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."
Israeli premier aims to prevent attacks and push the Hezbollah threat farther from northern border amid ongoing multi-front war.
An Israeli military helicopter flies
near the Israeli border with Lebanon, during the war with Iran and
Hezbollah and ongoing missile fire toward Israel, March 28, 2026.
Credit: Ayal Margolin/Flash90.
Ayal Margolin/Flash90
(
Mar. 29, 2026
/ JNS
)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday
that he had instructed the Israel Defense Forces to “further expand the
existing security zone” on the Lebanese side of the border with Israel
to “finally thwart the threat of invasion and to keep anti-tank missile
fire away.”
Until 2000, Israel had maintained a buffer zone in
Southern Lebanon, together with the now-defunct South Lebanon Army, a
predominantly Christian entity with recruits from the Maronite minority
of Lebanon. After the 2000 IDF pullout, Hezbollah became one of the
best-armed terror groups in the world, capable of sustained fighting
with the IDF.
“It must be understood that [slain Hezbollah leader
Hassan] Nasrallah created a great force here. He believed that with this
force he would destroy us. We eliminated Nasrallah. We eliminated
thousands of Hezbollah terrorists, and above all, we eliminated the
enormous threat of 150,000 missiles and rockets, which were intended to
destroy Israeli cities,” Netanyahu said. “But Hezbollah still has a
residual ability to launch rockets at us.”
Netanyahu said he’d discussed with the heads of the IDF Northern
Command “ways to remove this threat as well,” though he added that he
“cannot share these discussions.” The premier added “that we are
determined to fundamentally change this situation in the north.”
In
a short address announcing the security buffer push, Netanyahu also
provided an overview of what he presented as the achievements of the war
against Iran and its proxies since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023,
massacre.
“We are in a multi-front campaign. We are striking with
tremendous force at Iran and its proxies. We are bringing about
tremendous achievements, achievements that are creating visible cracks
in the terrorist regime in Tehran.”
Iran, Netanyahu said, “is not
the same Iran, Hezbollah is not the same Hezbollah, and Hamas is not the
same Hamas. These are no longer terrorist armies that threaten our
existence—these are defeated enemies, fighting for their survival.”
Instead
of those entities surprising Israel, “we are surprising them. We are
the active party, we are the attacking party, we are the initiating
side—and we are deep in their territory,” he said.
Netanyahu
recalled that shortly after the Oct. 7 Hamas invasion, he’d said that
“we would change the face of the Middle East, and we did it. But we also
changed our security concept. We are initiating, we are attacking, and
we have created three security belts deep in enemy territory.”
In
Syria, he said, the buffer extends from the crest of Mount Hermon to the
Yarmouk River; in Gaza, to more than half of the Strip. “And in
Lebanon, I have now instructed to further expand the existing security
zone,” Netanyahu said.
Iran used communist North Korea’s missile technology to strike US base and allies during ongoing war, expert says
The Islamic Republic of Iran’s vast missile system
is the brainchild of the U.S.-designated state-sponsor of terrorism, the
communist North Korea regime,
which works hand in glove with Iran, according to one of the world’s
leading experts on the Iran-North Korea strategic alliance.
"The
missile launched at Diego Garcia was a Musudan. The Iranians bought 19
of these from the North Koreans and took delivery in 2005. They have had
this capability since 2005 — and this is no ‘secret weapon,'" Bruce
Bechtol, who co-authored with Anthony Celso the groundbreaking book
"Rogue Allies: The Strategic Partnership Between Iran and North Korea,"
told Fox News Digital.
Fox News Digital reported last week that
Iran significantly escalated its war effort against the U.S. with its
launch of two intermediate-range ballistic missiles toward Diego
Garcia—roughly 2,500 miles from Iran.
Kim pictured visiting a major munitions depot in an image released in December 2025.(KCNA via Reuters )
Bechtol
said, "The most important threat from Iran as the war with the United
States and Israel has evolved has been the ballistic missiles, launched
not only at U.S. facilities and Israeli cities, but also at neighboring
Islamic countries. Thus, it is important to consider this capability and
where Iran got it."
He said, "The short-range ballistic missiles
that Iran has launched at key U.S. facilities and at neighboring Arab
states include a key system – the 'QIAM.' The QIAM was developed and
improved with North Korean assistance… North Korea has proliferated a
lot to Iran that we are seeing right now in the war."
The
launch of an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Shahab-3 medium-range missile
during a test at an undisclosed location on Sept. 28, 2009.(AP Photo)
The
joint U.S.-Israeli war against Iran’s regime, the world’s worst
state-sponsor of terrorism, according to the U.S. State Department, has
entered its fifth week.
Bechtol, who is a professor of political
science in the Department of Security Studies at Angelo State University
in Texas, noted that, according to the Wisconsin Project, North Korea
had constructed a large missile test facility at Emamshahr, a city in
the Fars Province in Iran, and a tracking facility at Tabas in South Khorasan province.
He said North Korea aided Iran with crucial technology "for targets farther away from Iran."
"The
North Koreans proliferated around 150 No Dong systems to Iran in the
late 1990s. The Iranians were apparently very happy with the missiles
the North Koreans provided them, and, following the earlier precedent of
the Scud C factory, contracted with Pyongyang to build a No Dong
facility in Iran."
Bechtol
continued, "The Iranians called this ‘new’ missile the Shahab-3. The
Shahab-3 is almost an exact copy of the No Dong. Once the Shahab-3 was
up and running, the North Koreans moved forward with the Iranians in
improving its range and lethality."
He said, "With assistance from
the North Koreans, the Iranians were then able to produce (at the No
Dong facility) the Emad and the Ghadr. The Emad has a range of 1,750
kilometers (approx 1,087 miles) and the Ghadr has a range of 1,950
kilometers (approximately 1,212 miles.) The Iranians have used these two
systems to target not only Israel, but their Arab neighbors (including
U.S. bases located in these countries) throughout the ongoing first
stages of this conflict."
Missiles
and a portrait of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on display for the annual
Defense Week, marking the 37th anniversary of the 1980s Iran-Iraq war,
in Tehran, Iran, Sept. 24, 2017.(AP)
Bechtol
said the North Koreans spawned an Iranian missile warhead that weighs a
ton and a half to two tons on the powerful Khorramshahr-4. "There is
another system capable of hitting Israel
that has been even more lethal than any of the systems described thus
far. This system is called the ‘Khorramshahr,’ and the fourth version of
this system, appropriately called the ‘Khorramshahr-4,’ has been proven
to carry a warhead larger than any other in Iran’s missile inventory,
armed with what appears to be cluster munitions," he said.
He described the strategic partnership, noting:
"North Korea is the seller and Iran is the buyer. North Korea
proliferates weapons systems, technology, parts and components,
technicians, engineers and specialists and military capabilities (such
as the building of underground facilities) to Iran. Iran pays North
Korea with cash and oil. Simple as that."
Residents
and officers from Israel's Home Front Command inspect a house destroyed
by an Iranian missile strike in Zarzir, northern Israel, March 13,
2026.(Ariel Schalit/AP Photo)
Bechtol said the only way to stop this is through sanctions enforcement
against North Korea. "The sanctions that are needed are already on the
books. But the USA and our key allies need to robustly enforce them. We
need to go after banks, front companies and cyber entities in order to
squeeze the money and contain or destroy the supply chain."
