Europe's Illegal Land-Grab: The Unlawful Palestinian Settlements You've Never Heard Of - Karys Rhea

 

by Karys Rhea

Khan al Ahmar is representative of a pattern of tactics that the PA regularly employs when wresting land rights from the State of Israel.

 

• Israel's complete jurisdiction over Area C, which legally includes building permits, zoning, construction, law enforcement and planning, was recognized and agreed to by the Palestinian leadership and the world at large for almost three decades. As stipulated in the agreement, only when direct negotiations determine the permanent fate of the territories that had illegally been occupied by Jordan until 1967, can the Oslo Accords be replaced. Until then, it is the law.

• First, they fabricated a name for this illegal encampment to make it appear "historic": "Khan al Ahmar." From there, they complained to the media that this destitute group of Arabs were being threatened with supposed "crimes against humanity": forced population transfer and ethnic cleansing. They accompanied their manufactured narrative with images of barefoot Bedouin children, and began pumping money into the settlement, and building these "dispossessed" children a school.

• Khan al Ahmar is representative of a pattern of tactics that the PA regularly employs when wresting land rights from the State of Israel. First, it identifies a strategic point located far from an existing population center. Second, it illegally seizes the land, invents a name for this "historic" village that never existed, and insists the squatters have been there since the dawn of time, despite historic aerial photographs showing otherwise. Third, it broadcasts any pushback from Israel as "cruel" and "oppressive," and "ethnic cleansing".... Then, it finds another location to invade.

• As of today, the PA has built over 90,000 illegal structures and aggressively seized more than 23,000 acres of land.

• [T]he UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has been known to partner with the PA, and it actually plowed over the royal city of Shomron (Sebastia), the seat of the ancient Israelite Kingdom and one of the largest, most important archaeological sites in the area. UNESCO has also literally "reinvented" the Tomb of the Patriarchs -- where Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah are buried -- as the purported tomb of a Muslim sheikh.

• Attempted legal action against the EU, on the basis of its undermining the Oslo Accords, is met with the claim that its funding for the PA merely amounts to "humanitarian aid" and that the EU has full "diplomatic immunity." Carver, however, argues that this defense is invalid because the Vienna Convention stipulates that diplomats may only be granted immunity if they do not interfere in the internal affairs of a state, which the EU is actively doing by seizing land that is recognized legally as being under Israel's jurisdiction. In claiming immunity by falsely declaring that it is not interfering in Israel's internal affairs, the EU is also disregarding a foundational element of the UN charter: the principle of non-intervention.

• The Europeans appear to want it both ways, on the one hand paying lip service to the Oslo Accords in order to criticize Israel, while on the other hand actively helping the PA to ignore the terms of the Accords. The chasm between proclaimed intention and actual behavior renders any commitment to peace laughable. The irony of the Europeans condemning Israel for expropriating questionable Palestinian land when the Europeans themselves are helping Palestinians to expropriate Israeli land is lost on the public at large.

Khan al Ahmar is representative of a pattern of tactics that the Palestinian Authority regularly employs when wresting land rights from the State of Israel. First, it identifies a strategic point located far from an existing population center. Second, it illegally seizes the land, invents a name for this "historic" village that never existed, and insists the squatters have been there since the dawn of time, despite historic aerial photographs showing otherwise. Third, it broadcasts any pushback from Israel as "cruel" and "oppressive," and "ethnic cleansing" Pictured: An internationally-funded school building in Khan al Ahmar, with Israeli Highway 1 in the background, photographed in 2015. (Image source: TrickyH/Wikimedia Commons)

Yesterday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced their commitment to "foil what they said was the Palestinian Authority's scheme to seize land across Judea and Samaria." Most of this vast, lawless land-grab, it turns out, has been energized and financed by the European Union (EU).

For decades, members of the media, activist groups, academics, international organizations, NGOs, and countless politicians have insisted that Jewish settlements in the West Bank are the primary obstacle to peace between Israelis and Palestinians. These settlements, the assumption goes, represent an illegal and inhumane "occupation," and until they are dismantled and the territory handed over to a Palestinian state, there can be no resolution to the conflict.

Beyond these power-broker narratives exists another dimension to the story that is deliberately neglected worldwide. It is a far more labyrinthine and sinister tale -- one of stunning hypocrisy, moral bankruptcy, quasi-legal bureaucracy and colossal abuse of international law -- that exposes the questionable motivations of quite a few bad-faith actors at the core of an Israeli-European alliance supposedly based on "shared democratic values."

The deception begins with a 2009 document, "The Fayyad Plan," and ends with the unlawful Palestinian takeover of hundreds of thousands of dunams of land, with direct subsidies and encouragement from the EU. This land, under the internationally recognized and mutually agreed to Oslo Accords, rightfully belongs to Israel.

In 1993, in Washington, DC, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, a Palestinian terrorist who had been evicted from Jordan and Lebanon, signed the first and only agreement achieved between Israel and Palestine Liberation Organization, which was brokered by the United States government under President Bill Clinton, and witnessed by the EU.

In 1995, the parties signed a follow-on agreement called the Oslo II Accord, also known as the Taba Agreement or the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. A critical component of Oslo II separated the West Bank into three jurisdictions -- Areas A, B and C -- and outlined specific responsibilities and obligations of its administrators.

Area A would be exclusively controlled, both for civil and security matters, by the newly-created Palestinian Authority (PA). Area B would be administered for all civil matters by the PA while the Israeli government would maintain security of its periphery, and Area C would be solely administered by Israel until all final borders would theoretically be negotiated face-to-face with the Palestinians. In other words, Israel's complete jurisdiction over Area C, which legally includes building permits, zoning, construction, law enforcement and planning, was recognized and agreed to by the Palestinian leadership and the world at large for almost three decades.

As stipulated in the agreement, only when direct negotiations determine the permanent fate of the territories that had illegally been occupied by Jordan until 1967, can the Oslo Accords be replaced. Until then, it is the law.

Unlike United Nations General Assembly resolutions, which are non-binding, the Oslo Accords are legally obligatory. Yet on August 23, 2009, 14 years after the signing of Oslo II, Salam Fayyad, then the prime minister of the PA, published a blueprint titled, "Palestine: Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State," known today as the Fayyad Plan, in which he took it upon himself to unilaterally abandon the Oslo framework and reject direct negotiations with Israel. Instead, Fayyad explicitly called for the creation of a de-facto Palestinian state in Area C.

Fayyad's usurpation of an international legal framework consisted of a plan to disregard the territorial divisions in the West Bank established by the Oslo Accords and de facto annex the land by building "facts on the ground" throughout Area C, presumably creating irreversible possession, establishing an extra-judicial foothold in an off-limits area, and eventually reshaping the demographic and sovereign facts on the ground.

