Middle East Press On: Gaza Plan, Soft Power, Rape, Palestinians, Hamas: New Age Islam's Selection, 5 November 2025
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
5 November 2025
Netanyahu Wants Gaza Plan To Remain Stuck In Phase One
Supporting Palestine Would Give China A Soft Power Boost
‘The Silence After The Screams’: How Western Media Helped Justify The Rape Of Palestinians
On To The Next Front: Israel Threatens Lebanon With A New War
Catherine Connolly: A Turning Point In Ireland’s Pro-Palestine Politics
What Remains Missing From The Rhetoric Of “Israel’s Obligations”
The Dilemma Of Victory: Israel, Hamas, And Trump's Role In Mideast Peace
------
Netanyahu Wants Gaza Plan To Remain Stuck In Phase One
Osama Al-Sharif
November 04, 2025
Ever since US President Donald Trump forced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to embrace his 20-point Gaza ceasefire plan, the Israeli premier has been looking for ways to sabotage the deal. In fact, Netanyahu would like nothing more than to turn phase one of Trump’s peace plan into the new status quo in Gaza: a tenuous ceasefire where Israel is free to use feeble excuses to carry out airstrikes and fire artillery shells, while continuing to control and manipulate the flow of much-needed aid to the devastated enclave.
According to Hamas, Egypt and Turkiye, Israel has already violated the ceasefire dozens of times since the Sharm El-Sheikh ceremony last month. Last week, it launched multiple airstrikes across Gaza that killed more than 100 Palestinians, including at least 40 women and children. It has blocked the passage of aid through the Rafah crossing point, while demolishing the remaining houses and buildings under its army’s control behind the so-called yellow line.
Under the first phase of the deal, Hamas has already handed over all living captives to Israel and has been able to retrieve and deliver most of the dead Israelis. Still, Tel Aviv has blamed Hamas for wavering and used the delay in the handing over of the remaining bodies of Israeli captives to breach the ceasefire. In almost all cases, the US has supported the Israeli position and threatened Hamas with destruction. Yet Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance have reiterated that the truce is solid and holding.
Netanyahu and his far-right partners are seeking ways to turn the first phase of Trump’s plan into the new reality in Gaza. The second phase would deliver objectives that are anathema to Israeli hard-liners: a Palestinian interim administration, an international peacekeeping force and reconstruction plans. The proposed International Stabilization Force, composed mainly of Arab and Muslim countries, would oversee disarmament, prevent the smuggling of weapons and maintain an observation role in the ceasefire and complete Israeli military withdrawal. Aside from disarming Hamas and other groups, these goals would erase any victory Netanyahu and his partners have already declared.
Hamas’ political leadership has already committed to not having any role in running Gaza in the future and to a formula under which it would surrender its heavy weapons. With Israel controlling more than 50 percent of the enclave, Hamas has been instrumental in keeping the peace in areas under its control. Under the second phase, a Palestinian police force — trained by Egypt and Jordan — would replace Hamas fighters.
The International Stabilization Force is an idea that Netanyahu is trying to bring down. For Israel, the presence of an international force on Palestinian land would set a dangerous precedent. It would restrain the Israeli army from punishing Gaza whenever it wanted. If he were to accept such a force in Gaza, the West Bank could be next.
Furthermore, several Arab and Western countries have demanded that the force receive a clear mandate from the UN Security Council. They include Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian Authority and Germany. Netanyahu has rejected this demand because it would bring the UN and its resolutions back into the Palestine-Israel conflict — something Netanyahu has spent his entire political career trying to negate.
The Israeli premier has already rejected any role for Turkiye in the proposed force. Ankara is one of four guarantors of the agreement, along with the US, Qatar and Egypt. Netanyahu has brushed aside several Egyptian proposals to form a Palestinian administrative body for Gaza, suggesting that such a body would have links to the PA. Hamas, on the other hand, has insisted that the PA be involved in running Gazan affairs.
The US has been vague about its position on implementing the crucial second phase. On Monday, however, American media reported that Washington has submitted a draft resolution to UN Security Council members regarding the mandate it is hoping to receive for the International Stabilization Force. The draft suggests a wide-ranging mandate to run Gaza for two years and says the force’s role will be enforcing peace rather than peacekeeping. According to the UN, peace enforcement uses coercive measures including military force, while peacekeeping operates with the consent of the parties to a conflict and troops only use force in self-defense and defense of their mandate. In an interview with the BBC last week, Jordan’s King Abdullah said: “What is the mandate of security forces inside of Gaza? And we hope that it is peacekeeping, because if it’s peace enforcing, nobody will want to touch that.”
Talks over its composition are also stuck, with Israel now hinting that no such force can be formed unless Egypt withdraws troops from the Sinai as per the Camp David peace treaty.
The reality is that Netanyahu would rather see the whole deal collapse so he can keep Israeli troops in Gaza and enforce the blockade. Such a situation would allow Israel to resume the genocide by other means while claiming to honor the ceasefire. Even though the second phase of the plan would require Hamas to disarm, Netanyahu would be loath to see a Muslim-majority peacekeeping force, backed by a UNSC mandate, deployed in Gaza for fear of the political and military fallout.