He
said, "More emphasis needs to be placed, and more action needs to be
taken using the Proliferation Security Initiative — an underused aspect
of preventing North Korea's arms from flowing to rogue nations and
terrorist groups. If you cut off the supply chain, you cut off the proliferation."
Benjamin Weinthal reports on Israel, Iran, Syria, Turkey and Europe. You can follow Benjamin on Twitter @BenWeinthal, and email him at benjamin.weinthal@fox.com
In Hamas's view, the establishment of Israel on any of this land is an illegal "Zionist project" and a form of colonial occupation.
Hamas, like Iran, continues
to treat the idea of disarmament with a mix of dismissal and rhetorical
defiance, effectively signaling that it has no intention of giving up
its weapons or altering its dream of eliminating Israel.
For Hamas, disarmament is not a serious proposal. Instead, it is a
tool for political theater, a way to manipulate donors and tighten its
grip over the Gaza Strip.
In Hamas's view, the establishment of Israel on any of this land
is an illegal "Zionist project" and a form of colonial occupation.
When Hamas talks about "resistance" (Arabic: muqawama), it is referring to a comprehensive framework aimed at destroying Israel through a violent jihad
(holy war), similar to the Islamic conquest of the Christian Byzantine
Empire, or Turkey's 1974 invasion and conquest of northern Cyprus.
According to the Independent Arabia report, some 20,000
Hamas gunmen will be integrated into a new security force in the Gaza
Strip and receive salaries with international funding. The new force
would be granted the status of an official security apparatus,
recognized regionally and internationally.
The "Board of Peace" has also apparently offered "political and
legal immunity" to Hamas terrorists, guaranteeing that they will not be
prosecuted internationally or by Israel in exchange for their
involvement in a local governing council.
If true, this means that the "Board of Peace" views Hamas as a
legitimate and acceptable partner in the future management of the Gaza
Strip. The mere act of engaging Hamas in such negotiations is beyond
problematic. It risks not only legitimizing an Islamist terror group,
but also entrenching its authoritarian rule in the Gaza Strip and paving
the way for more massacres against Israel.
The idea of integrating Hamas terrorists into the Gaza Strip's
new security apparatus is even worse. Such a move sends a message to the
Palestinians that participation in terrorism carries no consequences
and that terrorists can move directly from violence into official roles
without a meaningful process of disarmament.
Legitimizing these terrorists -- as with the Taliban in
Afghanistan -- undermines any attempt to establish norms of governance
based on law rather than on violence, and can only embolden other terror
groups. Without a credible enforcement mechanism -- backed by unified
international and regional support -- calls for disarmament remain
hallucinatory.
It is hard to see how pro-Hamas countries such as Qatar, Turkey,
or Pakistan, all part of the "Board of Peace" -- and two of which, Qatar
and Pakistan, have never even recognized Israel -- would seriously
participate in any effort to force the Palestinian terror groups to give
up their weapons.
Without such pressure, plans for disarmament will continue to be
dismissed by Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups. Any plan that
assumes these groups will voluntarily lay down their weapons is
dangerously unenlightened.
Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups have again
rejected demands by US President Donald J. Trump's "Board of Peace" to
lay down their weapons. This rejection underscores the determination of
terror groups to continue their fight against Israel. Pictured: Hamas
terrorists in Gaza on February 15, 2025. (Photo by Moiz Salhi/Middle
East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups have again rejected
demands by US President Donald J. Trump's "Board of Peace" to lay down
their weapons. This rejection underscores the determination of terror
groups to continue their fight against Israel.
The Palestinian terror groups' refusal to hand over their weapons shows they do not take seriously Trump's repeated threats
that they must disarm as part of the October 2025 US-brokered ceasefire
and reconstruction plan for the Gaza Strip. Trump made his latest
threat in February 2026, when he warned that Hamas would be "harshly met" if they failed to disarm.
Hamas, like Iran, continues to treat the idea of disarmament with a
mix of dismissal and rhetorical defiance, effectively signaling that it
has no intention of giving up its weapons or altering its dream of
eliminating Israel.
For Hamas, disarmament is not a serious proposal. Instead, it is a
tool for political theater, a way to manipulate donors and tighten its
grip over the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian terror groups' latest refusal to disarm came after they received a detailed 12-point disarmament plan from the "Board of Peace."
The plan proposes an eight-month timeline:
1. Preparation (days 1-15) – A Palestinian technocratic committee takes security control and begins preparatory steps.
2. Heavy Weaponry (days 16-40) – Israel removes heavy weaponry; international security forces deploy.
3. Infrastructure Destruction (days 31-90) – Destruction of all tunnels and military infrastructure.
4. Full Collection (days 91-250) – Local police forces collect and
register all remaining small arms, including rifles and pistols.
A Palestinian official close to the talks between the "Board of Peace" and Hamas said the plan was "unfair," and expected Hamas to seek some "amendments and improvements."
The unnamed official said the plan did not provide guarantees Israel would carry out its obligations. The plan, the official added,
would risk causing the war to resume by linking reconstruction and
improvements to living conditions to political issues such as
disarmament.
Three Palestinian terror groups – Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ),
the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and the
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) — issued
separate statements criticizing the plan. They said it unfairly
prioritized disarmament over issues such as reconstruction and Israeli
withdrawal.
PIJ wrote in its statement:
"The weapons of the resistance belong to the Palestinian
people and constitute a fundamental means to achieve their national
goals, foremost among them ending the occupation and establishing an
independent state."
Senior Hamas official Ismail al-Sindawi stated that the core of the
crisis "lies in the occupation." The weapons of the Palestinian
factions, he said, "are a natural consequence of the occupation."
Hamas does not recognize Israel's right to exist inside any borders.
It considers all the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea
as an Islamic wakf (endowment) that belongs to Muslims to hold in trust for Allah by divine right.
In Hamas's view, the establishment of Israel on any of this land is
an illegal "Zionist project" and a form of colonial occupation. Hamas's
1988 charter frames the conflict as a religious one, and calls for the "liberation of all of Palestine."
When Hamas talks about "resistance" (Arabic: muqawama), it is referring to a comprehensive framework aimed at destroying Israel through a violent jihad
(holy war), similar to the Islamic conquest of the Christian Byzantine
Empire, or Turkey's 1974 invasion and conquest of northern Cyprus.
The PFLP emphasized
that "resistance is a legitimate right of the Palestinian people."
According to the group, "the resistance's weapons have never been a tool
for chaos, but rather a means to protect the Palestinian people."
For its part, the DFLP warned
that any arrangements concerning weapons must be part of a unified
Palestinian position and claimed that Israel "is seeking to achieve
political gains through diplomatic pressure after its military failure."
Sheikh Salem al-Sufi, head of the Bedouin Tribes and Clans Council in the Gaza Strip, said
that the Palestinian terror groups' weapons represent the "spirit" of
the Palestinian people. Relinquishing the weapons, al-Sufi stressed, "is out of the question without achieving security and establishing an independent Palestinian state."
According to a report in the Independent Arabia newspaper, the "Board of Peace" recently presented Hamas with a set of guarantees described as tempting but complex.
The alleged guarantees
include granting the terror group an international protection umbrella
by deploying an international security force and observers on the border
between Israel and the Gaza Strip, as well as a written American
commitment that Israel would not launch military operations or
assassinations.
