RSS
Will Israel Occupy All of Gaza? How We Got Here

Palestinian Hamas terrorists stand guard on the day of the handover of hostages held in Gaza since the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack, as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 22, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hatem Khaled
According to a source, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly announced a decision to fully occupy all of Gaza, including areas where the hostages are located, while reportedly informing the IDF chief of staff that if the decision does not suit him, then he should resign.
Israel has long avoided entering areas where the hostages were located for fear Hamas might kill them, and has also avoided moves that could be interpreted as even a partial occupation of Gaza, for fear of the responsibilities that would entail. (Until now, Israel maintained a legal blockade, but not an occupation, thus leaving Hamas in local control.)
Here’s how the dramatic change came about, the other options Israel had considered, and the dramatic potential and terrifying risks of this new direction.
Last week, hostage negotiations reached an impasse, with apparently no chance of forward progress. Afterwards, Hamas published videos showing Israeli hostages Evyatar David and Rom Broslovski in a state of starvation that resembles victims of the Nazi concentration camps, and tears at the Israeli soul. Meanwhile a massive, global propaganda campaign propagated the false myth that Gaza is experiencing an unprecedented famine, resulting in international pressure on Israel to take actions that would leave Hamas in power, and potentially even create a Palestinian state as an outgrowth of the October 7 massacre.
Here are the options Israel was forced to consider in recent days:
Option 1: End the war and bring home all the hostages, even if it means leaving Hamas in power.
Recent polls show that 74% of Israelis support this option, as echoed in passionate protests every Saturday evening. Yet this polling question refers to an imaginary deal that is not actually “on the table.”
A careful review of news articles and interviews since October 2023, shows that at no time has Hamas offered or agreed to any deal that would release all the hostages. Qatar and Egypt have suggested frameworks to that effect, however Hamas itself (which is the only party that matters) has never proposed, nor agreed to, any such framework.
This “option” is not actually an option at all.
What if such a deal were on the table?
This is a fantasy, but theoretically speaking, if a deal to return all the hostages were on the table, then Israel should take it … if, and only if, the consensus of Israelis are willing to recognize and pay the true price.
What is the true price? History tells us:
In 2011, Israel negotiated the return of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit from Hamas captivity. At the time, Israelis thought the price was the release of over 1,000 Palestinian security prisoners, including terrorists such as future Hamas leader and October 7 mastermind, Yahya Sinwar.
But that was not the real price.
Once Hamas understood how desperately Israel would negotiate for the return of hostages, the terror organization began planning to take more. The price Israel actually paid for the release of one soldier was, in retrospect, 251 additional hostages, 1,200 murders, mass rape, mass torture, mass beheadings, and the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
If Israel makes the wrong decisions today, it will invite further such massacres for years to come, not only by Hamas, which is currently weakened, but by the entire Arab world, which is watching events closely. If, and only if, Israelis are willing to risk paying that price, then Israel should make that deal.
This is not an easy (theoretical) choice, but again, such a deal is actually not on the table, so the “dilemma” is a fictional one.
Option 2: Declare sovereignty over parts of Gaza.
Israeli officials have been leaking plans to take parts of Gaza as Israeli territory. The logic is that Hamas’ raison dêtre, its very purpose for existence, relates to conquering and controlling territory.
Hamas is not deterred by loss of infrastructure or lives: to the contrary, the terror group has been planning for years to make that sacrifice: both to slow down IDF operations by manipulating Israeli values and ethics, and also by weaponizing international pressure against Israel. There’s a saying from the world of hi-tech, “it’s not a bug, it’s a feature.” This is true of Hamas’ intentional destruction of its own people and infrastructure.
By contrast, after a ceasefire deal last January that allowed locals to return to their homes in northern Gaza, Palestinians celebrated this return to “their land.” Hamas promised this would be only the first step on the way to conquering their “original homes” throughout Israel. In short: the Palestinian national identity is largely based on conquest and control of territory. Thus, the threat of losing territory should (in theory) motivate Hamas to negotiate.
On the other hand, Israel’s annexation threat has been circulating for about a week now, and if anything, Hamas seems to have become even less flexible, most recently saying it will lay down its arms only upon the establishment of a Palestinian state with full sovereignty and Jerusalem as its capital: this would effectively make October 7 into “Palestine Independence Day.”
Furthermore, regional powers have a history of not wanting sovereignty over Gaza. For example, as part of the peace accords of 1978, Egypt insisted on taking back the Sinai but not Gaza, as the territory’s Palestinian population had become too problematic. The Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 was highly controversial, including haunting images of IDF soldiers forcibly removing Israelis from their homes. In retrospect, the disengagement laid the initial groundwork for five wars against Hamas and, eventually, the October 7 massacre. Yet there was a reason for the disengagement: protecting Israeli settlements in Gaza was taking up a disproportionate amount of the IDF’s resources, and killing a tragic number of IDF soldiers, something the majority of Israelis were no longer willing to tolerate at that time.
