Most Palestinians, among themselves, consider themselves as originating from outside Palestine

There is a striking disconnect between three different ways Palestinian identity is described: in genetic studies, in Western political discourse, and in internal clan narratives.

Start with genetics. Most population studies show that Palestinian DNA is overwhelmingly Levantine - often over 80%. That category includes Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, so it does not prove continuous residence within the borders of Mandatory Palestine. Still, genetically speaking, Palestinians are largely a Levantine population.

Now look at how Palestinian identity is framed in the West. There the emphasis is on absolute indigeneity: a people wholly rooted in the land, implicitly contrasted with Jews portrayed as foreign. In that framing, outside origins are minimized or ignored.

But there is a third narrative - the one found in Palestinian clan histories, tribal affiliations and social media accounts. Here, a very different picture emerges. Many families openly state, and often take pride in, origins outside Palestine: Hejaz, Yemen, the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, Syria, even Circassian or Kurdish migrations during Ottoman times.

To move beyond anecdote, I examined the appendix of Glenn Robinson’s 2009 paper “Palestinian Tribes, Clans, and Notable Families.” The list was not compiled with this issue in mind, which makes it a reasonably neutral sample of prominent Palestinian family names. After removing duplicates, roughly 95 families remained.

The origins of about 10% of the families could not be identified. Of the remainder:

• About 20% described themselves as indigenous to the local Levant.

• About 12% traced their origins to older Levantine Arab migrations that long predated Islam.

• About 69% claimed migration from Arabia or other external regions, including prestigious lineages tied to the Hejaz, Yemen, Bedouin tribes, Hashemite ancestry, companions of Muhammad, Egyptian arrivals, or Ottoman-era migrations.

In other words, among families that preserve and publicize origin traditions, roughly 80% associate themselves with roots outside Palestine.

This does not necessarily contradict the DNA evidence. Male-line tribal migrations marrying local women could easily produce a largely Levantine genetic profile alongside Arabian clan narratives. The point is not genetic purity. It is self-perception.

Why do so many families prefer to emphasize external tribal origins rather than local indigeneity? In Arab society, descent from prestigious tribes - especially those connected to early Islamic history - carries social capital. Identity narratives often follow honor and status.

That creates tension with the Western-facing narrative of exclusive indigeneity. Internally, many families celebrate migration stories. Externally, migration is rhetorically erased. Their self-definition is that they came from elsewhere, not that they are proudly native Palestinians - even when their DNA might say otherwise. 

By contrast, Jewish diasporic naming traditions generally preserve identification with ancient Israelite tribes rather than with host nations. Ashkenazic Jews did not historically claim Polish or Hungarian tribal origin as a source of prestige. Surnames such as Cohen, Katz, Levi and even Loeb. Wolf and Hirsch explicitly reference biblical lineage. Whether every claim is provable is secondary; the identity myth points toward ancient Israel, not toward the countries of exile.

This small fact is of course Kryptonite to the prevailing anti-Israel propaganda that Jews are illegal settlers and Palestinians are indigenous. The Jews never relinquished their ties to the land from their origins; Palestinians by and large do it even today on countless Palestinian Facebook and family webpages. 

The contrast is not about genetics. It is about where a people locates its origin story. When internal clan narratives celebrate external migration while political narratives assert exclusive indigeneity, the tension deserves examination.

Here is the entire list of Palestinian surnames as identified by Robinson and where these families say they originated from:

