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."
The Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022 and the conflict has shown no signs of ending, despite the best efforts of the Trump administration to broker a deal.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe's personal visit to Moscow this week saw
him warn Russia against any strikes on NATO nations, multiple outlets
have reported.
Ratcliffe visited Russia this week and met with intelligence
officials, but not President Vladimir Putin. The meeting came amid
reported concerns from Washington that Russia could attack one of the
Baltic States, all of which are in NATO, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022 and the
conflict has shown no signs of ending, despite the best efforts of the
Trump administration to broker a deal.
Hussein al-Sheikh, vice president of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and deputy chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), revealed this week that Hamas... has reached an understanding with the US permitting figures affiliated with the terrorist organization to participate [in the upcoming November 29 PA elections] through a "new political framework."
Hussein al-Sheikh, vice
president of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and deputy chairman of the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), revealed this week that
Hamas... has reached an understanding with the US permitting figures
affiliated with the terrorist organization to participate [in the
upcoming November 29 PA elections] through a "new political framework."
If this account is accurate, the scheme amounts to a dangerous exercise in deception.
Changing Hamas's name does not change Hamas. Pretending that
Hamas-affiliated election candidates are somehow different from Hamas
because they are running under another banner is a scam.
Perhaps they could call themselves the "Palestinian Peace Movement," or the "Palestinian Party for Democracy and Transparency"?
Hamas does not recognize Israel's right to exist. It has never
accepted the PLO as the "sole legitimate representative of the
Palestinian people." It rejects the Oslo Accords. Its ideology remains
centered on "resistance" and the claimed "liberation" of Palestine —
which in fact has never existed — wishfully from the Jordan River to the
Mediterranean Sea.
Most importantly, Hamas has still not demonstrated that it is
prepared to surrender its weapons and cease functioning as an armed
organization.
Hamas will promise anything if doing so helps it survive and return to political legitimacy.
Hamas has proved itself adept at telling outsiders what they want to hear while pursuing its long-term objectives.
The same danger applies to elections
Why, after October 7, should anyone, let alone the Trump
administration, be searching for formulas to facilitate Hamas's return
to Palestinian political life?
Why, nearly three years after October 7, 2023, does a terrorist
organization such as Hamas continue to be treated by various
international and regional parties as some kind of indispensable
political actor? Hamas officials continue to participate in negotiations
and meetings through regional mediators, while discussions increasingly
seem aimed not at removing Hamas from Palestinian political life but at
finding ways to accommodate it.
There can be no loophole called "Hamas-affiliated independents."
There can be no cosmetic rebranding and no supposedly "new political
framework" designed to disguise the identity of candidates who continue
to embrace Hamas and its jihadist ideology.
Stop the deception. Stop searching for ways to sneak Hamas back
into Palestinian political life through the back door. It is not good
for either their election or America's.
Changing Hamas's name does not change Hamas. Pretending that
Hamas-affiliated election candidates are somehow different from Hamas
because they are running under another banner is a scam. If candidates
are affiliated with Hamas, support Hamas or subscribe to its extremist
ideology, what difference does the name of their electoral list make?
Pictured: The Palestinian Legislative Council building in Ramallah on
January 28, 2006, three days after its last election. (Photo by Zharan
Hammad/Getty Images)
If reports
about an agreement between the United States and Hamas concerning the
terrorist group's participation in the upcoming Palestinian Authority
elections are true, the arrangement is not only outrageous, it is a
fraud.
Hussein al-Sheikh, vice president of the Palestinian Authority (PA)
and deputy chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO),
revealed this week that Hamas would not participate in the November 28
parliamentary elections under its own name or in its current form.
According to al-Sheikh, Hamas has reached an understanding with the US permitting figures affiliated with the terrorist organization to participate through a "new political framework."
If this account is accurate, the scheme amounts to a dangerous exercise in deception.
Changing Hamas's name does not change Hamas. Pretending that
Hamas-affiliated election candidates are somehow different from Hamas
because they are running under another banner is a scam. If candidates
are affiliated with Hamas, support Hamas or subscribe to its extremist
ideology, what difference does the name of their electoral list make?
Would indirect affiliation with Hamas somehow be acceptable? Would
Hamas supporters become moderates simply because the word "Hamas" does
not appear on the ballot?
Perhaps they could call themselves the "Palestinian Peace Movement,"
or the "Palestinian Party for Democracy and Transparency"? Would that
suddenly transform an Islamist terrorist organization committed to jihad (holy war) against Israel into a collection of liberal democrats?
This farce has been tried before. In January 2006, Hamas contested
the PA parliamentary election not under the name Hamas, but under the
seemingly innocuous banner Change and Reform. It won 74 of the 132 seats
in the Palestinian Legislative Council, compared to 45 for the ruling
Fatah faction.
What "change" and "reform" did Hamas ultimately bring?
