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JD Vance just made a critical error in Israel — and time to curb Hamas is running short
The arrival of Vice President JD Vance in Israel on Tuesday was, in one sense, encouraging. Vance’s presence, with presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, signaled that the United States remains focused on the Gaza endgame. That message of engagement was right, as was the trio’s repeated message that Hamas must disarm.
But something essential was very much wrong. There was no sign that the U.S. understands what it will actually take to bring Hamas to heel.
Vance, Witkoff and Kushner’s rhetoric was managerial, not martial. It conveyed commitment without urgency. The measured tones implicit in the warnings that “time” and “hard work” are needed betrayed a deeper failure to grasp what the moment demands. Because words will not disarm Hamas — the single step most necessary to any effort to create a lasting peace.
Now is not the moment for carefully explaining how complex disarmament would be. It’s the moment for applying all possible pressure to get that disarmament done. If this does not occur soon, President Donald Trump’s peace plan will not just fall apart but become a joke. The best-case scenario would be the embarrassment of a prematurely declared victory. The worst would be an echo of Neville Chamberlain proclaiming “peace in our time” amid the failed effort to appease Hitler in the run-up to World War II.
As soon as the firing ceased, Hamas began consolidating power, publicly slaughtering members of rival groups by the dozen. These are not the actions of a group that intends to move forward in accordance with Trump’s plan, which calls for its disarmament and removal from all governance.
Rather, these are the actions of a group that thinks it has achieved what it has wanted: to remain standing at the end of the war, and thus be able to claim victory and validation. True, it is standing atop the smoldering ruins left by two years of death and devastation, but its leaders are indifferent to that cost. Indeed, they likely even see it as valuable in bringing global condemnation upon Israel.
If the U.S. is serious about ending this war on terms that deny Hamas any path back to power, it must respond to Hamas by replacing rhetoric with leverage. What is needed now is not patience but a dramatic and public escalation of pressure — a demonstration that Washington is prepared to wield the world’s biggest baseball bat until Hamas yields.
The U.S. should start by declaring, publicly and unequivocally, that no reconstruction money or aid will enter Gaza while any part of it remains under Hamas control. That is the red line, and it must be enforced, not implied. It’s essential to take every step possible to show Hamas that the material and political costs of them keeping their guns substantially outweigh any benefits.
Next, the U.S. must move beyond gentle urging and demand action by the three Arab states that matter most: Qatar, Turkey and Egypt. Each has in some way helped to sustain Hamas, and each depends heavily on American goodwill. Washington should insist on deliverables — that the countries freeze accounts affiliated with Hamas, expel Hamas operatives and make public commitments to choke off support — and couple them with clear consequences for failure. If these governments want continued partnership, they must help end Hamas’s reign.
Vance’s Tuesday appearance set an underwhelming precedent for any of these actions.
The time is running short for the U.S. to establish a blunt public posture. That stance is the only one with a shot at conveying to Hamas that, if they don’t comply, war will, unfortunately and inevitably, resume.
I say this as someone who opposed the war’s continuation. But the truth is that the enormous moral and political costs already paid cannot justify an outcome in which Gaza is still ruled by armed fanatics. The sunk cost of this campaign demands a decisive outcome: a territory free of Hamas’s guns.
The American envoys, to their credit, repeated that objective. Yet they sounded like negotiators, not enforcers.
That same error has proved costly for this administration before. After the June war in which Israel — and then the U.S. — crippled Iran’s nuclear and missile program, Tehran was momentarily staggered and diplomatically isolated. That was the moment to extract concessions: a formal rollback of uranium enrichment, an end to proxy militia funding and real limits on missile development.
Instead, Trump bombastically claimed victory and moved on. Within weeks, Iran had resumed its patterns of defiance, with its leaders rejecting negotiations over the nuclear program with the U.S. and backing out of a recent cooperation deal with the United Nations nuclear watchdog IAEA.
His team can’t make the same mistake twice. It’s time for them to employ substantial U.S. leverage against the Arab states that can help keep things on course. Qatar hosts the region’s largest U.S. air base and holds hundreds of billions in American investments. Turkey is a NATO ally angling for defense deals and financial relief. Egypt’s military depends on U.S. aid. None can afford sustained friction with Washington. The time for polite persuasion has passed.
This is a binary moment. Either Hamas disarms and Gaza rebuilds under international supervision, or it clings to its weapons and condemns the territory to perpetual siege. There is no middle ground. Each week of drift lets the group rearm, recruit, and rewrite the narrative, emerging from the rubble and calling survival victory.
The habit of claiming credit before closing the deal — the instinct to declare progress rather than enforce it — haunts this administration. It is now offering a lifeline to Hamas. It must take pains to ensure that history does not record that the U.S. — amid risibly premature pomp and circumstance — turned what could have been a positive ending into yet another prelude for war.
The post JD Vance just made a critical error in Israel — and time to curb Hamas is running short appeared first on The Forward.
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Leader of Lithuanian Government Party Found Guilty of Hatred Against Jews
Dawn of Nemunas Party leader Remigijus Zemaitaitis attends a press conference after general election in Vilnius, Lithuania, Oct. 28, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ints Kalnins
A Lithuanian court found the leader of a junior party in the ruling coalition government on Thursday guilty of incitement to hatred against Jews and belittling the Holocaust in social media posts in 2023.
Remigijus Zemaitaitis, founder of the populist Nemunas Dawn, was fined 5,000 euros ($5,835) for falsely accusing the Jewish people, as a group, of historical crimes, encouraging hostility, and strengthening negative stereotypes, the court said.
