The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.
From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."
In an interview with the Post, UN Ambassador Danny Danon said that it was "very sad to see serious leaders taking part in this circus."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu reacts at a joint press conference with U.S. Secretary of
State Marco Rubio (not pictured) at the Prime Minister's Office, during
Rubio's visit, in Jerusalem, September 15, 2025(photo credit: REUTERS)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clarified that Israel’s response to the Sunday recognition of a Palestinian state by several Western countries will be decided only after he returns from the United States next week.
“The
response to attempts to impose terror states in the heart of our land
will be given after my return from the US," the prime minister said.
“There will be no Palestinian state west of the Jordan River.”
Israeli
officials claim that in conversations with senior American officials -
including during US Secretary of State Rubio’s visit last week - the
American administration did not restrict Israel’s possible steps in
response to the recognition of a Palestinian state.
“The
American message was clear: if there is a unilateral recognition, you
can take unilateral steps,” two sources familiar with the discussions
told The Jerusalem Post.
One
of the sources noted that there was no detailed discussion of what
exactly Israel might annex, but rather deliberations over several
options - one of which is the annexation of the Jordan Valley.
Israel's
Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, addresses delegates at
the United Nations General Assembly before a vote on the Question of
Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution, at U.N.
headquarters in New York City, US, September 12, 2025. (credit:
REUTERS/EDUARDO MUNOZ)
Danny Danon slams trilateral recognition of Palestine
Ambassador
to the UN Danny Danon dismissed the recognition of a Palestinian state
by Britain, Canada, and Australia as a “hollow declaration.”
“It is very sad to see serious leaders taking part in this circus,” Danon said in an interview with the Post.
“We
know their true motivation for this move, and they know they will
change nothing. Worse still, this is support for Hamas. Everyone
understands that in order to move forward, the hostages must first be
returned and Hamas destroyed.”
Danon also argued against the possibility that, following the recognitions, Palestine could become a full UN member state.
“This
will not happen. Such a move requires the approval of the Security
Council, and the United States will veto it. Therefore, it will not
change anything on the ground - it will only be another virtual victory
for the Palestinians.”
Israel
is also considering additional responses and measures against countries
that recognize Palestine as a state, including the closure of foreign
missions belonging to those countries - some of which deal with
Palestinian Authority affairs.
The
possibility of expelling foreign diplomats and halting joint projects
is also being examined, according to an Israeli official.
Pushing for a two-state solution now is unmoored from reality, as Palestinians have shown no ability or willingness to run a peaceful entity alongside Israel.
Australia and Palestine.(photo credit: SHUTTERSTOCK)
As
Israelis sit down this evening for their Rosh Hashanah meal, dipping
apples in honey for a sweet year, a UN conference on the eve of the General Assembly’s opening will be unfolding – one that promises to leave a bitter taste in the country’s collective mouth.
Co-chaired
by Saudi Arabia and France, the conference is titled the “High-Level
International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of
Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution.” For the
first time, several Western democracies – led by France – are expected
to recognize a Palestinian state. Britain, Canada, and Australia already did so on Sunday.
That
these countries are prepared to recognize a nonexistent Palestinian
state is a mistake. It will do nothing to promote peace in the region
and will instead give a tailwind to the terrorists and Islamic
extremists who carried out the October 7 massacre.
However
Paris and London try to spin it, the takeaway on the Palestinian street
will be clear: 32 years after the signing of the Oslo Accords
– which state that Palestinian statehood would come only at the end of a
negotiated process – a Palestinian state, even a fictitious one, has
been delivered not through compromise, change, or negotiation, but
through brutal, mind-numbing terrorism.
In other words: Terrorism pays.
Canadian
Prime Minister Mark Carney, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese,
and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. (credit: Canva, LEON NEAL/POOL
VIA REUTERS, REUTERS/HOLLIE ADAMS, REUTERS/INTS KALNINS, SHUTTERSTOCK)The
message this sends to the Palestinians is simple: They need not
compromise or negotiate. What works is to unleash barbaric terrorism,
cry “genocide” when Israel responds, and then sit back and wait for the
French, British, and others to hand them a state.
But
this is an illusion. Declarations of statehood will not conjure a state
into existence if Israel is opposed. Israel controls the territory, and
unless it withdraws its troops, no “Palestine” is going to emerge.
Israel will not remove its troops if Palestinians don't change
And
Israel is not going to remove its troops – not now nor in the
foreseeable future – until there is a fundamental change in Palestinian
society.
Until
the Palestinians accept that the Jewish state is here to stay, that it
cannot be wished or fought away, and that their only option is to live
beside it rather than in place of it, no progress will be possible.
Moves
like the one at the UN do not bring that realization closer. They push
it further away. Rather than rushing to recognize a make-believe
Palestinian state, the world should be demanding Palestinian
deradicalization – not only in Gaza, where Hamas rules, but also in
Judea and Samaria, where support for the October 7 massacre is even
higher.
Peace,
as Oslo tragically demonstrated, is not made through declarations. In
1993, Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat signed an agreement, and much of
the world – including many in Israel – were foolhardy enough to believe
that was enough; that leaders sign a piece of paper, and peace flows
like a river.
It
doesn’t. Peace requires changes in mindset and behavior, neither of
which has emerged. The Palestinians responded to various generous offers
of statehood in the 1990s with the Second Intifada, and to the granting
of a Palestinian ministate in Gaza in 2005 with the October 7 massacre.
The
world, with its recognition of a Palestinian state, is now once again
going down the same rabbit hole – insisting that Palestinian violence
and terrorism are merely symptoms of statelessness. Give the
Palestinians a state, they say, and they will have no incentive to
murder Israelis.
There is absolutely no historical evidence to support that wishful thinking; the opposite is true.
Pushing
for a two-state solution now is unmoored from reality. After more than
30 years, the Palestinians have shown no ability – or willingness – to
run a peaceful entity alongside Israel, and Israelis have lost all
belief that the Palestinians even want to.
While
the world keeps pushing a two-state solution, Israelis have long soured
on the idea – not because their hearts have hardened or their minds
have closed, but because of bitter experience. Time and again, when
Israel gave up land – the premise of a two-state solution – that land
was not used to build Palestinian independence or prosperity but as a
launching pad to attack Israel.
France,
the UK, Canada, and Australia can say what they will. But without
Israel’s agreement, there will be no Palestinian state. And that
agreement will not come without a profound, sustained change in
Palestinian behavior and mindset.
All
the rest is just vacuous moral preening – grand declarations that may
win applause in London and Paris but do absolutely nothing to change the
reality on the ground in the Mideast.
Israel claims Egypt’s troop buildup and construction in Sinai breach the 1979 peace treaty, and has requested that the Trump administration intervene diplomatically.
Egyptian
soldiers stand in front of their tanks stationed on the Egyptian side
of the Rafah border crossing in Rafah on Jan. 19, 2025. Photo by Khaled
Desouki/AFP via Getty Images.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has requested that the Trump administration pressure Egypt to halt its military buildup
in the Sinai Peninsula, warning that it constitutes a violation of the
1979 U.S.-brokered Camp David Accords between Jerusalem and Cairo.
“In their meeting in Jerusalem on Monday,
Netanyahu presented to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio a series of
Egyptian activities in Sinai that, according to him, constitute
significant violations by Egypt of the peace agreement with Israel—a
treaty for which the U.S. has stood guarantor and served as its primary
sponsor,” Israeli journalist Barak Ravid reported in a Channel 12 article published online on Saturday.
בפגישתם בירושלים ביום שני, הציג נתניהו לשר החוץ האמריקני מרקו רוביו שורה של פעילויות מצריות בסיני שלדבריו מהוות הפרות מהותיות מצד מצרים של הסכם השלום עם ישראל - הסכם שארה"ב ערבה לו ומשמשת כנותנת החסות המרכזית לו https://t.co/3j6N476Vro
Israeli officials told Ravid that the
military buildup in the Sinai has become another point of tension as
Israel’s war against the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza approaches its second year.
Two senior Israeli officials said that the
Egyptians are establishing military infrastructure in the Sinai, some
of which could also be used for offensive purposes. According to the
long-standing peace deal, only light weaponry is permitted in these
areas. Israeli officials also said that Cairo has extended runways at
air force bases in the Sinai so they can be used by fighter jets and has
built underground facilities that, according to Israeli intelligence,
could be used to store missiles.
While the officials noted there is no
evidence that Egypt is actually storing missiles, “they claim that when
Israel approached them through diplomatic and military channels and
requested clarification, the Egyptians did not provide a satisfactory
explanation regarding their use of these facilities.”
Additionally, the Egyptian army’s force structure is significantly larger than what Jerusalem agreed to in talks last year.
Soldiers
man a post on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing with Gaza
in Rafah on Aug. 18, 2025. Photo by Khaled Desouki/AFP via Getty Images.
A senior official told Ravid that
Jerusalem approached Washington after direct talks with Cairo on the
issue failed to yield progress.
“What the Egyptians are doing in Sinai is
very serious and we are very concerned,” another Israeli official said,
adding that the situation has worsened since the U.S.-led multinational
observer force dramatically reduced its monitoring flights over the
territory.
