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The World Needs to Adopt a Real Humanitarian Goal: Removing Hamas From Gaza (PART TWO)
Troops from the IDF’s 98th Division operating in Jabalia, the northern Gaza Strip, May 2024. Photo: Israel Defense Forces.
Part one of this article appeared here.
Indoctrination
All that happened in Germany and Japan to get rid of the Nazis and Japan’s militaristic government, brings us to de-Hamasification in Gaza — and for that matter deradicalization, in the Palestinian Authority.
The work must start with infants, children, teenagers, and young adults both in Gaza and the West Bank. Hamas, like the Palestinian Authority, values its control over all the young, as does any culture of indoctrination because it needs a large ever-renewable pool of morally pliable recruits.
This was particularly valuable to Stalin’s commissars, Mao’s revolutionaries, Nazi Germany, and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
Schools, youth clubs, summer camps and other institutions of child-rearing become instruments of hate. Textbooks signal what children are supposed to think. Other vectors of the genocide-pathology include children’s television, social media, and children’s songs and rhymes.
All of it is shaped and engineered to produce generations who see a specific enemy of the state as subhuman or demonic and requiring elimination. Again, Stanton’s model applies: In textbooks, provided by the Palestinian Authority in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the young are already being prepared for genocide’s first four steps. The Palestinian textbooks are worse than ever with ever more demonization, delegitimization, and glorification of terror.
Incentivization
Then, our attention must turn to civil society. All systems of genocide create a culture of compliance. Personal space, freedom, and autonomy are eliminated. Through coercion, direction, intimidation, and harsh systems of reward and punishment, messages of hate became ordinary thoughts and actions that are criminal and immoral. This is Stanton’s fifth, sixth and seventh stages.
In the case of Gaza, the ideology of Hamas has been enabled by UNRWA (UN Relief and Work Agency) schools, summer camps, and a wide variety of social programs, including some tied to health care institutions.
UNRWA is staffed by Hamas’ sympathizers and enforcers, who amplify hate. UNRWA schools adhere to jihadist indoctrination, employ Hamas members as commissars to enforce ideological conformity, and create each year a large cadre of students willing to sacrifice themselves in order to kill more Jews.
As with Nazi Germany, Hamas has many willing executioners — as we saw on October 7 and again on January 20 when a mob of many hundreds of Gazans stormed the three young female hostages just before they were turned over to the IDF.
The reward-and-punishment system enforced in Gaza and the West Bank includes stipends given to terrorists or their surviving families for attacks — stipends paid for through international aid to Palestinian organizations as well as the Palestinian Authority.
All those organizations and nations that are willing or unwitting parties to such “pay-to-slay” programs — Qatar, the United Nations, Canada, the United States, and several European nations and organizations — must confront the epidemiological implications. They are actually hurting the people they aim to help.
Confronting the Foundations
As with the de-Nazification of Germany after World War II, willing parties must take over Gaza’s legal, educational, political, religious, and cultural institutions, or reestablish them under new values and directions and with new governance.
Schools in particular will require substantial reform, with new textbooks and curricula free from Palestinian Authority control or oversight, rigorous programs focused on dignity and respect for the other in line with Muslim teachings focused on charity, kindness and self-improvement as well as respect for the other. De-Hamasification should have already started. Valuable time has already been lost. To regain momentum, de-Hamasification must use the one lever that the international community has over Hamas: Delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Right now, convoys of food, water and other necessary supplies have the perverse effect of resupplying not just Hamas but sustaining its ideological grip over Gaza and causing still more harm to the public.
Going forward, all relief aid that goes into Gaza must be linked to programs to change attitudes, mindsets, and behaviors. That will require new humanitarian organizations who pledge to end indoctrination and incitement as a part of their public health mission.
If humanitarian aid is not used as a vehicle for de-Hamasification, it will become the currency of Hamas, and the result will be no surprise: Healthier, stronger terrorists and more misery for the people of Gaza as well as Israel.
Consider that the just-announced ceasefire and hostage-release has allowed Hamas to reassert its control over all of Gaza, and that dozens of Palestinians who resisted Hamas’ rule in the past few months are now marked for summary execution.
Again, the pattern is the same: Whenever Hamas is in control, more Palestinians die. This is now an ironclad epidemiological pattern. To ignore the pattern is professional malfeasance by organizations pledged to public health and humanitarian outcomes.
