Latest Analysis and Commentary
by Khaled Abu Toameh • November 6, 2025 at 5:00 am
Hamas is not the only terror group that opposes the presence of international forces in the Gaza Strip. On October 8, two other terror groups, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, also rejected the idea of any "foreign guardianship" over the Gaza Strip. "We are ready to benefit from Arab and international participation in the fields of reconstruction, recovery and development support," the two groups said in a joint statement with Hamas. For them, the international community's role in the Gaza Strip should be limited to pouring billions of dollars into reconstruction and development. When Hamas officials such as Abu Marzouk say they will not allow any force to replace the Israeli army, they are actually threatening to carry out terror attacks against members of such a force. "Whoever comes to replace Israel will be treated as Israel." — Osama Hamdan, senior Hamas official, arabi21.com, February 15, 2025. [T]he terror group may accept the presence of troops from some Arab and Islamic countries such as Qatar and Turkey, which are longtime sponsors of the terror group. The presence of such friendly forces will undoubtedly ensure Hamas's continued dominion over the Gaza Strip and allow the terror group to rearm, regroup and rebuild its military capabilities. It is simply unrealistic to expect Qatari or Turkish soldiers to forcibly disarm Hamas. Notably, the Arab and Muslim ministers did not call on Hamas to cede control of the Gaza Strip or lay down its weapons. Turkey clearly considers Hamas a legitimate and acceptable actor in any future administration of the Gaza Strip.... This position is shared by Egypt.... It is equally unrealistic, unfortunately, to think that soldiers of any outside force -- especially Arab and Muslim troops -- would risk being shot at by trying to stop any military reconstruction in Gaza by Hamas or other terrorist groups. This bad bet was made unmistakably clear by the presence of UNIFIL in Lebanon, where it took about a minute for the UNIFIL forces to support the terrorists, not confront them. Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups -- as well as deeply fundamentalist Muslim countries, such as Turkey, Qatar and Egypt -- will simply use any international force as cover to avoid being targeted by Israel and to maintain control of the Gaza Strip.
Is Hamas planning to thwart US efforts to deploy an international force in the Gaza Strip? When Hamas officials such as Musa Abu Marzouk say they will not allow any force to replace the Israeli army, they are actually threatening to carry out terror attacks against members of such a force. Pictured: Abu Marzouk in an October 25, 2025 interview on Qatar's Al-Jazeera TV. (Image source: MEMRI)
Is Hamas planning to thwart US efforts to deploy an international force in the Gaza Strip? On November 4, Musa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official, told Qatar's Al-Jazeera TV network that "a military force that could replace the [Israeli] occupation is unacceptable." Abu Marzouk, based in Qatar, stressed that there is a "Palestinian consensus that the security force in Gaza should be Palestinian, under the leadership of the committee managing the Strip." This option, he said, enjoys Palestinian consensus and reflects the will to manage security independently without external interference. The Hamas official was commenting on reports that the US has sent several United Nations Security Council members a draft resolution for the establishment of an international force in the Gaza Strip. According to an unnamed US official, the proposed International Security Force (ISF) will be an "enforcement force and not a peacekeeping force."
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by Robert Williams • November 5, 2025 at 5:00 am
While diplomats speak of ceasefires and "inclusive transitions," Tehran is laying the groundwork for something far more dangerous: a military beachhead on the Red Sea, operated through its newest ally in Khartoum, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. Al-Burhan is a military officer from the old Islamist regime of Omar al-Bashir, a longtime partner of the Muslim Brotherhood and a beneficiary of Iran's renewed military outreach. He is not a bulwark against extremism; he is its new façade. On September 12, the "Quad" — the United States, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt — issued a clear warning: the Muslim Brotherhood must have no role in Sudan's future.... Al-Burhan's answer was unmistakable: escalation. Iran sees in Sudan what it once saw in Yemen: a strategic entry point. Having lost freedom of maneuver along its traditional corridor — Syria and Lebanon — Tehran is searching for a new flank against Israel and U.S. forces in the Middle East. The Red Sea, with its shipping lanes and proximity to the Israeli port of Eilat, is that flank. By arming and advising al-Burhan's army, Iran gains exactly what it needs: a launchpad for drones... The operational logic is clear: build an Iranian-aligned Islamist army on the western shore of the Red Sea to threaten Israel from the south, menace Saudi shipping, and target U.S. naval assets stationed nearby. Al-Burhan's army is no longer a secular institution; it has become a hybrid of professional officers, Islamist militias, and remnants of the Muslim Brotherhood's armed wings. If Washington continues to treat al-Burhan as a legitimate interlocutor, it will hand Tehran the Red Sea without firing a shot. The first step is to demand al-Burhan's resignation and condition all engagement, aid, and recognition on his immediate departure. Second, Washington must work with the Quad partners to block Iranian weapons routes into Sudan. Third, the U.S. should restore deterrence.... Sanctions targeting al-Burhan's generals, Iranian intermediaries, and Muslim Brotherhood financiers would send an unmistakable message.... Finally, Washington must reaffirm that America stands with Israel and with the peoples of the region who reject Islamist tyranny. The Muslim Brotherhood has destabilized every nation it has touched — from Egypt to Libya to Tunisia. Allowing its resurrection inside Sudan's military would undo years of counterterrorism progress... Sudan's tragedy is that its people want freedom while their generals want power and their foreign patrons want leverage. The United States can help break this triangle by removing its keystone: al-Burhan himself. His departure would open the door to a civilian transition, deny Iran its new bridgehead... America once led the free world in confronting such threats. It can do so again — by recognizing Sudan not as a diplomatic inconvenience but as the next front in a war already declared by Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, and their allies. If the U.S. and its partners fail to act, the Red Sea may soon host... the next war against the West.