The "change" was the establishment of a heavily armed Islamist regime
in the Gaza Strip after Hamas violently seized control of the territory
in 2007.
The "reform" consisted of building tunnels, manufacturing and
smuggling rockets and other weapons, recruiting terrorists and
indoctrinating generations of Palestinians in jihad and hatred of Israel.
The world saw the ultimate expression of Hamas's "Change and Reform"
on October 7, 2023, when Hamas and other Palestinians invaded Israel,
murdered 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals and kidnapped hundreds
more, and committed atrocities that triggered a devastating war whose
consequences have been disastrous for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
After nearly three years of bloodshed, are Washington and other
international actors really contemplating another experiment in
pretending to rebrand Hamas?
The 2006 election should have taught everyone a lesson.
At the time, the United States and its European allies did not
require Hamas, as a condition for participating in the election, to
recognize Israel, renounce terrorism, and accept agreements signed
between Israel and the PLO.
These conditions should have been imposed before Hamas was allowed to enter the political system, not after it had won control of parliament.
Hamas's participation was especially cynical because the elections
themselves were rooted in the Oslo Accords, which Hamas had always
rejected.
The 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement, "Oslo II," explicitly provided
for "direct, free and general political elections" for the Palestinian
Legislative Council and the head of its executive authority. It also
established detailed arrangements governing Palestinian Authority
elections.
Hamas, in other words, rejected Oslo while exploiting the political institutions created by Oslo to reach power.
Now history appears in danger of repeating itself. PA President
Mahmoud Abbas has made clear that Palestinian political factions seeking
participation in the political system must accept
the PLO's political program and international obligations, United
Nations resolutions, and the principle of one authority, one law, and
one legitimate security force.
Hamas, in practice, accepts none of these conditions. Hamas does not
recognize Israel's right to exist. It has never accepted the PLO as the
"sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people." It rejects
the Oslo Accords. Its ideology remains centered on "resistance" and the
claimed "liberation" of Palestine — which in fact has never existed — wishfully from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
Most importantly, Hamas has still not demonstrated that it is
prepared to surrender its weapons and cease functioning as an armed
organization.
So, what exactly would qualify a Hamas-affiliated candidate to
participate in elections? A declaration signed on a piece of paper?
Hamas will promise anything if doing so helps it survive and return to political legitimacy.
Before October 7, 2023, Hamas persuaded many people that it was just
eager to improve economic conditions in the Gaza Strip. Hamas insisted that it was only interested
in preserving the relative calm, increasing the number of Gazans
permitted to work in Israel, and securing additional aid. Hamas,
presumably as part of its deception, even publicly punished Gazans who tried to break the intermittent ceasefires.
Then came October 7, 2023. That event should have destroyed forever
the fantasy that Hamas's tactical behavior can be confused with
ideological moderation. Hamas has proved itself adept at telling
outsiders what they want to hear while pursuing its long-term
objectives.
The same danger applies to elections. A Hamas candidate does not stop
being a Hamas candidate because he removes the Hamas logo from his
campaign posters. A terrorist organization does not become moderate
because it establishes a front party, recruits self-proclaimed "independent" candidates, or hides behind "technocrats."
If al-Sheikh's description of the understanding with the Americans is
correct, the question Washington needs to answer is simple: Why?
Why, after October 7, should anyone, let alone the Trump
administration, be searching for formulas to facilitate Hamas's return
to Palestinian political life?
Why, nearly three years after October 7, 2023, does a terrorist
organization such as Hamas continue to be treated by various
international and regional parties as some kind of indispensable
political actor? Hamas officials continue to participate in negotiations
and meetings through regional mediators, while discussions increasingly
seem aimed not at removing Hamas from Palestinian political life but at
finding ways to accommodate it.
This message tells Palestinians, Hamas and other designated groups
that terrorism carries no lasting political price — an outcome the
Taliban in Afghanistan are enjoying all too well.
The lesson all these groups -- including the Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps (IRGC) savagely ruling Iran -- will inevitably draw is that
if you survive long enough, the world will rehabilitate you.
The international community should instead make one principle clear: Hamas cannot remain both an armed terrorist organization and
a legitimate political actor. There can be no loophole called
"Hamas-affiliated independents." There can be no cosmetic rebranding and
no supposedly "new political framework" designed to disguise the
identity of candidates who continue to embrace Hamas and its jihadist
ideology.
Stop the deception. Stop searching for ways to sneak Hamas back into
Palestinian political life through the back door. It is not good for
either their election or America's.
Barnea, in his first speech since leaving the post of Israel's spy chief in June, also said that Hezbollah and Hamas are weaker now than they were before the October 7 massacre.