According to the Independent Arabiareport,
some 20,000 Hamas gunmen will be integrated into a new security force
in the Gaza Strip and receive salaries with international funding. The
new force would be granted the status of an official security apparatus,
recognized regionally and internationally.
The "Board of Peace" has also apparently offered
"political and legal immunity" to Hamas terrorists, guaranteeing that
they will not be prosecuted internationally or by Israel in exchange for
their involvement in a local governing council.
If true, this means that the "Board of Peace" views Hamas as a
legitimate and acceptable partner in the future management of the Gaza
Strip. The mere act of engaging Hamas in such negotiations is beyond
problematic. It risks not only legitimizing an Islamist terror group,
but also entrenching its authoritarian rule in the Gaza Strip and paving
the way for more massacres against Israel.
The idea of integrating Hamas terrorists into the Gaza Strip's new
security apparatus is even worse. Such a move sends a message to the
Palestinians that participation in terrorism carries no consequences and
that terrorists can move directly from violence into official roles
without a meaningful process of disarmament.
Legitimizing these terrorists -- as with the Taliban in Afghanistan
-- undermines any attempt to establish norms of governance based on law
rather than on violence, and can only embolden other terror groups.
Without a credible enforcement mechanism -- backed by unified
international and regional support -- calls for disarmament remain
hallucinatory.
Finally, disarmament requires coordination between the US, key Arab
and Islamic states, and European partners to ensure consistent pressure
and messaging.
It is hard to see how pro-Hamas countries such as Qatar, Turkey, or
Pakistan, all part of the "Board of Peace" -- and two of which, Qatar
and Pakistan, have never even recognized Israel -- would seriously
participate in any effort to force the Palestinian terror groups to give
up their weapons.
The "Board of Peace" will need to apply pressure on the Palestinian
terror groups just as a first step toward forcing them to disarm.
The pressure could include cutting off financial and military
lifelines through sanctions, tighter monitoring of aid flows, and
preventing weapons smuggling into the Gaza Strip. The board also needs
to tie reconstruction projects to verifiable steps toward
demilitarization. If the terrorists remain defiant, Israel may need to
use military force to eliminate all the terror groups in the Gaza Strip.
Without such pressure, plans for disarmament will continue to be
dismissed by Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups. Any plan that
assumes these groups will voluntarily lay down their weapons is
dangerously unenlightened.
A decorated patriot’s fall into conspiracism shows how even the best can be consumed by antisemitic fantasy—and why such thinking must be confronted before it spreads.
A couple of weeks ago, just after Joe Kent
resigned his position in the Trump administration, Jack Posobiec, the
conservative political activist and commentator and former naval
intelligence officer, posted on Twitter/X about Kent’s meritorious
military service. “Joe Kent,” Posobiec wrote, “has six Bronze Star
Medals with five Oak Leaf Clusters across 11 combat deployments as a
Green Beret in some of the biggest battles of the GWOT.” That’s
impressive, to say the least. And it’s also just the tip of the
sacrifices Kent has made for this country.
After serving in the Army for 20 years—as a Ranger, a Green Beret,
and in Army intelligence—Kent retired and joined the CIA as a
paramilitary officer. The next year, while he was stateside with his two
children, his wife and the mother of those children, Shannon Smith, a
Navy intelligence officer, was killed by an IED while deployed in Syria.
Kent became an activist in support of ending the nation’s “forever
wars” and consulted with the (first) Trump administration on how best to
achieve that goal. He ran for Congress in Washington in 2022, winning
the Republican nomination but losing the general election. He ran again
two years later and again won the primary but lost the general. Kent
served as the acting chief of staff to Director of National Intelligence
Tulsi Gabbard, and then as the director of the National
Counterterrorism Center.
At just 45 years old, Joe Kent has done a great deal more in defense
of this country than most Americans could ever even imagine. He is, in
many ways, the very best of us.
Which is precisely what makes his story a tragedy and a warning to the rest of us.
In his resignation letter,
Kent declared that the war in Iran was unjustified and not in the
nation’s best interests. That, of course, is a perfectly defensible, if
arguable, position. He went on, however, to say that the war is also not
really America’s war. It’s Israel’s war. And the sneaky Jews conned us
into it—just as they conned us into the Iraq War 23 years ago:
Early in this administration,
high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American
media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your
America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war
with Iran. This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that
Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that should you
strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory. This was a lie
and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous
Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and
women.
In that same letter, Kent also mentioned his late wife—and blamed
Jews for her death, stating that he is “a Gold Star husband who lost my
beloved wife, Shannon, in a war manufactured by Israel.” Israel, you
see, is at the heart of everything wrong with the world, at least
according to Joe Kent. In his estimation, there is almost nothing for
which the Jews cannot be blamed.
After resigning, Kent made the rounds of the usual suspects in the
right-leaning anti-Israel media. He appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show to
blame Israel for even more global perfidy, joining the chorus of
radicals blaming the Jews for murdering Charlie Kirk. Kent claimed
that it was his office’s responsibility to look for foreign ties to
Kirk’s assassination and claimed that they “had already dug up a decent
amount of leads” before the powers that be—wink, wink—told them to stop.
He then went on to join Carrie Prejean (also recently departed from a
Trump administration appointment for antisemitic comments) and fanatical
antisemite Candace Owens at a “Catholics for Catholics” event.
All of this, it is worth noting, is in addition to the
anti-Israel/antisemitic sentiments Kent exhibited before joining the
Trump administration. In a short piece on Kent’s resignation, Seth Mandel, a senior editor at Commentary
magazine, noted that Kent’s history should have been a huge red flag
for the Trump team. They should never have even considered Kent for a
position, despite his military service, because his “worldview is a
conspiracy-addled montage of easily debunked rage-bait hallucinations.”
Mandel’s description here is both especially accurate and especially
important.
In the few weeks that he has been in the news again, Joe Kent has
often been called a “conspiracy theorist.” And so, for that matter, have
Carlson, Owens, Prejean, and others with whom he shares a loathing for
Israel. In a recent column
for Bloomberg, David M. Drucker called Kent “a conspiracy theorist of
such questionable character that he lacks almost all credibility . . .”
This is understandable framing, but it’s not quite right. Kent does not
engage in conspiracy theories. Rather, he engages in “conspiracism.”
In his classic 1997 tome Conspiracy: How the Paranoid Style Flourishes, and Where It Comes From,
the inimitable Daniel Pipes, the president of the Middle East Forum,
draws a distinction between conspiracies, conspiracy theories, and what
he calls conspiracism.
“Conspiracies,” Pipes notes, are real, and they have existed
throughout history. Moreover, some of these real conspiracies have,
indeed, been perpetrated in the modern Middle East and have included
conspirators like states. These are facts. “Conspiracy theories,” by
contrast, are a mixed bag. They propose a hypothesis—an attempt to
explain events by positing a hidden coordinating group. Most such
theories are wrong, but some turn out to be correct. Others, while
wrong, are arrived at through reasonable inference from available
evidence. “Conspiracism,” on the other hand, is simply pathological. It
is (as Mandel notes) a “worldview,” a standing assumption that
conspiracy is the normal mechanism by which history moves, that powerful
hidden forces are always the real explanation behind surface events.
