Israel is surrounded by genocidal enemies
These are not isolated statements. Time and again, the leaders of these Islamist movements express their overt anti-Semitism and their desire to see the annihilation of Israel. This is completely in line with a core tenet of Islamist doctrine which holds that Jews are inherently wicked and bent on Islam’s destruction.It's Been a Year of Failure for 'Pro-Palestine' Activism Following October 7
Islamism is a thoroughly reactionary political outlook. As Syrian-born German political scientist Bassam Tibi has argued, Islamism aims to make the world subservient to God’s will. That makes it uncompromisingly hostile to notions of democracy, individual rights and popular sovereignty. Islamism also has little regard for the nation state. It aims instead for the creation of a nizam Islami, that is, a new global Islamic order.
According to this totalitarian outlook, the Jews represent evil. Israel has to be destroyed and the power of the Jews crushed as a precondition for Islamism to achieve its goals. This helps explain why such a diverse range of Islamist movements – from Sunni Hamas to Shia Hezbollah – put so much emphasis on attacking Israel.
It also helps us to understand Hamas’s motives on 7 October. Hamas does not define itself as a Palestinian movement, but as the Palestinian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, an international Islamist movement based in Egypt. It sees the destruction of Israel and the slaughtering of Jews as necessary for the realisation of its broader Islamist aims.
Indeed, Hamas’s Islamism helps to explain its callous indifference to actual Palestinian lives. After all, it launched its murderous pogrom on southern Israel knowing that it would provoke a massive response from the Israeli army. Hamas had spent many years preparing the battlefield for precisely this Israeli counter-attack. Central to this preparation was the creation of a truly huge tunnel complex in which Hamas could hide itself below the Gazan population. As I noted back in March:
‘The scale of Gaza’s tunnel complex is monumental. London has a population of about nine million people, who are served by a Tube network of about 250 miles, of which about half is in tunnels, with the rest above ground. In contrast, Gaza has a population of just over two million people. But it is estimated to have about 300 miles of tunnels. So Gaza has about a quarter of London’s population, but about two and a half times the length of its tunnels.’
Notably, civilians are not allowed to shelter in these tunnels. Despite what Hamas apologists claim, it is happy to use ordinary Palestinians as human shields on a massive scale.
Hamas could have stopped the war at any time if only it had surrendered and released the hostages it captured on 7 October. Instead, Hamas leaders have kept going in the knowledge that they have a degree of personal protection. They also know there is a significant audience in the West receptive to the poisonous claim that Israel is engaged in a genocide.
This is a grisly inversion of the truth. Over the past year, it is clear that there’s only one side intent on annihilating a whole people. And that’s the alliance of violent Islamists menacing Israel at every turn. They must not win.
To add to the series of disastrous mistakes, non-Palestinian "allies" joined this unhelpful discourse, inflaming tensions and empowering extremist voices within the "pro-Palestine" movement. These groups and individuals often adopted contradictory ideologies and political beliefs, including leftists, Islamists, and even white nationalists. They were all strangely united in using Gaza as a vehicle to grow their platforms and posture as allies of the Palestinian people.Tehran’s Tactical Knockout: Weaponized Pharmaceutical-Based Agents
Not all pro-Palestine activism is pro-Hamas; the problem is that extremists have gone unchallenged by most pro-Palestine Arab and Muslim organizations and voices. This dereliction of duty by people and institutions is a dangerous abdication of the movement to a radical minority that has hijacked the Palestinian cause. Pragmatism, mutual humanity, and empathy are often considered treasonous or cowardly. Anyone who deviates from the script dictated by this pro "resistance" crowd is immediately attacked and delegitimized as a "Zionist sell-out," instilling fear in many to keep quiet lest they face the onslaught of threats, attacks, and risks to their safety.
The harassment and threats I have received in the past year are something that most people could not withstand. However, the more I am attacked, the more I am determined to speak out and never back down—because I love my people and believe in the justice and urgency of the Palestinian cause.
It should not be controversial to condemn an Islamist terror organization that has tortured its people, and criticism of Hamas should not be equated to supporting the Israeli war in Gaza or siding with Israeli policies.
