Monday, August 03, 2026

08/02 Links: Gaza Illusions; The Children Hamas Chose to Weaponize; Deal said in the works to revive US-Iran MOU; Time for Israel to Go on a Narrative Offensive

From Ian:

Gaza Illusions
Hamas identifies more advantages than disadvantages in the Board of Peace agreement for Gaza and therefore welcomes it. The organization survived after three years of bitter war and remains the dominant force in Gaza. It does not assess that the arrangement threatens its status or its assets. In its understanding, it will be able to continue preserving its military and civilian power under the cosmetic cover of the technocratic government - adopting the Hizbullah model, meaning existing alongside a weak formal government.

Hamas emphasizes that the demand for disarmament relates only to heavy weapons, of which it has barely any left. The arrangement appears to be creating a trap for Israel, enabling Hamas to preserve its power, despite the promise that nothing would be advanced in the area unless Hamas was first disarmed.

Under the circumstances that have been created, vital interests in Gaza must be defined in the spirit of "prevention," first and foremost: preserving freedom of action against emerging threats in the area; designating a large area near the border where activity of any kind will be prohibited, all the more so the establishment of an enemy presence; preserving the right to veto foreign actors entering Gaza; and above all ensuring that the Philadelphi Corridor is not under Hamas control.
Did the PA's "Pay-for-Slay" Policy Facilitate the October 7 Massacre?
The Palestinian Authority established a comprehensive statutory framework governing financial benefits for terrorist prisoners and released terrorists. Over time, the remuneration system expanded beyond monthly salaries to include release grants, guaranteed employment within the PA apparatus, and continuing financial support where employment was unavailable. The legal framework progressively increased both the level of financial benefits and the institutional obligations imposed upon the PA toward terrorist prisoners and released terrorists.

The PA/PLO's remuneration policy was not merely a humanitarian welfare program or a series of isolated financial payments. Rather, it evolved into a comprehensive statutory and administrative framework that systematically rewarded terrorist imprisonment, guaranteed continuing financial support following release, and, in many cases, facilitated the reintegration of released terrorists into publicly-funded employment.

The policy substantially reduced the personal and economic consequences associated with terrorist activity and materially assisted a significant number of experienced terrorists who later resumed terrorist activity. Several ultimately rose to senior positions within Hamas or directly participated in planning, financing, directing, or executing the October 7 massacre.
Time for Israel to Go on a Narrative Offensive
Rewiring the narrative
Historically, the relative success in the turnabout on Israel and Zionism has been a long process. Even if we ignore Jewish anti-Zionism thinking, amongst Jews as well as non-Jews, or take into consideration general anti-Jewish sentiment whether racist or religiously-motivated, surely we are in a very different place as regards control of the narrative.

In a recent piece posted in the +972 Magazine, we learn that France’s Rima Hassan, European Parliament member representing the La France Insoumise party, wants to break four taboos in the French public debate on Palestine.

They are: recognizing Zionism as a colonial ideology; defending the right of return; discussing the legitimacy of armed struggle; and moving beyond the two-state paradigm.

That is not a simple alteration of a narrative but, as the chant that has been increasingly sounded at anti-Israel rallies is formulated, Zionism must be eliminated. We are back in the 1950s and 1960s with the “Throw them into the sea!” sloganeering.

Yet, because of the internal squabbling in Israel over policies, the fundamental truths of the Zionist narrative have been misplaced in our public diplomacy material, as well as the fierce willingness to engage in confronting the waves of lies and fabrications assertively. It appears the “in” thing is to appear at the Oxford Union in evening dress.

Rabbi Irving Greenberg, however, provides another problem. Appalled by Hasan Piker’s claim of how much better Hamas is than Israel, he writes in the LA Jewish Journal on July 16 that Piker’s political voice promotes a “toxic narrative … untethered from reality.”

Piker, he continued, is an example of how “Palestinians’ allies have led [the Palestinians] to the dark side of their national aspirations – destroying Israel rather than building their own potential state.”

Greenberg does not address that toxicity’s success. He does not ask if that negativity should be a cause to punish those exploiting such a message or if, and he is a rabbi, an ethical conclusion could be drawn that should advance the idea that an Arab Palestine state would be immoral.

There exists a major underestimation of the damage and danger the Palestine narrative dominance represents. And now that the pro-Palestine camp has reduced the rhetoric to a zero-sum situation, demanding our elimination and that our existence as a Jewish state must be denied, the hasbara (public diplomacy) approach of defense and explaining Israel’s actions needs to be refashioned.

Money is available. According to reports, since October 2023, upwards of $100 million has been allotted to hasbara efforts, most on social media platforms. I probably haven’t seen all the output, but I am confident little of it was framed in an attack mode.

We need to be past that stage of weak, explanatory public diplomacy. Attention must be shifted. The burden of proof and defense must be placed on the pro-Palestine side. Should a Palestinian national identity of less than 100 years be preferred over a 3,000-year Jewish national identity?

Were not the Arab Muslim conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries the real colonization process in the Middle East?

Who is truly engaged in an “ethnic cleansing” if not Palestinianism? Who initiated genocidal violence, beginning in 1920? Should not the side that violates agreements be punished? Should a constant rejection of diplomacy and willingness to compromise be tolerated?

It is time to make major changes in attitude and approach and to reassert Zionism’s narrative.


Israel Cannot Accept a Gaza Deal without Hamas Truly Disarming
It would be welcome news if Hamas had truly agreed to surrender its weapons as part of President Trump's proposed framework to end the war. But there are good reasons for skepticism. Hamas's ideology makes genuine disarmament difficult to imagine. Israel was not a direct participant in the negotiations, but it would ultimately have to decide whether its security requirements were met.

Israel has made clear that it will remain in Gaza until Hamas gives up its weapons. That is the essential condition. Hamas has lost the war. Most of its senior leadership and many of the terrorists responsible for the rapes, murders and other atrocities committed on Oct. 7, 2023, have been killed. The campaign against those who remain is still ongoing.

