Friday, January 23, 2026

01/23 Links Pt1: Douglas Murray: Trump’s new Board of Peace is necessary because the UN has failed again and again; Adam Louis-Klein: Why anti-Zionism is the newest hate movement

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: Trump’s new Board of Peace is necessary because the UN has failed again and again
Over the years that the UN’s “peacekeeping force” was in southern Lebanon, the Iranian proxy terror group stockpiled tens of thousands of long- and short-range missiles. And promptly started another war.

When I was there, I saw the Hezbollah bases and tunnel entrances that had literally been created under the UN troops’ own eyes. The peacekeeping force’s bases and watchtowers had Hezbollah infrastructure mere yards from them. The UN’s “peacekeepers” had clearly said and done nothing.

The UN troops stationed in Lebanon when I was there were from Ireland and Sri Lanka. And as I said at the time to Post readers, find me an Irishman or Sri Lankan who is willing to lay down their lives in a confrontation with Hezbollah and I will try to find a bridge to sell you.

Of course they wouldn’t risk their lives. The average Irish or Sri Lankan soldier has zero interest in a confrontation with Hezbollah. So which troops would?

To date, the answer in the region each and every single time has been the same: Israel and America.

But why should young Israeli and American soldiers have to be solely responsible for stopping anti-Western terrorist groups in Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and any number of other places? Why shouldn’t the other countries whose security is at stake from these ayatollah-funded terror groups also put their young people’s lives on the line?

Why shouldn’t Egypt — which used to control Gaza — have responsibility for security and be held to account for it? Why shouldn’t Qatar — which hosted and funded Hamas — now pay for the destruction it helped create?

The nervousness of some people about the “Board of Peace” centers on the fact that there are some distinctly shady actors who have been invited onto it. But if Trump can get these countries to actually pony up, it would be a very different matter.

Of course that will require a commitment of troops and funding that are not connected to terror. The Turkish and Qatari governments are too entwined with the region’s terror axis to be trusted with stationing troops. But they should be made to pay for it. And they and other countries can and should be made to help keep the peace in Gaza and help to rebuild it in other ways.

Through his recent interventions on the world stage, Trump has shown he is capable of knitting together — not tearing apart — this country’s coalitions. By the admission of Mark Rutte — the NATO secretary-general — at Davos, if it had not been for Trump, there is no way that European countries would have fulfilled their military spending commitments.

If it had not been for Trump, this country’s NATO allies would have continued to piggyback off American taxpayers and expected America to keep funding their security. By making some (often undiplomatic) threats to those allies, Trump has made them take their own security seriously again.

Could the same thing now happen in the Middle East?

By appointing himself chairman of the Peace Board, Trump has shown that he is committed to the peace plan that is in place. By inviting regional actors to join him, he has shown that for once, it will not be just Israel and America that are expected to police the Middle East.

But the main threats to Middle Eastern security remain the same. The terrorists still run the Islamic revolutionary government in Iran. The state of Qatar is still funding anti-Western propaganda and terrorist groups across the region. Even here at home in America.

But if anyone is in a position to tell them to cut it out and accept the new reality, Trump is in the position to do so.

If he succeeds, you can expect those howls of alarm to turn to cheers.
Jonathan Tobin: Trump’s end run around the old world order
Despite Trump’s promises, the Board of Peace and the team of supposedly apolitical technocrats working for it won’t ensure that the coastal enclave can be turned into something other than a Hamas stronghold and a platform for continuing the Palestinian war on Israel’s existence. That’s not just because the board will count among its members the leaders of Turkey and Qatar (and others who support Hamas), although that in itself is a deal-breaker when it comes to any kind of realistic settlement of the dispute.

Simply put, Hamas won’t disarm or give up control of the 47% of Gaza it still holds. And the International Stabilization Force that is supposed to police the Strip and ensure that the terrorists abide by the terms of the ceasefire agreement will be composed of soldiers from nations that have no intention of fighting Hamas terror operatives. The only way to do that is to give a green light to the Israel Defense Forces to finish the job. The gap between the reality of politics in Middle East and fantasies about rebuilding a peaceful Gaza that was also unveiled at Davos by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, remains vast.

