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‘We’ll Be Seen as Losers if We Don’t Complete the Job:’ Israeli Historian Benny Morris Addresses the War Against Hamas

Israeli troops on the ground in Gaza. Photo: IDF via Reuters

“I dislike Benjamin Netanyahu intensely; he’s a crook,” the Israeli historian Benny Morris said, when asked about the future direction of the present war triggered by the pogrom executed by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7. “But he’s right that the war should continue until Hamas is crushed, if only because around the region, we will be seen as losers if we don’t complete the job.”

That observation about Israel’s prime minister, offered during an extensive telephone interview with The Algemeiner on Thursday, underlines the near impossibility of neatly slotting Morris’ views into any particular camp. One of Israel’s leading public intellectuals, who is a Cambridge University graduate, a former professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and the author of the seminal study The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, first published in 1988, Morris expresses opinions associated with the left at one moment, and with the right in the next. Ideological partisans might regard this as a contradictory; more flexible thinkers, perhaps including Morris himself, would see this as a net positive, reflecting both the Middle East’s complexity and the futility of reducing national and political conflicts to mere slogans.

For Morris is an opponent not just of Netanyahu and the right-wing coalition gathered around him; he remains, in principle, a supporter of the two-state solution as well as a longstanding critic of Israel’s presence in the West Bank. On the other hand, he doesn’t articulate any faith in the willingness of the Palestinian factions to reach a permanent settlement with Israel, and he believes that the true villain of the piece is the Iranian regime, which this week has again been trumpeting its ability to assemble a nuclear weapon, and which continues to support terrorist organizations committed to Israel’s destruction, from the Houthi rebels in Yemen to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“What is certain is that Iran has forged with its proxies a circle around Israel, an alliance of anti-Israeli and anti-western forces,” Morris remarked. “Above and beyond all of this is the Iranian nuclear threat, which is certainly on the minds of Israelis, and also on the minds of American leaders and generals. This is the main threat, way beyond the threat posed by Iran’s proxies.” He makes no secret of his view that Israel should neutralize Iran’s nuclear ambitions as soon as possible. “It’ll be more expensive to do it later,” he argued. “If the Iranians acquire a nuclear arsenal, the region will probably come under Iranian domination.”

Morris is a little more sanguine when it comes to Israel’s other adversaries in the region. The conservative Arab Gulf states, some of whom signed up to peace treaties with Israel through the so-called “Abraham Accords” of 2018, will continue, according to Morris, balancing their need to pay “lip service” to the Palestinian cause with the imperative of retaining the protection and goodwill of the US, still Israel’s main ally. “Without America, countries like Bahrain or Qatar risk being dominated by the Iranians,” he said.

Turkey — the focus of of Morris’ 2019 book, The Thirty Year Genocide: Turkey’s Destruction of Its Christian Minorities 1894-1924, co-authored with his fellow historian Dror Ze’evi — is similarly unlikely to escalate tensions with Israel on the military front, even as its Islamist leadership engages in a fresh round of political demonization of the Jewish state. “Turkey, like Russia, is a dictatorship with the trappings of democracy,” Morris said. “They hold elections, but these are meaningless.” He nevertheless regards Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a shrewd operator who makes strategic calculations, despite his evident detestation of Israel. “Turkey has other axes to grind — the Kurds, northern Syria, potentially Iran, so they have had the sense to remain outside the conflict,” he said. “I think that will continue.”

Further afield, Morris doesn’t see a significant threat from US rivals China and Russia, at least not immediately. “China is not in the game at all. China is interested in expanding in the Pacific Rim,” he said. Given its military backing for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad during that country’s torrid civil war, Russia is a more likely candidate for involvement in the Middle East, but Moscow is for the time being hampered by its ongoing aggression against Ukraine as well as the robust sanctions imposed by western powers. “The situation [for the Russians] is not as it was during the Cold War,” Morris said. “Today, they are not as involved and their interests are not as bound up.”

With the US maintaining its role as the leading outside power in the region, talk of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been revived, causing tensions between Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden’s Administration. Morris believes that a Palestinian state alongside Israel is theoretically the correct solution, but he doesn’t see a “roadmap” —  the phrase much used by successive US administrations in their peacemaking efforts — for getting there.

“The problem is that the occupation is immoral and bad,” he said. “It was forced upon us, but we didn’t do enough to get out of it.” Meanwhile, in the wake of the Hamas atrocities, Israelis have become hardened. “The Israeli public is staunch in its desire to destroy Hamas and pay them back for what happened,” he said. “It’s not just a matter of revenge, it’s understanding that without that, Israel will appear weak.”

