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We Must Urgently Address the Political Process for After the Gaza War
The war in Gaza has now been going on for six months, yet to this day, there has been no effort whatsoever toward a long-term political process. Without such a process, it will not be possible to formulate an agreed plan for the “day after.” The only political process so far is related to the negotiations to Israeli hostages, and temporary ceasefire. The impression this conveys to the international arena is that Israel is not interested in discussing alternatives towards ending the war and adopting steps for stabilizing the situation in the Gaza Strip and beyond. Tremendous damage is being caused by this omission. A move towards a political process, based on the main principles suggested in this article, may reduce the damage and serve vital Israeli interests.
The damage caused by the absence of any political process in the current war is clear. The lack of trust about Israel’s intentions and abilities, and the fear of wider escalation in the region, are seriously detrimental to Israel’s ability to achieve its war goals (which are not clear at all). This is occurring despite the common interest shared by Israel and most of the relevant actors in the region and beyond — that Hamas must be prevented from ending the war in a position of achievement, a prospect that would have negative implications in the region and beyond.
This paper lays out a number of general principles that could be acceptable to Israel, the relevant actors in the region, and the international arena.
Massive humanitarian aid to Gaza’s residents:
This is now a clear strategic need, beyond moral or human aspects, which are absolutely important and critical by themselves. The perception created by an ineffective Israeli mobilization to transfer aid is fatally damaging to Israel’s interests and image. At this stage, the international train has left the station and started initiating its own efforts to mobilize aid to Gaza.
The Gaza Strip will not be controlled by Hamas:
The horrible attack of October 7 proved, for those who had any doubt, that Hamas cannot be a legitimate political player in the Palestinian arena. Its refusal to recognize either the state of Israel and previous agreements signed by Israel and the Palestinians, and its continuation with armed struggle, and reiteration of its genocide intentions for Israel, render it totally unacceptable to continue controlling the Gaza Strip. Actually, this is a shared interest for most of the moderate players in the region (Arab countries) and beyond.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) is the only legitimate address for the Palestinians:
It is vital to reiterate that the PA is the only address for any political-economic-security discourse between Israel and the Palestinians and the International community, despite its known flaws. Obviously, the PA needs to implement comprehensive reforms in multiple areas, and should hold elections soon, in order to regain trust among the Palestinian people. The absence of an alternative to the Hamas regime in Gaza makes it very difficult to create enough pressure to bring about Hamas’ overthrow in Gaza.
Israel does not intend to remain in the Gaza Strip:
Israel needs to make a clear statement regarding its commitment to withdraw from the Gaza Strip. Doing so will end speculations — based on some statements by an Israeli politician regarding Israel’s intention remaining in Gaza and even resuming settlements there — that Israel wants to stay in Gaza.
Israel does not intend to carry out a forced transfer of the Palestinians from Gaza Strip:
Irresponsible Israeli statements, including by officials, have caused irrefutable damage to the relationship between Israel and its neighbors, especially Egypt and Jordan. Even if there are elements in Israel that entertain such ideas, it should be made perfectly clear that those voices do not represent government policy. The damage that has already been done is heavy and severe.
As noted, this is not a detailed “working plan.” Disagreements will likely arise between Israel and the regional and international community over the ways those principles should be manifested. However, in the current circumstances, they can drive a political process that is needed, and will serve vital Israeli interests.
It is important to reiterate:
Israel and most of the relevant and moderate Arab countries, as well as the international community, share a strategic interest of preventing Hamas from surviving the war as a military and winning political force. Should Hamas end the war on its feet, it would be perceived as a major achievement for the terrorist group, and could seriously diminish the status of political Islam in the region. It would boost the image of the radical Islamic stream in a long line of Arab states that Israel has common interests and strategic relations with.
Great damage is being caused by the impression Israel gives that it has neither the interest nor the desire to discuss an alternative about the Gaza Strip and the whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This impression is constricting Israel’s maneuvering space. Initiating a political process may reduce the damage already done and enable Israel to push for achieving its interests.
