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Learning From the Wise Men of Chelm: Israel and a Palestinian State
Supporters and family members of hostages kidnapped during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas, hold lit torches during a protest ahead of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Jan. 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Shir Torem
A boy had been given money to buy things at the grocery store. On the way, he lost the money. Someone saw him looking for the money: “Did you lose it here?” the man asked. “No,” said the boy. “Then why are you looking here?” “Ah,” said the boy. “Where I lost the money it is dark, but here it is light.”
The Wise Men of Chelm (a Jewish folk tale)
Israelis have good reason to be worried about the current Hamas ceasefire. On the terrorist side, there is every intention to continue the jihad.
Reciprocally, Israel will soon feel renewed pressured to accept a Palestinian state. Still, like the boy from “Chelm” — who looks for lost grocery money only where it would be most visible — the Jewish State would be looking for peace in the wrong place.
A core principle of all civilized legal systems — one reaffirmed at the post-war Nuremberg trials — is nullum crimen sine poena or “no crime without a punishment.” Today, even following “perfidious” terror attacks on Israeli civilians, much of the world is apt to blame Israel for cumulative regional harms.
Though Israel’s counter-terrorist war in Gaza had been unintentionally harming Palestinian civilians, this war of self-defense was indispensable for national survival, and Israel-inflicted harms were entirely collateral. Altogether unlike the precipitating October 7, 2023, Hamas terror attack, these harms were not the result of “criminal intent” or mens rea.
In these ongoing matters, logic must be paramount. To begin, the self-justifying Palestinian narrative of an Israeli “occupation” has always been founded on a flimsy edifice of legal falsehoods.
In essence, this narrative is a contrivance of structured propaganda. Even if the contrivance were not so blatant, Palestinian insurgents would lack any law-based right to intentionally harm Israeli noncombatants. In law, all war, even a “just war,” must be fought by “just means.”
Under international law, rape, murder, suicide-bombings, and hostage-taking can never express a permissible path to “self-determination.” Under law, these ends can never justify the means.
There is more. For the most part, Hamas and other jihadi killers are not “lone wolves.” They are spurred on by organized Palestinian incitements to barbarous terror-violence. Though generally overlooked, these determined criminals remain captivated by the Islamist promise of “power over death.” This is a delusionary power reserved for “martyrs.”
Among other inglorious traits, jihadist terrorists (Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah, etc.) are markedly unheroic in their search for Palestinian statehood.
More precisely, they are consumed by an elemental or primal cowardice. Should there be any doubts about this, one need only remember that the jihadist kills himself or herself in order not to die. This wanton murderer expects to suffer little more than a transient inconvenience on the path to “life everlasting.” Nonetheless, for themselves, jihadist leaders typically prefer luxury hotel suites in Qatar or Turkey to Islamist heaven.
Does the jihadi “foot soldier” truly believe in such a blessedly eternal life? To answer this question, one must first understand that religious faith can easily trump logic and science, especially in the Islamist Middle East.
A personally reinforcing point can be offered by the present writer, who many years back, interviewed a failed Palestinian suicide-bomber. When I inquired of this young man (face to face, with an Israeli captor-interpreter) how he felt about failure as a “martyr” (i.e., as shahid), the would-be terrorist replied without hesitation: “Devastated, because now I will surely have to die.”
Back to current jihadi criminal plans for Israel. Can there be a lawful “ceasefire agreement” between a genuine national government (Israel) and an inherently criminal organization (Hamas)?
Whatever the overall merits of each side’s position, the immediate effect of any ceasefire agreement is to bestow on a criminal-terror organization a legitimate position under international law and formal legal equivalence with a sovereign state. Among other things, the inherent illegality of Hamas as a “self-determination” organization can be extrapolated from the explicit criminalization of terrorism under both codified and customary international law.
What about “Palestine?” Though the name would seem to signify extant “sovereign equality” with Israel, the legal reality is different. There has never been a state of Palestine, nor does such a state exist today. For those willing to examine this time-urgent matter in appropriately legal context, the place to begin is the Convention on the Right and Duties of States (Montevideo, 1933). Among other things, this governing treaty on statehood dispels all prevailing falsifications regarding an alleged “state of Palestine.”