Fayyad recognized that the brutal wave of Palestinian terror attacks that began in 2000, initiated by the Palestinian Authority, had distracted the world from the fact that they once again had rejected, without even a counter-proposal, yet another offer by Israel for a supposedly wished-for Palestinian state. The wave of terror attacks, in which more than 1,000 Israelis were murdered in what came to be known as the Second Intifada, had a transformative effect on Israeli public opinion. The argument of the Israeli peace-camp that, by ceding tangible land for intangible promises, Israel could buy peace, was finally discredited.

Terrorism had failed to break the Israeli spirit, and Fayyad needed a new plan. That plan was to build. Despite valid fears that Israeli authorities would immediately destroy any illegally-erected structures in Area C, the Palestinians went ahead. When the European Union saw that the Israeli leadership was ignoring the illegal construction and saw what their protected Palestinian wards could get away with, they became massively involved, encouraging the Palestinians to build as if there was no Oslo, financing the land-grab with structures labeled "European Union," and, in the event that Israel enforced the law, guaranteeing legal assistance.

First, in Ramallah, the Palestinians' de facto capitol in Area A, the EU established "consultancy offices of permanent representation" -- a de facto embassy, but for a state that does not exist -- and together with the PA developed multiple master plans to build infrastructure, roads, schools and other puzzle-pieces that, when completed, would connect to form an uninterrupted band of Arab territory, north-to-south – effectively covering all of Israel's Area C.

The EU also trained Palestinians in the use of advanced technology and helped to modernize their bureaucracy -- essential tasks to overcome the conservative, tribal nature of Arab societies. This sociological model, traditionally adhered to by the Palestinians, is one factor why they have failed to create a modern state, despite receiving more humanitarian aid than any group in history.

Dr. Yishai Spivak, an investigative researcher with Ad Kan, an Israeli non-profit organization, noted:

"It wasn't just about the Europeans throwing money at the Palestinians or teaching them to build single structures. It was about teaching them how to think about the other families so they could cooperate and share land. Fayyad had the vision. The EU led him by the hand and gave the vision a soul."

Since 2009, the Europeans have invested anywhere from hundreds of millions to more than one billion euros in Area C Palestinian development in the form of direct subsidies for construction, legal assistance, and aid to administration and planning. Once money is allocated, it is transferred to the Municipal Development and Landing Fund (MDLF), an executive arm of the PA Ministry of Local Government. A contract is drawn-up between a local municipality and UN-Habitat or other UN branches. Finally, the UN contracts directly with builders and field workers. These contracts actually acknowledge that the construction projects they are carrying out are, in fact, illegal, and that the Israeli government is within its rights to demolish them. In fact, legal costs for the defense and appeals process in Israeli courts are built right into the contracts, and budgets are set aside to cover the occasional impounding of construction machinery by Israel. Yet at no point in this process is Israeli permission sought.

This is not some secret conspiracy. In 2015, John Gatt-Rutter, the EU Representative to the West Bank and Gaza Strip at the time, dismissed the legally binding Oslo Accords by declaring that "Area C remains an integral part of the occupied Palestinian territory and compromises crucial natural resources and land for a viable Palestinian state." That same year, the EU spent 3.5 million euros on Palestinian Area C development. Its spatial plans for Area C construction are publicly available on the website of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and reveal exactly where the EU is funding infrastructure projects. Or simply take a drive through Area C and see dozens of Palestinian squatter camps with an EU flag or logo displayed on their structures.

In December 2022, an unpublished policy plan was leaked to the media and sparked outrage among politicians and Jewish groups. Drafted by the EU and dated June 2022, the document provided an "overview of the EU's approach in its Area C programme." The six-page policy plan, addressed to European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel, and European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, bafflingly claimed to be "in line with the Oslo Accords," while, in the same sentence, declaring its aim to "preserv[e] Area C as part of a future Palestinian State." The plan discussed re-mapping the territory, thwarting Israeli archaeological activity, building infrastructure for Palestinians, and providing them with legal aid.

Since 2009, the PA has paved over 1,200 miles of new roads, put up thousands of electricity poles, and used agricultural projects to take over Israeli state land that had been untouched for decades. Some 3,500 illegal structures are erected every year in Area C, with an average of seven new illegal structures per day. By 2009, 29,784 structures had been built. By 2020, there were close to 70,000 structures. As of today, the PA has built over 90,000 illegal structures and aggressively seized more than 23,000 acres of land. Israel's Civil Administration tears down a mere 200 to 250 of these illegal structures each year, and generally chooses insignificant enforcement targets, such as animal pens or garages that do not bear intentional sponsorship signs.

Over the last decade or so, the PA has also illegally built more than 100 schools in Area C.

One school, built in 2021 in Gush Etzion, was constructed with funds from the supposedly "neutral" Switzerland, which is not even an EU member. That school is still standing today. The PA also routinely takes advantage of Jewish holidays to implement lightning-speed large-scale construction, including in Area C sites already under court-issued work-stop orders. Palestinians have more than enough room to build in Areas A and B, with 63% of that land empty and suitable for construction, but they apparently have the strategic goal of suffocating Israeli towns and villages. Brigadier General Amir Avivi (res.), founder of the Israel Defense and Security Forum, explains:

"If the Palestinians manage to create an impossible life for Jews, at the end of the day, Jews won't be able to live there. It's a disaster beyond anyone's imagination. Everybody living in Judea and Samaria will eventually have to leave because they will be surrounded by people shooting at them on the roads from all sides."

The particular case of Khan al Ahmar demonstrates how far the PA and EU will go in its quest to delegitimize Israel and draw international sympathy. By the 1970s, many Bedouin Arabs had abandoned their nomadic, shepherding traditions, taking advantage of the livelihood the newly established state of Israel afforded them. During this time, after a blood feud occurred within the large Jahalin Bedouin tribe, some families were forced out and migrated from southern Israel, and eventually settled on land adjacent to Maaleh Adumim, an Israeli town 4 miles east of Jerusalem. Ignoring its hazardous location next to a major highway, they set up a cluster of tents, and began illegally tapping into the municipality's water and electricity lines. Knowing full-well that their presence was illegal, many of the Bedouins cooperated with Israeli orders to evacuate. Some relocated, while others signed relocation agreements. Following the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, instead of allowing this routine zoning case to be settled like any other real estate dispute involving squatters, the Palestinians and their European backers decided to act as the Jahalin's representatives and turn this streetcorner into an international spectacle.

First, they fabricated a name for this illegal encampment to make it appear "historic": "Khan al Ahmar." From there, they complained to the media that this destitute group of Arabs were being threatened with supposed "crimes against humanity": forced population transfer and ethnic cleansing. They accompanied their manufactured narrative with images of barefoot Bedouin children, and began pumping money into the settlement, and building these "dispossessed" children a school.