“[Zemaitaitis] publicly mocked and despised Jewish people and incited hatred against the Jewish community” in social media, the Vilnius Regional Court said in its ruling.
It said he had also used “language that is degrading, derogatory to human dignity, and which incites hostility on ethnic grounds.”
Zemaitaitis has denied any wrongdoing. He told the BNS news agency on Thursday that he considered the verdict politically motivated and that he would appeal.
After resigning from parliament over the issue in April 2024, Zemaitaitis was re-elected in October of that year and his party, Nemunas Dawn, joined the new coalition government led by the Social Democrats. He is not himself a government minister.
Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene, whose three-party coalition has a slim majority in Lithuania’s parliament, told reporters she had not yet read the verdict.
Her Social Democratic Party said in a statement it respected the court’s ruling, while noting the decision was not yet final.
Thousands gathered at the parliament in Vilnius in November 2024 and again in August this year to protest against Nemunas Dawn’s inclusion in the government.
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Israel Strikes Hezbollah Targets in Two South Lebanon Towns
People inspect a damaged site after Israel’s military said it struck targets in two southern Lebanese towns on Thursday, in Jbaa southern Lebanon, Dec. 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ali Hankir
Israel‘s military said it struck targets in two southern Lebanese towns on Thursday after ordering the evacuation of two buildings it alleged were being used by Hezbollah terrorists.
About an hour after the initial warning, the army’s Arabic spokesperson issued another notice instructing residents of buildings in two other towns to leave.
The strikes came a day after Israel and Lebanon sent civilian envoys to a committee overseeing a fragile ceasefire agreed a year ago that both sides have accused the other of breaking.
The envoys would broaden the scope of talks between the long-time adversaries, both sides said.
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Anti-Hamas Gazan Clan Leader Reported Killed
Leader of the Popular Forces Yasser Abu Shabab and his deputy Ghassan Al-Duhaini stand next to armed men in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, in this screenshot taken from a video released on Nov. 18, 2025. Photo: Yasser Abu Shabab/Popular Forces via REUTERS
The head of an armed Palestinian faction that opposes Hamas in Gaza has been killed, Israeli media reported on Thursday, in what would be a blow to Israeli efforts to support Gazan clans against the ruling Islamist terror group.
Yasser Abu Shabab, a Bedouin tribal leader based in Israeli-held Rafah in southern Gaza, has led the most prominent of several small anti–Hamas groups that became active in Gaza during the war that began more than two years ago.
His death would be a boost to Hamas, which has branded him a collaborator and ordered its fighters to kill or capture him.
There was no immediate word about Abu Shabab’s status on the Facebook page of his group, the Popular Forces.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged in June that Israel had armed anti–Hamas clans, though Israel has announced few other details of the policy since then.
RAFAH SECURITY SWEEP
Abu Shabab’s group has continued to operate from areas of Gaza controlled by Israeli forces since a US-backed ceasefire between Hamas and Israel was agreed in October.
Rafah has been the scene of some of the worst violence during the ceasefire. Residents had reported gunbattles there on Wednesday, and Israel said four of its soldiers were wounded there. The Israeli military said on Thursday its forces had killed some 40 Hamas terrorists trapped in tunnels below Rafah.
On Nov. 18, Abu Shabab’s group posted a video showing dozens of fighters receiving orders from his deputy to launch a security sweep to “clear Rafah of terror,” an apparent reference to Hamas fighters believed to be holed up there.
Abu Shabab’s death was reported by Israeli media including Kan, Israel’s public broadcaster, citing a security source.
Israel’s Army Radio, also citing a security source, said he had died in Soroka hospital in southern Israel of unspecified wounds, but the hospital soon denied he had been admitted there.
The reports did not say when he died or how he received the reported wounds.
RAFAH ADMINISTRATION
An Israeli government spokesperson declined to comment on the reports. Hamas had no comment, its Gaza spokesperson said.
Israel’s policy of backing anti–Hamas clans took shape as it pressed the Gaza offensive against the group, aiming to end its rule of the coastal strip in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on communities in southern Israel.
In an article published in the Wall Street Journal in July, Abu Shabab – a member of the Tarabin Bedouin tribe – said his group had established its own administration in the Rafah area and urged US and Arab support to recognize and support it.
Abu Shabab’s group has denied being backed by Israel.
Netanyahu said in June that Israel’s backing for Gazan clans was a good thing that had saved the lives of Israeli soldiers.
But the policy has also drawn criticism from some in Israel who have said such groups can provide no real alternative to Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since 2007.
CONTROVERSIAL POLICY
“The writing was on the wall. Whether he was killed by Hamas or in some clan infighting, it was obvious that it would end this way,” Michael Milshtein, a former Israeli military intelligence officer at the Moshe Dayan Center in Tel Aviv, told Reuters.
Several other anti–Hamas groups have emerged in areas of Gaza held by Israel. Palestinian political analyst Reham Owda said that Abu Shabab’s death would fuel doubts among them about their “ability to challenge Hamas.”
US President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan foresees Hamas disarming and the enclave run by a transitional authority supported by a multi-national stabilization force. But progress has appeared slow, with Hamas so far refusing to disarm and no sign of agreement on the formation of the international force.
Hamas has accused Abu Shabab of looting UN aid trucks during the war. Abu Shabab’s group has denied this, saying it has protected and escorted aid.