Last week, the U.N. Security Council Resolution 2803 endorsed President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza, with 13-0 votes, while Russia and China abstained instead of using their vetoes to kill it. The resolution grants authorization under international law to the plan’s demand for the disarmament of Hamas as a condition for the rebuilding of Gaza under the supervision of an International Stabilization Force (ISF) and the overall guidance of a Board of Peace, headed personally by President Trump.
As in Trump’s peace plan, the resolution also calls for the creation of a non-partisan self-governing body for Gaza consisting of Palestinian “technocrats” without participation by Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, unless the corrupt dictatorship by Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has been thoroughly reformed and replaced by new leadership that is committed to living in peace with Israel.
Meanwhile, Trump has made the success of his Gaza peace plan a test of his international prestige, as well as his powers of persuasion, negotiating abilities and persistence. He now takes great pride in his ability to use his skills to resolve intractable international conflicts, large and small, around the world. To supervise and monitor the implementation of Trump’s Gaza peace plan, the United States has sent 200 of its troops, a small army of diplomats, and a group of top Trump administration officials to an international command center set up in the southern Israeli town of Kiryat Gat.
During his visit to Washington, D.C., last week, Trump tried to convince Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) to take the next step toward a region-wide agreement for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, based on the Abraham Accords. Trump has long wanted Saudi Arabia to join other Muslim countries as members of the Abraham Accords, to strengthen the alliance that the U.S. and Israel have been building in response to the threat from Iran and its terrorist allies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and various Shiite Iraqi militias. As an incentive to join the Abraham Accords, President Trump offered MBS and Saudi Arabia America’s most advanced warplane, the F-35 stealth fighter, which is now the most lethal weapon in the IDF’s arsenal, but it was not enough.
SAUDI LEADER DEMANDING A PALESTINIAN STATE AS HIS PRICE FOR PEACE
MBS insisted that Saudi Arabia could not join the Abraham Accords until it receives firm and credible assurances that the Gaza peace plan will lead to the eventual formation of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. While a pathway to Palestinian statehood is listed as one of the goals of Trump’s 20-point peace plan, such an outcome is totally unacceptable to the current Israeli government led by Prime Minister Binyomin Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition partners, as well as to the Israeli public.
The leaders of those right-wing parties, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, were deeply disappointed when Trump announced a few weeks ago that he would not permit Israel to annex the Jewish communities in the Israeli-controlled portions (Area C) of the West Bank, now or in the foreseeable future. That decision was due to the strong objections to any such annexation voiced to Trump by the leaders of America’s other allies in the region, including Egypt and Jordan, as well as the Persian Gulf oil states.
Nevertheless, President Trump announced last week that the U.S. would be selling F-35 planes to Saudi Arabia several years from now. But that was only after the administration gave assurances to Israel and its supporters in the House and Senate that the version of the F-35 to be sold to Saudi Arabia would be significantly less capable than the technologically enhanced Israeli version of the warplane, thereby maintaining the IDF’s future qualitative superiority over Israel’s potential military foes in the region.
CAN TRUMP COMPLETE THE FIRST PHASE OF HIS PEACE PLAN?
But in the near term, the main question is whether Trump can complete the initial phase of his peace plan for Gaza by first forcing Hamas to turn over the bodies of the last dead hostages still in Gaza, and second, by disarming Hamas, either peacefully or by force, if necessary. That would pave the way for the formation of the ISF to maintain security in Gaza, the transfer of civil control over Gaza to the proposed Hamas-free interim government led by Palestinian “technocrats,” and the initiation of an internationally funded plan to rebuild Gaza.
The U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the ISF was necessary to enable those countries that will eventually contribute their troops to the force to tell their people that they are not cooperating with the Israeli occupation of Gaza. Rather, they will be able to claim that they are creating the conditions under which Israel will agree to withdraw its troops from most, if not all, of Gaza at some time in the foreseeable future.