Family/Clan/Tribe	Region(s)	Claimed Origins	Status
‘Abd al-Hadi	Nablus	Notable; claims descent from al-Hadi (Hashemite, from Mohammed).	Migrated (Arabian/External)
‘Amr	Hebron	Linked to Banu Amr, sub-tribe of Tamim or others.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
‘Atrash	Bethlehem	Deaf clan; possible Bedouin.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
‘Azza	Hebron	Clan; possible Jewish origins in traditions.	Indigenous
Abu Amash	Bayt Hanun	Clan; claims descent from Umash in Beirut (Lebanese ties) or from Kafr Qaddum (West Bank local).	Indigenous (if West Bank) or Migrated (if Lebanese) – assuming Indigenous based on Palestinian context
Abu Awda	Bayt Hanun	Clan; possible Egyptian or Sudanese roots, or from Awad in Palestine (local Levantine).	Migrated (Arabian/External) if Egyptian; Indigenous if local
Abu Ghawsh	Jerusalem	Clan; claims Kurdish origins.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Abu Hassanayn	Gaza	Clan; possible from Hassanayn in Syria or Iraq; linked to Husseini/Hashemite descent.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Abu Khusa	Gaza	Clan; possible from Khusa in Egypt or Transjordan.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Abu Mashaseeb	Dayr al-Balah	N/A (no new claims; possible local Gaza clan).	N/A
Abu Middain	Gaza	Clan; possible Egyptian origins.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Abu Naja	Rafah	Clan; claims descent from Naja in Arabia or Morocco; some link to Quraish.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Abu Samhadana	Rafah	Clan; Bedouin, with Sinai/Egyptian ties.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Abu Sharkh	Gaza	Possible east origins, implying Transjordanian.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Abu Taha	Gaza/Rafah/Khan Yunis	Clan; possible Yemeni or Egyptian roots.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Abu Warda	Gaza	Clan; possible from Warda in Arabia or Egypt.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Adwan	Gaza	Bedouin clan; claims descent from Adwan tribe in Jordan, Hejazi origins.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Agha	Gaza	Claims Turkish or Circassian descent from Ottoman era.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Ahfat	Nablus	N/A (no new claims; possible local Nablus notable).	N/A
Al-Ahmad	Nablus/Jenin	Common; possible descent from Ahmad (variant of Mohammed).	Indigenous
Al-Hajj Muhammad	Nablus	Pilgrim family; claims to Mohammed.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Al-Sayf	Nablus	Sword clan; possible warrior Sahaba links.	Indigenous
Al-Sha’ir	Rafah/Khan Yunis	Clan; claims poetic lineage, possibly from Hejaz tribes.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Alami	Jerusalem	Notable; claims Moroccan or Syrian roots.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Ashur	Khan Yunis	Possible Assyrian or Transjordanian roots.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Atallah	Hebron	Christian connotations; possible Ghassanid.	Levantine but Migrated (Pre-Islamic/Regional Arab)
Bakr	Gaza	Linked to Banu Bakr tribe, Adnanite Arabs from Hejaz.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Bani Himar	Jerusalem	N/A (linked to Banu Himar, possibly Hejazi tribe; scarce info).	N/A
Bani Murra	Jerusalem	Linked to Banu Murra, Hejazi tribe.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Bani Shamsa	Nablus	Clan; claims descent from Shamsa in Arabia (Qahatani or Adnani ties).	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Bani Zayd	Jerusalem	Clan; claims Arabian Peninsula origins, linked to Bani Zeid.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Barghouthi (Barghouti)	Ramallah/Al-Bira/Bethlehem	From Bani Zeid; descent from Omar ibn al-Khattab (Sahabi), via Egypt/Tunisia.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Baytuni	Jerusalem	Possible Christian origins (Beitunia ties).	Indigenous
Buhaisi	Gaza	Clan; possible from Buhaisi in Bahrain or Hejaz.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Burqawi	Nablus	From Burqa; local roots.	Indigenous
Dajani	Jerusalem	Notable a'yan; claims descent from Dajan tribe, possibly Hejazi or Yemeni.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Dakkak	Jerusalem	Notable; possible from Dakkak in Syria or local Jerusalem elite.	Migrated (Arabian/External) if Syrian; N/A otherwise
Darwish	Jerusalem	Sufi connotations; possible Yemeni or Hejazi.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Dira	Gaza	N/A (scarce; possible local Gaza clan or from Dira in Arabia).	N/A
Dughmush	Gaza	Clan; claims descent from Arab tribes in Iraq or Hejaz.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Duwaykat	Nablus	Clan; possible from Duwaykat in Nablus region (local).	Indigenous
Dweik	Hebron	Notable; claims descent from Dweik in Arabia or Ottoman ties.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Freij	Bethlehem	Possible Christian origins.	Indigenous
Hamad	Bethlehem	Praise; common Arab.	Indigenous
Hanun	Tulkarm	Compassionate; possible from Hanun in Syria or local.	Migrated (Arabian/External) if Syrian
Hasan	Jerusalem	Common name; possible descent from Hasan ibn Ali (grandson of Mohammed).	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Haniyya	Ramallah/Al-Bira	From Haniyah tribe, possible Yemeni.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Hilmi	Nablus	N/A (possible local notable; linked to Hilmi in Syria).	N/A
Hillis	Gaza	Clan; claims Yemeni tribal origins.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Hizbun	Bethlehem	N/A (scarce; possible Christian or local Bethlehem clan).	N/A