Ex-Mossad chief David Barnea (L) and Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion (R) at the Jerusalem Municipality, August 27, 2026.(photo credit: JERUSALEM MUNICIPALITY)
Iran’s
regime will fall through a mix of operations, economic pressure, and
protests by its own people, recently retired Mossad chief David Barnea said in his first speech since stepping down on June 1.
In a speech to the Jerusalem Municipality, where he received an award on behalf of the Mossad, Barnea supported the Trump administration’s latest economic pressure moves against the Islamic Republic.
He
said that it was clear these were needed, but that they would be
insufficient alone and would require the use of force as well, although
he did not specify whether that force would require another round of
massive airstrikes or whether a covert sabotage campaign would be
sufficient.
“The decision to place the most severe sanctions on Iran
was a correct and praiseworthy decision. But the sanctions are just
another stage. There will be no choice, in my view, other than to
escalate the economic actions, the policies, and the operations against
the regime until it falls, and it will fall,” said Barnea.
According
to Barnea, US President Donald Trump and much of the world – regardless
of their complaints about gas prices – now understand deeper than ever
the multiheaded threat which Tehran presents to all of them: whether
through nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, or proxy terror.
Ex-Mossad
chief David Barnea (R) and Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion (L) at the
Jerusalem Municipality, August 27, 2026. (credit: JERUSALEM
MUNICIPALITY)
Barnea: World knows Iran is not just Israel's problem since Operation Roaring Lion
“Until
Operation Roaring Lion, we felt that Iran was a problem for the State
of Israel. Today, the whole world knows clearly that the Iranian saga is
not solely our problem,” said Barnea.
Regarding
Hezbollah and Hamas, he said that both terror groups were far weaker
than before October 7, 2023, leaving Israel militarily more secure than
it was three years ago.
Specifically,
with Hezbollah, he hinted that Mossad’s sleeper operations had harmed
the terror group psychologically, while also giving credit to the IDF,
which has carried out two massive invasions of Lebanon since 2024.
Addressing
Hamas, he said that the organization is no longer anything close to
resembling the national military that it constituted in 2023, when it
had 24 highly organized and coordinated battalions.
Barnea did not comment on previous criticism of Netanyahu, Israel's diplomatic standing
Barnea
did not address the low point Israel has hit on the diplomatic plane or
criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his and the Mossad’s
plans to topple the regime in early 2026.
The
former Mossad chief also called on Israel as a people to be more
tolerant of one another and to be more patient with hearing out
different views from different sides of society.
Sen. Tim Kaine urged “Israeli leaders to take firmer action to curtail illegal settlements in the West Bank, prosecute violent settlers and protect Palestinian residents as well as American citizens living in or visiting the West Bank.”
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) questions U.S. Secretary of Homeland
Security Markwayne Mullin during a hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office
Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on June 2, 2026. Photo by
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.
Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Bernie Sanders
(I-Vt.) announced their intention on Thursday to introduce a resolution
demanding that the State Department report on “violent Israeli settlers”
in Judea and Samaria.
Kaine said that the “Israeli government’s
lack of response to this violence” was “unacceptable” and threatened
“the long-term safety and security of the entire region.”
“The
violence committed by Israeli settlers in the West Bank is reaching an
unprecedented level, and as a result more and more Americans and
Palestinians are being killed and injured,” Kaine stated.
“Friends
need to listen to each other, and my colleagues and I have repeatedly
urged Israeli leaders to take firmer action to curtail illegal
settlements in the West Bank, prosecute violent settlers and protect
Palestinian residents as well as American citizens living in or visiting
the West Bank,” he stated.
The text of the resolution, which
would require the secretary of state to submit a report to Congress
about Israel’s human rights practices and information about nine U.S.
citizens killed in Judea and Samaria since 2022, includes a lengthy
preamble accusing Israel of human rights abuses.
“The lack of
effective investigation and accountability, and the public and political
support for violent settlers by ministers and members of Knesset,
demonstrate that, in practice, settler violence is state-backed,” the resolution says, quoting a report from a coalition of Israeli human rights groups.
Sens.
Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Martin Heinrich
(D-N.M.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Tina Smith
(D-Minn.), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) joined the
trio as co-sponsors of the resolution.
The resolution comes a day
after Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) led 45 of the 47 Democrats in the
Senate in a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urging
him to curb “fatal violence by settlers.”
The letter alleges that
there has been a recent “surge in violence on both sides” but focuses on
the “large-scale response by Israeli security forces, mass arrests of
Palestinians and reported attacks by settlers on mosques.”
“Incidents
of fatal violence by settlers have reportedly already surpassed 2025
levels and continue to increase,” the senators wrote.
“We write
particularly on behalf of American citizens who have been killed or
threatened in such violence,” they said. “Many of us have heard
first-hand from their families and other constituents who have
themselves been threatened without cause by settlers.”
Sanders,
one of Israel’s fiercest critics in the Senate, and Sen. John Fetterman
(D-Pa.), one of its staunchest defenders, were the only two members of
the Democratic caucus who did not sign the letter.
