Latest Analysis and Commentary
by Khaled Abu Toameh • March 30, 2026 at 5:00 am
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.
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by Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury • March 30, 2026 at 4:00 am
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.
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by Grégoire Canlorbe • March 29, 2026 at 6:00 am
"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:
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by Amir Taheri • March 29, 2026 at 4:00 am
Trump surely knows that even if Tehran meets all his demands now, there is no guarantee it would abide by them beyond his presidential tenure or even after the US midterm elections. In other words, the Venezuelan "solution" would just mean kicking the ball down the road. If there is an "Iran problem", and I have said there is for the past 47 years, the wisest and least problematic solution is regime change. The mistake that successive US administrations, European powers and some of our neighbors have made is to narrow down the choice in dealing with a rogue regime to appeasement or war, and often deciding that the former card trumps the latter. Between appeasement and war, there is a third option: regime change through Iran's internal political dynamics. A process of people-based change started almost four years ago and in late 2025 developed into the largest national uprising the region has seen in contemporary history.
The Venezuelan "solution" for Iran would just mean kicking the ball down the road. The wisest and least problematic solution is regime change. Pictured: Venezuela's then President Nicolás Maduro meets with Iran's then Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on October 22, 2016, in Tehran. (Image source: khamenei.ir)
The latest ultimatum issued to Iran by US President Donald Trump is due to end as this column appears. What happens next is anybody's guess. The president might issue another ultimatum (I have lost count of how many he has issued in the past few weeks), or he might intensify his "special military operation" against the Khomeinist regime in Tehran by using the elite of the US Army to capture the Iranian island of Kharg. Whatever he does, he might render the very word ultimatum meaningless in the political and diplomatic lexicon. I don't think we should take Trump's ultimatum as a "do and die" warning. He is a dealmaker, not a bounty hunter. In any case, he may remember President Bill Clinton's response to those who asked why the US wouldn't just go after its foes and bomb them:
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by Majid Rafizadeh • March 28, 2026 at 5:00 am
This is precisely the moment when the greatest strategic mistake could be made: stopping halfway while leaving "moderate" extremists still in place. If left intact, the regime will almost certainly, at some point -- after the Trump administration's term ends -- accelerate its most ambitious and dangerous projects, most notably its pursuit of nuclear weapons along with ballistic missiles to deliver them. Now, faced with intensified pressure and internal fragility, the regime has, as usual, apparently signaled a willingness to negotiate. It may even agree to sweeping terms – say "yes" to anything — not because of any positive transformation but as a tactic for survival. A ceasefire deal now would not resolve the underlying problem -- it would freeze it in place temporarily while allowing the regime to recover. Once stabilized, it would resume its activities -- with the same less-than-neighborly objectives. Any agreement with this regime, or what is left of it, will almost certainly end up undoing the very gains that the US and Israel have achieved. The choice, therefore, is between finishing what has been started or once again facing the same reality just around the bend.
This is the moment when the United States and Israel could make greatest strategic mistake in the Iran war: stopping halfway while leaving "moderate" extremists still in place. Pictured: Policemen flank a cleric atop an armored vehicle, at a public funeral for militiamen of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Tehran on March 11, 2026. (Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)
Only two countries, the United States and Israel, have finally confronted a regime, the Islamic Republic of Iran, which, for nearly half a century, has held the world hostage and destabilized an entire region, all while brutally tormenting its own people. Iran's ruling system has built its identity on ideology — an expansionist doctrine rooted in "exporting the revolution," undermining and attacking sovereign states, and financing terrorist proxies. From Hezbollah in Lebanon, to Hamas in Gaza, to the Houthis in Yemen, to the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq, to terrorist cells in Latin America, the regime has poured billions into non-state actors that perpetuate cycles of violence, weaken governments, and terrorize civilians. At home, it has maintained power through repression, torture, censorship and force.
