09/01 Links Pt2: Democrats are selling their souls by accepting Abdul El-Sayed; El-Sayed Campaign Seeks 'Jewish Liaison' for Damage Control; El-Sayed scrubbed old tweet trashing America on 9/11

From Ian:

NYPost Editorial: Democrats are selling their souls by accepting Abdul El-Sayed

Mainstream Democrats are failing the Abdul El-Sayed test — badly.

For starters, the establishment seems to be buying the creepy Michigan Senate candidate’s pseudo-apology for his obscene justification back in March for a crazed Islamist’s attempt to slaughter children at a suburban Detroit Jewish day school.

“Hurt people hurt people,” El-Sayed smugly told Michigan Jews twice in his video statement at the time, explaining that the perp, Ayman Ghazali, was upset because his Hezbollah-commander brother had been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a weapons depot.

On Sunday, El-Sayed expressed some regret for those words, admitting that right after the attack was “the wrong time” to be “contextualizing” the perp’s motives.

That is: He still believes his words were correct; the testy Jews just weren’t ready to hear it.

El-Sayed also refuses to disavow his erstwhile BFF and campaign surrogate Hasan Piker, despite his record of toxic anti-Americanism and overt Jew-hatred; the candidate merely writes off the hater as just a “streamer from California” . . . though El-Sayed regularly had Piker stump for him during the primary campaign.

Top national Democrats like Sen. Chuck Schumer sit by as El-Sayed worms out of his ugly record; at least one Michigan Democrat is far worse.

State Attorney General Dana Nessel — a Jewish Dem who says she’s won’t attend the state convention because of nonstop antisemitic harassment — just urged Michigan’s 100,000 Jewish voters to vote for El-Sayed despite his hate . . . to save the world.

Really: “We have a moral imperative,” Nessel insists, “to place the needs of the world above even our own self-interest and, yes, even our own survival.”

Sorry: Empowering a blatant antisemite is the opposite of serving “the needs of the world”; such unhinged hate is a warning sign of even deeper depravity.

Eight Democrats join Republicans in resolution condemning socialism, DSA

The House voted 220-192 on Tuesday to adopt a Republican-led resolution condemning socialism and the Democratic Socialists of America. The vote fell largely along party lines after GOP leaders attached language to the resolution backing President Donald Trump’s priority voting rights legislation.

Introduced by Rep. Jeff Crank (R-CO), the resolution “condemns and denounces socialism in all its forms, including the Democratic Socialists of America, and opposes the implementation of socialist policies in the United States.”

However, the resolution also explicitly “calls for the enactment” of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act — a priority for the president that would mandate proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections.

Seeking a clean vote denouncing the DSA without endorsing the election bill, a group of moderate Democrats — including Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), Tom Suozzi (D-NY) and Hillary Scholten (D-MI) — offered an amendment on Monday to strip out the SAVE Act language while preserving the anti-socialism provisions. However, the House Rules Committee declined to take up the amendment, forcing Democrats to vote on the combined GOP package.

Most Democrats opposed the measure due to the SAVE Act rider, though eight moderate lawmakers broke ranks to vote with Republicans in favor: Reps. Don Davis (D-NC), Henry Cuellar (D-TX), Kathy Castor (D-FL), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA), Jared Golden (D-ME), Darren Soto (D-FL), Gabe Vasquez (D-NM) and Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX).

In addition, Reps. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) and Maggie Goodlander (D-NH) voted present.

Jew hate is as fashionable as ever — look no further than Anna Wintour’s Met Gala disaster

The collapse of the Met Gala’s outrageous plan to honor antisemitic fashion designer John Galliano marks an important victory in a major battle. But there is no sign that triumph is at hand in the larger war against the explosion of Jew hatred in America and around the world.

On the contrary, the outbreaks are numerous and growing in boldness.

One of the lessons of the Galliano affair is that many of the haters feel safe enough these days to come out of the closet and publicly express their loathing.

Wherever you look, from politics to the media to the United Nations and now the fashion world, the scourge is shockingly bold in its emergence.

A common trait among many of the guilty is the use of Israel as a fig leaf for their sickness. A sure-fire sign is the habit of judging the lone Jewish state by a set of double standards never applied to other nations.

Oppressive regimes are given seats on UN human rights panels, where they are encouraged to demonize Israel without fear they will be called to account for their misdeeds.