Israeli
officials have long disputed reports from the United Nations and human
rights groups purporting to show disproportionate violence from Israeli
settlers directed towards Palestinians.
They argue that data from
the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
falsely attributes Palestinian attacks on Israelis as “settler
violence,” among other errors.
The issue of alleged violence in Judea and Samaria has gained greater attention in the United States after a lengthy confrontation
between the Israel Defense Forces and Israeli civilians at the house of
a Palestinian-American in the Arab village of Qusra earlier in August.
The
resolution from Van Hollen, Kaine and Sanders is privileged under the
Foreign Assistance Act. After it is formally introduced, the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee has 10 days to consider it, after which it
can be brought to the Senate floor for a vote.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the most prominent politician affiliated with the organization.
New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has officially rejoined the Democratic Socialists of America group.
The congresswoman, among House Democrats' most progressive members,
signed up for an annual membership in 2018, then let her membership
lapse for seven years, the news outlet NOTUS reported Thursday
She is the most prominent politician affiliated with the
organization, which had considerable success in this primary season in
knocking off some long-standing Democratic incumbents.
Recent polling
shows Ocasio-Cortez a favorite among potential Democratic presidential
candidates, and her decision to rejoin the DSA could score points among
Democratic voters who appear to be moving further to the left in the
midterm cycle.
The DSA confirmed the she rejoined the organization in August, and
told NOTUS that it's not usual for the DSA to discuss membership status
of individuals. However, with Ocasio-Cortez appearing to be weighing a
2028 presidential bid, the organization decided to announce her
membership.
This is not the first time Trump has renamed a body of water after the country he leads. Shortly after taking office again in 2025, he renamed the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday renaming Lake Ontario to "Lake America."
The order
directs Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to work with the Board on
Geographic Names to reflect the new name. It explains that the U.S.
claims most of the lake's volume, and its deepest parts lie within the
U.S.
During the signing in the Oval Office, Trump said the change in name
is "effective immediately." However, the order gives Burgum 30 days from
the date of the order to "take all appropriate actions to rename as
'Lake America' the body of water currently named as Lake Ontario."
"The United States is giving serious consideration to changing the
name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don’t expect to doing
much business with Ontario any longer. Thank you for your attention to
this matter!" Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
This is not the first time Trump has renamed a body of water after
the country he leads. Shortly after taking office again in 2025, he
renamed the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”
The transgender movement continues to cause significant harm to many children, but there is now some pushback at the national level.
Transgenderism, which is typically advanced by those with a nefarious
agenda, is alive and well, as various state governments have joined
this shameful trend.
If you live in Oregon and your child is confused about their gender,
the state is readily available to medicate them and even perform
surgery. In fact, the Beaver State has become the national leader in
inflicting irreparable harm on minors.
State health surveys
indicate that about 6 percent of Oregon adolescents identify as
“non-binary or gender-diverse (including transgender).” According to a
recent study, several thousand young people have received cross-sex hormones to treat gender dysphoria.
Parents David and Nicole Calaway are up in arms about this reprehensible situation and are fighting back in court
after Oregon’s Department of Human Services determined that they caused
their daughter “mental injury” by refusing to affirm her transgender
identity. Child Protective Services took custody of their 15-year-old daughter on July 18, 2024, the day after the family terminated her therapy.
Allison Roberts, another parent in Oregon, has been barred from her children’s elementary school for a year for criticizing its transgender policies.
The case dates back to last October, when Roberts’ 11-year-old child
brought home an “identity flower” assignment from the pro-transgender
group GLSEN.
In the GLSEN lesson plan, teachers instruct students to list their “gender identity” in the “flower’s gender petal.”
The plan also instructs teachers to explain to students, “You may
identify as a girl or a boy. If you don’t feel like a boy or a girl, you
might just identify as a person. Maybe none of these words feel like
you today. Or maybe you feel like a girl or a boy today, but later that
word doesn’t seem to fit.”
Roberts refused to accept the school’s decision and is suing. The Liberty Justice Center
is representing her in a federal lawsuit challenging the district’s
retaliation for speaking out, petitioning school officials, and raising
concerns about her child’s education.
When it comes to trans-obsessiveness, Oregon is hardly a one-off, however.
As reported by Sara Dogan, Kerri and Luis Rivera, the parents of a
third-grade girl at Rochester Memorial Elementary School in
Massachusetts, have filed a lawsuit
against their local school district for failing to adequately protect
their daughter from the inappropriate actions of a trans-identified male
student. According to the legal filing, the boy pushed open the door to
a stall in the girls’ restroom while the girl was partially undressed.