Whether sovereignty in Gaza is right or wrong at this time, there is no question that it will come at a cost: in both IDF resources and Israeli lives. Perhaps that cost is worth it, but Israelis will still have to pay.
Option 3: The Palestinian Authority takes control of Gaza
Last week, in a historic first, the Arab League condemned Hamas and the October 7 massacre (while also condemning Israel on a number of points), and called for an independent Palestinian state, to be governed by the Palestinian Authority.
This is a non-starter for Israelis: the Palestinian Authority participated in and frequently praises the October 7 massacre, has provided millions of dollars in payments to its perpetrators, and in the past two years, there has been a significant increase in terror attacks originating from areas under Palestinian Authority control.
Even more disturbing than the attacks that occurred is the attacks that haven’t: since October 7, 2023, Israel’s Shin Bet security service has prevented over 1,000 attempted large scale terror attacks out of the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority, including attempted infiltrations in the style of the October 7 massacre.
In short, a Palestinian Authority government in any region next to Israel is a clear and present danger to Israelis.
Option 4: Military occupation
After nearly two years of fighting, one could be forgiven for assuming that all military options have been exhausted. They have not.
First some historical perspective: dismantling a terror organization takes time. America’s fight against Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden took roughly 10 years, and the war against ISIS took roughly the same. France’s Operation Barkhane against terror groups in the Sahel region of Africa took over eight years, while America’s war against the Taliban took over 25 (and without success). If Israel manages to fulfill its goals in Gaza in roughly two years, that will be, historically speaking, incredibly fast — even though it feels interminable to Israelis.
Yet Israel has a major military weakness in Gaza that is about to change: avoiding the hostages. Israel reportedly knows the location of the hostages, and fearing that Hamas might kill them, has entirely avoided those areas. The unfortunate result has been to create a safe haven for Hamas fighters, and also to preclude any possibility of a rescue operation. Such military action is risky: it will endanger the hostages should Hamas attempt to kill them outright, yet it may also result in their rescue. On the other hand, any delay endangers the lives of the hostages as well: with negotiations at an impasse and recent Hamas videos showing hostages in a dramatically deathly state.
Another danger is that occupation of Gaza requires an investment of IDF resources and risks Israeli lives, just as protecting the Israeli settlements in Gaza prior to 2005.
However, if successful, this operation will reshape the Middle East, provide Israel with much needed security, and turn October 7, 2023, from “Palestine Independence Day” into a cautionary tale for any power that might consider attacking Israel in the future.
Daniel Pomerantz is the CEO of RealityCheck, an organization dedicated to deepening public conversation through robust research studies and public speaking.
RSS
Antisemitism at European Universities Has Created ‘Climate of Fear,’ New Report Finds

Krakow, Poland, October 5: Pro-Palestinian activists in front of the Institute of Sociology at Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Photo: Artur Widak via Reuters Connect
Antisemitism on European university campuses rivals what has ensued in the US since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, fostering a “climate of fear” for Jewish students, according to a new report by two Jewish groups and a German watchdog.
B’nai B’rith International, the European Union of Jewish Students, and democ, a Berlin-based organization of academics and media professionals, on Tuesday published a comprehensive report titled “A Climate of Fear and Exclusion: Antisemitism at European Universities.”
“When Jewish students fear being violently harassed on campus, when in the most prestigious universities Jewish students might find swastikas or death threats on their personal property, when they are not allowed access to spaces and events due to their presumed Zionism — the free speech argument is a canard,” B’nai B’rith director of European Union affairs Alina Bricman said in a statement. “The lack of action on the part of academic institutions is shameful.”
The document recounts a slew of incidents that took place at the most prestigious higher education institutions across the continent, including Cambridge University, the University of Amsterdam, and Delft University of Technology. Some were perpetrated by extreme anti-Zionist groups tied to terrorist organizations while others struck as random acts of hatred, terrorizing in themselves for intimidating Jewish members of the campus community.
At the University of Strasbourg, someone assaulted a group of Jewish students while shouting “Zionist fascists”; the University of Vienna hosted an “Intifada Camp,” a pro-Hamas encampment; at the Free University of Brussels campus in Solbosch, a pro-Hamas group illegally occupied an administrative building and renamed it after a terrorist. Throughout Europe, anti-Zionists damaged property to the tune of hundreds of thousands of Euros, desecrated Jewish religious symbols, graffitied Jewish students’ dormitories with swastikas, and carried out gang assaults on Jewish student leaders.
In many cases, university leaders acceded to the demands of these pro-Hamas activists and terminated partnerships with Israeli institutions, as happened in Belgium.