Sudan has become the newest front in Iran's long war against the West and Israel — and Washington cannot afford to keep pretending otherwise. While diplomats speak of ceasefires and "inclusive transitions," Tehran is laying the groundwork for something far more dangerous: a military beachhead on the Red Sea, operated through its newest ally in Khartoum, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. Pictured: Al-Burhan in Gedaref State, Sudan, on April 10, 2024. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)
Sudan has become the newest front in Iran's long war against the West and Israel — and Washington cannot afford to keep pretending otherwise. While diplomats speak of ceasefires and "inclusive transitions," Tehran is laying the groundwork for something far more dangerous: a military beachhead on the Red Sea, operated through its newest ally in Khartoum, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. The Biden Administration and even parts of the Trump foreign policy establishment have described al-Burhan as a "pragmatic" leader, a man who might guide Sudan toward stability. Nothing could be further from the truth. Al-Burhan is a military officer from the old Islamist regime of Omar al-Bashir, a longtime partner of the Muslim Brotherhood and a beneficiary of Iran's renewed military outreach. He is not a bulwark against extremism; he is its new façade.
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by Guy Millière • November 4, 2025 at 5:00 am
Surveys have been exposing what British Muslims think. In March 2024, a poll conducted by the Henry Jackson Society reported that 32% of British Muslims favor the implementation of Sharia law in the UK; 48% feel more sympathy with Hamas than with Israel; 80% believe that Israel is committing genocide. 49% think Israel has no right to exist, and 46% think Jews in the UK -- only 0.5 % of the population -- have too much power. The situation in the United Kingdom is worrying: what affects the UK affects all Western Europe. While the situation in France may seem a bit better, it is probably worse. While the UK Labour Party expelled its former leader, Jeremy Corbyn in 2024 over accusations of anti-Semitism, a French political party, La France Insoumise (France Unbowed), includes several MPs who are on record as having made anti-Semitic remarks. One of its MPs, Rima Hassan, openly supports Hamas. Millions of people in Western Europe appear anxious about the future they see taking shape in their countries and have been turning to political parties that address their concerns. Since these parties have been growing in strength, current leaders are doing everything they can – such as preventing their leaders from running for election, or forming a coalition, or branding their policies as "fascism" and "Nazism" – in an apparent effort to bury these concerns. These are virtually the only parties that support Israel and denounce rising anti-Semitism by actually calling it by its name. Nigel Farage's Reform UK party is leading in voter polls, but the next elections will only take place in 2029. During the next four years, the ruling Labour Party can continue to radically transform the country. "The great replacement" -- the eventuality of a basically Christian Europe being slowly replaced by a Muslim one -- is not a conspiracy theory. It is rapidly underway. The birth rate of Muslim populations remains higher in Western Europe than that of non-Muslim populations, whose birth rates have been collapsing and are now vastly below the replacement level. Muslim births add to the numbers of those who have immigrated from the Muslim world. The proportion of Muslims in Western European countries continues exponentially to increase. Data further shows that Muslim populations are integrating less and less, and that the influence of radical Islam has also been exponentially increasing.
Surveys have been exposing what British Muslims think. In March 2024, a poll conducted by the Henry Jackson Society reported that 32% of British Muslims favor the implementation of Sharia law in the UK; 48% feel more sympathy with Hamas than with Israel; 80% believe that Israel is committing genocide. 49% think Israel has no right to exist, and 46% think Jews in the UK -- only 0.5 % of the population -- have too much power. Pictured: Anjem Choudary (right), a British Islamic radical, speaks at a protest in London on March 21, 2011. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images)
Manchester, England, October 2, 2025: In the most violent act of antisemitic hatred Britain has seen in years, a Muslim man rams a car into a group of Jews on a sidewalk in front of a synagogue, exits the vehicle and begins stabbing other Jews. He is shot by the police. Two Jews are killed, one by the murderer and another who was shot accidentally by police. Antisemitic violence has become deeply entrenched in the country. Since Hamas's jihadist massacre of October 7, 2023, in Israel, it has increased considerably.
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by Lawrence Kadish • November 4, 2025 at 4:00 am
Pictured: President Donald Trump holds up an executive order on the rapid development, deployment and use of advanced nuclear technologies, on May 23, 2025, in the White House. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
The year 2026 may well see emerging geopolitical forces ally with multibillion-dollar investments to finally unleash the power of unlimited fusion energy. Let us follow that path. It is now recognized by President Donald J. Trump that the role of artificial intelligence (AI) may well determine the future of nations and superpowers in a manner that rivals nuclear weapons. The White House has become laser-like focused on the role of AI, which is why they have just announced that the chip maker Nvidia will build AI supercomputers for the U.S. Department of Energy with about $500 billion on the table. (We went to the moon for $20 billion.)