In Colorado, Do No Harm,
which represents physicians, nurses, medical students, patients, and
policymakers focused on keeping identity politics out of medicine,
reports that a state-funded therapy program primarily for youth ages 18
and under recorded 469 encounters categorized as “gender-affirming care”
between 2021 and 2024, “including encounters involving children as
young as five years old.”
Additionally, Colorado spent $4.7 million in federal
pandemic-recovery funds on a marketing contract that “included a social
media influencer campaign explicitly targeting minors ages 13–17, with
talking points emphasizing that youth ages 12 and older could access services without parental consent.”
While the campaign to sexually indoctrinate schoolchildren is blatantly aggressive, it is often covert.
A case in point is HiTOPS,
a 501(c)(3) organization that aims to foster “strong and healthy young
people of all identities by providing inclusive and youth-informed sex
education and LGBTQ+ support for young people.”
The Gateway Pundit reports that investigative journalists spoke with
HiTOPS leadership in 2023 and revealed how they sneak LGBTQ+ curriculum
into elementary schools and indoctrinate children without parental knowledge.
During their conversation with HiTOPS executive director Lisa Shelby
and health educator Hannah Wiers, the journalists uncovered deceptive
tactics used to brainwash children and to advance the group’s key goal
of eliminating the opt-out clause for parents regarding its promoted
curriculum.
Shelby explained that one trick they use to indoctrinate children
into the LGBTQ+ lifestyle is to use a “racial justice” class called
“Pathways to Racial Literacy” to teach kids about “sexual health
education and LGBTQ+ support.”
There is some good news to report, however. In early August, the Trump administration delivered a major victory for children and parents by announcing a rule that ends federal Medicaid and health care grants under the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) funding for “sex-rejecting procedures” for children, including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries.
In addition, the Department of Health and Human Services has become involved, issuing a report titled “Wolves in White Coats” that alleges hospitals pushed unnecessary gender transitions on vulnerable children because they saw dollar signs.
The HHS report states that “financial incentives” helped fuel the
surge in children announcing gender transitions and receiving medical
treatment. Once children begin treatment, they become “captive patients”
who require ongoing care that extends into adulthood.
Researchers identified nearly $120 million billed for sex-rejecting
procedures since 2019, including millions of dollars for puberty
blockers billed under the category “unspecified endocrine disorders.”
The HHS paper concludes, “The medical establishment and the government failed innocent children.
This report exposes how these calculated financial and political
efforts left children irreversibly harmed and abandoned at the very
moments they needed real support.”
Also, on a positive note, at the end of its latest session, the U.S.
Supreme Court upheld state bans in Idaho and West Virginia that prohibit
biological males from competing in women’s and girls’ sports. The justices said the bans do not violate Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination.
Incredibly, lawyers for Lindsay Hecox, a transgender athlete in Idaho, told the court that biological men have no competitive advantage in women’s sports. However, the majority of the high court justices rejected that claim as ludicrous.
It’s time for those of us who live in the real world to acknowledge
the obvious fact that there are natural, physical differences between
boys and girls and to demand an end to the chemical alteration of young
people. Also, when girls compete in sports, they must compete against
other girls. Anyone who says otherwise has a perverse and dangerous
agenda that must be exposed, opposed, and quashed.
Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network—a
nonpartisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and
the general public with reliable and balanced information about
professional affiliations and positions on educational issues. The views
presented here are strictly his own.
The greater share of blame, however, belongs not to the press but to the institution that made this entire episode possible.
Jason Arday was found dead on August 14 at his home in south London,
one week after resigning his professorship in the sociology of education
at Cambridge, a position he had held only since 2023 and had vacated
amid mounting allegations that he had plagiarized substantial portions
of his doctoral thesis. He was 41 years old. The police have indicated
that his death is being treated as unexpected, though not as suspicious.
It is necessary to begin with what was true. More than 180 passages
in Arday’s doctoral thesis were found to be identical or near-identical
to the work of another student, and no amount of sympathy for Arday can
be permitted to obscure that fact. Plagiarism of that scale is not a
clerical lapse; it is a fundamental breach of the trust on which
scholarship depends, and Cambridge was right to be embarrassed by it.
Yet the plagiarism proved only the opening of a much longer inquest.
Arday had claimed to have appeared, as a child, in the landmark documentary series Seven Up, a program that began broadcasting some two decades before his birth. He told the media that he personally raised over £5.5 million for charitable causes.
He also claimed to have run 600 miles between Edinburgh and London in
six days, a feat that would place him among the finest ultra-distance
runners in the world. Furthermore, he was not considered to be a
competent instructor. A former student, writing in the Times,
recalled a man who arrived late to his own seminars, offered little but
incoherence once he arrived, and accused her of speaking from white
privilege when she dared to object.