An Egyptian official denied the Israeli
claim and said that the Trump administration has not raised the issue
with them. Ravid also cited an American official in his reporting.
Per the peace agreement, the Sinai was
divided into three areas to maintain a buffer zone and prevent
large-scale military buildup near the border with Israel. Area A,
closest to the Suez Canal and furthest from the Israeli border, allows
for the deployment of a full Egyptian division. Area B allows the
presence of Egyptian border guards with light weapons only. Area C,
adjacent to Israel and Gaza, is a demilitarized zone where only police
officers armed with light weapons are permitted.
Tensions between Israel and Egypt have
steadily escalated since Netanyahu returned to power in late 2022, with
little direct communication between him and Egyptian President Abdel
Fattah el-Sisi. Cairo fears that Israel intends to push Gaza’s
population into Sinai, a move it considers a threat to Egyptian national
security.
Egypt has reinforced its forces along the
Gaza border, warned against undermining the peace treaty and condemned
Israel’s recent military actions. In turn, Netanyahu has criticized
Egypt for refusing to take in Gazans.
The crisis deepened after Israel’s Sept. 9 strike
on Qatar, when Sisi publicly cautioned that Netanyahu was endangering
the Egypt-Israel peace agreement and warned against further regional
destabilization. Egyptian hints at building a joint Arab military force
have further heightened Israeli concerns.
According to a poll by the CRIF umbrella group of Jewish communities, 33% said they were opposed to any recognition "in the short time."
French
President Emmanuel Macron meets with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas
in Ramallah on Jan. 22, 2020. Photo by STR via Flash90.
Almost three in four French people oppose
French President Emmanuel Macron’s initiative to recognize a Palestinian
state at the United Nations this week.
According to a survey commissioned by the
CRIF umbrella organization of French Jewish communities and published on
Thursday, only 29% of French people support immediate recognition as
promoted by Macron.
Those who were in favor of an immediate
recognition only formed the majority among voters of the far-left La
France Insoumise Party, the survey found.
Among those who expressed opposition to
Macron’s initiative, 38% were in favor of recognizing “Palestine” only
after Hamas terrorists release the remaining 48 hostages and surrenders,
while 33% said they were opposed to any recognition “in the short
time.”
The survey was conducted by France’s Ifop polling agency on Sept. 3-4.
In an interview with Yonit Levi of Israel’s Channel 12
network that aired on Thursday, Macron accused Jerusalem of “completely
destroying the image and the credibility of Israel” in the war against
Hamas in Gaza.
“We have to recognize a legitimate right
of Palestinian people to have a state,” Macron told Levi, while claiming
that “recognizing a Palestinian state is just deciding to say: the
legitimate perspective of Palestinian people and what they suffer today
has nothing to do with Hamas.”
“The recognition of a Palestinian state is
the best way to isolate Hamas,” he said, calling the terrorist group’s
praise for his move “pure cynicism.”
“I don’t want to let them [have] the
monopoly of such a request because this is not true—what they want is to
destroy you,” he continued, adding that “there is no way” to build a
sustainable future if one says “that the Palestinian state would always
have the objective to destroy Israel.”
Macron praised Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas for pledging several reforms in response to the recognition proposal.
On Friday, Macron announced that the P.A.
had arrested a key suspect in a deadly antisemitic terrorist attack on a
restaurant in Paris in 1982, hailing the “excellent cooperation” with
Abbas in a social media post.
Macron and Abbas agreed to secure the
extradition of Hicham Harb, 70, who was detained in Judea and Samaria,
“as swiftly as possible,” he said.
Harb is suspected of masterminding the
Aug. 9, 1982 shooting attack on the Chez Jo Goldenberg eatery in Paris’s
historically Jewish Marais district, which left six people dead,
including two U.S. citizens.
Harb, who has been the subject of an
international arrest warrant for 10 years, led the 1982 shooting on
behalf of the Abu Nidal Organization terrorist faction, which was born
out of Abbas’s ruling Fatah party.
Macron said on Friday that his government
would “ensure” that Abbas’s stated commitment to peace would be upheld
after Paris’s recognition.
“This recognition is part of a
comprehensive peace plan for the region, aimed at meeting the
aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians for security and peace,”
the French leader wrote in his post. “France will continue to stand
alongside the Palestinian authorities on this path.”
U.S. Ambassador Charles Kushner responded
to the interview on Friday by noting that Paris had previously demanded
that the P.A. accept Israel as a Jewish state, move to demilitarize
Hamas, commit to peace talks and establish “real governance” in Judea,
Samaria and the Gaza Strip.
“These were France’s own conditions for
recognition of a Palestinian state. How can France move forward with
next week’s vote when none of these have been met?” Washington’s envoy
in Paris tweeted Friday.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee praised Kushner for “reminding France what they said!” in a response on X.
Meanwhile, Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.)
addressed “France, Senate Democrats or anyone” on X, writing that
recognizing “Palestine” is would “reward Hamas for killing and raping
over 1200 Israelis, and keeping hostages underground for two years.
“When Hamas is cheering for your decision, you really should reconsider your core values,” the pro-Israel senator tweeted.
Macron has led the initiative together
with Saudi Arabia to recognize a Palestinian state during the U.N.
meeting in New York this week. Israel and others have stated that such a
decision rewards Hamas for Oct. 7.
France’s Interior Ministry has ordered
local governments to oppose the display of Palestinian flags on town
halls and other public buildings in celebration of the recognition,
France’s AFP agency reported Friday.
“The principle of neutrality in public
service prohibits such displays,” the Interior Ministry wrote in an
order to local prefects, a copy of which was seen by AFP. The
warning came after Socialist leader Olivier Faure called for the flag to
be flown on town halls on Monday, when Jewish communities also
celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.
Charlie Kirk’s critics branded him “divisive,” but his defense of common-sense values made him a unifying voice for millions—until the Left sought to silence him.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is exercised that Charlie Kirk once said that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was “a mistake.”
Rep. Bennie Thompson sees AOC’s charge and raises it: “The fact is,” he said
in an official statement, “Charlie Kirk’s rhetoric was divisive,
disparaging, and too often rooted in grievance. The beliefs he
evangelized normalized fringe views on race, sex, and immigration.
Unfortunately, his rhetoric resurrected dangerous prejudices of a dark
past.”
Gosh. Here’s a question, Congressman. What sort of grievance would
someone have to entertain in order to be moved to describe someone who
simply sought to engage young people in conversation as “divisive” and
“disparaging?” Follow-up question: Did Charlie Kirk try to “normalize”
fringe ideas about “race, sex, and immigration?” Or were the ideas he
espoused, in fact (you see that two people can deploy the “in fact™”
gambit), perfectly normal ideas that reflected the beliefs of millions
of Americans, even if those ideas departed from the Washington
consensus?
As for the Civil Rights Act, Charlie Kirk did say its expansion was “a huge mistake.” Here’s the context.
A student asked Charlie whether he wanted to get rid of the Civil
Rights Act. He replied that he thought we should have a one-page bill
that outlawed racial discrimination and left it at that. Most Americans,
he went on to note, don’t support forcing women’s sports teams to allow
men pretending to be women to compete. But the Civil Rights Act has
been interpreted to say just that.
He agreed with the original intention of the bill, he said, but
argued that it was “too broadly written” and played into the hands of
people who wanted to expand and weaponize the bill to enforce a radical
progressive agenda that included so-called “affirmative action,” i.e.,
reverse racism in the form of discrimination against whites and Asians.
Result? A 100-page bill that created “a permanent anti-racist
bureaucracy within our federal government to go find racism where it
doesn’t exist and create it in new places where it otherwise did not
exist.”
Christopher Caldwell touched on an essential aspect of Kirk’s observation in his book The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties.
It is common in academia and the media, Caldwell notes, to regard the
Civil Rights Act as a great victory for equality and social progress.
After all, was it not a potent weapon in the battle against Jim Crow and
other expressions of racism?
But, Caldwell argues, that extension (or exaggeration) of the
Fourteenth Amendment (“due process,” “equal protection”) helped sow the
seeds of our present discontents. For the Civil Rights Act did not
simply enhance certain provisions of the Constitution. It soon became “a
rival constitution, with which the original one was frequently
incompatible.”
The Constitution, as originally drafted, aimed to limit government
authority and protect citizens from the coercive power of the state. The
Civil Rights Act underwrote the indefinite extension of governmental
power and opened ever new avenues through which progressive activists
could meddle in precincts of life hitherto reserved to private
discretion. The act, wrote Caldwell, “emboldened and incentivized
bureaucrats, lawyers, intellectuals, and political agitators to become
the ‘eyes and ears,’ and even the foot soldiers, of civil rights
enforcement.” No realm of social intercourse was off-limits. “Over
time,” Caldwell noted, “more of the country’s institutions were brought
under the act’s scrutiny. Eventually, all of them were.” The act, he
noted,
transformed the country not just constitutionally but
also culturally and demographically. In ways few people anticipated, it
proved to be the mightiest instrument of domestic enforcement the
country had ever seen. It can fairly be described as the largest
undertaking of any kind in American history. Costing trillions upon
trillions of dollars and spanning half a century, it rivals, in terms of
energy invested, the peopling of the West, the building of
transcontinental railways and highways, the maintenance of a Pax
Americana for half a century after World War II, or, for that matter,
any of the wars the country has fought, foreign or civil.
