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The Philadelphi Conundrum
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stands before a map of the Gaza Strip, telling viewers that Israel must retain control over the “Philadelphi corridor,” a strategic area along the territory’s border with Egypt, during a news conference in Jerusalem, Sept. 2, 2024. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool via REUTERS
JNS.org – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visibly frustrated and at times even rightfully furious, addressed a hostile foreign press Wednesday evening, condemning defeatist elements who advocate for Israel’s withdrawal from the Philadelphi Corridor—a move demanded by Hamas, the international community, some of the prominent leftist representatives in Israel’s political and defense establishments, and a minority of Israeli civilians.
Clearly under pressure from the international community to leave the corridor, Netanyahu warned repeatedly during the press conference that such a retreat would enable Hamas to maintain power and smuggle in weapons, preventing the demilitarization of Gaza and posing a grave threat to Israel’s security.
National Unity Party leader Benny Gantz and Knesset member Gadi Eisenkot held their own press conference on Tuesday evening, accusing Netanyahu of obstructing a potential hostage deal with Hamas. They also disputed his stance that Israel should maintain control of the Philadelphi Corridor.
But many Israelis believe this type of thinking is misguided and part of the failed “conceptzia” (governing assumptions) that preceded the Oct. 7 attacks.
As Gallant, Gantz and Eisenkot, as well as opposition leader Yair Lapid, have demonstrated in recent days, they and other high-ranking political and military figures still hold on to these defeatist views.
According to Enia Krivine, senior director for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Israel Programs and National Security Network, “Since day one of the war there has been tension between two of the primary war goals—to bring the hostages back and dismantle Hamas.”
Some in Israel’s political and military echelon, said Krivine, “have decided that bringing the hostages home alive has become the paramount war goal and that this moral imperative supersedes the other two goals,” she said.
Thousands of Israelis siding with this view are currently demonstrating against Netanyahu, accusing him of obstructing a hostage deal.
Netanyahu has been criticized by Israelis on the right for not entering Rafah sooner and taking control of the Philadelphi Corridor immediately after the initial military invasion of Gaza on Oct. 27.
Now that Israeli forces are there, Israelis on the left want Netanyahu to withdraw them to facilitate a deal to get more hostages released.
But many experts, including Krivine and former Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat, agree with Netanyahu that contrary to what some Israeli defense officials believe, Israel will not be able to easily return to the corridor once it withdraws, as the international community will place heavy pressure on Jerusalem to keep it from doing so.
“There are those who believe that we can temporarily relinquish control—for 42 days—until the first phase of the deal is completed, and then, if the deal does not progress, return and regain control of the area,” said Ben-Shabbat.
“Of course, the IDF has the ability, operationally, [to] reoccupy this corridor even after 42 days, but it’s not just a matter of military capability,” he added. “Everyone understands that once we leave, Israel will face immense diplomatic pressure from the U.S. and other countries not to return.”
Ben-Shabbat, now the head of the Misgav Institute for Zionist Strategy & National Security, in Jerusalem, warned that since we are in the final stretch before the U.S. elections, the expected American pressure “will be extremely heavy.”
“The legitimacy Israel had to occupy this corridor following Oct. 7 will not exist after we leave it,” he said.
Krivine agreed, saying Israel “would [not] have the legitimacy or the support necessary to accomplish this; not from the United States, not from Egypt and not from the international community.”
Part of the reason for Israel’s insistence, she told JNS, is because the third primary goal of the war is “to make sure that Hamas can no longer pose a threat to Israel.”
Part of the confusion leading up to the press conference was that Netanyahu seems to now be saying he does not intend to withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor, but media outlets had reported that he had agreed to withdraw from parts of the corridor that are heavily populated, in the second phase of a proposed ceasefire deal.
Netanyahu clarified on Wednesday that Israel would be willing to withdraw if a suitable foreign entity is found that is able to properly monitor the border and prevent smuggling there.
It is worth mentioning that the European Union Border Assistance Mission (EUBAM) was supposed to monitor the Rafah border after Israel’s disengagement from Gaza, but in 2007, after Hamas took over, EUBAM officials simply ran away, fearing for their own security.
Israel is not interested in, nor can it afford, a repeat of such a scenario.
The Philadelphi Corridor was problematic from the very beginning
When Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, then-U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice overrode strong Israeli objections to giving up control over the Philadelphi Corridor.
Israel knew that without effective control of this strip of land, it would become a conduit for smuggling weapons into Gaza. But heavy pressure from the Bush administration, and Rice specifically, forced Israel to pull its forces from the area.