Israel has learned the lessons of Oct. 7. Any agreement must be built on ironclad guarantees. Israel cannot withdraw from Gaza until the threat posed by Hamas has been substantially eliminated. Only complete and verifiable disarmament can ensure that the mistakes of Oct. 7 are never repeated.
Proposed Gaza Plan Would Leave Hamas with Political Gains while Tying Israel's Hands
The "road map" for implementing President Trump's peace plan in Gaza published Friday by the "Peace Board" is a vague declaration of intent rather than a binding agreement. The "road map" grants Hamas in Gaza the same status that Hizbullah currently holds in Lebanon.

This means armed political influence through Hamas members who will be absorbed into the new police force in Gaza, as well as behind-the-scenes management of central government institutions through Hamas officials who will retain their positions. All this will happen without Hamas bearing any responsibility for residents' welfare, their safety or the provision of essential services.

The plan leaves Hamas as a force of power in Gaza and improves the personal situation of surviving Hamas operatives and commanders. The "road map" also speaks of opening a "credible pathway" toward a Palestinian state. This means Hamas has also secured a significant political and public-relations achievement that will allow it to expand its influence among Palestinians.

Hamas members who serve as police officers or receive weapons permits from the technocratic government will retain their personal weapons. By contrast, the militias and clans that cooperated with Israel and the IDF during the war and clashed with Hamas will be disarmed and will not be allowed to serve as officials in the new government.

Israel is on the giving side and Hamas is the one receiving. Israel is required to halt military operations, including the targeted strikes it is currently carrying out. According to the "road map," the IDF will have no ability to address violations of the agreement by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, even if the technocratic government and the international stabilization force fail or refuse to deal with them. Israel will have no veto over who will hold senior positions in the new Gaza government and no right to conduct "hot pursuit" if Hamas attacks or fires a mortar shell toward Israeli communities.
Hamas Agreed To a Disarmament Deal. Then It Rewrote the Terms.
The U.S. announced on July 30 that Hamas agreed to the Gaza disarmament plan outlined in the Board of Peace deal.

The disarmament deal calls for civilian governance and security functions in Gaza to be handed over to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG). Additionally, it will begin the decommission of weapons from Hamas and other terrorist organizations, which must be completed within 14 days after all parties agree to the deal. Disarmament is tied to a gradual IDF withdrawal, requiring one phase of the deal to be completed before moving on to the next stage.

As soon as the full details of the agreement were released to the public, the terrorist group was already misconstruing the terms it had just agreed to, claiming that the withdrawal of the IDF was required before the terrorist organization would hand over its weapons. Yet the agreement itself notes that disarmament must happen before withdrawal.

Nonetheless, the New York Times was quick to question “whether Israel and Hamas will comply,” despite Israel’s compliance being contingent on Hamas’.

Similarly, France24 and The Telegraph focused exclusively on Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip after Hamas had reportedly agreed to the deal, implying that Israel was the bad faith actor – not the terrorists whose weapons storage facilities the strikes were targeting.

Hamas’ rewriting the deal’s sequencing within hours of agreeing to it gives insight into what Hamas hopes to achieve, and why Israel has been hesitant to celebrate such an achievement – until Hamas proves it will adhere to the agreement, skepticism is warranted.

Hamas is a terrorist organization bent on the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people; it is not a party that can be easily trusted to adhere to a deal. Throughout the war, Hamas consistently violated various ceasefire agreements by attacking Israeli troops, attempting to launch rockets, or refusing to return hostages. And when Hamas has fewer opportunities to commit terrorist attacks against Israelis, it has frequently turned its violence inward toward Palestinians.

In November 2025, when the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2803, approving the implementation of the 20-point Peace Plan, Hamas was the sole party to reject it.

It is thus worthwhile not only to question Hamas’ intentions but to ask whether it will even cooperate with this deal, given the terrorist organization’s lack of interest in peace in the past.

As Palestinian analyst Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib astutely notes, Hamas’ apparent willingness to disarm implies that the claim that the terrorist organization needs weapons in order to “protect” itself from Israel entirely collapses. It is this claim that has taken hold in anti-Israel protests worldwide, demonstrating that the narrative itself was used by activists to justify terrorism.
Board of Peace envoy laments recent Gaza strikes amid effort to implement Trump plan
Board of Peace Gaza envoy Nickolay Mladenov on Sunday lamented the past two days of Israeli strikes in Gaza that “have killed civilians and destroyed medical supplies that people depend on,” days after the body reached a disarmament deal with Hamas that would also see Israel withdraw from the Strip.

Gaza medics said Israeli strikes Saturday overnight and into Sunday evening killed at least 17 people, including children.

In a post on X, Mladenov said the strikes came “after intense efforts by the Board of Peace and the mediators (Egypt, Turkiye, Qatar and the US) to bring the Palestinian factions in Gaza to agree to a Roadmap on the full implementation of President Trump’s plan, to hand over civilian governance and to decommission their weapons.”

He added that his team was “working around the clock with the parties, the mediators, and regional partners to de-escalate and create the space for the full implementation of the president’s plan. Achieving a lasting peace is hard, but achievable if everyone makes their best efforts.”

The Board of Peace had hoped that Hamas’s approval of its disarmament plan on Thursday after months of negotiations would immediately trigger its implementation.

However, Israel has indicated that it does not approve of the plan’s terms, and will not cooperate with it, leaving its implementation in question.

The deal would see Hamas gradually hand over its weapons to a new Palestinian administration in Gaza, but the arms would remain in the territory. It also mandates Israel to begin withdrawing from land it holds in Gaza before Hamas has fully disarmed.

But an Israeli official said Sunday that Jerusalem had shared “serious security concerns” with the White House regarding the proposed deal. US President Donald Trump had previously claimed that Israel was “very happy” with the deal.

