Israel won’t accept the presence of Turkish armed forces in Gaza under a US plan to end war in the Palestinian territory for good, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Monday.

US President Donald Trump’s plan includes an international force in Gaza to help secure a fragile ceasefire which began this month, halting two years of war between Israel and Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.

But it remains unclear whether Arab and other states will be ready to commit troops to the international force. “Countries that want or are ready to send armed forces should be at least fair to Israel,” Saar said at a news conference in Budapest.

Once warm Turkish-Israeli relations soured drastically during the Gaza war, with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan lambasting Israel‘s air and ground campaign in the Palestinian enclave and even threatening an invasion of the Jewish state.

“Turkey, led by Erdogan, led a hostile approach against Israel,” Saar said, speaking alongside his Hungarian counterpart Peter Szijjarto. “So, it is not reasonable for us to let their armed forces enter the Gaza Strip and we will not agree to that, and we said it to our American friends,” Saar said.

While the Trump administration has ruled out sending US soldiers into the Gaza Strip, it has been speaking to Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, and Azerbaijan to contribute to the multinational force.

Last week Netanyahu hinted that he would be strongly opposed to any role for Turkish security forces in Gaza. On Sunday, he said Israel would decide which foreign forces to allow in Gaza.

“We are in control of our security, and we have also made it clear regarding international forces that Israel will determine which forces are unacceptable to us, and this is how we operate and will continue to operate,” Netanyahu said.

“This is, of course, acceptable to the United States as well, as its most senior representatives have expressed in recent days,” he told a session of his cabinet.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, on a visit to Israel aimed at shoring up the truce, said on Friday the international force would have to be made up of “countries that Israel‘s comfortable with.” He made no comment on Turkish involvement.

Rubio added that Gaza’s future governance still needed to be worked out among Israel and partner nations but could not include Hamas.

Rubio later said that US officials were receiving input on a possible UN resolution or international agreement to authorize the multinational force in Gaza and would discuss the issue in Qatar, a key Gulf mediator on Gaza, on Sunday.

Turkey and Qatar are both key, long-time backers of Hamas.

A major challenge to Trump’s plan is that Hamas has balked at disarming. Since the ceasefire took hold two weeks ago as the first stage of Trump’s 20-point plan, Hamas has waged a violent crackdown on clans that have tested its grip on power.

At the same time, the remains of 13 deceased hostages remain in Gaza with Hamas citing obstacles to locating them in the pervasive rubble left by the fighting.

An Israeli government spokesperson said on Sunday Hamas, which released the remaining 20 living hostages it took in its Oct. 7, 2023, assault, knew where the bodies were.

“Israel is aware that Hamas knows where our deceased hostages are, in fact, located. If Hamas made more of an effort, they would be able to retrieve the remains of our hostages,” the spokesperson said.

Israel had, however, allowed the entry of an Egyptian technical team to work with the Red Cross to locate the bodies. She said the team would use excavator machines and trucks for the search beyond the so-called yellow line in Gaza behind which Israeli troops have initially pulled back under Trump’s plan.

Netanyahu began the cabinet session by stressing Israel was an independent country, rejecting the notion that “the American administration controls me and dictates Israel‘s security policy.” Israel and the US, he said, are a “partnership.”

When politicians speak out about Israel, antisemitism, or the Holocaust, what they omit can matter as much as what they say. In the digital arena, where nuance collapses within seconds, ambiguity often becomes ammunition.

The case of New York politician Zohran Mamdani, a progressive rising star who will likely become the mayor of New York City, illustrates this dynamic vividly. His statements about Israel, antisemitism, and the war in Gaza have sparked heated debate — not only for their content, but for the way strategic ambiguity allows them to be interpreted in starkly different ways.

Our research analyzed Mamdani’s rhetoric across multiple platforms — from television interviews to TikTok and YouTube — and traced how his words were reframed by influencers and audiences online.

The findings reveal how ambiguous political language can fuel polarization, distort Holocaust memory, and invite antisemitic readings that the speaker may never have intended.

The Power — and Peril — of Ambiguity

Ambiguity functions as a rhetorical strategy: it allows politicians to gesture in several directions at once, offering different audiences the interpretations they prefer. This flexibility provides plausible deniability, yet also creates an opening for distortion and hate.

Mamdani’s communication style is a textbook case. His remarks on Israel and antisemitism frequently hover between empathy and insinuation, critique and deflection — giving the impression of moral seriousness while avoiding clear commitments.

The effect is twofold: admirers see courage and compassion; critics see evasion and coded hostility. But the real consequences emerge online, where ambiguous statements are picked up by content creators, reframed through ideological lenses, and amplified to millions — often in ways that intensify division and resentment.

