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Will Hamas Meet the Same Fate that Pharaoh Did?
Palestinian terrorists and members of the Red Cross gather near vehicles on the day Hamas hands over deceased hostages Oded Lifschitz, Shiri Bibas, and her two children Kfir and Ariel Bibas, seized during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack, to the Red Cross, as part of a ceasefire and hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hatem Khaled
In his 1878 work Human, All Too Human, the provocative existential philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche coined the aphorism: “Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal.”
His words cut deep into one of the significant anomalies of the human condition — our tendency to confuse movement with progress and defiance with purpose. How often do we see people, caught up in the emotions of the moment, throw away their long-term best interests simply because they can’t bear to admit that the path they chose was the wrong one?
Just this week, Hamas once again rejected a ceasefire proposal that could have brought much-needed relief to the people of Gaza. The deal, shaped through ongoing talks in Cairo and backed by the United States, offered a 45-day truce, the phased release of Israeli hostages, and a significant increase in humanitarian aid. It was, by any reasonable standard, a serious offer. Hamas was also asked to agree to a phased disarmament — the most basic requirement for any long-term stability in Gaza and in the region.
But instead of engaging and looking out for the long-term best interests of the people they purport to represent, they walked away. For Hamas, even the faintest whiff of concession is anathema. They would rather watch Gaza burn than admit they’ve lost the war.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Al Jazeera Arabic that while the group was “open to all offers that alleviate the suffering of our people,” the latest Israeli proposal amounted to a “surrender.” He added: “Netanyahu is setting impossible conditions to sabotage the ceasefire agreement.”
This is classic Hamas messaging: an ever-shifting blame game that refuses to acknowledge any agency on their part. Every proposal is rigged. Every mediator is biased. Every path forward is dismissed as a trap. And meanwhile, a whole generation of Palestinians is being traumatized in real time — not just by the war, but by the insistence of their self-appointed guardians that war and suffering are the only way forward.
This isn’t a one-off. It’s a pattern that goes back years. After Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 — evacuating every last settlement and removing every last soldier — the strip could have become a model for Palestinian autonomy.
Billions of dollars in aid poured in from around the world. The opportunity was there, and Hamas squandered it. They staged a violent coup against Fatah, turned Gaza into an armed enclave, and immediately got to work importing weapons, building tunnels, and exporting terror. Schools weren’t built. Jobs weren’t created. Infrastructure wasn’t developed.
Instead, the money was funneled into rocket launchers, explosives, and propaganda. Every truckload of cement was a chance to dig deeper — literally — expanding the tunnel network rather than building homes and civilian infrastructure. Every dollar of foreign aid simply became another line item in their war budget.
And now, nearly two decades later, the consequences are there for all to see. Tens of thousands of Gazans are dead — mostly combatants, but many civilians. Entire neighborhoods lie in ruins. The leadership of Hamas is either hiding underground or already dead. And the people of Gaza are trapped in a grinding, endless catastrophe.
What has Hamas achieved? Nothing. No political gains. No liberation. Not even regional sympathy. Arab leaders who once championed the Palestinian cause are losing patience. Egypt is now openly furious. The UAE and Bahrain — key signatories of the Abraham Accords — have little tolerance left for Hamas’s tired rejectionist rhetoric.
And Qatar, Hamas’s main financial patron, is finally being exposed not as a helpful intermediary but as a willing enabler of extremism, prolonging suffering under the pretense of support.
And still, Hamas refuses to budge. They posture. They release provocative videos. They demand total Israeli withdrawal and total immunity — all while holding hostages and offering nothing in return. This isn’t strength. It’s the delusion of strength. It’s the fantasy of resistance masquerading as victory, when in reality it’s a slow, agonizing suicide — not just for Hamas, but for every Palestinian they claim to fight for.
Truthfully, this kind of destructive defiance isn’t new. We’ve seen it before — in the Torah, of all places. Back in the day, Pharaoh was the most powerful man on earth. He ruled the only superpower of the ancient world, commanded the mightiest army, and had the unquestioned loyalty of a devoted empire.
So when Moses showed up — backed by God, no less — demanding he let the Israelite slaves go, Pharaoh had a choice. He could have made the smart move. He could have cut his losses and preserved Egypt’s dominance. But no. Pharaoh, drunk on his own Kool-Aid and unable to stomach the idea of yielding to reality, chose to resist.