Eventually, the Bedouins were convinced that they should stay put, while, starting in 2009, the PA and EU launched four separate lawsuits with the Israeli Supreme Court, an activist body consisting of self-selected and largely left-wing judges, who have crafted a supra-democratic system in which anyone, with no legal standing, is invited to file unlimited petitions against the State. Israel's Supreme Court is notoriously lenient towards Palestinians, often at the expense of the safety and security of Israelis, yet even it ruled, in every one of the six Khan al Ahmar petitions, that the squatters must evacuate. The French courts called the verdicts a "violation of international law," a rich claim given that country's own sordid history of forced transfer of its Roma population to eastern European countries.

The Israeli government offered the Jahalin a generous relocation package to the Arab community of Abu Dis, located roughly 4 miles away. This initiative would provide every wife of the polygamous Jahalin households with nearly $140,000, as well as each a plot of land zoned for residential construction in a new community named "Jahalin West," equipped with water and electricity, proper sanitation, education and welfare services. If they had accepted, these Bedouins would be living today in functional homes as part of a community designed specifically for them. Instead, they have been kept in limbo and cynically used as pawns in a perverse and corrupt European battle against the Jewish state. For 10 years, the evacuation, relocation and demolition orders were suspended, while Jahalin West remained uninhabited. Recently, squatters have begun to creep in and erect homes on the plots that had been standing empty, a rather ironic predicament given that critics had once complained that the Jahalin could not possibly be relocated to this site because it was "unfit for human settlement."

Khan al Ahmar is representative of a pattern of tactics that the PA regularly employs when wresting land rights from the State of Israel. First, it identifies a strategic point located far from an existing population center. Second, it illegally seizes the land, invents a name for this "historic" village that never existed, and insists the squatters have been there since the dawn of time, despite historic aerial photographs showing otherwise. Third, it broadcasts any pushback from Israel as "cruel" and "oppressive," and "ethnic cleansing."

Often, the next step is to create a land bridge between the new "village" and an existing Arab settlement, often through agricultural projects, again often funded by Europe. Then, it finds another location to invade. Rather than using its resources legally to build homes, schools, businesses, public buildings or parks on the vast open spaces under its control, the PA invests in politically motivated land seizures in Area C with the conscious aim of denying the right of Jews to live and thrive in their own sovereign country, amidst a sea of 50 Muslim-majority countries. Such behavior would appear to indicate that neither the Palestinians nor the Europeans have any interest in a lasting peace with Israel, which presumes an atmosphere of cooperation and direct negotiations.

Avivi openly considers this illegal takeover of land by the PA as big a national security threat to Israel as are Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and even Iran, adding:

"Unfortunately, many other high-ranking officers from the Israeli defense establishment don't understand. We are not treating this situation as a state of emergency, even though it's crystal clear that the Palestinian Authority is an enemy, and a dangerous one at that, even apart from its funding of terror and inciting hatred in education."

James Carver, a former Member of the European Parliament and its Committee on Foreign Affairs, is one of the few European parliamentarians who agrees. In 2016, he called out the EU for its obsessive meddling in Israeli affairs in a Times of Israel article:

"The EU professes to support a lasting Middle East peace settlement, yet I've highlighted both EU funding of the PLO, which pays salaries to murderers, as well as how EU funding of illegal Palestinian buildings in Area C, is in breach of the Oslo accords, thus acting as an obstacle to peace and expunging any pretense of the EU being an honest broker."

In diluting Israeli sovereignty, argued Carver, the EU is only creating further conflict, because those who genuinely support a two-state solution would never actively work to undermine either of those states.

Especially troubled by the fact that Europeans are building in nature reserves, he stated:

"It's very hypocritical that the European Union claimed to be environmental champions but seemed to be quite happy to illegally put-up buildings with their logo and develop settlements in nature reserves. Can you imagine the audacity of the European Union to believe they can violate legal facts? They've got skin as thick as a rhinoceros. They genuinely believe they can carry on with this, carte blanche."

These ongoing European-supported construction project are in nature reserves that were, in fact, internationally mandated as no-construction zones in the Wye River Memorandum, an agreement that concluded the Oslo Accords' division of the territory. Regavim, an Israeli non-governmental organization dedicated to protecting Israel's national lands and resources, has been mapping Palestinian illegal construction and land seizures for more than a decade. Regavim uses archival material, land deeds, official documents, historic photographs, historic and up-to-date aerial photographs, and geographic information system (GIS) maps. Its legal department often petitions the courts to compel Israeli authorities to act against instances of environmental abuse. Illegal construction, for instance, often produces illegal junkyards, which ignore regulations and requirements, and seriously pollute major water supplies used by both Arabs and Jews.

In many instances, Regavim has also petitioned against illegal construction on archaeological sites, a method by which the Palestinian Authority achieves two goals simultaneously: taking over territory and erasing the physical remains that attest to the Jewish historical connection to the land, dating back more than 3,000 years, to 1400 BCE. Israel previously carved out nature reserves around some archaeological sites in order to protect them. As far as the PA is concerned, these are the most sought-after construction sites, and the Europeans are full-fledged partners in this destruction of history, the environment and international law. In fact, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has been known to partner with the PA, and it actually plowed over the royal city of Shomron (Sebastia), the seat of the ancient Israelite Kingdom and one of the largest, most important archaeological sites in the area. UNESCO has also literally "reinvented" the Tomb of the Patriarchs -- where Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah are buried -- as the purported tomb of a Muslim sheikh.

While the European Parliament is generally considered a great seat of power, Carver, as an MEP, did not have the ability to initiate legislation, and his objections were never addressed. He explained that it is actually the purview of the European Commission to initiate laws, which only then go before parliament, where they are chewed over by the different political groups until a "consensus" is reached. Unlike the parliamentarians, who are elected by the voters of individual EU member states, the commissioners are appointed. As such, their loyalty lies with the EU over its member states. An ideologically-driven entity that seems to sanctimoniously revel in the belief that it has the moral right to usurp power from democracies and bestow it upon themselves, passing legislation that overrides national laws, the European Commission has – not surprisingly, considering its history -- swallowed the Palestinian's Jew-hating narrative whole. According to Carver, the Palestinian lobby is noisy and well-organized, and its members are vociferous in their actions compared to the far calmer, legalistic and reflective Israeli advocates.

Attempted legal action against the EU, on the basis of its undermining the Oslo Accords, is met with the claim that its funding for the PA merely amounts to "humanitarian aid" and that the EU has full "diplomatic immunity." Carver, however, argues that this defense is invalid because the Vienna Convention stipulates that diplomats may only be granted immunity if they do not interfere in the internal affairs of a state, which the EU is actively doing by seizing land that is recognized legally as being under Israel's jurisdiction. In claiming immunity by falsely declaring that it is not interfering in Israel's internal affairs, the EU is also disregarding a foundational element of the UN charter: the principle of non-intervention.