Omissions That Speak Volumes

Following Hamas’ October 7, 2023 massacre, in which terrorists murdered 1,200 Israelis and abducted more than 250, Mamdani issued a statement that conspicuously omitted any mention of Hamas or its victims.

Instead, he accused the Israeli government of preparing a “second Nakba.”

Such omissions are not neutral. In political communication, what is left unsaid shapes interpretation just as powerfully as explicit statements. By focusing solely on Israel’s alleged actions, Mamdani’s message erased the context of terrorism and Jewish suffering — effectively reframing a massacre as an act of “resistance.”

This pattern continued in later comments. Mamdani publicly repeated claims — later shown by independent investigations to be caused by a misfired Palestinian rocket — that Israel had bombed the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza and that pro-Israel students at New York protests had used “chemical weapons.” Both claims spread rapidly online before being debunked. Yet even after corrections, the emotional narrative — Israel as aggressor, Jews as oppressors — remained intact.

When asked about these inaccuracies, Mamdani rarely corrected himself. Instead, he shifted attention to alleged efforts to silence him. In one speech, he attacked the lobbying group AIPAC as “undermining American democracy.” In the version later posted to his social media, that line was quietly edited out — an omission that further invited speculation and conspiratorial readings.

The pattern is consistent: statements are made, outrage follows, then a revised version appears — leaving both supporters and detractors to project their own meanings onto the ambiguity.

Reframing and Decontextualization

Much of Mamdani’s rhetorical power lies in reframing contentious slogans. During debates and interviews, he defended the chant “From the River to the Sea” as an expression of “universal human emancipation,” detaching it from its historic associations with the destruction of Israel. Likewise, when confronted about the slogan “Globalize the Intifada,” he called it “a call for justice,” likening it to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

In the Bulwark podcast, he cited the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s translation of “intifada” as “uprising” — implying moral equivalence between Jewish resistance during the Holocaust and Palestinian militancy today. Such analogies, presented as scholarly nuance, flatten historical distinctions and convert Holocaust memory into a tool of political comparison.

This decontextualization serves two purposes: it universalizes Jewish suffering (suggesting it belongs equally to all oppressed peoples) and downplays antisemitic violence within the Palestinian movement.

The result is a moral narrative where Jewish trauma becomes a universal metaphor, detached from Jewish history — a rhetorical move with deep emotional resonance and troubling implications.

“Right to Exist” — With Conditions

Mamdani’s statements about Israel’s right to exist are similarly ambivalent. On The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, he affirmed support for Israel “as long as it abides by international law” — a condition that effectively renders recognition provisional. In a later debate, he reiterated that Israel has “a right to exist” but declined to say “as a Jewish state,” instead describing a hypothetical state “with equal rights.”

These formulations sound reasonable, but they subtly shift the premise: from defending Israel’s right to exist as the world’s only Jewish homeland — a right enshrined after the Holocaust — to questioning the legitimacy of Jewish self-determination altogether.

Such framing enables both deniability (“I said they have a right to exist”) and accusation (“but they are violating it”).

How Digital Amplification Works

Our team analyzed hundreds of YouTube and TikTok videos discussing Mamdani’s remarks, focusing on content creators with large followings such as Hasan Piker, Kyle Kulinski, Sam Seder, Guy Christensen, and Vaush.

Across these channels, we coded the creators’ framing of Mamdani’s rhetoric and examined the first 200 comments per video.

The pattern was unmistakable: ambiguity in Mamdani’s statements invited radical amplification online. Influencers portrayed him as a victim of “smears,” “Islamophobia,” and “AIPAC propaganda.”

In turn, comment sections erupted into open antisemitic conspiracy theories.

1. Denial and Inversion

Creators like Piker dismissed accusations of antisemitism as “fake nonsense,” claiming they were “weapons” to silence pro-Palestinian voices. Commenters echoed this denial, insisting that “antisemitism is a made-up shield” and calling the Anti-Defamation League the “Apartheid Defense League.”

This rhetorical inversion — portraying those who identify antisemitism as aggressors — transforms legitimate concern into alleged oppression. It blurs the line between defending free speech and trivializing hate.

2. Competing Victimhood

Another recurring pattern was reversal of victimhood. Influencers framed criticism of Mamdani as evidence of Islamophobia, arguing that “Muslim politicians are automatically branded antisemitic.” In comment sections, this morphed into claims that Jewish concerns about antisemitism are “privileged” over Muslim experiences of discrimination.

This competitive framing pits minority groups against one another, eroding solidarity and obscuring the specific nature of antisemitism as a distinct, historically rooted form of hate.

