Tuesday, September 15, 2026

09/14 Links Pt1: Former hostages condemn 'NAZA' filmmakers; UNRWA Claims Reform While Terrorism and Incitement Persist; The Palestinians' Dead-End Choice: Fatah or Hamas

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: This year, Israel must move from its October 7 reckoning to national repair
The multitude of Israeli security challenges
What is the strategy for Gaza? How will Israel prevent another October 7 rather than merely promise that it will? How will it confront Iran and its proxies without allowing conflict to substitute for policy? How will it rebuild communities, care for the wounded, and support those who have carried the burden of military service?

The same test applies at home. A government cannot demand sacrifice from reservists and their families while indefinitely avoiding a fair arrangement for military and national service. It cannot claim to defend democracy abroad while treating independent institutions as domestic enemies. Nor can it restore public trust while accountability remains something demanded only of political opponents.

Israel’s international standing must also form part of this reckoning.

This week, British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband accused extremist settlers of carrying out ethnic cleansing in parts of the West Bank and announced measures against settlement trade. Israel has every right to challenge accusations it considers false, selective or inflammatory. It should continue to expose the double standards, historical distortions and antisemitism that too often accompany international criticism.

But indignation is not a foreign policy. This newspaper warned in 2024 that Israel could not afford to become a pariah state and that the belief that it could simply fight alone was dangerous.

That warning has only grown more urgent. Israel cannot control the prejudices of its enemies, but it can control its own policies, the conduct of its officials, and whether extremist violence is confronted or tolerated.

When allies believe Israel will not restrain lawlessness in the West Bank, they begin making distinctions and imposing consequences. Condemning their response does not remove the underlying danger. Israel must enforce the law, protect Palestinians from violence and prevent ideological extremists from determining the country’s diplomatic future.

Hope does not rely on one camp alone
There is reason for hope in the new year, but it does not rest solely on the victory of one camp or the defeat of another. It rests on Israel’s continuing ability to correct course through democratic means.

Voters should demand concrete answers: an independent October 7 inquiry, a fair sharing of national obligations, clear political objectives for Israel’s military power, protection of democratic institutions and a serious plan to repair relations with allies and Jewish communities abroad.

The shofar is not a sound of self-congratulation. It calls us to wake up from slumber.

Israel’s strength has never depended on pretending that it makes no mistakes. It depends on recognizing danger, adapting to it, and refusing to lose the moral and democratic purpose for which the country exists.

This year must be the year in which reckoning finally becomes repair.
Aviva Klompas: Palestinians deserve the dignity of accountability
If Palestinians are entitled to sovereignty, as the Carney government believes they are, then Palestinian leaders should be responsible for building the institutions that make sovereignty viable.

They should be responsible for whether their people vote, whether public money rewards violence, whether schools prepare children for co-existence and whether their political culture treats negotiation and compromise as diplomacy or betrayal.

None of this absolves Israel of responsibility for its actions. It is held accountable for the decisions of its elected government because that is what it means to treat a nation as a sovereign political actor. Palestinians deserve the same standard.

Successful states are built on institutions, accountability, the rule of law and political leadership capable and willing to make difficult choices. Foreign governments cannot manufacture a viable Palestinian state by removing the expectations placed on the people who would govern it.

This is what makes Canada’s decision so baffling. Ottawa granted one of the Palestinians’ most important diplomatic objectives before the reforms it deemed essential to statehood had been adopted. The message was that Palestinian leaders could receive the benefits of statehood before demonstrating their willingness or ability to assume its responsibilities.

The international community speaks about Palestinian dignity and self-determination. But dignity is inseparable from agency. Treating Palestinians with dignity means recognizing they are not victims of forces beyond their control, but a people whose leaders make choices about war and peace, democracy and authoritarianism, education and incitement, corruption and good governance.

The refusal to hold those leaders accountable has real consequences. A Palestinian born when Mahmoud Abbas was elected president could now be old enough to have children without ever having voted in a presidential election. That is not an Israeli policy. It is a Palestinian political failure.

Nor should Hamas’s continued armed presence in Gaza be treated as an unfortunate fact that everyone else must accommodate. Its leaders made choices, its members committed atrocities and its continued brutality carries consequences for the society in which it operates.

A serious commitment to Palestinian statehood requires more accountability, not less.