Meanwhile, the US has done nothing to ease the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza. According to the UN and humanitarian organizations, the situation in the enclave remains catastrophic. Israel was supposed to launch its own reconstruction plans in areas under its control. But observers know this is a bluff and that no such plans exist. In fact, the demolition of all civilian infrastructure behind the yellow line has picked up in recent days.
The onus is now on the signatories to the Gaza plan to pressure Israel to honor its obligations under the deal. There are multiple issues related to the implementation of the plan: ending the blockade, allowing foreign journalists to enter the enclave, and accountability for the war crimes that were committed in the past two years.
Netanyahu understands the gravity of moving from phase one to phase two of Trump’s plan. That is why he is doing his best to derail any progress. Trump has to realize that Netanyahu cannot be trusted and that his own credibility, as well as that of the other guarantors, is at stake. He must intervene once more to make sure that both sides honor their commitments. More importantly, the Gaza plan should be a main component of a comprehensive settlement that is based on the two-state solution.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2621390
------
Supporting Palestine Would Give China A Soft Power Boost
Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib
November 04, 2025
Over the past two years of Israeli genocide in Gaza, China has played a minimal role. The superpower controlling events has been the US. One might wonder why Beijing has played an almost non-existent role. However, this might not necessarily be the case going forward, as it is in China’s interest to get involved.
For China, the areas that are of prime importance to its national security are the South China Sea and the US as a competing superpower. Hence, the Middle East is not of prime importance. Another issue is China’s capabilities. Despite strong trade relations, it is very weak in terms of both soft power and hard power when it comes to the Middle East. In terms of hard power, unlike the US, which has bases scattered over the region, China has nothing except for a small base in the Horn of Africa. Even this base is next to American and Japanese bases.
In terms of soft power, Chinese outreach cannot be compared to America’s. The US has been engaged in the region for a very long time, building schools, universities, hospitals, etc. It has engagement with civil society through nonprofit organizations. American pop culture has access to the Arab youth. Content from Hollywood is on major screens in the region. Chinese culture, meanwhile, remains alien to the region.
Not only does China have little in the way of soft power in the region, but its knowledge of the Arab world is also limited. Israel has put great effort into reaching out to the Chinese but the Arabs have done little. Tel Aviv runs a scholarship program for Chinese students to study in Israel. Several Chinese universities offer Israeli studies programs, most notably the Diane and Guilford Glazer Institute for Jewish and Israel Studies at Nanjing University.
This lack of knowledge has affected China’s ability to engage with and influence events as they unfold. Even when it has tried to reach out and have a role, it could not follow through. China tried to reconcile the Palestine Liberation Organization and Hamas in July 2024. However, this was unsuccessful as it knew very little about the parties, the dynamics of their relations or the internal dynamics within each faction. This is why, despite the effort to mediate, the Chinese role remained minimal.
On the other hand, China brokered an agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran in 2023 for the two countries to resume diplomatic relations. So far, the deal has held. The ongoing Israeli expansionism has encouraged both parties to maintain it. Beijing has an interest in stable relations between Riyadh and Tehran because they are major sources of energy. This success could be the starting point for a larger Chinese role.
Political and military involvement usually follows economic interests. The US started showing interest in the Arab Gulf after the discovery of oil there. Political engagement is necessary to protect economic interests. Hence, China might be enticed to flex its muscle in the region. But the Chinese do not want to get into a confrontation with the US. The Cold War and series of proxy wars between the US and the Soviet Union, along with the arms race, led to the latter’s bankruptcy and demise.
Palestine could be an area where China can show its prowess to the Americans, engage with states in the region and contribute to a solution without reaching the level of the Cold War.
Israel has repeatedly breached the ceasefire. The problem is that the US keeps giving the Israelis the benefit of the doubt. It initiates a round of carnage and then goes back to a partial ceasefire. However, it is obvious that if Israel continues in this mode, there will be no phase two of the Trump peace plan, meaning there will be no peace, no reconstruction, no stability and definitely no political solution.
Here, China can step in. A month ago, Beijing condemned the US’ misuse of its UN Security Council veto to shield Israel’s crimes. It can take the issue one step further. It can recall the proposal of the Colombian president at September’s UN General Assembly and implement the “Uniting for Peace” resolution. UNGA Resolution 377, which was introduced in 1950, allows the UNSC to be bypassed. It also allows for the use of force to preserve peace. This was the case with the stabilization force deployed in Sinai during the Suez Crisis, despite vetoes by the French and British. However, it is important to note that the resolution has only been effective, as in 1956, when supported by a superpower. Otherwise, the use of the resolution has been symbolic.
But China can state that, if Israel does not comply with the peace plan and respect the ceasefire, it will support using Uniting for Peace to send an army to Palestine. This would not be about going into conflict with the US, but it would send Washington a message that China cannot be discounted. The other message would be that, if the US is not firm enough to restore stability in the region, then China can intervene.