De-Hamasification: Wasatia as the model
Any program of de-Hamasification must be undertaken with special awareness of the character of the traditional, conservative, and religious nature of Palestinian society. It would be foolish to expect a society that is deeply religious and traditional to embrace any of the conventions of a liberal Western secular nation like Germany or see it as a model.
In fact, the most difficult part of de-Hamasification will be to decouple Islamic theology from Islamist norms of Hamas and its leadership. But it is possible. For leadership and guidance to promote basic tolerance and moderation, within the texts and the traditions of Islam, we must consult with moderate Islamic theologians and philosophers.
One good example is Wasatia, the movement founded by Professor Mohammad Dajani. The Abraham Accords can serve as the political, legal, and institutional framework for promoting de-Hamasification in Gaza and doing the same in the Palestinian Authority. And the US’ own work in de-Baathification of Iraq may prove instructive.
Some Islamic nations, notably Saudi Arabia, have long sponsored and run counter-indoctrination programs of their own to reverse the effects of exposure to the toxic messages of radical Islamist ideologies. These programs have a solid record of restoring individuals to society. But Saudi efforts are not consistent; the nation’s textbooks continue to promote intolerance and bigotry, especially towards Shia and Sufi Islamic traditions, as well as Christianity and Judaism.
Other models exist. The Carter Center in Atlanta has researched how to counter the indoctrination efforts of ISIS during its rise and years of control over schools in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere.
ISIS, like Hamas, concentrated efforts on promoting its genocidal ideology in school curriculum. This curriculum, in place for three years, was doctrinal — emphasizing Salafist and Jihadist principles. The effort to remove ISIS ideology in Arab and Muslim nations is ongoing but clearly is working — and we must include those nations and organizations in the effort to de-Hamasify Gaza. Their expertise will be critical.
There will be inevitable efforts to revive Hamas in fresh garb. This must be resisted at every step. It must be stopped not only because of the danger Hamasism represents to Israel, but what it means to Palestinians. Every genocidal regime has been ruined by its own militancy and forced to confront the sources of its pain. This may happen in Gaza one day; but it will only happen if Gaza’s Palestinians are enabled to break free from the industrial level of ideological contamination that Hamas as well as the Palestinian Authority and Iran’s mullahs, who fund Hamas, have been emitting for decades.
Elihu D Richter is a retired head of the Unit of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the Hebrew University School of Public Health and is the founder of the Jerusalem Center for Genocide Prevention.
The post The World Needs to Adopt a Real Humanitarian Goal: Removing Hamas From Gaza (PART TWO) first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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As Gaza War Continues, Hamas Calls for Global Protests While Israel Marks Breakthroughs in Medical Innovation
A pro-Hamas march in London, United Kingdom, Feb. 17, 2024. Photo: Chrissa Giannakoudi via Reuters Connect
As the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas calls for global protests amid stalled Gaza ceasefire talks, Israel has broken new ground despite the ongoing conflict, achieving a major medical breakthrough in synthetic human kidney development.
The contrast illustrates a stark contrast between the priorities of Hamas, an international designated terrorist group that has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades, and Israel, the lone democracy in the Middle East that has long been a leader in tech and medical innovation.
On Wednesday, Hamas urged worldwide protests in support of Palestinians, calling on the international community “to denounce Israel’s genocidal war and starvation policy in Gaza.”
“We call for continuing and escalating the popular pressure in all cities and squares on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday … through rallies, demonstrations and sit-ins outside the embassies of the Israeli regime and its allies, particularly in the US,” the statement read.
The Palestinian terrorist group also called to expose what it described as “the terrorism of the Zio-Nazi occupation against defenseless civilians.”
Hamas’s latest move against Israel comes amid stalled indirect negotiations over a proposed 60-day ceasefire and hostage release deal, which collapsed last month after the group vowed it would not disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established — rejecting a key Israeli demand to end the war in Gaza.
In its statement, Hamas demanded the opening of all border crossings to allow immediate aid into the war-torn enclave and urged a global condemnation of “the international community’s inaction on the Israeli crimes.”
Amid mounting international pressure to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Israel announced new measures to facilitate the delivery of aid, including temporary pauses in fighting in certain areas and the creation of protected routes for aid convoys.
Israeli officials have previously accused Hamas of diverting aid for terrorist activities and selling supplies at inflated prices to civilians, while also blaming the United Nations and other foreign organizations for enabling this diversion.