Canada says it wants Palestinians to exercise the right of self-determination. Then it should treat them as a people capable of exercising it, with all the responsibilities that entails. Palestinians do not need the international community to expect less of them. They need it to take their aspirations seriously enough to expect more.
Bassam Tawil: The Palestinians' Dead-End Choice: Fatah or Hamas
Both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority [PA] owe the Palestinian people – as well as Israelis and other victims – countless apologies. They owe apologies for corruption and mismanagement. They owe apologies for failing to build transparent and accountable institutions. They owe apologies for suppressing dissent and freedom of expression and for persecuting political opponents, journalists, human rights activists, and critics. They owe apologies for repeatedly rejecting compromises and peace initiatives and for policies that have contributed to decades of Israeli and Palestinian bloodshed. They owe apologies for failing to use international assistance to build a functioning economy and institutions that serve ordinary Palestinians. They owe their people an honest explanation for why Palestinians remain divided between two rival governments and without a functioning democratic political system.

The timing of this latest dispute is particularly significant.

Hamas has decided to participate [in the upcoming PA elections on November 28]... if true, such an arrangement would allow Hamas to re-enter Palestinian politics through the back door.

So, instead of changing its goals – brutally ruling Gaza and destroying Israel – Hamas will simply change its "name, structure and framework"?

Changing the label does not change the organization. A Hamas-affiliated candidate does not cease to be affiliated with Hamas simply because the word "Hamas" does not appear next to his name on the ballot.

Such a maneuver would turn the election into a political fiction: Hamas would be permitted to obtain parliamentary representation while avoiding the political consequences of openly running as Hamas. Allowing Hamas— in disguise or not – to run in the election would also legitimize the terrorist group without requiring it fundamentally to change.

That would be a serious mistake. The Palestinians have already seen what happens when Hamas acquires political power.

Hamas is bad, but who said that the PA is any better?

Palestinians have experienced corruption, political repression, and an absence of meaningful political renewal.

The problem is: What if one of the negotiating parties decides never to come to the table? Is the other party just supposed to hold everything in abeyance – unsettled forever – in case one day the other party might change its mind?

The Palestinians need a genuine third way – not merely another faction with a different name. They need leaders who are prepared to challenge the entrenched political culture of Fatah and Hamas. They need leaders who believe that the Palestinian national interest is more important than factional interests. They need leaders willing to confront corruption, reject authoritarianism, protect freedom of expression, build functioning institutions, and end the glorification of violence.

Above all, Palestinians need leaders courageous enough to tell their people an uncomfortable truth: there can be no genuine progress so long as the political choice remains confined to Fatah and Hamas, and that the primary objective of both groups remains the obliteration of Israel.


UN Watch: UNRWA Claims Reform While Terrorism and Incitement Persist
UNRWA’s claim to have completed 41 of the 50 reforms recommended by the landmark Colonna Review substantially overstates the changes achieved on the ground, according to a major new report released today by UN Watch.

The “Report Card on UNRWA Reform” examines UNRWA’s implementation of every recommendation issued by the Independent Review Group led by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna.

Commissioned by UN Secretary-General António Guterres following revelations that UNRWA employees participated in the October 7 massacre and amid the suspension of $450 million in donor funding, the Colonna Review was intended to determine whether the agency’s neutrality safeguards were “fit for purpose” and to restore donor confidence.

Two years later, UNRWA says that 41 recommendations are completed. Yet UN Watch’s analysis finds that UNRWA frequently measured administrative activity instead of meaningful reform. At most, the new report concludes, 13 of Colonna’s 50 recommendations have actually been completed as prescribed.

“UNRWA has graded its own homework and awarded itself high marks,” said UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer. “But issuing a policy is not the same as enforcing it. Drafting a plan is not the same as implementing it, and closing a recommendation does not mean that the underlying problem has been solved.”

“On paper, UNRWA reports sweeping progress. On the ground, its employees continue to be exposed as members and supporters of terrorist organizations, hateful educational content persists, and Hamas-dominated unions continue to obstruct neutrality and discipline.”