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by Pierre Rehov • March 27, 2026 at 5:00 am
This is not containment. It is disarmament. It is the eradication of Iran's nuclear ambitions as a strategic variable. And it is accompanied by equally stringent regional and military demands: the cessation of financing, arming, and directing the organizations of the proxy terrorist network that has defined Iranian power projection for decades.... The United States is not seeking behavioral change. It is demanding total transformation. The regime in Tehran still stands, which is its all-encompassing objective. Iran's territory is not occupied and its capacity to inflict damage — through missiles and proxies — has not been fully neutralized. The costs Iran has imposed on its neighbors and adversaries, both militarily and with political pressure... are perceived as significant. From this perspective, the war might not appear lost to them. In an ongoing war, one does not surrender. One bargains. Most importantly, Tehran is betting on time. After all, Trump just promised not to bomb Iran's power plants for another ten days. Trump, in their reading, is a dealmaker, not an occupier. He seeks outcomes, not endless wars. And in the echo chambers of Western media, where narratives of American overreach and impending quagmire are readily amplified, Tehran finds confirmation of its own illusions. In the end, the outcome will not be determined by rhetoric or by the theatrical posturing of preconditions. It will be determined by the hard realities of power. It is overwhelmingly, decisively, and unmistakably tilted against Iran. Those now in charge of Iran... may no longer recognize that.
The Iranian regime has not merely rejected US President Donald Trump's peace plan; it has countered with a series of conditions so detached from reality that they raise a fundamental question: is Tehran negotiating or hallucinating? Pictured: A display of mock missiles and caskets with the Israeli and US flags at a regime-organized demonstration on March 22, 2026, in central Tehran. (Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)
US President Donald J. Trump has reportedly laid out a 15-point peace plan to Iran — with conditions that, taken together, amount to Tehran's near-total strategic capitulation. In response, the Iranian regime has not merely rejected them; it has countered with a series of conditions so detached from reality that they raise a fundamental question: is Tehran negotiating or hallucinating? What is unfolding is not a classic diplomatic standoff between two adversaries seeking a middle ground. It is a confrontation between a superpower-backed coalition imposing terms from a position of overwhelming superiority, and a regime that behaves as though it were dictating the outcome of a war it is, in fact, losing.
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • March 26, 2026 at 5:00 am
While the Gulf states find themselves directly in the line of fire, their frustration is not directed only at Tehran, but increasingly at fellow Arab states whose response has been muted, symbolic, or absent altogether. As far as the Gulf states are concerned, the Arab response is just background noise. For decades, the Arab world has been organized around a single political narrative: Israel is the central threat to regional stability. This narrative has shaped diplomacy, media, education, and public discourse across the Arab world. It has served Arab regimes as a tool of legitimacy and deflection – a way to redirect internal frustrations toward an external enemy. The Arabs' failure to help the Gulf states appears to stem from a desire to continue depicting Israel, and not Iran, as the central political issue. Arab inaction is driven mainly by fear, weakness, and division, but it is reinforced by a lingering reluctance to fully abandon the old regional narrative centered on Israel. If Arab states were to fully mobilize in defense of the Gulf against Iran – politically, militarily, and rhetorically – they would be forced to confront an uncomfortable truth: that the primary threat to Arab security no longer aligns with the anti-Israel narrative that has defined the region for generations. For the people of the Gulf states, the conclusion is clear: When it matters most, Arab solidarity is unreliable, and, contrary to the political discourse in the Arab world, Israel is not the central threat to regional stability.
While the Gulf states find themselves directly in the line of fire, their frustration is not directed only at Tehran, but increasingly at fellow Arab states whose response has been muted, symbolic, or absent altogether. As far as the Gulf states are concerned, the Arab response is just background noise. Pictured: Flames and smoke rise from the site of an Iranian drone attack next to Dubai International Airport on March 16, 2026. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)
Recent Iranian missile and drone attacks on Gulf states – including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, and Kuwait – have exposed a deep and widening rift within the Arab world. While the Gulf states find themselves directly in the line of fire, their frustration is not directed only at Tehran, but increasingly at fellow Arab states whose response has been muted, symbolic, or absent altogether. As far as the Gulf states are concerned, the Arab response is just background noise. For decades, the Arab world has been organized around a single political narrative: Israel is the central threat to regional stability. This narrative has shaped diplomacy, media, education, and public discourse across the Arab world. It has served Arab regimes as a tool of legitimacy and deflection – a way to redirect internal frustrations toward an external enemy.
