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Hamas and the PA: Exchanging One Genocidal Antisemitic Leadership for Another
The mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, meets with Adolf Hitler in 1941. Photo: German Federal Archives via Wikimedia Commons.
Who will govern Gaza after the present war? It is not clear that Israel has formulated its vision for a post-Hamas Gaza, but Israel has determined that that future will not include another genocidally antisemitic regime.
In unilaterally withdrawing from Gaza in 2005, Israel had not fully anticipated the Hamas takeover in 2007. Similarly, Hamas’ charter — where the Islamist group states that its goal is to kill all Jews worldwide, and declares this objective to be a religious obligation — did not lead Israel to anticipate the onslaught of October 7. Nor did it prevent the recurrent Hamas rocket attacks targeting Israeli civilians, which triggered four wars in 15 years.
On the contrary, loathe to reoccupy Gaza in response to earlier attacks, Israeli governments had convinced themselves that Hamas could be managed with sharp but limited military responses in wartime, and various incentives between wars.
A similar willful blindness, likewise driven by reluctance to resume its pre-1993 rule even temporarily over the Palestinian population of Judea and Samaria, has shaped Israeli policy towards the Palestinian Authority (PA).
On the very night of the White House ceremony initiating the Oslo peace process and creating the PA, Yasser Arafat, in a Jordanian broadcast, assured his constituency that his goal remained Israel’s annihilation.
When Arafat subsequently took control of much of Judea and Samaria and Gaza, he and the PA used their media, mosques, and schools to promote the objective of Israel’s destruction and the establishment of an Arab state cleansed of Jews.
Despite all this evidence, Israel closed its eyes to the incitement, and to Arafat’s role in the increased terror attacks that followed his entry into the territories. It was only after Arafat launched his terror war in 2000, a war that — together with the losses to terror earlier in the Oslo years — claimed a number of lives comparable to those lost on October 7, that Israel finally rethought its embrace of Arafat as a “peace partner.”
Arafat’s associate and successor, Mahmoud Abbas, has continued the PA’s incitement to genocide.
Abbas and the PA have also promoted Israel’s demise via their “pay to slay” policy that offers financial incentives to those who murder Israelis and to their families. Elements of the PA have also praised Hamas’s October 7 massacre, and some have bragged about PA involvement in that day’s events.
Handing control of a post-Hamas Gaza to the PA would simply be exchanging one genocidal antisemitic leadership in Gaza for another. Yet such a regime is exactly what President Biden seemed to be advocating in a recent Washington Post op-ed. And Secretary of State Blinken has repeatedly declared that he envisions Gaza being handed over to the PA. Even some Israeli leaders are advocating this; most notably Yair Lapid, head of the Yesh Atid party and Israel’s prime minister for six months in 2022.
Unfortunately, there has never been a Palestinian leadership whose political program was not built around genocidal antisemitism. This has been true since the beginning of a Palestinian Arab political movement in the early part of the last century.
The early leader of the movement, Haj Amin al-Husseini, instigated murderous attacks on the Jewish community in Mandatory Palestine in 1929 and again in 1936-39. He spent a considerable amount of World War II in Berlin as Hitler’s guest, and broadcast from Berlin to the Arab world urging support for the Nazis and the murder of all Jews in Arab lands. He also worked with the Nazis on plans for the extermination of Mandate Jews after the anticipated German conquest of the region.
Later, al-Husseini was the leading Palestinian Arab figure in the wake of passage of the United Nations partition plan that called for division of the Mandate into Jewish and Arab states, a plan immediately rejected by the Arab side. In the ensuing war, al-Husseini’s objective and that of his followers and allies was still the annihilation of the Jewish community.
Arafat and Abbas’s Fatah organization, long the dominant force in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), was founded by members of al-Husseini’s Arab Higher Committee and has embraced the same goal of annihilating the Jews.
Ahmed Shukeiry was head of the PLO in the lead-up to the 1967 war. As Arab forces, at the initiation of Egypt, were preparing for what they believed would be Israel’s destruction, Shukeiry declared of the aftermath of the coming hostilities, “Those [Jews] who survive will remain in Palestine. I estimate that none of them will survive.”
On June 24, 2002, then President George W. Bush, having come to more fully understand Arafat’s role in the ongoing terror war he had launched two years earlier — including the PA’s collusion with Hamas and Iran — declared that a change in Palestinian governance to a democratic leadership untainted by terror was a necessary precondition to peace. But is such a change even possible? Would there be support among Palestinians for a leadership that genuinely sought peace with Israel?