True conspiracists—like Kent, Carlson, and Owens—don’t investigate
incidents and then draw conclusions; they begin with the conclusion and
work backward. Conspiracism is, as Pipes explains, “unfalsifiable,”
meaning that no amount of evidence can disprove the theory, and, in
fact, much evidence is seen merely as an attempt to cover up the
conspiracy.
Pipes further writes that modern conspiracism has “two main forms”:
antisemitism and fear of secret societies. As I have also suggested
before in these pages,
Pipes argues that the antisemitic conspiracist worldview has its roots
in the Crusades and was exacerbated immeasurably by the Enlightenment
and the events surrounding the French Revolution. He concludes that Jews
are, in many ways, the perfect conspiracist foil. They occupy a unique
position in conspiratorial thinking because they are simultaneously
characterizable as weak and powerful, marginal and central, ancient and
modern, tribal and cosmopolitan. Jews are, as a result, infinitely
adaptable as an explanatory enemy. They can be—and often are—framed to
fit almost any grievance.
Additionally, Pipes notes that conspiracism tends to have its most
prominent and potent revivals during periods of social and economic
upheaval. People are confused, lost, and in desperate need of an excuse,
a scapegoat whom they may blame for the chaos and upheaval. This is a
critical point. Not only does it provide clues as to when conspiracism
might see a revival (as it does now), but it also warns of the damage
conspiracism may do. In just the last century, for example, conspiracism
directed at the Jews resulted in pogroms throughout Eastern Europe as
well as the Holocaust itself.
It is easy, in other words, to dismiss Tucker Carlson and Candace
Owens as grifters, cynical media manipulators who use antisemitic
conspiracy theories to boost visibility or ratings. It is much more
difficult to dismiss people like Joe Kent, people who represent the best
of us but who fall prey to a warped and dangerous worldview. Joe Kent
was, until recently, in a position of real power in the American
government. That he no longer is should be seen as both a blessing and a
warning.
Orbán has repeatedly forced the European Union to change its plans. Now, despite U.S. support, he's likely to be ousted from office.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, among President Donald Trump's
closest European allies, is facing his toughest reelection bid in more
than a decade – putting at risk what is arguably Trump's most reliable
bulwark against what he considers the European Union's longtime efforts
to "do damage to the U.S."
Hungarians will go to the polls April 12, and polls show Orbán’s
Fidesz (Hungarian Civic Union) party running further behind than at any
other time since Orbán’s current tenure, which began in 2010. The
election leader right now is the Tisza (Respect and Freedom) party,
founded in 2024.
Most recent polls
show Tisza – a centrist, pro-European Union coalition – topping 50% of
the vote in a crowded five-party field, with Fidesz a distant second
with roughly 35%. A year ago, the two parties were running neck and
neck.
“This is the first election in more than a decade where Orbán’s defeat is a plausible outcome,
not just a theoretical one, given the scale of the opposition’s lead
and the erosion of his support in key constituencies,” the geopolitical
risk and research consultancy Eurasia Group reported.
The 62-year-old Orbán, the man once dubbed “Trump before Trump," served as Hungarian prime minister from 1998 to 2002, and then reelected in 2010, and has been in power since then.
To be sure, Orbán has spent roughly the past 15 years as the European
Union’s most reliable dissenter: blocking, delaying and restructuring
decisions backed by almost all the leaders in the 27-nation bloc. And
Trump, together with those at the highest reaches of his administration,
are working to help keep him in power.
Trump last week formally endorsed Orbán, calling him “a strong and powerful leader ... a true friend, fighter, and winner.”
Last month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio made a trip to Budapest,
during which he held a televised press conference in which he praised
Orbán and said his reelection was the best option for the country. And
Vice President JD Vance has announced plans to visit Hungary on April 7 and 8, in another high-profile show of support, just days before Hungarians go to the polls.
Even with the election approaching, Orbán, who also has close ties to
Russian leader Vladimir Putin, has not stopped antagonizing European
Union allies.
His latest move was to veto Brussels’ finalization of a plan to provide Ukraine with $105 billion in funding
for its war against Russia, a plan that had been approved by all EU
member states – including Hungary – last year. Hungary’s lone opposing
vote this month was enough to prevent the money from being released.
But the EU aid package may just be delayed, not rejected. European
leaders are now banking on the idea that Magyar will be victorious in
April and that he will not oppose the funding plan.
An unnamed EU diplomat was quoted by media as calling the Ukraine vote “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” adding that “the hope to talk reason into Orbán is gone.”
Trump made the comment about the EU trying to "screw the U.S." during
the early days of his second term, specifically referring to trade
imbalances and further arguing the group was created as an opposition to
America.
"It was formed to really do damage to the United States and trade,"
he said in February 2025. "They're screwing us on trade. ... The
European Union has been very bad to us."
Trump has further argued that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization,
in which 30 of the 32 member-states are European, has similarly taken
advantage of the U.S., or at least until recently, by members not paying
their fair share for military defense. And his recent gambit to annex
or buy all or part of Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, an
EU and NATO member, is also considered another sign, in addition to
higher European tariffs, of Trump's stance on Europe.
Meanwhile, Orbán has benefited from close ties with Trump.
Polls have shown that Hungarians have a higher opinion of the U.S. than any other country in Europe.
According to Pew Research,
78% of Hungarians believe U.S. democracy works “very well” or “somewhat
well,” compared to just 48% who held the same views in Italy, 36% in
France, and 31% in Germany. The same poll showed that 60% of Hungarians
had a “favorable” view of the U.S., compared to 47%, 36% and 33% in
Italy, France, and Germany, respectively.
"The Palestinian people does
not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for
continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity.
In reality, today there is no difference between Jordanians,
Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical
reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people,
since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a
distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism." — Zoheir Mohsen, late
PLO senior official, Trouw, March 31, 1977.
Hamas did not attack military targets to "end an occupation." It
attacked families to affirm an old doctrine: the Jew is not an opponent;
the Jew is a problem to be erased.
If you want to understand October 7, forget the comforting story
of "desperation turning violent." Pogroms are not born from desperation;
they are born from permission — social, religious, political permission
to commit the unthinkable and feel righteous doing it.
In the Battle of Jenin, there was never any "confusion in the fog
of war." The story that part of a hospital had been destroyed was a
total fabrication. It revealed something essential: a good story has
priority over reality.
The genius of the system is psychological. Once the image
circulates, correction becomes irrelevant. The emotional verdict has
already been delivered.
In modern warfare, the camera is no longer documenting the
battle. It is part of the battlefield. The objective is not only to
accuse Israel. It is to morally disarm the West. If you can persuade
democratic societies that defending themselves equals murdering
children, you have already won half the war.
They hate Israel for what it is: an infidel state – and in their
midst. If Israel were a Christian state, the same problem would exist.
Just look at the genocide in Nigeria – with more than 52,000 Christians
killed in just 14 years – in a free society, which is a visible
rejection of the Islamic totalitarian dream.
The Palestinian project is not a "two-state solution" or "a
better border." The project is a world where religious and political
absolutism rules, where minorities submit or vanish, where women are
controlled, where dissent is crushed. Israel is the laboratory target.
If the West rewards October 7 with political gains, it teaches a lesson
to every violent movement on earth: massacre pays. So yes — Israel is
defending itself, and in doing so, it is also defending the principle
that civilization cannot survive if it negotiates with barbarity as if
it were a partner who is misunderstood.