Doron Spielman, spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office told The Associated Press that Israel’s intelligence assessment was that Hamas remains committed to rebuilding its military rather than genuinely demilitarizing. He said the Israeli military would not withdraw from Gaza — where it controls more than 60% of the territory — before Hamas disarms.

“Our assessment is that if we redeploy before Hamas is truly disarmed, it will quickly expand its presence throughout Gaza, rebuild its terrorist infrastructure, once again threaten Israeli communities, and seek to carry out another October 7-style attack,” he said, referring to the deadly Hamas terror attack on Israel in 2023 that triggered the war in the Gaza Strip.

“Disarming means physically giving up the weapons. Nothing less,” Spielman said.
Danon: Hamas weapons must be removed entirely from Gaza
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations said on Sunday that any plan for Gaza must ensure Hamas is fully disarmed, rejecting proposals that would merely relocate its weapons.

In an X post that included a video excerpt from an earlier interview with CNN‘s Wolf Blitzer, Danny Danon said “disarmament is not transferring weapons from one warehouse to another,” stressing that arms must be removed entirely from the Gaza Strip so Hamas cannot “use them or even touch them.”

Israel supports the current plan, said Danon, noting the Israeli Cabinet last week approved the entry of an International Stabilization Force into Gaza as part of the agreement. He added that implementation must be judged “by what is happening on the ground, not what Hamas is saying. You know, no one trusts a terrorist organization. You have to verify what they are doing, not what they are saying.”

U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that the Board of Peace, which he chairs, reached an agreement with Hamas for the complete disarmament ‌of the terrorist groups that rule and control the Gaza Strip.

It was a “major milestone in the implementation” of his 20-point plan to bring an end to the Israel-Hamas war and begin the recovery process in the enclave, he said.

The pact will be implemented in phases, as the Israel Defense Forces withdraws as disarmament progresses, according to Trump.


Report: Hamas Is Distributing Rifles to Avoid Disarmament
Hamas began distributing individual weapons to the terrorist group’s operatives in the Gaza Strip amid the Board of Peace’s (BoP) Hamas disarmament deal, Kan News reported on Saturday, citing a Palestinian source.

The goal of the rifle distribution is to ensure that weapons stay in the hands of Hamas members under the guise of personal ownership.

“Hamas will not disarm. Period,” the Palestinian source asserted.

However, the BoP has maintained that the terror organization is committed to honoring the disarmament deal, regardless of media statements made by Hamas officials to the contrary.

Other sources have claimed that Hamas confirmed its participation in the agreement to other Middle Eastern countries, including Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey, along with the US. US President Donald Trump speaks during a charter announcement for his Board of Peace initiative aimed at resolving global conflicts, alongside the 56th annual World Economic Forum (WEF), in Davos, Israel has criticized the agreement, especially the finer details that US President Donald Trump said will be rolled out in phases.

Though the deal requires IDF withdrawal from Gaza so the International Stabilization Force (ISF) can begin reconstructing in cooperation with new civil forces, Israel has said that it all hinges on disarming Hamas as a pre-condition.

Under the 15-point document to be set in motion in the next few days, Hamas will need to halt all military activity in a two-week window. Only after that can disarmament begin, the BoP plan said.

Concurrently, Israel will be held to the ceasefire guidelines agreed upon in October 2025.
The Children Hamas Chose to Weaponize
As a father, as a Muslim, and as someone who has spent much of my life advocating for human rights, I refuse to become numb to the suffering of children, whether they are Israeli or Palestinian. But compassion cannot replace honesty. Much of the international conversation measures this war by counting the number of dead children, while asking almost nothing about how those children came to be in the middle of a battlefield in the first place.

One of the most uncomfortable truths is that Palestinian terrorist organizations have systematically recruited, indoctrinated, trained, and used children for military purposes for decades. This is not Israeli propaganda. It is documented by the UN, UNICEF, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Child Soldiers International.

The militarization of Palestinian youth has been institutionalized. For years, Hamas organized military-style summer camps where tens of thousands of boys learned weapons handling, tactical drills, ideological indoctrination, and military discipline.

International law recognizes that the party deliberately embedding military assets among civilians bears responsibility for creating extraordinary risks to those civilians. As long as children are taught that dying for a cause is more honorable than living for a future, peace will remain painfully out of reach. Only when Palestinian children are freed from the grip of militant organizations will they truly have the opportunity to build the peaceful future they deserve.
Eugene Kontorovich: France humiliated itself at the UN when it compared the US to North Korea. It’s time Trump gives Turtle Bay the punishment it deserves
The folly of the United Nations was on full display this week. France committed a major faux pas: Its embassy posted on X that “the US used to be a beacon of human rights. Not anymore. Today, it stands alongside North Korea, Nicaragua, Mali & Russia, isolated.” The French went on to say “the world no longer listens” to the US.

The American delegation walked out of a UN meeting in protest, and now the State Department is considering how to punish both Paris and Turtle Bay. Washington is reportedly weighing a rejection of President Emmanuel Macron’s new pick to be his country’s ambassador in DC. The French are reportedly miffed about that — but why should they care about an ambassador to a country no one listens to?

This diplomatic slap is a good step, but it does not impose real costs outside the imaginary world of diplomatic dignity. Moreover, simply blocking the ambassador is not enough in light of Macron’s persistent attempts to undermine Trump’s foreign policy.

Macron has consistently thrust himself into diplomatic issues where he has no business. He defied Trump by announcing he would recognize an imaginary “State of Palestine” in 2025 and organized a conference of other countries to do the same. According to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, this blew up negotiations between Israel and Hamas, which rightly recognized France’s moves as a de facto reward for their Oct. 7 invasion. Macron delayed the ultimate cease-fire by months, causing additional deaths and suffering to the hostages.