Leo Strauss was correct when he observed that a true liberal (as
distinct from a progressive) society depends on the maintenance of the
distinction between the realm of politics and that of private
initiative. The Civil Rights Act all but erased that distinction,
opening up every sphere of social endeavor to federal interference. As
one reviewer quipped when Caldwell’s book was first published, the Civil
Rights Act was “the law that ate the Constitution.”
“Everything” is not an exaggeration. If the Civil Rights Act is the
engine behind the transformation of liberal society into an illiberal,
proto-totalitarian compact, the designers of the cultural revolution of
the 1960s—from Frankfurt School Marxists like Herbert Marcuse on
down—provided both the plan and the fuel. The result is a weird, almost
surreal situation in which the most common realities and institutions
are undermined, transformed, and inverted. What is a family? What is a
man or a woman? What is free speech? We used to be able to answer with
confidence. Can we still?
Together, the limitless, disestablishing agenda of sixties
radicalism, backed now by the coercive power of the state, has
transformed the very fabric of society. How should conservatives
respond? As Daniel McCarthy noted in 2023, the most bootless—also the most contemptible—response is that of those “conservatives” he calls “accommodationists”:
Their job is to make liberals seem tolerant for
tolerating conservatives who attack the same right-wing targets that
liberals attack. Accommodationists . . . will thunder in outrage any
time [other conservatives] join forces against the Left.
Accommodationists are terrified of being mistaken for populists. But, as Margot Cleveland pointed out in an essay called “The Promise of Populism,”
“The irony here is that those conservatives who most loudly declared
populism at odds with conservatism—a refrain repeated ad nauseam to
distance themselves from Trump and his supporters—soon abandoned
conservatism itself.” The step from accommodation to capitulation is
always a short one.
In fact, there is a double irony in this instinctive rejection of
populism. Conservatives of all stripes hold up William F. Buckley Jr. as
a patron saint. But what if not “populist” was Buckley’s declaration
that he would rather be governed by the first two thousand names in the
Boston telephone directory than the Harvard faculty? If in years past
conservatives shied away from defending conservative prerogatives for
fear of being castigated as populists, today they must embrace that more
radical conservatism or be utterly absorbed by the progressive
juggernaut.
At a time when the abnormal is championed as the new normal,
conservatives cannot act to uphold the established order without being
silenced or destroyed by the progressives who control that order. It is
perhaps paradoxical but nonetheless true that the most vital form of
conservatism today is a form of radical populism willing to challenge a
corrupt and encroaching status quo. And challenges are nigh. For
Cleveland is right: the “increasingly emboldened elite” that would
subdue us is facing “an increasingly angered populace.”
How angry? Look at the results of the 2024 presidential election.
Ponder the popularity of Charlie Kirk and the dual outpouring of grief
and resolve that greeted his assassination. Bennie Thompson pretends
that Kirk was a “divisive” figure. But, if I may borrow from the
congressman, “in fact™,” he was a supremely unifying one. Not, I hasten
to add, for socialistically inclined figures like Bennie Thompson or
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or the other 118 Democrat House
members who refused to condemn his assassination or for celebrity
pundits like Jimmy Kimmel or Emmy attendees. For them, Charlie really
was a divisive figure. But for millions upon millions of Americans,
especially young, college-age Americans, he was a unifying figure who
“normalized” not fringe ideas but supremely normal ones. As many have
observed, the murder of Charlie Kirk by a deranged leftist silenced one
individual, but it awakened the voices of a movement that hitherto had
hardly known it had a voice.
Chedvata is trailblazing a new pathway for Haredim in Israel by combining Torah study, academic training, and military service without compromising any of its religious standards.
400 Torah Students Now Serve Photo: Chedvata
is the first haredi Hesder program designed and run by haredim themselves, and it’s growing fast.
What
makes Chedvata unique and poised to bring real change to Israeli
society is that it was created and is entirely run by Haredim
themselves. This is not a program imposed upon the community from the
outside; it's an initiative by Haredim who recognized that not all young
men are suited for a lifetime of full-time Torah learning.
Each Chedvata student follows a three-part path:
Morning Torah Learning.
Afternoon College Studies with Ashkelon College, which culminates in an academic degree.
Military Service in a Haredi IDF Unit.
With more than 400 student-conscripts enrolled this year, Chedvata is
rapidly growing—entirely through word of mouth. This proves that when
opportunities are offered under Haredi auspices, many young Haredi men
are eager to join this program that combines Torah learning with
academic training and army service.
The impact extends far beyond the classroom or army base. Chedvata
graduates are earning degrees, entering the workforce, and bridging the
gap between religious and secular Israelis. This is especially crucial
given that Haredim already constitute 25% of all Jewish Israelis under
the age of 18 and their numbers are growing fast.
Chedvata is
shifting public perception. As more Haredim serve in the IDF and join
the trained workforce, the broader public begins to see Haredim in a new
light—that promotes mutual respect and unity. Chedvata is creating a
powerful and positive movement for change—quietly healing the #1 most
divisive issue Israeli society faces today.
Bottom line:Chedvata strengthens
Israel in every way—militarily, economically, spiritually, and
socially. You can play a role in expanding Chedvata, either by
contributing or helping us spread the word- or both!
[T]he Middle Empire, presumably backed by Russia and a number of Eurasian nations, hopes to extend military and economic competition with the West to the political domain, something it had studiously avoided for decades when the Western democratic model appeared to be in the ascendancy.
More than 50 million Chinese
travel to Western Europe and North America each year but pointedly shun
Russia and the Eurasian 'stans not to mention North Korea. As for
Russians, few of them show interest in discovering the marvels of the
Middle Empire.
Some Western analysts warn that even a semi-defeat in Ukraine could drive Russia into the arms of Communist China.
I doubt that such a thing would happen. In the Russian historic-cultural mindset, China remains the number-one threat.
Chinese tourists still line up in the Champs-Élysées from 7 a.m.
to "plunder" Parisian luxury shops. But the other day I couldn't believe
my eyes when I saw half a dozen Chinese tourists piling shopping
baskets with musical records, DVDs and books.
Pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese
President Xi Jinping attend a welcoming ceremony before their talks at
the Kremlin in Moscow on May 8, 2025. (Photo by Evgenia
Novozhenina/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
Confident of their ascendancy in terms of military and economic
power, the newly cemented bloc under China's leadership has also started
promoting what Chinese President Xi Jinping has dubbed "new governance"
as a model not only for the "global south" but for the world as a
whole.
In other words, the Middle Empire, presumably backed by Russia and a
number of Eurasian nations, hopes to extend military and economic
competition with the West to the political domain, something it had
studiously avoided for decades when the Western democratic model
appeared to be in the ascendancy.
For over three decades, the Freedom House indicator claimed a steady
rise in the number of nations moving towards some form of
democratization. In recent years, however, that indicator and other
studies have shown the curve to be moving in the opposite direction.
The idea of a rival model started with Russian President Vladimir
Putin's attempt to annex Ukraine after successfully annexing parts of
Georgia. Aleksandr Dugin, Putin's ideological guru, argued that stopping
the "expansion" of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) did
not mean a break with basic democratic tenets. Russia and other powers
such as China could offer a "disciplined" or "illiberal" version of
democracy to the West's chaotic system, in which power is used by
pressure groups and lobbies in the interest of certain constituencies.
At first glance, "illiberal democracy" as a model seemed to have a strong starting point.
Of the 15 nations that became independent entities after the fall of
the USSR, only three -- the Baltic republics -- have moved to build
Western-style capitalist democracies, becoming full members of the
European Union and NATO. But that was no surprise. All three, annexed by
Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, had never been fully sovietized.
Dugin has no problem with Belarus, which has remained a Soviet-style state closely linked to Moscow.
Despite occasional anti-Moscow musings by the ruling elites, the
Soviet system also remains the model in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
Georgia tried to "Westernize" but had to backpedal in 2008, after
Putin invaded and snatched away South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and is now
back in Russia's influence zone.
Azerbaijan, gripped by an identity crisis, has tried to keep the
Soviet system while forging alliances with Turkey and Israel, plus
"special relations" with the US as a varnish.
Armenia tried to distance itself from the Soviet model but had to
backpedal when forced to call in Russian troops to protect it against
the Turkish-Azerbaijani threat, and is now trying to backpedal again by
inviting the US to establish a high profile through the Trump Pathway to
Peace and Prosperity.
China's intervention in the undeclared competition for ideological
ascendancy may reduce Russia's role to that of a bridesmaid. However,
China itself may see its ambition to become an alternative to the
Western model of governance thwarted by India, which, with Narendra Modi
at the helm, is moving towards becoming an illiberal democracy.
Xi and Putin's hope of promoting their brand of governance faces an
even more important challenge from Chinese and Russian people who, by
all accounts, still find the Western way of life far more attractive.
More than 50 million Chinese travel to Western Europe and North America
each year but pointedly shun Russia and the Eurasian 'stans not to
mention North Korea. As for Russians, few of them show interest in
discovering the marvels of the Middle Empire.