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • November 3, 2025 at 5:00 am
For Hamas, US President Donald J. Trump's peace plan, announced in early October, is evidently nothing but a temporary ceasefire, or hudna, that should be exploited to ensure that the terror group, with the help of Qatar and Turkey, expands its political and military control over the Gaza Strip. The terror group, however, has not been facing any difficulty in hunting down Palestinians suspected of "collaboration" with Israel or those who dared to criticize Hamas during the war. Hamas, in addition, is not in a hurry because it has a serious problem with phase two of the Trump plan, which requires the terror group to lay down and decommission its weapons. What we are witnessing is a calculated delay that aims to buy time and exhaust the US administration until Trump abandons the numerous ultimatums he has issued to the terror group. The foot-dragging aims to allow Hamas to reassert control over the Gaza Strip. According to some reports, Hamas has recruited up to 7,000 new fighters.... Hamas's actions and media interviews given by its officials since the beginning of the ceasefire show that the terror group has no intention of disarming or relinquishing security control over the Gaza Strip. Further evidence of Hamas's total disregard for the Trump plan and ongoing effort to reassert control over the Gaza Strip was provided on November 1 by the US Central Command (CENTCOM): " On Oct. 31, the U.S.-led Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) observed suspected Hamas operatives looting an aid truck traveling as part of a humanitarian convoy delivering needed assistance from international partners to Gazans in northern Khan Younis. The coordination center was alerted through video surveillance from a U.S. MQ-9 aerial drone flying overhead to monitor implementation of the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. Operatives attacked the driver and stole the aid and truck... The driver's current status is unknown." "There is no lasting stability or peace until Hamas is removed from Gaza, a step that will require the use of force against this fascist militia." — Ahmed Alkhatib, former Gaza native and respected political analyst, X.com, November 1, 2025. Even if we reach phase two of the Trump plan, Hamas will undoubtedly try to hoodwink everyone, including the Trump administration. Hamas, for instance, might hand over some of its assault rifles to a third party, but keep most of its tunnels and arsenal of weapons, including rockets and explosive devices. It is also possible that Hamas might try to incorporate its members into a new security force that would be deployed in the Gaza Strip, under the pretext that they are not affiliated with the terror group. It is time for the Trump administration and the international community to realize that what we are currently witnessing is an attempt to rebrand and reproduce Hamas to ensure its continued control of the Gaza Strip. Hamas should not only be removed from power, but from the entire political, economic, social and military arena.
It is almost a month since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas went into effect in the Gaza Strip, and Hamas is taking advantage of the lull in the fighting to entrench itself by rearming, regrouping, recruiting new fighters, and tightening its grip on areas under its control. Pictured: Hamas terrorists stand in front of a vehicle belonging to the International Red Cross (ICRC), in Gaza City on November 2, 2025. (Photo by Omar Al-Qataa/AFP via Getty Images)
It is almost a month since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas went into effect in the Gaza Strip, and Hamas is taking advantage of the lull in the fighting to entrench itself by rearming, regrouping, recruiting new fighters, and tightening its grip on areas under its control. For Hamas, US President Donald J. Trump's peace plan, announced in early October, is evidently nothing but a temporary ceasefire, or hudna, that should be exploited to ensure that the terror group, with the help of Qatar and Turkey, expands its political and military control over the Gaza Strip. This is precisely what Hamas has done for the past two decades. After each round of fighting with Israel ended in a ceasefire, the terror group would exploit the period of calm to restock and rebuild its military capabilities, eventually enabling it to launch its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel's southern communities.
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by Raymond Ibrahim • November 2, 2025 at 5:00 am
These atrocities are just part of a continuing wave of attacks by the Islamic State Mozambique (IS-M), which has been active in northern Mozambique since 2017, killing an estimated 1,800 Christians and displacing more than half a million people. The militants ... establish roadblocks to intercept travelers, particularly Christians, who are charged "tolls" ranging from $150 to $460 to continue their journeys. IS-M continues to demand that Christians convert to Islam, submit to IS authority and pay jizya ("tribute"), or face death. — Barnabas Aid, September 14, 2025, Mozambique. Organized by army officers and officials, these gatherings are presented to the public as "reconciliation," but Christian survivors call them diversions "designed to mask atrocities, shield perpetrators, and convince foreign diplomats that progress is being made... They told us to forgive and move forward, but they never asked who committed the killings. They only wanted photographs of us sitting together in the hall, so they could show Abuja and the U.S. embassy that peace has been restored." — A farmer whose brother was killed, persecution.org, September 3, 2025, Nigeria. Human rights advocates say such kidnappings are common. Girls as young as 10 are abducted, converted, and raped under the guise of Islamic marriage, while courts routinely ignore evidence of age. The case highlights Pakistan's failure to enforce child protection laws, while, under sharia law, Islamic authorities oppose raising the marriage age. "These are not teachers. The government has hired clerics to preach Islam instead of teaching." — A grandmother, persecution.org, September 24, 2025, Pakistan "When even NGOs (non-governmental organisations) want to distribute food, the category of people who will receive this relief is controlled by Government. So, Government in these places doesn't give it to minorities. Often Christians here have been told: 'Unless you leave your Christianity, no food for you'.... For a long time now, they're eating animal feed and grass. No wheat, no rice, nothing can get in. And, unfortunately now, no medicine – if you have just the flu it can kill you." — Local church leader, GB News, September 17, 2025, Sudan. "This is another tragic example of how Pakistan's blasphemy laws are being misused. Thousands of innocent people are languishing in prisons under false charges, and many have been murdered by vigilantes before trial. Social media is increasingly weaponized to settle personal scores and inflame communal tensions. Urgent reforms are needed to protect minorities and prevent abuse of Section 295-C [mandatory death penalty for blasphemy]." —Nasir Saeed, director of the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance & Settlement UK, September 24, 2025, Pakistan. [A] Christian pastor was denied access to a chapel at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport because Muslims were using it and unwilling to share their space with an infidel.... The chapel is dedicated to honoring U.S. military service members.... "Welcome to America, where we promote the Islam faith over all else in the name of inclusion," wrote one commentator — and shared similar experiences from other airports, raising broader concerns for Christians and others about access to public chapels. — September 27, 2025, United States of America. Mount Sinai, the site where Moses received the Ten Commandments, is under threat from a state-backed luxury resort project that locals warn will irreparably disfigure one of the world's most sacred Judeo-Christian landmarks. The Great Transfiguration Project reportedly aims to build five hotels, hundreds of villas, a 1.4-acre visitors' center, and a shopping complex within the St. Catherine Protectorate, home to the 6th-century St. Catherine's Monastery and countless ancient biblical sites. "I call it the Grand Disfiguration Project," said John Grainger, the former manager of a European Union project to develop the area.... While the government frames the project as a "gift to the world," locals and preservationists see it as an aggressive, top-down imposition, enforced by extensive security surveillance, that disrespects centuries of religious tradition and the sacredness of one of the Bible's most hallowed sites. Any Egyptian who dares speak up is clamped down on by an intricate and omnipresent security network. In the words of Ben Hoffler, a British travel writer and former resident of St. Catherine, "If they say anything about it, they get a knock on the door [from Egyptian security services]. The secret police in St. Catherine monitor everything so closely — phone calls, we've had spyware on telephones. They follow people literally in the street. I've been followed many times." — The New York Post, September 11, 2025.