France’s role in Lebanon has been even more disastrous. France still fancies itself as having a special say in the fate of its former colony. But Macron has done nothing to keep the country from being taken over by Hezbollah — which France does not even fully recognize as a terror group.

Worse, Paris was the major supporter of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, a failed peacekeeping mission that ignored Hezbollah’s burgeoning missile arsenal. Indeed, sometimes Hezbollah hid behind UNIFIL the way Hamas hides behind Gazan civilians.


Trump says planned Iran strikes canceled after ‘perimeters’ of new deal agreed
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he had canceled a planned attack on Iran after Tehran had agreed in principle to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and negotiate an end to its nuclear program.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said the U.S. military was “locked and loaded” and prepared to launch an attack against the Islamic Republic with force “not seen since World War II.”

Trump said Iran and other regional countries had asked Washington to hold off because “the perimeters of a deal” had been agreed. He said the proposed terms would include the “immediate, complete, and total” reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and “an end to Iran’s nuclear threat.

“Based on this request, I have agreed, for the future benefit of the world and, likewise, the survival of a successful and prosperous Iran, to cancel the attack, subject to being able to rapidly make a deal,” the president wrote.

Israel “joins me in this commitment,” Trump said in the post, adding, “Get to work, everybody, and get it done.”

The American military and the Israel Defense Forces had been planning to restart joint attacks on Iran, targeting critical energy infrastructure sites, possibly beginning this weekend, CBS News reported on Saturday, citing unnamed U.S. officials.

Asked on Friday about talks to end the conflict with the Islamic Republic, Trump had said that Iranian negotiators were making him “angry.”

“I’m losing faith in them because they do lie and do, they do misrepresent,” he said.
Deal said in the works to revive US-Iran MOU, open Hormuz for 60 days without fees
A deal is being mediated to return the United States and Iran to the memorandum of understanding the two countries signed last month, sources aware of the details told Channel 12 on Sunday.

The deal would ensure that the Strait of Hormuz remains open for 60 days without fees and renew a ceasefire between the two sides, according to the report.

Around the same time, Iranian state media said negotiations between Iran and Oman over a mutual mechanism to govern the strait were in their final stages.

The US-Iran memorandum obligated Iran to fully open the strait “for 60 days only,” and did not impose restrictions after that.

It collapsed amid competing claims over Hormuz, with US President Donald Trump insisting the strait would be open, while Tehran believed the deal allowed it to dictate the route taken by ships through the key waterway.

Late Saturday, Trump said Iran had agreed to open the strait and announced that he had called off a major attack on the Islamic Republic, adding that Israel was on board. Tehran denied there was a deal.

According to Channel 12, Israel was to be part of the attack, which was called off about 24 hours before it was set to begin, and only learned that it would not be carried out after Trump published a message to that effect in a social media post.

Planning for the attack began on Wednesday, a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Trump at the White House, according to the report.

The US Central Command prepared an attack plan on Iranian energy infrastructure. “Israel was supposed to be part of the plan,” a US official told Channel 12.

Israel told the US that if the attack did not significantly damage Iranian economic and regime targets, there would be no point in carrying it out.
Iran denies it asked Trump not to strike or agreed to deal to split control of Hormuz
Iranian semi-official news agencies on Sunday denied US President Donald Trump’s claim hours earlier that Tehran had asked the US to hold off on any attack, and also negated reports that it had agreed to a deal that would divide control of the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran’s Mehr news agency on Sunday denied the claim by Trump — made as he announced that he had called off strikes since “the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to” — that the Islamic Republic asked the United States to refrain from conducting new strikes.

Citing military officials, the agency said the allegation “was nothing but a new lie” and that the Iranian armed forces were “on high alert and ready for any eventuality.”

Other Iranian media outlets mocked Trump for the climbdown, with Kayhan saying he “backed away from his positions once again, after about a week of boasting and threats against Iran, claiming that an agreement was close.” Echoed semi-official media outlet Mehr: “Trump once again backed away from his hollow threats and presented his retreat to the world as a favor.”

Israel’s Channel 12 news reported Sunday that Trump called off the strikes after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi agreed to a compromise deal on opening up the Strait of Hormuz. According to the report, based on two diplomats familiar with the situation, a compromise deal put together by Qatar and the US would see ships enter the Persian Gulf on the Iranian-controlled side of the strait and exit via the Omani side.

Oman agreed to the deal but sought assurances that the agreement would be respected by Iran’s hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the Qataris are attempting to secure, according to the report.

The report made no mention of fees for transiting the strait, which has been a major sticking point.

But Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency on Sunday quoted a member of the country’s negotiating team saying that the Israeli media report was “false.”

Fars also quoted the official as saying that “as long as the United States maintains its hostile actions, the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed” to any ship that does not coordinate with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Rubio: Degrading Iran’s ‘conventional shield’ puts US in position of strength
Iran no longer has its “conventional shield” of drones and missiles that it can hide behind, which is why it is now willing to reach an agreement over denuclearization, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Saturday night.

“I don’t think the Iranian regime has ever faced a president like President Trump, which is someone that actually takes action,” Rubio said in an interview with Fox News’ Lara Trump, the daughter-in-law of the president.

“They got used to, for 20-30 years, not just the U.S., but the broader world allowing them to get away with things like lying, breaking deals, tricking people into agreements and so forth,” America’s top diplomat continued.

“This case is pretty straightforward: Iran wants a nuclear weapon, and they were building a conventional missile shield they were going to hide behind. In essence they wanted to be in a position, a year and a half from now, to be able to say, ‘We have so many drones and so many missiles, you can’t possibly defend against them,’” he said.

But Trump did not let them accomplish that, Rubio continued, wiping out during “Operation Epic Fury” that started on Feb. 28 the Iranian navy, air force, missile defenses, launchers, and factories that manufacture these weapons.