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by Daniel Greenfield • March 26, 2026 at 4:00 am
Had the common-sense provisions of the Expatriation Act of 1907 or even the milder Nationality Act of 1940 been in force today, we wouldn't have the farce of cartel and terrorist leaders who still hold our citizenship, active traitors with citizenship, "refugees" who spend most of their time back home or a Somali senator linked to fraud who is still voting in Minnesota elections. Under these provisions... the "refugees" and "migrants" who maintain homes abroad, the women who marry foreign nationals for cash to give them citizenship, and the anchor baby would be as extinct as the dodo. The Warren Court's deliberate misreading of the Fourteenth Amendment's awkward attempt to define all black people as citizens, "all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power... are declared to be citizens," somehow trumped the clear language of Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 that Congress has the power "to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization". In a series of bad decisions, Supreme Court rulings argued that serving in a foreign military, desertion, marrying foreigners, and voting abroad did not merit denaturalization. These rulings relied on now widely discredited premises, such as defining the Constitution's "cruel and unusual punishment" term as being anything that the justices disapproved of, and "evolving standards of decency" which allowed judges to redefine the law to fit liberal mores. The Trump administration may be willing to take on "treason citizenship".... Indeed, even the Fourteenth Amendment had emphasized "not subject to any foreign power". America's founding principles were highly skeptical of both notions that were rooted in monarchial, rather than republican principles. Monarchy made everyone born under the jurisdiction and sovereignty of the Crown into a "subject". Allegiance to the Crown was not voluntary the way that it was in America. That was why the Founding Fathers, including Thomas Jefferson, labored to defend the right of "expatriation" which still remains the only unquestioned form of denaturalization. The American Revolution was predicated on the idea of citizenship as a voluntary action rather than an involuntary compact created by a place of birth. The growing intrusion of "Jus Soli" began with the Fourteenth Amendment, which, rather than quickly naturalizing freed black slaves, clumsily made everyone born here and "not subject to any foreign power" citizens. And that's not only absurd; it's national suicide. The prototype for American citizenship is neither "Jus Soli" nor the "Sovereignty of the Crown," but the concluding words of the Declaration of Independence, in which we "pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." A nation built on anything else is either a tyranny or an absurdity. Some on the left and the right now argue for tyranny or absurdity. America was based on neither tyranny nor absurdity, but a voluntary community of mutual allegiance that it is possible to join and to withdraw from, and to be tossed out of and barred from for disloyalty. Past Supreme Court decisions reversed the tyrannical one-way allegiance of monarchy and instead replaced it with a one-way allegiance in which the state was obligated to do everything for the citizen, but nothing at all was required from the citizen. Not even allegiance. Even asking them not to run terrorist organizations and drug cartels at war with America is asking too much. No nation can survive on such principles. [I]f citizenship can't even be removed from the people who pledge allegiance to Al Qaeda and ISIS, then, to paraphrase President John F. Kennedy, what does it ask of us to do for our country, and what does it even mean beyond a set of legal complications? The only pathway to reviving America is to make citizenship into a meaningful act of allegiance, not an accident of birth. Immigration in this regard is not the problem; immigration without allegiance is the real crisis, but so is the citizenship without allegiance... America needs to exercise the traditional ability it once had to make citizenship meaningful by also making it selective, controlling immigration, ending the automatic grants of citizenship for happenstance births, and once again making citizenship conditional on ongoing allegiance.
(Image source: iStock/Getty Images)
Last year the Trump administration designated Mexico's Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) as a terrorist group, allowing the military to carry out strikes against it and its leadership, but the massive drug cartel across the border understands the weaknesses of our system all too well. That's why its new leader has American citizenship. Law enforcement, intelligence agencies and the military will have to jump through all sorts of legal hoops to spy on, target or take out Juan Carlos Valencia Gonzalez, who has a $5 million bounty on his head, but he has the best protection in the world because he was born in California. The new cartel leader's drug-dealing Mexican parents had a baby in America. That child became a Mexican citizen who runs a Mexican drug cartel that the government has designated as being at war with the United States, and yet we can't simply remove his citizenship.