“By renouncing limited partnerships with Israel, the authorities not only gave in to political pressure but also endangered freedom of expression and the diversity of ideas on their campuses,” the report’s authors wrote. “This attitude, far from protecting academic values, allowed ideologies to take precedence over fundamental principles of research and academic freedom.”
It continued, “These events are not isolated acts. They reflect a climate of siege-like hostility towards Israel that now permeates Belgium, from the media to universities, from the north to the south, from the right to the left. The Palestinian cause has gradually become the core of a genuine ‘civil religion’ or ‘secular religion.’”
The situation calls for a prompt defense of the university’s values, as well as the universal principles Europe claims to hold.
“The documentation gathered in this report makes it clear that we are dealing with highly coordinated, transnational networks that operate as part of a global movement,” said Grischa Stanjek, co-executive director of democ. “They strategically disguise an antisemitic agenda in the language of human rights to gain legitimacy. University leaders are making a grave mistake if they treat these events as local flare-ups instead of what they are: calculated manifestations of a global, anti-democratic campaign.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
RSS
Synagogue in Chile Vandalized With Antisemitic Graffiti, Prompting Outrage, Investigation

The gate of Santiago’s Bikur Cholim Synagogue defaced with red paint and antisemitic graffiti, including a poster targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Photo: Screenshot
Chile’s authorities launched an investigation after a synagogue in Santiago was defaced with antisemitic graffiti and slogans, an act that has sparked outrage in the local Jewish community.
On Friday night, the gate of Santiago’s Bikur Cholim Synagogue was vandalized with red paint and a poster depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a bullet hole in his forehead.
An unknown individual spray-painted antisemitic slogans, including “If you keep silent, you’re part of genocide,” an apparent reference to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Israeli Ambassador to Chile Peleg Lewi condemned the outrage, noting that antisemitic incidents are rare in the country.
Vandalizacion y ataques a Sinagogas anoche en Santiago !
Estoy seguro que @GobiernodeChile luchará contra el antisemistismo en Chile! pic.twitter.com/feWR09cny1— פלג לוי – Peleg Lewi (@peleg_lewi) August 23, 2025
Since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Lewi explained, Chile has seen only a few minor antisemitic incidents — a stark contrast to other countries around the world, which have experienced a surge in anti-Jewish hate crimes.
He also stressed the importance of maintaining calm and warned against bringing the Middle East conflict into Chile.
Local authorities have launched an investigation into the vandalism, but no arrests have been made so far.
The Jewish Community of Chile denounced the incident, stressing that such antisemitic acts cannot be accepted or tolerated.
“Acts of hatred cannot be downplayed, normalized, or justified by political or ideological slogans; they must be forcefully and universally condemned,” the group said in a post on X.
“Chile is a country that values freedom of worship, and that means we must respect, care for, and protect one another, regardless of our beliefs,” the statement read. “Vandalism of a holy site is not just an attack on a community but on the coexistence and peace of the entire country.”
Condenamos rotundamente el ataque a una sinagoga de Santiago. Lamentablemente no es la primera vez que ocurre.
Los actos de odio no pueden ser relativizados, normalizados o justificados bajo consignas políticas o ideológicas: deben ser condenados con fuerza y de manera… pic.twitter.com/CTAHqDs6yh
— Comunidad Judía de Chile (@comjudiachile) August 24, 2025
Alberto van Klaveren, Chile’s Foreign Minister, also condemned the vandalism of the Bikur Cholim Synagogue.
“No expression of hatred or violence can be normalized; there is no argument that justifies intimidation or discrimination,” Klaveren said in a post on X. “The only way to express dissent in a democracy is through open and respectful dialogue.”
On Sunday, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) warned that the incident in Chile was the latest reminder that antisemitism remains a global threat.
“No synagogue should ever be vandalized,” the statement read.
RSS
Trump Admin Reviewing Visas of ‘Terrorist Sympathizers’ Set to Appear at Palestinian Conference in Detroit

Marco Rubio speaks after he is sworn in as Secretary of State by US Vice President JD Vance at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, Jan. 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
The Trump administration is reviewing and may block the visa applications of speakers scheduled to appear at the People’s Conference for Palestine in Detroit, Michigan later this week over links to terrorism, The Algemeiner has learned.
A spokesperson for the US State Department told The Algemeiner that officials have “noted” the gathering, set to take place from Aug. 29-31, and will closely monitor visa applications for invited international speakers, citing a preponderance of “terrorist sympathizers” on the program’s lineup.
“Given the public invite lists seems to include a number of terrorist sympathizers, we are going through and ensuring all international speakers slated to attend the conference are being placed on a ‘look out’ status for visa applications, so we are alerted if a request is submitted and can ensure they are appropriately processed,” the spokesperson said.