A Christian pastor recently was denied access to a chapel at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport because Muslims were using it and unwilling to share their space with an infidel. Pictured: A billboard at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, on January 11, 2023. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
The following are among the abuses and murders inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of September 2025. The Muslim Slaughter of Christians Democratic Republic of the Congo: On Sept. 9, right before dawn, Muslim terrorists of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) attacked and slaughtered more than 70 Christians gathered for a wake. What was meant to be a night of mourning for a deceased loved one became a bloodbath. Men, women and children were gunned down. After the carnage, the jihadists torched homes, trucks and motorcycles, leaving families without shelter or possessions. "That's how they operate, that's how they act," a local administrator said: "You know, it's a terrorist group [the ADF]. And like all terrorist groups, their objective is often to instill fear in order to force the population to join their movement. That's why they behave this way."
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by Amir Taheri • November 2, 2025 at 4:00 am
The ideological approach to the issue is rooted in lingering anti-capitalist sentiments that have survived the fall of the USSR and the triumph of state capitalism in the People's Republic of China. Many orphans of Marx and Stalin have redefined themselves as "greens" or, labeled "watermelons" i.e. green outside and red inside. Despite the fact that nibbling at the magic forest has continued at an even faster pace under Lula, the crowd of do-gooders coming to Belém will be pleased because it reflects their own conviction that without stopping growth, or even going into what they call "negative growth", coping with climate change won't be possible. That position means accepting a distinct drop in living standards in the 60 to 70 countries with medium or high personal incomes and a freezing of it in the remaining medium-to-poor nations. True, human activity has caused tragedies such as the disappearance of the Aral Sea in Central Asia, Urmia Lake in Iran, and desertification in large chunks of Asia and Africa. But blaming disruptions in ecosystems solely on human activity ignores the fact that human activity must also be credited for saving many ecosystems and making large chunks of the globe fit for human, animal and plant life. If the cause of saving the planet is to be taken seriously, we must make it less political, more scientific, less anti-capitalist, less anti-American and more pro-growth.
(Photo by Thomas Morfin/AFP via Getty Images)
Hurricane Melissa, which has just devastated large chunks of Jamaica and Cuba, may be seen as an unwanted overture to the United Nations' next Climate Change Conference, to be held between November 10 and 21. To be held in the Brazilian city of Belém, the event known as COP30 is expected to be attended by over 190 nations, more than 300 NGOs and tens of thousands of "eco-warriors" from across the globe. The Brazilian organizers hope that the gathering will correct mistakes made in the notorious Paris Accords and following conferences, most recently held in the United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan. Yet, without being the party-pooper, one cannot ignore facts that might derail this latest version of global-warming jamboree.
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by Majid Rafizadeh • November 1, 2025 at 5:00 am
Iran's regime has officially declared that it will not abide by any nuclear limits. It is finally admitting out in the open that its ultimate objective has always been to become a nuclear-armed state. Its announcement... represents the formal end of Iran's long-standing campaign of deception, in which it pretended to cooperate with international nuclear agreements while secretly expanding its program. When Iran claims now that the JCPOA is "dead," it is simply acknowledging that it never had any intention of honoring it in the first place. While the regime publicly claimed to respect the deal, in reality, it was quietly expanding its capabilities, building advanced centrifuges, and enriching uranium far beyond the levels needed for peaceful nuclear energy. The idea that Iran can be persuaded through diplomacy or economic incentives to change its behavior has failed time and again. The first and most crucial step is to reestablish deterrence. In addition to deterrence, the West needs immediately to reimpose and expand sanctions and secondary sanctions -– announcing that countries that do business with Iran may no longer do business with the United States. Unfortunately, Europe remains far behind. Appeasement and indecision will only embolden Tehran further. The Iranian regime is going full nuclear, and the West needs to act — swiftly, decisively, and with unity — before removing Iran's nuclear program becomes difficult.