In the next year, and without a scintilla of objective legal verification, the global community could become convinced that Palestinians deserve an independent state and that fulfilling this presumed right would benefit both Israelis and Palestinians. Accordingly, there would be assorted incentives to interpret the Montevideo Convention as a validation or justification of Palestinian statehood. Bolstered by such faux reasoning, this jihad-based Arab state would accelerate its pre-independence program of war and terror against Israel.
From the standpoint of every operational Palestinian faction, all present-day Israel would be designated “occupied territory.”
Though openly genocidal, “From the river to the sea….” is already the pre-state Palestinian war cry. Should there remain any doubts about wrongful Palestinian definitions of an Israeli “occupation,” one need only to check official Palestinian maps. On each map, “Palestine’s” borders are drawn to include all of Israel. One should recall here that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO, forerunner of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas) was founded in 1964, three years before there were any “occupied territories.”
So what exactly was the PLO attempting to “liberate?”
During the many years that Palestinian terrorists were slaughtering each other as well as Israeli civilians, Israel’s law-based warnings about Palestine were widely ignored or harshly condemned. Not even after 9/11, when Fatah and Hamas celebrated America’s jihad-triggered misfortune, did the United States and its allies even bother to re-evaluate their traditional support of Palestinian statehood. We should expect, therefore, especially after the current ceasefire agreement, that Israelis would feel pressured to consider “Palestine” as a longer-term solution.
On the Arab side, theology could be determinative. For all jihadist forces in the Middle East, the conflict with Israel is never authentically about land or geopolitical advantage. Rather, it is always about God and variously derivative promises of “power over death.”
For Palestinian terror groups, the true enemy is never Israel as such. This enemy is “The Jews.”
The young Palestinian terrorist who strikes with axe or blade (both used for beheading Jewish children on October 7, 2023) is expecting to be rewarded as a “martyr.” Prima facie, this means an incomparable reward.
For Israelis, it’s time to learn from errors of the “wise men of Chelm”
It is time to look for solutions where “it is dark.” Plainly, Hamas and all other Palestinian jihadi organizations still seek a “One State Solution” for their “Jewish Question.” In principle, at least, certain earlier declarations of support for Palestinian “self-determination” might not have been unreasonable, but only if the Palestinian side had been committed to a genuine “Two-State Solution.”
Whatever their current differences, all jihadi groups agree that Israel is by its very nature intolerable (because any Jewish state, by definition, represents a religious abomination in the Dar al Islam) and that Israel is “Occupied Palestine.”
From the 17th century onward, the world political system has operated in a “state of nature.” In the corrosively anarchic Middle East, considerations of raw power have routinely trumped any binding expectations of authoritative international law. On particular matters concerning Palestinian statehood, it is high time to understand that everyone’s true enemy in the region is not Israel, but a persistently sordid mix of jihadist criminal forces.
Though counter-intuitive, any tangible advances to Palestinian statehood would disadvantage Arabs as well as Israelis. As a complicating factor, an irredentist Palestinian state would weaken Israel in its potentially survival struggle against a near-nuclear or already-nuclear Iran. For the Jewish State, the Palestinian threat (expanded anti-Israel terrorism) and the Iranian nuclear threat are never separate and distinct. Instead, they are intersectional and mutually reinforcing.
Finally, we may learn from the historic Nuremberg Tribunals and Nuremberg Principles an elementary pillar of justice first drawn from ancient Jewish law: “No crime without a punishment.”
In the end, if world leaders should choose to betray this “peremptory” principle (one that is per se inviolable), Palestine could wind up as Israel’s “last straw.” It follows that absolutely any post-ceasefire incentives to accept a Palestinian state should be rejected by Jerusalem. Recalling the boy’s lost grocery money in “Chelm,” Israel should never be tempted by any seemingly gainful advantages of “light.” In Jewish literary “Chelm,” the “Wise Men” was an ironic designation.
Prof. Louis René Beres was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971) and is the author of many books and scholarly articles dealing with international law, nuclear strategy, nuclear war, and terrorism. In Israel, Prof. Beres was Chair of Project Daniel (PM Sharon). His 12th and latest book is Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016; 2nd ed., 2018).
The post Learning From the Wise Men of Chelm: Israel and a Palestinian State first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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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.
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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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