Husayni	Jerusalem	Claims descent from Husayn ibn Ali (grandson of Mohammed) via Yaman tribe roots.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Ja’bari	Hebron	Notable; claims descent from Jabir ibn Abdullah (Sahabi).	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Jarrar	Nablus	Clan; claims Jordanian or Hejazi ties.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Jaraf	Gaza	N/A (scarce; possible from Jaraf in Arabia).	N/A
Jawwad	Salfit	Generous; possible from Jawwad in Arabia or local.	N/A
Jayyusi	Nablus	Linked to Jays tribe, Arab Peninsula.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Jughan	Khan Yunis	N/A (scarce; possible local Khan Yunis clan).	N/A
Kafarna	Bayt Hanun	Possible Christian origins, implying Ghassanid (Yemeni-Arab Christian) ties.	Levantine but Migrated (Pre-Islamic/Regional Arab)
Kamal	Ramallah/Al-Bira	Perfection; notable, possible Turkish.	Indigenous
Kan’an (Kanaan)	Nablus	From Kanaan; claims Syrian origins.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Ka’raja	Jerusalem	N/A (scarce; possible from Ka'raja in Jerusalem local elite).	N/A
Khalaf	Ramallah/Al-Bira	Successor; possible caliphate ties.	Indigenous
Khalidi	Jerusalem	From Bani Khalid tribe; descent from Khalid ibn al-Walid (Sahabi).	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Khatib	Jerusalem	Preacher family; claims Quraysh or Sahaba ties.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Khoury	Ramallah/Al-Bira	Priest; Christian, Ghassanid Arab from Peninsula.	Levantine but Migrated (Pre-Islamic/Regional Arab)
Lahham	Jerusalem/Bethlehem	Butcher clan; possible Christian Ghassanid roots.	Levantine but Migrated (Pre-Islamic/Regional Arab)
Madhun	Gaza	Notable; descent from Bani Hashim al-Ashraf al-Husayni (Quraish), migrated Mecca-Medina-Ta'if, then various places including Palestine in Mamluk era.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Majayda	Khan Yunis	Clan; claims descent from Majayda in Arabia (possibly Qahtani).	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Mamar	Khan Yunis	N/A (scarce; possible from Mamar in Arabia or local).	N/A
Mansur	Nablus	Victorious; possible Ottoman ties.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Masri	Multiple	"Egyptian"; claims descent from Egyptian migrants in 19th century.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Mattar	Gaza	Possible Egyptian ties.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Milhem	Halhul	Notable; possible from Milhem in Arabia or local Hebron.	N/A
Mughani	Gaza	Clan; claims descent from Mughani in Arabia (Quraish or Hejaz).	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Muhtasib	Hebron	Market inspector; Ottoman-era role, possible Syrian roots.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Musleh	Ramallah/Al-Bira	Reformer; possible local Ramallah notable.	Indigenous
Nasir	Jabalya	Linked to Banu Nasr, possible Hejazi tribe.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Nasr	Qalqilya	Victory; possible Nasr tribe.	Indigenous
Natshi	Hebron	Notable; claims descent from Natshi in Arabia (Tamim or Quraish ties).	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Nimr	Nablus	Tiger clan; notable a'yan.	Indigenous
Nusayba (Nusseibeh)	Jerusalem	Descent from Ubadah ibn al-Samit (Sahabi) and Banu Khazraj (Ansar).	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Qasim	Nablus	Linked to Banu Qasim, Hashemite.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Qawasma	Hebron	Clan; claims Yemeni origins.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Rayyan	Nablus	Common; possible from Rayyan in Arabia (gate of Paradise link, symbolic).	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Reyyes (Rayyes)	Gaza	Notable family; claims Arab elite (a'yan) roots, possibly from Hejaz.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Rishmawi	Bethlehem	Christian; Ghassanid or Yemenite.	Levantine but Migrated (Pre-Islamic/Regional Arab)
Salah	Jerusalem	Linked to Saladin's era, Kurdish or Arab.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Samana	Jabalya	N/A (scarce; possible from Samana in Arabia).	N/A
Shaq’a	Nablus	Notable; claims Hejazi Arab roots.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Shahwan	Khan Yunis	Clan; claims descent from Shahwan in Arabia (Bedouin ties).	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Shawwa	Gaza	Notable; Ottoman-era origins, with claims to Syrian or Transjordanian descent.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Shawwaf	Gaza	Notable; possible from Shawwaf in Arabia or Syria.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Shami	Jenin	From Sham (Syria); Syrian origins.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Simhan	Jerusalem	N/A (scarce; possible from Simhan in Jerusalem local).	N/A
Suwayti	Jericho	Clan; possible from Suwayti in Arabia or local Jericho.	N/A
Ta’amra	Bethlehem	Bedouin; nomadic Arab, with Edomite/Nabatean ties via trade.	Indigenous
Tamimi	Hebron	From Banu Tamim tribe; Adnanite descent from Ishmael via Adnan.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Tawil	Ramallah/Al-Bira	Tall clan; possible Christian Ghassanid.	Levantine but Migrated (Pre-Islamic/Regional Arab)
Tayaha	Gaza (Tribal Confederation)	Bedouin; linked to Tayy tribe, claiming Adnanite descent from Ishmael, with Hejazi origins.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Tuqan (Touqan)	Nablus	Notable; linked to Ta'amira Bedouins, nomadic Arab roots.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Uraqat	Jerusalem/Jericho	Bedouin clan from Huwaitat region (northwestern Arabia); ancestors from Medina (Hejaz).	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Yahya	Jenin	John; possible Christian links.	Indigenous
Ziyada	Ramallah/Al-Bira	Common; possible from Ziyada in Arabia or local Ramallah.	N/A