This might be tacitly accepted by Donald Trump and the West. The American president has been trying to twist Benjamin Netanyahu’s arm in order to have some regional arrangement, but he has been confronted by a still-powerful pro-Israel lobby.
Additionally, such a Chinese move would create goodwill and boost the image of China within the Arab street. The hurdles Israel is creating to prevent the establishment of peace and stability in the region could offer an opportunity for China. If properly played, this would pave the way for a new Chinese role in the region and create some substantial soft power both in the Middle East and beyond.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2621384
------
‘The Silence after the Screams’: How Western Media Helped Justify the Rape of Palestinians
By Romana Rubeo
November 5, 2025
On Monday, November 3, a group of Israeli soldiers stood outside the Supreme Court in West Jerusalem wearing black masks. They weren’t there to apologize; they were there to defend themselves.
The soldiers, accused of torturing and raping a Palestinian detainee at the notorious Sde Teiman prison, demanded “gratitude” for their actions.
“Instead of appreciation, we received accusations,” one said defiantly. Israeli media covered the scene while Western outlets mostly ignored it.
The same soldiers are part of a criminal case that Israeli prosecutors reluctantly opened in 2024 after video evidence surfaced showing Palestinian detainees stripped, beaten, and sexually assaulted at Sde Teiman.
One Palestinian man was hospitalized with seven broken ribs and a rectal tear, injuries consistent with violent sexual abuse.
The Times of Israel reported the indictment of five reservists for “severe abuse,” while other sources cited evidence of sodomy inside the facility.
Yet, in Western coverage, the word rape almost never appeared. Headlines spoke of “abuse” or “mistreatment,” as though sexual torture were a matter of workplace misconduct.
Contrast this silence with the wall-to-wall coverage of October 7, when Israel accused Hamas fighters of “mass rape.” Those claims, still unproven, became the moral foundation of Israel’s campaign of annihilation in Gaza.
In his latest interview with American journalist Candace Owens, political scientist Norman Finkelstein called the Israeli allegations “genocidal atrocity propaganda.”
After examining more than 5,000 photographs and fifty hours of footage from that day, Finkelstein said he found “not a single shred of evidence of even one rape.” Yet those unverified stories, repeated endlessly by Western outlets, were enough to cast an entire population as subhuman and to legitimize the killing of more than 68,000 Palestinians.
In December 2023, the New York Times published a sprawling investigation titled “Screams Without Words: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7.”
The article claimed Hamas fighters had systematically raped Israeli women during the attack. Its pages were filled with graphic descriptions and lurid imagery. The story relied on anonymous witnesses, unverified videos, and second-hand testimony, yet it was presented as conclusive evidence of mass rape.
Within days, it shaped international discourse. Then US President Joe Biden, European leaders, and prominent feminists invoked the Times’ story to condemn Hamas and morally justify Israel’s “retaliation”.
But when journalists and scholars began checking the evidence, the story fell apart. Forensic experts found no physical proof of rape. Several of the supposed witnesses cited by the Times contradicted one another or were later discredited.
In April 2024, more than 50 journalism professors sent a public letter demanding an independent review of the article’s sourcing and editorial process. The Washington Post reported internal dissent within the Times newsroom itself, where reporters said the piece had been “rushed” to meet political expectations.
Meanwhile, the Sde Teiman scandal, an Israeli atrocity supported by video evidence, medical reports, and judicial proceedings, has never received a fraction of the attention that the Times story did. This imbalance is not merely linguistic. It is structural, reflecting the hierarchy of human worth built into Western coverage of the war.
This is how “atrocity propaganda” works. It does not require lies to function, only selective truth. By repeating unverified claims of Hamas rape while downplaying verified Israeli sexual crimes, Western media transformed journalism into a weapon of war.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/the-silence-after-the-screams-how-western-media-helped-justify-the-rape-of-palestinians/
------
On to the Next Front: Israel Threatens Lebanon with a New War
By Robert Inlakesh
November 4, 2025
Israel is now threatening to open up another war against Lebanon and is initiating a propaganda campaign to justify its actions. It has, in reality, violated the ceasefire every day since it was imposed and its strategy is to eventually push the State to internal chaos and collapse.
While it may be well known, at this point, that Israel continues full steam ahead on the war path with Lebanon, as it threatens to bombard Beirut and escalate its ongoing bombing campaign, there are two important points that are necessary to understand what is truly going on.
The beginning of any conversation on the issue is to understand that Israel alone is the reason for the conflict and that its propaganda surrounding Hezbollah’s disarmament is disingenuous. From there, we can properly assess what the Israeli strategy is in Lebanon and what it seeks to gain.
Israeli media is currently ripe with analysts and military officials commenting about the rapid re-armament of Hezbollah, even claiming that, in one year, the Lebanese group has managed to rebuild to the extent that internal estimates believed only to have been possible in a 15 to 20-year time frame. In the Hebrew media framing of events, it is clear that the justification for a new military operation in Lebanon is explained through a “security” lens, arguing that war is necessary to weaken their greatest adversary to the north.