The deepening crisis between Israel and the US is making the Israeli position harder, and has a negative implication on its diplomatic and military considerations. The voices heard from Washington questioning the close relationship between both countries should trouble the sleep of the decision-makers in Jerusalem. It is worth paying attention to the statements by the Republican candidate, former President Trump, about the need for Israel to end the war. In a way, there is a kind of “consensus” in Washington on the Gaza war, and this is a few months before the Presidential election.
Some comments regarding the political arenas:
In the American arena: The growing pressure on the Biden administration to distance itself from, or pressure harder, Israel should not be ignored in Jerusalem. The Israeli government must take into account, regardless of who wins the elections, to avoid a “political gambling” in American politics. The Biden administration still has enough months to influence developments in the war. Moreover, any maneuvering in American politics does have long term implications (as we all know now).
In the Palestinian arena: The absence of elections since 2006, high level of corruption, and loss of confidence in the ability of the PA, and of its President Mahmud Abbas, to lead a real political process, have brought the status of the Palestinian Authority to a low ebb. Elections need to be held sooner rather than later, but not under war and crisis circumstances. The PA position as the only acceptable address to all players, including Israel (despite its having contributing to its weakening in recent years), is an asset in the current circumstances. The PA must receive a more central and positive emphasis. An intensive PR process should be promoted in order to improve its political and public image.
In the Israeli arena: The differences of opinions and divisions in the coalition, and more seriously within Israeli society, are deeper than ever before. While it is not the purpose of this paper to tackle political issues in depth, the principles outlined above should be acceptable to most players within the coalition, and the society as well. There is no reference in this document to the nature of the desired solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Two State solution? Autonomy? Annexation?). In the current circumstances there is not an expectation, in Israel or within the international community, for Israel to adopt ambitious goals. Still, it is more necessary than ever to apply such principles suggested above to drive a political process that will serve the Israeli interests regarding the Gaza strip and beyond.
Ambassador (ret.) Michael Harari joined the Israeli Foreign Ministry and served more than 30 years in a range of diplomatic roles in Israel and abroad, including (among others) in Cairo, London and Nicosia. His final position abroad was as Israeli Ambassador to Cyprus (2010-2015). Today he serves as a consultant in the fields of strategy, policy and energy and lectures in the Political Science Department at the Jezreel Valley College.
A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
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Antisemitism Continues to Skyrocket in France, With Over 1,500 Incidents Recorded in 2024, New Report Finds
Sign reading “+1000% of Antisemitic Acts: These Are Not Just Numbers” during a march against antisemitism, in Lyon, France, June 25, 2024. Photo: Romain Costaseca / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect
Antisemitism in France continued to surge to alarming levels across the country last year, with 1,570 incidents recorded, according to a new bombshell report.
The Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF), the main representative body of French Jews, on Wednesday released its annual report on antisemitism, which was compiled by the Jewish Community Protection Service using data jointly recorded with the Ministry of the Interior.
The total number of antisemitic outrages last year was a slight dip from 2023’s record total of 1,676, but it marked a striking increase from the 436 antisemitic acts recorded in 2022.
In late May and early June, antisemitic acts rose by more than 140 percent, far surpassing the weekly average of slightly more than 30 incidents.
The report also found that 65.2 percent of antisemitic acts last year targeted individuals, with more than 10 percent of these offenses involving physical violence.
One such incident occurred in late June, when an elderly Jewish woman was attacked in a Paris suburb by two assailants who punched her in the face, pushed her to the ground, and kicked her while hurling antisemitic slurs, including “dirty Jew, this is what you deserve.”
In another egregious attack that garnered international headlines, a 12-year-old Jewish girl was raped by three Muslim boys in a different Paris suburb on June 15. The child told investigators that the assailants called her a “dirty Jew” and hurled other antisemitic comments at her during the attack. In response to the incident, French President Emmanuel Macron denounced the “scourge of antisemitism” plaguing his country.
Comme chaque année, le Crif publie le rapport annuel sur les chiffres de l’antisémitisme en France établi par le Service de Protection de la Communauté Juive (@SPCJFRANCE) sur la base des chiffres recensés conjointement entre le SPCJ et le ministère de l’Intérieur.
