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There Is No Compromise in a Religious War

Golda Meir. Photo: Wiki Commons.

JNS.orgGolda Meir is reputed to have said of Israel’s enemies, “They say we must be dead. And we say we want to be alive. Between life and death, I don’t know of a compromise.”

As is often said, Israelis live in the Middle East, not the Middle West. No matter what Israel’s enemies say or do, this reality does not penetrate the minds of people who live in different neighborhoods. Instead, politicians speak dreamily of ceasefire agreements, a Palestinian state and normalization with Saudi Arabia.

The root of the conflict is not the so-called “occupation.” When Jordan oversaw the West Bank for 19 years and Egypt controlled Gaza, no one demanded a new Palestinian state. The clamor against “occupation” surfaced only after Israel took control of these territories in self-defense. On Oct. 7, Hamas attacked from Gaza, an area Israel vacated 18 years ago. Israel doesn’t occupy Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen or Iran, and yet it is being attacked by all those countries.

The issue has never been Palestinian self-determination. Arab states invaded Israel in 1948 to carve it up among themselves, not create a Palestinian state. The Palestinians rejected offers of statehood in 1937, 1939, 1947, 1979 (autonomy that would have led to statehood), literally blew up the 1993 Oslo Accords with terrorism and turned down independence provided by the Clinton, Olmert and Trump Mideast peace plans.

What fuels this ongoing conflict is not a fight for Palestinian self-determination but the refusal of Islamist forces to accept a Jewish state in their midst. Most policymakers and pundits can’t process this idea, and students don’t want to believe in religious wars.

At root, religion has always been the basis of the intolerance of Jews in the Middle East. They were, at best, treated as second-class citizens (dhimmis) in Muslim countries before being expelled or forced to flee. In Palestine, the Mufti of Jerusalem incited riots against the Jews two decades before the creation of Israel, demonstrating that anti-Jewish animosity is a cornerstone of the conflict.

Peace cannot be achieved through land or ceasefire agreements since Muslim extremists do not believe that Jews can live on any part of Islamic land. The two-state crowd ignores the Palestinians when they say a Palestinian state would have to be Judenrein, the only place in the world where Jews would not be permitted to live.

Israel’s enemies make their intentions plain, but the world looks the other way. Western leaders argue that Hamas is not just an organization but an “idea,” suggesting that Israel cannot defeat it militarily. If that is true, then how can peace ever be made with an “idea” that calls for the annihilation of Jews?

For those not convinced that Oct. 7 was only one part of the Hamas agenda, I refer you to the group’s charter, which states plainly: “Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. … The Islamic Resistance Movement is but one squadron that should be supported … until the enemy is vanquished and Allah’s victory is realized. It strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine … [emphasis added].

Because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wisely ignored US President Joe Biden’s pressure to stay out of Rafah, where Israel knew Yahya Sinwar was hiding, the Israel Defense Forces eliminated one head of the Hamas Hydra. Still, it will regrow and ensure that even after its military capability is demolished, terrorism will continue. Hence the idea that Israel should turn over Gaza to West Bank Palestinians who insist that Hamas be part of the government is a nonstarter.

Israel has cut off several of the Hezbollah Hydra’s heads, but it will grow another and another. Hezbollah will remain a danger until the Iranian regime is overthrown and Lebanon is returned to the Lebanese without the domination of Hezbollah. And here’s a reminder of the Hezbollah “idea” that will live on as expressed by Hassan Nasrallah: “If we searched the entire world for a person, more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice, I do not say the Israeli.” To reinforce the point that the war is not about land, occupation or Palestinian suffering, Nasrallah expressed hope that Diaspora Jews would all make aliyah. “If they all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.”

War is hell, but it is also sometimes necessary. What is the alternative when the Iranian regime has surrounded Israel with an “axis of resistance,” attacks it with ballistic missiles and is developing nuclear weapons to incinerate it? Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said, “The Zionist regime is a deadly, cancerous growth” that “will undoubtedly be uprooted and destroyed.” Like the antisemites on American campuses, he says he has nothing against Jews, just Zionists, who he says “have always been a plague, even before establishing the fraudulent Zionist regime.” According to Khamenei, “elimination of the State of Israel does not mean the elimination of the Jewish people,” even though 75% of the population are Jews.