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Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon! "He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

 

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02/25 Links Pt2: Defeating Antizionism; The Logical Endpoint of Progressive Paranoia About Jewish Money; Nothing Has Changed For Jews Since Bondi; Modi: India stands with Israel firmly

From Ian:

Adam Louis-Klein: Defeating Antizionism

So where does antizionism come from?
The foundational text is arguably Fayez Sayegh’s Zionist Colonialism in Palestine (1965), published while he directed the Soviet-sponsored Palestine Research Center in Beirut. Sayegh coined the term settler colonialism specifically to describe Israel, redefining colonialism not as a system of economic exploitation, as in classical Marxist theory, but as the mere existence of Jews as an immigrant enclave. Drawing selectively on Marxism, Sayegh preserved the charge of anti-colonial struggle while stripping it of its content, redirecting it toward Jewish particularity itself. Jewish peoplehood was reframed as a colonial fabrication — a “racist ideology” rooted in “biblical chauvinism” and the idea of the “chosen people.” In this way, Sayegh succeeded in repurposing anti-Judaic polemic against Jewish “exclusivity” into a critique of “settler colonialism.”

Settler colonialism did not enter the academic mainstream until decades later. In 1999, Australian scholar Patrick Wolfe revived the framework in his book Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology. In 2006, his now-canonical essay “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native,” published in the Journal of Genocide Research, explicitly applied this eliminatory logic to Israel — casting Zionism as a project structurally driven to remove the “native” population. This hostile reconstruction marked a critical nexus point: settler-colonial studies fused with the institutional machinery of genocide discourse. Under the editorial influence of Australian scholar Dirk Moses, now at CUNY, the journal became a platform for recasting “Zionism” through Wolfe’s framework.

The Journal of Genocide Research became the institutional hub of this ideological convergence, incubating a cohort of genocide-libel theorists — Martin Shaw, Omer Bartov, Raz Segal, Amos Goldberg, and others — who would rise to prominence after October 7, often citing or collaborating with UN official Francesca Albanese, whose work represents the full application of this logic within the UN’s institutionalized system of antizionism.

Jewish anti-Zionists today continue to ignore this history and genealogy, contending that the antizionist hate movement that stormed campuses and captured the international media, and that has long poisoned human rights organizations, is somehow the same as the rich Jewish political debate that preceded 1948. Simply telling this story should be enough to disabuse anyone of the conflation between the anti-Zionism of the past and the anti-Jewish ideology that is antizionism today. The genealogies are simply distinct. Pre-1948 Jewish debates over Zionism are not the source material for contemporary antizionism, with its three core libels of colonizer, apartheid, and genocide.

Seth Mandel: The Logical Endpoint of Progressive Paranoia About Jewish Money

Newsom is happy to yuk it up over paranoid fantasies of Jewish power because it’s the price of admission for Democratic officeholders, in the way it is becoming the price of admission for right-wing podcasters. A wild example just this week: A Democratic candidate for a congressional seat in Illinois said he would return a contribution from Michael Sacks, a Democratic donor in the state, because Sacks has donated to AIPAC.