Such support was likely more feasible before Oslo. From 1967 to 1993, there had evolved a burgeoning Palestinian middle class in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. Many of its members, having been exposed to Israel’s democracy over those years, talked of wanting the same type of governance for themselves. But the vast majority of Palestinians today have not known anything but PA rule in Judea and Samaria, and PA — and then Hamas rule — in Gaza. For their entire lives they have been exposed to schooling and sermons and media broadcasts that have indoctrinated them about the necessity of devoting their lives to Israel’s annihilation. Opinion polls in the Palestinian territories have shown overwhelming support for that agenda.
Even Palestinians who, unhappy with life under the PA or Hamas, have emigrated from the territories, continue in large part to support the Palestinian leadership’s genocidal goal. One can see it in the pro-Hamas demonstrations that have filled American and European cities since October 7, and in Palestinian participation in the displays of antisemitism that have scarred American and European academia. One can see it even in the halls of Congress.
To ignore this reality, to suggest that eliminating Hamas’ control of Gaza and then handing the territory to the PA would be a step towards peace, is delusional and lethally dishonest. To not insist on a successor regime that represents a radical break with the Palestinian past and genuinely eschews genocidal antisemitism is simply to court unending repetitions of the crimes of October 7.
Kenneth Levin is a psychiatrist and historian and author of The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People Under Siege.
The post Hamas and the PA: Exchanging One Genocidal Antisemitic Leadership for Another first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Surge of Antisemitic Incidents Rocks France Amid Growing Security Concerns
The Paris Holocaust Memorial, three synagogues, and a Jewish restaurant were all vandalized with green paint last weekend. Photo: Screenshot
France has been hit by a wave of antisemitic incidents in recent days, despite increased security at Jewish sites nationwide following last month’s antisemitic shooting in Washington, DC — prompting urgent calls from the country’s Jewish community for stronger government action amid growing fears of escalating violence.
On Friday, a French rabbi was violently assaulted by three drunken individuals in the town of Deauville, located in the Normandy region of northwestern France.
According to local police, Rabbi Eli Lemel — a prominent figure in French Jewry — was attacked around 3:30 pm by three men who approached him, repeatedly punched him in the stomach, and shouted antisemitic slurs.
French authorities have launched an investigation into the assault, but no arrests have been made so far.
After the incident, Lemel called on the Jewish community to draw spiritual strength amid the increasing hostility that Jews are facing across France.
“I’m deeply moved by the outpouring of support following the attack. Thank God, I’m okay,” the Jewish leader wrote in a post on X. “I was struck and verbally abused in a language I didn’t understand.”
In a separate incident, a 21-year-old man was arrested on Saturday after climbing a synagogue in the town of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine in north-central France, removing an Israeli flag from its façade, and attempting to set it on fire.
According to local media, the suspect — who was already known to authorities for prior offenses — confessed to committing the attack and admitted to being intoxicated at the time.
French police confirmed that the man is being charged with trespassing in a place of worship, theft by climbing, and causing damage to property on religious grounds.
The local Jewish community has voiced deep concern following this incident, viewing it as part of a broader surge in hostility targeting Jewish institutions across France.
Sandrine Dos Santos, the city’s mayor, expressed “[her] solidarity, as well as that of the city, toward the Jewish community directly targeted by these unacceptable antisemitic acts.”
“Faced with the increase in violence, our commitment against discrimination remains unwavering and will not waver. We repeat it loud and clear: no form of racism or rejection of others has a place in Poissy,” the French leader said.
In a separate incident on Saturday, three Serbs were arrested near Antibes in southeastern France, suspected of painting several Jewish community buildings green in Paris — an act currently under investigation as possible foreign interference.
Last weekend, the Paris Holocaust Memorial, three synagogues, and a Jewish restaurant were all vandalized with green paint in an incident denounced by the French government.
On Monday, an elementary school in Lyon, east-central France, was set on fire and defaced with antisemitic and pro-Palestinian slogans, as well as swastikas, marking one of the latest antisemitic incidents to impact France in recent days.
As the school had no direct connections to the Jewish community, local police have launched an investigation to determine the motive behind the attack.
French authorities reported that the fire was limited to the outdoor bathrooms, causing no significant damage to the school. They also found antisemitic graffiti and swastikas in three classrooms.
Yonathan Arfi, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF), denounced the attack, saying that “the Palestinian cause is used as justification for burning down a school” and that the “Nazification of Israel serves as fuel for crass antisemitism.”
“When a populist pro-Palestinian narrative is allowed to take hold, it is French Jews who ultimately pay the price,” Arfi wrote in a post on X. “The twisted use of the Palestinian cause is turning into a rallying cry of hatred against both Jews and the Republic itself.”
Voilà où nous en sommes !
La cause palestinienne sert de justification pour incendier une école
Quand on laisse gagner un discours populiste propalestinien, ce sont les Français juifs qui en paient le prix.… https://t.co/dMaQBnbfqi
— Yonathan Arfi (@Yonathan_Arfi) June 1, 2025
Beyond France, other European countries have also experienced a surge in antisemitic incidents in recent weeks.