The Europeans appear to want it both ways, on the one hand paying lip service to the Oslo Accords in order to criticize Israel, while on the other hand actively helping the PA to ignore the terms of the Accords. The chasm between proclaimed intention and actual behavior renders any commitment to peace laughable. The irony of the Europeans condemning Israel for expropriating questionable Palestinian land when the Europeans themselves are helping Palestinians to expropriate Israeli land is lost on the public at large. Germany, in particular, leads the charge in this systematic assault on Israel's autonomy. According to Itamar Marcus, director of Palestinian Media Watch:

"It is outrageous that Germany, who, in the 20^th century, led Europe in trying to exterminate the Jews, is the country leading 21^st century Europe in policy that threatens Israel's survival."

It is unlikely that the Europeans -- insisting they are an "honest broker" in the Israel-Palestinian arena, and masking their antisemitic agenda of negating Jewish national and individual rights -- will ever be held to account. Many Israelis, however, believe it is their own leaders who have been too compliant to European demands that weaken them, and giving away the future of the country.

Karys Rhea is a producer at The Epoch Times and works with the Middle East Forum, Jewish Leadership Project and Baste Records. Her articles have appeared in Commentary, NY Daily News, Newsweek, The Federalist, Washington Examiner and Townhall, among others. You can find her on X.com under @rheakarys.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21490/europe-palestinians-land-grab

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Hamas admits 72% of deaths are combat-aged men as it quietly reduces civilian death toll - report - Jerusalem Post Staff

 

by Jerusalem Post Staff

Approximately 72% of fatalities are aged 13-55 and are men - the demographic category aligns with Hamas combatants.

 

Hamas terrorists in the central Gaza Strip. February 22, 2025.

(photo credit: Ali Hassan/Flash90)

Hamas quietly removed the names of thousands of Palestinians it had previously alleged were killed during the Israel-Hamas war, Salo Aizenberg, from the US-based non-profit organisation Honest Reporting told The Telegraph on Wednesday after analyzing Hamas’s March 2025 casualty update.

Hamas has previously claimed that 70% of casualties have been women and children, a claim no longer reflected in their recently updated lists, according to the research. Approximately 72% of fatalities are aged 13-55 and are men - the demographic category aligns with Hamas combatants.

“Hamas’s new March 2025 fatality list quietly drops 3,400 fully ‘identified’ deaths listed in its August and October 2024 reports – including 1,080 children. These ‘deaths’  never happened. The numbers were falsified – again,” Aizenberg asserted.

Taking Hamas figures as fact

A similar report by the Henry Jackson Society in December also concluded that Hamas had inflated the number of casualties in the war.

“We knew there were rafts of errors in their reporting,” report author Andrew Fox said. “There’s a reasonable explanation in that their computer systems went down in November 2023, so it’s been challenging for them to report accurately, but the lists are so unreliable that the world’s media shouldn’t be quoting them as reliable.

Palestinians protest to demand an end to war, chanting anti-Hamas slogans, in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip March 26, 2025. (credit: STRINGER/ REUTERS)

“The UN also just takes Hamas’s figures and publishes them with a note stating the figures are unconfirmed.”

Hamas will “have gone through the list, trying to make it as convincing as possible. They’ve been accepting names onto that list with no evidence whatsoever,” Fox explained. “So what I’m guessing they’re trying to do is thin out the names they cannot substantiate at all.”

“Salo’s research would be looking for names that were on previous lists but have now disappeared,” Fox explained. “Hamas releases lists as PDFs, so it’s harder to do comparisons but we transfer names to an Excel sheet to do a mass comparison this way.”

Jerusalem Post Staff

Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-848592

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IDF is closing in on controlling 30% of Gaza, defense sources tell 'Post' - Yonah Jeremy Bob

 

by Yonah Jeremy Bob

Katz to 'Post': No military occupation, but getting closer to large operation if no hostage deal.

 

IDF operating in the Rafah area of the Gaza Strip, March 27, 2025.

(photo credit: IDF SPOKESMAN’S UNIT)

With the IDF's latest pushes on Wednesday in deep southern Gaza in Rafah and in northern Gaza, it will be close to controlling 30% of Gazan territory, defense sources said.

On Wednesday, IDF Division 36 finally started to take a full hand in the invasion, focusing on northern Rafah.

Its activities added on to other divisions already active in Gaza since mid-March, including Division 252 in northern and central Gaza, and 143 in deep southern Rafah.

The latest IDF maneuvers could eventually cut off Rafah from Khan Yunis on the higher part of southern Gaza.

Despite the expanded areas of operation, defense sources have said they are continuing to avoid operating in areas in which hostages might be held.

IDF operates in Rafah, in Gaza, April 2, 2025. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

Further, defense sources said that even as the growing of the invasion to three divisions, so far,has required some new rounds of reservists callups, the government still will not need to order a very large reservist callup wave unless it engages in a much larger invasion of Gaza.

Defense sources threatened that if Hamas did not agree to a new hostage deal soon, a much larger Gaza invasion could be ordered within a period of days or weeks.

IDF operations in Rafah

However, Defense Minister Israel Katz deflected any questions from The Jerusalem Post suggesting that Israel was moving toward a slow military occupation of Gaza.

Rather, he said that the focus of the operation was still achieving a hostage deal and he did not want to speculate about whether Hamas could or would try to outlast Israel's latest military assault for several more months.

Next, defense sources disputed widespread reports that an attempt to order a wider reservist callup would run into potentially around half of the forces refusing in opposition to the government: not continuing the ceasefire with Hamas to get more hostages, undermining the legal establishment, and firing Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar.

In addition, defense sources disputed the idea that the more Gazan territory the IDF tries to hold onto, which requires more stationary forces, the more IDF losses in the field will start to spike.

Yonah Jeremy Bob

Source: https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-848505

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Israel expands military operation in Gaza following wave of strikes - JNS Staff

 

by JNS Staff

The IDF has deployed an additional division to the Strip, with the Israeli defense minister stating that the buffer zones along the border are being reinforced.

 

Israeli forces operating in the Tel Sultan neighborhood of Rafah, southern Gaza, March 2025. Credit: IDF.

The Israel Defense Forces has deployed another division to the Gaza Strip following overnight strikes on the enclave’s south, with Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz stating on Wednesday morning that “Operation Strength and Sword” is being expanded.

Israeli forces will move to secure wider areas to reinforce buffer zones along the border, with the aim of weakening terrorist infrastructure and pressure local communities to distance themselves from Hamas while supporting the return of hostages, he said.

On Wednesday, the IDF reported that troops eliminated an armed terrorist who approached the security fence in southern Gaza.
According to the military, the suspect posed a threat and was shot before reaching the fence. No Israeli injuries were reported.

