘fascist’ clogs in their throats. We need a franker verison of that Martin Niemöller poem to describe such rank cowardice and snivelling silence in the face of true racism: ‘When they came for the Jews, I said fuck all.’

We need a reckoning with this culture of chilling indifference to Islamo-fascism. With the failure of our self-styled moral leaders to speak clearly about the surging poison of anti-Semitism. Last year there were 3,700 anti-Semitic hate incidents in the UK, the second-highest annual total ever. Sickeningly, 80 of those incidents were recorded in the 48 hours after the terrorist assault on the Heaton Park Synagogue, also in Manchester, on Yom Kippur in October, when two Jews were killed. Some of those incidents involved ‘face-to-face taunting’ of Jews and ‘celebration’ of the Heaton Park attack. It’s the 21st century and people are responding to the murder of Jews by jeering at Jews. Where are the anti-racists? Their silence indicts them in ways they cannot fathom.

To watch the clip of Amar Hussein in his police interview coldly saying ‘Yes’ when asked if he supports ISIS is to look into the face of evil. His arms crossed, his demeanour arrogant, he announces with nauseating pride his allegiance to the sworn enemies of Western civilisation. The questions pile up. Hussein is from Kuwait and Saadaoui is from Tunisia – what were they doing here? Were they emboldened in their Jew hate by the Israelophobic mania that swept Britain after 7 October 2023? It is undeniable now: our broken immigration system, our failure to tame the anti-Semitism of the post-7 October moment and officialdom’s dread of calling out Islamism for fear of being called ‘Islamophobic’ – these craven trends have mingled to create fertile territory for the violent rebirth of the world’s oldest racism.

There are 40,000 suspected jihadists on Britain’s terror watchlist. Hundreds of young men from anti-Semitic cultures arrive illegally on our shores every week. Venomous hatred for the world’s only Jewish nation has become the moral glue of the chattering classes. Anti-Semitic attacks are spiking. Jews are being murdered, or mercifully saved from murder. What signal does it send to Jew-haters when we fail as a society to speak out about these horrors? The elites’ yellow-bellied nonchalance on the Islamist threat doesn’t only betray Britain’s Jews – it also emboldens those who loathe them.

David Collier: ChatGPT is protecting the mythical status of Palestinian identity

Some stories take months to uncover. Others are stumbled across by accident. This is one of the latter. But it is no less important for it.

Artificial Intelligence engines (LLMs) such as ChatGPT are not neutral observers of reality. They are policing the boundaries of Palestinian identity, shielding it from scrutiny and elevating it to a sacred moral construct.

That should concern everyone.

Wikipedia was once the world’s primary reference point. It evolved, in many areas, into a partisan battleground where anti-Jewish narratives could be shaped and manipulated in plain sight. But at least Wikipedia’s distortions were visible. Its edit history could be examined. Its biases could be traced.

AI is different.

It is now rapidly replacing Wikipedia as the dominant interpreter of truth. Yet it operates as a black box. There is no edit trail and no transparency.

If these systems are quietly protecting a mythologised version of Palestinian identity – treating it as a moral token that must be defended – then we are not simply drifting into a post-truth world – we are engineering it.

The Palestinian from Aleppo
While recently researching an anti-Israel propagandist, I encountered a familiar piece of Nakba revisionism. Wafic Faour presents himself as a Palestinian, and his family history follows a well-worn script: innocent civilians violently uprooted when their Arab-Palestinian village was attacked in 1948 by Zionist militias. He claims his family was expelled to Lebanon and eventually made their way to the United States. Today, he serves as the local “Palestinian” face in Vermont, leading protests that demonise and ostracise Israel.

For him, Palestinian identity is his key credential.

On examination, however, his claims quickly began to unravel. Archival records show that his village had been openly violent. Its inhabitants fled only after their military position collapsed. This is how his family ended up in Lebanon.

More significantly, a local history written by the villagers themselves records that the activist’s family originated in Aleppo, Syria, and had migrated into the Mandate area, probably in the late 19th or early 20th century.

The story, as presented publicly, could not withstand scrutiny. The family’s documented origins lay in Aleppo, Syria. The activist himself was born in Lebanon and later built a life in the United States. There was no evidence of deeper ancestral roots in Palestine. The identity he projects is a political construct built on omission.

I incorporated these findings into a wider investigation documenting his distortions and propaganda.

As part of my normal publication process, I ran the final draft through ChatGPT to check for grammatical errors.

What happened next was unexpected.

ChatGPT did not focus on spelling or grammar.

It challenged my description of him.

Shany Mor: Many on my feed are understandably outraged by this essay, which they feel is a cynical misuse of the memory of the Holocaust, deployed in a contemporary political debate for which it is entirely unsuited.