Pour la… pic.twitter.com/VuPwVXvq0f
— CRIF (@Le_CRIF) January 22, 2025
Antisemitism skyrocketed in France following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, amid the ensuing war in Gaza. According to CRIF’s report, the surge continued unabated last year, with over 30 percent of antisemitic incidents, or 43 out of an average of 130 per month, making direct reference to “Palestine.”
In November, for example, a monument honoring victims of the Nazis located in eastern France was vandalized with graffiti reading “Nique Israël,” or “F—k Israel” in English.
On the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities, three men brutally attacked a Jewish woman at the entrance to her home in Paris. The victim stated that the assailants threatened her with a box knife, made antisemitic threats, and mentioned the events of last Oct. 7.
In September, a kosher restaurant in Villeurbanne, near the eastern city of Lyon, was defaced with red paint and tagged with the message “Free Gaza.”
CRIF’s latest data also showed that 192 antisemitic acts were committed in schools, which accounted for 12.2 percent of all such incidents recorded last year.
Synagogues were targeted as well. In August, for example, French police arrested a 33-year-old Algerian man suspected of trying to set a synagogue ablaze in the southern French city of la Grande-Motte.
France is one of several countries that has experienced a surge in anti-Jewish hate crimes and demonstrations since Hamas’s invasion of Israel.
According to a report from the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency for Israel, there has been a staggering 340 percent increase in antisemitic acts worldwide in 2024 compared to 2022.
The report showed a sharp rise in antisemitic outrages in North America and Europe, with the US up 288 percent, Canada increasing by 562 percent, and Britain seeing a 450 percent spike, with nearly 2,000 incidents recorded in the first half of 2024 in the UK.
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Cornell University Statue Vandalized by Anti-Zionist Activists
Cornell University workers begin the work of cleaning anti-Zionist graffiti off a statue of the school’s co-founder on January 21, 2025. Photo: Screenshot
Anti-Zionist agitators at Cornell University kicked off the spring semester with an act of vandalism which defamed Israel as an “occupier” and practitioner of “apartheid.”
“Divest from death,” the students, who have not yet been identified, graffitied on a statue of Cornell co-founder Andrew Dickson White that is located on the Arts Quad section of campus — as first reported by The Cornell Daily Sun on Tuesday. “Occupation=death.”
Speaking anonymously to The Sun, the university’s official campus newspaper, the students provided an account of their grievances, which addressed what in their view is the insufficiency of the recently negotiated ceasefire between Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist group, and Israel. In so doing, they put forth the view that all of Israel must be surrendered to the Palestinians, whose leaders have serially rejected viable two-state solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ever since the United Nations voted in 1947, via Resolution 181, to partition what was then known as British Mandatory Palestine into Arab and Jewish states.
“We demand that Cornell divests from the weapons manufacturers that make genocide possible,” they said. “A ceasefire will save lives, and we hope it will be permanent. But a ceasefire is not a free Palestine, and we will organize until we see a liberated Palestine free from genocide, occupation, and apartheid.”
Anonymous collectives of anti-Zionists have vandalized Cornell University property before, and the school as a whole has seen some of the most disturbing incidents of campus antisemitism since Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
In August, a group vandalized the Day Hall administrative building, graffitiing “Israel bombs, Cornell pays” and “Blood is on your hands” on it and shattering the glazings of its front doors. They justified their actions.
“We had to accept that the only way to make ourselves heard is by targeting the only thing the university administration really cares about: property,” the students told The Sun. “With the start of this new academic year, the Cornell administration is trying desperately to upkeep a facade of normalcy knowing that, since last semester, they have been working tirelessly to uphold Cornell’s function as a fascist, classist, imperial machine.”
Anti-Zionists convulsed Cornell University’s campus during the 2023-2024 academic year, engaging in activities that are without precedent in the school’s 159-year history. Three weeks after Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel, now-former student Patrick Dai threatened to perpetrate heinous crimes against members of the school’s Jewish community, including mass murder and rape. Cornell students also occupied an administrative building and held a “mock trial” in which they convicted school president Martha Pollack of complicity in “apartheid” and “genocide against Palestinian civilians.” Meanwhile, history professor Russell Rickford called Hamas’s barbarity on Oct. 7 “exhilarating” and “energizing” at a pro-Palestinian rally held on campus.