It wasn’t just arrogance and pride, though they certainly played a role. It was also about ideological delusion. With each plague — blood, frogs, lice, hail, darkness, death — the evidence mounted that the God of Israel meant business.
But Pharaoh refused to see it. He doubled down. Hardened his heart. Clung to his narrative of dominance and refused to let go, even as his own people suffered and his country imploded. And in the end, it didn’t just cost him his pride.
It cost him his army, his empire, his firstborn, and Egypt’s standing in the world. The mighty civilization that built pyramids and monuments was brought to its knees — not by the Israelites, but by Pharaoh’s own refusal to act with humility and foresight.
Hamas, like Pharaoh, confuses stubbornness for strength. They believe that by refusing to compromise, by staring down the world and clinging to their maximalist demands, they’re showing courage. But they’re not. They’re marching their people into oblivion. Every offer rejected, every opportunity squandered, every tunnel dug — it’s one more step toward the total collapse not just of Hamas, but of whatever fragile future might still be possible for the people of Gaza.
And just like Pharaoh, they’re not doing it alone. They’re being cheered on by a chorus of enablers — activists, influencers, academics, and state sponsors — who assure them that “resistance” is heroic, even when it leads only to ruin.
The tragedy — and the irony — is that Hamas couldn’t have done this alone. Their intransigence isn’t powered by courage; it’s powered by cash, by cameras, and by do-gooders cheering them on. From the lavish villas of Doha to the ivory towers of Western academia, the friends of Hamas keep feeding the fantasy.
Qatar is the worst of all. They’ve poured billions into Gaza under the guise of humanitarian aid, all while knowingly bankrolling a terrorist regime. The supporters of Hamas might think they’re standing up for justice, but in reality, they’re giving Hamas the strength to do what Israel never could: destroy Palestinian hopes for a positive future — permanently.
Frankly, I don’t mind. Because just as Pharaoh’s demise was not only his downfall but the platform for the Israelites’ greatest triumph, so too, Hamas is playing the long game of annihilation — and losing. The only question left is how much devastation their delusion will leave in its wake, and how many will be dragged down with them.
In the end, it’s the tragedy Nietzsche warned us about: Hamas is stubborn in pursuit of the path they’ve chosen — but utterly blind to the goal their people so desperately need.
The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.
The post Will Hamas Meet the Same Fate that Pharaoh Did? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Palestinian Authority’s Abbas Offers to Work With Trump to Broker Peace Deal With Israel
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas holds a leadership meeting in Ramallah, in the West Bank, April 23, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Torokman
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has offered to work with US President Donald Trump to broker a comprehensive peace deal with Israel, praising the American leader for brokering a ceasefire between the Jewish state and Iran and calling for an end to the war in Gaza.
In a letter sent to Trump, Abbas expressed his “deep gratitude and appreciation for [Trump’s] successful efforts in reaching a ceasefire between Israel and Iran,” the official Palestinian Authority (PA) news agency WAFA reported.
After 12 days of conflict between the two Middle Eastern adversaries, Trump announced a “complete and total” ceasefire on Monday, just hours after Iran launched missile strikes on the Al Udeid US airbase in Qatar in retaliation for American attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend.
The US joined Israel’s airstrike campaign against the Islamist regime by launching a large-scale military strike against Tehran, destroying three key nuclear enrichment facilities, including the heavily fortified Fordow site.
Although the fragile ceasefire appears to have since held, Tehran initially broke it within minutes, with Israeli officials reporting that three Iranian missiles were launched within the first three hours of the truce.
In his letter to Trump, Abbas called the ceasefire a “necessary and important step to defuse the crises plaguing the world, which will have a positive impact on the security and stability of the region.” He then turned his attention to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
“A ceasefire in Gaza would constitute an additional step to [Trump’s] crucial efforts to achieve a just and comprehensive peace between the Palestinians, the Israelis, and the entire world,” the Palestinian leader wrote.
In an effort to earn trust within the international community, Abbas expressed his willingness to work with Trump, Saudi Arabia, and other global partners “to fulfill the promise of peace.”
The Palestinian leader said he was ready “to immediately negotiate and implement a comprehensive peace agreement within a clear and binding timeframe that ends the occupation and achieves security and stability for all, a just and lasting peace.”
Although Trump attempted a peace deal with the PA during his first term, he ultimately bypassed it and instead pursued the Abraham Accords — a series of historic US-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab countries.
“With you, we can achieve what seemed impossible: a recognized, free, sovereign, and secure Palestine; a recognized and secure Israel; and a region that enjoys peace, prosperity, and integration,” Abbas wrote in his letter.