Key Findings
UNRWA redefined what counts as completion. Under its “Minimum Viable Product” methodology, UNRWA allows itself to classify a recommendation as completed once it considers the recommendation’s “core functional objective” achieved—even where further measures remain necessary and the reform has not been fully institutionalized.
UNRWA still lacks a demonstrated system for screening its workforce for Hamas membership. Its principal sanctions screening relies on the UN Security Council Consolidated Sanctions List, which does not list Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
External investigations continue to uncover what UNRWA’s internal systems missed. In June 2026, the USAID Office of Inspector General referred 108 current or former UNRWA personnel for suspension or debarment based on evidence linking them to the October 7 attacks or Hamas’s military wing. Days later, UNRWA dismissed 70 Gaza employees following a security assessment, while insisting that the dismissals did not validate the allegations against them. See also UN Watch’s statement on the dismissals.
UNRWA closed union reforms that were never implemented. The agency classified revisions to its Staff Union Statute as completed after merely drafting and transmitting a proposed statute, even though the unions had not adopted it. Yet within months of this supposed reform achievement, the UNRWA Gaza Staff Union—still under unchanged leadership—mobilized against the dismissal of the 70 terror-linked employees and demanded their reinstatement. UN Watch’s report Schools in the Grip of Terror documents how Hamas-linked officials continue to dominate UNRWA staff unions.
One recommendation was closed as “unimplementable.” Recommendation 46 called for outsourcing union pay-setting functions. UNRWA determined that the measure could not be implemented, yet still counted the recommendation as closed.
Vetting reforms remain dependent on funding. UNRWA closed recommendations concerning commercial screening and the vetting of union officials after developing pilots and costed plans, although the actual systems had not been fully deployed.
Educational reform is measured by procedures rather than content. UNRWA cites reviews, digital platforms, teacher training and engagement with UNESCO as evidence of progress, while post-Colonna assessments by IMPACT-se continue to identify antisemitism, glorification of terrorism and incitement in the 2025–2026 Palestinian Authority curriculum used in UNRWA schools.
Training cannot prevent deliberate military misuse of UNRWA facilities. The Colonna Review acknowledged that UNRWA lacks the policing, military and investigative capabilities required to detect weapons, tunnels and military activity at its installations. New policies and awareness programs do not remedy this fundamental incapacity. The standard inspection regime still does not operate normally in Gaza, where the most serious allegations have arisen.
UNRWA declared a “cultural shift” completed while describing it as ongoing. The agency classified all recommendations on enhanced cooperation as complete even as its own reporting acknowledged that the required institutional transformation remained underway.
Netanyahu confirms New York trip for UN General Assembly, to address UN on September 24
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to the United States on September 23 to attend the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, the Prime Minister's Office announced Monday.

The visit will take place on September 23-25, following Yom Kippur and ahead of the Sukkot holiday.

Netanyahu is expected to address the General Assembly on Thursday, September 24.

The prime minister last visited New York for the 80th UNGA in September 2025, before New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani was elected, when he delivered an address denouncing Western countries for embracing Palestinian statehood.

"You know what message the leaders who recognize the Palestinian state this week sent to the Palestinians? It’s a very clear message: murdering Jews pays off,” Netanyahu told the 80th UNGA.

Netanyahu to visit New York after Mamdani retracts call for arrest
The statement comes after New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani admitted on July 22 that he does not have the authority to enforce the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister.

Since his 2025 campaign for Mayor of New York City, Mamdani has promised to order the New York Police Department (NYPD) to arrest Netanyahu if he entered the city.

In a September 2025 interview with the New York Times, Mamdani called Netanyahu "a war criminal who was committing a genocide in Gaza," adding that he would have the prime minister arrested as soon as he landed in New York. He added that he "intended to fulfill" his promise.

Throughout his time as mayor Mamdani has repeated his assertation that the NYPD would arrest Netanyahu if he entered the city. In July, Mamdani told NYT podcast host Lulu Garcia-Navarro that "Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in the Hague."

"He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the ICC,” Mamdani added. “And what you will find is that it is an opinion that is held by many, purely because of what his actions have wrought over these last many years.” In the same interview he admitted that he may not have the legal authority to carry out such arrest.
Israel expects ‘intense’ protests during Netanyahu UN trip as Mamdani calls for rallies
Israel’s ambassador to the UN said that the mission was expecting “intense” protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s appearance at the UN General Assembly later this month, after New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani backed demonstrations against the premier.

“Mayor Mamdani, instead of uniting the city and making sure that it would be a smooth high-level week, he’s doing exactly the opposite by inciting and calling for people to demonstrate,” Danny Danon told The Times of Israel in an interview. “I would advise Mayor Mamdani to focus on his responsibilities and tasks as a mayor and not to sow chaos in the city.

“We are aware of demonstrations that will take place and that the security measures will be appropriate,” Danon said. “I’m sure it will be more intense this year.”

Mamdani had previously long promised to arrest Netanyahu if he came to the city, but acknowledged in July that, as mayor, he did not actually have the ability to do so.

While admitting he could not make the arrest, Mamdani made a series of incendiary accusations against Israel and encouraged protests against Netanyahu. Mamdani’s statement has been viewed hundreds of millions of times.

Anti-Zionist activist groups in the city like the Palestinian Youth Movement and the People’s Forum have announced a “week of action” during the General Assembly targeting Netanyahu.

“We here in New York City reject Zionism and all who perpetrate it,” the groups said in a statement.


Jake Wallis Simons: Fauda’s truthful Gaza war drama trumps the blood libel of the Naza ‘documentary’
Here is the detail its loudest defenders keep skating past. The film’s own thesis, spelled out by its interviewees, is that anticipated civilian deaths were calculated in advance: not caused by accident, but factored into the decision before the trigger was pulled. So the inversion is complete: this is the behaviour of Hamas.