Iran's announcement to the world that it will no longer respect any laws, treaties, or limits on its nuclear program is, in essence, a declaration of war. The regime has always wanted nuclear weapons. The West must tighten sanctions, monitor every step of Iran's program, and maintain credible military options. Pictured: Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian looks on as a 'Qasem Soleimani' missile is displayed during a military parade in Tehran, on September 21, 2024. (Photo by Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)
Iran's regime has officially declared that it will not abide by any nuclear limits. It is finally admitting out in the open that its ultimate objective has always been to become a nuclear-armed state. Its announcement is not merely a change of rhetoric; it represents the formal end of Iran's long-standing campaign of deception, in which it pretended to cooperate with international nuclear agreements while secretly expanding its program.
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by Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury • October 31, 2025 at 5:00 am
The rise of Islamist extremism in South Asia is entering a new and troubling phase. Their real goal, however, is far darker than banning a Hindu organization: it is to purge majority-Muslim Bangladesh of its remaining Hindu population and to reshape the country into a theocratic state. In a disturbing development, the government's response to a court petition demanding a ban on ISKCON described the movement as a "religious fundamentalist organization". This rhetoric, once confined to the fringe, now finds a place in official discourse - a dangerous sign of how far Islamist influence has penetrated the state. [I]n the eyes of Islamist ideologues, peaceful outreach represents a challenge -- the assertion of a pluralistic worldview that contradicts their absolutist doctrine. What makes this current wave of anti-Hindu agitation particularly alarming is its transnational dimension. Intelligence officials in Dhaka have identified growing coordination between Bangladeshi and Pakistani Salafist groups, some with direct ideological or logistical ties to organizations once linked to Al Qaeda and ISIS. The persecution of ISKCON is not merely an attack on a Hindu organization -- it is part of a larger strategy to dismantle Bangladesh's secularism and to replace tolerance with totalitarian theology. If left unchecked, this campaign could transform Bangladesh into yet another bastion of jihadist ideology in South Asia.
In Bangladesh, the latest target of jihadist wrath is the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), a global Hindu organization. Pictured: Members of the Islamist Hefazat-e-Islam movement hold a rally in Dhaka, Bangladesh on November 29, 2024, to demand a ban on ISKCON. (Photo by Munir Uz Zaman/AFP via Getty Images)
The rise of Islamist extremism in South Asia is entering a new and troubling phase. What began as a political movement cloaked in piety has increasingly transformed into a campaign of cultural and religious erasure. In Bangladesh, the latest target of jihadist wrath is the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), a global Hindu organization. Islamists now brand it an "extremist Hindutva group", call for banning it, commit arson against its temples, and violence against its followers. Their real goal, however, is far darker than banning a Hindu organization: it is to purge majority-Muslim Bangladesh of its remaining Hindu population and to reshape the country into a theocratic state.
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by Lawrence Kadish • October 31, 2025 at 4:00 am
Legal scholars may continue to debate, ponder, and opine on the use of the U.S. Navy to detect and destroy drug smugglers in international waters, but one thing can be guaranteed. There are now many drug-smuggling murderers sitting beside their idle boats asking themselves, "Are we feeling lucky today?" Pictured: The USS Gravely enters Port of Spain, in Trinidad and Tobago, on October 26, 2025, visiting for joint exercises near the coast of Venezuela. (Photo by Martin Bernetti/AFP via Getty Images)
Legal pundits are continuing to debate whether U.S. military strikes on sea-going drug smugglers are within international law. Allow me to pose a different question: If those trying to bring death-dealing fentanyl to our communities were walking our streets and distributing their lethal doses to the unsuspecting, would you not call them hired killers? Would you not, in a trial, seek the death penalty for the carnage, mayhem, grief and misery they have caused? When, from abroad, Al-Qaeda and Islamic State were murdering Americans, there was no hesitation in eliminating them. Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, as well as his henchman, Ayman al-Zawahiri, were discharged without incident, and US forces unquestioningly removed countless Islamic State operatives from the battlefield (here, here, here and here). Then why would you not use deadly force to confront similarly lethal forces before they completed their deadly mission inside our nation's borders?
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • October 30, 2025 at 5:00 am
These [Palestinian poll] findings contradict claims by some Western media outlets that a growing number of Palestinians were disillusioned with Hamas because of the death and destruction it has brought on its people as a result of its October 7 attack. "The conclusion from these [Palestinian] numbers is that the past two years have led to greater support for Hamas rather than the opposite," according to the poll. Asked if Hamas had committed the atrocities seen in the videos shown by international media displaying atrocities committed by Hamas members against Israeli civilians, 86% said the terror group did not commit such atrocities. Only 10% said Hamas did commit them. A majority of Palestinians, the poll showed, are extremely supportive of Iran, Hezbollah, Qatar and the Houthi militia in Yemen, a terror group that fired dozens of missiles and suicide drones at Israel during the war. If elections for the presidency of the Palestinian Authority (PA) were held today, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal would win 63% of the votes, as opposed to 27% for incumbent PA President Mahmoud Abbas. According to the poll, dissatisfaction with Abbas stands at 75%, while 80% want him to resign. If parliamentary elections were held today, 44% of the Palestinians say they will vote for Hamas, 30% for Fatah, and 10% for third parties. Also unexpected is the ongoing Palestinian support for the "armed struggle" (terrorism) against Israel. The results of the poll also show the challenges facing the implementation of the Trump plan, especially disarming Hamas and deradicalizing Palestinian society. Most Palestinians are openly opposed to disarming Hamas – a situation that will make it effectively impossible for any Arab or foreign party to confiscate the terror group's weapons by force. Any Palestinian or Arab leader who sees that most Palestinians oppose the disarmament of Hamas will think twice before he undertakes such a mission: he would not want to act against the wishes of the Arab street -- such a move would be regarded as treason. As for deradicalization, it is clear from the poll that Palestinians are moving in the opposite direction. Many Palestinians are afraid to speak out for fear of being labeled as traitors or collaborators with Israel. We have seen how Palestinians who challenged Hamas were tortured and executed in public squares in the Gaza Strip as soon as the ceasefire went into effect. Radical change in Palestinian society will come only when Palestinians rise up against destructive leaders who, over the past few decades, have been dragging them from one disaster to another.