These are documented matters, and it was entirely proper that they be
reported. What was not proper, and what deserves rather more scrutiny
than it has received, is the manner in which the British press converted
a legitimate scandal into a month-long spectacle, each outlet racing to
unearth some fresh humiliation before its rivals could. A newspaper that boasts of revelations “emerging by the hour” has entered the business of consumption, and it consumed a man.
The greater share of the blame, however, belongs not to the press but
to the institution that made this entire episode possible. A university
that confers a professorship upon a candidate thereby assumes a solemn
obligation to verify the claims on which that appointment rests.
Cambridge failed in this obligation, and the consequence was as
predictable as it was severe: a man was elevated far beyond what his
record could sustain, and the edifice collapsed once it was examined
with any rigor at all. This was not the incidental failure of an
otherwise sound process. It was the entirely foreseeable result of a
hiring culture, shaped by the imperatives of diversity, equity, and
inclusion, that has come to prize a redemptive narrative above a
verified one. Cambridge wanted the distinction of having appointed its
youngest black professor, and it acquired that distinction at the cost
of the diligence that ought to have preceded it.
One hears already the suggestion that a white academic guilty of the
same offenses would have been spared such treatment. The claim inverts
the true order of causation. A white scholar possessed of Arday’s actual
résumé would never have been advanced to a Cambridge chair in the first
place, for the simple reason that no institution would have constructed
around him the narrative of triumph over adversity that made his
appointment so attractive. Arday himself had been, before his academic
career began, a teacher of physical education. Remove the apparatus that
diversity hiring built to elevate his biography beyond its true
proportions, and it is difficult to imagine him occupying any position
more exalted than that one. There would have been no chair, no headline,
and consequently no public unraveling, because the fabrications would
never have found a platform large enough to expose them.
It is instructive to set this episode beside the treatment accorded
to scholars who advance arguments that are genuinely testable, yet
unwelcome to prevailing sentiment. Lawrence Mead has argued
that immigrants arriving from non-Western societies bring with them
cultural traditions less oriented toward individualism, complicating
their integration into Western institutions. Similarly, Amy Wax has
observed that black students at the University of Pennsylvania’s law
school have rarely appeared among the highest ranks of their class. Both
claims admit of empirical verification.
Despite the testable nature of their statements, these scholars were
denounced as racists, and both saw their teaching responsibilities
curtailed. Arday fabricated a thesis and invented a biography; Wax and
Mead advanced propositions that could be measured against evidence and
were never engaged with on those terms. Interestingly, both claims held
up rather better under scrutiny than their critics anticipated. There is
voluminous literature showing that non-Western immigrants have worse outcomes.
Furthermore, in the case of Wax, an independent analysis
by the writer Werner Zagrebbi lends her claim unexpected support: using
internal Columbia Law School records covering roughly 14,000 graduates,
Zagrebbi found only two black students in the top quarter of their
class over the decade preceding Wax’s remarks and extrapolated that a
smaller, less selective school like Penn plausibly saw none at all
across the same years. It is a peculiar feature of contemporary academic
life that the man who fabricated should, for a considerable time, have
fared better among his colleagues than the two who merely dared to make a
claim that could be checked and that could, on inspection, be true.
None of this excuses whatever was said about Arday in his final
weeks, nor does it diminish the tragedy his death represents to those
who knew him. Neither, though, should Nathan Cofnas be blamed for that
death, as some now suggest. Cofnas did more than any other individual to
bring the plagiarism to light, and he was not unkind to Arday in doing
so; he was accurate, which is an altogether different matter. He is
frequently called a racist for his writing on race and intelligence, yet
holding a position on a legitimate, if uncomfortable, scientific
question does not in itself constitute racism, whatever judgment one
renders upon his conclusions. If an apology is owed, it is owed by
Cambridge, which promoted a man on the basis of a story it never
troubled to verify, and by a press that transformed his inevitable
collapse into a month’s entertainment.
Lipton Matthews is a researcher and podcaster. He is a regular contributor to American
Greatness. In addition, his work has been featured in Mises, The
Federalist, Chronicles, American Thinker, Epoch Times, and other
publications. He is also author of Busting African Delusions:
Institutions, Human Capital, and the Path to Progress. He can be reached
at lo_matthews@yahoo.com.
SPECIAL PROFILE: Former prime minister Naftali Bennett lays out his security policy for Gaza, Iran, Lebanon, and Syria, were he to be elected prime minister, and how he would differ from Netanyahu.
Former prime minister Naftali Bennett.(photo credit: Courtesy)
The criticisms of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s
handling of war and peace by his challengers in the October 27 election
are well-known: whatever tactical wins he achieved militarily, he has
either failed or not yet succeeded, after losing an unprecedented amount
of the country’s global legitimacy, to lock in long-term diplomatic
gains.
While there are nuances to every front, this would be the broad critique on all fronts by former prime minister Naftali Bennett,
who is competing with Netanyahu and Gadi Eisenkot over who will run the
country’s war and peace decisions from the premier’s chair going
forward.