In truth, of course, every target is assessed for expected military advantage against likely civilian harm – as is required of every democratic military – and a strike is called off when the harm would be “excessive.” Naza and the IDF, in other words, actually align, to some extent, on the mechanism. They disagree on the verdict.

Conclusion? A film that spends 80 minutes showing us how Israel does the sums has managed to prove that Israel is not guilty of the very crime of which it is being accused. They’re not very bright, these traitors, are they?

Now to better, if no less sobering, news. Fauda returned to Netflix this month with a season painfully built around October 7 – several members of the cast fought on that dreadful day and in Gaza thereafter – and it has done something no Israeli public diplomacy has managed in two years: it has brought mass audiences all over the world, including the Arab world, face-to-face with the truth.

Episodes seven and eight, which re-stage the day of the atrocities, were filmed by a cast and crew with rather more skin in the game than Naza’s anonymous witnesses; one actor was wounded fighting in Gaza, a member of the production team was killed in the war. They have received an IMDb rating of 9.3.

One post doing the rounds this week claimed that Italians, who seem to get more of their news from box sets than bulletins, were only now grasping what Hamas actually did that day; many, influenced by propagandists like the deplorable makers of Naza, had seemingly assumed that it had simply been a case of Israeli “genocide.” In other words, a Netflix drama has quietly succeeded where three years of official Israeli messaging has failed.

We must treat that anecdote with the scepticism a single viral post demands. But the reaction to it from viewers tells us a whole lot more. Nobody has to verify Fauda’s witnesses, because nobody is claiming it’s a documentary. It is the trick in reverse: fiction that turns out truer than the film claiming to be articulating facts.

Because Fauda makes nothing up. The actors were there on the ground. All the facts and scenes are based closely upon reality and have been verified multiple times; what the drama contributes is the emotional punch and the global exposure to populations that place entertainment far above news consumption.

As Hannah Arendt once remarked, the best art has “so transparently displayed the inner truth of the event that it became possible to say: Yes, this is how it was.”

Consider the two audiences, side by side. One is a festival jury in Venice, giving rapturous applause to unverifiable testimony that confirmed what it already wanted to believe (there was also, I suppose, a small number of viewers who retained their powers of critical thinking; for these discerning souls, the film set out to prove genocide and ended up producing a masterclass in the very calculations that distinguish a lawful war from an illegal one).

The other is an ordinary Netflix audience, sitting at home, watching a drama and coming away for the first time actually understanding what happened on October 7. It set out to entertain and did more for Israel’s case than its own government has managed since October 7.

Guess who is the winner here?
JPost Editorial: Trusting your audience: What NAZA could learn from Fauda's latest season
Two Israeli productions arrived before global audiences within days of each other, both shaped by the trauma of October 7. Yet they approach Israel’s reckoning very differently. The fifth season of Fauda, now streaming worldwide, turns revenge inward and forces its Israeli characters to confront its cost. NAZA, the Venice Prize-winning documentary by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, takes a different direction. Its argument appears settled before its evidence is weighed.

Israeli self-criticism has never been absent from Israeli culture. Fauda itself is proof. The series has spent years showing Israeli operatives as brave, impulsive, traumatized, and sometimes disastrously wrong. Season five goes further. Its central theme is blood revenge, born from the October 7 massacre, and the story refuses to offer revenge as closure. The characters pursue it, suffer for it, and discover how little comfort it provides. Their pain is real, yet the series still allows the audience to question what to do with it.

Trusting the viewers enough to leave judgement open
Serious art can expose wounds without pretending that one moral interpretation explains every decision made under fire. It can look directly at Palestinian suffering, Israeli leadership failures, and the brutality that war produces, while preserving context, uncertainty, and human agency. Fauda has never required viewers to believe every Israeli action is justified. It trusts them enough to leave judgment open.

NAZA asks for a different kind of trust. The film is built around interviews with 24 Israeli soldiers and intelligence personnel whose identities are concealed. They make grave allegations about targeting decisions in Gaza, including claims that mass civilian deaths were knowingly built into military operations. Those allegations deserve examination. They also demand exceptional scrutiny. The IDF has categorically rejected them, arguing that the anonymous speakers’ identities and military roles cannot be verified.

Anonymity does not invalidate testimony, especially when whistleblowers fear professional or legal consequences. It does, however, place a heavier burden on filmmakers making claims of extraordinary scale. Viewers cannot assess the sources’ rank, access to information, direct involvement, or possible motives. When a documentary presents testimony under those conditions, its framing becomes even more consequential. NAZA’s public presentation leaves little sense that the central proposition remains contested.
IDF chief floats legal action against ‘NAZA’ film, orders probe of leaked material
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir on Monday instructed the military’s top legal official to examine legal action against the film “NAZA” and those involved in it, saying it defamed the military, and separately ordered an investigation into the leaking of classified material used in its production.