Also on Wednesday, the IDF and Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) confirmed a targeted strike on Hamas operatives in Jabalia. According to a joint statement, the terrorists were located in a command center used to coordinate attacks and serve as a key meeting point for the group’s leadership. The compound, operated by Hamas’ Jabalia Battalion, was also used to plan attacks on Israeli civilians and troops, according to the statement.

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said that 19 people were killed in an Israeli strike on an UNRWA clinic in the Jabalia refugee camp, including nine children. For its part, the IDF said that extensive precautions were taken to avoid civilian harm, including aerial surveillance and intelligence gathering. The Israeli military accused Hamas of continuing to exploit civilian infrastructure and use human shields.

The IDF’s 36th Division is currently operating in relatively unpopulated territory between Khan Yunis and Rafah, according to Israel’s Channel 12 News.

On Monday, the IDF issued an evacuation order for the Rafah area, signaling a major intensification in its military campaign following the breakdown of a ceasefire and the renewal of operations against Hamas.

The military has also issued evacuation alerts for Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia, Sheikh Zayed and other districts in northern Gaza.

On Tuesday morning, rockets launched from northern Gaza triggered warning sirens in the Israeli city of Sderot. The IDF confirmed the interception of the projectile and responded with both evacuation notices and precision strikes targeting the launch sites.

Additional U.S. forces deployed to the Middle East

The U.S. military announced on Tuesday that it is deploying more air assets to the Middle East in response to escalating tensions and ongoing threats to American forces in the region. According to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), the move is intended to bolster force protection and regional deterrence.

The new deployment includes fighter aircraft and other aerial resources, although officials did not specify the exact number or types involved. The decision comes after repeated attacks by Iran-backed terrorist groups targeting U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria, as well as concerns over a possible regional spillover linked to the conflict in Gaza.

CENTCOM emphasized that the deployment is defensive in nature and part of broader efforts to ensure the safety of U.S. forces and maintain stability across the region.

JNS Staff

Source: https://www.jns.org/israel-expands-military-operation-in-gaza-following-wave-of-strikes/

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Trump admin quietly reinstated some $80m in USAID funds for Gazan aid, official says - Mike Wagenheim

 

by Mike Wagenheim

“It’s very Trump,” Enia Krivine, of FDD, told JNS. “He starts his negotiation with a very strong opening gesture, and then he works backwards from there.”

 

Samantha Power, the USAID administrator, at a World Food Program warehouse in Amman, Jordan, being used to prepare aid for shipment to Gaza on Feb. 26, 2024. Credit: USAID.

The State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development told Congress on Friday that they intend to “reorganize” the U.S. Agency for International Development, incorporating certain parts into the department by July 1 and discontinuing the other parts of USAID, which “do not align with administration priorities.”

Critics have long said that USAID helps fund enemies of the Jewish state, including having “spent millions on a non-profit that pushed anti-Israel and antisemitic rap songs,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) wrote last month. The Trump administration has also said that many of USAID’s funded programs are out of sync with U.S. priorities and values.

But a USAID official, who declined to be named, told JNS that Washington has already restored most of the aid intended for Gaza, which the Trump administration slashed in its broader cuts to foreign aid. That restoration occurred, per the official, before the collapse of the Israel-Hamas hostage release and ceasefire deal some two weeks ago.

The Trump administration did not realize at first that some aid funding for Gaza was tied directly to conditions of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal, according to the USAID official.

“Initially, everything was paused for a few days, but the administration has worked back to a place where most of the humanitarian assistance for Gaza is still continuing from the United States,” the official said.

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The official estimates that about $80 million of funding for the World Food Programme, UNICEF and some large nonprofits was in the pipeline and ready to go out when the White House froze it. Some six of 12 USAID programs in Gaza, which were eliminated, have been or will be resumed, per the official. Another $200 million in longer-term development projects in Palestinian-controlled territories appears to be paused.

“This would mean all the support to clinics, the work to build a new wastewater treatment plant in Jenin, the work to provide basic education for at-risk youth, training work,” the official told JNS. “All those things that may not be immediately life-saving, but are life-saving in a longer time frame.”

The official said that Israeli authorities had approved all such work and see those development projects as “work that stabilizes the region and makes Israel safer and that helps us to kind of avert the development of terrorism and extremist ideology.” 

A U.N. spokesman referred JNS to USAID. JNS has sought comment repeatedly from the State Department.

Enia Krivine, senior director of Israel programs and the national security network at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JNS that this approach is “very Trump.”

“He does the extreme,” she said. “He starts his negotiation with a very strong opening gesture, and then he works backwards from there. I think that some of these programs are going to get refunded in the coming months and years, but I think that they’re going to have to prove their merit, and they’re going to have to make the case.”

No one wants to take money from “these important programs that are supposed to reduce radicalization and try to help people,” Krivine told JNS. “But on the other hand, that’s a responsibility of the Palestinian Authority government, and they have plenty of resources to provide these services to their people.”

Israel is not typically a recipient of USAID funding, given its high incomes and development levels, but two programs that are exceptions to that rule have both been canceled.

The 2020 Middle East Partnership for Peace Act, which U.S. President Donald Trump signed into law during his first term in office, grants about $50 million worth of development funds annually for Israeli and Palestinian peacebuilding. The majority of the partnership’s partners are Israeli nonprofits, according to Daniel McDonald, director of operations for implementation of the program at USAID.

McDonald is among thousands of USAID staff members whom the Trump administration has placed on leave. His employment is set to expire next month.

“Some of the work happens exclusively within Israel, between Israeli Arabs and Jewish Israelis,” McDonald told JNS. “Some of it happens in Jerusalem, and some of it happens cross-border between Israel and either the West Bank or Gaza.”

All 28 programs funded through the partnership received cancellation notices from USAID, according to McDonald.

The other category of work, for which Israel received USAID funding, is the Middle East Regional Cooperation program, which aims to improve research and development cooperation between Israel and its neighbors. That program gets about $20 million in annual USAID funding.

The USAID official who spoke to JNS anonymously said that all parts of that program have been suspended.

A reporter asked Tammy Bruce, the U.S. State Department spokeswoman, during the department’s press briefing on Friday if it would include aid to Gaza in its continuing operations.

“We’re at a state where Congress has just been notified that this transition is happening,” she said. “I can’t speak to the decisions that’ll be made once that decision occurs through USAID as it exists and how it moves into State.”

Bruce described a complicated dynamic but said that “aid can immediately move through that situation through all of our regional partners, people who are concerned if Hamas were to release its hostages and lay down its arms.”

Mike Wagenheim

Source: https://www.jns.org/trump-admin-quietly-reinstated-some-80m-in-usaid-funds-for-gazan-aid-official-says/

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Silence on anti-Hamas Gaza protests shows many are anti-Israel not pro-Palestinian, experts say - Izzy Salant

 

by Izzy Salant

“When Israel cannot be blamed, they cannot be bothered to rally on behalf of the Palestinians in Gaza,” David May, of FDD, told JNS.