Many on my feed are understandably outraged by this essay, which they feel is a cynical misuse of the memory of the Holocaust, deployed in a contemporary political debate for which it is entirely unsuited.

I don't think they're seeing the whole picture.

Let's start by looking at this gem, also from the NYRB, from 2023 that ostensibly argues AGAINST the use of the memory of the Holocaust as a way of making sense of a current event.

It's signed by all the "genocide scholars" that would become rockstars in the ensuing months, and at first glance, it would appear that the two articles contradict each other (which is allowed) and show a cynical preferece for Holocaust analogies only when convenient.

But a closer read shows something else. These articles are not arguing opposite things at all, and are in fact entirely consistent with one another.

What unites both pieces is an unbridled resentment at Jews for the "luxury" of the Holocaust and its memory.

Both essays are centered around claims that powerful Jewish figures are gatekeeping the trauma of the Shoah in order to exploit it. And both go to great lengths to imply, not with much subtlety, that today's Jews are the real Nazis anyway.

Both pieces make some incredibly weak arguments about current events: The 2023 piece gives a potted history of the conflict, and flips its own argument on its head in just four paragraphs at the end in order to slip in the Israelis-as-Nazis meme. The 2026 piece can't seem to distinguish immigration policy from extermination. But skip the weak arguments. Both pieces can't conceive of Jewish memory of the Shoah as anything but a feint. This is deep ontology of "genocide studies" and much progressive thought on race and social justice.

02/16 Links Pt1: The UN Doesn’t Deserve to Be Free of Francesca Albanese; Waltz calls UN a 'cesspool for antisemitism'; Hamas is inching toward another war; The Tucker Carlson effect

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: The UN Doesn’t Deserve to Be Free of Francesca Albanese

The current controversy is over Albanese’s remarks at a recent Al Jazeera conference which Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal also addressed. Albanese referred to Israel as the “common enemy of humanity.” Albanese’s defenders deny that she was referring to the Jewish state as the “common enemy,” and that she was only talking about those who “control vast amounts of financial capital, algorithms, or weapons.”

To reiterate: that is the defense of Albanese. That the enemy of humanity is merely a global cabal of financiers who support Israel.

My sense is that the hilariously weak “defense” of Albanese is evidence of Albanese’s own likely belief that her comments don’t require a defense or an explanation at all, because she does see Israel as the common enemy of humanity. Albanese has never been subtle about this. Her long history of anti-Semitism exists in the public record precisely because she does not want there to be any confusion about her bigotry.

So it’s encouraging to see the French foreign minister say enough is enough: “[Albanese] presents herself as a UN independent expert, yet she is neither an expert nor independent — she is a political activist who stirs up hate.”

Austria and Germany have joined France’s declaration of no confidence in Albanese. Longtime UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric distanced Secretary General Antonio Guterres from Albanese’s comments and, in general, “much of what she says.” Next week, at a UN meeting, France will publicly call for her resignation. Britain may even join the club.

But what would the UN do without Albanese? What would it be? It would certainly be less honest, for starters. People should think of Albanese when they think of the UN. She is an indefatigable agent of misery, a publicist for totalitarian death squads, and a figure of unity in the vast interconnected movement of Jew-haters worldwide.

We deserve a better UN. And until we get it, the UN and Francesca Albanese deserve each other.

Jonathan Sacerdoti: Hamas is inching toward another war

The question is how long this equilibrium can endure. Israel is keen to demonstrate patience: it has no more hostages in the strip, dead or alive. It is comfortable letting America negotiate and threaten Hamas into demilitarisation, as agreed. Israel has surrounded Hamas on every side so that it cannot re-arm or rebuild in any real sense. The Palestinians in Gaza pose little to no real threat to Israel in this current situation. If and when the US efforts to demilitarise Hamas fail, Israel will have the opportunity to go in and take care of it themselves. They are in no rush.

Israel will use repeated violations like yesterday’s to build publicly the case for their renewed military action, banking it for when that time comes. They are keen to show Hamas is testing their restraint daily. But that only works if they do carry through, if they aren’t complacent about their strength.

There is a wider lesson here. Societies adapt to chronic threats. In Israel, the Iron Dome allowed daily life to continue under intermittent rocket fire. In the United Kingdom, repeated jihadist plots and attacks have been met with more monitoring of suspects and vigils affirming our love for ‘diversity’. Synagogue attacks (foiled and successful) are met with more funding for more security. More CCTV is put up. Doors are reinforced. More concrete flowerbeds are planted. Over time, abnormal conditions become administratively manageable. Physically, it might make us safer, but it is also dangerous.

Extremist movements operate through increments. A rocket here. A tunnel there. A balloon drifting across a fence. A breach under rubble. Each act tests tolerance. Each restrained reply informs the next move.