Rice urged Israel to vacate the corridor as a “peaceful gesture” to the Palestinians. Unfortunately, Israel’s leader at the time, Ariel Sharon, caved to this dangerous request.
While today Egypt denies it has allowed the smuggling of weapons into Gaza, we know this is not true.
Already in 2008, Rice said Cairo must improve border patrol efforts after Israeli officials complained that Egypt was doing a “terrible” job on the Gaza border, failing to stop smuggling of weapons and ammunition into Gaza through tunnels under the Philadelphi Corridor.
“We think that Egypt has to do more. Those tunnels need to be dealt with,” Rice said at the time.
Israeli officials said they had sent a video to Washington showing Egyptian security forces helping Hamas terrorists smuggle arms across the border into Gaza.
Egypt responded that it was “doing its best” with the number of personnel it was allowed to deploy at the border under the 1979 peace treaty and a subsequent agreement with Israel.
When Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi came to power in 2013, he allegedly moved to destroy many of the tunnels.
But having uncovered and blocked off 150 smuggling tunnels so far in just the past few months, the IDF has proven that Egypt cannot be trusted and Israel cannot again leave the corridor since Hamas, or other terror organizations, will swiftly return to building new ones.
That decision by the Americans—the type of thinking that continues to pervade the U.S. State Department through the present day—directly led to the tragic events of Oct. 7, the ensuing war over these last 11 months and the continuing tragedy of the hostages in Gaza.
This thinking is the reason Israel was forced to pause fighting for three months earlier in the war, was behind the American pressure on Israel not to enter Rafah and is the leading reason the Americans insist the war “must end now.”
Demonstrating more common sense, Israel’s Security Cabinet voted last Thursday night in favor of maintaining a continued IDF presence in the corridor, even at the cost of a hostage deal.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant voted against the decision, while National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir abstained.
Following news of the execution by Hamas of six hostages, whose bodies were found on Saturday in a Rafah tunnel, Gallant on Sunday called for the Cabinet to reverse its decision, claiming that the corridor is one of the biggest obstacles to a ceasefire deal.
U.S. President Joe Biden expressed his shock and anger over the hostages’ murders and said Hamas leaders must be held accountable.
However, when asked if he felt Netanyahu had done enough to get the hostages released, Biden said “no.”
During a local press conference on Monday, Netanyahu dismissed reports that Biden had criticized him for not doing enough to secure a ceasefire deal, saying he “does not believe Biden said that” in light of the murders.
“What message does this send Hamas?” said Netanyahu.
“I don’t believe that either President Biden or anyone else serious about achieving peace and achieving [the hostages’] release would seriously ask Israel to make these concessions. We’ve already made them. Hamas has to make the concessions,” he added.
What if Israel withdraws?
Ben-Shabbat told JNS that relinquishing control of the Philadelphi Corridor “would encourage Hamas, signal to the residents of Gaza that the terror organization will continue to be the dominant force in the Strip and might even embolden the ‘resistance axis,’ particularly Hezbollah, to take a harder stance against Israel.”
He added: “If, after Oct. 7, and after seeing the implications of military buildup, we don’t insist on this, then it essentially means Israel can be forced to fold on any issue.”
Ben-Shabbat went on to say that “past experience does not allow us to rely on the goodwill of others, especially after what happened to us on Oct. 7.”
He recalled what happened in January 2009 on the eve of the conclusion of “Operation Cast Lead,” when then-Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni signed an agreement with the United States and NATO for joint efforts to counter the smuggling threat.
“This agreement did not prevent even a gram of gunpowder from being smuggled into Gaza,” he said.
While some argue that it’s not wise to occupy the corridor because it’s a narrow strip of land, and staying there would expose Israeli forces, Ben-Shabbat told JNS that “now is precisely the time for the IDF to carry out all the necessary engineering work in the area to improve conditions for the safety of our forces,” adding, “Who said we have to settle for a 14-meter-wide strip?”
Ensuring the security of Israeli forces “justifies making the necessary changes to the terrain, and the width of the corridor should be determined accordingly,” he said.
In Krivine’s view, Israel may eventually be able to allow the Egyptians or Americans physical control of the corridor, but it would be irresponsible to do so today.
“There is no way to prevent arms getting in—or terrorists and potentially hostages—being smuggled out of the enclave without a credible inspections regime in the corridor both below ground and above ground,” she said. “Until there is a credible inspections regime established that deprives Hamas the ability to rearm, the Philadelphi corridor must remain in the hands of the IDF.”