We’re told peace is possible with the secular “moderates” in the West Bank like Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas, who, along with other P.A. officials, praised the Hamas massacre, boasted that some of their fighters participated in the slaughter and eulogized Sinwar as “a great national leader.”

PLO chief Yasser Arafat once declared: “We know only one word: jihad, jihad, jihad. … And we are now entering the phase of the great jihad prior to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state whose capital is Jerusalem.” The former speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Ahmad Bahar, said, “Make us victorious over the infidel people. … Allah, take hold of the Jews and their allies, Allah, take hold of the Americans and their allies … Allah, count them and kill them to the last one and don’t leave even one.”

Fatah, led by Holocaust denier Abbas, has a military wing that posts remarks such as, “To all our sons and brothers in the Palestinian Security Forces throughout the West Bank—today is your day. Break into the settlements, strike the sons of apes of pigs, kill everyone who is a settler, slaughter everyone who is Israeli, by Allah, they are the most cowardly among men. Today is a tiding of days of victory, Allah willing—for this is jihad, jihad, victory or martyrdom.”

Look at any P.A. map or the logos of the terrorist organizations to see that the “solution” is not two states but one called Palestine replacing Israel. To advance its cause, the P.A. incentivizes the murder of Jews through its “pay-for-slay” policy of paying the families of suicide bombers and terrorists in Israeli prisons.

The former head of the Shin Bet astonishingly wrote: “Winning on the battlefield does not bring us closer to winning the war—unless we defeat Hamas’s ideology by creating a better political horizon.”

Others, including Biden, have expressed similar nonsense. The Palestinians were repeatedly offered and rejected a horizon for independence precisely because they share the Islamist ideology. Oslo was the best proof as the Palestinians were given a five-year horizon for statehood and killed it by incessant terror. Arafat’s reaction to the prospect offered by Clinton was to start the Second Intifada, which lasted from 2000 to 2005.

Make no mistake, if given the opportunity, the Palestinians and the jihadists in Iran and Hezbollah would kill every Jew if given the chance.

Despite the best efforts of the Biden administration, the Europeans and the United Nations, to spare everyone but the Jews, Israelis stubbornly insist on living and not compromising with those who unapologetically seek its destruction.

As Israelis remind the world, their fight is not only for survival—it is a fight for the West, for the defense of civilization against a barbaric ideology that seeks nothing less than the destruction of the Jewish people.

Americans are in the same fight but dislike talking about it. We are fighting ISIS, Al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorists, even at the cost of civilian lives. Israelis are told they are creating more terrorists, but Americans have never hesitated to kill terrorists out of such concern. And while some are telling Israel to “take the win” after eliminating Sinwar, no one proposed that the United States stop the war on terror after Osama bin Laden was dispatched.

There is hope, however distant it may seem.

I am reminded of the British adviser who told a Zionist official the Jews should never have allowed the United Nations to decide their fate in 1947 because the only way they’d get a state was if the United States and the Soviet Union agreed. That would never happen, he said.

He was wrong.

For the next 30 years, Middle East experts said the Arabs will never make peace. Then, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat broke the psychological barrier by going to Jerusalem in 1977 and signing a treaty with Israel two years later. It took 15 more years before King Hussein of Jordan showed the same courage. Another 25 years passed before the Abraham Accords were signed and another four Muslim Arab states normalized relations with Israel.

Perhaps, one day, a new generation of Palestinians will see that their future lies in coexistence, not jihad. But that day will only come after Israel’s enemies and their hateful ideologies are defeated, just as Nazism and communism were.

The post There Is No Compromise in a Religious War first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials

FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

i24 NewsIranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.

“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.

The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.

The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.

According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”

The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.

Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.

Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.

The post Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.

Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.

Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.

Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.

There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.

The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.

Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.

US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS

The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.

Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.

The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.

The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.

The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.

The post Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say

Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo

The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.

The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.

The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.

The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.

The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.

The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.

On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.

While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.

The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.

USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.

One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.

The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.

The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.

Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.

The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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