And when Israel is attacked by Muslim neighbors that vow to destroy it, the victim is routinely accused of war crimes for daring to defend itself and take the war to the attackers’ turf.

As the Hamas invasion of Oct. 7, 2023, demonstrated, the Holocaust would be repeated if Israel were foolish enough to permanently lower its guard.

Wherever the place and the particulars, the battlefield is encircled by enablers and cheerleaders, giving rise to dark suspicions about their motivations.

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09/01 Links Pt1: The Altalena’s enduring lesson: Israel must choose unity over division; IDF capture Hamas's Head of Internal Security; Swim legend Dawn Fraser speaks out on antisemitism royal commission

From Ian:

The Altalena’s enduring lesson: Israel must choose unity over division

In a week that shook the nation, the rediscovery of the Altalena made headlines across Israel.

Seventy-eight years ago, as the Altalena went up in flames on the Tel Aviv beachfront, the Jewish people stood on the precipice of civil war. In today’s divided times, with another election on the horizon, the echoes of the Altalena serve as a stark reminder of the perils of internal strife and the urgent need for unity.

The Altalena affair marked a tumultuous chapter in the birth of the new nation of Israel. In the early days of the War of Independence, the fledgling state mourned the loss of 1,176 soldiers, while the invading Arab armies also suffered heavy casualties. The UN-brokered truce provided a crucial respite for both sides to regroup and strategize.

On June 20, 1948, amidst the ceasefire, the Altalena, chartered by Menachem Begin’s Irgun, arrived off the shores of Israel, laden with immigrants and arms. The conflicting accounts of the ship’s destruction – Begin’s claim of delivering arms to his fighters and David Ben-Gurion’s accusation of a coup attempt – underscored the deep divisions within the Jewish community.

The tense standoff at Kfar Vitkin escalated into violence, leading to casualties on both sides. As the Altalena made its way to Tel Aviv, the clash of ideologies and loyalties reached a boiling point. Ben-Gurion’s firm stance on maintaining government sovereignty and order set the stage for a tragic confrontation on the Tel Aviv beach.

The intense gunfire and mutual animosity that erupted on the beach reflected the deep-seated divisions and animosities that threatened to tear the young nation apart. The aftermath of the Altalena’s destruction left a scar on the collective memory of Israel, a wound that refused to heal.

JPost Editorial: From critic to ally, Israel and Greece grow closer amid regional shifts

Greece seeks Israeli protection amid growing European divisions
The other is that here is a frontline European power - a vital NATO ally on Europe’s southeastern flank and a key member of the EU - turning to Israel for its defense. The same Israel that other European countries, including Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium - and, come the end of the month, Britain - are spurning and seeking to boycott.

Those boycotts are ostensibly aimed “only” at products from east Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and the Golan Heights. But the fear is that, because of the difficulty in determining exactly where every Israeli product or component originates, they will inevitably open the door to wider boycotts of Israel itself.

The contrast could hardly be sharper.

One part of Europe is looking to Israel for protection; another wants to boycott it. Ireland would not let its new government jet be fitted with an Israeli-made system designed to help it land in fog. Greece is entrusting the protection of its population and critical infrastructure to Israeli-made systems.

But the sale does more than highlight the countervailing trends in Europe, where political hostility toward Israel and strategic dependence on it are moving in opposite directions. It also shines a spotlight on Israel’s remarkable defense prowess.

Greece turns to Israel’s multilayered defense system
Greece is interested in the same type of multilayered system that protects Israel because it has seen how effective that system has been over the last three years in defending the country against missiles, rockets, and drones launched from Iran, Lebanon, Yemen, Gaza, and elsewhere. Greece watched and now wants that same level of protection for itself.

Under the agreement, dubbed Achilles Shield, Israel will provide Greece with an integrated national air-defense network. It will incorporate David’s Sling to intercept ballistic missiles and heavy rockets; SPYDER and BARAK MX systems to defend strategic sites against threats ranging from drones to cruise missiles; sophisticated MMR radars; Drone Dome counter-drone systems; and a national command-and-control network to tie everything together.

This is not merely an arms sale. It is the export of an entire defensive architecture - developed under fire, tested in war, and refined through repeated attacks by enemies using a wide variety of weapons.