While the Trump peace plan calls for the thorough reform of the notoriously corrupt Palestinian Authority (PA) before it can participate in Gaza’s future civilian self-government, the process and requirements for that reform, as well as the identity of the new set of PA leaders, remain undefined. Working out the details of the second phase of the peace plan in a way that is satisfactory to both Israel and America’s other Arab and Muslim allies in the Middle East and beyond will be one of the Trump administration’s next great diplomatic challenges. Trump will need to apply the necessary amount of pressure and incentives on all sides to generate the difficult compromises required to form the basis for a lasting peace between Israel and its neighbors in the region. Otherwise, the current ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon will become brief interludes of relative calm before the next deadly outbreak on both fronts of fighting and terrorist attacks.
It is now clear that the only reason Hamas’ surviving leaders in Gaza agreed to the October ceasefire and the rest of the first phase of Trump’s peace plan was to prevent the IDF from completing its scorched-earth offensive in Gaza City. If it continued, the IDF’s operation was on track to destroy Hamas’ remaining military capabilities and put an end to Hamas’ control over the Gaza’s civilian population and the increased flow of humanitarian aid and food that Israel has been allowing to enter the Strip since the latest ceasefire went into effect.
According to an analysis by veteran Jerusalem Post reporter Khaled Abu Toameh published by the Gatestone Institute, Hamas’ leaders now claim that on October 9, they only agreed to the first phase of Trump’s peace plan. It called for an immediate cessation of the fighting, the partial withdrawal of the IDF to the so-called yellow line running north to south through the middle of Gaza, and the return by Hamas of all of the hostages taken on October 7, 2024, both alive and dead, within 72 hours.
While the fighting in Gaza did stop, at least initially, and the IDF did pull back to the yellow line, leaving a power vacuum in the rest of Gaza, Hamas initially returned only the 20 living hostages. Over the six weeks since then, Hamas has dragged out the release of the 28 bodies of the dead hostages it had been holding, and Israel is still demanding the return of the bodies of the last ones that are still hidden somewhere in Gaza.
HAMAS LEADERS NOW CLAIM THEY NEVER AGREED TO BE DISARMED
Hamas has delayed the full implementation of the first phase of the Trump peace agreement to delay its full implementation. It specifically rejects the Trump plan’s requirement that its fighters be disarmed and that Gaza be fully demilitarized under the supervision of the ISF and Trump’s Board of Peace.
Hamas leaders last week formally rejected the portion of the Security Council resolution that calls for the ISF to disarm Hamas fighters because that would turn the international force into “a party to the conflict on behalf of” Israel.
Toameh writes that it is clear that Hamas and the other terrorist groups still operating in Gaza, such as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), remain committed to waging a Jihad (holy war) against Israel. They are only willing to abide by the portions of Trump’s peace plan that do not interfere with their Jihad ambitions, and allow them to rearm, regroup, and prepare for another October 7-style attack on Israel. For that purpose, Toameh reports, Iran has managed to smuggle $1 billion in aid to Hamas in Gaza, despite the “snap back” of the international sanctions on Iran economy because of Iran’s refusal, following its 12-day long war with Israel and the United States in June, to abide by the JCPOA deal it signed with the Obama administration and the international community in 2015 to limit and monitor its nuclear program.
In fact, the recent statements by the leaders of Hamas and PIJ in Gaza amount to a direct threat to the members of the ISF if they try to carry out the disarmament called for in the 20-point peace plan, which has now been officially authorized by U.N. Security Council Resolution 2803. Despite that U.N. mandate, according to Toameh, the half of Gaza and its civilian population, which are once again under Hamas control, continue to serve as one of the largest bases for Iranian-backed Islamist terrorists in the Middle East.
That is why, despite the clear Security Council mandate for the ISF to use force if necessary to disarm the terror groups in Gaza and dismantle their military infrastructure, none of the countries that have signed the Trump peace plan are willing to commit their own troops to the ISF. None of them is willing to let their troops get shot at in Gaza, especially in light of the precedent set by the toothless UNIFIL peacekeeping force in Lebanon. For many years, UNIFIL and its commanders have been discreetly looking the other way rather than carrying out its 2006 U.N. Security Council mandate to prevent the rearmament of Hezbollah and the resumption of its military control over southern Lebanon, from which Hezbollah still poses a threat to the Jewish communities along the Lebanese border with northern Israel.