Some Western analysts warn that even a semi-defeat in Ukraine could drive Russia into the arms of Communist China.
I doubt that such a thing would happen. In the Russian
historic-cultural mindset, China remains the number-one threat. The fact
that its economy leaves Russia in no position to seek more-or-less
balanced relations with China must also be considered.
Russo-Chinese relationship could only assume a neo-colonial identity,
with Russia as an exporter of raw materials, including oil, gas and
minerals, and an importer of capital, manufactured goods and even
settlers. Right now, an estimated 3.3 million Chinese settlers are
developing new farming and light industrial projects, mostly in Siberia
and the Sino-Russian borderlands.
The biggest barrier to the "new governance" model marketed by Xi and
Putin is the rapid transformation experienced by almost all nations in
the so-called "global south," with the amazingly rapid expansion of a
middle class produced by the adoption of the free market system.
Today in Russia, China and much of the "global south," we witness
patterns of material and cultural consumption developed by Western
nations since the 18th century.
Capitalism was bound to lead to democracy in the old Westphalian
nation-states, which lived under models of governance no less
authoritarian or illiberal than what we have in China and Russia today.
Two decades ago, the emerging middle classes in China and Russia tried to imitate the superficial aspects of the Western model.
Chinese tourists still line up in the Champs-Élysées from 7 a.m. to
"plunder" Parisian luxury shops. But the other day I couldn't believe my
eyes when I saw half a dozen Chinese tourists piling shopping baskets
with musical records, DVDs and books.
"It is for friends back home," a slender Chinese maiden explained half apologetically.
Gatestone Institute would like to thank the author for his kind
permission to reprint this article in slightly different form from Asharq Al-Awsat. He graciously serves as Chairman of Gatestone Europe.
Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan
in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable
publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987.
October 7 did not happen because of the lack of a 'Palestinian state', but because of the existence of one: Gaza since 2005 has been fully under Palestinian control, and since 2007, fully under Hamas control. There has been no peace.
The Israel-Hamas-Iran
conflict, still dominating world news, remains volatile. Anti-Israel
demonstrations — often devolving into violent riots – have taken place
in many countries in the past 23 months.
October 7 did not happen because of the lack of a 'Palestinian state', but because of the existence of one: Gaza since 2005 has been fully under Palestinian control, and since 2007, fully under Hamas control. There has been no peace.
Since 2005, more than 20,000 rockets and mortars have been fired
from Gaza into Israel, a country roughly the size of New Jersey, along
with at least 100 suicide bombings. How many rockets, missiles and
suicide bombings would France, England, Canada or Australia tolerate?
Proposals to make Israeli citizens defenseless against
indiscriminate rocket fire are therefore tantamount to inviting mass
murder.
Hamas, on the other hand, has a straightforward policy of
targeting Israeli civilians, obliterating Israeli communities and of
using its own people as human shields and putting them in harm's way.
So we seem to have here a serious case of mixing up the "good
guy" and the "bad guy". While in any war there will be mistakes, Israel
cannot simply be labeled the "bad guy". Apart from any country thus
attacked having the right to forcefully act in self-defense, nowhere in
history has any country gone to such pains as Israel not to harm
its adversary's civilians. Nowhere in history have people under attack
brought such amounts of humanitarian aid to the people under a regime
trying to destroy them.
The UN has admitted that 90% of what it tried to deliver was
intercepted by "armed actors" before reaching its destination. The GHF
has been vilified and falsely accused of killing Gazans.
Israel has been accused of "targeting civilians" in Gaza (sadly,
civilians were killed, as in any conflict, but Israel never targeted
them as such); was "genocidal"... committed "ethnic cleansing", and so
on.
The waves of anti-Jewish hate-mongering, in fact, began even before
Israel entered Gaza, and by now have become commonplace. Even large
American teachers' unions, to their shame, have been spouting
anti-Semitism. This rampant vilification, already seen at universities
such as Harvard and Columbia, has become a serious problem... and
urgently needs to be confronted.
Israel is a state well-founded in international law. Its
existence cannot seriously be a point of dispute. Israel has always
wanted simply to be left alone.
The Abraham Accords, politically stabilizing and economically
beneficial both to Israel and several Arab countries, show that real
peace can be achieved. It is revealing that no demonstrations
criticizing Israel's campaign against the Iranian regime and its proxies
have been seen in Arab countries.
Today, the remaining hostages are being deliberately starved,
given -- only occasionally -- contaminated water, and forced to dig
their own graves.
Palestinians, and least of all groups such as Hamas, have not
expressed a clear desire to recognize and live in peace with a Jewish
state in any borders.
It now turns out, in addition, that the Trump Administration's
"helpful" mediator, Qatar -- champion of virtually every Islamic
terrorist group – instead of ordering Hamas to release the hostages, has
been ordering Hamas not to release them.
That there is no demonstrable will on the Palestinian side yet to
accept a Jewish state and live in peace with it is also shown by the
still existing "pay-for-slay" "jobs program" of Mahmoud Abbas's
Palestinian Authority.
A Palestinian state now would not only be a de facto
reward for terrorism, it would also inspire other terror movements to
intensify their violence. The lesson the terrorists would take home
would certainly be, "Terrorism works, so let's keep on doing it."
What the recent public demonstrations in the Netherlands and
elsewhere show is mostly "selective outrage," morally and politically
lopsided. There appears to be hardly any interest in reconciliation or
efforts at dialogue, and more in condoning or stimulating antipathy
against Israel.
The Israel-Hamas-Iran conflict, still dominating world news,
remains volatile. Anti-Israel demonstrations — often devolving into
violent riots – have taken place in many countries in the past 23
months. Some were even held on, or just days after, the Hamas massacres
in Israel on October 7, 2023 - insupport of the
massacres. There have been so many events and social media statements
that amount to vilifying Israel and the Jewish people. Pictured: Police
officers chase rioters who attacked Jews and Israelis in Amsterdam on
November 7, 2024. (Photo by Wahaj Bani Moufleh/Middle East Images/AFP
via Getty Images)
The Israel-Hamas-Iran conflict, still dominating world news, remains
volatile. Anti-Israel demonstrations — often devolving into violent
riots – have taken place in many countries in the past 23 months. Some
were even held on, or just days after, the Hamas massacres in Israel on
October 7, 2023 - insupport
of the massacres. There have been so many events and social media
statements that amount to vilifying Israel and the Jewish people -- too
many "incidents" to ignore. As a Dutch academic, I plead here for less
emotion and more dispassionate factual debate on this tragic conflict
and about the need for honest solutions for both sides.
In June this year and onwards, students in the Netherlands
organized blockades on campuses to enforce an academic boycott and
blacklist Israeli institutions. The students pressured universities to
end cooperation with Israeli universities -- an effort that betrays
academic research and freedom. Many activists and protesters said they
were "inspired" by the students on US campuses
during the past year. My university, Leiden, joined as well. An
"Advisory Committee," in what appears to be another example of misplaced
virtue-signaling, pressed the university to cut academic links with Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It halted
all academic exchanges. Such a boycott is unacceptable and will, of
course, hit the wrong persons and not produce anything except sabotaging
scientific cooperation. It would also not help the Palestinians.
In addition, an opposition party spokesperson in Parliament (of the socialist PvdA-Green Left) proposed a law last June to prohibit
the Netherlands from exporting spare parts used for Israel's Iron Dome
anti-missile system, which protects its citizens. A more perfidious
proposal cannot be imagined – brought exactly at the moment when Israel
was engaged in armed conflict with Iran.
The Islamic Republic of Iran, led by an Islamist-theocratic regime,
has been a problem for the entire 46 years of its existence. According to its current leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the regime has prepared for decades to annihilate
Israel and the United States – "not as a slogan but as a policy." The
anti-rocket system being targeted by Dutch and other politicians has
been protecting Israeli civilians of all faiths and backgrounds against
the thousands of Hamas rockets fired at Israel on and after Oct. 7, and against those fired by Hezbollah.
While Palestinians voiced their local grievances and continued their
anti-Israel agenda, the big "inspiration" for the recent actions of
these terror movements was apparently Iran's theocratic regime. It has a
record of well-documented Israel-hate, abuse of its own citizens, decades of international terrorism
-- and a relentless suppression, torture, imprisonment and murder of
women, children, and minorities -- as well as crushing other domestic
freedoms. Iran's policy seems to consist of continuing its terror and planning for the destruction of Israel (the "Little Satan"), the destruction of America (the "Great Satan"), infiltrating Latin America, and killing Americans. These are hardly matters of doubt. The mullahs also appear to have a long-term, wider goal of infiltrating and transforming the rest of the planet:
"We shall export our revolution to the whole world. Until
the cry 'There is no god but Allah' resounds over the whole world,
there will be struggle."
— Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Iran had already infiltrated and taken over at least four countries
-- Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria – at least until November 2024, when
Assad's regime collapsed. Western protesters never seem concerned about
that. Proposals to make Israeli citizens defenseless against
indiscriminate rocket fire are therefore tantamount to inviting mass
murder. It is deeply worrying that, since the outbreak of the Gaza
conflict, many critics of Israel, such as a Dutch parliamentarian,
often seemed to support Iran over Israel, and have sympathy for Hamas
as a supposed "resistance" rather than as the jihadist terrorists they
are, and to show more concern for the "innocent civilians" in Gaza than
for the victims and kidnapped hostages from Israel. It is often glossed
over what Hamas's intentions are:
"There is no solution for the Palestinian question except
through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are
all a waste of time and vain endeavors." — Hamas Charter, 1988, Article 13
So we seem to have here a serious case of mixing up the "good guy"
and the "bad guy". While in any war there will be mistakes, Israel cannot
simply be labeled the "bad guy". Apart from any country thus attacked
having the right to forcefully act in self-defense, nowhere in history
has any country gone to such pains as Israel not to harm
its adversary's civilians. Nowhere in history have people under attack
brought such amounts of humanitarian aid to the people under a regime
trying to destroy them. US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee tweeted on 8 August:
"How much food has Starmer and the UK sent to Gaza? @IsraeliPM
has already sent 2 MILLION TONS into Gaza & none of it even getting
to hostages. Maybe UK PM ought to sit this one out & follow Arab
League who said Hamas should disarm & release ALL hostages
immediately."
Thousands in Israel remain internally displaced, a fact never mentioned by the United Nations or anyone else. In addition, "one-fifth of the Israelis who were forced to evacuate" by the war -- roughly 50,000 out of 250,000 -- have lost their business or means of livelihood. The massive terror, destructive sexual violence, torture, sadism, burning alive of people, decapitation, and the extermination of entire families of Hamas's October 7, 2023 attacks reveal the group's hate-based genocidal ideology, already formulated in its charter:
"As the prophet [Muhammad],may the prayer of Allah and
his blessing of peace be upon him, said: 'The time [Judgment Day] will
not come until Muslims fight the Jews and kill them and until the Jew
hides behind the rocks and trees, and [then] the rocks and trees will
say: 'Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew hiding [behind me],
come and kill him...'" – Hamas Charter, 1988, Article 7
It is consequently shocking to see the "reversal
of blame" in many mass demonstrations and in the statements of many
countries, including EU members France, Ireland and Spain. They blame
Israel -- not Hamas -- for the violent conflict and for just about
anything else.
Before October 7, 2023, Israel had generously granted, as a good-will gesture -- nearly 20,000 work permits to Gazans to enable them to come daily to Israel, where they could receive higher wages than in Gaza. As some commentators have claimed, Israel is therefore accused of having "brought it all upon itself".
Before the statement
by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on August 8, 2025, that
Israel intended to occupy Gaza City to root out the remnants of Hamas,
Israel was also accused of being the "occupying" power in Gaza. Not exactly. In 2005 the Israeli government removed and even forcibly expelled every last Jew from Gaza to give the Palestinians autonomy there and a chance to build a "Dubai on the Mediterranean". All the same, Israel has been accused of "targeting civilians" in Gaza (sadly, civilians were killed, as in any conflict, but Israel never targeted them as such); was "genocidal" – even though for more than 70 years -- since the 1948 war -- Israel has been trying to protect itself from genocide; that Israel had "denied aid" to Gazans, even though it was left to Israel, not the UN, to deliver humanitarian aid to its adversaries in a war zone, committed "ethnic cleansing", and so on.
Scrutinizing these charges shows them to be incorrect. One example:
"genocide" is not just any term but legally means mass lethal violence
under "intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group
as such". Israel is not involved in this: there is simply no intent.
The only aim is to defeat Hamas, the Islamist terrorist force that
massacred, raped and kidnapped civilians with the professed intent to
murder as many Jews and Israelis as possible. Hamas terrorists were even
chanting the "Khaybar Ya-Yahood" slogan
– used in the Islamic prophet Mohammed's time during the extermination
war in the year 628 CE against the Jews of the town of Khaybar. Another
example is the so-called famine -- incorrectly named, due to deep flaws in reporting and in the UN's opportunistic IPCmanipulation.
For the record, it is always necessary to dismantle all incorrect
charges on any war, as well as expose mistakes and tragic events. Yet,
the malicious narratives about Israel keep thriving regardless of this
effort. So, part of the problem lies in understanding how the narratives
are produced and recycled, and by whom, and a broader critical analysis
-- rather than a pro-Israel narrative of denial, however justified --
is needed. In this effort, reports from Al Jazeera (an unreliable
Qatar outfit), the UN's OHCHR, institutions such as the European
Parliament, or 'human rights' NGO's like Amnesty International or Human
Rights Watch, cannot be considered as offering decisive evidence.
Ever since the State of Israel was officially founded in 1948, it has
had to survive in a hostile region. The country has done so with
extraordinary success, despite continual efforts by its neighbors to
destroy it. It has defended itself in the various wars and waves of
terrorism against it, and thwarted the recent efforts of Iran and its
proxies -- Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, Shi'ite militias – to eradicate
it.
Since 2005, more than
20,000 rockets and mortars have been fired from Gaza into Israel, a
country roughly the size of New Jersey, along with at least 100 suicide bombings. How many rockets, missiles and suicide bombings would France, England, Canada or Australia tolerate?
It is shocking is that after Hamas's Oct. 7 violent assault, the waves of "anti-Zionist" hate were directed not only against Israelis but also, increasingly, against Jews worldwide -- including in the United States -- and often spearheaded by Muslim activists and people on the extreme "left" and extreme "right" in a strange alliance – one that has usually not turned out well, as in post-1979 Iran.
Most of the anti-Israel/anti-Zionist agitation has been accompanied
by the frantic denial that one is "not anti-Semitic" – but it is an
"argument" that no longer convinces anyone. The waves of anti-Jewish hate-mongering, in fact, began even before Israel entered Gaza, and by now have become commonplace. Even large American teachers' unions, to their shame, have been spouting anti-Semitism. This rampant vilification, already seen at universities such as Harvard and Columbia, has become a serious problem. This vilification and boycotting now also extends to the cultural domain (music, theater, movies) and urgently needs to be confronted.
Israel is a state well-founded in international law. Its existence
cannot seriously be a point of dispute. Israel has always wanted simply
to be left alone. It had no need to seek war with any neighbor, and every need not
to seek war. The Abraham Accords, politically stabilizing and
economically beneficial both to Israel and several Arab countries, show
that real peace can be achieved. It is revealing that no
demonstrations criticizing Israel's campaign against the Iranian regime
and its proxies have been seen in Arab countries. Indeed, many
Arab governments -- notably the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and Saudi
Arabia -- appear, behind the scenes, quite comfortable with Iran's
regime being held to account.
Iran's policies, sadly, have not helped the Palestinians and, unfortunately, have made their situation worse. Iran's propaganda and bankrolling of Hamas -- together with that of Qatar, the champion and sponsor of effectively every Islamic militant organization --.created an infrastructure of terror that not only blighted the Palestinians and Gazan society but, as first-hand expert Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of one of the founders of Hamas, noted, successfully poisoned its young generation.
Israel, a sovereign state,
did not need permission from anyone to try to neutralize the
Hamas-Hezbollah-Houthi-Iran threats before or after Oct. 7. Many
individuals in the West apparently like to deny or ignore that these
major threats apply not only to Israel but to all global security.
The anti-Israel demonstrators in the Netherlands and elsewhere, who
are often intimidating passers-by, blockading public roads, occupying
buildings and campuses, probably are either paid or think they know
everything better -- or both -- at a time when Israeli citizens and
civil institutions are being targeted,
along with hospitals and research institutes. Israel's hospitals,
unlike those in Gaza, do not house terror command centers. The Weizmann
Institute, a renowned Israeli research center serving world science, had
45 laboratories destroyed by an Iranian missile.
It is painful to see that these demonstrators and parliamentary
activists always accuse Israel of the violence initiated by Hamas. Why
is so little ever said about Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and the Houthis?
People seem to refuse to recognize that the war was jointly orchestrated
by Iran's repressive Islamist regime and its proxies – the same Hamas,
Hezbollah and the Houthis -- as a long-term policy. The exuberance these protesters seem to feel to "put Israel in its place" and demonstrate "because civilians
are killed in the Gaza war" is distorted, biased and regrettable. The
deaths of Gazans are unarguably sad, and sympathy with non-combatant
victims is entirely understandable, but there have been deaths of
non-combatant civilians on both sides. Hamas and many Gazans have
recorded them with glee and immediately vowed to repeat them.
People unfortunately get killed in wars. In Hamas's case: If you do
not want your people killed, do not start an unprovoked war. Israel
cannot sit back and decline to defend itself. Israel's response to an
extremely violent and cruel adversary has been violent, but Israel still
has taken pains not to "mirror" the Hamas violence and become like
them, even at the cost of exposing its own soldiers to great risks.
In Gaza, the large majority of casualties have actually not been civilians, as Hamas has tried to claim. Even the UN had to halve its own casualty statistics.
Conversely, Hamas, rather than trying to prevent the death of their citizens, deliberately puts them in harm's way. The terrorist group continues to use their own people as human shields, and shoots at them if-- at the urging of the Israelis -- they try to flee to safety or if they try to seek the humanitarian aid intended for their use. Far from regretting the deaths of ordinary Gazans, Hamas simply blames Israel for them, and fakes
the numbers for use as anti-Israel propaganda. The real nature of the
war is not clearly represented in the media, which would do better in
heeding true experts such as John Spencer or Andrew Fox.