Other European countries, feeling increasingly threatened by the cold winds blowing from Russia and the growing shadow of Iranian missile tech, are likely to follow suit. Governments want what works, especially when the lives of their civilians are at stake. Just ask Finland, which quietly extended its defense cooperation framework with Israel for a decade, guaranteeing the smooth, long-term deployment of its newly acquired David’s Sling system despite fierce domestic opposition.

Austrian gov’t begins work on constitutional ban of ‘Political Islam'

Austria’s government is beginning to work on a proposal to constitutionally ban “political Islam,” after Chancellor Christian Stocker called for the legislation and Integration and Europe Minister Claudia Bauer said she would draw up a proposal for the coalition partners.

ORF first reported on August 30 that Bauer is preparing the proposal and intends to send an outline to SPÖ and NEOS. This was then confirmed by Bauer on social media.

Stocker first raised the possible legislation in an interview with Heute on August 28. The chancellor expressed his intention to implement a constitutional law on political Islam, which he called “incompatible with democracy and Western values.”

In a statement, Stocker said, “I do not want our children and grandchildren to grow up in an Islamic state.”

Stocker argued that everyone in Austria is free to believe whatever they want and to have whatever faith they choose, “But where believers and non-believers are treated differently, where men and women do not have equal rights, and where our institutions, authorities, and courts are not respected, that freedom ends.”

Stoker: “It cannot be allowed to happen...that a preacher dictates things rather than Parliament”

He then claimed that there is a relative majority of Muslim students in Viennese schools, but “The crucial question is: Will these students become democrats who accept and abide by our legal system and live alongside our society? Or will they become Islamists and be politically influenced?”

Here, Stocker cited a recent figure that pupils with an Islamic religious affiliation represented 41.2% in Vienna’s primary and middle schools, constituting a relative majority.

“It cannot be allowed to happen in this country that a preacher dictates things rather than Parliament,” Stocker added. “It must not be the case that morality police in schools determine what girls should wear or how they should behave. Nor can we ignore the foundations of an ‘honor killing’ while punishing only the act itself. That is why I am in favor of regulating this at the constitutional level as well.”

Bauer reposted the statement, adding, “We will fight political Islam with all means available.”

This follows an earlier proposal by the Freedom Party (FPÖ) in March 2026. The proposal would prohibit activity in support of political Islam or its objectives, dissolve mosques and organizations deemed part of political Islam, confiscate their assets, and potentially revoke Austrian citizenship from members/supporters.

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El Sayed didn't apologize. He doubled down.

The headlines say Abdul El-Sayed apologized for justifying the Temple Israel attack when he linked it to the Lebanon war and said "hurt people hurt people."

He didn't apologize. He doubled down.

Here is what he said:

I didn’t appreciate that in the attempt to offer broader context, I was trampling the dignity that that fear and that pain should have been afforded.

And I could imagine that for a lot of folks, that would have read like he doesn’t see our pain or weigh it equally. Correct.

And that was not my intention with the statement.

And if my statement caused pain, I’m sorry. That was not what I intended to do.

And sometimes you can offer context for something, but not in the moment when people are feeling it acutely.

And, you know, I made a mistake. I should have— I mean, we issued a statement, of course, condemning it, and it just should have been a full stop.

And in the fullness of time, I hope that we can have conversations that are about context, but sometimes you can’t really see context in the moment of acuity or pain.

And so the intention for me wasn’t to trample that pain, it wasn’t to discount it, it wasn’t at all to justify any sort of domestic terrorism.

He isn't saying that he was wrong in what he said. He is apologizing for the timing.  He still wants people to understand the context of a domestic terrorist, Ayman Mohamed Ghazali, a hurt person who hurt people, whose Hezbollah brothers were killed in a war. Because of course that is relevant to his wanting to murder Jewish schoolkids in Michigan. 

It's all context. 

The next day he repeated this: "What I was trying to do was offer context for what happened, and it wasn't the time for context."

Here's some context: El Sayed wants to win the election, so he goes through the motions of apologizing for what he said when he really didn't apologize for anything he said, only when he said it, and he hopes the Jewish Democrats are too stupid to realize it and only read the headlines that accepts that this was a real apology.

---

Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon! Reclaiming the Covenant on America's 250th (May 2026) "He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

 

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08/31 Links Pt2: RNC chair Dem majority a: ‘Direct threat to the Jewish community’; Hollywood celebrities are backing a terrorist murderer; Michigan AG tells Jewish Dems to put ‘needs of world’ ahead of ‘our own survival’

From Ian:

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner: Hollywood celebrities are backing a terrorist murderer — read the facts

These were not fictional villains in a screen-adapted comic book tale — they were real terrorists with real victims.