“In every case, we will take the time necessary to ensure an applicant does not pose a risk to the safety and security of the United States and that he or she has credibly established his or her eligibility for the visa sought, including that the applicant intends to engage in activities consistent with the terms of admission,” the spokesperson added.
The conference will feature dozens of radical anti-Zionist activists, academics, artists, and political organizers, including US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI).
Tlaib’s appearance at last year’s iteration of the People’s Conference for Palestine sparked intense backlash, with critics pointing out the event’s connections to Wisam Rafeedie and Salah Salah, members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terrorist organization.
The conference is convened by a coalition that includes the Palestinian Youth Movement, Al-Awda: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, and the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, among others. Several of these groups have maintained ties with PFLP, openly supported boycott efforts against Israel, and called for an arms embargo in the wake of Israel’s military campaign against Hamas. The programming highlights sessions on “Documenting Genocide” and “Breaking the Siege,” rhetoric that critics argue mischaracterizes Israel’s actions as it seeks to defend itself against terrorist attacks following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
The Detroit gathering is expected to attract thousands of attendees, with dozens of speakers and activists scheduled to participate. Among the roster are well-known anti-Israel figures such as Linda Sarsour, Miko Peled, and Chris Smalls. Sarsour has erroneously compared Zionism to “white supremacy in America” and accused Israel of perpetuating “Jewish supremacy.”
Arabs comprise about 21 percent of Israel’s population and include full rights of citizenship, including the ability to serve in parliament and on the Supreme Court as well as the ability to protest openly against the government.
The planned presence of several foreign terror sympathizers has sparked outrage among observers.
Abed Abubaker, a self-described “reporter” from Gaza, is expected to make a physical appearance at the Detroit conference. Abubaker has repeatedly praised the Hamas terrorist group as “resistance fighters” on social media and won a “journalist of the year” award from Iran’s state-controlled media outlet PressTV. In a January 2025 post, he showered praise on long-time Hamas leader and Oct. 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar, saying that the terrorist’s “love of resistance and land is seen very clearly.” In a March 2025 post, Abubaker posted that international supporters of the Palestinian cause should “attack your governments.” He also defended Hamas’s murdering of dissidents, saying that the victims were “collaborating” with Israel.
Some of the speakers have been convicted and imprisoned in Israel for terrorist activity.
Omar Assaf, a former member of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), and Lama Ghosheh, a Palestinian journalist from East Jerusalem, are scheduled to speak at the conference. Assaf spent eight years in jail for his role in the DFLP, which was previously a US-designated terrorist group, and Ghosheh received a three-year sentence from an Israeli court in 2023 for inciting violence and praising terrorism in the West Bank and Gaza.
Mosab Abu Toha, a Gaza-born writer, is also set to appear at the conference. Abu Toha’s social media posts reveal he has denigrated the Israeli hostages held in Gaza, denied the murder of the Bibas children, and spread fake news and antisemitic remarks. In other posts, he referred to Israeli soldiers as “killers” and criticized international media for “humaniz[ing]” them.
Perhaps most striking, Hussam Shaheen was slated to speak at the conference. He spent 27 years in prison for attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder but was released earlier this year as part of a temporary Israel-Hamas ceasefire that saw Palestinian prisoners released in exchange for Israeli hostages. However, Shaheen’s name no longer appears on the list of speakers on the conference’s website.
US-based speakers also have extremist associations. Hatem Bazian, for example, co-founded Students for Justice in Palestine, a group that has become notorious for intimidating Jews on university campuses, as well as American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), a nonprofit he now chairs which has sponsored a series of anti-Israel protests following Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attacks. Bazian works as a senior lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley. On Tuesday, The Algemeiner reported on recent comments by Bazian in which he accused Jews of exploiting antisemitism to make money and claimed that Israel wants to conquer most of the Middle East, including Mecca and Medina, the holiest sites in Islam.
The event will also host Mahmoud Khalil, one of the leaders of the anti-Israel encampment movement at Columbia University. Khalil rose to national prominence after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained him in March for what the Department of Homeland Security alleged to be leading “activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.” Khalil, who became a permanent US resident last year, was released from detention in June when a federal judge ordered his release. The activist also drew scrutiny last month after he refused to condemn Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities during a CNN interview.
Since returning to the White House earlier this year, the Trump administration has launched an overhaul of the US visa system, part of what officials describe as an effort to root out individuals sympathetic to terrorism or those espousing antisemitic views. The sweeping measures include expanded social media vetting for new applicants, continuous monitoring of the 55 million current visa holders, and the revocation of thousands of student visas.
Panels at this week’s conference in Detroit will touch on subjects such as US military aid, legal accountability, and grassroots organizing, all presented through an anti-Israel lens, according to the event website.