Empathy for Israeli victims of terrorism does not take away from the horror taking place in Gaza. Numerous Israelis and diaspora Jews have been steadfast and sincere allies throughout this past year, especially when I lost dozens of my family members in Israeli airstrikes.
There is still time to adjust course and build bridges with diverse communities to achieve a pragmatic outcome that serves the Palestinian people while acknowledging Jewish and Israeli rights and grievances.
It's time for a new way that breaks the entrenchment of the two sides' narratives and cuts across the divisive rhetoric that has destroyed this discourse.
Palestinians are tired of being perpetual victims.
As early as the 1980s, the U.S. intelligence community documented the ways in which Iran deployed chemical weapons for tactical delivery on the battlefield. Nearly 40 years later, U.S. officials formally assessed that Iran was in non-compliance with its Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) obligations, pointing specifically to Tehran’s development of pharmaceutical-based agents (PBAs) that attack a person’s central nervous system as part of a chemical weapons program. Over time, concern about this program has increased, with reports to the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), statements by multilateral groups such as the G7, and a variety of U.S. government reports and sanctions. Today, with Iran’s proxies wreaking havoc throughout the region, officials worry Tehran may have already provided weaponized PBAs to several of its partners and proxies. Such a capability, tactically deployed on the battlefield, could enable further October 7-style cross-border raids or kidnapping operations. With the region on edge following the targeted killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, followed by an Israeli ground campaign targeting Hezbollah infrastructure along the border, and the Iranian ballistic missile attack on Israel, concern about the use of such tactical chemical weapons is high.
Since at least 2005, U.S. authorities contend, Iran has conducted extensive research and development of pharmaceutical-based chemical agents (PBAs), primarily anesthetics used to incapacitate victims by targeting the central nervous system, in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention.1 While Tehran contends its PBA program is allowed under an exception for developing crowd control tools for law enforcement, Iran has been called out—along with Russia and Syria—for developing these dual-use chemical agents by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).2 While the issue has received scant public attention, the U.S. State,3 Treasury,4 and Defense5 departments, as well as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence6 and the G7,7 have highlighted the issue and begun taking action against Iranian entities tied to this activity.
Iran’s weaponization of PBAs, however, is no longer just a matter of research and development. Beyond its R&D program, Iran now appears to have produced fentanyl-based or other types of weaponized PBAs and provided these to partners and proxy groups that may have already used them in several cases in Iraq and Syria.8 At home, Iranian journalists have investigated the poisoning of thousands of school-aged girls with some suspecting the symptoms displayed suggest the involvement of PBAs (some believe this was an Iranian government response to a protest movement, while the Iranian government claims it was an attack by unspecified ‘enemies’).9 Now, after a year of near-daily rocket fire by Hezbollah into northern Israel, Israeli authorities fear Hezbollah may attempt an October 7-style cross border raid into Israel from Lebanon in which the group could use Iranian-manufactured PBAs to incapacitate and kidnap Israeli soldiers deployed along the border, and enable fighters to penetrate farther into Israel to attack civilian communities.10 In the post-October 7 security environment, U.S. officials have prioritized the issue of Iran’s weaponization of PBAs in their diplomatic engagement at multinational fora like the OPCW and in bilateral engagements with allies around the world. The stakes are now higher still after the targeted killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and the Israeli military maneuvers in southern Lebanon aimed at rooting out Hezbollah military infrastructure there.
This article briefly explains what pharmaceutical-based agents are, and explores the dangers posed by weaponized PBA’s as tactical battlefield weapons developed by Iran. Based on declassified CIA reports, the article explores the history of Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Iran, Iran’s own development and deployment of chemical weapons, and concerns that Iran has provided weaponized PBAs to its partners and proxies. This led the United States to take a leading role calling out Iran’s weaponized PBA program, which became a more immediate national security concern for Israeli in particular in light of Lebanese Hezbollah’s ‘Plan to Conquer the Galilee.’ This year, the U.S. intelligence community inserted a warning about Iran’s chemical weapons program, including incapacitating agents, in its 2024 annual threat assessment. All of which means far more multilateral and national-level actions are needed to counter Iran’s development of PBAs and its transfer of these dangerous agents to partners and proxies.