And one of the victims was an American citizen.

That is the problem with the Marvel campaign. These are limousine liberals at their most comfortable: wealthy, privileged and insulated from the consequences of the causes they champion.

They have spent their careers playing superheroes, but appear to know remarkably little about the history they are now trying to rewrite. They sit comfortably in their movie studio trailers and pronounce moral judgments on a bitter conflict in which they have no personal stake and, judging by this campaign, very little understanding.

They do not have to stand before the widows — the parents and orphans of the five people whose murders resulted in Barghouti’s convictions — and explain why their loved ones’ killer should be released. They simply sign a petition.

And now they have something bigger to answer for, because a candidacy is not a pardon; it’s a promotion.

Barghouti drew the most votes in Fatah’s central committee elections in May.

Everyone involved can do the arithmetic: The plan is to run him from a prison cell, win, and dare the world to say a democratically elected murderer should remain incarcerated.

What do you think? Be the first to comment.

But before the Marvel justice league starts drafting its victory statement, they should do something remarkably simple: Read the documents.

Acknowledge the five people he was convicted of murdering.

Then explain to their millions of followers why those victims should be written out of the story while Barghouti becomes its hero.

Hollywood can manufacture superheroes. It cannot manufacture innocence — nor can any election.

And a man convicted of murdering five innocents cannot be transformed into a statesman because the red-carpet revolutionaries have decided to make him one.

Israel, the DEI exception to 'everyone': How the music industry lost its moral compass

Peace-building musical collabs such as Jonny Greenwood and Dudu Tassa's Arabic show, Jarak Qaribak (“Your Neighborhood is Your Friend”), were canceled as a result of the BDS Movement. The project involved musicians from Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, and Iraq - the kind of cross-collabs generally praised by the arts & culture.

While peace-building performances become unacceptable, shouting hate speech and antisemitic libels through a mic when accepting an award on stage becomes celebrated as an act of cool resistance; what is being contributed to these foundational DEI values of the music industry? Because where does political accountability end and collective punishment of a people as a whole begin?

By 2025, over 400 musicians had joined a geo-block boycott to make their music unavailable in Israel, calling their campaign ‘No Music for Genocide’. The name itself invites an uncomfortable question. If No Music for Genocide is really a principle rather than a geographical preference, where were the comparable mass geo-blocking campaigns and cultural boycotts as Sudan or Iran descended into mass atrocity?

Challenging their objective, I posted a few very politically correct words on my LinkedIn, the point of which was ‘Boycotting musicians and fans in Israel will not free Palestine’.

Exclusion, hate, and polarization didn’t really seem like the way to go for me as a music executive who believed in dialogue and listening to each other.

I’d lead my own panel for five years at Amsterdam Dance Event on the subject of DEI, so I believed in ‘talking about the hard stuff’. Then followed the wave of hate, antisemitic libels, and threats from industry professionals employed by major labels, publicly traded tech companies, and places of work with codes of conduct specifically prohibiting them from publicly attacking ‘fellow colleagues’.

'I believed... safety, dignity, inclusion applied to everyone'
The proof remained, indeed, in the pudding.

I believed that the principles we spent years building - safety, dignity, and inclusion - applied to everyone.

Radical inclusion, it seemed, had added an exception: it did not apply to people born in a particular country, or to Jews and Israelis. A counterculture that once challenged the boundaries of society was now policing the ideological boundaries of its own. Glorifying terror under the banner of DEI was dubbed ‘resistance’.

DEI's own conviction of righteousness and one-sidedness expanded rapidly, well organized, and well funded. By then, the contradiction became impossible to ignore.

And perhaps Damon Albarn provides the simplest counterexample. Albarn has hardly been silent about Palestinian suffering or his criticism of Israel. Yet after Bob Vylan’s Glastonbury performance, he called the episode a ‘spectacular misfire’ and spoke instead about wanting to work with musicians in both Palestine and Israel.

It really should not be revolutionary to suggest that one can advocate for Palestinians without demanding the cultural exclusion of Israelis. Isn’t this exactly what music was supposed to be for?