IDF DETERMINED NOT TO BE CAUGHT BY A SURPRISE ATTACK AGAIN
To avoid being caught by surprise by its enemies again, as it was on October 7, 2023, Israel has refused to withdraw the IDF from the handful of strategic outposts that it set up in south Lebanon and the observation post it established on the Lebanese side of Mt. Meron, which gives it a direct view of potential threats across much of southern Lebanon and Syria.
After being soundly defeated by Israel in battle in southern Lebanon and suffering the systematic elimination of its military and political leadership, including Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, last year, Hezbollah has stepped up its efforts to rebuild its military capacity and infrastructure in southern Lebanon.
IDF AIR STRIKE KILLS HEZBOLLAH’S TOP MILITARY COMMANDER
In response, on Sunday, October 23, the IDF carried out a targeted air strike using three missiles. They killed Hezbollah’s top military commander, Haytham Ali Tabatabai, in a hidden apartment in a nine-story building in the Dahieh district of southern Beirut, where Hezbollah has long had a strong presence, along with four other senior Hezbollah military leaders.
The previous day, the IDF announced that it had also “struck several Hezbollah [missile] launchers that were recently identified and placed in military sites in southern Lebanon. In an additional strike in the Bekaa [Valley] area, the IDF struck two Hezbollah military sites in which activity of terrorists was identified, including weapons storage facilities.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu said that he had personally approved the strike that killed Tabatabai because he was leading Hezbollah’s rearmament efforts. He also said that Tabatabai was “a mass murderer” with the blood of many Israelis and Americans on his hands.
Tabatabai was also the second in command of Hezbollah’s current leader, Secretary-General Naim Qassem. Tabatabai had previously been in charge of Hezbollah’s fighter recruitment efforts. He was promoted after an Israeli air strike killed Hezbollah’s former military chief of staff, Fuad Shukr, in July 2024, and another Israeli air strike the following September that killed Shukr’s successor as chief of staff, Ibrahim Aqil.
Tabatabai was born in Beirut in 1968 and joined Hezbollah in the 1980s. He had served as the commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force, as well as Iran’s special forces, which were deployed in Yemen and Syria. The U.S. State Department designated him an international terrorist in 2016 and offered a reward for information leading to his capture of up to $5 million. In 2015, Tabatabai survived an Israeli attempt to take his life in southern Syria.
1,000 AIR STRIKES ON LEBANON SINCE THE START OF THE CEASE-FIRE
During the year since the ceasefire in Lebanon went into effect, the Israeli air force has launched more than 1,000 air strikes targeting Hezbollah fighters who were “caught-in-the-act” of sneaking back into southern Lebanon to threaten Israel’s border, or trying to rebuild Hezbollah’s missile capabilities in violation of last year’s peace agreement. But during that period, Israel had almost completely stopped attacking Hezbollah targets in Beirut, which did not present any immediate threat, in order to avoid open breaches of the ceasefire agreement.
That was why the air strike on Sunday, far behind the front lines, was seen as a warning to both the Lebanese government and Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem that Israel will no longer tolerate Hezbollah’s violations of the terms of last year’s ceasefire agreement by trying to rebuild its military capabilities which were badly damaged during Hezbollah’s two-month long war with Israel last year.
During the first months of 2025, when the Lebanese army was making significant progress in rolling back Hezbollah’s military infrastructure in southern Lebanon, Israel was content to let that process continue. But when that process stopped, the Israeli government made the decision not to repeat the mistake it made after the end of the Second Lebanon War in 2006, when the IDF did not attempt to interfere with Hezbollah’s efforts to rearm and rebuild its Iranian-supplied missile arsenal.
Hezbollah’s rearmament was a direct violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war. The IDF’s inaction enabled Hezbollah to create a huge 150,000 rocket arsenal, including some longer-range missiles capable of hitting the large population centers in central Israel. But Israel’s leaders and the IDF are now determined not to make the same mistake again.
In response to the Israeli air strike on Beirut over the weekend, Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun issued a statement calling on “the international community to assume its responsibility and intervene firmly and seriously to stop the attacks on Lebanon and its people.”