His comments came shortly after IDF Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin issued a statement inviting the documentary’s filmmakers to allow military officials to view the film in full so that the IDF could respond in a “substantive manner.” So far, the military has only reacted to clips of the movie posted online, and has not yet seen the full documentary.

The 80-minute film by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor — whose title is a Hebrew acronym meaning collateral damage — claims to explore AI-powered strikes by Israel in the Gaza Strip it alleges have led to civilian deaths, including testimonies from 24 purported Israeli intelligence soldiers. The film won a special jury prize this week at the Venice Film Festival, where it debuted.

Testimony in the film alleges “mass killing on an industrial scale” in Gaza, one of the officers said in a series of anonymous interviews, describing an AI-assisted system that identified targets using data gathered from thousands of hacked mobile phones. Israel rejects the premise of the film, and says it has gone to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties and that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields in densely populated areas — a claim Hamas denies.

On Friday — a day after the film’s premiere at the festival and a day before it won the prize — the IDF issued a statement saying that it “categorically rejects” allegations made in the documentary and criticizing the use of anonymous testimonies.

The IDF also said decisions on the selection and approval of strikes were made “by human personnel only… and not by artificial intelligence.”

“According to the reports that have emerged so far, this is not a film criticizing the IDF and is not an attempt to ascertain the truth. It is based on blood libels, deliberate distortion of reality, and false and serious accusations against IDF soldiers and commanders,” Zamir said in a statement after holding a meeting Monday with senior military officials about the documentary.

He said that the film “adopts narratives of Israel’s haters, defames our soldiers and commanders, and seeks to portray the IDF as deliberately acting unlawfully.”

“This is a dangerous attempt to strip us of the legitimacy to defend ourselves against the worst of our enemies, and in doing so to pose a real danger to IDF soldiers and commanders,” Zamir continued. “We will not allow IDF soldiers to be turned into targets through lies and blood libels. Faced with such an attempt, we must act resolutely, using all the tools at our disposal, legal, command, and public diplomacy.”


Former hostages condemn 'NAZA' filmmakers
Former Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza reacted to the documentary NAZA on Monday after the film won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday and received a nearly 25-minute standing ovation after it was screened last Thursday.

The film has sparked widespread backlash across Israel, drawing reactions from officials and civil society alike.

Rom Braslavski, who spent 738 days as a hostage in Gaza, posted on X/Twitter saying that Yuval Avraham and Rachel Szor, the directors of the documentary, were “traitors” and that “they should be sent to prison.”

Eliya Cohen also took to social media to vent his frustration with the film and its directors, saying in an Instagram video post that “Something must be done… a lesson that will make them understand that they are not welcome in Israel.”

The former hostage spent over 500 days in Gaza in Hamas captivity and said he was subjected to starvation and torture at the hands of Hamas.

'A movie that completely erases what we've been through'
In his post on Instagram, Cohen says he was “afraid of the citizens I met there; I was even more afraid of the Hamas terrorists,” describing his reaction to the Gazans he met.

He blasted the NAZA documentary and the filmmakers, accusing them of making a “movie that completely erases what we’ve been through, reverses reality and presents a one-sided story.”

NAZA is set to premiere at the New York Film Festival on September 26, but no public release for the documentary has been announced yet.


‘NAZA’ co-director accuses Israeli media of ignoring Gaza civilian casualties over 3 years of war
The Israeli co-director of a documentary alleging that mass civilian deaths were routinely built into the IDF’s targeting decisions during the Gaza war defended the film’s claims and its framing in his first Hebrew media interview since winning a top award at the Venice Film Festival over the weekend.

In the Monday Channel 13 interview, which frequently turned tense, journalist Raviv Drucker repeatedly casted doubt on how Yuval Abraham and co-director Rachel Szor could have verified the film’s allegations, made by 24 anonymous IDF Intelligence Corps soldiers.

Drucker is one of the few Israelis to have seen the film in its entirety, as it has not yet been made publicly available.

The Channel 13 journalist expressed particular skepticism regarding allegations that the IDF approved strikes it knew would kill hundreds of civilians or that the IDF approved strikes that would have killed hundreds of civilians who did not heed evacuation warnings — even in the absence of a Hamas target.

Drucker said that on multiple occasions, when he would report on soldiers’ testimonies, he found himself unable to verify them or discovered they were inaccurate.

Abraham responded that the allegations in the film were verified, noting that he produced the documentary in partnership with the British publication, “The Guardian,” and that the film’s creators had to take steps to protect the identities of the soldiers.