Meanwhile, in the Gulf and Western-owned Arabic media, along with English-language corporate media, their coverage depicts a failure of the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah as the primary issue at hand. The framing harbors the point that the problem here pertains to Hezbollah’s weapons, that this is the reason for the conflict, and that, while Israel may not be helping the situation, the guilty party is the so-called “Iranian proxies”. This line of reasoning argues that, given Hezbollah’s disarmament, Lebanon will be transformed and return to some notion of its “glory days” of old.
Immediately, here there are two narratives that are not congruent, despite bearing some similarities and arguing from the same pro-Israeli point of view, which should be a major red flag for anyone who is looking at this issue critically.
Israel’s Claims about Hezbollah’s Weapons
Ever since the ceasefire was supposed to come into effect late last November, Israel has violated the deal over 7,000 times according to UNIFIL figures. Hezbollah, on the other hand, has not violated the agreement.
According to the ceasefire agreement, the Israeli military should have long withdrawn its forces from the south of the country, yet it has vowed to permanently remain inside what it now considers a security zone; in other words, an illegal occupation of Lebanese lands.
Meanwhile, the Lebanese army has adhered to the deal by dismantling sites used by Hezbollah south of the Litani River, while the group itself agreed to begin disarmament in this zone. Despite this and the work done to remove Hezbollah’s military presence in southern Lebanon, the Israelis only expanded the zone of illegal occupation, continued their strikes, murdered more civilians, and seized more Lebanese hostages. Israel has even struck the Lebanese capital a number of times since the ceasefire was imposed, to which there was no response from Hezbollah.
When it comes to the issue of total disarmament, Hezbollah has rejected this notion. Earlier this year, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun had attempted to reach a deal whereby Hezbollah would surrender its weapons to the Lebanese Army and integrate within it, as a national defense strategy was put together. Israel and the United States both rejected such an idea.
The Lebanese public was then polled on this issue and overwhelmingly expressed their opposition to disarmament, in the event that there is no national defense strategy in place, fearing that the Lebanese Army itself could not defend the country against existential threats posed by its southern and eastern borders.
Despite this, under the orders of US envoy Tom Barrack, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam decided to push forward with the agenda to totally disarm Hezbollah by later this year, a task widely viewed as impractical and likely to lead to civil war if attempted violently. Both Washington and Tel Aviv pushed for this, regardless, offering Beirut nothing in return, only threatening to escalate tensions.
Hezbollah itself was born out of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, created to resist the illegal occupation of southern Lebanese territory. Immediately upon its founding, it understood the importance of bearing arms and continuing to resist, until the very last drop of blood. The reason for this is simple: they had the example of what had just happened to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
After Israel murdered around 20,000 people in Lebanon and besieged the PLO’s leadership in Beirut, the group’s Chairman, Yasser Arafat, agreed to “end” the war through disarmament and moving his leadership to Tunisia. Once the Palestinian Resistance was no longer there, the Israelis then occupied southern Lebanon and, along with their fascist militia allies, committed massacres against innocent women and children. These massacres, which targeted primarily Palestinians, but also Lebanese Shia and others, were amongst the worst in the history of the conflict, such as the infamous Sabra and Shatila camp massacre that killed as many as 3,500 civilians alone.
What led up to the 1982 invasion was that the PLO found itself in a very similar scenario to Hezbollah today. The Israelis constantly violated the existing ceasefire agreement, attempting to draw a response that would justify further military operations, to which the PLO did not bite.
The PLO, for its part, was not only adhering to the ceasefire, it was also heading up a diplomatic mission that was paving the way for a “two-State solution” process, in line with the organization’s 10-point plan and Saudi Arabia’s Fez Initiative. The Israelis branded this as the PLO’s “peace offensive”, viewing it as a threat and seeking any excuse to invade Lebanon, which they finally found with an incident that the PLO had nothing to do with.
Hezbollah managed to struggle against Israel for decades, forcing them to abandon their occupation of the south in 2000, and later thwarting an Israeli invasion in 2006. After this, despite Israel still occupying the Sheba’a Farms and Ghajar village, Hezbollah’s weapons managed to cause a deterrence scenario, whereby they achieved nearly 17 years of relative calm. The Israelis would not dare to bomb their territory.
On October 8, 2023, Hezbollah’s Secretary-General, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, would then change this equation by entering into a support front battle, in order to fight alongside the people of Gaza and ensure their victory. The first operations carried out by Hezbollah targeted military sites illegally occupied by Israel in the Sheba’a Farms, a move not prohibited under international law.
The Israeli response then came against Hezbollah sites and civilians in southern Lebanon, soon including the targeting of journalists, medical workers, women, children, and the elderly. Therefore, Hezbollah began escalating its attacks and responding by hitting military sites, then eventually strategically striking settlements in a tit-for-tat battle. While Israel murdered hundreds of civilians in Lebanon, only a dozen Israeli non-combatants were killed by Hezbollah’s fire, which almost entirely focused on military sites and strategically hit settlements.