Tehran still has drones and missiles, which can inflict damage, but degrading its military capabilities has allowed the U.S. to approach the Iranian regime “from a position of strength, not from a position of weakness,” the secretary of state said.

Rubio said that while “regime change” was never the goal of the Trump administration, the Iranian regime does have to change and renounce its aim to export the Islamic revolution in the region.

“And the only way you’re going to change that is if you make the price of it too high for them to be able to pay,” he added.
Why Iran's Jordan Gambit Will Fail
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps thanked the people of Jordan on Sunday "for your sincere cooperation and your accurate intelligence, which enabled the precise targeting by the fighters of Islam and the destruction of 20 hangars housing the forces of the child-killing U.S. Army in the Al-Azraq area, resulting in the deaths of dozens of American terrorist forces."

The IRGC refers to "U.S. bases" in Jordan, a false characterization. Under a 2021 Defense Cooperation Agreement, U.S. forces are granted access to agreed Jordanian military facilities for training, operations, logistics, and humanitarian missions, but sovereign U.S. bases were not established. These are Jordanian installations.

Yet, the practical reality remains: Iran is attacking Jordan directly. Jordan has been in Iran's crosshairs for years.

Iran's strategic miscalculation is believing pressure on Jordan will weaken its alliance with Washington. The opposite is unfolding.

Every missile fired, every drone launched, and every act of coercion only reinforces Jordan's indispensability to American strategy. Military cooperation is expanding, political support is unequivocal, and economic integration is accelerating.

Jordan is no longer merely another ally but an indispensable strategic anchor. Tehran understands Jordan's value. What it fails to understand is that every attack only increases that value.
Alleged Hamas financier arrested in the UK
Mohammad Yousef Hasna, of Istanbul, was arrested in the United Kingdom on Friday and charged with funneling money and supplies to Hamas under the guise of humanitarian aid, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

According to prosecutors, Hasna, 45—also known as Orhan Korkmaz and Abu al-Baraa—used his position as global director of a U.K.-registered charity to coordinate with senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad, a member of the terrorist group’s politburo.

Federal prosecutors allege that Hasna arranged cash deliveries to Hamad, procured supplies and organized their transportation into Gaza. He also allegedly directed goods to warehouses and recipients selected by Hamad.

According to the complaint, Hasna and Hamad attempted to conceal where supplies were stored and delivered, including by recording images that excluded signs identifying warehouses.

The unnamed charity reported that its gross income nearly doubled after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, increasing from about $14.8 million in fiscal 2023 to $81.6 million the following year.

“The money that flows from sham charities like the one described in the complaint fuels Hamas’s terrorist activities, including the atrocities the group committed on Oct. 7,” said John A. Eisenberg, U.S. assistant attorney general for national security. “Hamas cannot function without injections of money through its illicit financial networks.”
IDF confirms explosive that wounded five Lebanese soldiers was from Hezbollah, not Israeli strike
The IDF confirmed on Sunday that Hezbollah terrorists were the ones who deployed an explosive device, which ended up wounding five Lebanese soldiers in southern Lebanon.

According to the military, the explosive, which was run over by the Lebanese soldiers, belonged to Hezbollah, contrary to claims that the incident had been Israel's responsibility.

The IDF further clarified that the incident had occurred in the Kfara area of Lebanon, where no Israeli soldiers had any presence.

Lebanon claims Israel struck its soldiers, then backtracks
On Sunday evening, the Lebanese Armed Forces said that five of its soldiers were lightly wounded after a "hostile Israeli strike" in the Kafr Kila area, southern Lebanon.

The initial assessment said that the explosion was the product of an Israeli strike, which happened while the soldiers were escorting several residents in town at the time of the reported strike.

Later that day, Lebanon's military walked back on the claim that the five were hurt in an Israeli strike, while adding that the incident was the product of a "suspicious object."


IDF eliminates Hamas commander who infiltrated Nir Oz on Oct. 7
The Israel Defense Forces said on Sunday that it had killed a Hamas commander who infiltrated Kibbutz Nir Oz during the terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.

Salem Jamal Abd al-Rahman Abu Labad, identified by the IDF as a Nukhba Force cell commander, was killed in an airstrike in southern Gaza on Saturday, the military said.

In a separate strike in central Gaza on Friday, the IDF killed Muhammad Abd al-Nasser Muhammad Khatib, a commander in Hamas’s al-Maghazi Battalion, a unit of the terrorist group’s Central Brigade responsible for the al-Maghazi camp and surrounding areas in central Gaza, according to the statement.

“The terrorists posed a threat to the troops and were eliminated in precise aerial strikes in order to remove the threat,” the IDF said.

Last week, the IDF also killed a commander from the Kataeb al-Mujahideen terrorist group in the southern Gaza Strip who took part in the abduction of Israeli hostages Noa Argamani and Avinatan Or during the Oct. 7 attack. Additionally, forces killed a Hamas commander who operated simultaneously as a doctor in Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, holding Israeli civilian Romi Gonen captive and hiding the body of Cpl. Noa Marciano following her murder.

Likud Party Knesset member Nissim Vaturi told JNS on Sunday that the IDF will “continue to strike places in Gaza that threaten the security of soldiers and Israeli citizens.”

“The terrorists will not stop being terrorists,” Vaturi said.


Antisemitic Conspiracy Theories Flood X After Mass Migrant Influx Into Ceuta
When an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 migrants crossed irregularly from Morocco into Ceuta on July 30 and 31, the sudden influx, equivalent to roughly two-thirds of the Spanish enclave’s population, overwhelmed local authorities and border controls. As the crisis unfolded, unfounded conspiracy theories alleging that Israel had orchestrated it spread rapidly online.

A Jewish Onliner investigation used social media listening tools to analyze X posts containing the keywords "Israel" alongside "Spain" or "Ceuta" during July 31 to August 1, 2026. The findings reveal what appeared to be a deliberate effort to weaponize a humanitarian crisis through antisemitic conspiracy narratives spread across multiple continents.