Israel’s Channel 12 reported that it had been told by a senior American official that the Trump administration was “pleased with the elimination of the number two in Hezbollah. We think it’s a wonderful thing. Yalla, mazal tov, mabruk.” Channel 12 also reported that several days before the Beirut air strike, Israel gave the White House a heads-up warning that it was planning to escalate its attacks on Hezbollah, but it did not specifically inform the U.S. in advance that it was going after Tabatabai.
NETANYAHU CLAIMS THAT HE OPERATES INDEPENDENTLY FROM TRUMP
Looking forward, Prime Minister Netanyahu said Sunday that, “Israel will not allow Hezbollah to rebuild its power, and we will not allow it to pose a threat to Israel again.” Netanyahu also said that because “Israel is responsible for its own security,” he does not feel obligated to seek permission from or notify President Trump before launching air strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. “We operate independently of anyone. Immediate actions to thwart attacks are taken by the IDF automatically. As for the responses [to new threats], that goes through the defense minister and eventually reaches me, and we make the decision independently of any [outside influence], and that is how it should be,” Netanyahu added.
However, it is well-known that Netanyahu has sometimes responded by calling off or postponing IDF military operations in Lebanon or Gaza in response to pressure applied by President Joe Biden or President Donald Trump.
The current Israeli assessment of the situation in Gaza is that the ISF probably won’t materialize. That is because none of the 20 nations that expressed their support for Trump’s plan at the October 13 peace summit in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, are willing to put any of their soldiers at risk, now that Hamas leaders have repudiated the part of the Trump peace plan deal which calls for its fighters to be disarmed peacefully.
Azerbaijan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which were among the few countries in the region that had been considering contributing their soldiers to the ISF, have now backed out because they are unwilling to risk their lives by trying to disarm Hamas’ fighters in Gaza against their will. However, officials of many of the countries that endorsed Trump’s peace plan at the peace summit say that they are still willing to participate in the ISF to maintain calm during the process of reconstructing Gaza, but only after somebody else (presumably Israel) has sent its soldiers into Gaza to disarm the Hamas fighters, using deadly force, if necessary. Meanwhile, Israel has continued to insist upon the complete demilitarization of the Strip in its continuous dialogue with Trump administration officials on all levels.
IDF BELIEVES THAT MOST HAMAS TUNNELS IN GAZA ARE STILL INTACT
Israel believes that since the war in Gaza started two years ago, the IDF has degraded Hamas’ complex tunnel infrastructure by about 40 percent, leaving many miles of intact tunnels where Hamas fighters and their weapons can still be hidden from IDF soldiers trying to engage and disarm them. In addition, the U.S. and Israel have not yet defined what level of disarmament they are asking for. For example, is disarmament limited to Hamas’ heavy weapons, such as RPG launchers capable of blowing up Israeli targets, or does it also mean the collection of AK-47 rifles and other small arms commonly carried by Hamas fighters? In addition, Israel does not seem to have any reliable method for identifying Hamas fighters and distinguishing them from civilians, to prevent them from trying to blend in with the general Gaza population.
We have already seen what that process might look like if Hamas continues to refuse to disarm. Last Friday, 17 Hamas gunmen emerged from a tunnel in eastern Rafah, on the Israeli side of the yellow line, and tried to escape to the other side of Gaza, which is now under Hamas rule, after the partial withdrawal of Israeli troops in October. During the 24-hour pursuit that followed, six of the terrorists were killed by air strikes shortly after leaving the tunnel, and five more were captured by Israeli troops. As the pursuit continued into the next day, five more terrorists were killed by Israeli fire in two separate incidents, and the last of the 17 Hamas gunmen was captured. All six of the surviving terrorists were turned over by the IDF to the Shin Bet for further interrogation.
The United States had reportedly asked Israeli government officials to permit 100-200 Hamas fighters believed to be still hiding in the tunnels under Israeli controlled parts of Gaza to be evacuated to the Hamas side of the yellow line dividing Gaza, but Israel has refused that request unless those Hamas fighters first give up their arms, which is a demand that Hamas leaders have rejected.
A DEADLY DAY OF FIGHTING IN GAZA DESPITE THE CEASEFIRE
On November 22, a statement issued by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office announced that the IDF had launched several air strikes at Hamas targets in Gaza, which killed 5 senior Hamas officials, one of whom was identified by an Israeli official as Alaa Hadidi, chief of supply in Hamas’ weapons manufacturing headquarters.
