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Will the Gaza War Produce Better Palestinian Leadership?

A militant fires a rocket launcher during what Hamas says is an engagement with its fighters during a battle with Israeli forces amid Israel’s ground offensive in a location given as near Beit Hanoun, Gaza, in this still image taken from video released November 17, 2023. Hamas Military Wing/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo

Who should control Gaza after the major combat stops? Can new, better Palestinian leaders be empowered? This is debatable.

One school of thought is that the Palestinians cannot do much better than the men (they are all men) who dominate the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank. Secretary of State Blinken implies this view by insisting on a PA role in governing Gaza on the “day after.”

Another school of thought is more hopeful, or in any event more ambitious. It sees the Gaza war as a chance for Palestinians, with outside help, to make a quantum-leap improvement in their politics and society.

There will inevitably be large sums of reconstruction aid donated by Western countries and perhaps also Gulf Arab states. Whichever Palestinians are given power to spend that aid will, for that reason alone, become politically influential.

The United States can help arrange to channel the aid through a body whose governors would include Palestinians committed to conditions set by the donors. The main conditions could be radical but hard to argue against: (1) don’t steal the funds, (2) civilian projects only and (3) don’t promote hatred of Israel or the donor countries. There could also be more specific guidance — for example, construct permanent housing rather than rebuild “refugee camps,” and require schools to promote non-violent resolution of disputes rather than extremism. This would be the opposite of the approach taken for 75 years by the UN agency for Palestinian relief (UNRWA), which has dedicated itself to perpetuating the war against Israel.

Palestinians agreeing to administer the reconstruction would need security for themselves and their families, who might have to be removed to safe places abroad. The current Palestinian leadership would see them as political rivals, indeed enemies.

The Gaza war is a major historical event, and donors can set goals accordingly. They need not be content to aim for minor reforms of current institutions. Rather, they can pursue serious improvement in the political culture. The benefits could be large. In any event, there is no harm in trying to move substantially beyond the status quo.

Working with Israelis, Saudis, Emiratis, Bahrainis, Egyptians, and representatives of major aid donors such as Canada, the EU, and Japan, US officials can identify competent, well-intentioned Palestinians and organize security for them. The reality is that a random set of Palestinian business people would likely do a better job than the leaders now in power.

The aid donors can draw on the talents of Palestinian engineers, medical doctors, and lawyers, especially Palestinians who have lived in the West and know first-hand the benefits of living under the rule of law. What is crucial is that the new administrators not come from the ranks of the PLO (which runs the PA), Hamas, or other terrorist or extremist groups. The existing political institutions are the problem, not the solution.

There are capable Palestinians who are not ideologically extreme. The aid donors’ challenge is to recruit those who might have the courage, integrity, and ability to spend future aid money properly. It bears repeating that this means using the aid to buy not explosives, rockets, and tunnels for terrorist attacks, but apartment buildings, sanitation systems, power plants, and financial support for farms and factories. It should finance schools that teach useful skills, rather than indoctrinating kids to become martyrs in hopes of destroying Israel and the West.

The Palestinian people have never had such leadership. They have never benefited as they should from the billions of aid dollars donated to help them. And the aid donors — shamefully — have never before actually insisted that their funds be spent properly.

Would the newly empowered Palestinians have legitimacy? Not at first, but no Palestinian leader now has a democratic mandate. The issue is not democracy but effective, relatively humane administration. New leaders may garner support if they use the aid to improve their people’s lives, without enriching themselves or provoking war with Israel.

Helping better leaders arise would serve not only Palestinian interests but also those of the United States and much of the world. The effort may not succeed. But if it doesn’t, the current leaders will remain in power. The Palestinians will continue to suffer ill-government without a realistic hope of statehood. Though President Biden often talks of a “two-state solution,” there’s not even a glimmer of a chance of that outcome under existing Palestinian political circumstances.

It is hard to overstate the significance of bad leadership. For over 100 years, violent, self-serving authoritarians have failed the Palestinian Arabs, producing neither general prosperity nor statehood, but only endless unsuccessful war against the Jews.

It is telling that the main Palestinian leaders sided with the Turks in World War I, the Nazis in World War II, the Soviets in the Cold War, Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War, the jihadists after 9/11 and, most disastrously for themselves, with the anti-Zionists in the Arab-Jewish conflict over Palestine. The ideology, instincts, and reasoning of Palestinian leaders have always favored the wrong side, the losing side, the anti-democratic, anti-Western, anti-humane side. This has been a problem for the Israelis, but a calamity for the Palestinians.

From the 1920s till after World War II, Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini shaped and dominated Palestinian political culture. He used public funds corruptly to accumulate personal power and burned down the homes of Arab political opponents. He fomented anti-Jewish violence by promoting an ideology that combined Islamism, nationalism, and false conspiracy theories about Jewish plots to destroy Muslim holy places.