The Scale of the Antisemitic Campaign
The analysis identified 636,700 posts containing the monitored keywords, a significant portion of which promoted the false claim that Israel was connected to the Ceuta migration surge. The keyword-matched posts collectively generated 4.9 million engagements and an estimated 1.9 billion potential views during the 48-hour period examined.

Of the 8.3 million total posts on X mentioning Spain or Ceuta during July 31-August 1, approximately 8% included the keyword “Israel.”

Foreign Amplification Network Identified
A significant finding concerns the geographic origin of amplifier accounts driving the antisemitic narrative. An analysis of the top 10 amplifier accounts falsely alleging that Israel was behind the Ceuta crisis revealed that at least six accounts were based outside the United States, with amplifier accounts in places such as West Asia, Australia, and the U.K.


A breakdown of the top accounts amplifying the narrative, most of which are based outside the United States.
The regional distribution of accounts spreading the antisemitic conspiracy narrative suggests a concerted effort concentrated outside U.S. borders. According to the social media listening data, the United States accounted for only 33.9% of accounts amplifying the antisemitic narrative. The remaining majority — 66.1% of amplification — originated from other countries and regions, with Spain representing 19.4% of the share, “Other” regions 24.5%, the United Kingdom 4.4%, Colombia 4.3%, Canada 5.2%, France 5.2%, Mexico 5.2%, Brazil 3%, and Germany 1.1%.


Jonathan Sacerdoti: Are you paying for the 'Free Palestine' protests? Anne Herzberg follows the money
The vast demonstrations that filled Britain’s streets after 7 October 2023 have shaped politics, policing, Jewish life and public debate for nearly three years. Their scale gave them authority. Their repetition gave their slogans extraordinary reach. Their organisational structure deserves the same scrutiny routinely applied to every other force seeking to influence British public life.

Behind the crowds sits an infrastructure of campaign groups, funding networks, organisers, political activists and international connections. Questions about who pays for that infrastructure, who coordinates it and what regulation applies to it go directly to the integrity of democratic politics.

Anne Herzberg of NGO Monitor joins me to discuss the organisation’s investigation into the movement behind Britain’s major anti Israel demonstrations.

💬 We Discuss:
💷 How organisations hide the source of money behind Britain’s mass demonstrations
🪧 Why supposedly spontaneous mobilisation looks identical all around the world
🏛️ Charity money, tax payer money, and highly political campaigning
🌍 American foundations and international activist platforms funding British protests
🧩 How leadership overlaps across multiple organisations
🧒 Targeting young people through activist training, universities and social media
☪️ The Muslim Brotherhood and other extremist actors challenging democratic life
🇮🇷 How demonstrations centred on Gaza can absorb wider ideological causes
⚖️ Gaps in the Charity Commission, Companies House rules and Foreign Influence Registration Scheme
🇬🇧 Does Britain need stronger institutions capable of examining ideological extremism?


Jonathan Sacerdoti: Millions are watching this Islam debate: Jonathan Sacerdoti on what really happened at Oxford
A controversial Oxford Union debate asking whether the West is right to be suspicious of Islam has attracted huge attention online.

Journalist and broadcaster Jonathan Sacerdoti spoke in favour of the motion, arguing that difficult questions about Islam, extremism and its relationship with Western society should be discussed openly rather than avoided.

Videos from the debate are now reaching millions of people in just the first few days online, igniting an international conversation about Islam, extremism, free speech and the willingness of Western societies to confront difficult and controversial questions.

In this interview, Jonathan Sacerdoti discusses what happened inside the Oxford Union, the arguments made during the debate, the extraordinary reaction to his speech and why he believes these subjects need to be discussed openly, frankly and responsibly.




Jonathan Sacerdoti: Boy George quits West End show after releasing pro-Jewish song and Diane Abbott readmitted to Labour
Boy George has pulled out of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar at the London Palladium, just days before he was due to appear as King Herod.

The decision follows a fierce backlash over a new song released by the singer defending Israel’s military actions and rejecting accusations that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

Boy George had been due to take on the cameo role of King Herod from 3–15 August. His manager, Paul Kemsley, said the decision to withdraw was made to prevent the controversy from distracting from the West End production.

Meanwhile, Diane Abbott has been readmitted to the Labour Party after having the whip withdrawn and sitting as an independent MP.

The veteran MP and former shadow home secretary had been suspended from the parliamentary Labour Party following a series of controversies, most recently over comments about racism and prejudice.

Her readmission brings Abbott, one of Labour’s longest-serving and most prominent MPs, back into the parliamentary party after a prolonged and highly public dispute with the Labour leadership.




'It never happened': Norman Finkelstein challenges Oct. 7 sexual violence on Hasan Piker’s podcast
Finkelstein draws a historical parallel
The discussion of the digital archive coincided with Finkelstein’s broader framing of the October 7 attacks in his new publication. In the book, Finkelstein draws an explicit historical parallel between the events of October 7 and Nat Turner’s 1831 slave revolt.

Referencing 19th-century abolitionists who opposed slavery while reacting to the bloodshed of the rebellion, Finkelstein argues that acts of mass violence carried out by oppressed populations must be understood within the context of systemic confinement and a total lack of alternative avenues for liberation.

In a statement to The Jerusalem Post responding to Finkelstein’s claims, Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy said: “History has a way of isolating those who deny documented atrocities. Their voices may be loud today, but they will remain at the margins of history. Our responsibility is to continue sharing the stories revealed in Silenced No More, preserve the truth, honor the victims, and ensure accountability.

“After two years of investigation, the Civil Commission reached an unequivocal conclusion: Hamas and its collaborators used sexual and gender-based violence as a systematic and integral part of the October 7 attacks and against hostages in captivity. Drawing on an unprecedented body of evidence, including survivor and eyewitness testimony, first responder accounts, authenticated visual documentation, and other primary sources, the Commission documented recurring patterns of rape, sexual torture, genital mutilation, forced nudity, postmortem sexual abuse, and other forms of conflict-related sexual violence.