Israel now stands at a delicate point. It seeks to uphold the ceasefire and avoid immediate escalation, giving the US time to pursue its carrot and stick approach with the Palestinians in Gaza. It also carries the memory of what accumulated restraint produced in October 2023. So the Yellow Line still stands, and the ceasefire technically holds.

But eventually, the equation must and will be altered permanently by real, decisive, visible victory. We in the West must also learn from that Israeli resolve and determination for victory. Anything else recreates the conditions that lead to violent collapse.

Behind the Humanitarian Halo: MSF, Oxfam, and World Vision Publicly Exposed

The lack of neutrality is not limited to Oxfam but rather part of a larger problem at global institutions. Former senior editor at Human Rights Watch (HRW), Danielle Haas, likewise recently noted that the organization “rewarded divisive, aggressive tactics — especially when aimed at Israel.” When Haas brought up the “lack of balance” in the organization, the concerns were dismissed. In one instance, while editing a report involving Mohammed El-Halabi, Haas requested that the document include the specific charges against him to provide necessary context. Her request was rejected on the basis that the charges were “wild.”

The existence of deeply entrenched antisemitism and politicized framing within such organizations raises serious questions concerning their moral authority and global credibility. Because when it comes to Israel, they are clearly not interested in maintaining the neutrality they claim.

The cases of MSF, World Vision, and Oxfam reveal how humanitarian organizations can be co-opted to shield terrorist actors while undermining the credibility of their own missions. These organizations have helped preserve a narrative that shields Hamas from accountability while undermining the credibility of the very humanitarian principles they claim to uphold.

This is just the beginning. More and more information is likely to be exposed in the coming months, including vindication of the Israeli narrative that has been so often either ignored or attacked by a media that prefers to take Hamas claims as fact.

But will the media even cover the stories, let alone retract when the evidence is incontrovertible?

Diversity, Palestinian style

It is amusing when people try to import progressive cultural mores into the space of decidedly non-progressive Palestinian contexts.

Here's an academic paper published last year, "Boardroom diversity and financial performance in Palestinian banks and insurers." It looks to see if there is any relationship between diversity in the members of the boards of Palestinian financial institutions and their performance.

This is the sort of topic one would expect to be written in any Western nation - does a diverse board result in better performance? This has been a major topic in Fortune 500 companies for at least three decades.

But something about the abstract is a little off:

This study examines the impact of board diversity—precisely age, nationality, and experience—on the financial performance of 13 Palestinian banks and insurance companies listed on the Palestine Stock Exchange (PEX) from 2011 to 2022. Using a comprehensive panel data approach and controlling for endogeneity with a two-step system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimator, the analysis explores how diverse board characteristics influence financial outcomes measured by ROA and ROE. Unlike previous studies focused mainly on developed markets or gender diversity, this research offers new insights into the role of board diversity in emerging economies, particularly in the Middle Eastern context. The results reveal that while age diversity negatively impacts firm performance, experience diversity positively correlates, underscoring the importance of industry-specific expertise in financial governance. Nationality diversity, however, exhibits no significant effect, suggesting that foreign representation may introduce complexity without necessarily enhancing performance.

The markers of "diversity" in Palestinian institutions isn't gender or disability or race. They are age, nationality and experience.

Which indicates that the amount of real diversity in these boardrooms, in the Western sense, is practically zero.

I went through the names I could find of the board members of these banks and insurance companies. Every one is an Arabic name. There are very few that can be identified as Christian based on their names, and very few that are women. Obviously the the Arab Islamic Bank and the Palestine Islamic Bank have zero women and non-Muslims, but the other institutions also had very few.

(There is one notable exception - Bank of Palestine had, as of 2022, 5 female board members out of 11.)

And as far as "nationality" is concerned, they are all 100% Arab. The amount of viewpoint diversity between Palestinians and Saudis and Iraqis from the boardroom is probably close to zero - it isn't like there are any Dutch board members.

So the paper uses excellent data science to prove essentially nothing about the value of what Westerners would call "diversity." And, in a way, it covers up the lack of diversity in these institutions by not calling out the obvious homogeneity that each of these boards have.

In short, there is no real diversity in Palestinian banks and insurance companies. That is the real story. Doing fancy math to show whether banks dominated by Arab Muslim men have some small differences correlated with their age or experience is almost comic - the differences in their performance will be much more reliant on other factors like loan policies, amount of corruption, and marketing instead of whether two board members came from Jordan.

Where are the feminists, the anti-racists, the DEI leaders denouncing the fact that most Palestinian boardrooms don't have any diversity to speak of?

They are writing letters denouncing Israel, of course.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)