As Morris explains it, the dilemma for Israel revolves around how to withdraw from the West Bank without turning it into a Hamas stronghold. Israel has been able to weather two decades of rocket and missile attacks from Gaza, but similar salvos from Ramallah, which is just a short drive from Tel Aviv, would amount to an “existential threat,” Morris said. “In the West Bank, there is no way of assuring the benign nature of a Palestinian state,” he said. “The want all of Palestine. That’s the essence of the problem.” Additionally, Morris has little faith in international guarantees, citing Hezbollah’s refusal to move its armed forces north of Lebanon’s Litani River, as part of a broader disarmament process envisioned by UN Security Council Resolution 1701 of Aug. 2006, as an example of the difficulty of implementing compromises that are not enforced.

“The sense among Israelis is that, along with the rapes of Oct. 7, Israel itself was raped,” Morris said. “The world didn’t seem to care about that, and there was an instant rise in antisemitic abuse and anti-Israel rhetoric even before the military response.” The political context is also changing, he observed. “The further away the western world gets from the Holocaust, particularly the younger generations, they less they know and care about World War II,” he said. At the same time, “Islam contains a large antisemitic element” that stems from the bombastic accounts in the Qur’an of the battles in the seventh century between the Jewish tribes of Hijaz and the prophet Muhammad and his followers. “There’s this inherent anti-Jewish element that’s been reinforced by Israel’s existence in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries,” Morris said. “Israel is an innovation in that sense  — a Jewish state projecting power at the Muslims. That was not the situation for 1400 years since the rise of Islam.”

Israel’s future moves in this environment will be largely determined by its government. Morris does not believe that elections, which are not due for another three years, will be called early, blaming that on the “combination of crooks and cowards supporting Netanyahu.”

New elections will be elusive because those Knesset members supporting Netanyahu fear the loss of their seats, Morris said. “Most liberal and left Israelis would love to see an election now, and if one was held, Netanyahu would lose large,” he stressed. “But he’s not going to resign, and his allies aren’t going to abandon him.”

Morris is an admirer of Biden, whom he regards as “an old-style real Zionist who admires and respects Israel but doesn’t like Netanyahu.” He dreads the prospect of former President Donald Trump returning to the White House following November’s critical election. “I don’t trust Trump further than I can see,” he said. “He has no morals and he doesn’t care about Israel as [Bill] Clinton and [George W.] Bush did.” Asked about Trump’s decision while in office to move the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Morris was cynical, asserting that the “embassy should be in Jerusalem, because it’s Israel’s legitimate capital. So that made sense, but it didn’t turn [Trump] into an Israel-lover.” A Trump victory in November would be “very bad for Israel,” he emphasized.

Benny Morris will feature on an online panel titled “Hamas and the Origins of Islamic Antisemitism” sponsored by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research on Monday, Feb. 26. To register for this event, please click here.

The post ‘We’ll Be Seen as Losers if We Don’t Complete the Job:’ Israeli Historian Benny Morris Addresses the War Against Hamas first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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US House Members Ask Marco Rubio to Bar Turkey From Rejoining F-35 Program

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio attends a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, US, April 10, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Nathan Howard

A bipartisan coalition of more than 40 US lawmakers is pressing Secretary of State Marco Rubio to prevent Turkey from rejoining the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, citing ongoing national security concerns and violations of US law.

Members of Congress on Thursday warned that lifting existing sanctions or readmitting Turkey to the US F-35 fifth-generation fighter program would “jeopardize the integrity of F-35 systems” and risk exposing sensitive US military technology to Russia. The letter pointed to Ankara’s 2017 purchase of the Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile system, despite repeated US warnings, as the central reason Turkey was expelled from the multibillion-dollar fighter jet program in 2019.

“The S-400 poses a direct threat to US aircraft, including the F-16 and F-35,” the lawmakers wrote. “If operated alongside these platforms, it risks exposing sensitive military technology to Russian intelligence.”

The group of signatories, spanning both parties, stressed that Turkey still possesses the Russian weapons systems and has shown “no willingness to comply with US law.” They urged Rubio and the Trump administration to uphold the Countering American Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) and maintain Ankara’s exclusion from the F-35 program until the S-400s are fully removed.

The letter comes after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed during a NATO summit in June that Ankara and Washington have begun discussing Turkey’s readmission into the program.

Lawmakers argued that reversing course now would undermine both US credibility and allied confidence in American defense commitments. They also warned it could disrupt development of the next-generation fighter jet announced by the administration earlier this year.

“This is not a partisan issue,” the letter emphasized. “We must continue to hold allies and adversaries alike accountable when their actions threaten US interests.”

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US Lawmakers Urge Treasury to Investigate Whether Irish Bill Targeting Israel Violates Anti-Boycott Law

A pro-Hamas demonstration in Ireland led by nationalist party Sinn Fein. Photo: Reuters/Clodagh Kilcoyne

A group of US lawmakers is calling on the Treasury Department to investigate and potentially penalize Ireland over proposed legislation targeting Israeli goods, warning that the move could trigger sanctions under longstanding US anti-boycott laws.