“These findings, preserved in a secure war crimes archive and supported by leading experts in international law, establish an enduring historical record. The most powerful response now to denial is to share our report Silenced No More, again and again, and help ensure these crimes are never forgotten.”


Israel-bashing activist who collaborated with Rama Duwaji rants about Jewish people ‘whining’ about the Holocaust: ‘Lost its meaning’
An Israel-bashing activist who collaborated on an art project with the city’s first lady Rama Duwaji mocked Jewish people for “whining” about the Holocaust.

Susan Abulhawa unleashed an unhinged rant on social media in response to the news that Mayor Zohran Mamdani was facing backlash for not appointing one Jewish person to his 18-member judicial screening panel.

“Europe’s holocaust has lost its meaning to the point that the whole world is sick of hearing about it,” Abulhawa said in a July 31 statement on X. “These clowns invoke that genocide with every perceived slight (even as they are committing or supporting a contemporary genocide).

An Israel-bashing activist who collaborated on an art project with the city’s first lady Rama Duwaji mocked Jewish people for “whining” about the Holocaust.

Susan Abulhawa unleashed an unhinged rant on social media in response to the news that Mayor Zohran Mamdani was facing backlash for not appointing one Jewish person to his 18-member judicial screening panel.

“Europe’s holocaust has lost its meaning to the point that the whole world is sick of hearing about it,” Abulhawa said in a July 31 statement on X. “These clowns invoke that genocide with every perceived slight (even as they are committing or supporting a contemporary genocide).

“Seriously, there’s something terribly wrong with them, and if moderate Jews don’t effectively reign [sic] in these extremists, it’s not going to end well for anyone,” she said.

Duwaji, Mamdani’s wife, created artwork for an essay book compiled by Abulhawa, who has previously described Jewish people as “vampires,” “demons” and “ghouls” — and celebrated the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel.

The city’s first lady drew the lead graphic for “A Trail of Soap,” an essay Abulhawa published in the Slow Factory’s Everything Is Political magazine.


The Green councillor’s troubling Israeli hostage talk
Birmingham has no shortage of urgent problems. Its council has suffered bankruptcy, a protracted bin strike and a grave loss of public confidence. Europe’s largest local authority needs an administration distinguished by competence, restraint and sound judgment.

It is therefore deeply troubling that Kamel Hawwash, the Green councillor now responsible for children, young people and families, should have spoken on October 7, 2023, of Israelis captured by Hamas as bargaining chips who could be used to extract political concessions, as the JC reports exclusively.

Appearing on Algerian television while terrorists were still rampaging through southern Israel, Hawwash referred to reports that more than 35 Israelis, “mostly soldiers”, had been seized. “The first thing they can do is keep these people and negotiate on many issues,” he said. “The matter isn’t just about the prisoners; it’s about lifting the siege and other things they can strive for.”

It is relevant that Hawwash believed he was speaking principally about soldiers, which somewhat mitigates the remarks, but not by much. These were not prisoners of war taken in conventional fighting between armies. They were seized during a savage assault directed predominantly against civilians. Human beings are not bargaining chips, and their seizure does not become legitimate because their terrorist captors hope to exchange them for prisoners or political concessions.

This is not the first time that local politicians have allowed overseas conflicts to intrude into municipal politics, distracting from the responsibilities for which they were elected, such as fixing potholes and removing rubbish from the streets. The irony is especially glaring in Birmingham, where residents have endured overflowing bins and disrupted collections for months. Councillors are entitled to hold views on international affairs, but town halls should not become arenas for relitigating distant conflicts they have no power to resolve, still less for mobilising local communities against one another.

The danger is that this worrying trend is also spilling into national politics and may become a feature in our next general election. The problem is not merely one of misplaced priorities. What we are witnessing is a wider degradation of British politics. This country is a diverse democracy in which many citizens have family ties, religious loyalties, national sympathies or deep emotional investments in conflicts abroad. Those attachments are politically potent and, precisely for that reason, responsible parties should be wary of exploiting them or organising domestic politics around them. Their task is to construct a common civic life, not to divide voters into rival communities mobilised around grievances imported from overseas.

The Green Party has increasingly chosen exactly this dangerous course. Once defined chiefly by environmental concerns, much of the party has made the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a central test of political virtue, so that even local elections become vehicles for overseas grievances. The result is not greater support for those suffering abroad but deeper division at home.
UK Supreme Court to reconsider Palestine Action ban
Britain’s Supreme Court will hear an appeal against a ruling that approved the government’s decision to designate Palestine Action as a terrorist organization, Reuters reported on Thursday.

On June 15, London’s Court of Appeal overturned an earlier High Court ruling that banning Palestine Action was unlawful due to its interference with freedom of expression.

Lady Chief Justice Sue Carr said the organization’s behavior was not that of a nonviolent protest group and that proscription was justified and proportionate, Reuters reported at the time.

Carr said the ban was “highly controversial” ⁠but called it “a fundamental mistake to overlook the fact that Palestine Action overtly promoted unlawful violence amounting to terrorism.”

The Supreme Court’s website showed that Huda Ammori, a co-founder of the anti-Israel group, was granted permission to appeal against that ruling, according to Reuters.

“We will continue to fight this proscription all the way to the Supreme Court and, if necessary, to the European Court of Human ‌Rights ⁠to overturn what has become one of the most extreme attacks on free speech and the right to protest in modern British history,” the report cited Ammori as saying in a statement.

The British government in July 2025 outlawed Palestine Action and declared it to be a terrorist organization after its followers vandalized aircraft at a Royal Air Force base, as well as a series of what the group called “occupations” of firms with ties to Israel.