On Monday, several headstones were vandalized at a Jewish cemetery in a suburb of Belgrade, located in north-central Serbia, marking the second such incident in the country in recent weeks.
The post Surge of Antisemitic Incidents Rocks France Amid Growing Security Concerns first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Vetoes UN Security Council Demand for Gaza Ceasefire
Smoke rises from Gaza after an explosion, as seen from Israel, June 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
The United States vetoed a UN Security Council demand on Wednesday for an “immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire” between Israel and Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza and unhindered aid access across the enclave.
“The United States has been clear we would not support any measure that fails to condemn Hamas and does not call for Hamas to disarm and leave Gaza,” Acting US Ambassador to the UN Dorothy Shea told the council before the vote.
“This resolution would undermine diplomatic efforts to reach a ceasefire that reflects the realities on the ground, and embolden Hamas,” she said of the text that was put forward by 10 countries on the 15-member council.
The remaining 14 council members voted in favor of the draft resolution.
Israel has rejected calls for an unconditional or permanent ceasefire, saying Hamas cannot stay in Gaza. It has renewed its military offensive in Gaza – also seeking to free hostages held by Hamas – since ending a two-month ceasefire in March.
The war in Gaza has raged since 2023 after Hamas terrorists killed 1,200 people in Israel in an Oct. 7 attack and took some 250 hostages back to the enclave.
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Trump Picks Lawyer Who Called Oct. 7 Attack a ‘Psyop’ to Lead Federal Watchdog Agency
Paul Ingrassia. Photo: Screenshot
Paul Ingrassia, a 29-year-old lawyer who was recently nominated by US President Donald Trump to lead a federal agency dedicated to combating corruption and protecting whistleblowers, seemingly dismissed the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2o23, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel as a “psyop,” or “psychological operation, in resurfaced social media posts.
“This ‘war’ is yet another psyop to distract Americans from celebrating Columbus Day,” Ingrassia wrote on X/Twitter on Oct. 8, 2023.
“I think we could all admit at this stage that Israel/Palestine, much like Ukraine before it, and BLM before that, and covid/vaccine before that, was another psyop,” he posted a week later. “But sadly, people fell for it. And they’ll fall for the next one too.”
On the actual day of the Oct. 7 massacre, Ingrassia compared illegal immigration into the US to the Hamas-led onslaught.
“The amount of energy everyone has put into condemning Hamas (and prior to that, the Ukraine conflict) over the past 24 hours should be the same amount of energy we put into condemning our wide open border, which is a war comparable to the attack on Israel in terms of bloodshed — but made worse by the fact that it’s occurring in our very own backyard,” he posted. “We shouldn’t be beating the war drum, however tragic the events may be overseas, until we resolve our domestic problems first.”
Trump announced last week that he picked Ingrassia to serve as head of the US Office of Special Counsel, a position that requires confirmation by the Senate.
The Office of Special Counsel is an independent federal ethics agency that works to ensure fairness and accountability within the government. Ingrassia’s role, if he is confirmed, would involve investigating claims of wrongdoing, such as retaliation against whistleblowers or improper political activity in the workplace. The official can recommend disciplinary action and reports serious findings to Congress, helping to protect federal employees and uphold the integrity of the civil service system.
Ingrassia also maintains a relationship with and defends alleged sex trafficker Andrew Tate, who has promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories on social media. Tate wrote on X/Twitter that he refuses to “listen to women, Mexicans, or Jews” and that Jewish people are “subverting Western populations into mass genetic suicide” by advancing what he described as misguided immigration policy. Tate has also accused Israel of committing a “genocide” in Gaza against Palestinians and engaged in Holocaust denialism.
The furor surrounding Ingrassia is the latest dustup the Trump administration has had regarding controversial personnel and antisemitism.
The Trump administration’s appointment of Kingsley Wilson as deputy press secretary at the Department of Defense also sparked widespread criticism due to her history of promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories and extremist views. Wilson, formerly associated with the Center for Renewing America, has a documented history of social media posts endorsing white supremacist ideologies, including claims about the 1915 lynching of Leo Frank — a Jewish man whose wrongful conviction and subsequent murder galvanized the founding of the Anti-Defamation League. In 2023, she tweeted that Frank “raped & murdered a 13-year-old girl,” a statement aligning with neo-Nazi narratives.
Late last month, the Pentagon announced that Wilson will be promoted and serve as the department’s new press secretary.
The post Trump Picks Lawyer Who Called Oct. 7 Attack a ‘Psyop’ to Lead Federal Watchdog Agency first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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