Eugene Kontorovich: I24 interview on Israeli response to "Naza" movie
I argue that suggestions to strip the filmmakers of Israeli citizenship will are not legally viable - or particularly helpful. What would make a big difference is barring contributions foreign foreign countries to Israeli political organizations, which pay the filmmakers' salaries.




Yisrael Medad: A recipe for disaster: Edward Miliband, Britain, and relations with Israel
A sharper criticism was penned by Lord Jon Mendelsohn in The Spectator on September 8. He saw problems in that Miliband’s policy does not deal with the actual violence that is preventing peace.

There is no reference to who disarms Hamas or prevents the rebuilding of its military infrastructure. Neither is there a plan to ensure that a future Palestinian state possesses a monopoly of legitimate force and that that “security guarantee” is “capable of sustaining Israeli withdrawal.”

A second all-Arab Islamist state in historic Palestine as proposed, the first being the monarchical and dictatorial Jordan, true ethno-nationalist states the progressive camp fulminates over when they reference Israel, while Israel yields territory but maintains its not insignificant Arab minority, is patently a recipe for continued violence rather than peace.

Can we at least solve Gaza first? That was, in essence, a two-state solution paradigm, and we have witnessed the calamitous failure of that idea.

Perhaps applying sanctions to persons, businesses, banks, and governing institutions that support anti-Jewish Arab terror? If not in Israel and the Palestinian Authority, then at least in the United Kingdom?

If Britain is struggling with anti-Jewish violence and refusing to deal with the underlying prop-ups of the shootings, stabbings, and the fire bombings, is it not hubris to presume the Arab wars against Israel are a problem England can solve with sanctions on Israel?

Recipe for disaster
Miliband's crutch of declaring himself a “good Jew” with a good Jewish family in Israel, while admitting he is an atheist with a non-Jewish wife, is an unworthy trick of seeking to lull Jews into trusting his policy.

Despite him being “proud of my Jewishness and unwavering in my support for the state of Israel,” there is very much a contradiction between that and support for the state of Palestine, as he posited.

I, too, am a proud Jew, and I proudly suggest to Miliband and to Andy Burnham that it’s about time that supporters of an Arab Palestine realize that Jewish rights must be acknowledged, among them Jewish national identity and our historic national home, as the League of Nations decided in 1922 and as Lord Balfour wrote in 1917.

Proposed solutions that ignore the roots of Arab violence, their rejectionism, their jihadist mentality, and their anti-Jewish sentiment are a recipe for disaster.

Calumnies such as “ethnic cleansing,” “dehumanization,” and “settler terrorism,” even if quoting Israeli political figures, are not, as such, true.

“Jewish settlement” in the land where Jews lived for millennia, since at least 1250 BCE, is a natural right, and the League of Nations recognized it as such.

Britain and its government have erred terribly. How long until the error is realized and corrected?
Meddling Miliband is wrong about his West Bank sanctions... that's the view of Palestinians who fear having to face the fallout
Workers and business owners based in the Israeli settlements in the West Bank have warned that Labour's plans to ban goods from the area risk doing more harm than good.

Announcing the sanctions this week, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said the measures would target 'illegal settlements and settlement expansion', alleging that there had been 'ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank, perpetrated by settler terrorists'.

It follows growing pressure for action to curb violence in the West Bank amid reports of some 1,400 attacks by Israeli settlers this year and continuing concerns over Palestinian violence and security threats.

At the heart of the row is the controversial E1 project, which plans to build more than 3,400 settler homes across 4.6 square miles at a site directly east of Jerusalem.

Britain – and many around the world –fear the planned construction will effectively divide the West Bank and undermine the viability of a future Palestinian state.

Supporters dispute this, pointing to plans for a transport system entitled 'Fabric of Life Road' they say would preserve Palestinian travel between the northern and southern West Bank.

But many locals are worried that, rather than supporting Palestinians, Labour's sanctions regime is instead putting their livelihoods at risk.

While the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, have strongly backed the British countermeasures, labelling them an 'important step', on the ground views were much more complex.

'The British Government is making a big mistake,' said Samech, an Arab-Israeli businessman from Jerusalem. 'They are punishing 7,000 Palestinians who come to work in just this commercial centre every day.'

Samech employs 20 Palestinians and eight Israelis at his West Bank construction business, Aleph Samech, which will be hit by the trade ban. His business supports more than 28 different families. 'It's terrible,' he said.

While it does not export goods, it supplies businesses that do, meaning his firm will suffer a knock-on effect. 'Politics doesn't interest us; it's ugly, everyone else's meddling and politics is what causes all the problems for us. We all live here side by side, we all look out for each other,' he added.