Jerusalem Film Festival draws 70,000 despite boycott campaign targeting Israeli cinema
The 43rd Jerusalem Film Festival (JFF) ran from July 9-19 with an estimated 70,000 total attendees.

The festival took place roughly 10 months after the advocacy group Film Workers for Palestine launched a pledge naming the Jerusalem Film Festival directly among Israeli institutions its signatories would refuse to work with.

This year marked the first full festival cycle to run under that pledge, which tested whether the boycott would impact who showed up and what films got screened.

Mixed reviews of the festival's films
One attendee, Efrat Shvily, has been to the festival for many years, and said this year's lineup outperformed the last two.

"I know that in the past two years… the festival was down a bit because of boycotts… It was hard for the festival to get films," said Shvily.

This year, she said, the festival was lively as they managed to pull films from major international festivals such as Cannes, Berlin, and Venice.

In contrast, Yoav Alon has over a decade's worth of festivals behind him, and said the international variety felt thinner than in previous years.

“This year I think it was really difficult to compose the program,” said Alon. “Hardly any films in English, nothing from Scandinavia I think apart from one Finnish film, a few from Germany and only two from Spain. I would have loved to see films from Greece, which don't really come often to Israel; I would love to see films from the Middle East.”

According to the festival's executive director Roni Mahadav-Levin, fewer invited guests declined to attend this year compared to previous years, and that more than two dozen international filmmakers came to serve on juries or present work.

“We’ve been around for 43 years; we have long connections, and people may not support Israel, but still want to show their film here,” said Mahadav-Levin.
EXCLUSIVE: California district says it’s following state’s direction after probe found it didn’t do enough about Jew-hatred
The Campbell Union High School District in the San Francisco Bay Area is implementing the directions of the California Department of Education, after the the latter found that the public school district didn’t do enough to respond to an incident of Jew-hatred, a district spokeswoman told JNS.

JNS reported that, according to a June finding from the department, a student at Westmont High School in Campbell, Calif., told a teacher on Feb. 3, “Don’t talk to that Jew. That’s why the Holocaust happened. I’m glad it happened,” speaking a Jewish student with whom the teacher was meeting.

A complaint filed with the district, which serves 8,600 students across six schools in the greater San Jose area, alleged that the teacher pointed and laughed at the Jewish student in response.

The California education department stated that the district’s determination that the “teacher maintained a discriminatory classroom environment is consistent with law,” but the department didn’t think the district took sufficient action and outlined a series of corrective measures for the district to take.

Jada Chiu, communications and community engagement coordinator for the district, told JNS that the district and the school are “committed to fostering a welcoming, inclusive environment for all students, families and staff.”

“We take seriously any concerns raised about discrimination on our campuses,” she told JNS. “We are actively implementing the corrective actions identified by the California Department of Education.”


Police investigate swastika graffiti painted over Rambam statue in Cordoba, Spain
A swastika graffiti was drawn on the base of a statue of the Rambam, Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, in Cordoba, Spain, a local politician confirmed on Saturday, following media reports.

The graffiti was painted over the base of the statue, located in the heart of the Jewish quarters of Cordoba, in the Tiberiades plaza, with local authorities condemning the antisemitic attack.

Cintia Bustos, acting mayor of the city, said that the graffiti represented an attack against the city's heritage and lamented "the extreme seriousness of the message of hate it represents."

"The statue of Maimonides [Rambam] in Córdoba appears with a swastika. I have requested that it be cleaned immediately, but it is concerning the vandalism in our Historic Quarter, which attacks not only people but also our rich heritage," added local politician and spokesperson of the PSOE (Socialist Party) Córdoba, Antonio Hurtado.

The city's authorities later ordered a sign to be placed over the painted base of the statue, while work is being done to clean the swastika graffiti.


Florida man arrested for throwing a brick through window of Sarasota synagogue
A man in Florida has been arrested for breaking the window of a synagogue in the city of Sarasota in what police said was a hate crime intentionally targeting the Jewish community.

In a statement on Friday, the Sarasota Police Department said it had arrested Brayton Laschinger, a 30-year-old resident of the city, for smashing the window of the Chabad of Downtown SRQ.

According to police, Laschinger — wearing a blue towel over his head — threw a brick through the window of the synagogue around 6 a.m. on Wednesday morning.

“Laschinger claims that the same morning he saw propaganda on social media and that was making him mad,” the police statement said. “He admitted to detectives that he threw the brick at the window of the synagogue because it was a Jewish place of worship.”

Police said that Laschinger is facing a felony charge of criminal mischief of a religious building as a hate crime.

According to a local Florida news report, police said the estimated value for repairing the damages caused by the brick was more than $5,000. The report said that Laschinger’s roommate helped police identify him based on the video footage.

Antisemitic attacks have soared across the United States over the past three years in the wake of the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.


Bar Asraf found deceased in apparent suicide at grave of girlfriend killed in October 7 massacre
Content warning: This article contains mentions of suicide and mental health and may be distressing to some readers.

Bar Asraf, a 30-year-old resident of Sha’arei Tikva, died by suicide after shooting himself at the grave of his girlfriend, Liron Barda, who was murdered at the Nova festival during Hamas’s 2023 October 7 massacre.

Friends of Asraf told Walla that he had difficulty coping with the death of Barda.

"We were at my brother's wedding. He apparently started to feel lonely. You couldn't tell. He was always happy and laughing," his sister, Lihi, shared with Walla.

"His best friend was murdered in Nova. He has a tattoo of her, she was a part of his soul. At the groom's celebration, there was dancing and a Shabbat reception with a singer; it was magical. We were at the peak of the family's life."

“Yesterday he left, and I thought he went to be alone and think like he usually does,” his sister recounted.” An hour passed, then two hours passed, and my older sister said, 'Come on, we're going to look for him.’ First in the most logical places, and then we went to check Liron's grave. He loved talking there and being with her."





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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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