 

Anti-Israel protesters demonstrate in Lower Manhattan in New York City on March 10, 2025. Photo by Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images.

Protesters, who have turned out in the streets stateside and worldwide purportedly in support of Palestinians in the months since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 terror attacks have largely tipped their hands, experts told JNS, that they are really anti-Israel rather than pro-Palestinian, due to their silence as Gazans risk their lives protesting Hamas in the streets.

Those protests in the Strip have drawn thousands of Gazans, including Oday Nasser Al Rabay, whose relatives say that Hamas tortured and killed him before dumping his remains in front of his family’s home. (Rabay is also referred to as Saadi.)

“A 22-year-old Gazan was tortured and brutally murdered for protesting Hamas rule in Gaza,” wrote Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.). “No outrage from the pro-Hamas radical left in the United States and no reporting from mainstream media because it doesn’t fit their narrative.”

David May, research manager and a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JNS that the silence of activists on the Gaza protests “confirmed that the pro-Palestine movement in the West is little more than cheerleaders for Hamas.”

“When Israel cannot be blamed, they cannot be bothered to rally on behalf of the Palestinians in Gaza,” he said. “The current protests are a perfect gauge of whether activists in the West support the Palestinians or merely oppose Israel.”

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“Many Palestinians oppose the Iran-backed terrorist group that has repeatedly brought devastation upon Gaza by marching it into failed wars of annihilation against the Jewish state,” he added. “But the complex reality is too much for their simplistic understanding of the conflict and does not fit neatly into their oppressor-oppressed narrative.”

Jason Isaacson, chief policy and political affairs officer at the American Jewish Committee, told JNS that this lack of activism “has often been the case since Oct. 7.”

“Pro-Palestinian activists in this country have looked the other way and ignored atrocities committed by Hamas to further their anti-Israel agenda,” he said. Isaacson hopes that Saadi’s death, while tragic, will serve as “a wake-up call” to Hamas supporters in the United States, he added.

“Recently, some Gazans have risked everything to voice their disgust with Hamas,” Isaacson said. “Saadi paid with his life for speaking out. I hope they will finally realize who are the true enemies of a peaceful and secure future for the Palestinian people.”

Sam Markstein, national political director and communications director for the Republican Jewish Coalition, told JNS that “the antisemitic, anti-American, useful idiots for Hamas and their patrons in Iran have refused time and again to demand the release of the innocent hostages held in Gaza.”

“It should come as no surprise that these ghouls are totally silent in the face of Odai Naser Saadi’s brutal murder,” he said. “They do not seek to ‘free Palestine’ from Hamas terrorists. They seek the Jewish state’s destruction and they continue to be exposed day after day.”

At press time, National Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow had not issued statements in support of Rabay or of the anti-Hamas protesters in Gaza.

There have been some exceptions. Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who grew up in Gaza and who has been sharply critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, wrote “shame on all who failed the protesters in Gaza and ignored their pleas and cries for freedom, dignity and a future free of Hamas, terrorism, violence and conflict.”

“Shame on all the ‘journalists,’ ‘human rights’ fraudsters, ‘pro-Palestine’ and ‘solidarity’ activists, college campus advocates, academics, clueless leftists, conspiracy theorists, intifadists, jihadists, professors and other imbeciles who didn’t utter a word in support of tens of thousands of Gazans demanding an end to Hamas and the war that it started,”

The poet Mosab Abu Toha, who grew up in Gaza and now lives in Syracuse, N.Y., is a harsh critic of the Jewish state and its war against Hamas in the Strip. “Based on people’s reactions to the protests in Gaza, I landed upon a shocking fact: Most people stand in solidarity with Gaza and not with the people of Gaza,” he wrote.

Izzy Salant

Source: https://www.jns.org/silence-on-anti-hamas-gaza-protests-shows-many-are-anti-israel-not-pro-palestinian-experts-say/

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Oh, baby! Israel's high birth rate is a model for the West to emulate - opinion - Douglas Altabef

 

by Douglas Altabef

Israel leads by example. We want our imprimatur to last, and we believe that with all its problems, life is worth sustaining, replicating, and, striving to make it better.

 

A pregnant woman is seen alongside the Israeli flag in this illustrative image.

(photo credit: SHUTTERSTOCK)

Israel is at war. Israel is riven with partisan dissent. Israel is crazily expensive, requiring both parents to work and grandparents to help rear their little ones. Oh, and yes, the number of people who left the country rose significantly last year.

If that sounds like a society in extremism, filled with self-doubt, if not self-loathing, you might be onto something, except for one revealing fact: Israel has by far the highest birthrate among Western countries.

In fact, other than tiny Monaco and its disproportionately wealthy population, Israel is the only Western country to boast an above-replacement birthrate. Ours is not just above replacement; it’s way above.

Replacement is deemed to be 2.1 births per woman. Israel’s Jewish birthrate hovers just above 3 per woman and is now slightly higher than the Arab birthrate here.

Our birthrate is not just limited to the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) community (whose rate has been slowly declining over the past few years) but represents an across-the-social-spectrum-phenomenon.

Babies (Illustrative) (credit: INGIMAGE)

Three kids seem to have become the norm in Israeli society, much as having two kids was the norm in post-war America. No one blinks an eye when people say they have four kids, and even five sounds normative.

Why does Israel have a high birth rate?

What is going on? How does this happen in the face of almost unparalleled adversity and insecurity? By the way, births rose some 5% in Israel from 2023 to 2024, boosted by a 10% rise in the final months of war-torn 2024.

Is this some kind of social whistling past the graveyard or the widespread, willful suspension of disbelief? Or rather, is this a profound existential statement, a desire for the future, a cleaving to life itself, an act that reveals the depth and strength of the Jewish soul?

Why have those difficulties, prevalent across the board in all western societies, succeeded in derailing almost all Western family formation and then family growth, while here in Israel abortions are declining and single people and gay couples strive as well to have children?

Ultimately, I believe that the very existence of the phenomenon elicits reasons, explanations, and perspectives that might provide some light on it.

The question, therefore, is not just why a society would embrace childbirth but also what the embrace of childbirth says about a society?

What is it that Israelis, across the board, see in having and raising children that others don’t? Why would Israelis not be impeded from having kids or not be deterred by the all too obvious impediments and difficulties that having children represent?

All kids are cute, but they are also demanding. But what differentiates between having one kid and saying, “Well, we did it,” and having one and saying, “well, this is a great start?”

One thing I happily often notice is how involved, affectionate, and playful fathers are with their children. There is no reserve, no distance, no feeling that this is not something men do. Indeed, men do it, love it, and look forward to it.Children are not relegated; they are shared as an endeavor by both parents.