3. Conspiracy and Servility Tropes

When Democratic leaders criticized Mamdani, content creators claimed they were “doing AIPAC’s bidding.” Commenters took this further: “The Zionists control every dimension of life,” one wrote. Others invoked classic antisemitic imagery — “Follow the $$$ … puppets of Israel” — or even violent fantasies, predicting Mamdani would be “JFK’d” if he continued defying “the lobby.”

These narratives recycle centuries-old myths of Jewish financial and political control, now reframed in the language of internet populism.

4. Normalizing Anti-Israel Rhetoric

Creators like Kulinski claimed Mamdani’s stance represented “mainstream Democratic opinion,” suggesting most Americans — even Jewish ones — share his criticisms of Israel. Commenters adopted this as fact, declaring that “the only thing Zionists fear is losing power.”

This normalization transforms hostility toward Israel into a marker of political authenticity. Within this logic, accusing someone of antisemitism becomes proof of their moral courage — a dynamic increasingly visible across progressive movements.

5. Holocaust Inversion and Dehumanization

The most alarming finding was the reversal of Holocaust imagery. Influencers compared Israel to Nazi Germany; commenters fused the terms into slurs like “Zionazi” or “Isra-heil.” Some even glorified violence, cloaking assassination fantasies in gaming metaphors: “Trump and Netanyahu in NY? Perfect 2-for-1 moment for the Mario Brothers.”

While such remarks may seem fringe, they accumulate into a broader culture of digital derision — a climate where violent and dehumanizing speech becomes normalized through humor, irony, or moral outrage.

From Ambiguity to Escalation

The progression across these layers — Mamdani’s original statements, influencers’ reinterpretations, and audience reactions — shows how strategic ambiguity can spiral into participatory hate.

1. Primary discourse: Mamdani’s words, open-ended and self-protective, avoid explicit antisemitism while enabling multiple readings.
2. Secondary discourse: Influencers reframe his critics as tools of oppression, inverting accusations and legitimizing resentment.
3. Tertiary discourse: Audiences collapse nuance entirely, producing overt antisemitic language and violent fantasies.

As meaning travels outward from the politician’s mouth to millions of screens, moral ambiguity collapses into moral abdication. This discursive spiral is not unique to Mamdani. It reflects a broader trend in digital politics, where rhetorical vagueness is weaponized by audiences seeking validation rather than understanding.

The Broader Challenge

Mamdani’s case highlights a growing dilemma for democracies: how to handle rhetoric that inflames division without crossing into illegal hate speech. Platforms and policymakers still struggle to address this “gray zone,” where statements remain technically permissible yet have corrosive downstream effects.

Democracy depends not only on freedom of speech but also on responsibility in speech. Politicians who wish to champion justice cannot outsource the meaning of their words to online mobs. Clarity is not censorship; it is accountability.

As the digital public sphere amplifies every utterance, the boundary between rhetoric and radicalization narrows. Mamdani’s example should serve as a warning: when ambiguity becomes a political habit, amplification becomes inevitable — and the cost is borne by those targeted in its echoes.

Dr. Matthias J. Becker is a Researcher in discourse studies at the University of Cambridge and New York University, and Research Lead at AddressHate. He directs the “Decoding Antisemitism” research project, which analyzes how antisemitic ideas spread in digital communication.

Gabrielle Beacken is a PhD student in Journalism and Media at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research focuses on propaganda, disinformation, and online antisemitism across social media and emerging technologies. She is a Research Assistant at the Center for Media Engagement’s Propaganda Research Lab. 

Liora Sabra is a PhD student in Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University. Her research explores antisemitism, Holocaust memory, and propaganda, focusing on definitional debates and their reflection in public discourse. She works at NYU’s Center for the Study of Antisemitism, contributing to research on prejudice and political communication.

A few days ago, I watched Haviv Rettig Gur respond on Instagram to a question I’ve been asked more times than I can count: “Didn’t the Jews use terrorism to drive out the British?”

Every pro-Israel advocate — and likely every proud Jew — has faced this question, usually delivered with a smirk. That little “gotcha” glint that implies moral equivalence: Your state was born out of terror, how dare you complain about buses being blown up and babies being murdered.

But the moral chasm between the Jewish fight against the British and Palestinian terrorism is not a matter of opinion or spin. It is moral and historical fact. The refusal to recognize that difference says far more about the questioner’s bias or ignorance than about Israel and how it gained independence.

Imperial Subjects and Stateless Refugees

When the British Empire seized control of the region called Palestine from the Ottomans in 1917, Jewish leaders saw them not as occupiers but as potential partners in restoring Jewish sovereignty. The Balfour Declaration had promised a “national home for the Jewish people” in part of what was then called Palestine — the historical Land of Israel — and the San Remo Conference of 1920 enshrined that promise in binding international law.