In one of the deadliest days of fighting since the current ceasefire went into effect on October 10, the violence started that morning when a Hamas fighter crossed the yellow dividing line in a vehicle driving on one of the truck routes used for delivering humanitarian aid, and opened fire at Israeli troops in southern Gaza. The gunman was then killed by return fire from the Israeli troops.
Netanyahu’s statement said, “Today, Hamas violated the ceasefire again, sending a terrorist into Israel-held territory to attack IDF soldiers. In response, Israel eliminated five senior Hamas terrorists.
“Israel has fully honored the ceasefire, Hamas has not. Throughout the ceasefire, dozens of Hamas terrorists have crossed the Israeli lines to attack our troops, while they execute Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
“We again call on the mediators to insist that Hamas fulfill its side of the ceasefire and President Trump’s 20-point plan: Hamas must immediately return the three deceased hostages it is still holding and complete its disarmament and enable the total demilitarization of Gaza,” the statement concluded.
The initial Hamas reaction to the deadly Israeli air strikes on a house in the central Gaza town of Nuseirat and another on an apartment house in Gaza City was a reported threat to declare an end to the ceasefire, but that report was later denied by a Hamas spokesman.
On Monday, the IDF reported three separate incidents in which Hamas fighters crossed the yellow line into Israeli-occupied areas of Gaza and were killed when they tried to approach formations of Israeli troops either by air strikes or ground fire from the threatened IDF soldiers.
The Times of Israel reported that, according to an unnamed U.S. official, the Trump administration has no problem with the IDF’s retaliatory air strikes. The official also said that the Hamas leaders outside of Gaza are in favor of maintaining the current ceasefire, but that they are unable to keep Hamas fighters on the ground in Gaza from attacking Israeli soldiers when they have the opportunity to do so.
NETANYAHU STILL REJECTING THE PA AND A PALESTINIAN STATE
Like Trump’s 20-point peace plan, the Security Council Resolution 2803 says that if all of the steps called for in Trump’s peace plan are completed, “the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.” They both also call for some future role in Gaza for a reformed Palestinian Authority, but no one has yet fully spelled out exactly what kind of reform that has to be.
Just before the Security Council vote, which adopted Resolution 2803, Prime Minister Netanyahu said, speaking for Israeli public opinion as well as himself and his right-wing coalition partners, “our opposition to a Palestinian state on any territory has not changed.” He also remains strongly opposed to any expansion of the powers of the Palestinian Authority beyond its current limited role in administering the Arab-controlled portions (Area A) of the West Bank. That is because the PA is still tainted by its ongoing support for terrorism, and is not seen by the Israeli public or its leaders as a trustworthy partner in the peacemaking process.
Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, said in an Israeli radio interview last week that the resolution is a check that the Palestinian Authority will find itself unable to cash. “If, in the future, the Gazans change their spots” to become honest peace seekers, then Israel will be willing to sit down and talk to them, Danon said. But given the Palestinian Authority’s refusal to do that over the past thirty years, “the [U.N.] resolution [promising a future role for the Palestinian Authority in ruling Gaza] has no teeth.”
Danon also said that Israel remains determined to eliminate any military threat from Hamas in the future. “Just as we are determined to bring all the hostages home, we will demonstrate the same determination in ensuring that Hamas is disarmed,” Danon was quoted as saying by the Washington Post.
According to international relations expert Emmanuel Navon, who lectures at Tel-Aviv University’s School of Political Science, Government and International Relations, U.N. resolution 2803, on its face, seems to be a rare “strategic win” for Israel in the U.N. But Navon also warns that “the fine print matters, and so does the regional context” of the resolution.
While Navon believes that Russia and China refrained from vetoing the resolution to “avoid alienating their Arab partners,” they did complain about the “complete control” that Trump now has over the peace plan, and warned that they would not let the United States try to use it in the future to consolidate its authority over the rest of the Middle East.