[Hamas leader] Yahya Sinwar “understands that the hostages are his only remaining leverage over the government of Israel,” she said, adding that Sinwar’s “wicked decision” to execute the hostages when IDF forces were so close to rescuing them “was a ploy to create a wedge in Israeli society and pressure Netanyahu into making tough concessions at the negotiating table.”
Sinwar, she said, “knows that Israel’s Achilles heel is its deep valuing of human life, and he understands how to drive a stake into the heart of Israeli society.”
According to Krivine, giving in to Hamas’s demands means that the terror group survives and begins the process of rebuilding.
“There is no third party—not the P.A. and not the moderate Arab states—that will step into the void unless the IDF can ensure that Hamas is unable to regroup and rearm,” she said.
Israel’s path forward
Brian Carter of the American Enterprise Institute seems to agree.
He told JNS that “either Israel or another capable entity must control the Philadelphi Corridor for Israel to prevent Hamas from rebuilding its capabilities to the same level the group reached by Oct. 7.”
Otherwise, he warned, “Hamas will gradually rebuild itself and undo the progress Israel has made toward defeating the group.”
Any outcome that results in a rebuilt Hamas is “unacceptable and would constitute an Israeli defeat,” he said.
According to Carter, the way forward is to find a party that is capable of and willing to control the Philadelphi Corridor.
He believes it is “unlikely” that any force could prevent smuggling under the corridor without a presence on the corridor.
Ben-Shabbat told JNS that Israel can take more steps to ensure it achieves its objectives in this war.
First, Israel must “completely deprive Hamas of control over the supplies entering the Strip,” he said. “This is its lifeline and the main means of maintaining its governance.”
Second, Israel should “divide Gaza into more sections, beyond what currently exists.”
Third, as another former head of the Israeli National Security Council, Giora Eiland, proposed, Israel should launch a “broad operation” in northern Gaza. This means evacuating Gaza City and the northern Strip, closing it off as a military zone, cutting off supplies to the area, and then conducting a thorough military operation to destroy terrorists.
“In my opinion, it is a good option,” Ben-Shabbat told JNS.
“The plan does have its drawbacks though as Israel can expect resistance from the United States and the international community, and the fact that it involves returning many IDF forces to the Gaza Strip,” he noted.
Finally, Ben-Shabbat suggested Israel could “take action” against Hamas leaders abroad.
The post The Philadelphi Conundrum first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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University of California Rejects Ethnic Studies Admissions Requirement in Faculty Assembly Vote
Demonstrators holding a “Stand Up for Internationals” rally on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, in Berkeley, California, US, April 17, 2025. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect.
The University of California (UC) Faculty Assembly has rejected a proposal to establish passing ethnic studies in high school as a requirement for admission to its 10 taxpayer-funded schools for undergraduates.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the campaign for the measure — defeated overwhelmingly 29-12 with 12 abstaining — was spearheaded by Christine Hong, chair of the Critical Race and Ethnic Studies department at UC Santa Cruz. Hong believes that Zionism is a “colonial racial project” and that Israel is a “settler colonial state.” Moreover, she holds that anti-Zionism is “part and parcel” of the ethnic studies discipline.
Ethnic studies activists like Hong throughout the University of California system coveted the admissions requirement because it would have facilitated their aligning ethnic studies curricula at the K-12 level with “liberated ethnic studies,” an extreme revolutionary project that was rejected by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023. Had the proposal been successful, school officials of both public and private schools would have been forced to comply with their standard of what constitutes ethnic studies to qualify their students for admission to UC.
Being indoctrinated into anti-Zionism and “hating Jews” would essentially have become a prerequisite for becoming a UC student had the Faculty Assembly approved the measure, Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, executive director of antisemitism watchdog AMCHA Initiative, told The Algemeiner on Friday. AMCHA Initiative first raised the alarm about the proposal in 2023, calling it “a deeply frightening prospect.”
“Ethnic studies never intended to be like any other discipline or subject. It was always intended to be a political project for fomenting revolution according to the dictates of however the activists behind the subject defined it,” Rossman-Benjamin explained. “And anti-Zionism has been at the core of the field, and this became especially clear after Oct. 7. Most of the anti-Zionist mania on campuses that day — the support for the encampments, the Faculty for Justice in Palestine chapters — it was a project of Ethnic Studies. At UC Santa Cruz, 60 percent of Faculty for Justice in Palestine members were pulled from the ethnic studies department.”