Which means that the Board of Peace is likely to fail unless or until the war against Hamas resumes—something Trump hopes to avoid since it will puncture his claim to be a uniquely successful negotiator, even in a region marked by turmoil.

Smashing an obsolete and harmful establishment
Even if it doesn’t succeed, the board’s creation will provide the president with yet another tool to push aside the United Nations and marginalize the international foreign-policy establishment.

The chattering classes are deeply unhappy about what has transpired, as one can read in the various accounts of Davos published in The New York Times. They believe that Trump is undermining all they hold sacred. Yet it’s necessary to look beyond the issue of whether the president is playing nicely or by the rules of diplomacy, and offending the sensibilities of the self-important celebrities of Davos and the international bureaucrats associated with the United Nations.

Trump might not succeed on every issue, and he may not behave in a manner that engenders the affection or respect of the educated classes that look up to these institutions. But he is right about one thing, above all. The basic truth at the heart of all of his efforts to smash the postwar order is that the United Nations, as well as the Davos set, must be trashed and bypassed if the West is to be saved from the Marxist and Islamist foes that threaten it in the 21st century. America’s geostrategic enemies in China and Russia also depend heavily on preserving the existing international establishment.

In taking up this struggle, Trump is taking aim at institutions that are causing real harm and seeking to address the most important threats to America, Israel and the West. Rather than deride him as a buffoon or a vandal, he should be applauded for defying the suits in Davos and all they stand for.
Florida House adopts bill to ban use of West Bank term in official documents
The Florida House of Representatives has advanced a bill that seeks to recognize Judea and Samaria and prohibit the use of the term “West Bank” in official government materials.

Two almost identical bills, both of which are called the ‘Recognizing Judea and Samaria Act,’ have been introduced.

One, CS/HB 31, was introduced to the Florida House and sponsored by Debra Tendrich and Chase Tramont, and a second, SB 1106, is the Senate companion bill introduced by a senator (Ralph Massullo) to the Florida Senate.

In state legislatures (like Florida’s), it is common for the same policy idea to be filed in both chambers – one as a House bill and one as a Senate bill – as it gives the proposal more chances to pass and essentially expedites the process.

As such, the House and Senate versions were drafted to match so that if both pass their chambers, one text can be agreed on in conference committees or through amendments.

Both bills intend to amend legislation to refer to the region by the name Judea and Samaria and not “West Bank” in official materials. Such materials would include guidance, rules, documents, press releases, and the like.

The bill, if passed, will also prohibit money being spent to create official government materials with the term West Bank. It would come into effect on July 1, 2026.


UN rights body condemns Iran’s ‘brutal repression’ of protests, mandates probe
The United Nations rights body condemned Iran on Friday for rights abuses and mandated an investigation into a recent crackdown on anti-government protests that killed thousands of people.

“I call on the Iranian authorities to reconsider, to pull back, and to end their brutal repression,” High Commissioner Volker Turk told an emergency session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, voicing concerns for detainees.

Turk highlighted some of the atrocities and continuing repression.

“We have indications that the security forces made mass arrests in several cities, even pursuing injured people into hospitals, and detaining lawyers, human rights defenders, activists, and ordinary civilians,” Turk said.

“The Tehran Prosecutor’s Office has reportedly opened criminal cases against athletes, actors, people involved in the movie industry, and the owners of cafes, on charges of supporting the protests,” he added

He also noted that the crackdown intensified on January 8, with security forces using live ammunition against demonstrators, resulting in the deaths of “thousands of people, including children,” urging the authorities in Tehran “to reconsider, to pull back, and to end their brutal repression.”

The council passed a motion extending a previous inquiry set up in 2022 so UN investigators could also document the latest unrest “for potential future legal proceedings.”

Rights groups say bystanders were among those killed during the biggest crackdown since Shiite Muslim clerics took power in the 1979 revolution. Tehran has blamed “terrorists and rioters” backed by exiled opponents and foreign foes, the US and Israel.