From the late 1960s till his death in 2004, Yasser Arafat ran the Palestine Liberation Organization and then the Palestinian Authority more or less in the Mufti’s style. He framed his rejection of Zionism as a matter of honor and ruled out any permanent compromise with Israel. In 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to recognize a Palestinian state in an area greater than 95% of the West Bank and Gaza. Arafat turned that offer down. He could have created a Palestinian state. He insisted instead on a Palestinian “right of return” that would have forced Israel to relinquish its Jewish majority.

From 2004 till now, PA President Mahmoud Abbas has also proven inflexible. In 2007-08, he refused to accept an Israeli peace offer similar to Barak’s. Yet Abbas is widely described as a “moderate,” which is true only in contrast to Hamas’ singular fanaticism.

The PA’s civil administration has always been chaotic, dictatorial, and corrupt. That is why Hamas, which at the time had no record of governing, won the 2006 Palestinian community-wide elections. Hamas was able to take control only in Gaza, however. The PA, still today in charge of the West Bank, remains unpopular, which is why there have been no elections since 2006.

Many of the millions of Palestinians are accomplished people who, under the right circumstances, could provide better leadership than Haj Amin, Arafat, or Abbas has done. It’s a low bar. What can be done to help decent people hurdle it?

Gaza war convulsions are making possible changes in the political landscape that did not seem possible beforehand. The opportunity should not be frittered away on small-beer initiatives to try to reform the PA. Considerations of humanity and peace combine here with considerations of security and US national interests. The Biden administration would advance US interests if it tried to empower a new Palestinian governing class untainted by corruption and ideological extremism.

Douglas J. Feith, a senior fellow at Hudson Institute, served as Under Secretary of Defense in the George W. Bush administration. A version of this article was published on February 13, 2024, by The Free Press. 

The post Will the Gaza War Produce Better Palestinian Leadership? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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US Moves Patriot Missile Batteries from South Korea to Middle East

A Patriot missile battery. Photo: IDF.

i24 NewsAmerican Patriot missile defense batteries will be moved from South Korea to the Middle East, according to reports in Asian media on Friday, amid speculation over a potential military action against Iran’s nuclear program and escalating bombardments of Iran-backed jihadists in Yemen.

US President Donald Trump threatened Iran on Sunday with bombing and secondary tariffs if Tehran did not come to an agreement with Washington over its nuclear program, and the United States has moved additional warplanes into the region.

Washington and Seoul have reportedly recently agreed on the “monthslong” partial deployment of the Patriot Advanced Capability-3, in what is understood to be the first known case involving the relocation of United States Forces Korea (USFK) assets to the Middle East.

Iran in recent years has largely dropped the pretense of enriching uranium for a civilian atomic energy program, as it’s reportedly teetering on the nuclear precipice. Israel believes that a nuclear Iran represents a grave existential threat, consistent with the exterminationist antisemitism of the Islamic Republic’s anti-Israel rhetoric.

After the election of Trump, a known Iran hawk, the likelihood of an U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities has increased precipitously.

The post US Moves Patriot Missile Batteries from South Korea to Middle East first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Report: Iranian Plot to Assassinate Azerbaijani Rabbi Foiled

The Azerbaijani capital of Baku. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

i24 NewsIran enlisted the services of a Georgian drug trafficker to carry out an assassination of a prominent Azerbaijani rabbi, the Washington Post reported Saturday, citing security officials.

The plot to murder Rabbi Shneor Segal, foiled by the State Security Service of Azerbaijan in early January, also involved a plan to attack a Jewish education center, the officials said.

The plot was set in motion by an officer with Iran’s Quds Force, who met with Georgian criminal Agil Aslanov, handing him a photo of Segal and detailed instructions on how to murder him, the officials cited by WaPo said. Aslanov’s fee for the foiled hit was $200,000.

The State Security Service said the two men “worked to collect information about a member of a religious community, and sent the location of his residence and workplace to a representative of a foreign special service agency via the appropriate mobile phone application.”

Iran is known to be behind multiple plots against Israeli and Jewish targets, many of which have been foiled by Israeli and foreign security services.

However a recent plot saw three citizens of Uzbekistan murder an Israeli rabbi in the United Arab Emirates on Iranian orders. The three were sentenced to death earlier this week for the murder of Zvi Kogan in November.

The post Report: Iranian Plot to Assassinate Azerbaijani Rabbi Foiled first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Netanyahu to Depart for Washington on Sunday Directly from Hungary to Meet with Trump

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a joint press conference with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem, Feb. 16, 2025. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool via REUTERS

i24 NewsIsrael’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will depart to Washington DC on Sunday directly from Hungary—where he is presently on an official visit—to meet with US President Donald Trump, i24NEWS learned on Saturday from an Israeli source.

The visit comes following a phone conversation between the leaders on Friday, and a call with State Secretary Marco Rubio a short while ago.

As a result, the planned visit to Washington of Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz will be postponed once again.

Topics of discussion between the two leaders are expected to include the possible military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities, the Gaza war and the future of the war-ravaged Palestinian enclave, the US bombing campaign against Iran-backed Houthi jihadists in Yemen, and the recent imposition of tariffs on Israeli products.

The post Netanyahu to Depart for Washington on Sunday Directly from Hungary to Meet with Trump first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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