"In March 1978 I secretly brought Arafat to Bucharest for final
instructions on how to behave in Washington. "You simply have to keep on
pretending that you'll break with terrorism and that you'll recognize
Israel -- over, and over, and over...." — Ion Mihai Pacepa, a lieutenant
general in the Socialist Republic of Romania's Securitate, the secret
police, who defected to the West in 1978, Wall Street Journal, September 22, 2003.
If a deal buys time for the "wrong" side, it is not a deal — it is an extension of the threat.
The point is that Israel cannot outsource its survival, and the
United States cannot pretend that totalitarian jihadism can be "managed"
indefinitely. Either you dismantle the infrastructure of terror, or it
regrows.... Israel's enemies... are imposing a war on civilization.
Peace that is built on amnesia is not peace; it is a pause before the next war.
The West will not be defeated by lack of power. It will be
defeated — if it is defeated — by the refusal to oppose danger when they
see it.
(Image source: Pierre Rehov/Wikimedia Commons)
Pierre Rehov is a French documentary filmmaker, director, and
novelist. He is known for his movies about the Arab-Israeli conflict and
Israeli–Palestinian conflict, its treatment in the media, and about
terrorism.
Grégoire Canlorbe: Are Iran's and Hamas's October 7, 2023 jihadi attacks on Israel responses to what they claim, that Israel is on their land?
Pierre Rehov: Jews have lived on that land for nearly 4,000
years. Palestinians, by contrast, contrary to myth, actually do not
exist. As the late PLO senior official Zoheir Mohsen openly stated in an interview with the Dutch daily Trouw on March 31, 1977:
"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a
Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against
the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality, today there is no
difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only
for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence
of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we
posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism."
In modern times, the Palestinians are really just assorted Arabs who
happened to be in Israel in 1948. They chose to leave after five Arab
armies invaded the new nation on the day of its birth, either to avoid
being in the middle of a war, or often at the urging of their fellow
Arabs, who told them to get out of the way to make it easier to kill the
Jews. When these often self-exiled Arabs tried to return to Israel
after the Arabs lost the war -- an event in Arabic called the nakba, the catastrophe – Israel refused to admit them based on their earlier disloyalty. Arabs who did not leave Israel now make up just over 20% of Israel's population of nearly 10 million,
are called Israeli Arabs, and have equal rights with the Jews, except
for not being required to serve in the Israeli army unless they so
choose.
After losing the war, to pressure Israel, Arab countries refused to admit their approximately roughly 700,000 Arab brethren as well, even though Israel, the size of New Jersey, made room for a commensurate number of Jews who had fled Arab countries.
In short, the Palestinian attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023 were
not "in retaliation" for anything. In fact, they had just pledged a
ceasefire with Israel, and Israel had recently issued 27,000 new daily
work permits to enable Gazans to enter Israel, where they could earn a
better wage. October 7 was not a "reaction." It was just the latest
episode in a multi-millenary history of attacks on Jews. It was a
declaration of intent, of ideology, and of a civilizational fault line
that many in the West have spent decades refusing to see.
A pogrom or a jihad is not defined by a map; it is defined by a
mindset: the idea that Jews may be hunted as such—women, children, the
elderly—because their very existence is deemed illegitimate. That is why
I titled my 2025 film Pogrom(s). Hamas did not attack military
targets to "end an occupation." It attacked families to affirm an old
doctrine: the Jew is not an opponent; the Jew is a problem to be erased.
If you want to understand October 7, forget the comforting story of
"desperation turning violent." Pogroms are not born from desperation;
they are born from permission — social, religious, political permission
to commit the unthinkable and feel righteous doing it.
What happened that day also exposed the West's moral confusion. Many
people looked at videos of barbarity and still rushed to
"contextualize," rationalize, excuse. This reflex is precisely what
keeps pogroms returning throughout history: the world's temptation to
treat Jewish blood as a negotiable detail in a political narrative.
Canlorbe: How do you relate the birth and development of the anti-Israel movie industry, especially after the film Exodus portrayed Israelis as heroic?
Rehov: It may have started after the alleged death
of a young Arab boy, Muhammad al-Durrah, in 2000. Israel was accused of
shooting him to death even though in film clips there was no blood to
be seen, and after his supposed death, he can be seen lifting a hand to
look out from under it. The episode became a turning point. The images,
broadcast worldwide, showed a child allegedly shot deliberately by
Israeli soldiers. The narrative was immediate, emotional, definitive.
Israel was guilty. End of story.
The case was never as clear as presented. Serious doubts emerged
about the staging, the angles of fire, the editing, the absence of
forensic transparency. Whether one believes the child was killed in
crossfire or not, what mattered is that the footage became a weapon
before it became a fact.
More importantly, it revived something ancient: the blood libel — the
accusation that Jews murder children. This medieval myth, responsible
for countless pogroms, was simply updated for the satellite era.
The term "Pallywood"
– anti-Israel films, frequently built on falsehoods, and masquerading
as pro-Palestinian -- is not about denying suffering. It is about
exposing the systematic staging, scripting, and amplification of imagery
designed to fit a predetermined accusation.
You could see this machinery yourself in any investigation of the
Battle of Jenin in 2002. At the time, international headlines were
speaking of a "massacre." Hundreds killed. Entire neighborhoods razed.
The emotional narrative was already fixed.
There, I encountered individuals presenting themselves as medical
authorities and witnesses. One of them, Dr. Abu Raley, claimed that the
Israeli army had destroyed a building belonging to his hospital. He
described it in dramatic detail. The story was powerful. It was ready
for cameras.
There was only one problem: the building was intact. Standing. Undamaged. The alleged ruin simply did not exist.
In the Battle of Jenin, there was never any "confusion in the fog of
war." The story that part of a hospital had been destroyed was a total fabrication. It revealed something essential: a good story has priority over reality.
Anti-Israel films are a method: a communication strategy in which
scenes are rehearsed, ambulances are summoned for choreography, children
are positioned for optimum publicity, and Western journalists —
sometimes naive, sometimes ideologically predisposed — broadcast it
without verification.
The genius of the system is psychological. Once the image circulates,
correction becomes irrelevant. The emotional verdict has already been
delivered.
In modern warfare, the camera is no longer documenting the battle. It
is part of the battlefield. The objective is not only to accuse Israel.
It is to morally disarm the West. If you can persuade democratic
societies that defending themselves equals murdering children, you have
already won half the war.
Canlorbe: Are the Israelis fighting only for themselves? What
are they really fighting for besides? For the whole of Western
civilization?
Rehov: Israel is fighting — obviously — for its survival, but
not only that. Israel is fighting to preserve Western civilization, and
at a frontier the West prefers not to name: Islamic extremism and its call for global political control. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and the Iranian regime do not hate Israel for what it does. They hate Israel for what it is: an infidel state – and in their midst. If Israel were a Christian state, the same problem would exist. Just look at the genocide in Nigeria – with more than 52,000 Christians killed in just 14 years – in a free society, which is a visible rejection of the Islamic totalitarian dream.
The Palestinian project is not a "two-state solution" or "a better
border." The project is a world where religious and political absolutism
rules, where minorities submit or vanish, where women are controlled,
where dissent is crushed. Israel is the laboratory target. If the West
rewards October 7 with political gains, it teaches a lesson to every
violent movement on earth: massacre pays. So yes — Israel is defending
itself, and in doing so, it is also defending the principle that
civilization cannot survive if it negotiates with barbarity as if it
were a partner who is misunderstood.