This willingness to enjoy children, this desire to participate in their upbringing, might provide some insights. They are the great project, the ultimate start-up. They are the canvas ready for the portrayal of the human spirit.

Is there something about being Jewish that leads people to have children? Well, in the United States, non-religious Jews are having children at the same below-replacement levels as their Gentile neighbors.

Does that mean that religious people find special meaning in having children? Perhaps, but less observant Jews in Israel are also having a multitude of kids.

Maybe there is something about living in the Land that was given to the Jews by God to be an eternal inheritance? After all, how does it stay an eternal heritage if you are not populating it?

As an oleh (new immigrant), I am more than prepared to believe that there is a spirit, a character, and a specialness to this place that enhances the desire to be part of it, to see oneself as a contributor to the ongoing saga that is living in Israel.

But I also believe there is a transferability from our experience of having lots of children. In other words, there is a “light unto the nations” aspect of our experience with children, and that light has to be able to shine elsewhere as well.

We have children hoping that they survive and surpass us and that they in turn will want to keep the party going with children of their own. Children represent the potential to make the world a better place. They are the ultimate tikkun olam because their efforts will continue once we are all gone.

Children represent the future

To have children is to welcome the future, hopefully one better than the present. Look at our amazing soldiers, the hundreds of thousands who proudly came to Israel’s rescue after October 7.

They came from somewhere. They bore the imprint of their parents, grandparents, teachers, and communities. We, their forebears, get some of the credit for their heroism and hope in turn that their heroism rubs off on their own children.

We are willing to be engaged. We want our imprimatur to last, and we believe that with all its problems, life is worth sustaining, replicating, and, yes, striving to make it better.

Israel is indeed an adventure. Perhaps when others see that we are encountering life, with all its difficulties and absurdities, as an adventure worth sustaining, then we can lead by example.

Perhaps that is too much to hope for, let alone to expect. But it is a great aspiration, right up there with wanting to have children, lots of wonderful children.

Douglas Altabef is chairman of the Board of Im Tirtzu and a director of the Israel Independence Fund.

Source: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-848391

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Blood feud: Gaza clan executes Hamas policeman, Gazan reports say - Ohad Merlin

 

by Ohad Merlin

Hamas’s Interior Ministry admitted that the policeman shot and wounded a Gazan while attempting to break up a clash between families.

 

Crowds in the central Gaza Strip, February 8, 2025.

(photo credit: Ali Hassan/Flash90)

A member of Hamas’s police force was executed in Deir el-Balah after a local clan accused him of murdering one of its kin, raising political tensions in the Gaza Strip.

Social media was flooded with viral videos depicting the execution on Tuesday of Ibrahim Shaldan, a member of Hamas’s police, from point-blank range.

Hamas policeman executed by Gaza clan in Deir Al-Balah after being accused of shooting and killing Abdulrahman Abusamra, a young man who was acquiring flour, according to family.

Social Media is flooded with horrid graphic videos from the execution (I brought only a screenshot). pic.twitter.com/nwg8TnpYqK

— Ohad ✡️ اوهاد ✡️ אהד (@MOhadIsrael) April 1, 2025

The execution was geo-located to have taken place near a known monument at the entrance to the city of Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, and Shaldan’s ID was photographed and made public. In the graphic video, three different executioners can be seen shooting, while the victim is seen holding a poster.

The affair began when the local Abusamra clan alleged that members of Hamas’s police force killed Abdulrahman Abusamra, a young man who was, according to the clan’s account, standing in line to buy flour.

The news of his killing spread quickly, and soon members of his clan claimed to have gotten hold of the alleged perpetrator, killing him from short range and claiming to avenge Abusamra’s blood.

However, it appears that the accounts were more complex than those told by the family. According to other Gazan channels, armed clashes between local clans began earlier on Tuesday at a shelter in Deir el-Balah, which apparently led to several deaths.

Armed and masked Palestinians patrol and enforcing the law in the street in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, March 1, 2024 (credit: ABED RAHIM KHATIB/FLASH90)

Hamas claims responsibility

Nevertheless, Hamas has implicitly taken responsibility for the death of Abusamra. Following the execution, Hamas’s Interior Ministry, which oversees the police, issued a statement saying “the police are investigating the crime of the killing of a policeman while he was carrying out a mission to break up a fight, which led to the death of a civilian form his injuries in Deir el-Balah this noon. The police will be following up with the event to arrest the perpetrators, stressing that they will take all strong legal measures against the perpetrators of the heinous crime of killing a policeman while on duty.”

Some commentators online expressed their satisfaction with the execution.

“After the Abusamra family’s retribution against the killer, every Hamas member will think a million times before shooting someone from his own people, especially from the large families,” one wrote.

However, Hamas loyalists quickly turned to political tensions. One commenter named Abu Khaled wrote: “We must do away with the entire Abusamra clan,” while another one named Hameed took a screenshot from the video of the execution, adding: “Anyone who has names of those who appeared in the video of the murder of the shahid [martyr] today, please publish them so that they can be punished.”

He also said that one of those who appeared in the video was a Fatah member and a former employee of “the traitorous Ramallah [Palestinian] Authority.”

Finally, there were those who feared an escalation that would lead to an all-out civil war. One blogger named Muhammad wrote: “Hamas killed a young man from the Abusamra family without a trial or law, just as it killed dozens before him. The family is big and took revenge for their son immediately, so they killed the killer. Who is responsible for bringing Gaza to this state?”

This is not the first time in the last week that Gazan citizens have openly turned against Hamas. Last week, several protests took place in the northern Gaza Strip, with protesters openly calling for the removal of the terrorist organization from power; while, earlier this week, Hamas was accused of kidnapping, torturing, and murdering Odai al-Rabei, a 22-year-old Gazan dissident.

In both cases, Hamas leaders and loyalists accused those turning against the terrorist organization as “sellouts,” “traitors,” or “Zionists.”

Ohad Merlin

Source: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-848468

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Can We Fix Our Demographic Doom Loop? - Edward Ring

 

by Edward Ring

Falling birth rates in rich nations threaten collapse, while poorer regions boom—forcing tough questions on economics, culture, and why modern women choose not to have children.

 

Throughout the developed world, birth rates have crashed. But the “population bomb” that author Paul Ehrlich warned us about in the 1970s still exists; it’s just confined to the nations with the lowest per capita income. The correlation is almost perfect. The average number of children per woman in extremely poor nations is still extremely high.

For example, births per woman in Niger stand at a world-leading 6.6, which means that every generation the population of that nation will more than triple. Meanwhile, the per capita income in Niger, even based on purchasing power parity, stands at a dismal $2,084 per year. Exponential national population growth is occurring across most of the African continent, where in 1950, the population was estimated at around 225 million compared to an estimated 1.5 billion today. By 2050, Africa’s population is estimated to rise to 2.5 billion and is not estimated to level off until 2100 at nearly 4 billion people.

