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Trump’s Question for Arab Rulers
Jordan King Abdullah II visits Trump at White House (Source: Reuters)
JNS.org – More than 6 million Syrians fled their homeland during that country’s almost 14-year-long civil war. Other nations took them in. It was the humanitarian thing to do, and it fulfilled their obligation under international law.
Since Hamas initiated a full-blown war against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, almost no Gazans have managed to flee because no countries—not even Egypt, whose Sinai Peninsula borders Gaza—were willing to take them in.
Was that because the value of Gaza’s civilians as Hamas’ “human shields”—sacrificial pawns in the jihad against Israel—overrode humanitarian and legal concerns? I report, you decide.
Prior to the current conflict it could be credibly argued that “the Palestinian cause” could be achieved with the creation of a Palestinian state.
It’s now become obvious that, for Hamas and its supporters, the Palestinian cause is and always has been the extermination of Israel, the resurrected Jewish homeland, a tiny island amid an ocean of Arab and Muslim states.
“Two-state solutions” were offered to Palestinian leaders in 1937, 1947, 1967, 1978, 2000, 2001 and 2008. Palestinian leaders declined them all and proposed no alternatives.
However, if you think about it, a kind of two-state solution was in effect the day before Hamas terrorists breached Israel’s border and staged the worst orgy of murder and other atrocities against Jews since the Holocaust.
Gaza has been ruled by Palestinians since 2005, when Israel withdrew from the territory without preconditions in the hope of securing peace. Initially, that meant Palestinian Authority, dominated by the Fatah movement, governed. Two years later, Hamas ousted Fatah and established its unfree one-party rule with no further elections.
Gazans have been among the largest recipients of aid from the “international donor community” on a per capita basis.
Food, medicine and construction materials were routinely transported from Israel each day into Gaza. Israel supplied Gazans with electricity. Thousands of Gazans were permitted to enter Israel to take jobs.
Hamas delegated to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and other UN agencies the provision of most social services. Hamas gave the UN orders, and the UN agreed without complaint—even when munitions were stored in schools and command-and-control centers set up in hospitals.
Had Hamas been willing to peacefully coexist with Israel, Gaza could have become a successful nation-state confederated in some way with the Palestinian entity on the West Bank.
Instead, Hamas built an army and spent hundreds of millions of dollars constructing a subterranean fortress in which its troops would hide during the war it planned to launch.
Early in the conflict, as innocent hostages were being held and tortured by Hamas, the Biden administration demanded that Israel not just deliver aid—food and fuel that Hamas would of course steal—but also formulate a plan for “the day after.”
How odd those demands seem in any historical context. Can you imagine Roosevelt and Churchill providing aid to Germany and formulating the Marshall Plan before the Nazis surrendered?
It’s against this backdrop that President Trump has now raised an audacious idea for post-war Gaza. “The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it,” Trump announced last week.
He said the almost 2 million Gazans—who self-identify as “refugees from Palestine” even though they live in a Palestinian territory—should relocate to other countries. At the same time, the United States would dismantle “all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons” in the Strip. He added that, at present, Gaza is “a demolition site,” with “nothing to move back into.”
The feasibility of this proposal notwithstanding, I strongly suspect it was a way of saying to Arab rulers, particularly Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Jordanian King Abdullah II: “You don’t get to just watch and kibitz. If you don’t like my idea, come up with a better one!”
Remember that following the 1948 British withdrawal from Mandatory Palestine, Egypt ruled Gaza. That rule ended in 1967 after Egypt launched and lost a war against Israel. Note: Egypt never attempted to establish a Palestinian state in Gaza.
As for Jordan, it was carved from the British Mandate for Palestine in 1921. In that new polity, then named Transjordan, the British installed an emir—a Hashemite, a member of a noble clan resettled from Arabia.
The territory remained a British protectorate until 1946, when it was granted independence as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
Two years later Jordan conquered Judea and Samaria, expelled all the Jews, renamed those territories the West Bank, and annexed them. Jordan lost them in the 1967 war.
Most Jordanians are Palestinians. Among them is Queen Rania, wife of the current king of Jordan, Abdullah II. If their son, Crown Prince Hussein bin Abdullah, succeeds to the throne, he will be the first Palestinian king in history.
The Egyptian and Jordanian responses to President Trump’s proposal have so far been unhelpful. They have reiterated their opposition to taking in Palestinians, even temporarily. They insist that Palestinians lead Gaza’s reconstruction, neglecting to specify which Palestinians would be up to the task.
Though Trump is famously unpredictable, I wouldn’t be astonished—based on remarks he’s made over recent days—if he were to tell Sissi and King Abdullah something along these lines:
“You receive huge amounts of American aid along with vital security assistance. These are not entitlements.
“I’m trying to put an end to endless wars in the Middle East. That requires that Gazans not be ruled by Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, or the mullahs in Tehran.
“So, are you with me or against me? Are you an ally? Because I expect America’s allies to contribute to the collective security and give at least as much as they take. Is that you or not?
They should think hard before answering.
The post Trump’s Question for Arab Rulers first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Series About Dutch Jewish Woman in Nazi-Occupied Amsterdam Premieres at Venice Film Festival
Venice, 82nd Venice International Film Festival 2025 – Day 7, Photocall for the film “Etty.” Pictured are Hagai Levi – Director, Julia Windischbauer, Sebastian Koch, Claire Bender, and Leopold Witte. Photo: Pool Photo Events 06IPA/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
A six-part television series inspired by the true story of a Dutch Jewish woman who wrote diaries and letters in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam made its world premiere out of competition on Sunday at the 82nd Venice Film Festival.