Iran’s mission decried the rights council’s “politicized” resolution and rejected external interference, saying in a statement it had its own independent and robust accountability mechanisms to investigate “the root causes of recent events.”

Twenty-five states, including France, Mexico and South Korea voted in favor, while seven, including China and India voted against and 14 abstained.


Hugh Hewitt: Should POTUS hit Iran? Will he, and if so, where? Eli Lake joins Hugh to discuss



With Hamas armed and Strip in ruins, Kushner’s vision for Gaza faces major obstacles
When unveiling his plan for Gaza’s reconstruction, Kushner did not say how de-mining would be handled or where Gaza’s residents would live as their areas are being rebuilt. At the moment, most families are sheltering on a stretch of land that includes parts of Gaza City and most of Gaza’s coastline.

In Kushner’s vision of a future Gaza, there would be new roads and a new airport — the old one was destroyed by Israel more than 20 years ago, amid the Second Intifada — plus a new port, and an area along the coastline designated for “tourism” that is currently where most Palestinians live.

The plan calls for eight “residential areas” interspersed with parks, agricultural land and sports facilities.

Also highlighted by Kushner were areas for “advanced manufacturing,” “data centers,” and an “industrial complex,” though it is not yet clear what industries they would support.

Kushner said construction would first focus on building “workforce housing” in Rafah, the southern Gaza city that was devastated during the war and is currently controlled by Israeli troops. He said rubble-clearing and demolition were already underway there.

The United Nations says unexploded shells and missiles are everywhere in Gaza, posing a threat to people searching through rubble to find their relatives, belongings, and kindling.

Rights groups say rubble clearance and de-mining activities have not begun in earnest in the zone where most Palestinians live because Israel has prevented the entry of heavy machinery, citing its potential for “dual use” (civilian and military purposes).

After Rafah will come the reconstruction of Gaza City, Kushner said, or “New Gaza,” as his slide calls it. The new city could be a place where people will “have great employment,” he said. Will Israel agree?

Nomi Bar-Yaacov, an international lawyer and expert in conflict resolution, described the board’s initial concept for redeveloping Gaza as “totally unrealistic” and an indication that Trump views it from a real estate developer’s perspective, not a peacemaker’s.

A project with so many high-rise buildings would never be acceptable to Israel because each would provide a clear view of its military bases near the border, said Bar-Yaacov, who is an associate fellow at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy.

What’s more, Kushner’s presentation said the NCAG would eventually hand off oversight of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority after it makes reforms.

But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has adamantly opposed any proposal for postwar Gaza that involves the Palestinian Authority. And even in the West Bank, where it governs Palestinian population centers, the Palestinian Authority is widely unpopular because of corruption and perceived collaboration with Israel.
Who is Yakir Gabay, the billionaire on Trump's Gaza Board of Peace?
You probably haven’t heard of Yakir Gabay. Until a few weeks ago, neither had most people tracking Middle East policy, and that’s exactly how he liked it.

Gabay made his billions the quiet way: European real estate, German apartment blocks, the kind of unglamorous assets that generate steady cash and don’t make headlines. He operates out of Cyprus, not Jerusalem. Frankfurt stock listings, and far away from the news and front pages. For two decades, he stayed far from Israeli politics. Didn’t even vote in recent years.

Then October 7 happened, and something shifted. Within days, he was drafting what would become the reconstruction plan now attached to US President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” framework for Gaza. The White House put his name on the Gaza Executive Board, and suddenly everyone wanted to know: Who is this person, and what does a real estate investor know about rebuilding a war zone?

When Gabay talks about the plan, in Hebrew, behind closed doors, with the intensity of someone who’s spent the last 16 months thinking about little else, he sounds like he’s explaining a complicated deal structure, not a framework for ending a war.

How Trump and envoy Jared Kushner see victory: bring the hostages home, don’t return to fighting, dismantle Hamas. The last part is the hardest: disarmament.

He knows the obvious loophole: Hamas could just absorb itself into the new police force, weapons and all. But he thinks there’s a path. There will be people in the force who aren’t Hamas. He has been heard saying, “There will be enough forces.” He also likes asking, “Is everything perfect?” “No,” he tends to say, “but the alternative isn’t good either. Going back to fighting isn’t good.”