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by Con Coughlin • March 25, 2026 at 5:00 am
Several members of Trump's Board of Peace, especially Turkey and Pakistan, have expressed serious concerns about, if not outright hostility to, disarming Hamas, a factor that many believe has resulted in talks on the disarmament of the terror group being put on hold. Mladenov's optimism about persuading Hamas to disarm, however, was not shared by the terrorist organisation itself. A Hamas official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, stated that, while the terrorist group had received a written document, it denounced the initiative as a "take it or leave it" offer. He said Hamas would first wait to see the outcome of the Iran war before responding. Hamas's refusal to provide a clear-cut commitment to meeting the disarmament demand, moreover, comes at a time when it continues to consolidate its hold over Gaza, especially since the start of the Iran war. In an attempt to control Gaza's civilian population, Hamas has been enforcing price controls and managing the distribution of goods arriving from outside the Strip, moves that suggest it has no intention of relinquishing its grip over Gaza. Trump must not abandon his demand that Hamas fully disarm before going forward with his Gaza peace plan.
US President Donald Trump must not abandon his demand that Hamas fully disarm before going forward with his Gaza peace plan. Pictured: Hamas terrorists in Gaza City on November 2, 2025. (Photo by Omar Al-Qataa/AFP via Getty Images)
US President Donald Trump's ambitious plan to bring lasting peace to Gaza risks being completely ruined after suggestions that members of his Board of Peace are not fully committed to disarming Hamas terrorists, a key requirement of the Trump administration's peace plan. Prior to the war in Iran, Trump made disarming Hamas his top priority as he sought to implement his ambitious 20-point peace plan for Gaza's reconstruction. As the president wrote on his Truth Social platform in January in response to Hamas's continuing prevarication over the disarmament demands, "they can do this the easy way, or the hard way." Since then, the Trump administration's focus on disarming Hamas appears to have taken a back seat as the American leader has become preoccupied by the challenges of the war in Iran since launching Operation Epic Fury on February 28.
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by Ahmed Charai • March 25, 2026 at 4:30 am
On October 7, Israel was not merely attacked. It was meant to be broken. Israel did not collapse. It stood up. It buried its dead, fought for its hostages, and absorbed a shock that would have shattered many nations. Israel also understood something essential: if October 7 was to remain a horror rather than become a model, it was not enough to strike only the hand that carried out the massacre. The source had to be confronted. Recklessness would have been to let Tehran continue believing that it could arm militias, terrorize its neighbors, destabilize capitals, and remain beyond consequence. For too long, Iran's rulers had assumed that democracies would hesitate forever and confuse fear with prudence. Courage is the willingness to act when the cost of inaction has become greater than the risk of action. The Abraham Accords were never just a diplomatic ceremony. They were a strategic and civilizational choice: a decision in favor of modernity, sovereignty, development, and peace against a regional order built on militias, intimidation, and permanent war. This conflict did not change that choice. It tested it—and it held. That may be one of the most important political facts emerging from this war. Netanyahu... did not choose comfort. He chose responsibility. And Trump, whatever one may think of him on other issues, grasped something many others did not: there are moments when deterrence cannot be restored by speeches, conferences, or carefully worded illusions. It must be restored by force. That is not recklessness. That is leadership.
The decision by Prime Minister Netanyahu, together with President Donald Trump, to confront Iran was not recklessness. It was courage. Pictured: U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a press conference on December 29, 2025 in Palm Beach, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
On October 7, Israel was not merely attacked. It was meant to be broken. The massacre was designed not only to kill innocents but also to deliver a message: that terror could humiliate Israel, traumatize it, isolate it, and force it into retreat. In the hours and days that followed, amid scenes of slaughter, kidnapping, and national grief, one could hear an old fantasy returning. Many voices, openly or quietly, suggested that the massacre was the beginning of the end of Israel. They were mistaken. Israel did not collapse. It stood up. It buried its dead, fought for its hostages, and absorbed a shock that would have shattered many nations. But Israel also understood something essential: if October 7 was to remain a horror rather than become a model, it was not enough to strike only the hand that carried out the massacre. The source had to be confronted.
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by Lawrence Kadish • March 25, 2026 at 4:00 am
Quantum computers are capable of solving problems of staggering complexity, such as cures for intractable diseases. These quantum systems, however, demand an extraordinary amount of energy. Pictured: The IBM Quantum System Two computer, at the IBM-Euskadi Quantum Computational Center in San Sebastian, Spain on October 14, 2025. (Photo by Ander Gillenea/AFP via Getty Images)
That cure for cancer or Alzheimer's? Without the needed power to run the quantum computers that could finally solve those plagues, you can forget about it. What about an unbreachable anti-missile defense shield to protect our nation? Not without applying the enormous power of quantum computing. From history-making advances in astrophysics to microbiology, quantum computing is the technology that can unlock an unimaginable future. Yet, except for the Chinese, few recognize how its enormous power can dictate who will be the next global superpower. While artificial intelligence (AI) and data centers with their massive demand for energy dominate our attention, quantum computing urgently needs to become an American priority. The new technology is going to demand more electricity than anything we can imagine.