The candidate, Anthony Driver Jr., said he didn’t know Sacks had donated to AIPAC, and why would he? Driver explained how he and Sacks crossed paths: “Michael Sacks has supported community violence intervention work in Chicago for years. I served nearly four years as President of the Chicago Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, helping advance real public safety reform.”

So Sacks does good and important work, according to the candidate returning Sacks’s donation. It’s just that in Democratic primaries, that’s not enough to accept a contribution; the contribution’s bloodline must be free of impurities.

This is next-level stuff. The fact that Democratic candidates must now hesitate to accept support from someone who has given to prominent Jewish causes—if you think this is just about one organization, you are a fool—is a massive escalation in the paranoid style in American politics.

How do we know where this is going? Because in other respects, we’re already there. Progressive “anti-Zionist” mobs are already going after synagogues. Jewish-owned restaurants are boycotted, vandalized, and shut down regularly. The Boston Mapping Project created an interactive doxxing engine to identify and target the area’s Jewish nonprofits. Hamasniks have whipped up a national campaign against campus Hillels.

The guilt-by-Jewish-association game is up and running. Jewish people support Jewish groups that support Jewish causes that include the Jewish state.

How far removed from Jews does one have to be to have a shot at winning a Democratic Party primary? We’re starting to find out.

“Nothing Has Changed For Jews Since Bondi”

The CEO of the Australian Jewish Association says Australia gets failing grades for not standing with the nation’s Jewish community and responding to the warnings since the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023.

Robert Gregory told Vision Radio: “There was a lot of fear since October 7, since we saw some of the ugly riots outside the Opera House, and there was a fear that something like what happened at Bondi would happen.”

“And then when those fears were confirmed I think everyone’s just been very concerned.”

“Some people are reconsidering if they have a future in this country.”

“There’s been a heavy security presence at Jewish buildings, at schools and synagogues, which is a bit of a stressful way to live.”

“If you just want to go to synagogue to pray, you’re passing layers of security.”

“It’s not the Australia a lot of people remember, so it’s been a tough time.”

Robert Gregory lays a lot of the blame at the feet of the nation’s leaders in Canberra.

“I think the government got quite a shock with the Bondi attack, first of all, with the terrible atrocity that was carried out.”

“Maybe they didn’t really believe the warnings that would happen, but also with the response from the Jewish community and the broader community.”

“The prime minister was booed when he came down to Bondi Beach.”

“So I think they realised that there was real anger especially in the Jewish community, and they did shift their words a bit, so their words have certainly been more supportive.”

“I think there’s been fewer attacks on Israel, which we know flames anti-Semitism here.”

“They did accommodate the visit of Israeli President Isaac Herzog, but when it comes to actual policy, I haven’t seen any real changes.”

“We still see a disproportionate number of visas refused for Israeli conservative visitors.”

“We see the government is still taking anti-Israel positions. They’re just doing it a little more quietly.”

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02/25 Links Pt1: The UN’s ‘Never Again’ is becoming ‘Never Mind’; PA paid $160 Mil to terrorists in pay-for-slay scheme; Will Trump cement his place in history as a redeemer – or legitimise Iran’s regime?

From Ian:

The UN’s ‘Never Again’ is becoming ‘Never Mind’

Institutions do not collapse overnight. They erode. They lose authority step by step, each time they tolerate what they were established to prevent.

Meanwhile, antisemitic incidents are rising worldwide, on university campuses, in major cities, and outside synagogues. Jewish communities are on edge. In that climate, a UN official labeling the Jewish state as “humanity’s enemy” is not an abstract flourish. It reinforces a narrative that treats Jewish self-determination as uniquely illegitimate.

Supporters will say this is passionate advocacy. They will argue that it reflects frustration or moral urgency.

But human rights language carries force because it is meant to be principled and universal. Once it becomes a tool for branding one nation as the embodiment of evil, it stops protecting the vulnerable and starts isolating them.

Germany, France, and Italy have spoken. That is a start. But if condemnation is the end of the story, the message is clear. The guardrails are optional. The standards are flexible. The slogan remains, but the substance fades.

“Never Again” was supposed to mean that no people would be placed outside the circle of protection. If the UN cannot recognize the danger in calling the Jewish state “the common enemy of humanity,” then the promise forged in 1945 is being hollowed out from within.

Silence is not neutrality. At some point, condemnation without action becomes complicity.