A recent poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research shows that more than half of Palestinians continue to support the atrocities committed by Hamas against Israelis and foreign nationals on October 7, 2023, and a majority of Palestinians support Iran, Hezbollah, Qatar and Yemen's Houthis. Pictured: Palestinians rally in support of Hamas on December 15, 2023 in Nablus. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Those who thought that Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and the ensuing war in the Gaza Strip have made Palestinians change their minds about the terror group are in for a rude awakening. More than half of Palestinians continue to support the atrocities committed by Hamas against Israelis and foreign nationals on October 7. Moreover, the terror group remains popular among a large number of Palestinians. Support for Hamas means support for the destruction of Israel through Jihad (holy war). A poll published on October 28 by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research showed that 53% of the Palestinians think that Hamas's decision to launch the October 7 attack was "correct." A majority of 54% of Palestinians blame Israel for the current suffering of Gazans, while 24% blame the US. Only 14% blame Hamas.
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by Uzay Bulut • October 29, 2025 at 5:00 am
Since 2011, Islamic violence against Nigerian Christians has escalated. "Our reporters have documented that mass kidnappings of women in Kaduna state in 2023 were in fact aimed at capturing scores of women in Southern Kaduna and selling them as sex slaves in the Fulani bandit community." — Douglas Burton, managing editor of "Truth Nigeria," interview with Gatestone Institute, October 2025. "The chief reason there is so little media attention is that the Nigerian media themselves have deliberately failed to give a clear picture of who is doing the violence and why.... Most media appear to be controlled by cash payments from government spokesmen or others offering 'courtesy gifts.' When the army holds a presser, every reporter who shows up gets a cash envelope, the more influential his paper, the bigger the reward -- still the practice in many countries, I believe. TV reporters get better incentives, and TV executives are said to receive parcels of real estate in Kaduna State. TruthNigeria reporters tell me that in previous years they used to take those 'courtesy gifts,' too. Our reporters find it very hard to get Nigerian public affairs officers to answer their calls...." — Douglas Burton, October 2025. U.S. Senator Ted Cruz has introduced the Nigeria Religious Freedom Accountability Act of 2025. "Nigerian Christians are being targeted and executed for their faith by Islamist terrorist groups, and are being forced to submit to sharia law and blasphemy laws across Nigeria. It is long past time to impose real costs on the Nigerian officials who facilitate these activities, and my Nigeria Religious Freedom Accountability Act uses new and existing tools to do exactly that. I urge my colleagues to advance this critical legislation expeditiously." — Senator Ted Cruz, September 11, 2025. Many in the U.S. are urgently expecting the Senate to follow Cruz's lead.
Tens of thousands of Christians in Nigeria have been murdered in recent years by Islamic terrorists, in an ongoing genocide. Other than the massacres, there are also thousands of church burnings, abductions and forced conversions of Christian children and women to Islam. Pictured: The Church of Christ in Nations building in Mangu, Nigeria, photographed on February 2, 2024, after it was torched by Islamic terrorists. (Photo by Kola Sulaimon/AFP via Getty Images)
As the genocide against Christians in Nigeria crashes on, a news outlet, TruthNigeria.com, continues to courageously shed light on the atrocities committed by jihadists against Nigerians of all religions. "Truth Nigeria," according to its website, "had to be launched to slice through the fog of war and the cloud of false narrative that bedevils mainstream media reporting of what many call a 'Christian genocide' in Nigeria that has been spreading like a cancer." Award-winning journalist Douglas Burton, a former U.S. State Department official who says, "I serve as managing editor for about 12 freelancers who risk their lives to lift the veil on the world's most shameful and still barely reported Christian genocide," was interviewed by Gatestone:
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by Nils A. Haug • October 28, 2025 at 5:00 am
The events of October 7, 2023, one recalls, began on a quiet, peaceful holiday morning. Innocent Israelis near the Gaza Strip were either still asleep in their homes, had just started going about their day, or were enjoying the Supernova music festival. All at once, thousands of rockets launched from Gaza came raining down, terrorists flew in on motorized paragliders, and bulldozers crashed through the Gaza border fence, followed by pickup trucks and motorcycles pouring over the border carrying murderous hordes intent on slaughtering them. As a result, Israelis of all ages, babies included, were cut down, raped, burned alive, and beheaded – for no reason other than living in Israel. Israel retaliated, as any normal nation would have done. Nonetheless, it was viciously blamed, starting the next day, for defending its people and homeland, and pursuing the perpetrators of atrocities. The use of the term "global justice" for charges against Israel is therefore an artifice -- a slogan designed to deceive the public into believing an invented people is a "just cause," as the late senior Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) official, Zuheir Mohsen, admitted in 1977: "The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity exists only for tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan." Israel's war against terror, if one regards it as a fight between a civilization with laws vs. seventh-century terrorism with machetes, is the quintessence of a just war. Unfortunately, for its critics, it happens to be a righteous, justifiable, act of self-defense... If Israel is committing genocide, they're really, really bad at it. They could have had genocide on October the eighth.... It's absurd. If they were trying to commit genocide, it would not have taken them 22 months." — US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, CBS News, August 8, 2025. "The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters." — Antonio Gramsci, Italian politician, 1924. Many of Europe's leaders, in pandering to terrorists for votes, can be considered complicit in the rise of Jew-hatred and are therefore culpable for the consequences – which, ironically, look as if they will be worse for their countries than for Israel, the country they have been trying to undermine.