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by Gordon G. Chang • March 24, 2026 at 5:00 am
Friends of Havana blame the U.S., but the Trump administration had to act before China turned the island into a military bastion. Declassified intelligence showed that Chinese signals-intelligence collection facilities had been operating in Cuba since at least 2019. "China and Cuba are negotiating to establish a new joint military training facility on the island, sparking alarm in Washington that it could lead to the stationing of Chinese troops and other security and intelligence operations just 100 miles off Florida's coast." — The Wall Street Journal, June 20, 2023. President Donald Trump acted before the Chinese could base missiles in Cuba.
"China and Cuba are negotiating to establish a new joint military training facility on the island," reported the Wall Street Journal in 2023. So, whatever one thinks of the harsh consequences of the U.S. naval embargo, the Havana regime, by allowing the Chinese to have the run of the island, does pose a threat to the United States. Pictured: People wave the flags of Cuba and China as several Chinese Navy vessels enter the port of Havana on November 10, 2015. (Photo by Yamil Lage/AFP via Getty Images)
Cuban society, due to a U.S. naval embargo, is close to collapse. Friends of Havana blame the U.S., but the Trump administration had to act before China turned the island into a military bastion. America took control of Venezuela's national oil company, PDVSA, after the January 3 raid that resulted in the capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife. Then the U.S. stopped the flow of Venezuelan oil to the Cuban regime. At the same time, the Trump administration, by threatening tariffs on oil suppliers, imposed a de facto oil embargo on Havana. The U.S. Navy has deterred vessels from unloading cargo in Cuba.
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • March 23, 2026 at 5:00 am
Someone needs to inform Mladenov that Hamas has already made a choice: to reject disarmament. Hamas leaders have instead proposed long-term truces (5-10 years) rather than total decommissioning of arms. Another thing the "Board of Peace" and Mladenov do not seem to understand is that Hamas uses ceasefires with Israel to rebuild, regroup, and restock its arsenal and tunnel networks. To ask Hamas politely to disarm is fantasyland. The notion that the "Board of Peace," no matter how well-intentioned, can persuade Hamas to relinquish its arsenal through dialogue alone ignores decades of evidence to the contrary. The Trump administration seems to have forgotten that Hamas is a terrorist group whose foundational principles and actions are centered on the use of violent Jihad (holy war) and the destruction of Israel. Hamas is aware that it cannot achieve its goal without holding onto its weapons. The dangerous message now being sent is: hold on to your weapons long enough, and the world will come to beg you. Hamas will disarm only when it realizes that the cost of holding onto weapons exceeds the benefits. Hamas will lay down its weapons only when it faces sustained political, economic and, if necessary, military pressure.... For Hamas, weapons are the foundation of its rule, its ideology, and its survival. Asking Hamas to give up its weapons voluntarily is like asking the Republican or Democrat party to vote itself out of existence. Treating disarmament as a voluntary goodwill gesture rather than a non-negotiable prerequisite is unfortunately a non-starter. Disarmament is not a favor Hamas gives; it is a condition that must be enforced to prevent countless more October 7-style massacres against Jews.