The way he sees it, the sequencing creates its own logic. If the first mission fails, voluntary disarmament through pressure from Egypt, Turkey, Qatar, and the international community, then the IDF goes in and neutralizes Hamas’s weapons by force. But there’s a chance, he believes, that the pressure works. That Hamas, isolated and surrounded by Arab states that have signed on to the framework, chooses survival over resistance.
FDD: Jonathan Conricus on the Gaza 'Board of Peace' charter signed in Davos – NewsNation
Jonathan joins NewsNation to react to the launch of the Gaza 'Board of Peace,' and explain why a ‘Board of Peace’ with Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas supporters including Turkey and Qatar could be a recipe for disaster.


Jonathan Sacerdoti: Trump’s “Dubai for Gaza” plan is fantasy diplomacy — but could it actually work?
Jared Kushner’s vision for Gaza sounds like something lifted from a sci-fi property brochure: Jetsons-style skyscrapers, 100 percent employment, and a rapid transformation into a Dubai-like coastal powerhouse. But scratch beneath the surface and the plan begins to look less like serious policy and more like fantasy geopolitics.

Jonathan Sacerdoti breaks down why the proposal is riddled with contradictions, from the sheer impossibility of rebuilding Gaza at breakneck speed, to the unresolved reality of Hamas, disarmament, and the diversion of aid. But maybe that's the point...


Jonathan Sacerdoti: What head of Gaza Administration Ali Shaath said about Trump's Gaza plan 1 yr before he took on role
Ali Shaath, appointed by Donald Trump as the head of the Gaza Administration committee to carry out his 'phase B' plan for the reconstruction of Gaza and demilitarisation of Hamas, spoke disparagingly about Trump's entire plan just one year earlier at a conference entitled ‘The Palestine Forum – The Genocidal Israeli War on Gaza: Scenarios for the Day After’. Here is what he says now, in the Board of Peace promo video, and what he said just one year earlier, about peace, blood, Trump and rebuilding.




Two Egyptian wrongs don’t make a right
An honest Egyptian leadership would have cured its two peace treaty violations by assisting the search for terror tunnels and withdrawing its armed contingent from the Sinai. To comply with the African Union Refugee Convention, Egypt should have taken in the civilians of Gaza. Instead, El-Sisi blamed Israel for exceeding the military limits applied by the treaty to the Philadelphi Corridor.

Israel does not disclose the nature or extent of its military presence in Gaza. However, any IDF mission to clear tunnels in the Philadelphi Corridor—even one that exceeds the bounds of the peace treaty—is necessitated by Egypt’s failure to comply with its own tunnel-fighting treaty obligation. The situation implicates the treaty’s “good faith” requirement. Forcing Israel to deploy military assets to an area and then blaming Israel for doing so cannot be considered good faith.

Pursuant to the treaty, Israel must remove terror tunnels under the Philadelphi Corridor to prevent acts of belligerency from originating on its side of the Sinai border. The Israeli action is also justified by its right of self-defense under the U.N. Charter, which is incorporated by reference in that treaty.

At any rate, the treaty requires the parties involved to resolve any implementation disputes through negotiation, not scare tactics such as Egypt’s large-scale militarization of the Sinai. Bilateral dialogue is especially appropriate in this case, considering the disputed IDF operation poses no threat to Egypt’s security.

Egypt’s anti-Israeli claim is also legally untenable because it contradicts the Arab regime’s own formal support for the Gaza ceasefire accord of 2025. The agreement, codified in U.N. Security Council Resolution 2803, lets Israel maintain an unlimited IDF force in the Philadelphi Corridor until certain security “milestones” are met.