What started as an industry-wide commitment to safety had developed into ideological gatekeeping: diversity but under political uniformity. Inclusion, except when the artist was born in Israel.

Freedom of expression, unless the expression comes from Boy George or another ‘wrong person’. And #MeToo, except if you were a girl dancing at 6:29 a.m. at the Nova festival.

To quote a house classic: If music is the answer, the answer cannot be less cultural contact. It has to be more. Because when we try to make music morally pure, we destroy precisely the thing that made it morally valuable: its ability to bring together people who would otherwise never meet.

The Loophole in "Death, Death to the IDF"

That is the element a stadium field and a cordoned riverside protest both managed to avoid, while a shared public highway outside a gig was not. Weeks after disclosing the Kentish Town charge, the Met announced that organisers would, for the first time, be made responsible for speakers’ hate speech at future protests, and that it was reviewing with the CPS “language… previously advised [as not meeting] the threshold”. An acknowledgment, in effect, of the gap it kept running into.

None of this requires bad faith on the Met’s part, or a plan on Robinson-Foster’s. Everything is explainable by a comparison of reach, not culpability. Robinson-Foster is documented saying the words on number occasions, including at Alexandra Palace, Glastonbury, Amsterdam, and the Embankment. Each performed or broadcast to a crowd in the thousands, one to a live, nationally watched BBC stream; the phrase has since acquired its own Wikipedia entry. His own public response to the Glastonbury backlash was to mock “crying” critics rather than dispute what the words meant.

The Kentish Town defendant is alleged to have repeated the same six words, that single night, a number of times, on a small loudhailer. He reached, cumulatively, a demonstration of dozens on one residential street. But the Kentish Town defendant had clearly defined victims, which Robison-Foster did not..

If the harm the law exists to address is the spread of a chant calling for the deaths of people who are, for most Israelis, their children or themselves, it is not obvious that the more repetitive but contained allegation did more of that harm than the far less repeated but internationally amplified fact. That the defendant with the smaller reach is the one facing trial, while the man whose performances actually spread the phrase abroad has been cleared twice and gained rather than lost from it, looks less like a corrupt system than a badly drawn one.

The Public Order Act is highlighted as measuring proximity, not scale: it catches a chant however few times it was said, provided somebody was standing close enough to be frightened by it, and lets the same words through however many times repeated, provided the crowd chanting back is large enough, sympathetic enough, or simply on the right side of a river.

The gap between impact and proximity leaves one wondering if the real problem is a weakness in the law. Chanting for the death of anyone is distinctly uncivilised, an invasive cultural meme that should be resisted rather than absorbed. If not, whose death shall be heralded next, leaving one wondering, when shall it be my own fair turn.

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08/31 Links Pt1: Durban’s legacy: How NGOs helped mainstream anti-Israel hatred; Protesters mark 2 years since recovery of 6 slain Gaza hostages; Egypt's Dangerous Palestinian 'Unity' Project to Legitimize Terrorists

From Ian:

Brett McGurk: No, Iran is not winning: In Act IV of the war, it’s losing its leverage in Hormuz

Tehran may seek to fight its way out of this noose. Its strategy through the first three acts was clear: threaten commerce in the Strait, raise energy prices globally and gasoline prices in the US, increase global economic pressure and ultimately force Trump to back down, particularly with midterm elections approaching.

Iran has also targeted the energy infrastructure of the Gulf states and could do so again. Its proxy force in Yemen, the Houthis, have threatened to shut down commerce through the Red Sea with Iranian missiles and drones.

All that would mean resorting to the same tactics from the early acts of the war. Strategically, it has not worked for Iran. The Gulf states are not happy with the war, but most do not support giving in to Iran’s extortionist demands in the Strait. Iran’s attempts to close the Strait with drones and mines are also now — for the first time — failing.

So, I would not discount the risk of an Iranian escalation as the economic pressure builds. But it may not be enough at this stage to reduce that pressure. Trump appears far more committed than Iranian leaders apparently presumed.

Breaking point
Iranian leaders and many Western analysts project immunity to pressure. Iran will never surrender its nuclear program or the Strait of Hormuz. Or its terrorist proxies around the region.

That’s something we all must accept as a fact of life in the Middle East, according to Tehran.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi argued last week that the blockade and sanctions pressure are “bound to fail” just as all other campaigns, he said, had failed to change Iranian policy.