Canlorbe: You mention the Nazi and Soviet origins of modern
political Islam and of the so-called Palestinian cause. Please, what do
you mean?
Rehov: Let's be precise: Political Islam was not "created" by
Nazis or Soviets. It has its own religious roots. Modern jihadist
politics borrowed heavily from 20th-century totalitarian toolkits — Nazi
and Soviet alike: mass indoctrination, the cult of death, scapegoating,
manipulating crowds through grievance and myth. Historically, there has
also been direct contact and ideological cross-pollination. The Mufti
of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, collaborated with Nazi Germany. He
met with Hitler in 1941 — an emblematic moment showing that radical
anti-Jewish mobilization in the region was not only "local," but plugged
into Europe's genocidal imagination.
As for the "Palestinian cause" as a modern political brand, the
Soviet model of the USSR perfected exporting "liberation" narratives,
packaging conflicts into revolutionary frames, and the use of proxy
groups for strategic warfare. When Russia's leaders saw that Israel had
no interest in adopting its brand of socialism or communism, it seems to
have turned its attention to supporting Israel's opponents. PLO and
Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat first, and later the
Palestinian Authority's current President Mahmoud Abbas -- now in the 21st
year of his four-year term -- were groomed in Moscow by the KGB and its
satellites. A lieutenant general in the Socialist Republic of Romania's
Securitate, the secret police, Ion Mihai Pacepa, who defected to the
West in 1978, wrote:
"In March 1978 I secretly brought Arafat to Bucharest for
final instructions on how to behave in Washington. "You simply have to
keep on pretending that you'll break with terrorism and that you'll
recognize Israel -- over, and over, and over," Ceausescu told him for
the umpteenth time. Ceauşescu was euphoric over the prospect that both
Arafat and he might be able to snag a Nobel Peace Prize with their fake
displays of the olive branch."
Whether through training, arms flows, or propaganda doctrine, the
Cold War era shaped a whole ecosystem in which anti-Western agitation
could be sold as virtue. The result is what we see today: a hybrid
ideology — religious absolutism wearing the clothes of revolutionary
victimhood — distributed to Western audiences through media and
academia.
Canlorbe: What are your findings on "esoteric," or religious, Nazism?
Rehov: Nazism was not merely political; it aspired to be
metaphysical. It tried to replace Judaism and Christianity with a racial
religion — an occultized worldview in which blood becomes sacred,
cruelty becomes purification, and conquest becomes destiny. The
religious flavor of Nazism served two functions: it offered a mythic
justification for domination, and it insulated followers from moral
reality. When you turn history into myth, you no longer need ethics —
you only need obedience to the "mission."
While I was writing The Third Testament, a novel published in
English, it became clear that Hitler regularly consulted mediums. Even
more striking was Heinrich Himmler's obsession with magic, witches and
demons. Recently, his personal library was found in a warehouse near
Prague. It contained more than 6,000 esoteric works, including rare
volumes on witchcraft. The initiation ritual required to become a member
of the SS drew directly from these occult beliefs. Many Nazi symbols —
the SS runes, the Nazi salute, the swastika — were rooted in "esoteric"
symbolism. This dimension of Nazism is often minimized, yet it reveals
that the regime did not see itself merely as a political movement, but
as a quasi-religious order claiming spiritual legitimacy for its crimes.
That is why the Nazi project felt to many like a perverse religion or
spiritual movement: it provided meaning, ritual, identity, and a
transcendent excuse for the worst crimes.
Canlorbe: How does that "religion" thought, which led to Nazism, differ from other religions' thought, such as Judeo-Christian?
Rehov: The difference is enormous, of course. Nazi
"religiosity" basically promotes anti-ethics that masquerade as
transcendence. It is essentially racial pagan mysticism that glorifies
force, status and "purity." It dissolves the individual into the tribe
and turns the "other" into a dangerous contaminant. Judeo-Christian
spiritual traditions — even when they explore mysteries, symbols and
initiations — remain anchored in the dignity of the individual person,
moral responsibility, and the idea that facts are inseparable from
conscience. Christian thinkers are usually not about exterminating
imperfection; they are about elevating the human being — fallible, free
and accountable. In the Nazi vision and in many Middle Eastern
interpretations of religion, it exists to justify domination. In the
Judeo-Christian vision, religion exists to deepen humility and love.
Canlorbe: How do you assess the Arab policy of the French Republic?
Rehov: France's Arab policy under the Fifth Republic has
seemed to oscillate between grandeur and blindness. From President
Charles de Gaulle onward, there was a strategic aim: to cultivate oil as
energy and diplomatic leverage, to secure influence in the Arab world,
which during the 1975 "oil crisis" looked as if it had most of the
world's oil, and to position France as a mediator distinct from
Washington. Too often, however, this stance became a reflex of moral
equivalence — treating democracies and terror movements as two
symmetrical parties in a "conflict," rather than distinguishing defense
from aggression.
The culmination is the contemporary temptation to adopt diplomatic
gestures that may flatter French self-image but can also reward
intransigence, disinformation and terrorism. France's announcement that
it recognized a non-existent Palestinian state in July 2025 is a prime
example: a move presented as "peace" that instead rewards terror and
confirms that "terrorism works, so let's keep on doing it!" — thereby
encouraging actors who see concessions as weakness and what they are
doing as delivering success. It reinforces the sales pitch that jihad
and terrorism are the fastest ways to get what you want. France could
have been a voice for realism and the values of civilization. Instead,
it keeps choosing the comfort of theatrical posing
Canlorbe: Trump's foreign policy is centered on dealmaking and
pointed, short-run military intervention. Do you fear that those
factors may prevent the US and Israel from settling, for good, the Hamas
or Iranian regime issues?
Rehov: I do not fear "dealmaking" as such. I fear deals that
confuse calm with peace. If a deal buys time for the "wrong" side, it is
not a deal — it is an extension of the threat. Hamas and the Iranian
regime have proven that they interpret restraint as opportunity. So, the
question is not whether America prefers short operations or long wars.
The question is whether America draws lines that are credible, and
whether it enforces them. As for domestic political constraints, every
administration has them. The point is that Israel cannot outsource its
survival, and the United States cannot pretend that totalitarian
jihadism can be "managed" indefinitely. Either you dismantle the
infrastructure of terror, or it regrows.
Yes, Vice President JD Vance represents a strand of American
skepticism toward foreign entanglements. That is a legitimate debate.
Israel's enemies, however, are not about "entanglements." They are
imposing a war on civilization.
Canlorbe: If a diplomatic solution were to be found to the Ukrainian issue, would it be beneficial to the West?
Rehov: Diplomacy is beneficial only if it restores deterrence.
A settlement that rewards aggression teaches the world that borders are
temporary and violence is profitable. Such a lesson would not stay in
Eastern Europe; it would travel — into the Middle East, into Asia, into
every contested frontier. So yes, a diplomatic outcome can be good — if
it protects sovereignty, if it prevents repetition, and if it signals
strength rather than fatigue. Peace that is built on amnesia is not
peace; it is a pause before the next war.
We are living through a war of reality. Weapons kill bodies.