Hamas’s statement also emphasized that the “global resistance movement must continue until Israeli aggression on Gaza ends and the siege on the coastal strip is lifted.”
Meanwhile, as Israel faces escalating hostilities and the heavy toll of war, the Jewish state continues to push the boundaries of innovation and resilience, achieving new medical breakthroughs while confronting ongoing challenges.
In a major medical breakthrough, scientists at Sheba Medical Center and Tel Aviv University have successfully grown a synthetic 3D miniature human kidney in a lab using specialized stem cells derived from kidney tissue — one of the most promising advances in regenerative medicine.
Dr. Dror Harats, chairman of Sheba’s Research Authority, described this achievement as a reflection of Israel’s leading role in global medical innovation.
“Despite growing efforts to isolate Israel from international science, breakthroughs like this prove our impact is both lasting and essential,” he said.
In a landmark study, a team from Sheba’s Safra Children’s Hospital and Tel Aviv University’s Sagol Center for Regenerative Medicine created synthetic kidney organs that matured and remained stable for 34 weeks — the longest-lasting and most refined kidney organoids developed to date.
Nearly a decade ago, the research team became the first to successfully isolate human kidney tissue stem cells — the cells responsible for the organ’s development and growth.
Previous attempts to grow kidneys in a lab using general-purpose stem cells were short-lived, typically lasting only a few weeks and often producing unwanted cell types that compromised research accuracy.
However, this Israeli research team used stem cells taken directly from kidney tissue — cells that naturally develop into kidney parts — allowing them to create a much purer and more stable model with key features found in real kidneys.
This medical breakthrough could have far-reaching implications, redefining the current understanding of kidney diseases and advancing the development of innovative treatments.
Researchers believe the model could help assess how medications impact fetal kidneys during pregnancy and move science closer to repairing or replacing damaged kidney tissue with lab-grown cells.
The discovery came days after researchers from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and international partners discovered a way to boost the immune system’s cancer-fighting ability by reprogramming how T cells, which are white blood cells critical to the immune system, produce energy.
The researchers explained in a study published in the peer-reviewed Nature Communications that disabling a protein known as Ant2 in T cells greatly enhances their effectiveness against tumors.
“By disabling Ant2, we triggered a complete shift in how T cells produce and use energy,” Prof. Michael Berger of Hebrew University’s Faculty of Medicine, who co-led the study with doctorate student Omri Yosef, told the Tazpit Press Service. “This reprogramming made them significantly better at recognizing and killing cancer cells.”
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Netherlands to Push EU to Suspend Israel Trade Deal but Won’t Recognize Palestinian State ‘At This Time’
Netherlands Foreign Affairs Minister Caspar Veldkamp addresses a press conference, in New Delhi on April 1, 2025. Photo: ANI Photo/Sanjay Sharma via Reuters Connect
The Netherlands is spearheading efforts to suspend the European Union-Israel trade agreement amid rising EU criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza, while simultaneously refusing to recognize a Palestinian state, contrasting with other member states as international pressure mounts.
On Thursday, Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp announced that the Netherlands will push the EU to suspend the trade component of the EU-Israel Association Agreement — a pact governing the EU’s political and economic ties with the Jewish state.
This latest anti-Israel initiative follows a recent EU-commissioned report accusing Israel of committing “indiscriminate attacks … starvation … torture … [and] apartheid” against Palestinians in Gaza during its military campaign against Hamas, an internationally designated terrorist group.
Following calls from a majority of EU member states for a formal investigation, this report built on Belgium’s recent decision to review Israel’s compliance with the trade agreement, a process initiated by the Netherlands and led by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas.
According to the report, “there are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations” under the 25-year-old EU-Israel Association Agreement.
While the document acknowledges the reality of violence by Hamas, it states that this issue lies outside its scope — failing to address the Palestinian terrorist group’s role in sparking the current war with its bloody rampage across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israeli officials have slammed the report as factually incorrect and morally flawed, noting that Hamas embeds its military infrastructure within civilian targets and Israel’s army takes extensive precautions to try and avoid civilian casualties.
In a Dutch parliamentary debate on Gaza on Thursday, Veldkamp also announced that the government would not recognize a Palestinian state for now — a position that stands in sharp contrast to the recent moves by several other EU member states to extend recognition.
“The Netherlands is not planning to recognize a Palestinian state at this time,” the Dutch diplomat said.