Founded in the 1960s to provide an alternative curriculum for beneficiaries of racial preferences whose retention rates lagged behind traditional college students, ethnic studies is based on anti-capitalist, anti-liberal, and anti-Western ideologies found in the writings of, among others, Franz Fanon, Huey Newton, Simone de Beauvoir, and Karl Marx. Its principal ideological target in the 20th century was the remains of European imperialism in Africa and the Middle East, but overtime it identified new “systems of oppression,” most notably the emergent superpower that was the US after World War II and the nation that became its closest ally in the Middle East: Israel.
UC Santa Cruz’s Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES) department is a case study in how the ideology leads inexorably to anti-Zionist antisemitism, AMCHA Initiative argued in a 2024 study.
Following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, CRES issued a statement rationalizing the terrorist group’s atrocities as political resistance. Additionally, the department days later participated in a “Call for a Global General Strike,” refusing to work because Israel mounted a military response to Hamas’s atrocities — an action CRES called “Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza.” Later, the department held an event titled, “The Genocide in Gaza in our [sic] Classrooms: A Teaching Palestine Workshop,” in which professors and teaching assistants were trained in how to persuade students that Zionism is a racist and genocidal endeavor.
Imposing such noxious views on all California students would have been catastrophic, Rossman-Benjamin told The Algemeiner.
“The goal of admissions requirements is to make sure that students are adequately prepared for college,” she noted. “Their goal was to use their power to force students to take the kind of Critical Ethnic Studies that is taught at the university, with the goal of revolutionizing society. The idea should have been dead on arrival, being rejected on the grounds that there is no evidence that it is a worthwhile subject that should be required for admission to the University of California.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post University of California Rejects Ethnic Studies Admissions Requirement in Faculty Assembly Vote first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israeli FM Praises Paraguay Decision to Label Iran’s IRGC, Proxies Hamas and Hezbollah as Terrorist Organizations
Paraguayan President Santiago Peña praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Dec. 12, 2024. Photo: The Western Wall Heritage Foundation
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar praised Paraguay’s decision to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, and to broaden the country’s previous designation to include all factions of Hamas and Hezbollah.
The top Israeli diplomat congratulated the South American country and described President Santiago Peña’s decision as a “landmark move” in addressing security challenges and fostering international peace.
“Iran is the world’s leading exporter of terrorism and extremism, and together with its terror proxies, it threatens regional stability and global peace,” Sa’ar wrote in a post on X. “More countries should follow suit and join the fight against Iranian aggression and terrorism.”
I commend Paraguay and @SantiPenap for the landmark decision to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hamas, and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations.
Iran is the world’s leading exporter of terrorism and extremism, and together with its terror proxies, it threatens… https://t.co/OzWACbWcno— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) April 24, 2025
On Thursday, Peña issued an executive order designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization “for its systematic violations of peace, human rights, and the security of the international community.”
The executive order also expanded Paraguay’s 2019 proscription of the armed wings of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, the al-Qassam Brigades, and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terrorist group in Lebanon, to encompass the entirety of both organizations, including their political wings.
“With this decision, Paraguay reaffirms its unwavering commitment to peace, international security, and the unconditional respect for human rights, solidifying its position within the international community as a country firmly opposed to all forms of terrorism and strengthening its relations with allied nations in this fight,” Peña wrote in a post on X, emphasizing the country’s strategic relationship with the United States and Israel.
Iran is the chief international backer of Hamas and Hezbollah, providing the Islamist terror groups with weapons, funding, and training. According to media reports based on documents seized by the Israeli military in Gaza last year, Iran had been informed about Hamas’s plan to launch the Oct. 7 attack months in advance.
Last year, Peña reopened Paraguay’s embassy in Jerusalem, making it the sixth nation — after the US, Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, and Papua New Guinea — to establish its embassy in the Israeli capital. During the same visit, he condemned the Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, calling the perpetrators “criminals” in a speech at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.
The Trump administration also praised Paraguay’s decision to officially label the IRGC as a terrorist organization, describing it as a major blow to Iran’s terror network in the Western Hemisphere.
“Iran remains the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world and has financed and directed numerous terrorist attacks and activities globally, through its IRGC-Qods Force and proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas,” US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement.
The US official said Paraguay’s action will help disrupt Iran’s ability to finance terrorism and operate in Latin America — particularly in the Tri-Border Area, where Paraguay borders Argentina and Brazil, a region long regarded as a financial hub for Hezbollah-linked operatives.