THE PLUSES AND MINUSES OF THE TRUMP PEACE PLAN
The fact that the resolution calls for the permanent demilitarization of Gaza by the ISF is a significant accomplishment for Israel, which has been trying in vain to eliminate the threat to its national security from Gaza since the implementation in 2005 of Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan, and eliminate the need for the IDF to maintain security control over Gaza permanently in the future. However, the fact that this Security Council resolution talks about the need to create a “pathway” to Palestinian statehood without making it conditional on providing adequate security guarantees for Israel does pose a problem that Israel will probably have to address the next time it has to deal diplomatically with a recurrence of Palestinian terrorism.
Navon also suggests that Israel will need to be wary against any effort by its enemies to gain control over the ISF or the Board of Peace, and try to use them to limit Israel’s freedom to take military action in Gaza should it ever again become necessary to protect its national security.
Taken altogether, Navon calls on Israel’s leaders to “be proactive to make sure that Resolution 2803 leads to a safer Gaza border and to a stronger regional [Abraham Accords-based] coalition.”
To accomplish those goals, Navon recommends four specific courses of action for Israel’s leaders:
“First, make demilitarization non-negotiable and front-loaded. No reconstruction funds [for Gaza] before every [Hamas] tunnel and every [missile] launcher is dismantled.
“Second, insist on operational coordination with the ISF at all levels: intelligence, border control, and rules of engagement.
“Third, tie any progress on the political track for Palestinians to [the achievement of] explicit and verifiable benchmarks [of progress towards peace], not vague promises of ‘readiness.’
“Finally, press the U.S. to synchronize regional diplomacy [with regard to the expansion of the Abraham Accords]: Israeli-Saudi normalization must not be delayed until the final stage [of the peace process]. It should be the engine and not the reward of this new architecture.”
THE PROS AND CONS OF TRUMP’S RELATIONSHIP WITH ISRAEL
President Trump clearly deserves the thanks of the Jewish people for all that he has done in support of Israel. It started in 2017, with his recognition of Yerushalayim as the capital of Israel, as well as the right of Jews to build their homes and live in the West Bank and the Golan Heights. He rejected the Palestinian Authority as a partner for peace because of its continued support for terrorism and refusal to accept the legitimacy of Israel. He also recognized the threat to Israel and peace in the Middle East from Iran’s nuclear weapons program, as he proved this past June, when he sent American B-2 bombers to finish the job that the Israeli air force started by dropping huge bunker-buster bombs that destroyed Iran’s key nuclear facilities that were buried deep underground.
Trump also deserves the lion’s share of the credit for the Gaza ceasefire and the safe return to Israel of all of the remaining living hostages Hamas took during the October 7 attack, as well as almost all of the bodies of the hostages who died.
Nevertheless, Trump’s failure to insist that Saudi Arabia sign onto the Abraham Accords with Israel is troubling, as is Trump’s willingness to accept the demands by the Saudi crown prince and other Arab leaders for the resurrection of the failed concept of a two-state solution, and a “pathway” to the creation of a Palestinian state. If such a state ever became a reality, it would perpetuate rather than resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and inevitably pose a mortal threat to Israel’s national security.
TRUMP’S SURPRISINGLY FRIENDLY MEETING WITH MAMDANI
Trump’s surprisingly friendly White House meeting last Friday with New York City’s controversial young mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani, a self-declared socialist and outspoken anti-Israel advocate, was also deeply troubling. Mamdani took the opportunity to accuse Israel of genocide in Gaza in front of the White House press corps, while Trump remained silent. President Trump also refused to answer when a reporter asked him if he would try to stop Mamdani from keeping his campaign promise to have Prime Minister Netanyahu arrested the next time he visits New York City on a warrant for war crimes that was issued by the International Criminal Court in the Hague, whose jurisdiction is not recognized by the U.S. government.
Meanwhile, Mamdani gave New York City’s Jewish community more reason for concern last week due to his disturbing comments in reaction to a large and deliberately intimidating anti-Zionist protest held adjacent to the entrance to the Modern Orthodox Park East Synagogue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, while a Nefesh B’Nefesh event promoting aliyah to Israel was taking place inside the shul.