“This war has ceased to be a just war and is now leading to the erosion of Israel’s own security and identity,” he continued.
This latest decision goes against the position of several EU member states, including France, which has committed to recognizing Palestinian statehood in September.
The United Kingdom has likewise indicated it will do so unless Israel acts to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and agrees to a ceasefire.
For its part, Germany said it was not planning to recognize a Palestinian state in the short term, and Italy argued that recognition must occur simultaneously with the recognition of Israel by the new entity.
Spain, Norway, Ireland, and Slovenia all recognized a Palestinian state last year.
Israel has been facing growing pressure from several EU member states seeking to undermine its defensive campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.
On Thursday, European Commission Vice President Teresa Ribera strongly condemned Israel’s actions in the war-torn enclave, describing the situation as a “grave violation of human dignity.”
“What we are seeing is a concrete population being targeted, killed and condemned to starve to death,” Ribera told Politico. “If it is not genocide, it looks very much like the definition used to express its meaning.”
Until now, the European Commission has refrained from accusing Israel of genocide, but Ribera’s comments mark one of the strongest European condemnations since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
She also called on the EU to take decisive action by considering the suspension of its trade agreement with Israel and the implementation of sanctions, while emphasizing that such measures would require unanimous approval from all member states.
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Graduate Student Unions Promoting Antisemitism, Reform Group Says
Students listen to a speech at a protest encampment at Stanford University in Stanford, California US, on April 26, 2024. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect.
Higher-education-based unions controlled by United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE) are rife with antisemitism and anti-Zionist discrimination, according to a new letter imploring the US Congress’s House Committee on Education and the Workforce to address the matter.
“Tracing its roots to communism in the 1930s, the UE is a radical, pro-Hamas labor union that has a long history of antisemitism,” the National Right to Work Foundation (NRTW), one of the US’s leading labor reform groups, wrote on July 30 in a message obtained by The Algemeiner. “The UE openly supports the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which is designed to cripple and destroy Israel economically. Today, the UE furthers its antisemitic agenda by unionizing graduate students on college campuses and using its exclusive representation powers to create a hostile environment for Jewish students. The hostile environment includes demanding compulsory dues to fund the UE’s abhorrent activities.”
NRTW went on to describe a litany of alleged injustices to which UE members subject Jewish student-employees in the US’s most prestigious institutions of higher education, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to Cornell University. At MIT, the letter said, “union officers” aided a riotous group which illegally occupied a section of campus with a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” participating in the demonstration and even denying access to campus buildings. UE members at Stanford University, meanwhile, allegedly denied religious accommodations to Jewish students who requested exemption from union dues over that branch’s supporting the BDS movement. And Cornell University UE was accused of denying religious exemptions in several cases as well and followed up the rejection with an intrusive “questionnaire” which probed Jewish students for “legally-irrelevant information.”
The situation requires federal oversight and intervention, NRTW said, including Congress’s possibly clarifying that student-employees are not traditional employees and are therefore afforded protections under sections of the Civil Rights Act which apply to the campus.
“These continuing patterns of antisemitism are illegal, immoral, and must be stopped,” the letter continued. “We encourage you to do all that is in your power to investigate and help bring an end to the UE and its affiliates’ nonstop harassment and intimidation of Jewish students … The Trump administration can also use tools available to it under Title VI and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act against colleges who work with unions to create a hostile environment for Jewish students.”
July’s letter is not the first time NRTW has publicized alleged antisemitic abuse in unions representing higher education employees.
In 2024, it represented a group of six City University of New York (CUNY) professors, five of whom are Jewish, who sued to be “freed” from CUNY’s Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY) over its passing a resolution during Israel’s May 2021 war with Hamas which declared solidarity with Palestinians and accused the Jewish state of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and crimes against humanity. The group contested New York State’s “Taylor Law,” which it said chained the professors to the union’s “bargaining unit” and denied their right to freedom of speech and association by forcing them to be represented in negotiations by an organization they claim holds antisemitic views.
That same year, NRTW prevailed in a discrimination suit filed to exempt another cohort of Jewish MIT students from paying dues to the Graduate Student Union (GSU). The students had attempted to resist financially supporting GSU’s anti-Zionism, but the union bosses attempted to coerce their compliance, telling them that “no principles, teachings, or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees” to the union.
“All Americans should have a right to protect their money from going to union bosses they don’t support, whether those objections are based on religion, politics, or any other reason,” NRTW said at the time.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.