When
Bennett puts his own personal stamp on this broadly accepted critique
among the opposition, he would say that a gorilla must construct the
jungle.
He
would add that the gorilla must embody humility, but must also be
active, and active here means on the diplomatic plane as much as the
military one.
On
the military one, Bennett agrees with Netanyahu about maintaining some
kind of significant security zone in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria,
Former
Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett attends a joint election
campaign event with former Israeli prime minister Yair Lapid of their
joint party on August 20, 2026 in Ramat Hasharon, Israel. (credit: GILI
YAARI/FLASH90)
But
in Bennett’s view, Israel under Netanyahu since October 7 has been
mind-bogglingly passive on the diplomatic plane, with the US, Qatar,
Turkey, and sometimes even more overtly hostile adversaries running
circles around or over the head of the Jewish state.
Bennett's views on the future of the Gaza Strip
According to Bennett, Netanyahu has zero Gaza diplomatic policy.
Rather, he argues that Netanyahu’s only Gaza policy to date has been to bomb or invade.
Although
Bennett wants to dismantle and disarm Hamas as much as Netanyahu, he
believes this can only be accomplished by a mix of military and
diplomatic tools.
Bennett
believes that the Trump administration’s Gaza vision on its own is
unworkable, but that it has been imposed on Netanyahu and Israel because
they failed to suggest anything else.
In
Bennett’s view, Egypt is the key, which Netanyahu has ignored or which
his coalition partners have so angered that Cairo has not been a
workable part of its Gaza strategy, when it should be at its center.
He
accuses Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir of destroying any credit
that Israel as a country might have with Egypt and other countries like
Jordan, if Jerusalem were working with these countries and their leaders
as the close allies they have been in recent decades.
Moreover,
he would say that the constant drumbeat of new incidents of Jewish
extremist violence in the West Bank, such as with the recent Kusra
incident, reduces Israel’s legitimacy in the world with allies in the US
and the region even more.
Bennett
would say that whoever is prime minister should be meeting with
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at least twice a year and should
be in regular touch on the side.
In
contrast, Sisi has refused to meet with Netanyahu for years because of
the provocative actions of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir even before October 7,
and since the war started, because Netanyahu ignored any of Sisi’s needs
and did not give him a serious consultative capacity.
In
contrast, if Bennett were prime minister, he believes that he would
restore traditional positive relations with Sisi, and with that restored
trust and including the Egyptian president in key consultations, Cairo
would be ready to invest more in a joint vision for reducing Hamas’s
power in Gaza.
Unlike
outsiders from the proposed International Stabilization Force (ISF) who
are afraid of Hamas and have to play by restrictive Western rules, Sisi
would be willing to provide Egyptian soldiers to assist, who would
follow local Middle Eastern rules and scare Hamas.
If
Bennett were prime minister, he would say that stability and order
would be restored in the West Bank so that Israel only needs to take
hits to its legitimacy in the US and the region for vital national
interest, not unnecessary errors.
With
stronger buy-in from Egypt, Jordan, Abraham Accords countries,
potential Abraham Accords countries, the US, and even the EU, Bennett’s
view is that Hamas can truly be hedged in, in a way that will lead it to
be disarmed.
Part
of what is interesting about Bennett’s plan on these issues is that he
is not endorsing the Trump plan of fully bringing in the Palestinian
Authority to Gaza.
Bennett
has not changed his long-held opposition to a Palestinian state and he
is willing to give the PA some role in Gaza and to strengthen it in the
West Bank, especially to build goodwill with the US, Egypt, and others.
But
he strongly believes that Egypt, as a local powerhouse, is the only
country besides Israel capable of handling and intimidating Hamas.
Part of what is fascinating about his theory is that we have no real way of evaluating it.
Nothing
Egypt has said since October 7 has suggested it is any more ready than
other countries to put its soldiers into harm’s way against Hamas, and
all indications have been that it wants to keep Gaza away and at a
distance.
Effectively,
Bennett is asking the public to think about pre-2023 cooperation with
Egypt and to have faith that this can be returned to and even heavily
built upon to new levels of joint operational action to rein in Hamas.
Bennett's views on the future of Israel's policy towards Iran
What
happens if Bennett is elected prime minister, US President Donald Trump
is still prohibiting Israel from directly and overtly striking the
regime from the air, and Tehran starts producing new ballistic missiles
more rapidly?
According
to Trump’s public statements, he is almost exclusively focused on the
Strait of Hormuz and nuclear issues, and has essentially dismissed
Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal as a normative non-issue (he compared
it to the Saudis having ballistic missiles).
It
appears that Bennett would turn back to the Mossad to prevent the
Islamic Republic from crossing a problematic ballistic missiles volume
threshold.
This
means turning back the clock somewhat in terms of returning primary
responsibility for combating Iran from the IDF to the Mossad.