Propaganda kills judgment. When judgment collapses, democracies begin to
hate themselves, to doubt their right to defend their citizens, and to
romanticize forces that would destroy them.
My work is not about "taking sides" in a political quarrel. It is
about refusing the lie — because when the lie wins, the innocent pay,
and history repeats its darkest chapters with updated slogans.
The West will not be defeated by lack of power. It will be defeated —
if it is defeated — by the refusal to oppose danger when they see it.
Thomas More Society's Peter Breen warns the New Jersey district will not be the last to face legal pressure over parental notification policies
A New Jersey
school district is being threatened with legal action unless it repeals
a policy that lets schools withhold students’ gender-identity
information from parents, setting up what could become an early test of
the Supreme Court’s recent intervention in the fight over parental
rights and school disclosure rules.
The Thomas More Society, a conservative legal group, accused the Westwood Regional School District in a demand letter
of wrongfully maintaining the policy, which also allows the schools, in
some cases, to aid K-12 students’ "social transition" to becoming
transgender without their parents' knowledge.
The move comes
weeks after the Supreme Court dealt a major victory to conservative
parents in Mirabelli v. Bonta by upholding an injunction against a
similar policy in California.
"I had hoped this would end the
practice of secret gender transitions, but what's becoming clear to us
is this is just the beginning," Peter Breen, Thomas More Society
executive vice president, told Fox News Digital. "This is not an end,
but a beginning, our big win in the Supreme Court. We are already
fielding requests from other parents across the country, and we
anticipate sending a lot more demand letters, unfortunately."
Protesters
wave transgender pride flags outside the Supreme Court as it hears
arguments over state laws barring transgender girls and women from
playing on school athletic teams, Jan. 13, 2026, in Washington.(Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Photo)
Fox
News Digital reached out to the school district board members who
received the letter, as well as the district's superintendent, for
comment but did not receive responses. The school board told local media earlier in March that members were consulting with district counsel and reviewing policies.
The
letter requires the New Jersey school district to repeal its policy,
called Policy 5756, within 20 days. Otherwise, Breen said, the Thomas
More Society would follow the same path it did in California and begin
litigation.
"When the Supreme Court decides a case, the logic of
the decision is binding on every other court in the country, federal or
state," Breen said. "And so, the Supreme Court has said that parents
have a fundamental right to control the upbringing and education of
their children… and so a school official who defies that right could be
subject individually to a lawsuit, not just the school district."
In Mirabelli, California
parents and teachers argued that the state's transgender policy
violated their rights under the First and 14th Amendments. The policy
prevented school administrators from telling parents about their child’s
potential efforts to transition their gender unless the child consented
to it. It also required school staff to use students' preferred names
and pronouns regardless of the parents’ wishes.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta taking questions on Aug. 28, 2025.(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
The
U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit sided with Democratic
Attorney General Rob Bonta in the case, leading the parents and teachers
to turn to the Supreme Court. The high court vacated
the 9th Circuit's order 6-3 on an expedited and temporary basis while
the case proceeds through the lower courts. The three liberal justices
dissented.
"The
State argues that its policies advance a compelling interest in student
safety and privacy," the high court's majority wrote in the unsigned
opinion. "But those policies cut out the primary protectors of
children’s best interests: their parents."
Corey DeAngelis, a research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, observed to Fox News Digital
at the time that the Supreme Court's decision was the latest in a
string of victories for conservatives seeking to tighten policies
surrounding transgender people. DeAngelis noted it only applied to
California, despite its anticipated impact on other states.
"This
precedent is surely a sign of good things to come," DeAngelis said. "If
there's a lawsuit that arises in another state, you can be pretty sure
that the Supreme Court is going to rule on the side of families."
A protester holds signs in support of an opt-out option for school lessons.(Courtesy of Becket)
The
Supreme Court has weighed in recently on several key gender identity
disputes through full opinions and emergency orders, and the decisions
have broken along ideological lines. Outside Mirabelli, the high court
in United States v. Skrmetti affirmed 6-3 a state's authority to ban
certain transgender medical treatment for minors under the equal
protection clause. In a 6-3 emergency ruling last year, the justices
temporarily greenlit President Donald Trump's ban on transgender service
members serving in the military.
The high court is also weighing
two relevant and closely watched cases, one on a religious-based
therapist offering alternative counseling to transgender youths and one
on transgender athletes. Decisions on those are expected by the summer.
If the United States is serious about confronting terrorism, it requires designating organizations with documented links to extremist activities, dismantling financial networks that sustain them, and challenging ideological narratives that legitimize violence. It also requires a willingness to confront uncomfortable truths — both about past alliances and present-day policy inconsistencies.
On March 20, 2026, US Rep.
Greg Landsman introduced House Resolution 1130, which recognizes the
1971 atrocities in Bangladesh as genocide, war crimes, and crimes
against humanity.
On March 25, 1971... Pakistan's military launched "Operation
Searchlight", a coordinated campaign of mass murder targeting
civilians... that would kill millions of Bangladeshis.
The central flaw in Washington's current approach is its failure
to confront the ideological and organizational infrastructure that
enabled the genocide in the first place.
Internal documents, congressional inquiries, and independent
reports have repeatedly highlighted concerns about affiliated
organizations operating in North America. These apprehensions include
allegations of financial links to extremist causes and the dissemination
of radical ideological material. Yet, apparently due to the influence
of Islamists in various walks of life in the US, enforcement remains
selective, and political considerations still seem to override security
imperatives.
"Just as the Muslim Brotherhood spawned terrorist groups such as
Hamas, Gama'a Islamiyya (which killed Egyptian President Anwar Sadat),
and al Qaeda, Jamaat-e-Islami also spun off terrorist groups across
South Asia such as Jaysh-i-Muhammad, Harkat-ul-Mujahidin, and
Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan." — Michael Rubin, Middle East expert,
Washington Examiner, March 31, 2025.
"Within Bangladesh, Jamaat-e-Islami was particularly brutal. It
was intimately involved in the 1971 Bangladesh genocide that killed up
to 3 million. For this reason, many Bangladeshis consider
Jamaat-e-Islami members to be war criminals.... Nevertheless,
Jamaat-e-Islami still receives active support from Pakistan's
Inter-Services Intelligence agency... " — Michael Rubin, Washington
Examiner, March 31, 2025.
After recent political upheavals, means of accountability, such
as the International Crimes Tribunal established by Bangladesh, have
been significantly weakened. Charges against individuals linked to the
1971 atrocities have been dropped, and institutions originally
established to deliver justice have faced allegations of politicization
and misuse. This reversal not only undermines justice but also emboldens
those who seek to revive violent ideologies.
If the United States is serious about confronting terrorism, it
requires designating organizations with documented links to extremist
activities, dismantling financial networks that sustain them, and
challenging ideological narratives that legitimize violence. It also
requires a willingness to confront uncomfortable truths — both about
past alliances and present-day policy inconsistencies.
The introduction of HR-1130 is an opportunity — perhaps a last
opportunity — to prioritize the victims of genocide but also the forces
that made such crimes possible. Without such an alignment, the
resolution risks becoming what so many similar initiatives have become: a
statement of principle detached from any meaningful policy action.
