Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, February 17, 2026

The Palestinian Constitution Makes "Pay for Slay" an Unamendable Right — And That's Not Even the Worst Part

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

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

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)

Recently the peer-reviewed geography journal Antipode published an article by Wassim Ghantous, “Homological Correspondence: Israel as a Frontier of Global Domination.”

The prose follows a familiar contemporary academic pattern: dense terminology that substitutes conceptual layering for empirical constraint. For example:

The positioning of Israel as the frontier of the homological space denotes distinct spatiotemporal articulations… the frontier is a space of indistinction, intermixing, hybridity, and confusion… an unruly elastic force field of diffusion, expansion, and intensification…

This language matters less for its obscurity than for its function: it allows the argument to operate through metaphorical coherence rather than testable claims. The paper’s thesis is not built by adjudicating competing explanations but by embedding Israel into a totalizing interpretive model in which it necessarily becomes the generator of global violence.

A key example concerns the laws of armed conflict:

Israel plays an entrepreneurial role in pushing the limits of global frameworks regarding the rules of war… Israeli practices become normalized and emulated internationally.

There is a kernel of truth here. Israel does appear frequently in military legal scholarship discussing difficult operational dilemmas. But the paper reverses causality.

International humanitarian law — from the UN Charter through the Geneva Conventions — was constructed around implicit structural assumptions:

states monopolize organized violence
governments control armed forces
war has a beginning and an end
battlefields can be separated from civilians
armed groups protect their own population
front lines exist
non-state actors are peripheral

Modern non-state armed groups deliberately violate these assumptions. Organizations such as Hamas or Al-Qaeda embed military assets within civilian environments precisely to exploit the legal framework governing state militaries.

Israel therefore encounters edge-cases first not because it seeks to erode law, but because it is repeatedly placed in situations the law’s original model did not contemplate. Military legal literature studies Israel for the same reason aviation investigates rare accidents: it is where the framework is stress-tested.

Customary international law then evolves in response to these stress cases.

The direction is thus:

assumption-breaking warfare → legal adaptation → international diffusion

The article asserts the reverse:

Israeli deviation → global normalization of violence

The difference is methodological. One treats legal development as reactive adaptation to new forms of conflict. The other treats it as ideological export.

The paper signals its underlying framework in subtler ways as well. It presents accusations such as “genocide” as settled premises rather than argued conclusions, and it refers to the holocaust in lowercase — notably diverging from the journal’s own historical usage. That typographical choice is not trivial; it collapses a specific historical event into a general category of violence, which is necessary for the article’s broader comparative structure to function.

In other words, the argument depends on a prior assumption: Israel must already occupy the position of paradigmatic global harm. Once that assumption is installed, examples across law, policing, and technology can be narratively aligned to reinforce it.

Remove that assumption, and the explanatory structure no longer uniquely selects Israel; it instead describes a general pattern of legal systems adapting to new forms of warfare.

The paper therefore does not primarily present empirical findings. It presents a coherent interpretive schema — one whose stability depends less on evidence than on preserving its initial premise.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

02/15 Links: Human rights activists and organizations legitimize antisemitism; Bondi Beach terrorist, charged with 15 counts of murder; India agrees arms deals with Israel worth $8.6b

From Ian:

Jason D. Greenblatt (Arab News-Saudi Arabia): Negotiation, Trump Style

No one knows what is in President Donald Trump's head, and that is by design. Revealing his strategy would forfeit leverage, eliminate surprise, and weaken negotiations before they even begin. Strategic ambiguity is not confusion. It is strength.

Many predicted he would strike Iran quickly. I did not. Weeks ago, I wrote that he would first test whether diplomacy could work - real diplomacy, aimed at real results. Not another paper promise that looks good in headlines and collapses in practice. The last deal [in 2015] merely kicked the nuclear threat down the road and gave the Iranian regime space to cheat.

Trump wants an agreement that eliminates the nuclear threat - one that is verifiable, enforceable and immediate. One that addresses Iran's growing missile capabilities and regional aggression. Trump understands that the first victims of the Iranian regime are the Iranian people themselves. They live under crushing sanctions imposed because of their leaders' warmongering, repression and extremism. They suffer for ambitions they did not choose. At the same time, the threat to Israel and to America's Arab allies remains real and, if left unchecked, will only grow far more dangerous.