Even after Israel’s pager attacks across Lebanon, which murdered and maimed women and children, not just Hezbollah members, killing dozens and injuring thousands, Hezbollah still intended to keep its military operations limited to a support front and not all-out war. Then, the Israelis imposed a war on Lebanon, anyway, killed up to 5,000 people in total, assassinating Hezbollah’s senior leadership, and invaded the country with the intent of reaching the Litani River area.
Hezbollah managed to carefully manage the war, not letting it boil over into an all-out extermination campaign as had happened in Gaza, also succeeding in halting the Israeli military’s ground advances in the south.
Despite the words of Hezbollah’s martyred leader, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, in his last speech, vowing to continue firing until a ceasefire is reached in Gaza, the group eventually decided that it would agree to a ceasefire in order to stop the war from escalating to the next phase: anticipated to bring the all out destruction of Beirut.
What Israel’s Agenda Entails
At this point, after reading the above-mentioned context provided, a reasonable skeptic would argue the point that Israel agreed to the ceasefire and, therefore, they must be interested in peace or, at least, their intentions are not as malicious as is being argued. To which the natural answer has been that the Israelis repeatedly violated every tenet of the deal they had agreed to.
Yet, this explanation is not sufficient to explain away the Israeli counterpoint often made. A more rounded answer to this question not only explains why Israel agreed to the ceasefire at the time, but also what their current strategy is.
While Israeli propaganda has it that Hezbollah had been defeated, that some 90 percent of their weapons were destroyed and its mission was completed, the truth is that the war was reaching a boiling point.
In late September and early October of 2024, the Israelis had pulled off their most significant tactical victories against Hezbollah. Their pager attacks, bombings against major weapons depots, and assassinations of senior officials were all massive blows against Hezbollah.
Yet, by late November of 2024, the Israelis had failed to advance any significant distance in southern Lebanon on the ground; they had also gotten themselves tangled up in a deadly tit-for-tat battle. Although the Israeli strikes did far more damage, Hezbollah was revealing and firing new kinds of munitions, day in and day out, even striking high-rise buildings in Tel Aviv.
It was clear to anyone following the course of the war that Hezbollah had an abundance of weapons that were not about to run out, but that the group had also been greatly shaken up. On the Israeli side, their weapons were never going to run dry, yet they failed to achieve anything too significant after the first few weeks, and their ground forces were taking a beating.
After Hezbollah proved it still possessed ballistic missiles capable of striking high-rise buildings in the heart of Tel Aviv, it was clear from the threats being issued by the Israeli leadership that a new phase of the war was afoot. This clearly was not about defeating Hezbollah and would have resulted in destruction against Israeli-held cities that had not yet been seen.
Therefore, understanding that repeating the Gaza model of destruction in Lebanon was not going to serve either side, both agreed to a ceasefire. The result was a stalemate, yet politically and in terms of public perception, the Israelis clearly had the edge.
Hezbollah could not credibly claim a victory and was clearly desperately in need of repair, after suffering severe blows to everything, from its chain of command to its communication, intelligence wing, political standing, and even its weapons. According to multiple sources inside Lebanon, up to 25 percent of Hezbollah’s weapons were destroyed. Although this is nowhere near the Israeli numbers, it is certainly significant.
Tel Aviv saw that, through their actions, they were capable of seriously shaking Hezbollah and putting them in a terrible political predicament, but eliminating them altogether was a goal that clearly failed.
So, the next step was to pursue this goal through other means. Instead of dissolving and the public support for the group evaporating, the base of the group inside Lebanon had doubled down. To them, what was done specifically to their former leader, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, ignited an everlasting fire, inflicting emotional pain that exists in each household until this day.
Israel then sought to impose an equation whereby they could fire at will in Lebanon, while forcing the pro-American stooges picked to run the government to do their bidding. Naturally, the US and Israel knew that the disarmament of Hezbollah was never going to happen by the end of the year, and, without any roadmap as to how to achieve it, there was not even the slightest chance of success with this strategy.
Nevertheless, the US-Israeli alliance has pursued this push to disarm Hezbollah, the Iraqi PMU, Hamas, along all the Palestinian resistance factions, through political maneuvers and agreements.
While ceasefire agreements hold in both Gaza and Lebanon – translating to Israel reducing its attacks while its enemies actually respect the agreements – they scheme for the next inevitable round of confrontations.
Before proceeding with this line of analysis, it is important to establish Israel’s goal, which is to both conquer or impose its will on more territory and eliminate its regional opposition entirely. A perfect demonstration of what happens in the event of disarmament is the case of Syria, where the Israeli military continues to illegally occupy more territory, arm separatists to fight a government it is dealing directly with and refuses to allow the country to enjoy any sovereignty.