Pictured: The destroyed streets of Madhabpur, Bangladesh,
during the war of liberation, on July 24, 1971. (Photo by TT News
Agency/AFP via Getty Images)
In a welcome moment of moral clarity, the United States Congress took
a step toward acknowledging one of the most underreported genocides of
the twentieth century. On March 20, 2026, US Rep. Greg Landsman
introduced House Resolution 1130, which recognizes
the 1971 atrocities in Bangladesh as genocide, war crimes, and crimes
against humanity. Washington, Beijing, most Arab nations — as well as
Palestinian leaders Yasser Arafat and Amin al-Husseini — vehemently opposed
Bangladesh's secession from Pakistan in 1971, branding the war of
liberation as a "battle between Pakistani Muslims and Bengali Hindus"
and comparing it to the Israel-Arab conflict.
The House resolution, which has been referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, recalls
the events of March 25, 1971, when Pakistan's military launched
"Operation Searchlight", a coordinated campaign of mass murder targeting
civilians in East Pakistan. Bengali Hindus, intellectuals, and
pro-independence activists were systematically hunted down. Sheikh
Mujibur Rahman was arrested, and a campaign of violence began that would
kill millions of Bangladeshis.
Although the resolution calls upon the US president to recognize the
atrocities committed in 1971 against ethnic Bengali Hindus by Pakistan's
army and their allies in the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) movement as
crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide, it remains unclear
whether the US will designate Jamaat-e-Islami as a Foreign Terrorist
Organization for committing such atrocities.
For decades, this genocide
remained politically inconvenient. During the Cold War, Pakistan's
strategic importance shielded it from accountability, while Islamist
narratives distorted the truth — portraying the conflict as a religious
struggle rather than a national liberation movement.
Now, more than 50 years later, Washington appears ready to correct
the historical record. But recognition alone is not enough. The central
flaw in Washington's current approach is its failure to confront the
ideological and organizational infrastructure that enabled the genocide
in the first place.
At the core of that infrastructure is Jamaat-e-Islami, which actively
collaborated with Pakistani forces in 1971. Its militias participated
directly in the mass murders, particularly targeting minority
communities. Its ideology — rooted in the writings of its founder Abul
Ala Mawdudi — provides religious justification for violence in pursuit
of a theocratic political order. This ideology has not disappeared.
Today, Jamaat-e-Islami and its affiliates continue to operate across
multiple countries, often under the guise of charitable, educational, or
advocacy organizations. In some instances, these entities have been
linked to extremist financing networks and the promotion of radical
indoctrination.
In 2019, South Asia expert Seth Oldmixon highlighted
the role of Jamaat-e-Islami in promoting and exporting religious
extremism and terrorism on a global scale. He noted the enduring legacy
of Mawdudi, and warned of the dangers of ignoring the activities of JI
and its affiliates in North America.
"Jamaat-e-Islami's guiding ideology and its goal of establishing a
global theocracy have not changed from Mawdudi's original vision,"
Oldmixon said. He further noted continued calls for jihad by senior JI
leaders, as well as ongoing violence by JI and its affiliates.
JI's commitment to extremism is clear from its public rhetoric. Oldmixon pointed out that in 2012, a senior Pakistani JI official said: "I salute the Afghan Taliban. They have defeated America and have destroyed NATO".
On November 1, 2019, US Senator Jim Banks (R-IN), and US Reps. Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN) and Randy Weber (R-TX) wrote to State Department Counterterrorism Coordinator Nathan Sales, presenting
substantial evidence of terror-financing links between JI and its
affiliates — Helping Hands for Relief and Development (HHRD) and the
Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA).
In a 2010 report, the Investigative Project on Terrorism wrote:
"The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), a leading
'domestic affiliate' of the South Asian Sunni revivalist movement
Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), was established in 1968 and formally incorporated
in 1987 in Jamaica, N.Y. An introductory brochure states ICNA's goal is
'[t]o achieve the pleasure of Allah through the establishment of the
Islamic system in this land.'"
Despite mountingevidence and longstanding concerns, the United States has not designated Jamaat-e-Islami as a terrorist organization.
Policy experts have long warned that Jamaat functions as part of a broader Islamist ecosystem connected to the Muslim Brotherhood -- a network that historically has served as a radical incubator for groups such as Hamas, Al Qaeda, and others.
Internal documents, congressional inquiries, and independent reports have repeatedlyhighlightedconcerns
about affiliated organizations operating in North America. These
apprehensions include allegations of financial links to extremist causes
and the dissemination of radical ideological material. Yet, apparently
due to the influence of Islamists in various walks of life in the US, enforcement remains selective, and political considerations still seem to override security imperatives.
The Muslim Brotherhood's expansion continues under various fronts and
affiliated entities. Despite growing concerns, these organizations or
their affiliates continue to operate in many countries, including the United Kingdom. A December 17, 2015 report
by the UK House of Commons noted that the Muslim Brotherhood had
developed an extensive international network and was using Europe as a
key base for its global activities.
Calling for the designation of Jamaat-e-Islami as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, analyst Michael Rubin has argued:
"Just as the Muslim Brotherhood spawned terrorist groups
such as Hamas, Gama'a Islamiyya (which killed Egyptian President Anwar
Sadat), and al Qaeda, Jamaat-e-Islami also spun off terrorist groups
across South Asia such as Jaysh-i-Muhammad, Harkat-ul-Mujahidin, and
Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.
"Within Bangladesh, Jamaat-e-Islami was particularly brutal. It was
intimately involved in the 1971 Bangladesh genocide that killed up to 3
million. For this reason, many Bangladeshis consider Jamaat-e-Islami
members to be war criminals. Indeed, Jamaat-e-Islami became just the
second political party after Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party to face an
international tribunal for its crimes. Nevertheless, Jamaat-e-Islami
still receives active support from Pakistan's Inter-Services
Intelligence agency, the same group that helped hide al Qaeda leader
Osama Bin Laden and sponsored the Taliban insurgency."
While Washington acknowledges the crimes of 1971, it continues to
tolerate — and sometimes even engage with — entities that share the same
ideological foundations that made these jihadi crimes possible.
After recent political upheavals, means of accountability, such as
the International Crimes Tribunal established by Bangladesh, have been
significantly weakened.
Charges against individuals linked to the 1971 atrocities have been
dropped, and institutions originally established to deliver justice have
faced allegations of politicization and misuse. This reversal not only
undermines justice but also emboldens those who seek to revive violent
ideologies.
The lesson of 1971 is clear: ignoring Islamist extremism only allows
it to adapt, evolve, and re-emerge in new and often more sophisticated
forms. If the United States is serious about confronting terrorism, it
requires designating organizations with documented links to extremist
activities, dismantling financial networks that sustain them, and
challenging ideological narratives that legitimize violence. It also
requires a willingness to confront uncomfortable truths — both about
past alliances and present-day policy inconsistencies.
The introduction of HR-1130 is an opportunity — perhaps a last
opportunity — to prioritize the victims of genocide but also the forces
that made such crimes possible. Without such an alignment, the
resolution risks becoming what so many similar initiatives have become: a
statement of principle detached from any meaningful policy action.
History has already demonstrated the cost of such dismissal. The
question now is whether Washington is prepared to learn from it.
Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury is an award-winning journalist, writer, and
editor of the newspaper Blitz. He is a recipient of PEN USA Freedom to
Write Award 2005; AJC Moral Courage Award 2006 and the Monaco Media
Award, 2007. He specializes in counterterrorism and regional
geopolitics. Follow him on X: @Salah_Shoaib