The protest leader told the roughly 200 demonstrators, “It is our duty to make them [the Jews inside the shul] think twice before holding these events,” and repeated three times, “We need to make them scared.” The protesters cursed the Jews and chanted slogans such as “From New York to Gaza, globalize the intifada,” “Death to the IDF,” and “Resistance [Hamas], you make us proud, take another [Jewish] settler out.”
ANGRY REACTIONS TO AN ANTI-ISRAEL PROTEST AT A MANHATTAN SHUL
Due to the news media attention it drew, the protest succeeded in its goal of intimidating many New York City Jews, and it provoked several strong statements of condemnation from New York state and city officials.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams paid a personal visit to the synagogue as a show of support for the congregation and its rabbi. He said that he was there to “celebrate Jewish life and reaffirm our unshakable bond with Israel,” and to declare that antisemitism and all forms of hatred “have no place in New York City.”
New York State Governor Kathy Hochul called the protest “shameful” and a blatant attack on the Jewish community.
Congressman Richie Torres said that criticism of Israeli government policy is one thing, but attacking a synagogue for being Jewish is “not criticism, it’s extremism” and amounts to discrimination.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told the New York Post, “I condemn the hateful and antisemitic slogans chanted in the protests outside Park East Synagogue last night. . . We must condemn these actions whenever and wherever [they] occur. Intimidation outside houses of worship and hate like this must have no place in America.”
In addition, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who is Jewish, issued an apology to the Park East synagogue community for failing to have ordered the police to keep the front entrance to the synagogue clear of provocative antisemitic protesters, even though, in the end, there were no incidents of violence reported.
MAMDANI’S INSULT TO THE JEWS OF NEW YORK CITY
Mayor-elect Mamdani chose to deliver his relatively mild reaction to the protest through a spokesman rather than in person. “The mayor-elect has discouraged the language used at last night’s protest and will continue to do so,” the statement began.
But that was not exactly true. During the mayoral campaign, Mamdani initially refused to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada” that has been used at virtually every pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel protest, drawing widespread allegations that by doing so, he was turning a blind eye to open antisemitism. Only much later in his campaign did Mamdani decide to try to neutralize the accusation by starting to say that he would “discourage” the slogan’s use in New York City, allegedly because some rabbi had told him that the phrase is widely seen as a public call for antisemites to commit acts of violence against all Jews.
Unfortunately, Mamdani chose to conclude his statement about the antisemitic protest in front of the Park East shul with a calculated insult to the Jews who participated in the Nefesh B’Nefesh event that was taking place inside. The statement ended with a declaration that Mamdani “believes every New Yorker should be free to enter a house of worship without intimidation, and that these sacred spaces should not be used to promote activities in violation of international law.”
The Wall Street Journal editorial board responded indignantly to the statement by declaring that, “Mr. Mamdani has no place telling New Yorkers what to do in their own religious spaces.” The editorial then asked what “violation of international law” was Mamdani talking about, since moving to Eretz Yisroel, especially inside Israel’s Green Line borders, is not only clearly legal under international law, but also, some would say, a means to the fulfillment of a Jew’s religious obligations.
Others asked how New York City Jews could continue to live in comfort and safety under the rule of a mayor who sends mixed messages to mobs of antisemitic protesters calling for attacks on all Jews, whether or not they support Israel, and harassing Jews who are exercising their constitutionally protected religious rights by going to their local synagogue.
Mamdani’s public relations team tried to clean up the problem by claiming that the “violation of international law” he was referring to was Israeli “settlement activity beyond the Green Line.” But there is no record indicating that Mamdani’s outspoken opposition to Israel, including his longtime support of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement, was limited to its settlement policies in the West Bank or its tactics in Gaza in response to Hamas’ October 7 attack.
MAMDANI NO LONGER DESERVES THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT
Since Mamdani won the mayoral election on November 4, leading members of the organized New York City Jewish community have deliberately gone out of their way to find a way to work with Mamdani, despite his long record of anti-Zionist activism and his refusal to clearly condemn the use of provocative and incendiary antisemitic rhetoric in the pro-Palestinian demonstrations, which he has always supported.