The new Syrian government has collaborated with the Israelis openly in the south of the country, worked on their behalf to stop weapons transfers into Lebanon, kicked out and disbanded all the Palestinian resistance groups in the country and is openly aligned with the US. Despite all of the Syrian regime’s pandering, the Israelis are still arming groups to divide the country into separate sectarian regimes and bomb it, at will, additionally refusing to allow the rebuilding of the Syrian army.
On October 7, 2023, the Israelis suffered a severe blow, yet they also saw an opportunity to go after every one of their opponents and to carve out their “Greater Israel Project”, which its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admits to and frames as a “seven-front war”.
In this regional war, Iran is its strongest opposition. However, they have no actual ground options against the Israelis, meaning that as long as any round of conflict with the Islamic Republic is short, they can survive. Hezbollah, on the other hand, has a ground force consisting of around 100,000 men, which makes up for the lack of parity when it comes to missiles and other capabilities.
Incapable of winning any decisive victory over Hezbollah, the Israeli strategy is to put the Lebanese group on the back foot, to open up new rounds of war that will set them back further, each time damaging them, but not inflicting a total defeat. This strategy means that the wars have to be limited and not all-out.
In the Israeli mindset, the Lebanon question is similar to the Gaza question. Solving it is not only destroying Hamas or Hezbollah, because another group will inevitably rise to assume their position. The issue is to use proxy groups, whether sectarian or extremists of whatever flavor, to divide society and turn their focus on within. It is a process by which the people there must be re-educated, propagandized, forced into internal division and controlled as slaves who adhere to Israel’s regional ambitions. Syria is a great example of Israel’s dream.
When we now turn to Israel’s most recent threats against Lebanon, we are in a phase of political pressure being applied upon the government in Beirut, but also on the public, which is collectively anxious about the perceived inevitability of war. Should that war soon come, the Israelis will seek to achieve their goals quickly, impose immense suffering and then go back to a ceasefire, similar to what we have now.
If Hezbollah fails to inflict a perceived defeat upon the Israelis, it will severely damage their image and even sow doubt amongst their own supporters, who all long for revenge. Not only do they seek revenge for what Israel did last year, but they continue to suffer daily oppression at the hands of the occupying force that remains in the south of their country.
The Israelis believed that symbolically imposing their dominance over the Lebanese people, something clearly on display with the fighter jet flyover of Beirut during the funeral of Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, they could beat the people’s spirits down. For now, they have only grown more motivated towards revenge.
Broadly speaking, the public perception, even amongst Hezbollah’s most die-hard supporters, is that Israel is militarily superior and the old perception of the Lebanese group’s power is gone. From an Israeli perspective, this is a good thing, yet it could also serve as the opposite in any future battle.
Hezbollah was perceived as a massive victor in the 2006 war, not because they decisively defeated Israel, but because they were such a massive underdog and still managed to dictate the pace of the conflict in many regards. Mere survival for such an armed group was considered a victory, let alone the master-class pulled off by the group during the war. Back then, Hezbollah did not possess weapons that could hit Tel Aviv, let alone guided ballistic missiles and suicide drones. In many ways, it was comparable to the power of Hamas on October 7, 2023.
Therefore, if Hezbollah plays its cards correctly this time around, it could come off with what is considered a devastating defeat of Israel. The problem with this will be Israel’s reaction to its own failure, as we are no longer in the era of 2006-style battles being permissible, as was the case in Gaza; the Israelis could exit a battle, as occurred in 2014, and be content, but not now. If the Israelis start getting embarrassed in Lebanon, they could feel the need to escalate further.
This is where two major questions arise: Will Iran fight alongside Hezbollah? And how far are Hezbollah willing to go?
Under the scenario that Iran joins in, this could lead to two potential outcomes: A much broader war or an intervention that forces the Israelis to close the war and accept defeat. The Iranians also have their Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) allies, who number above 250,000 and could potentially be used to fight Israel, also.
The reason why Iran could decide to throw its weight behind Hezbollah, this time, is down to the inevitability of another US-Israeli attack on them and the fact that losing Hezbollah could spell strategic defeat.
As for the question of how far Hezbollah is ready to go, if its current Secretary-General, Sheikh Naim Qassem’s rhetoric about waging “a Karbalae battle”, that is to say a war to the death, then we should expect their forces to enter the northern Galilee. If this occurs, Israel will interpret it as another October 7-style failure, meaning the number of civilians we can expect them to kill across Lebanon will be unprecedented.
If Hezbollah fighters breach the borders, this will provide a moment of truth for the Palestinian Resistance in Gaza, as well. What the groups in Gaza will do is impossible to predict, but there will certainly be major decisions that will have to be made in such a scenario.
All of this is, to some extent or another, understood by the Israelis. They know the dangers of pursuing this course of action and what happens if it spirals out of control, yet it appears as if they are willing to take these chances. So far, the Iranians have decided to hold back and so the Israelis have walked away from each round, having achieved some objectives and only suffering minor consequences.