The genocidal slaughter carried out by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023 in the most barbaric manner was the culmination of countless media demonizations -- online and off – as well as constant acts of terror, rooted in jihadistideology, against Israel as well as Jews in the rest
of the world. Appallingly, Hamas's slaughter was often "lauded" by
sympathizers across the globe -- not only hardcore Islamists, but
notably also in Western "far-Leftist circles".
Many of these critics ideologically -- and wrongly -- tried to redefine
Israel as a "colonialist" entity, despite Israel having been strongly
anti-colonialist, intent on opposing Britian's failed policies against the Jews -- including many Jews ordered hanged -- during the British Mandate for Palestine – from 1917 until Israel's independence in 1948.
If you watch recordings of October 7, 2023, made by Hamas terrorists themselves on GoPro cameras, it can be seen that they were extremely proud of what they did. Just recently, a young Palestinian who elatedly telephoned
his parents from the field to brag about how many Jews he had murdered,
was "neutralized" by the IDF. The immediate "statements of support" for
the atrocities committed in the October 7 attack, even among academics in Western institutions, were distressing -- and not acceptable.
Even before 2023, Palestinian leaders and their worldwide backers
rejected all initiatives for peace, mutual acceptance, and dividing land
for a Palestinian state -- including even the most generous proposals.
Since the Oslo Accords, the Palestinians have had far-reaching
autonomy and self-rule in most of the "territories" under dispute.
Discussions on definitive solutions have so far proven impossible: there
have not even been serious Palestinian counter-offers. Former PA President Yasser Arafat's rejection of the most generous offer ever -- in former US President Clinton's words -- for a Palestinian state in 2000 by the then Israeli PM Ehud Barak is just one example.
"For the last century," noted
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 10 August, "[the
Palestinians] have been offered a state of their own. And they refused,
because their goal is not to create a state for themselves, it's to
destroy...the Jewish state. That's their national goal. So we're not
going to ...commit national suicide."
The Palestinians, to clarify what seems some confusion, are Arabs who
had lived in Israel before 1947. When five Arab armies – Egypt, Lebanon
Iraq, Syria and Trans-Jordan (now Jordan) -- invaded Israel the day of
its birth, May 21, 1948, to try to kill the new country before it could
begin -- most of the Arabs there were urged by others to flee to make it easier to kill the Jews -- then return in "in 2 hours":
"We left, I mean, the one who made us leave was the
Jordanian army, because there were going to be battles and we would be
under their feet. They told us: 'Leave. In 2 hours we will liberate it
and then you'll return.' We left only with our clothes. We didn't take
anything because we were supposed to return in 2 hours. Why carry
anything? "
— Fuad Khader, Refugee from Bir Ma'in, Official PA TV, May 15, 2013.
The Arabs lost and now call this defeat and its aftermath the naqba
(the "Catastrophe"). When those Arabs who had fled (and indeed in some
cases were chased away in the heat of the war) later tried to return,
Israel declined for security reasons to admit them. Their Arab brethren
also refused to admit the Palestinian-Arab refugees who had fled from
the War of Independence in the former Mandate territory and now suddenly
Israel—instead, requiring them to linger in refugee camps.
The Arabs in Israel who did not flee currently make up 20% of
its population are equal citizens as the Jews in Israel with equal
rights, except for mandatory military service, from which they are
excused, if they wish. Many of Israel's Arabs are leaders in medicine, politics and the government, business, the Israel Defense Forces (voluntarily) and even on the Supreme Court.
Notably, Zohair Mohsen, one of the former senior officials of the
Palestine Liberation Organization, set up in 1964 and the precursor of
the Palestinian Authority, publicly admitted in 1977, is that the
Palestinians are an invented people that actually "does not exist":
"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a
Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against
the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no
difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only
for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence
of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we
posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose
Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity exists
only for tactical reasons."
— Senior PLO official Zuheir Mohsen, interviewed by James Dorsey, Trouw (a Dutch newspaper), March 31, 1977.
Now, after decades of violent rejection and terrorism, the Palestinian momentum appears to have passed.
Palestinians, and least of all groups such as Hamas, have not expressed
a clear desire to recognize and live in peace with a Jewish state in any borders.
At the moment, especially after the massacre of October 7, 2023, a
separate state for Palestinians is more remote than ever, despite the attempt
by France's President Emmanuel Macron to hook it up to life-support. He
seems to have the view that placing a terrorist state, openly dedicated
to wiping Israel off the map, back on the border of Israel will lead to
a "just and lasting peace" – or perhaps some "other" solution.
What is clear is that his announcement succeeded in torpedoing all ceasefire
talks, previously underway, and dealing a death blow to a deal on Hamas
returning the remaining hostages. Macron, followed in his wake by other
European leaders, such as Prime Minister Keir Starmer in the UK and
Prime Minister Bart De Wever of Belgium may have effectively signed the hostages' death sentence.
"Talks with Hamas fell apart on the day [French President Emanuel]
Macron made the unilateral decision that he's going to recognize the
Palestinian state," US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said. ".... If I'm Hamas, I'd basically conclude let's not do a ceasefire, we can be rewarded, we can claim it as a victory."
"Such a move," Prime Minister Netanyahu replied
to Macron, "rewards terror and risks creating another Iranian proxy,
just as Gaza became. A Palestinian state in these conditions would be a
launchpad to annihilate Israel — not to live in peace beside it."
It now turns out, in addition, that the Trump Administration's
"helpful" mediator, Qatar -- champion of virtually every Islamic
terrorist group – instead of ordering Hamas to release the hostages, has
been ordering Hamas not to release them.
The US administration's view is clear from the words of US Ambassador Mike Huckabee, telling Fox News on May 31:
"If France is really so determined to see a Palestinian
state, I've got a suggestion for them − carve out a piece of the French
Riviera and create a Palestinian state. They are welcome to do that, but
they are not welcome to impose that kind of pressure on a sovereign
nation."
That there is no demonstrable will on the Palestinian side yet to
accept a Jewish state and live in peace with it is also shown by the
still existing "pay-for-slay"
"jobs program" of Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority (PA). Each
year, the PA rewards the relatives of terrorist killers who murder
Jewish Israelis to funds totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. Who
pays for this? The European Union -- accompanied by Abbas transferring the operation to the PA "security services" to hide what it is funding -- as well as others in the international community. Even the Canadian Federal Court had already condemned this PA policy in a 2020 judgement.
The Palestinian leadership has also long insisted on a 'Jew-free'
future for the Palestinian state, even in Hebron -- one of the four
oldest Jewish cities, and where Arabs annihilated the Jewish community
in 1929. Macron's gesture is destructive, if not treacherous.
Britain, Canada and recently Australia and Belgium followed suit, although with preconditions – and Britain with a tinge of blackmail. A unilateral recognition is also in contradiction with the Oslo Agreements of 1993 and 1995 and has other problems. A Palestinian state now would not only be a de facto
reward for terrorism, it would also inspire other terror movements to
intensify their violence. The lesson the terrorists would take home
would certainly be, "Terrorism works, so let's keep on doing it."
Who, moreover, would lead such a state? What would be its borders?
The simple point these Western countries miss is that October 7 did not
happen because of the lack of a "Palestinian state", but because of the existence of one: Gaza since 2005 has been fully under Palestinian control, and since 2007, fully under Hamas control. There has been no peace.
Most anti-Israel demonstrators in the Netherlands and elsewhere are
probably of good will, concerned about the loss of human life in Gaza.
So, while this alleged cause is good – such as compassion and asking a
halt to the killing of Gaza's civilians -– it cannot go at the expense
of another cause: stopping the murderous terrorist violence of Hamas and
related entities against Israel and the Jews and victimizing their own
people in Gaza. There need to be serious calls on the Palestinians,
Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, Iran, and radical Islamist imams to
stop the politics of violence, of which Palestinians are equally the
victim. The demonstrators never do that. The pro-Palestinian and
pro-Hamas crowds also never show the slightest concern about the Israeli
hostages.
48 are still held in the Hamas tunnels, in worse than medieval
dungeons, and abused, tortured, starved, as well as an estimated 30 of
them possibly already murdered
or dead. If all the hostages would have been released, the conflict in
Gaza could have ended long ago. Not one Palestinian – Hamas member or
civilian -- ever came forward to help and inform on their whereabouts.
For most demonstrators in both the Netherlands and elsewhere in the
West, nothing else ultimately seems to matter except blaming Israel and
Jews, and expressing indignation and hatred, seemingly out of some
self-ascribed moral superiority. Many protests also appear to be funded
and organized by outside actors. Since 2023, Europe alone has donated more than 13 million euros
to undermine Israel. The civilians in Gaza need attention and
protection, but will not be helped in the least by biased pro-Hamas
performances of "concern". Such hand-wringing will not eliminate either
Hamas or its abuse – in particular, that of its own people. Ironically,
hand-wringing only serves to reinforce the violence: the publicity appears irresistible.