Mamdani’s statement last week condemning the innocent targets of the antisemitic protest outside the Park East Synagogue suggests that the mayor-elect no longer deserves the Jewish community’s benefit of the doubt. Instead the Jews of New York City need to be prepared for unprecedented challenges to their safety and religious freedom emanating from City Hall over the next four years, and the potential for a wave of violence directed at the Jews of the city that hasn’t been seen since Mayor David Dinkins reportedly ordered the NYPD to turn a blind eye to four days of antisemitic attacks during the Crown Heights riots that were incited by Al Sharpton and other race-baiters from August 19-22, 1991.
HAMAS IS IN CONTROL OF HALF OF GAZA ONCE AGAIN
Meanwhile, Hamas is using the delay in the formation of the ISF to reestablish its military control on the red (western) side of the yellow ceasefire line in Gaza from which the IDF withdrew when the truce went into effect. Heavily armed Hamas fighters are once again out patrolling the streets, executing any suspected Israeli collaborators or members of local rival militias they find. Hamas has also been setting maximum retail prices and collecting taxes from merchants in Gaza on the red side of the dividing line, as well as stealing arriving shipments of humanitarian aid and selling it to civilians on the black market, to finance Hamas’ operations.
Prime Minister Netanyahu told the Israeli cabinet last week that he has reached an agreement with President Trump’s representatives at the Gaza peace agreement command center in Kiryat Gat to assign the mission of disarming Hamas and demilitarizing the Strip to the IDF, if no other country is willing to provide the troops needed to do it.
Netanyahu said that, “it’s clear that if there’s no external force, we are the ones who will be doing the demilitarizing [of Hamas].” He also said, “I told the Americans that they must ensure that the demilitarization on the ground of Hamas [is complete], before any rehabilitation [takes place in Gaza]. The Americans agreed that there won’t be [any] rehabilitation on the green [Israeli] side [of the Gaza ceasefire line] as long as there’s no rehabilitation on the red [Hamas] side.” Israel Hayom reports that Jared Kushner, who is currently handling the Gaza peace deal negotiations for the Trump White House, has also accepted this principle and does not want the rehabilitation of Gaza to begin before the military threat posed by Hamas has been completely removed.
HAMAS PREPARING FOR ANOTHER ROUND OF FIGHTING WITH THE IDF
At a meeting of the Israeli government’s security cabinet the same day, a Shin Bet official reported that not only has Hamas failed to surrender its weapons as required by the Trump peace plan, but it has been actively exploiting the ceasefire to prepare to fight the IDF in case it needs to re-enter the “red” side of Gaza from which it has withdrawn. Hamas has also appointed replacement leaders for its military organization for those who were killed during the days before the ceasefire went into effect in October.
Hamas has been rearming by using the dual-use materials that Israel has allowed to enter Gaza through international supply channels, and by salvaging unexploded fragments of IDF bombs, missile warheads, and artillery shells to convert them into IEDs (improvised explosive devices). In that context, Netanyahu told the security cabinet that, “every day the Americans search [in vain] to find another country willing to demilitarize Gaza, they [Hamas] grow stronger.”
At a previous Israeli cabinet meeting, IDF Chief of Staff General Eyal Zamir said that there are areas in Gaza where the IDF must show its presence and not withdraw under any circumstances, even if Hamas unexpectedly agrees to give up its weapons. In addition, Zamir insists that no international reconstruction efforts be started in any part of Gaza until the demilitarization of Hamas throughout Gaza has been completed.
HOW CAN ISRAEL MAKE THE CURRENT PEACE PERMANENT?
Taken all together, while the IDF has successfully reduced the immediate threats to Israel’s national security from Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and even from the ayatollahs who rule Iran, the respite from danger is temporary. In order to maintain the current uneasy peace on all fronts, and hopefully make it permanent, the Israeli government and the IDF will need to apply the lessons from the strategic and intelligence failures that led to the October 7 attack, which are just now starting to be thoroughly investigated.
In addition, those who were leading the Israeli government the IDF, and the Israeli intelligence services on that tragic Shemini Atzeres, from Prime Minister Netanyahu on down, have yet to be judged and held accountable by the Israeli people for their contributions to those failures, and until that happens, Israel will not be able to heal from the wounds that it has suffered during the two years since that Hamas attack, and be able to look towards a future of peace and security, im yirtzeh Hashem.