The Dutch and German-language drama series “Etty” is from Emmy Award-winning Israeli director and creator Hagai Levi, the visionary behind “The Affair,” “Our Boys,” and the remake of Ingmar Bergman’s “Scenes from a Marriage,” which he premiered four years ago at the Venice Film Festival. Levi also created the Israeli television series “BeTipul,” which was remade around the world as “In Therapy” and “In Treatment.” He attended the “Etty” premiere at Venice with the show’s cast, including lead stars Julia Windischbauer and Sebastian Koch.
“Etty” is inspired by the life and diaries of Dutch-Jewish writer Etty Hillesum, who chronicled for 18 months her experiences living in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. She refused to go into hiding and wrote from Amsterdam as well as the Westerbork transit camp. She was deported and murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1943 at age 29. Her diary entries and letters were published in 1979 and have gained global recognition. They have since been published in 18 languages.
“In Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, 27-year-old Jewish Etty Hillesum begins therapy,” reads a synopsis of the series “Etty,” provided by the Venice Film Festival. “What starts as personal exploration becomes a spiritual awakening, documented in her diaries. Guided by psycho-chirologist Julius Spier, her mentor and lover, she undergoes a radical inner transformation. She’ll discover that even when all is taken, one can remain free within.”
Levi said he discovered a book about Hillesum’s diaries roughly 10 years ago and “after breathless reading, I felt I had found something I could talk about for the rest of my life.” He explained that Hillesum’s diary entries also helped him during his own personal journey and exploration of his Jewish faith.
“I grew up a pious Orthodox Jew. At 20, I left that world forcefully, violently, abandoning questions of God, faith, and meaning,” he said in a director’s statement shared by the festival. “I tried to fill the resulting void — and depression that came with it — with work, ambition, success; mostly in vain. Hillesum offered another option: a different religiosity, a new sense of faith, beyond institutional religion.”
Levi added that at the center of Hillesum’s diary “is a leap: from a neurotic, self-absorbed woman to someone with deep autonomy. That process is accelerated by the threat she faces as a Jewish woman … At some point, she knows that even when everything is taken from her — her home, her freedom, even her life — she still has an inner core that can’t be lost.”
The award-winning director noted that the messages shared in Hillesum’s diaries are still relevant and must be shared, “especially after the horrors that shake the world of so many, over the past two years,” which may be a reference to the deadly Hamas-led terrorist attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
He said Hillesum’s “rejection of hatred, solidarity with the unprivileged, and inner freedom have brought solace and meaning to countless readers over the 44 years since her diaries were published,” including the filmmaker himself.
“Above all, this is a love story: the love of a young woman for the man who awakened her soul, and out of that awakening — a love for life, God, and all humankind,” he said in conclusion.
Watch the trailer for “Etty” below.
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Israeli President to Meet Pope Leo at the Vatican on Thursday
Israeli President Isaac Herzog speaks during a press conference with Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics in Riga, Latvia, Aug. 5, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ints Kalnins
Israeli President Isaac Herzog will travel to the Vatican on Thursday to meet Pope Leo, who has recently stepped up his calls for an end to the war in Gaza.
The one-day visit is being made at the invitation of the pope, Herzog’s office said in a statement on Tuesday.
The president will also meet Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican‘s chief diplomat, and tour the Vatican Archives and Library, it added.
“Central to their meetings will be the efforts to secure the release of the hostages, the fight against global antisemitism, and the safeguarding of Christian communities in the Middle East, alongside discussions on other political matters,” the presidency said.
Leo, the first US pope, last week issued a “strong appeal” for an to end to the nearly two-year conflict between Israel and Hamas, calling for a permanent ceasefire, the release of hostages held in Gaza, and the provision of humanitarian aid.
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Iran Warns US Missile Demands Block Path to Nuclear Talks
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani speaks after meeting with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, in Beirut, Lebanon, Aug. 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Aziz Taher
The path to nuclear negotiations between Iran and the United States is not closed but US demands for curbs on Iranian missiles are obstructing prospects for talks, a senior Iranian official said on Tuesday.
A sixth round of Iran-US talks was suspended after the start of a 12-day war in June, in which Israel and the US struck Iranian nuclear facilities and Iran retaliated with waves of ballistic missiles against Israel.
“We indeed pursue rational negotiations. By raising unrealizable issues such as missile restrictions, they set a path that negates any talks,” the secretary of Iran‘s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, said in a post on X.
Western countries fear Iran‘s uranium enrichment program could yield material for an atomic warhead and that it seeks to develop a ballistic missile to carry one.
Iran says its nuclear program is only for electricity generation and other civilian uses and that it is enriching uranium as fuel for these purposes.
It has denied seeking to create missiles capable of carrying nuclear payloads and says its defense capabilities cannot be open to negotiation in any talks over its atomic program.
Larijani’s comments follow last week’s launch by France, Germany, and Britain of a “snapback mechanism” that could reimpose UN sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear program.
The three countries, also known as the E3, have urged Iran to engage in nuclear negotiations with the US, among other conditions, in order to have the imposition of the snapback sanctions delayed for up to six months.