“The important steps Paraguay has taken will help cut off the ability of the Iranian regime and its proxies to plot terrorist attacks and raise money for its malignant and destabilizing activity,” the statement read.
“The United States will continue to work with partners such as Paraguay to confront global security threats,” Bruce added. “We call on all countries to hold the Iranian regime accountable and prevent its operatives, recruiters, financiers, and proxies from operating in their territories.”
During his first administration, Trump designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), citing the Iranian regime’s use of the IRGC to “engage in terrorist activities since its inception 40 years ago.”
At the time, Trump said this designation “recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a state sponsor of terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft.”
“The IRGC is the Iranian government’s primary means of directing and implementing its global terrorist campaign,” he continued.
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Yale’s Silence Is Allowing Blatant Campus Antisemitism — and Betraying the Promise of ‘Never Again’
Yale University students at the corner of Grove and College Streets in New Haven, Connecticut, U.S., April 22, 2024. Photo: Melanie Stengel via Reuters Connect.
As darkness fell over Yale University on Wednesday evening, Jewish students faced intimidation that echoed history’s darkest chapters. The following day, as the sun rose on Holocaust Remembrance Day, the world solemnly reflected on the devastating consequences of unchecked hatred.
Yet, disturbingly, at Yale, the shadows of that same hatred linger once again.
For several nights now, radical anti-Israel activists, primarily organized by “Yalies for Palestine,” an anti-Israel hate group, have targeted Jewish students at Yale — in many cases, based solely on their outwardly Jewish appearance.
On Wednesday, protestors blocked walkways, physically intimidated Jewish students, and hurled bottles and sprayed liquids at them — all while campus police stood by and did nothing.
One Jewish student described her chilling encounter with the protesters the night before, on Tuesday: “When I tried to get through, they blocked me, ignored my requests to pass, and handed out masks to those obstructing me. Yale security told me they couldn’t help.”
The immediate trigger for this harassment is the invitation extended by Shabtai, a Yale Jewish society, to Itamar Ben-Gvir, an Israeli government minister. Whether one supports or opposes Ben-Gvir’s politics is beside the point. Notably, Naftali Bennett, a former Israeli prime minister, was also protested and disrupted during a separate campus event in February, underscoring a broader trend of hostility toward Israeli speakers regardless of their political affiliation.
These events signal more than isolated protests; they constitute a redux of hatred that historically escalates when met with institutional silence or indifference.
Yale’s administration, under President Maurie McInnis and Dean Pericles Lewis, has failed to adequately respond. Though Yale revoked official recognition from Yalies for Palestine, its tepid actions have not halted the dangerous slide toward overt hostility. The silence — from both the university and the Slifka Center, Yale’s center for Jewish life — is deafening.
This isn’t the first troubling instance at Yale. A year ago, similar demonstrators disrupted campus life with vitriolic anti-Israel rhetoric, silencing dialogue and fostering an atmosphere hostile to Jewish students.
Earlier this year, CAMERA on Campus documented Yale’s Slifka Center pressuring students to erase evidence of anti-Jewish harassment during a pro-Israel event, effectively whitewashing antisemitism and emboldening extremists.
As CAMERA’s Ricki Hollander has powerfully documented, the rhetoric of anti-Zionism today often revives the antisemitic patterns of the past, particularly those propagated by the Nazi regime in the 1930s. These tactics, she explains, echo Nazi-era propaganda that portrayed Jews as subhuman, sinister, and uniquely malevolent — a narrative used to justify marginalization and, ultimately, genocide.
These dynamics — scapegoating, dehumanizing, and ostracizing Jews under the guise of “anti-Zionism” — are not relics of history. They are alive and active across elite American campuses. And now, unmistakably, they have taken root at Yale.
McInnis must break the silence and condemn the open harassment and assault of Jewish students. She must also hold the perpetrators of the heinous actions and those responsible for the safety of students accountable for their inaction.
This week has revealed a grave failure of moral and institutional duty on many fronts. When law enforcement stands by as Jewish students face intimidation and assault, it sends a chilling message: their safety matters less.
We must demand a full investigation and real accountability. Condemnations of antisemitism are not enough. Policies must be changed to ensure Jewish students and organizations can freely exercise their right to free expression without being subject to harassment and assault. Anything less would betray Yale’s stated values — and the promise of “never again.”
Douglas Sandoval is the Managing Director for CAMERA on Campus.
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