The sentiment was echoed by dozens of Palestinian workers who told the Daily Mail they were worried the measures introduced in their name could instead cost them jobs and leave families without vital income.
Norway weighing bill imposing up to 3 years in prison for trade with settlements
Norway is weighing introducing legislation that would both ban trade with all Israeli settlements and provide for penalties of up to three years in prison for violations, Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said Monday

“The arguments [in support of the bill] have only become stronger because the situation in the West Bank has become even worse. In addition, so many other countries are now doing the same thing the government has already proposed through this bill,” Eide told state broadcaster NRK in a Norwegian-language interview, prompting a backlash from Israel’s embassy in Oslo.

The trade ban law, which would apply to individuals and companies trading with settlements, according to NRK, follows the United Kingdom’s newly announced wide-ranging sanctions package against Israeli West Bank settlements rolled out last week.

Norway joined Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden in issuing a joint statement shortly after the British announcement expressing their intentions to take or support similar measures.

“Israel has become far too accustomed to being able to intimidate Western countries by saying they were antisemites if they criticized Israel for abuses and violations of international law. Now the [protective cover] that Israel has in many ways enjoyed is gone,” Eide said.

East Jerusalem would also be covered by the legislation, according to NRK.

While dozens of countries have recognized East Jerusalem as Palestinian territory and the capital of a future Palestinian state, Israel formally annexed the area in 1980, 13 years after capturing the territory during the 1967 Six Day War.

Many of the dozens of Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem are, in practice, fully integrated neighborhoods of Jerusalem. The UK is undecided as to whether Jewish areas in East Jerusalem would be covered by its sanctions, a British official told reporters last week.
UKLFI: UKLFI warns Norway that proposed settlement trade ban could breach international law
The Norwegian Government has been warned that its proposed legislation banning trade with areas of Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) could itself put Norway in breach of several binding international obligations.

UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) has submitted a detailed response to a consultation by Norway’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the proposed legislation. The 22-page response challenges the Ministry’s assertion that international law requires Norway to introduce such a ban.

UKLFI’s response argues that, if enacted, the proposed law would be likely to breach:
the EFTA-Israel Free Trade Agreement;
Norway’s bilateral Agreement on Agricultural Products with Israel;
the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT);
the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS); and
the WTO Agreement on Agriculture.

The proposed legislation would also expose companies complying with the Norwegian ban to potential liabilities and sanctions under US federal and state laws, potentially discouraging US investment in Norway.

ICJ Advisory Opinion does not require Norway to impose a trade ban
The Norwegian consultation relies heavily on the International Court of Justice’s 2024 Advisory Opinion concerning the West Bank.

UKLFI argues that the Advisory Opinion does not require Norway to enact the proposed legislation. In particular, the Opinion does not impose a specific obligation on States to prohibit private trade in goods or services originating in Israeli communities in East Jerusalem or Judea and Samaria.

The response points out that the 2024 Opinion refers to States abstaining from certain economic or trade dealings with the State of Israel concerning the Occupied Palestinian Territory. It does not require States to legislate to prevent private parties from trading with businesses operating in the areas covered by Norway’s proposed ban.

UKLFI also challenges the Norwegian Government’s reliance on UN Security Council resolutions and non-binding UN reports. It argues that these cannot create new binding treaty obligations for Norway or displace Norway’s existing obligations under international trade agreements.

Proposed ban could breach WTO rules
A central part of UKLFI’s submission concerns the WTO.

The Norwegian consultation accepts that import and export prohibitions are, as a general rule, contrary to WTO agreements, but argues that WTO obligations do not apply to trade with Israel outside its pre-1967 borders.

UKLFI disputes this interpretation. It argues that WTO law adopts a functional approach to territory, focusing on the actual exercise of customs and tariff authority rather than questions of sovereignty or territorial title.

Moreover, UKLFI argues that even if Norway’s narrower interpretation of Israeli territory were accepted, the proposed legislation would still breach Article XI of GATT, because it would prohibit imports from Israeli territory within the Green Line of goods which originated in East Jerusalem, Judea or Samaria and are in free circulation within the Green Line pursuant to the Paris Protocol annexed to the Oslo II Accord. Similar issues arise under the WTO Agreement on Agriculture.


Campaign Against Antisemitism: Jews Speak Out on Government Sanctions
“The statement is, ‘Jewish blood is cheap.’”

Days before the Jewish New Year, the Government announced sanctions over what it called a “moral emergency in Palestine”.

We spoke to members of the Jewish community, who shared concerns about increased hostility against Jews.

Campaign Against Antisemitism is a volunteer-led, UK-based charity dedicated to countering antisemitism through education and zero-tolerance enforcement of the law.