Today they are celebrating and congratulating US President Donald J. Trump on the release by Hamas of the living Israeli hostages as part of his Gaza peace plan. Yesterday they were trying to come up with any means they could to disregard him and undermine Israel. Pictured: Trump waves before boarding Air Force One at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel, on October 13, 2025, en route to Egypt. (Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
Today they are celebrating and congratulating US President Donald J. Trump on the release by Hamas of the living Israeli hostages as part of his Gaza peace plan. Yesterday they were trying to come up with any means they could to disregard him and undermine Israel. On October 1, after Israel's interception of Greta Thunberg's Gaza-bound Global Sumud Flotilla, Colombia's President Gustavo Petro said: "The free trade agreement with Israel is cancelled immediately. The entire diplomatic delegation of Israel must leave Colombia immediately."
The Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a press release that read: "Colombia reiterates its solidarity with the Palestinian people and reaffirms its compromise with multilateralism, with respect to international law and global justice."
Hamas was, unsurprisingly, delighted, saying:
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • October 27, 2025 at 5:00 am
According to a report by Israel's KAN News, Hamas has already selected half of the technocratic government's members, including figures sympathetic to the terror group, while the Palestinian Authority, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, chose the other half. Mediators, including Egypt, presented the full list to Hamas to ensure its approval, a move that will allow the terror group to maintain influence in the Gaza Strip after the war. The terrorists who launched the war by committing the worst crime against Jews since the Holocaust and who brought death and destruction on their own people should not be allowed to have a say in the future governance of the coastal enclave. If Hamas is allowed to maintain a security presence in the Gaza Strip, this means that the new government and its members would be at the mercy of terrorists and militiamen who are already carrying out extrajudicial executions against their critics, political opponents and suspected "collaborators" with Israel. US President Donald J. Trump's plan for ending the war in the Gaza Strip states: "Hamas and other factions agreed to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form. Gaza will be governed under the temporary transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee, responsible for delivering the day-to-day running of public services and municipalities for the people in Gaza." The factions that met in Cairo made no mention of an "international transitional body" or the proposed "Board of Peace" as outlined in Trump's plan. Needless to say, the Palestinian factions pointedly ignored the part of Trump's plan that calls on the terror groups to lay down their weapons. Hamas leaders have repeatedly emphasized that their group has no intention to disarm before the establishment of an independent and sovereign state. Fatah and Hamas, in short, do not want Trump's "Board of Peace" or any international body to play any role in the governance of the Gaza Strip. Each of the two factions wants the Gaza Strip to be ruled by its own loyalists, masquerading as "independent" and "apolitical" figures. What we are currently witnessing is an attempt by both Fatah and Hamas, with the help of Egypt and Qatar (Hamas's main sponsor and funder), to circumvent the Trump plan.
If Hamas is allowed to maintain a security presence in the Gaza Strip, this means that the new government and its members would be at the mercy of terrorists and militiamen who are already carrying out extrajudicial executions against their critics, political opponents and suspected "collaborators" with Israel. Pictured: On October 10, 2025, senior Hamas official Mohammed Nazzal said on the UAE's Al-Mashhad TV that "the Hamas movement will never surrender its weapons." (Image source: MEMRI)
Are Egypt and Qatar working to ensure Hamas's continued rule over the Gaza Strip by allowing the terror group to choose members of a new technocratic government? Hamas has submitted a list of more than 40 "independent national figures" as potential candidates for forming a technocratic body to administer the Gaza Strip. Mohammed Nazzal, a senior Hamas official, told Qatar's Al-Jazeera TV network that the proposed technocratic government is intended to "enhance humanitarian governance and management in the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the war," which erupted on October 7, 2023 when the terror group and thousands of ordinary Palestinians invaded Israel, murdered more than 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, wounded thousands more, and kidnapped 251 people.