There are pockets of fecundity elsewhere in the world, primarily in the Middle East, but if you exclude Africa and some Islamic nations, the entire global population is on a path to oblivion. From China (1.2 children per woman), Korea (0.9), and Japan (1.3) to Germany (1.5), Italy (1.3), and the United Kingdom (1.6), populations are on track to descend by 50 percent in at most two generations. The European numbers are only slightly better than the Asian numbers because of immigration.

Because of the sensitive nature of the information, it is difficult to get reliable statistics on the birth rates of indigenous European women. But according to official data from the German government, nearly 50 percent of all children under the age of five in Germany have a “migration background.” Since 80 percent of Germany’s population is still reported as having “German origin,” it is clear that immigrant birthrates are far higher than the birthrates of indigenous German women.

This pattern repeats itself throughout the European nations and nations of European origin. According to the Office of National Statistics in the United Kingdom, the most common name for baby boys is now Muhammad. In the hopefully more assimilative United States, according to Pew Research, “minority” births now outnumber white births.

What these demographic trends portend for our future is central to every major issue we face. Can we maintain economic health if we accept a population in terminal decline? So far, the Asians are betting they can, relying on automation and AI to fill the labor gaps. Can we maintain cultural stability if we import Africans and Moslems to have babies since we don’t want to anymore? That’s the bet the European nations are making.

But there is an even more fundamental question that ought to be the topic of massive public debate, without stigmatizing the participants or restricting the theories offered up. Why don’t women in developed nations want to have babies anymore?

Answers to this question typically travel into safe spaces. It’s economics: the cost of living is too high. Or the slightly conspiratorial but increasingly mainstream explanation that endocrine disruptors in our food and water have lowered the fertility and the libido of men and women alike. And, of course, the likely possibility that social media has spawned a younger generation that is isolated, socially stunted, and intimacy challenged.

To some degree or another, all of these explanations are true, but they ignore countervailing facts: Our nations are now filled with subcultures for whom none of these reasons apply to nearly the same effect. What are they doing that we stopped doing? And here is where we dive into the topics and theories that one may risk career and political suicide to utter.

There is a pundit on X who goes by the name “hoe_math” and bills himself as “history’s manliest and most hilarious sex genius.” He recently released a brief video post on his X account that squeezes several inflammatory explanations for low female fertility into 2 minutes and 14 seconds. Something this succinct deserves analysis, despite being horrifically biased, sexist, etc., etc., etc., because even if he is overstating his case and ignoring other factors and being deliberately offensive, he is covering the forbidden bases that need to be covered. If there were more honest scholarship available on these topics, we might by now have a more sanitized and more credible compilation. But we don’t. So here goes.

The video opens with a clip of a woman who claims women don’t need men anymore. To which “hoe_math” goes to work. He begins by saying that women’s need for men is not gone, just more indirect now, stating that “men have always been between women and the real world.”

Relying on hand-drawn pictographs, he shows seven women in pink dresses, safe inside a circle that is shielded by men who are getting killed (denoted by being crossed out with red X marks), protecting them from danger. “Your office job is not the real world,” he continues. “Men face danger and build things in order to create a safe space for women. You just don’t understand that because you’re too comfortable… If all men stopped working right now, we would all die. That’s because men make all the food and build all the houses and the walls.”

If the first half of the video asserts that that base reality still exists, requiring the presence of men, the second half explores the consequences of denying that assertion. Speaking about women, he says, “And then you look around and go, ‘Hey, men have more than us. No fair,’ so you go to the government, which writes some laws for you that make you equal, and then you are disgusted by men who are equal to you.” He then ventures his primary argument, saying, “So without equality laws, it’s very easy for women to find men they respect, and with equality laws, it’s very difficult.”

Moving from the impact of financially empowering women to the impact it has on men, he states, “And then everyone tells these men they are worthless,” while in the video placing a “not people” card over the first seven levels of men on a pictograph that has columns of men and women ranked from 10 down to 1. He then says the men who are deemed worthless decide not to work anymore and instead turn themselves into a Peter Pan type character that rejects personal responsibilities and refuses to grow up.

Whatever else you may say about this video, and despite its glib oversimplifications, it has too much substance to be dismissed. A study conducted in 2006 by academics from MIT and the University of Chicago evaluated the role of height and annual income in determining male attractiveness to women. It found that for a man 5′ 6″ in height to be as attractive as a man 6′ tall, the shorter man would have to earn $175,000 per year more than the six-footer. For a 5′ 8″ man, the gap he would have to fill drops to $138,000 per year. A man only 5′ 2″ tall would have to earn a whopping $269,000 per year more than the six-foot man to be considered equally attractive to women.

Income matters. A 2022 study of dating site behavior found that “Men with combined income and education that was one standard deviation greater than the mean received 255%—over three times—more indicators of interest than men with combined income and education that was one standard deviation less than the mean.” A 2018 study published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior found that women consistently rated men with greater income as more attractive and that these findings “tally with a much broader corpus of scientific work which found high-status men were considered more attractive by women.”

If women aren’t attracted to men who make less money, that would help explain why they aren’t marrying these men and having children. But also relevant to the decline in births are two myths that are slowly disintegrating despite ongoing mainstream denial. The first is the familiar trope that women only make 83 cents for every one dollar earned by men. Not true. When normalizing for job type, qualifications, and hours worked, the “gender pay gap” all but disappears, thus diminishing the pool of eligible males.

The second myth is that women are more likely to find fulfillment in careers than in having children. Also not true. A study of American women aged 18-55 found that married women with children were twice as likely to be “very happy” as unmarried women with no children and only half as likely to be “not too happy.” As long as this myth persists, however, women are impelled to choose career over children.

These findings all come with uncomfortable implications. Are women choosing to be alone because they have an innate need to only be with a man who is more able to provide for them than they can provide for themselves, and there are no longer enough of those men to go around? Are the only cultures where women still have babies above a replacement level those cultures that discourage women from having education and careers?

The cost of living, toxins in the environment, and the isolating impact of technology are all playing a role in the catastrophic decline in birth rates in developed nations. But there are also profound and very recent changes in how we collectively choose mates and choose to have families that are probably playing the larger role. If we ignore these cultural factors, we risk losing everything. The heritage we have painstakingly built over millennia may be erased because we didn’t want to talk about it. Babies don’t yet come in bottles. Women either get pregnant and give birth to them, or we go extinct.

For decades, fear of being called racist has suppressed honest debate over mass immigration. Similarly, fear of being called sexist prevents honest debate over why there is a population crash and what to do about it.

Edward Ring

Source: https://amgreatness.com/2025/04/02/can-we-fix-our-demographic-doom-loop/

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