Why is real, practical concern for the suffering Palestinians not
paramount among the protestors? Just look at the global media and NGOs'
reactions to the recently established Gaza Humanitarian Foundation
(GHF) that since May 2025 has been providing humanitarian food aid to
Gazans to bypass Hamas's channels for stealing it. Hamas would take all
the humanitarian aid for itself and then sell it at extortionist prices to the people for whom it was intended for free. Hamas has reportedly made more than half a billion dollars from stolen aid. The "acquisitions" not only pulled in increased revenues for Hamas, but were apparently also be used as bait to recruit hungry new jihadists to fight. The GHF was partly set up to supplement and also bypass the slow UN (also still active, but collaborating with Hamas) to break Hamas's stranglehold. The UN has admitted that 90% of what it tried to deliver was intercepted by "armed actors" before reaching its destination. The GHF has been vilified and falsely accused of killing Gazans most likely by default: because its actions were carried out by Israel and the US. Despite serious deadly incidents around logistics and distribution points – mostly due to Hamas sabotage and killings, but also some initial, insufficient IDF "crowd control" incidents -- it has been fairly successful in getting food supplies to the public. It is disturbing to see the global media refuse to admit that the GHF is breaking the UN-supported Hamas grip on incoming aid,
which has delayed the proper delivery of the supplies to the Gazans.
There is enough supply; the problem is its distribution, due to Hamas
theft and the UN's failure to timely and properly deliver the aid. Some in the media evidently also saw no problem in broadcasting news about Israeli "aid massacres" that never happened.
In much of the global reporting, there has not only been undue
castigation of Israel but shades of plain old Jew-hate -- often, it
appears, largely based on Soviet propaganda as well as Islamic theological culture, or rather its abuse. In it, the Jews are vilified,
as well as repetitions of these vilifications in schools, mosques,
textbooks, summer camps, social media, television and even crossword
puzzles, that keeps them current. For Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and
Iran, it is standard fare.
Most Western activists, oddly, are never heard expressing any real
knowledge of the historical backgrounds of the conflict, as a recently
"converted" activist
admitted. Perhaps there is no interest. There certainly is no serious
understanding of, or compassion with, the murdered, abused and injured
Israeli citizens -- whether Jewish, Druze, Christian, Muslim -- or with the visiting African students or Thai workers who were also victims of the Oct. 7 assault. They, too, were taken hostage, tortured, burned alive or butchered. No word either on the 12 Druze children murdered in a Hezbollah rocket attack on a football field in Majdal Shams on July 27, 2024.
What about the people who died in Gaza? Yes, thousands of Gazans
tragically became victims of the war. A war, however, cannot be judged
only by its effects. The intention of Hamas, which
initiated the war, was mass-murder and destruction, whatever the
consequences. There were many civilian victims in Gaza but the largest group of those killed in Gaza were Hamas terrorists and operatives. Hamas targets civilians, including its own.
No one can maintain that it is Israel's policy to target civilians. An
analysis of its methods of war reveal multiple warnings to civilians
before battle, such as millions of phone calls, leaflets, texts, as well as knocks on the roof
and slow house-to-house and tunnel-to-tunnel advances. Even then,
sadly, as is inevitable in all wars, occasionally mistakes are made.
Hamas, on the other hand, has a straightforward policy of targeting Israeli civilians, obliterating Israeli communities and of using its own people as human shields
and putting them in harm's way. Hamas has consistently embedded its
command posts, weaponry, rocket launchers, and other weapons, in Gazan civilian areas as well as in its sophisticated and extensive tunnel system under residential buildings, mosques, hospitals, schools and the like. Hamas also kills Gazans who contest its terror reign (here and here), and violently intimidates and selectively shoots those distributing and accepting humanitarian aid from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Plenty of online speeches by Hamas spokesmen confirm their utter cynicism
regarding the ordinary Gazans who, to them, seem to be nothing but
human shields. All civilians killed in the crossfire are literally declared "good for the cause". Even when, as now, Hamas loses support among the Gazans, it still tries to retain a murderous grip on them.
What the recent public demonstrations in the Netherlands and
elsewhere show is mostly "selective outrage," morally and politically
lopsided. There appears to be hardly any interest in reconciliation or
efforts at dialogue, and more in condoning or stimulating antipathy
against Israel. As noted, this view often seems shaped by Islamist and
(post-) Soviet propaganda discourse targeting Jews and Israel (as detailed by Izabella Tabarovsky). Dutch media also do their best to keep the biased narrative going (as analyzed already in 2019 in Els van Diggele's studyThe Deception Industry (De Misleidingsindustrie).
It is painful to see so much false rhetoric produced in the public
demonstrations and misguided boycott initiatives in the Netherlands and
elsewhere. On June 21, 2025, the Dutch PvdA-Green Left Party Congress resolution adopted a "total arms embargo" on Israel -- including spare parts for its Iron Dome protective system. On August 8, Germany's new government also voted
to embargo arms sales to Israel. And worst of all was the Spanish
government, led by the rabid anti-Israel Prime Minister P. Sánchez, who,
next to his exaggerated anti-Israel rhetoric, in September declared
a total boycott of arms imports and exports from/to Israel and a
closure of all Spanish ports to any Israel-bound vessels. Such
1930s-like embargoes not only sell out Israel's civilian population to
lethal terrorists; they also demonstrate insensitive posturing by people
who have no idea of the kind of war that is going on and apparently are
not even interested in finding out. Even domestic protesters in Israel
against PM Netanyahu's policies in Gaza do not go along with such
proposals that endanger their homeland.
Admittedly, the suffering in Gaza is real. There has been food scarcity, death and despair. However, what realistically can be done
to defeat and neutralize Hamas, including its abuse of its own
civilians? Hamas started the genocidal campaign on Oct. 7, 2023, and
have repeatedly said that they intend to do it time and again, "until Israel is annihilated." Members of Hamas sacrifice 'their own' people –- sometimes with reference to the Qur'an -- and reject every meaningful hostage return and ceasefire – most recently on July 24 and September 9. There is adamant refusal to hand over the 48 remaining hostages, only 20
of whom are thought still to be alive. It is an impossible and needless
war, started by an Islamist movement, Hamas, that is violent by nature.
Since 2005, Hamas has been wholly in charge of an unoccupied,
independent territory, Gaza, supported by Iran, which is called by the
US Department of State the "largest state sponsor of terrorism."
Few if any demonstrators ever came out in support of the Oct. 7
victims in Israel -- 1200 murdered in the most unspeakable manner, and
the 251 hostages abducted – or showed much concern for Iranian citizens blindfolded and hanged from building cranes. These demonstrators have neither shown particular concern for Yazidis, Kurds, Druze, Alawites,
or ordinary Syrian citizens murdered by Islamist extremists, or for the
thousands of Christians being slaughtered throughout Africa and the
Middle East (here, here, here and here).
In most public demonstrations about the Middle East, only the Israelis
are targeted. Regrettably, the frequent lies and false accusations
produced have consequences. Anti-Semitic attacks on Jews worldwide have increased, especially in the West, and Jewish life there has become less secure. Homes, synagogues and businesses have been vandalized, and individuals murdered solely because they were Jews.
The gross neglect by those "noble" demonstrators of other
long-standing violent conflicts in the world outside the Middle East,
where tens of thousands of civilians are also killed, is indeed
breathtaking: Sudan, Ukraine-Russia, Myanmar, the DRC, Somalia, the Syrian civil war, the harsh repression of Muslim Uyghurs in China (more than half a million in camps) and the gross repression and erasure of women in Afghanistan, on which even the UN is dismayed. Yet there are no public demonstrations on these anywhere.
Media in the Netherlands and globally often appear uninformed -- and
perhaps blissfully unaware of it. Failing to present news in a balanced
manner and undermining honesty and integrity in reporting is a lack of
professionalism. Recently there was media mayhem about a Gazan boy in
the arms of his mother (in a Pietà-like position) as a so-called victim of starvation. In reality,
he has cystic fibrosis – although lack of nutrition may have aggravated
his condition -- and had been brought to Italy for treatment.
Corrections of mistakes (or of knowingly false reports) are rarely
published by the media; if they are, they can usually be found only on a
back page. In the Netherlands, we already knew that the Dutch dailies NRC, the Volkskrant
-- let alone some of the Dutch opinion weeklies – constantly attack
Israel. The attacks often do not appear to be "legitimate criticism,"
which would be appropriate, but more like demonization, fed by ill-will
and a seemingly painstaking omission of all relevant facts. In addition,
the (originally Christian-oriented) Dutch newspaper Trouw has turned squarely against Israel and the Jewish people, and joined the chorus of misinformation and misleading criticisms, often based on substandard reporting, along with delegitimization and glaring double standards. As in the NRC newspaper, the label "genocidal" is carelessly and deviously applied to Israel's actions – throwing its precise meaning in international law out the window. Citing dubious "experts' in the matter does not help either.
Lately a new theme
has been systematically to accuse Israel of causing deaths by famine.
As recently as August 2025, a UN IPC report declared "famine" in Gaza.
The charge is rightly contested.