Presumably,
the IDF would still be ready to strike should Iran dare to try to near
the nuclear threshold again, as that might still get a green light from
Trump.
However,
when Bennett was prime minister in 2021-2022, the ballistic missile
problem had not yet become an existential issue, so he would also likely
dive into the latest intelligence on the issue, the way he did learning
about Iran’s nuclear problem and proxy power projection in his earlier
term.
Rewinding
to the 2015-2021 period, both Bennett and IDF officials have said that
Israel’s ability to strike Iran went down some notches because the
Islamic Republic had been keeping aspects of the 2015 nuclear deal it
had signed.
However,
starting in late 2018, following Trump pulling out of the 2015 deal,
and increasingly in the second half of 2019 and almost full-on in 2020
and 2021, the regime started crossing a new redline by moving its
uranium enrichment forward.
Bennett
has been on record many times that Netanyahu and the IDF did not adjust
fast enough to this Iranian shift during the 2018-2021 era.
Recently, it was disclosed to The Jerusalem Post
and a small number of other media outlets that part of what was set
back or delayed during this time period was, according to foreign
sources, the Blue Sparrow ballistic missile weapons, which could be
fired by Israeli F-15s against Iran from such a long range that the
aircraft themselves would not be within range of Iranian air defenses.
In
2021-2022, Bennett then moved the IDF, Israel Aerospace Industries, and
Rafael along to be more ready with the appropriate weapons for striking
Iran, should the need arise.
This
was not simple since various officials said it would take three years
to develop the weapons and plans needed to carry out such operations.
Sources
have said that then-Mossad director David Barnea stepped up and said
that his agency could transfer resources from other projects to develop
plans to strike Iran within only one year.
At the point at which Barnea was ready to make this move, the Post
understands that the rest of the defense establishment then said that
it could achieve the goals Bennett was requesting on a faster basis than
originally claimed.
One
of the big mysteries when Bennett took office was how much Iran had
advanced in the weapons group aspects of the nuclear program, as opposed
to only in uranium enrichment.
The Post
and others learned recently that for a period of months, Israel was
unsure about this issue, but by mid-fall 2021 sources had established
that Iran’s weapons-group aspects of its nuclear program had not yet
advanced.
This would later shift sometime in late 2024, which was part of the reason that Israel struck Iran in June 2025.
But
all of this narrative shows that while much has changed since Bennett
was prime minister in 2022, he has a strong argument that he has been as
on top of Iran at an operational level as much as anyone and has the
skills to push the defense establishment to perform at its highest
levels.
Bennett has fewer critiques of Netanyahu's policies in the Lebanon sphere of operations
Regarding
Lebanon, Bennett has fewer specific critiques of Netanyahu’s policy,
being that he does not believe Hezbollah can be disarmed or dismantled
the same way he believes Hamas can be.
Once again, he also supports maintaining a security zone for the foreseeable future, pending reducing the Hezbollah threat.
However,
even with Lebanon, he believes there might be diplomatic openings which
are being missed that an Israel which is more appreciated worldwide
under his leadership could take advantage of.
Syria remains the most unclear of all of Israel's fronts with regard to security policy
Syria is the most unclear of all of the fronts.
Bennett
would say that it is still unclear what new Syrian leader Ahmed
al-Sharaa’s ultimate intentions are and whether he is a reformed
jihadist or a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
In the meantime, his view would be that the buffer zone in Syria needs to be held onto until the issue is further clarified.
It
appears that he would want to get a better sense of Sharaa before
deciding how aggressive to be in Syria and how much to delay Trump’s
plans to help the country normalize with Israeli withdrawals from the
current security zone.
Ultimately,
Bennett believes he can radically improve the situation in Gaza
compared to Netanyahu, can do as well or better versus Iran, and might
even be able to improve the situation in Lebanon and Syria.
He
would accomplish this partially by shifting certain specific strategies
and partially by engaging in basic diplomacy, which he would argue
Netanyahu has ignored since October 7.
Talwani was one of two federal judges who had blocked the order. The Supreme Court recently lifted a separate stay in an unrelated challenge to the order
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani on Wednesday lifted her injunction
against President Donald Trump's executive order directing the United
States Postal Service to tighten mail-in ballot rules.
Talwani was one of two federal judges who had blocked the order. The
Supreme Court recently lifted a separate stay in an unrelated challenge
to the order.
Talwani followed suit on Wednesday. Her decision means that the Postal Service can implement the mail-in ballot rules.
On Tuesday, however, Talwani issued a separate opinion
in which she declared that the Postal Service had violated her
injunction and "feigned" compliance with it throughout the Supreme Court
proceedings.
She did not impose any additional penalties through that decision, however.
Ben Whedon is the Chief Political Correspondent for Just the News. Follow him on X.