If Israel gets its way, it will seek to continue its phased attacks on Gaza, Lebanon and even Iran, each time attempting to score new victories and to inflict major psychological blows on the populations inside these countries. Israeli victory hedges upon limited confrontations and maximum civilian suffering, to rob the people of their sense of stability, their faith in victory, and to divide them, turning the people on each other as a means of crippling their leadership.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/on-to-the-next-front-israel-threatens-lebanon-with-a-new-war/
-------
Catherine Connolly: A Turning Point in Ireland’s Pro-Palestine Politics
By Robert Inlakesh
November 4, 2025
Ireland is a nation renowned for its passionate support of the Palestinian people. The election of its new President, Catherine Connolly, reflects this long-held position of solidarity and could pave the way for a left-wing government, which would lead to a more anti-Israel position.
Born July 12, 1957, in Galway City, Catherine Connolly was raised in a working-class household and was the ninth of 14 siblings. She grew up in one of the first social housing developments in her city, studying to become a practicing clinical psychologist and, later, earned a law degree, becoming a barrister in 1991.
By 1997, Connolly had decided to join the Irish Labor Party and, only two years later, was elected to the Galway City Council. By 2004, she was elected Mayor of Galway, but by 2007 decided to leave the Labor Party and run as an independent. After a number of failed runs, she managed to get elected as an independent to the Irish Parliament (Dail Eireann) in 2016, where she would serve for nearly a decade.
On Saturday, she was announced as the landslide winner of Ireland’s Presidential election, receiving support from a coalition of left-wing parties to do so. She will now serve a 7-year term as the most left-wing President in Irish history.
Connolly’s ability to bring together Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats, People Before Profit, 100 percent Redress, the Green Party, the Labor Party and a range of independent leftists has also led to hopes that the often divided left will manage to make greater strides come the next Irish elections.
Although the role of President in Ireland is largely ceremonial, this victory for the left has sent a strong message about the way Irish politics could be headed. A self-described socialist, her views on foreign policy are anti-colonial and anti-imperialist, shaped by sensibilities rooted in the Irish struggle against British oppression.
Connolly is an advocate for Palestinian rights, fiercely criticizing Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip and taking aim at US President Donald Trump, stating that the “Genocide was enabled and resourced by American money.”
She has also taken criticism for standing up and taking anti-interventionist stances on a range of other foreign policy issues. On Ukraine, while condemning Russia for invading, she has also pointed out NATO’s role in the conflict.
In 2018, she also visited Syrian cities Damascus, Maaloula, and Aleppo, joined by Clare Daly, Mick Wallace and Maureen O’Sullivan, on a self-funded trip. For doing so, she received criticism during the presidential campaign, due to her anti-interventionist stance and calls for the lifting of sanctions being conflated with support of former Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad, whom she had also criticized.
Connolly’s stances are consistent with the anti-imperialist and anti-interventionist positions of the left, as she attacks “the warmongering military-industrial complex” and has been particularly vocal on how the international arms trade has worked to forward the assault on the Gaza Strip.
In the new Irish President’s words, Israel is a “genocidal state” and should be punished for its crimes committed against the Palestinian people. These views align with the majority of the Irish public, 71 percent of whom said they believe that Palestinians lived under Apartheid conditions back in 2023, and 60 percent of whom stated they sought to see Ireland take a stronger public stance on the issue.
Since 2023, pro-Palestinian sentiments have not only been on the rise in Ireland but across the globe. Therefore, electing a President who holds these positions reflects the public’s support for candidates willing to call a spade a spade.
Catherine Connolly has been labelled Ireland’s Jeremy Corbyn, while others have even compared her rise to other staunchly pro-Palestinian socialist politicians across the world, including the likes of Zohran Mamdani.
Whether Connolly’s victory will translate to a leftist coalition winning the Irish Parliament in the next elections or not, it has provided hope for such a prospective victory, one that will have enormous implications for Ireland’s foreign policy stances.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/profile-catherine-connolly-the-socialist-leader-redefining-irelands-solidarity-with-palestine/
------
What Remains Missing From The Rhetoric Of “Israel’s Obligations”
by Ramona Wadi
November 4, 2025
Last month, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) gave its advisory opinion on Israel’s obligations towards the presence of UN agencies operating in the occupied Palestinian Territories. The opinion was requested by the UN General Assembly, whose resolutions are non-binding to the point of not escalating beyond futile recommendations.
Despite the weight that resolutions and legal opinions ought to carry, based as they are on international law and obligations, both the ICJ and the UN General Assembly contribute to the Palestinian people’s subjugation. Both institutions have offered words, while the world supplied Israel with weapons and the means to commit genocide.
What the ICJ stated with regard to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is both non-binding and not a novelty. Israel is obliged to lift its restrictions on UNRWA and the link between the agency’s mandate and Palestinian self-determination “underpin and reinforce Israel’s obligations to respect the mandate, status, privileges and immunities of UNRWA in the OPT.”