Given the PA’s long-standing lack of credibility and widely known support for terrorism against Israel, Abbas has been making promises of change as he seeks to secure international trust and position the PA to play a leading role in the Gaza Strip once the current Israel-Hamas war ends.
The PA, which has long been riddled with accusations of corruption, has also maintained for years a so-called “pay-for-slay” program, which rewards terrorists and their families for carrying out attacks against Israelis.
Under this policy, the PA Martyr’s Fund makes official payments to Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, the families of “martyrs” killed in attacks on Israelis, and injured Palestinian terrorists. Reports estimate that approximately 8 percent of the PA’s budget is allocated to paying stipends to convicted terrorists and their families.
Earlier this year, Abbas announced plans to reform the system, but the PA has continued issuing payments, with top officials stating they will not deduct any of the funds.
Abbas, who was elected to a four-year term in 2005, has also promised to hold elections soon — the first the PA will hold since then.
Even with his commitment to long-promised administrative reforms, the PA lacks public support among Palestinians, with only 40 percent backing its return to govern the Gaza Strip after the war.
Abbas has also promised the demilitarization of his rival Hamas, while condemning the terrorist group’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 — an attack he had previously celebrated.
In the past, Abbas praised Hamas for achieving “important goals” with the Oct. 7 onslaught, describing the attack — the deadliest single-day massacre against the Jewish people since the Holocaust — as one that “shook the foundations of the Israeli entity.”
Other PA officials, including Mahmoud al-Habbash, Abbas’s adviser on religious and Islamic affairs, have similarly praised Hamas’s atrocities, describing them as “legitimate resistance.”
The post Palestinian Authority’s Abbas Offers to Work With Trump to Broker Peace Deal With Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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New York City Jews Sound Alarm After Anti-Israel Socialist Zohran Mamdani Wins Democratic Mayoral Primary
Candidate Zohran Mamdani speaks during a Democratic New York City mayoral primary debate, June 4, 2025, in New York, US. Photo: Yuki Iwamura/Pool via REUTERS
Following Zohran Mamdani’s stunning victory in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary on Tuesday, local Jewish leaders are expressing deep apprehension about their future status in a city facing the prospect of being led by a man who has been accused of antisemitism and made anti-Israel activism a cornerstone of his political career.
Mamdani, the 33‑year‑old state assemblymember and proud democratic socialist, defeated former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other candidates in a lopsided first‑round win in the city’s Democratic primary for mayor, notching approximately 43.5 percent of first‑choice votes compared to Cuomo’s 36.4 percent.
Voters in New York City rank their choices in order of their preference. While Mamdani declared victory and Cuomo conceded defeat, the race’s ultimate outcome will technically be decided when every vote is tallied, taking into account the ranked choice count. Mamdani’s victory is all but assured.
Some observers have speculated that Mamdani’s win over an older, high-profile Democrat signifies growing frustration with the party’s status quo and represents a generational change.
The election results have also alarmed members of the local Jewish community, who expressed deep concern over his past criticism of Israel and defense of antisemitic rhetoric.
“Mamdani’s election is the greatest existential threat to a metropolitan Jewish population since the election of the notorious antisemite Karl Lueger in Vienna,” Rabbi Marc Schneier, one of the most prominent Jewish leaders in New York City, said in a statement. “Jewish leaders must come together as a united force to prevent a mass Jewish Exodus from New York City.”
Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt, who along with her husband Rabbi Benjamin Goldschmidt co-founded the Altneu, an Orthodox synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, suggested that Mamdani’s political ascendance indicates that antisemitism might actually be a political “asset” these days.
“Perhaps soft antisemitism is not a liability for a NYC politician. It’s an asset,” Chizhik-Goldschmidt wrote. “Perhaps New York City is not the city we thought it was.”
Former New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who later founded the organization Americans Against Antisemitism, similarly repudiated Mamdani and encouraged New Yorkers to consolidate behind a single candidate to oppose the presumptive Democratic nominee in the general election in November.
“Mamdani has won the Democratic primary,” he said in a video posted to social media. “It is pathetic, it is sick, it is painful for people who care about the future of New York and in particular the Jewish community.”
Hikind added in a written post accompanying the video: “NYC must unite to defeat the dangerous antisemite Mamdani.”
A little-known politician before this year’s primary campaign, Mamdani is an outspoken supporter of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination.