In a letter sent on Thursday to US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, 16 Republican members of Congress expressed “serious concerns” about Ireland’s recent legislative push to ban trade with territories under Israeli administration, including the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.

The letter, spearheaded by Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY), called for the US to “send a clear signal” that any attempts to economically isolate Israel will “carry consequences.”

The Irish measure, introduced by Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Simon Harris, seeks to prohibit the import of goods and services originating from what the legislation refers to as “occupied Palestinian territories,” including Israeli communities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Supporters say the bill aligns with international law and human rights principles, while opponents, including the signatories of the letter, characterize it as a direct extension of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel as a step toward the destruction of the world’s lone Jewish state.

Some US lawmakers have also described the Irish bill as an example of “antisemitic hate” that could risk hurting relations between Dublin and Washington.

“Such policies not only promote economic discrimination but also create legal uncertainty for US companies operating in Ireland,” the lawmakers wrote in this week’s letter, urging Bessent to determine whether Ireland’s actions qualify as participation in an “unsanctioned international boycott” under Section 999 of the Internal Revenue Code, also known as the Ribicoff Amendment.

Under that statute, the Treasury Department is required to maintain a list of countries that pressure companies to comply with international boycotts not sanctioned by the US. Inclusion on the list carries tax-reporting burdens and possible penalties for American firms and individuals doing business in those nations.

“If the criteria are met, Ireland should be added to the boycott list,” the letter said, arguing that such a step would help protect US companies from legal exposure and reaffirm American opposition to economic efforts aimed at isolating Israel.

Legal experts have argued that if the Irish bill becomes law, it could chase American capital out of the country while also hurting companies that do business with Ireland. Under US law, it is illegal for American companies to participate in boycotts of Israel backed by foreign governments. Several US states have also gone beyond federal restrictions to pass separate measures that bar companies from receiving state contracts if they boycott Israel.

Ireland has been one of the fiercest critics of Israel on the international stage since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, amid the ensuing war in Gaza, leading the Jewish state to shutter its embassy in Dublin.

Last year, Ireland officially recognized a Palestinian state, a decision that Israel described as a “reward for terrorism.”

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US Families File Lawsuit Accusing UNRWA of Supporting Hamas, Hezbollah

A truck, marked with United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) logo, crosses into Egypt from Gaza, at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, during a temporary truce between Hamas and Israel, in Rafah, Egypt, Nov. 27, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

American families of victims of Hamas and Hezbollah attacks have filed a lawsuit against the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, accusing the organization of violating US antiterrorism laws by providing material support to the Islamist terror groups behind the deadly assaults.

Last week, more than 200 families filed a lawsuit in a Washington, DC district court accusing the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) of violating US antiterrorism laws by providing funding and support to Hamas and Hezbollah, both designated as foreign terrorist organizations.

The lawsuit alleges that UNRWA employs staff with direct ties to the Iran-backed terror group, including individuals allegedly involved in carrying out attacks against the Jewish state.

However, UNRWA has firmly denied the allegations, labeling them as “baseless” and condemning the lawsuit as “meritless, absurd, dangerous, and morally reprehensible.”

According to the organization, the lawsuit is part of a wider campaign of “misinformation and lawfare” targeting its work in the Gaza Strip, where it says Palestinians are enduring “mass, deliberate and forced starvation.”

The UN agency reports that more than 150,000 donors across the United States have supported its programs providing food, medical aid, education, and trauma assistance in the war-torn enclave amid the ongoing conflict.

In a press release, UNRWA USA affirmed that it will continue its humanitarian efforts despite facing legal challenges aimed at undermining its work.

“Starvation does not pause for politics. Neither will we,” the statement read.

Last year, Israeli security documents revealed that of UNRWA’s 13,000 employees in Gaza, 440 were actively involved in Hamas’s military operations, with 2,000 registered as Hamas operatives.

According to these documents, at least nine UNRWA employees took part directly in the terror group’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.

Israeli officials also uncovered a large Hamas data center beneath UNRWA headquarters, with cables running through the facility above, and found that Hamas also stored weapons in other UNRWA sites.

The UN agency has also aligned with Hamas in efforts against the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an Israeli and US-backed program that delivers aid directly to Palestinians, blocking Hamas from diverting supplies for terror activities and selling them at inflated prices.

These Israeli intelligence documents also revealed that a senior Hamas leader, killed in an Israeli strike in September 2024, had served as the head of the UNRWA teachers’ union in Lebanon, where Lebanon is based,

UNRWA’s education programs have been found by IMPACT-se, an international organization that monitors global education, to contribute to the radicalization of younger generations of Palestinians.

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