Trump seeks peace and prosperity. That is what drives him. He is, at heart, a dealmaker. Leaders across the region share a clear-eyed understanding of Iran's threat. Trump has rebuilt American strength and is unafraid to use it. He negotiates from power, not apology. Over 23 years, I watched him close deals so-called experts dismissed as fantasy. He does not accept conventional limits.

No one should fault him for exhausting every peaceful option before choosing the hard path. Trying to prevent war does not make him weak or naive or indecisive. It means he is doing his job. If there is a responsible way to avoid war, a president must pursue it. That does not mean Trump is being played. He recognizes deception. He senses bad faith. If negotiations become a charade, he will know. Quickly.

If he ultimately concludes that force is necessary - or that supporting Israel in war is unavoidable - he will do so knowing he explored every alternative.

Bernard-Henri Levy (WSJ)Is Help Still on the Way for Iranian Protesters?

Should there even be a deal with Iran? Is it reasonable to "deal" with men who killed 30,000 of their own compatriots in two days and who threaten, should demonstrations resume, to kill tens of thousands more?

Can one settle for sanctions, pressure, and concessions wrung out and immediately circumvented, when one knows that Russia has long since found ways to flood Tehran and its proxies with the resources they need to continue their enterprise of destruction?

Is any compromise possible with fanatics who proclaim that they prefer the apocalypse to defeat?

I hope the American administration understands this. I hope it has grasped that the era of containment is over, that deterrence doesn't work against a state that has made internal terror, regional destabilization, and the end of the world both a mode of governance and a program.

The time for regime change has come.

Ben-Dror Yemini: Human rights activists and organizations legitimize antisemitism

It is curious to speak at an Al Jazeera conference—the flagship channel of Qatar—about “we, who do not control large amounts of financial capital.” Who exactly is “we”? According to one investigation after another, most recently by the Free Press, Qatar has invested “nearly $100 billion to buy influence in Congress, colleges, research institutes and corporations.” The channel itself is funded almost entirely by Qatar, with an annual budget of about $1 billion. But in Albanese’s formulation, this becomes “we, who do not control large amounts of financial capital.” And no, this is not satire.

Last Thursday, Caroline Yadan, a member of France’s right-wing National Assembly party, submitted a parliamentary question to Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot regarding the continuation of Albanese’s tenure in her senior UN post. Barrot responded immediately, announcing that, at the opening of the next session of the Human Rights Council on February 23, France intends to present a demand for the dismissal of the racist who rose to that senior position. Additional European countries have announced they are joining the request.

Yadan was met with a wave of responses, including from the French newspaper Le Monde, with the peculiar claim that this is not what Albanese said and that it was not a racist statement. Amnesty International issued a statement asserting that “European states must retract their outrageous attacks against Albanese.”

One does not need a comprehension test to understand what Albanese said. She published the full text herself. She did not speak about any other country. Only about Israel. Moreover, the phrase “a common enemy of humanity” is well known from the antisemitic lexicon. Once it was said about Jews. Now it is said about the Jewish state.

Yadan responded with a long list of Albanese’s racist statements, before and after October 7. She previously published an anti-Israel cartoon depicting spider webs spread across the world with banknotes and gold coins, spoke about the “Jewish lobby,” justified the October 7 massacre, cast doubt on allegations of rape by Hamas terrorists and much, much more. UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer has published extensive investigations into Albanese’s conduct, including activities funded by Hamas supporters.

There have already been attempts to remove Albanese. Nevertheless, in April 2025, her mandate was extended by three years. The New York Times printed a sympathetic profile of her. And the world’s largest human rights organization, Human Rights Watch, condemned the United States for imposing sanctions on her.

The tragedy is that racism reigns not only in the automatic majority of dark regimes within UN bodies. It is a cancer spreading through a camp that imagines itself enlightened. And the gap between human rights and human rights organizations and activists has never been greater.