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by Pierre Rehov • October 26, 2025 at 5:00 am
Macron did not even have the decency to make his recognition of a non-existent Palestinian state contingent on Hamas releasing the hostages. Joining Macron in this narcissistic display were other small, soft leaders with large, hard Islamist constituencies -- Britain's PM Keir Starmer, Australia's PM Anthony Albanese, and Canada's PM Mark Carney -- who followed Macron's lead in granting international legitimacy to a cause dedicated to terrorism. The Palestinian Authority continues to operate as an unelected dictatorship, funneling millions into its infamous pay-for-slay "jobs" program -- sometimes listed as "welfare" -- which grants salaries to terrorists and their families based on how many Jews they succeed in murdering. The more Jews they murder, the higher the monthly stipend. Palestinian schoolbooks still erase Israel from maps, depict Jews as usurpers, and teach children that the ultimate aspiration is martyrdom. Macron's recognition, applauded by large sections of Europe and beyond, was not the action of a statesman seeking peace. It was a pitiful lunge to hold onto power by a weakened leader, desperate to posture as a "moral arbiter" abroad while avoiding accountability at home. Macron is willing to betray the Israelis, who are fighting not only for the West but for his own people, the French. After France's defeat at the hands of Germany in 1940 came collaboration. France's Vichy regime did not merely submit to German edicts; it embraced its own homegrown antisemitism. Vichy's machinery operated with bureaucratic zeal: statutes defining who was a Jew, the exclusion of Jews from professions, property seizures, internments, and ultimately deportations to Auschwitz. The cultivated myth of a France "shielding" Jews while Germany did the harm has long since been demolished by the historical record. Vichy was a French government, enacting French laws to persecute Jews on French soil, and in too many instances, to deliver them to their deaths. The moral cost was enormous. By making stability the overriding priority, French authorities tacitly normalized contact with organizations that targeted Jews and Israelis. These back-channel accommodations blurred the line between counterterrorism and collusion — and served as an early modern example of a recurring French pattern: When domestic tranquility and influence in the Arab world collide with the safety and security of Jews, the balance is often struck in favor of tranquility. President Chirac, during a visit to Israel in October 1996, erupted at what he called a "provocation" by Israeli plainclothes security guards during a walk in the Old City of Jerusalem — an incident that became emblematic of Paris's sensitivity to perceived Israeli slights and a readiness to dramatize grievances that resonated with the Arab and Muslim public. Whether the outburst was theatre or genuine indignation, it fed a narrative: France would hold Israel to scrutiny in a way that sometimes felt public and punitive, while remaining discreet, conciliatory, or accommodating toward Arab regimes. [H]ow come, if Mohammad al-Durrah was shot, there was no blood at the scene? The controversy led to libel suits, heated media debates in France, and a long war of narratives: for many critics, the al-Durrah case became a test of whether French media could be trusted to report dispassionately on Palestine-Israel — or whether powerful images produced abroad would be turned into instruments of political mobilization at home. For decades, the front pages of Le Monde, Libération, and Le Monde Diplomatique have provided disproportionate framing that vilifies Israel while sanitizing Palestinian violence. Headlines portraying Israeli counter-terrorism as "aggression," while minimizing rocket fire or suicide bombings, have shaped French public opinion, sometimes more decisively than presidential speeches. The effect of this editorial slant is cumulative: each cover, each op-ed, each biased image is built into a narrative architecture in which Israel stands as the perennial aggressor and Palestinians as the archetypal victims. This distortion is not merely academic. It affects political choices, emboldens intellectuals who conflate anti-Zionism with moral virtue, and reinforces a climate where politicians know they can score points by signaling distance from Jerusalem. In the long run, media coverage has hardened the double standard and provided cultural cover for diplomatic betrayals. The 21st century has added a more transactional layer to France's Arab policy: investment in the French economy. Few states have invested more aggressively in French assets and businesses than Qatar. The oil-rich emirate poured billions into Parisian real estate, media holdings, luxury firms, and sports franchises. The purchase of Paris Saint-Germain football team became a symbol of how deeply Qatari capital has embedded itself into French public life. Alongside investment came soft power: television channels, think tanks, and influence campaigns aimed at projecting Doha's narratives into French discourse. Qatar's record is not benign. For years it has financed Hamas and sheltered its leadership. That France tolerated -- even courted -- Qatar despite these links testifies to a familiar pattern: geopolitical expediency trumping moral clarity. Macron's post on X insisted on conditionality (Hamas must relinquish control and the Palestinian Authority must reform), yet those conditions remain unenforceable in practice. A state without concrete guarantees risks rewarding the very actors — such as Hamas and its patrons — who use terrorism as a policy. Macron's declaration looks less like statesmanship and more like firing blanks: a symbolic attempt at appeasement to placate vocal constituencies at home and reclaim the moral high ground abroad by offering up a state that someone else -- a sovereign nation, far away -- is supposed to implement, while offering Israel and the United States nothing at all. Domestically, Macron's maneuver landed poorly. Multiple polls indicate that a large majority of the French public — roughly three-quarters — opposed immediate, unconditional recognition of a "Palestine" while Israeli hostages remained in Gaza or while Hamas remained in power. The disconnect between Macron and his electorate is striking. While he sought applause abroad, he was being widely perceived at home as indulging in moral posturing that had little chance of delivering peace and a lot of chance of making matters worse.
French President Emmanuel Macron's recognition of the non-existent state of "Palestine", applauded by large sections of Europe and beyond, was not the action of a statesman seeking peace. It was a pitiful lunge to hold onto power by a weakened leader, desperate to posture as a "moral arbiter" abroad while avoiding accountability at home. Macron is willing to betray the Israelis, who are fighting not only for the West but for his own people, the French. Pictured: Macron (center), Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer (left) and Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a summit meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on October 13, 2025. (Photo by Suzanne Plunkett/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
On the eve of the Jewish New Year, when families across the world were preparing to celebrate renewal and resilience, French President Emmanuel Macron chose a different symbol. He formally recognized, at the United Nations on September 23, a so-called Palestinian state -- an act that emboldened Hamas, even as the 20 Israeli hostages still believed to be alive remained starved, tortured, and trapped in its tunnels in Gaza. Macron did not even have the decency to make his recognition of a non-existent Palestinian state contingent on Hamas releasing the hostages. Joining Macron in this narcissistic display were other small, soft leaders with large, hard Islamist constituencies -- Britain's PM Keir Starmer, Australia's PM Anthony Albanese, and Canada's PM Mark Carney -- who followed Macron's lead in granting international legitimacy to a cause dedicated to terrorism.
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