For decades, the entire world has heard the phrase “Israel, as the Occupying Power”. What international institutions fail to articulate to the world is that human rights have fallen into a chasm as a result of terminology that has lost both meaning and value. That loss, in turn has rendered all action to hold Israel accountable close to negligible, because Israel is deriving its strength from the impunity created by diluting international law.
There is an inherent weakness in international institutions when it comes to upholding human rights and international law. The colonised and the oppressed are forced to recreate themselves as fodder for this system that pledges protection of human rights while aligning itself with military might. It is by design that institutions are weaker than the international law violations they are supposed to prevent.
The ICJ concluded that Israel was “under an obligation not to impede the operations of United Nations entities, including UNRWA, and to cooperate in good faith with the United Nations to ensure respect for the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.”
This sentence is one example of how international law serves Israel. If Israel acted accordingly, particularly with respect for Palestinian self-determination, the statement would serve no purpose. The underlying expectation is that Israel will not “cooperate in good faith”; it will continue trampling upon Palestinian self-determination through colonialism and genocide. As a result, UNRWA remains tethered to a mandate it cannot fulfil competently because of Israel’s impediments and insufficient funding. Who benefits from non-binding resolutions and advisory opinions? Israel, of course.
To expect Israel to fulfil its obligations as an occupying power is a contradiction in itself, even more when the root cause – Zionist colonisation – remains unaddressed. Advisory As an aberration of international law, Israel acts within the parameters of impunity offered by the weak institutions upholding the legislation. If international institutions want UNRWA to fulfil its mandate, and if Palestinian self-determination was truly a concern for the international community, where is the unified international call for Israel to decolonise itself?
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20251104-what-remains-missing-from-the-rhetoric-of-israels-obligations/
------
The Dilemma Of Victory: Israel, Hamas, And Trump's Role In Mideast Peace
By Zaki Shalom
November 5, 2025
In recent speeches, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has emphasized that the second stage of the Trump-Netanyahu framework – disarming Hamas – can proceed in one of two ways:
“By peaceful means,” namely, that Hamas voluntarily lays down its arms; or by force, if Hamas refuses to disarm peacefully.
It is worth recalling that in the first days after the Hamas attack, the prime minister made it clear that Israel was in a state of war, not merely another “round” of hostilities. In subsequent phases, he repeatedly stressed that the objective of Israel’s military action is complete victory: “My main expectation,” he said in January 2024, “is complete victory. Nothing less. There is no substitute for victory.”
What is victory?
“Victory” in war, certainly complete victory, is not an abstract notion. It has clear parameters: unconditional surrender; regime change; alterations of the constitutional order of the defeated entity; constraints on its ability to rebuild military power; and a transformation from militant, militaristic conduct to a commitment to peace. Such were the outcomes of the First and Second World Wars.
In the current war against Hamas, after more than two years of intense fighting, Israel has not yet achieved victory – certainly not “complete victory.” It is doubtful, in our view, that the defence minister’s emphatic declaration this week that “we have defeated Hamas” is grounded in reality.
Despite the heavy blows it has sustained, Hamas is far from accepting unconditional surrender. It continues to demonstrate resilience, retains control over large areas of the Gaza Strip, and is treated as a legitimate partner for negotiations.
Under these circumstances, Israel finds itself in a tacit confrontation with the US administration. It appears that President Donald Trump’s administration shares, to one degree or another, the approach of the “mediating states,” which seek to prevent Israel from realizing a comprehensive victory.
Against this backdrop, Trump said in his speech to the Knesset on October 13, 2025: “Israel, with our help, has won all that they can by force of arms. You’ve won. I mean, you’ve won. Now it’s time to translate these victories against terrorists on the battlefield into the ultimate prize of peace and prosperity for the entire Middle East. It’s about time you were able to enjoy the fruits of your labour.”
Israel has not achieved victory
In our assessment, under current conditions, achieving Hamas’s disarmament “by peaceful means” may be viewed as an important Israeli accomplishment – but not as an Israeli victory. In that scenario, the “crown of victory” would, to a considerable extent and with some justification, be placed on Trump’s head. Israel would emerge from the campaign feeling it had not fully achieved its principal objective: complete victory over Hamas.
The conclusion apparently taking shape within the Israeli government is this: To realize complete victory over Hamas, Israel must continue along the military path, against the backdrop of Hamas’s refusal to honour its commitment to disarm.
Israel’s relationship with the United States now depends, to a great extent, on Hamas’s conduct. If Hamas persistently refuses to disarm, it is reasonable to assume that Washington will grant Israel authorization to resume the war, thereby preserving Israel’s option of achieving complete victory.
By contrast, if Hamas agrees to disarm in a manner that satisfies the administration, Israel will face a difficult dilemma: whether to resume the war in order to impose a tangible defeat on Hamas – at the risk of a confrontation with Washington – or to end the war with “half its desire fulfilled” and turn to the path of peace in light of Trump’s vision, which presently appears uncertain.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-872707
------
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/middle-east-press/gaza-plan-soft-power-rape-palestinians-hamas/d/137521
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism