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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.
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US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The Trump administration has imposed sweeping sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, citing the UN official’s lengthy record of singling out Israel for condemnation.
In a post on X, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions under a February executive order targeting those who “prompt International Criminal Court (ICC) action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.” He accused Albanese of waging “political and economic warfare” against both nations and asserted that “such efforts will no longer be tolerated.”
“Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt [International Criminal Court] action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives,” Rubio announced on X/Twitter.
“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” declared the Trump administration’s top foreign affairs official. “We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”
Rubio concluded: “The United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare and protect our sovereignty and that of our allies.”
The decision to impose sanctions on Albanese marks an escalation in the ongoing feud between the White House and the United Nations over Israel. The Trump administration has repeatedly accused the UN and Albanese of unfairly targeting Israel and mischaracterizing the Jewish state’s conduct in Gaza.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has held the position of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories since 2022. The position authorizes her to monitor and report on alleged “human rights violations” by Israel against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Last week, Albanese issued a scathing report accusing companies of helping Israel maintain a so-called “genocide economy.” She called on the companies to cut off economic ties with Israel and warned that they might be guilty of “complicity” in the so-called “genocide” in Gaza.
Critics of Albanese have long accused her of exhibiting an excessive anti-Israel bias, calling into question her fairness and neutrality.
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.
In the months following the Palestinian terrorist group’s atrocities across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Albanese accused the Jewish state of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war as a result of Israeli actions.
The action comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington, where he has received a warm reception from the Trump administration. Netanyahu has been meeting with US officials to discuss next steps in the ongoing Gaza military operation.
Gideon Sa’ar, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Israel, commended the Rubio announcement with his own post on X/Twitter, exclaiming: “A clear message. Time for the UN to pay attention!”
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Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations
US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
The Trump administration escalated its showdown against Harvard University on Wednesday, reporting the institution to its accreditor for alleged civil rights violations resulting from its weak response to reports of antisemitic bullying, discrimination, and harassment following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 massacre across southern Israel.
The US Department of Education (DOE) announced the action on Wednesday. Citing Harvard’s admitted failure to treat antisemitism as seriously as it treated others forms of hatred in the past, the DOE called on the New England Commission of Higher Education to review and, potentially, revoke its accreditation — a designation which qualifies Harvard for federal funding and attests to the quality of the educational services its provides.
“Accrediting bodies play a significant role in preserving academic integrity and a campus culture conducive to truth seeking and learning,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Part of that is ensuring students are safe on campus and abiding by federal laws that guarantee educational opportunities to all students. By allowing anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers.”
The DOE, McMahon added, “expects the New England Commission of Higher Education to enforce its policies and practices, and to keep the Department fully informed of its efforts to ensure that Harvard is in compliance with federal law and accreditor standards.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism has acknowledged that the university administration’s handling of campus antisemitism fell well below its obligations under both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its own nondiscrimination policies.
In a 300-plus-page report, the task force compiled a comprehensive record of antisemitic incidents on Harvard’s campus in recent years — from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s endorsement of the Oct. 7 terrorist atrocities to an anti-Zionist faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic cartoon depicting Jews as murderers of people of color. The report identified Harvard’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups as a key source of its problem.
Coming several weeks after President Donald Trump ordered the freeze of $2.26 billion in federal research grants and contracts for Harvard, the task force report found it was “clear” that antisemitism and anti-Israel bias have been fomented, practiced, and tolerated not only at Harvard but also within academia more widely.”
The university is now suing the federal government over the funding halt.
President Trump has spoken scathingly of Harvard, calling it, for example, an “Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institute … with students being accepted from all over the world that want to rip our Country apart” in an April post to his Truth Social platform.
In recent weeks, however, both Trump and McMahon had commended Harvard’s constructive response in negotiations over reforms the administration has asked it to implement as a precondition for restoring federal funds. The requested reforms include hiring more conservative faculty, shuttering diversity, equity, and inclusion [DEI] programs, and slashing the size of administrative offices tangential to the university’s central educational mission.
The administration has since changed its tone in the wake of a report by The Harvard Crimson that interim Harvard President Alan Garber has said “behind closed doors” that he has no intention of doing anything that would make Harvard more palatable to conservatives.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism issued Harvard a formal “notice of violation” of civil rights law. Charging that Harvard willfully exposed Jewish students to a flood of racist and antisemitic abuse both in and outside of the classroom, it threatened to strip whatever remains of Harvard’s federal funding.
“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” wrote the federal officials comprising the multiagency Task Force. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”
In Wednesday’s announcement, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Harvard’s conduct “forfeits the legitimacy that accreditation is designed to uphold.”
“HHS and Department of Education will actively hold Harvard accountable through sustained oversight until it restores public trust and ensures a campus free of discrimination,” he said.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks
IDF operating in southern Lebanon. Photo: IDF Spokesperson
Israeli forces uncovered and destroyed Hezbollah weapons caches in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, as a new report indicated that despite ongoing U.S.-led efforts to secure a disarmament deal, the Iran-backed group is making repeated, largely concealed attempts to rebuild its military presence in the area.
Troops carried out several operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon on Wednesday morning, destroying weapons depots, explosives and multibarrel launchers concealed in forested terrain, the IDF said, in violation of the November ceasefire, which requires Hezbollah to withdraw its forces 20 miles from the Israeli border.
A new report released this week by the Alma Research and Education Center found that Hezbollah is focused on rebuilding in three areas: operational deployment, weapons acquisition, and financial recovery.
“Hezbollah didn’t give up its resistance narrative and motivation,” Alma’s director, Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, told The Algemeiner.
“It wants to rebuild its capabilities and infrastructures, whether it’s the villages that will be used as human shields or the military infrastructure in South Lebanon and in Lebanon in general.”
According to Zehavi, Hezbollah is attempting to return Radwan fighters to positions south of the Litani River as part of a wider plan to restore its elite forces to operational readiness. The IDF on Monday killed Radwan commander Ali Abd al-Hassan Haidar in a targeted strike. The action came hours after US Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut to discuss a long-term deal that would include an Israeli withdrawal and complete disarmament of Hezbollah.
Barrack described the Lebanese response to the proposal as positive. Later, he issued a blunt warning to Hezbollah in response to a vow by the terror group’s leader, Naim Qassem, not to lay down its arms. “If they mess with us anywhere in the world, they will have a serious problem with us,” Barrack said in an interview with Lebanese news network LBCI. “They don’t want that.”
Zehavi said it was premature to predict the outcome of the diplomatic efforts. She warned that the challenge of disarming Hezbollah remains enormous and emphasized that the Lebanese Armed Forces have not demonstrated the capability or willingness to confront the group.
“It’s too soon to be optimistic or pessimistic,” she said, noting that no firm commitments have emerged from the Beirut talks.
Hezbollah’s efforts to smuggle and manufacture weapons have been complicated by both Israeli strikes and the regional realignment over recent months. While Israeli strikes have disrupted many supply routes, according to Zehavi, Syrian authorities have intercepted far more Hezbollah-bound weapons than the Lebanese Army, which claims to have uncovered 500 arms caches but has provided no evidence.
The financial front marks the third aspect of Hezbollah’s rebuilding effort. Last week, the group halted cash payments to Shiite civilians whose homes were damaged in the war, citing liquidity problems. Zehavi attributed the shortfall to disruptions in Iran’s funding networks — an outcome of the 12-day war against the regime in Tehran — and said the constraints would likely hamper Hezbollah’s ability to compensate its base and sustain operations.
“I hope they will continue to have problems with the cash flow, that way it will be very difficult for them to recover,” she said.
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