Iran tried to intimidate Saudi Arabia - it may have made Riyadh more powerful instead
Washington is no longer the only side setting the price
For years, the Saudi-Israel normalization debate revolved around what Riyadh wanted from Washington.

That is no longer enough to understand the negotiation.

The more important question is increasingly what Washington wants from Riyadh.

The United States wants Saudi weight behind a regional order that limits Iran. Israel wants normalization with the most important Arab state still outside the Abraham Accords. Trump wants an outcome he can present as something larger than another costly confrontation with Tehran.

All three roads run through Riyadh.

That changes MBS’s hand.

The proposed 30-year US-Saudi civilian nuclear cooperation agreement illustrates what is at stake. Washington has linked the deal to normalization with Israel, while Riyadh continues to demand meaningful movement on the Palestinian issue.

Iran’s pressure does not make those differences disappear.

It makes Saudi cooperation more valuable despite them.

The more indispensable Riyadh becomes to the regional architecture Washington wants, the harder it becomes to expect MBS to accept that architecture cheaply.

Iran may be creating Trump’s opening
Tehran’s strategy is supposed to trap Trump between two bad choices. Show restraint, and Washington risks looking unable to protect Gulf shipping and its regional partners. Escalate, and oil prices rise, Americans pay more at the pump, and the political cost grows at home.

But there is a third possibility: Trump could try to turn the Iranian threat into the argument for a much larger bargain with Saudi Arabia.

Washington and Jerusalem would get Saudi participation in a stronger regional framework and, potentially, normalization. Riyadh would seek the security commitments and strategic benefits it has wanted for years.

The Palestinian issue remains a major obstacle. So do the competing interests of all three governments. Nothing about such a bargain is inevitable.

But MBS has something increasingly valuable on his side: time.

He does not have to rush toward Washington, distance himself from China, or accept the first normalization package put in front of him. He can watch the pressure on the Gulf rise and ask a simple question: How much is Saudi cooperation worth now?

For years, Iran’s argument to its Arab neighbors rested on geography. America might eventually leave the Middle East. Iran would not. The Gulf states would therefore have to learn to accommodate Tehran.

Threatening Hormuz was supposed to reinforce that reality. It may be doing the opposite.

Every threat to Gulf shipping makes secure Saudi export routes more valuable. Every escalation makes Saudi cooperation more important to Washington. Every attempt to destabilize the regional order increases the country’s value, and everyone may need to rebuild it.

Iran wanted Riyadh to feel vulnerable enough to compromise. It may instead be making Riyadh indispensable enough to name its price.
Seth Frantzman: Saudi Arabia threatened from two fronts as approaching CENTCOM meeting grows in importance
The meeting with Central Command is important. Saudi Arabia is one of the main military powers in the region. It has a sizable modern air force. It has more manpower than the Gulf states.

The US military has bases in many Gulf countries, such as Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the UAE. Saudi Arabia has already been fighting the Houthis since 2015. The Houthis have targeted the Kingdom with drones and ballistic missiles in the past.

In late July, US CENTCOM noted that “US Central Command and the Saudi Arabian Armed Forces conducted precision strikes in Iraq, July 28, against Iran-aligned terrorists that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) directed to attack US forces and Saudi energy infrastructure.” At the time, the US said that the IRGC had directed around 30 “aerial drone attacks in the last 72 hours.”

It's worth recalling some of the history here. The September 14, 2019 attack on Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq and Khurais oil facilities was one of the most significant strikes on global energy infrastructure in recent decades. Drones and cruise missiles temporarily knocked 5.7 million barrels per day of Saudi production offline, around 5% of global supply. The Houthis claimed responsibility, while Saudi Arabia and the United States blamed Iran.

The attack on the East-West pipeline appears similar as a threat. Riyadh did not retaliate to the 2019 attack. It appears reticent to respond this time. It will want US support. The US has appeared to be messaging about less escalation and shifting to talks about the Iranian nuclear program. The US also seems to believe the conflict could end by the end of the year.

Iran-backed militias in Iraq have also been linked to attacks on Saudi Arabia for many years. Reports have said that Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq has used drones to target Saudi infrastructure. Kataib Hezbollah also killed three American service members in Jordan in 2024.

Saudi Arabia will need to see what comes next in terms of talks with CENTCOM and confronting the Houthis and militias in Iraq. Currently Riyadh appears ready to do a joint investigation with Iraq on the attack on the East-West pipeline.

However, the larger story is that Saudi Arabia continues to appear vulnerable. It has modern air defenses and a modern army. However, the Kingdom is a larger area to defend. The militias can choose when and where to attack.

Saudi Arabia also have a lot of strategic infrastructure. It has more to lose than the Houthis or Iraqi militias. This is how Iran threatens the region in general. It relies on the fact that others have more to lose.





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Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون



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