Someone needs to inform "Board of Peace" Director-General Nickolay Mladenov that Hamas has already made a choice: to reject disarmament. Another thing the "Board of Peace" and Mladenov do not seem to understand is that Hamas uses ceasefires with Israel to rebuild, regroup, and restock its arsenal and tunnel networks. Pictured: Mladenov speaks at the "Board of Peace" meeting in Davos, Switzerland on January 22, 2026. (Photo by Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)
US President Donald J. Trump's "Board of Peace" has reportedly presented Hamas with a written proposal on how it could lay down its weapons, according to a recent report. The proposal "was submitted to Hamas during meetings in Cairo over the past week." The talks were attended by Nickolay Mladenov, the Trump-appointed "Board of Peace" envoy to the Gaza Strip, and Aryeh Lightstone, a US aide to Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff. Mladenov, in a message greeting Muslims on the Eid al-Fitr feast marking the end of Ramadan, later wrote on X:
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by Raymond Ibrahim • March 22, 2026 at 5:00 am
"They had the audacity to tell us that we are poor Christians, and we should be thankful that their son had only sodomized the child, 'not raped her'.... Muslims think that they can commit any crime against us, and no one would dare oppose them." — Father of a 6-year-old girl attacked by her tutor, morningstarnews.org, December 17, 2025, Pakistan. On December 30, a young man of "North African" appearance stabbed a priest multiple times in a busy street in broad daylight. Don Rodrigo Grajales Gaviria, 45, was stabbed from behind while walking in Modena's historic center. — December 30, 2025, Italy. On December 15, the Muslim-led MyLahore Group, led by Ishfaq Farooq, renamed Bradford's Christmas Market, of which it is in charge, to "Winter Market"... "Once again, Christmas is the thing being diluted, renamed, and pushed aside – not because it offends everyone, but because it offends a very specific worldview that refuses to integrate." — X, December 15, 2025, United Kingdom. "A Muslim mass besieges the St. Martin's Cathedral, shouting 'Allahu Akbar.'... This is just the trailer. What do you think will happen when they are in the majority?" — X, December 10, 2025, The Netherlands On December 1, a Sri Lankan national, identified only as "YA," successfully appealed the UK Home Office's rejection of his asylum claim. He had been arrested in connection with the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings — Islamic State-claimed suicide attacks on Christian churches and hotels that killed 269 people, including British nationals. The UK is nevertheless considering granting him asylum. — December 1, 2025, United Kingdom.
On December 30, a young man of "North African" appearance stabbed a priest multiple times in a busy street in broad daylight. Don Rodrigo Grajales Gaviria, 45, was stabbed from behind while walking in the historic center of Modena, Italy. Pictured: Modena Cathedral and Ghirlandina Bell Tower at the Piazza Grande, in the center of Modena. (Photo by iStock/Getty Images)
Muslim Rape of Christians in Pakistan On December 10, in Punjab Province, a Muslim man in his early 20s, Muhammad Uzair Riaz Dogar, "sodomized" a 6-year-old Christian girl during a tutoring session at his home. The victim, daughter of impoverished Salvation Army church member Saleem Masih, had been tutored by the suspect's sister for four months. While the female tutor was away, the brother let all Muslim children leave but forcibly took the Christian girl to another room and assaulted her. She was found crying in pain, clothes blood-soaked; hospital examination confirmed sodomy. The perpetrator was eventually arrested, but his family tried to pressure the family to withdraw charges and settle, making derogatory remarks exploiting their Christian poverty. According to the girl's father:
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by Amir Taheri • March 22, 2026 at 4:00 am
The second scenario is for Trump to refocus on Iran's arsenal of missiles by claiming it has been wiped out, thus enabling him to end the war. However, that would mean becoming hostage to fortune. It would be sufficient for Tehran to fire a ballistic missile or launch an attack drone just days after Trump's declaration of victory to show that the leader of the mightiest power in history has thrown in the towel a bit too soon. The third scenario, favored by some in Trump's kitchen cabinet but absolutely hated by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is the Venezuela model: having decapitated the regime, you allow it to squeal and survive under a second tier of leaders. That scenario may not be applicable to Iran for two reasons. First, the Venezuela of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro did not want to wipe Israel off the map and drive the Yankees out of Latin America. Nor did Venezuela have proxies in the American backyard and sleeping terror cells inside the US.
Pictured: Two F/A-18 jets launch from the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean Sea, in support of U.S. military operations in Iran, on March 3, 2026. (Photo by U.S. Navy via Getty Images)
With the war between the Israel-US duo and the Islamic Republic in Iran entering its third week, two questions are asked in policy circles across the world. The first is: how long will it last?
The answer is: how long is a string?
Which means: because no one knows, no speculation is warranted. The second question may be beyond a journalist's bailiwick. As one of my mentors in journalism taught so many decades ago, we had better leave history to historians and guessing the future to futurologists. However, using a dose of sophistry, one might claim that op-eds represent a hybrid form of journalism that allows a measure of exemption from the mentor's rule through pontification. With that admittedly lame excuse, one could imagine five scenarios in which this war might terminate. The first is for President Donald Trump to do what he has done many times: declare victory and move to something else.
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