Instead of flouting good relations and posturing to attack its stable neighbor, Egypt should remember its last real assault on Israel and the results of that month-long confrontation. The 1973 Yom Kippur War caused widespread regional destruction and accomplished nothing.
Arsen Ostrovsky: International law claims unfounded: Unpublished letter to the Sydney Morning Herald/ Age
Letter to the Editor (SMH and The Age) in response to this piece:
In relation to Maher Mughrabi’s claims about international law (“’Board of peace’ a sham solution” January 21), let’s be clear about something – the “right to armed struggle” in the context of “Palestinian rights”, is an unmistakable call for violence and terror against Israelis. One does not need to be an international law scholar to know that there is absolutely no law, treaty or convention that affords any kind of legal right to kill civilians, take hostages, or carry out terror attacks. On the contrary, international law, including the Geneva Conventions, is explicitly clear in outlawing this.

Equally so, the claim that the so-called Palestinian ‘right to return’ is codified in international law, is also rather dubious to say the least. In any case, this “return” is not a call for peace, but for undoing 78 years of history and erasing Israel’s existence even within the long-gone borders of 1948. In short, it is a demographic weapon designed to eliminate Jewish self-determination in Israel, not coexist alongside it. One cannot seriously claim to support a two-state solution while insisting on a demand that would abolish one of those states.


Times of Israel: Adam Louis-Klein: Why anti-Zionism is the newest hate movement
Welcome to The Times of Israel's Lazar Focus. Each Friday, join host diplomatic correspondent Lazar Berman for a deep dive into what's behind the news that spins the globe.

Since October 7, 2023, there has been a focused and intense campaign to paint Zionism as a supremacist, racist, and inherently violent movement that has no place in academia, popular culture, or public life in the West.

Jews and supporters of Israel usually label such attacks as antisemitism, since they often take old tropes about Jews and apply them to Israel.

Anthropologist Adam Louis-Klein, who emerged from the Colombian jungle on October 9 and found himself under attack from colleagues for his support of Israel, is leading the effort to cast anti-Zionism as a hate movement that seeks to deny Jews a place in the public square on their own terms by portraying Zionism as the root of much of the world's evil and violence.

Louis-Klein applies his critical lens to anti-Zionism, examining its roots in Nazism, Islamist ideology, and Soviet propaganda. He unpacks terms like "settler-colonialism," "genocide," and " apartheid," and explains why the anti-Zionists chose those loaded words in their attack on the Jewish state.


Gad Saad Reveals How To Stop Islam’s Takeover Of The West Forever!
Evolutionary psychologist Dr. Gad Saad traces a straight line from his childhood as a Jew in Beirut (civil war, open Jew-hatred, and a family kidnapping) to what he argues is the West’s current collapse into “parasitic” thinking: an academic and political culture that severs language from reality, rewards ideological conformity over evidence and then weaponizes “empathy” so badly it becomes self-destructive. You’ll learn his core framework from "The Parasitic Mind" and his forthcoming book "Suicidal Empathy", including the “nomological network” method for building arguments that survive hostile audiences. and why he believes everything from campus insanity to policy failures follows the same pattern: once cognition and emotion are hijacked, societies start rationalizing the irrational, excusing predatory ideologies and punishing anyone who insists on basic truths.

CHAPTERS
0:00 — Introduction: Who is Dr. Gad Saad and why this talk matters
3:10 — Beirut to exile: growing up Jewish in Lebanon and facing open Jew-hatred
8:40 — The Star of David “full circle”: from freedom in 1975 to fear in modern Montreal
12:50 — Academia’s warning siren: why Concordia became “too dangerous”
16:30 — The “postmodernism” dinner story: when reality breaks down (sun/east/west)
22:15 — The Parasitic Mind: how ideas “infect” cognition and replace reason with ideology
28:40 — The persuasion tool: building a “nomological network” of evidence (how to win debates)
36:20 — Suicidal Empathy: when compassion becomes dysregulated and destructive
49:10 — “Wood cricket” examples: activists, institutions, and policies that reward self-harm
1:06:30 — How to save the West: 8 principles (truth, meritocracy, free speech, moral clarity)


‘Serious error’: ABC’s Sally Sara fails to correct Greens Senator’s slipup on Bondi attack
Sky News Media Watch Dog Columnist Gerard Henderson has criticised the ABC’s Sally Sara for failing to correct Greens Senator David Shoebridge’s error on who was targeted during the Bondi terror attack.






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