I used to hear the same thing from experts about ISIS, when I was leading the campaign to defeat the group. And Hamas, when negotiating to free the hostages held in Gaza.

In fact, everyone has a breaking point. Iran thought it had found Trump’s. Trump may yet find theirs. It’s too early to call.

Not the last act
This contest in some form may last through the end of Trump’s presidency and beyond. It’s been ongoing for nearly five decades.

The earlier acts in this war were mired from the US side by shifting and ill-defined objectives, widely careening positions, and inconsistent statements.

But Act Four seems different. The US military has a clear objective as outlined this week by the commander of CENTCOM, Admiral Brad Cooper. It is enforcing the blockade on Iran and facilitating the movement of commercial traffic.

The objective for the US should be similarly well-defined. Iran must abandon claims on the Strait and give up the nuclear enrichment program. Until then, this will be the new status quo.

And that status quo — perhaps for the first time since the war began — now favors Washington, not Tehran.

No Exit, No Trap By Abe Greenwald

Via Commentary Newsletter, sign up here.
When the regime decided to hold up shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, however, the “trap” claim took off. Trump, went the argument, could neither free the strait nor leave it in Iran’s grip. He had been checkmated.

It was around this time that I began to worry, as it became clear that the administration had not gamed out this possibility before the war. And Trump had made it well known that he despised the idea of deploying American ground forces. Even with the strait threatened by Iran, the U.S. could prevail so long as the commander in chief chose to take the steps that were needed to do so.

Soon, instead, Trump decided on negotiations to end the fighting. And that’s when he really did stumble into a trap—because he’d decided that he wanted out. Trump wanted to escape the consequences of the aborted war and his responsibility to win it—and he let the Iranians know.

That was all it took. Through months of off-and-on talks, Iranian negotiators would keep the U.S. trapped by refusing to grant any American conditions that might let Trump walk away from what had become a terrible mess. So long as the U.S. was looking for an exit, we’d remain paralyzed.

If the tide now seems to be turning in the U.S.’s favor, it’s because we started looking for solutions. Currently, the U.S. naval blockade of Iran is in effect to freeze the regime’s maritime and energy exports. At the same time, we’re now only one week into Operation Economic Outcast, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s campaign to “sever every economic lifeline” that the regime has—and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has admitted that it’s already working.

The start-and-stop war has been going on for six months, and the U.S. has stumbled in a number of unforeseen ways. It still can. But there’s one critical mistake that Trump should now know to avoid: prioritizing an American exit over an American victory. In order for the U.S. to prevail, we must keep up the current economic war on the regime. This means enduring the inevitable rise in oil prices and the concerted media campaign focusing on the increased hardships imposed on ordinary Iranians. Both have already begun, but neither of these are traps unless Donald Trump decides they are.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Egypt's Dangerous Palestinian 'Unity' Project to Legitimize Terrorists

The real question, however, is: Unity with whom, and against whom?

Why is Hamas being treated as a legitimate political organization rather than a terrorist group that needs to be disarmed, dismantled, and removed from power?

Egypt, a key ally of the United States, should be asking these questions. Instead, Cairo appears to be doing exactly the opposite.

The Trump Administration and the Board of Peace might make clear to Cairo that Hamas cannot be both a terrorist organization that needs to surrender its weapons and a political partner invited to negotiate the future of the Palestinians. One approach eliminates Hamas. The other rehabilitates it.

Even more alarming are reports of a possible electoral alliance involving former Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan's Democratic Reform Current, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other factions such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – all terrorist groups that do not recognize Israel's right to exist.

What possible role should these terrorist organizations have in Palestinian elections or a future Palestinian government?

If Egypt welcomes the designation of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, why is it simultaneously trying to give Hamas – which emerged from the same organization – renewed political legitimacy?

The Trump Administration would do itself a great service to tell Cairo that Palestinian reconciliation cannot include organizations that retain weapons, embrace terrorism, and seek the destruction of Israel. There is no need to unify the Palestinian ranks around Hamas. There is a need immediately to remove Hamas from those ranks.

Egypt should be using its considerable influence not to persuade Fatah to reconcile with Hamas, but to pressure Hamas and other terrorist groups to surrender their weapons and permanently leave the Palestinian political arena. A politically rehabilitated Hamas, still armed and still committed to its Islamist ideology, will only strengthen the very ideological current that the Egyptian government has spent more than a decade trying to suppress.

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