The question is straightforward. Will the United Nations enforce its own standards, or will it continue to let them dissolve, one incendiary phrase at a time?

Three months after it shuttered, what was the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation?

The first executive director of the foundation, Jake Wood, resigned days later, saying that he agreed with the criticism from the United Nations and international aid groups that “it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence.”

“The day GHF was launched, the U.N. went after the founding CEO. He resigned,” Moore told JNS. “It’s just the worst, and I don’t judge him after the attacks I received from the U.N. I lived under 24/7 protection for months this summer.” His house was graffitied, he added.

“I don’t judge him for resigning, but when he did resign, I got a call from the State Department asking if I would do it,” Moore said. “I said, ‘Of course, I’ll do it.’ How can I not do it? And so I stepped into the role.”

The foundation named Moore its executive chairman on June 3.

Moore was frequently criticized during his tenure for lacking the experience of executives of incumbent aid groups like the Red Cross and UNRWA, a charge that he denied.

“I’ve done stuff in 100 countries,” Moore said, citing his work as an advocate for persecuted minorities around the world with a focus on Christians in the Middle East.

“I’ve met with all the heads of state in the region on multiple occasions,” he told JNS. “I know my way around the Middle East.”

GHF too was criticized for not having a track record of delivering humanitarian aid and for not “abiding by humanitarian principles,” criticism that Moore said ignored what the foundation was actually doing.

“The whole system was designed by veterans of the humanitarian community,” he said. “The guy who ran it on the ground was a 30-year veteran of USAID and other agencies. The veterans on the ground spent time in every single war zone for the last 25 years. These are incredibly, incredibly experienced people.”

“It was all designed from the ground up to comply with these standards, but these other organizations were the ones that were not neutral,” he said. “They were the ones that were partial, and they were politicizing everything.”

The scale of the problems at the United Nations and at UNRWA, which Israel has accused of employing members of Hamas, was revealed to Moore when U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres refused to condemn Hamas’s killing of Palestinian GHF aid workers in June.

“Where my naïveté crashed was that day early on, when Hamas killed 12 of our local Gazans,” Moore told JNS. “These were Gazan volunteers that were helping us feed their own people, and Hamas killed 12 of them and piled them out of the Nasser Hospital, controlled by the World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders, and doctors didn’t even try to help them.”

“I wrote a letter to the secretary-general of the United Nations, and I asked the secretary-general if he would condemn Hamas for killing our 12 Gazan aid workers, and the secretary-general of the United Nations refused to do it,” Moore said.

“That was the moment when I realized all of these organizations say they exist for one purpose, but they’re actually politicians under a different name,” he said. “I realized this is something between a mafia and a system corrupt on a scale that was just incomprehensible, and then they tried to shut us down.”

PA paid half a billion shekels to terrorists in pay-for-slay scheme, sources reveal -exclusive

The Palestinian Authority transferred approximately half a billion shekels to terrorists in 2025 under its “pay-for-slay” mechanism, which provides payments to imprisoned terrorists and to the families of attackers, The Jerusalem Post learned on Wednesday.

The information was disclosed during a cabinet meeting convened on Sunday. Of the total amount, NIS 395 million was paid to terrorists currently in prison, while NIS 92 million was transferred to the families of terrorists killed while carrying out attacks.

Ministers were also informed that terrorists released as part of the most recent hostage deals received a “special grant” from the Palestinian Authority.

Since October 7, international criticism has intensified over the Palestinian Authority’s continued payments to terrorists and their families.

PA continues pay-for-slay scheme despite Israeli, US measures to stop it
The Trump administration reportedly threatened last year to impose sanctions on the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority and other senior PA officials if the payments continued.

In an apparent effort to avert such measures, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) dismissed the Palestinian finance minister who had signed off on the transfers. However, it was revealed during the cabinet meeting that the newly appointed finance minister has continued to authorize payments to terrorists.

“All the Palestinian Authority’s theatrics will not help, Abu Mazen himself has said that the Authority will continue paying terrorists’ families down to the last shekel," Minister Avi Dichter said during the meeting.

“Just as Mordechai exposed Haman as a foe and enemy before Ahasuerus, and the great challenge was convincing Ahasuerus, Netanyahu must convince President Trump that Abu Mazen is a foe and enemy," Minister Orit Strock said.

Senior security officials further told ministers that in recent months, salaries of Palestinian Authority employees, including teachers, doctors, and nurses, have been reduced to ensure that payments to terrorists remain unaffected.

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