Mamdani has also repeatedly refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, falsely suggesting the country does not offer “equal rights” for all its citizens, and promised to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York.
Most recently, Mamdani defended the phrase “globalize the intifada”— which references previous periods of sustained Palestinian terrorism against Jews and Israels and has been widely interpreted as a call to expand political violence — by invoking the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising during World War II. In response, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum repudiated the mayoral candidate, calling his comments “outrageous and especially offensive to [Holocaust] survivors.”
The same week, an old X/Twitter post from 2015 by Mamdani resurfaced online showing him appearing to threaten that a “third intifada” was coming.
New York City, which is home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, has experienced a major spike in antisemitic incidents since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel, with police data showing Jews were targeted in the majority of hate crimes perpetrated in New York City last year.
Concern among Jewish leaders over Mamdani’s victory amid rising antisemitism extended well beyond New York.
Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis, warned that Mamdani’s victory represents a well-known pattern that starts with hatred of Israel and ends with violence targeting Jews.
“Zohran Mamdani’s win in #NYC feels deeply familiar to #Europe’s #Jewish community. We’ve seen where radical politics — especially cloaked in ‘justice’ rhetoric — can lead. It starts with slogans. It ends with violence,” Goldschmidt, the former chief rabbi of Moscow, posted on social media.
“In Europe, we’ve learned the hard way: when far-left ideologues and radical Islamists turn Israel into a symbol of absolute evil, it quickly becomes a weapon — not against a state, but against Jews. ‘Anti-Zionism’ becomes the mask. Exclusion and incitement follow,” the rabbi continued. “This isn’t about legitimate critique of Israeli policy. It’s about obsession. Israel becomes a dog whistle — a coded target on synagogues, schools, and Jews in public life.”
Europe, like New York, has experienced a surge in antisemitism since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, with antisemitic incidents often liked to animus against Israel.
“The safety of all New Yorkers — including Jewish New Yorkers — is the single greatest responsibility of the mayor of New York,” said Rabbi Moshe Hauer, executive vice president of the Orthodox Union.
“That safety has been deeply impacted by the rhetoric and actions of those whose opposition to Zionism has driven them to work to instill fear and intimidation in Jews who support Israel,” he added.
Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), called for Jews in New York to immigrate to Israel.
“As an American Jew and as a human, I am truly frightened that an antisemitic communist Mamdani has actually promoted murdering Jews by supporting and legitimizing the antisemitic rally cry ‘globalize the intifada,’ refuses to accept the Jewish state of Israel as a Jewish state, states he will arrest PM Netanyahu if he comes to NYC, and is friendly with Israel bashing Jew-haters – and yet has been mainstreamed in the most important Jewish city in America,” he posted. “Is it time to make aliyah to Israel.”
The post New York City Jews Sound Alarm After Anti-Israel Socialist Zohran Mamdani Wins Democratic Mayoral Primary first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jewish Teen Threatened at Knifepoint in France Amid Surge in Antisemitic Attacks
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
A Jewish teenager was threatened at knifepoint and called a “dirty Jew” in an antisemitic attack in France — the latest in a growing wave of hate crimes targeting the country’s Jewish community.
Last week, a 15-year-old boy was violently attacked in Colomiers, southwestern France, after attending a meetup arranged with a girl over social media, French media reported.
When the boy arrived at the meeting point, two men were waiting for him at the entrance to a basement. They held him at knifepoint, humiliated him, and shared the assault on social media.
One of the attackers, armed with a knife, forced him to remove his shirt and dance, then grabbed him by the neck and forced him to kneel.
Then, the attacker reportedly told him to “beg and pray,” repeatedly calling him a “dirty Jew” because he attended a private Jewish school. He also threatened to kill him if he tried to contact the police.
The following day, the teenager found out that the assault had been filmed and circulated on social media. Using the attackers’ TikTok accounts, the victim was able to file a formal complaint.
On Friday, local police arrested one of the suspects who posted the video, according to the French broadcaster Europe 1. He was taken into custody on charges of aggravated assault motivated by religious hatred.
As of this week, the investigation is ongoing, with authorities actively searching for the remaining suspects.
The brutal assault is the latest antisemitic incident amid a troubling surge in anti-Jewish violence sweeping the country since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Antisemitism in France continued to surge to alarming levels across the country last year, with 1,570 incidents recorded, according to a report by the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) – the main representative body of French Jews.
The total number of antisemitic outrages in 2024 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.
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