But within a few short years, Britain retreated from its commitments. London carved away three-quarters of the land that was meant for the Mandate to create a new Arab-only country called Transjordan, appointed the radical Haj Amin al-Husseini as Grand Mufti of Jerusalem — a man who would later collaborate with the Nazis — and, in 1939, on the eve of the Holocaust, issued its infamous White Paper, sealing the gates of the remaining quarter of Mandatory Palestine to Jewish immigration.

At the very moment Jews in Europe were facing extermination, Britain blocked their only escape route. The United States had already closed its doors; Canada, Argentina, Australia, and nearly every other nation followed suit. As Hitler’s armies advanced, Jews had nowhere to go.

Fighting an Empire With Nowhere to Go

By 1945, roughly 250,000 Jewish survivors remained trapped on German soil, living in displaced-person camps — many in former concentration camps. The world by then largely knew about the horror of the Holocaust and still left them stateless. Only in May 1948, when Israel declared independence, did those camps finally begin to empty.

People often say the Jews “kicked the British out.” The truth is more complex. Britain’s empire was already collapsing; the loss of India made Palestine an even more expensive burden. But the Jewish undergrounds — particularly the Irgun and Lehi — hastened Britain’s withdrawal.

Their campaign was fierce but targeted. They targeted railways, communications, and military installations — not civilians. Their message was simple: Go home.

The King David Hotel bombing in 1946 — endlessly cited by Israel’s detractors — was aimed at the British military and intelligence headquarters for all of Palestine and Transjordan. Civilians tragically died, including Jews and Arabs, but the target was military. Crucially, the Irgun phoned in a warning to evacuate. The British ignored it.

Menachem Begin, who led the Irgun, was devastated by the civilian deaths. That reaction matters. It shows the moral line the Jewish fighters recognized — a line no Palestinian faction, from the PLO to Hamas, has ever cared to draw.

The Lesson the Palestinians Haven’t Learned

Imagine if Palestinians had followed that same model — if their fight had been confined to soldiers and military targets. Instead, since the 1950s, Palestinian terrorism has centered on murdering civilians as a deliberate strategy: to terrorize, to try and make Jewish life unbearable, and to drive Jews from their homeland.

From the Ma’ale Akrabim massacre in 1954 to the airline hijackings of the 1970s, from suicide bombings in the 1990s to the atrocities of October 7, the goal has remained constant — not self-determination but the mass murder of civilians to break a people’s will.

During the Second Intifada, 140+ suicide bombings ripped through Israeli buses, cafés, and markets. These attacks weren’t meant to change borders; they were meant to destroy coexistence itself.

The Moral Core — and the Fatal Misreading

As Haviv Rettig Gur observed, the Jews who fought the British never sought Britain’s destruction; they sought Israel’s rebirth. That distinction — between fighting for freedom and fighting for annihilation — is the essential moral divide.

It’s why Israel built a democracy while Gaza’s rulers built a cult of death. It’s why Jewish leaders accepted the 1937 and 1947 partition plans, choosing half a loaf over endless war, while the Mandate’s Arab leaders — led by the Mufti who sided with Hitler — rejected both.

When the Palestinian Authority, Fatah, and Hamas gained control of territory, they didn’t try to build a state; they built repression, corruption, and terror infrastructure. Jewish leaders, by contrast, used the small strip of land they held after the War of Independence in 1948 to build a thriving democracy.

The Zionist militias before 1948 understood something Palestinian leaders never have: the British were foreign rulers who could leave. The Jews are indigenous and will not. Israelis are not “colonizers” in any part of the historic Land of Israel. They are a people who reclaimed sovereignty and self-determination in their ancestral home.

Any Palestinian leadership that continues to see Jews as the British in 1939 — as temporary outsiders to be expelled — guarantees only endless conflict. Israel’s founders fought not merely for survival, but to restore moral agency and national self-respect after 2,000 years of exile and persecution – in both Arab and European controlled lands. That is the revolution Palestinians have never attempted — the decision to undertake nation-building instead of defining it by someone else’s destruction.

The Moral Ledger of History

Today, when many Western academics and activists equate Jewish efforts to end British imperial rule with Hamas’ slaughter of civilians, they expose their own moral illiteracy. They flatten history until those who targeted soldiers are equated with those who butcher children in pizza parlors and buses.

But history keeps receipts.

One side sought life. The other glorified destruction.

That is the difference between a revolt and terrorism — and it’s a difference the world ignores at its peril.

For peace ever to be possible, Israelis must have real reasons to believe Palestinians no longer see them as the British of 1939 — but as a permanent, indigenous people who are not going anywhere.

Micha Danzig is an attorney, former IDF soldier, and former NYPD officer. He writes widely on Israel, antisemitism, and Jewish history and serves on the board of Herut North America.