Do "pro-Palestine" activists really "love Palestine" or hate Israel? A technical analysis. (updated)

The US Campaign for Palestine Rights wrote a fundraising email on Valentine's Day:

But today, on Valentine’s Day, I’m reminded of the power of love, hope, and community.

At the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, our love for Palestine fuels our organizing and advocacy work every day. And our hope for justice and collective liberation inspires us to keep fighting, especially in moments like this, when our communities are under attack.

It seems to me that this claim, that their "love for Palestine" is what fuels their advocacy, can be empirically tested.

I asked an AI (ChatGPT) to go through a sample of their posts on their website and X feeds and determine how many of their posts show a "love of Palestine" as opposed to a hate for Israel.

My hypothesis is that they, and most "pro-Palestinian" organizations, are more fueled by hate for Israel than "love for Palestine."

Each item was classified into one of three mutually exclusive categories:

Love-of-Palestine (LP)
Affirmative depiction of Palestinian society independent of antagonists.
Examples: culture, daily life, education, art, religion, civic activity.

Mixed Humanitarian (MH)
Descriptions of hardship without explicit attribution of agency.

Oppositional-to-Israel (OI)
Messaging primarily criticizing, accusing, or mobilizing action against Israel or related actors (e.g., boycott campaigns, genocide allegations, protest calls).

I used nearly all of their X posts for the past two months and all of their website posts for the past year (according to Google searching.)

Across roughly 90 items:

About 82% of the messaging was directly about opposing Israel

About 17% described suffering without explicitly naming a perpetrator

About 1% actually presented Palestinian life on its own

In other words, almost none of the content showed Palestinians as a society — people studying, building, creating, celebrating, debating, or governing themselves, which is what one would expect if their main motivation was "love for Palestine.". Instead, the structure was overwhelmingly, "Israel acts → Palestinians experience → audience mobilizes."

Even many sympathetic posts about hardship were functioning as evidence in an accusation rather than as a description of a community.

Then I asked a second question: Who is the main actor in the sentence? Is the message about Palestinians doing things and living their lives — or about Israel doing things to them? Are they portrayed primarily as victims or as proud people in their own right?

This was categorized as:

Israel-centric (IC)
Israel is the active agent performing actions.

Reactive-Palestine (RP)
Palestinians appear primarily as recipients of actions.

Palestine-centric (PC)
Palestinians appear as independent social actors.

This method avoids subjective interpretation by analyzing syntactic structure rather than sentiment.

The results were


Israel-centric	61%
Reactive-Palestine	37%
Palestine-centric	2%

Thus, even humanitarian content largely operates as evidence within a "blame Israel" narrative.

This matters because movements normally centered on a people tend to talk about the people — their culture, institutions, internal life, and future.

Here, the narrative center is different. Israel is usually the subject of the sentence. Palestinians are usually the object of the sentence.

I strongly suspect that analysis of other "pro-Palestinian" group messaging would show similar results. When even Palestinian cookbooks are usually framed as "resistance" and not as pure celebration of Palestinian cuisine, the entire "pro-Palestinian" movement appears to be centered about what they hate rather than what they love.

The control group - Razom for Ukraine

One might object - Palestinians are under siege, they are in a devastating war, USPCR is meant as a US-based advocacy group that lobbies Congress so naturally they will be more focused against Israel than for Palestinians.

So I did the same analysis for a similar pro-Ukrainian group as a control: Razom for Ukraine. Razom is a U.S. nonprofit that raises money, lobbies Congress, and organizes activism on behalf of a population under ongoing invasion. In other words, it fills the same functional niche as US Campaign for Palestinian Rights — but for Ukraine.

I analyzed roughly two months of Razom social media posts and website publications using the same categories used earlier:

Identity-centered: content about the people themselves (culture, society, civic life, history, community)
Humanitarian: suffering described without political mobilization
Adversarial: primarily about condemning or mobilizing action against the attacker

Here are the results for Razom compared to USPCR:

Organization	Identity	Humanitarian	Adversarial
USCPR	0.6%	17%	82%
Razom	43%	16%	41%

How about who the subjects are in their posts?

Adversary-centric — enemy is the acting subject
Victim-centric — people appear mainly as recipients of harm
People-centric — people appear as agents (society, culture, civic life)