This seemingly political move was made days after Israel announced it
would enter Gaza City, the last stronghold of the Hamas forces. The UN
IPC, basing its report largely on unreliable Hamas data, also lowered some of its usual criteria for concluding that a famine had been reached. That mistaken venture once again undermined
the UN's authority and credibility. There are serious conditions in
Gaza, but the blame has to be laid at the feet of the UN for refusing to deliver the aid, and at those of Hamas for stealing the aid then selling it to Gazans at inflated prices.
One need not sacrifice the truth to admit those failures, or completely neglect the misery of death, trauma and displacement in Israel itself. Trends
in foreign news media reveal that many seem happy to blame Israel
without bothering to get the facts. The BBC, for instance, which has
long had a serious bias problem, was corrected dozens of times for its often intentionally misleading reporting. In the background, the UN and its unreliable and often scurrilous reports have had, as probably intended, a distorting impact on the media.[1]
The UN's Commission for Human Rights, populated by solid human rights
abuser-countries and with its strange and frequently off-the-mark
chairperson Volker Turk, has for years made it an everyday job to accuse Israel. Together with the UN's so-called special rapporteur "for the occupied Palestinian territories", Francesca Albanese -- an unprofessional person frequently shown to utter anti-Semitic remarks -- they all have done enormous damage,
also as probably intended. Their reports are hardly reliable guides in
assessing any aspect of the Middle East. Israel, which will go nowhere,
is fighting for its people, its survival and for the survival of the West.
As a state, Israel is well-rooted in international law, contrary to
what many uninformed Western critics seem to think. They like to cite
what many call the "Leftist fringe" in Israel (such as the newspaper Haaretz: decades ago a worthwhile, respectable paper, but since then (here and here) producing questionable stories and maneuvering itself into the margins. It is read by barely 16%
but adored by those in the media who are looking for material with
which to demonize Israel ("Even Jews say it!"), or by self-appointed
"Jewish spokespersons" in the West to criticize Israel's policies and
efforts at self-defense. Peter Beinart comes to mind, or, recently, Omer Bartov, who falsely accused Israel of "genocide".
Mainstream news outlets do not seem aware of the subtleties of
internal Israeli debates or that they themselves often perpetuate the
stereotypes, prejudices, hate and "blood libels" towards Jews who have
trodden through more than 3000 years. Outside powers also interfere in
Israeli domestic politics, e.g. by funding government opponents. For
example, since 2023, Europe alone has donated more than 13 million euros to them.
The media also neglect -- or deny -- the pervasive humiliation and
persecution of Jews since the seventh century in the Arab and Muslim
world, and that Arabs were major slave-traders and still are (here and here).
Arab and Muslim history may have had episodes of mutual tolerance and
cooperation, but it was also full of unpredictable violent outbursts. In
15th century North Africa in the Sahara region, as just one example, there was an extermination of the Jewish community of Tamantit, reportedly motivated by Islamic theology. More recently, the 1941 Farhud in Baghdad, Iraq was a gruesome massacre of Jews.
Seeing the gross media bias, distortion
and orchestrated lies in the press coverage and the hypocrisy among
so-called progressives, as a non-Jewish (former) leftist, I have woken
up, so to speak – despite my still socio-economically left-of-center
attitudes. The "progressive" political leftism on this conflict is fake
and often utterly mistaken. It is important to realize its sources. Lingering Soviet propaganda is one of them. Yes, right-wing blah-blah on Jews, Israel and the Middle East is also obnoxious
(US commentator Tucker Carlson comes to mind), and support for Israel
is not, and should not be, just a "right-wing" cause. The so-called
progressives of today, however, are of an ideological, history-immune
bent and are apparently prepared to sell out the ideals of the
Enlightenment: women's emancipation, empirical evidence, reason, justice
and compassion, when they collide with their sympathies for certain
groups of victims -- in this instance, "the Palestinians". The
Palestinians are indeed victims – but of their own corrosive, corrupt
leaders -- lavishly funded by Qatar, Iran and Europe –not of Israel or
the Jews. It seems that self-appointed progressives love carefully
selected "victims", who are never blamed and are usually denied any
agency. Of course, Palestinians very much do deserve support and a
better chance to live their lives, which includes leaving Gaza if they
wish. However, by backing Hamas and other violent jihadist radicals, the
supporters of terrorists in the West -- a remarkable number of whom
appear to be in academia -- do not give the Palestinians a chance for better lives, careers or governance. These activists spoil the university environment to no good purpose and stimulate Israel -- and Jew-hatred -- even if they vehemently deny it: "We are only anti-Zionist", which has produced exactly nothing and only perpetuates the Palestinians' decay.
The contending parties in this Middle East conflict should, of
course, go back to balance, reason, and compassion; those commenting on
it should abandon their agitprop on both Israel and the Middle East. We
can't escape the need for more fact-based debate. Sympathizers of Hamas-like groups might also do with some study of history.
Many do not see that evolved mindsets in the Middle East are quite
different from Western ones. The expansionist and violent Islamism of
Iran's regime, the Houthis, Hamas, and Hezbollah (and in the background,
Qatar) is rooted in dogmatic theological hatred, not in "social justice" or "universal rights", except as defined by shari'a law. This view has only brought repression, misery and death. The Druze community in southern Syria has come under attack from the forces of Syria's new regime, in particular from its associated jihadist militias in what seems horrifying "purging" and mass murder. The Druze and other minorities in Syria are still under direct threat. The world, it seems, barely cares, least of all the "pro-Palestine" demonstrators.
Only Israel has vowed to protect the Druze. It did so despite already being attacked on more than seven fronts if you include international diplomacy, and the risks of escalation. In the rest of the world, no
demonstrations were organized in support of the Druze community,
certainly not in the West, nor was there any response by organizations
such as the UN Human Rights Council, Amnesty International, ICG, Human
Rights Watch, or all the so-called "concerned" NGOs.
International mediation has not, so far, been successful, perhaps because there has been too much of it, such as faulty Western interference. Too often, as well, "help" has been delivered by problematic mediators, such as Qatar (which, behind the scenes, seems to have been instructing Hamas
to hold out). More local initiatives and dialogues are needed to sort
matters out, although such proposals first have to be produced within
Palestinian society itself. A commendable initiative was also that of imams from Europe visiting Israel trying to build bridges. European governments and parliaments here offered exactly no follow-up.
It may indeed be that in such conflicts as in Gaza, one side must win
and the other side be totally defeated - as in World War II – to
prevent the dispute from simmering indefinitely. Only that kind of shock
might provoke self-reflection, admitting past mistakes, changing
mindsets, eventually respecting the different "other", and working
toward some sort of new accommodation.
One cannot negotiate when the other side wants your people
dead. Up to now, that has been the position of the Palestinian
Authority, Hamas, jihadists, many other Palestinians and Iran towards
Israel and the Jews. As Israel seems to have concluded, this objective
cannot be allowed to last.
The most positive development would be to work towards a joint future
of recognition of each other's existence, economic exchange and
integration, as under the successful Abraham Accords. A fundamental
change of regime in Iran would also denote major progress. It may be
unrealistic, however, to expect the Iranian people to attempt an
uprising again without outside coordination and help, but the departure
of bellicose mullahs would certainly help -- as would dismantling Hamas,
removing the corrupt and violent Palestinian Authority, and removing the Hezbollah terrorist movement from Lebanon's political and military landscape.
Demonstrations and public protest are, of course, basic rights in the
West. In Middle Eastern conflicts, however, they have been biased
towards terrorist movements and their supporters, and even largely based
on bankrolled disinformation (here, here and here).
The resulting boycotts against Israel now in Germany, Spain, the UK and
Canada are not even slightly useful; they only serve to completely kill
any possibility of negotiating for the release of Hamas's remaining
hostages, as well as negatively pressurizing governments (recently the Dutch) into dead-end and biased anti-Israel policies.
Finally, just after France and the UK joined a number of European countries in announcing their intention to "recognize" a "Palestinian state", Hamas published videos of totally emaciated, starved Israeli hostages, one of whom, Evyatar David, was photographed
digging his own grave. It is quite clear who is "the bad guy", European
recognition or not. Unfortunately but predictably, the UN General
Assembly held on September 12, 2025 duly followed suit,
endorsing again the so-called "two-state solution". Allying with people
dedicated to upholding terror movements, if not subverting international law and dismantlingcivilizational standards as some Western governments now seem to be doing, may well be a sign of impending political collapse.
Israel's legitimate case and wider geopolitical security in the Middle
East will not be furthered by it. The frame must be reset.
[1]
Incidentally, the same biased media mechanisms were at play in the
conflict in Ethiopia 2020-22. There, the so-called reputable global
media took the side of a violent insurgent movement that initiated a war
against the federal Ethiopian government with a one-day massacre in
November 2020. While the Ethiopian government forces later also engaged
in war transgressions, in the past few years the assertions and
accusations of the media on the gross abuse of the insurgents were
dismantled and shown to be incorrect. No one called the media and their
biased reporting to account. Skepticism on these "legacy media"
therefore is entirely justified, even more so in the case of the Middle East, and specifically Israel.
Jon Abbink is an anthropologist-historian (emeritus
professor). He has worked at the universities of Nijmegen, Amsterdam
(UvA and VU) and Leiden in The Netherlands, as well as at Kyoto
University, Japan.