By the end of the year, Pollack announced her resignation as president of the university, which followed the installment of an illegal “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on the campus in which pro-Hamas students had lived and protested the university’s investments in companies linked to Israel.
Cornell now has a new interim president, Michael Kotlikoff, and his administration has vowed to punish and deter criminal behavior undertaken in the name of anti-Zionist activism.
“Acts of violence, extended occupations of buildings, or destruction of property (including graffiti), will not be tolerated and will be subject to immediate public safety response,” he said in August. “We will enforce these policies consistently, for every group or activity, on any issue or subject …We urge all members of the community to express their views in a manner that respects the rights of others. One voice may never stifle another. There is a time, place, and manner for all to speak and all to be heard.”
So far, Kotlikoff’s administration has executed its zero-tolerance policy, pursuing criminal investigations against protesters who break the law, as happened on Sept. 24 when a mass of students disrupted a career fair because it was attended by Boeing and L3Harris, an American defense contractor. The incident resulted in three arrests, and, later, severe disciplinary sanctions, including classifying five students as “persona non grata,” which, Cornell says, bans from campus “a person who has exhibited behavior which has been deemed detrimental to the university community.” However, the university did downgrade sanctions levied against a doctoral student after his supporters decried that dis-enrolling him as a student would lead inexorably to his deportation from the US.
Regarding this latest incident, Cornell has vowed to bring the vandals to justice.
“Vandalism violates our code of conduct and the law,” the Cornell University Police Department (CUPD) told The Sun. “Graffiti is property damage, which is a crime. We are committed to identifying the perpetrators responsible.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Trump Fires Head of Terrorist-Linked World Central Kitchen From President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, Nutrition
World Central Kitchen (WCK) barge loaded with food arrives off the Gaza coast, in this handout image released March 15, 2024. Photo: Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced the firing of celebrity chef Jose Andres, founder of the controversial World Central Kitchen (WCK), from the president’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition, claiming that the restaurateur and humanitarian is “not aligned with” the current White House’s mission.
Trump shared the news of Andres’s departure in an “Official Notice of Dismissal” on social media. The statement explained that his administration is currently in the process of “identifying and removing over a thousand presidential appointees from the previous administration, who are not aligned with our vision to Make America Great Again.”
Over the past year, Andres has found himself embroiled in controversy regarding the alleged conduct of WCK employees in Gaza. WCK, a US-based NGO founded by Andres to help feed needy people caught in disasters or conflict zones, has been operating with roughly 500 employees in Gaza since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023. The charity has often engaged in heated public disputes with the Jewish state, accusing the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) of purposefully targeting its workers with airstrikes — allegations that Jerusalem has adamantly rejected.
In April 2024, the IDF came under fire after it conducted airstrikes on a WCK vehicle convoy, killing seven employees of the charity. Israel acknowledged responsibility for the incident and insisted that the airstrikes violated internal protocol, subsequently dismissing two senior officers over the botched military operation.
Israel has accused WCK of insufficiently vetting its workforce and employing terrorist members within its ranks.
Last month, WCK fired at least 62 of its staff members in Gaza after Israel said they had “affiliations and direct connections” with terrorist groups. Israel conducted an investigation into the backgrounds of the charity’s employees after the Jewish state discovered that a WCK employee named Ahed Azmi Qdeih took part in the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Qdeih was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza on Nov. 30. At the time, WCK said it had no knowledge of an employee involved in the Oct. 7 onslaught, in which Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped over 250 hostages during their rampage in southern Israel.
Israel has long insisted that Hamas and similar terrorist groups have infiltrated humanitarian organizations in Gaza. In August 2024, the United Nations admitted that nine employees of UNRWA, the controversial United Nations agency responsible for Palestinian refugees and their descendants, were fired over their alleged involvement in the Hamas terrorist group’s Oct. 7 attacks on southern Israel.
Andres responded to Trump’s statement on X/Twitter, claiming that he had already resigned.
“I submitted my resignation last week … my 2 year term was already up,” Andres wrote.
“I was honored to serve as co-chair of the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition. My fellow council members — unpaid volunteers like me — were hardworking, talented people who inspired me every day. I’m proud of what we accomplished on behalf of the American people,” he added.
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