UNRWA still operating in Israel despite laws barring agency

March 21, 2025

Likud MK Dan Ilouz (right), sitting alongside Minister of Jerusalem Affairs and Jewish Heritage Meir Porush, chairs the Knesset Lobby for Closing UNRWA at the parliament in Jerusalem, Feb. 20, 2025. Credit: Knesset.tv.

Israel’s UNRWA ban went into effect on Jan. 30 but has been only partially implemented. That worries activists and Knesset members involved in the effort to shutter the terrorism-linked U.N. agency.

To help ensure the law is applied, Likud MK Dan Illouz, who sponsored one of the two bills to bar UNRWA (full name the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East), formed the Knesset Lobby for Closing UNRWA. It held its first meeting on Feb. 20.

“We know and have experience that very often laws that are enacted in the Knesset are not necessarily applied,” Illouz told JNS.

Possible threats to the laws’ implementation aired at the lobby’s meeting included High Court interference and attempts by Israeli businesses enjoying commercial ties with UNRWA to sabotage the law.

The two bills, passed into law on Oct. 28, merged four separate private bills. “They were all put together and translated into two historic laws that are meant to put an end to UNRWA’s effective presence in any area controlled by Israel,” Illouz said.

The first law prohibits UNRWA from “operating any representative office, providing any service, or carrying out any activity, directly or indirectly, in the sovereign territory of the State of Israel.”

The second law prohibits any Israeli authority or public servant from dealing with UNRWA. “A government authority, including other bodies and individuals performing public duties according to law, shall not have any contact with UNRWA or anyone acting on its behalf,” the legislation states.

“These two laws together make it almost impossible for UNRWA to continue acting long-term in Israel,” Illouz said.

The key is making sure they are fully enacted. He noted that a mechanism is built into the laws requiring the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee to meet every three months to track the enforcement progress. However, those meetings will be mainly closed-door, leading Illouz to form the lobby.

“There’s a lot of knowledge in what we call in Israel the civil sector—NGOs and the like. I wanted this lobby to be a platform in which those organizations could share their findings with members of Knesset,” he said.

Opening the first meeting, Ilouz reviewed why UNRWA needed to go. “UNRWA not only teaches terrorism, it participates in it. UNRWA not only teaches children to murder, it lets Hamas use its schools for weapons storage,” he said.

‘Failed in its duty’

Several activists addressed the lobby session, which became heated at times. Noga Arbell, a public policy analyst who helped shape the legislation, lashed out at the government, including Illouz, for tarrying in its effort to close UNRWA’s operations.

“UNRWA could have been closed without the law. The Israeli government has all the authority. It is the sovereign. Our government has failed in its duty to protect the public from the threat that is UNRWA,” she said.

“Also, scheduling follow-up every three months … it’s not serious. Do you want to apply the law? Then meet every week and ask what you did today to close UNRWA. It shouldn’t take three months. In three months, there shouldn’t be a trace of this thing here,” Arbell said.

She also criticized the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee for holding its meetings behind closed doors, something that was without justification according to the Knesset’s own criteria for confidential hearings, she said.

Illouz defended MK Yuli Edelstein, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, noting he was a “full partner” in the mission to shut down UNRWA.

Aharon Garber, deputy director of the law department at the Kohelet Policy Forum, a Jerusalem-based think tank, warned of the possibility of interference by the High Court of Justice.

Garber noted that while the court had rejected a petition by two radical NGOs, Adalah—The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel and Gisha—Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, requesting that it issue an injunction suspending the laws’ implementation, it didn’t reject the appeal outright, leaving the possibility that it would intervene at a later date.

“There’s still a chance the court could reject the laws. I don’t envision that will happen because those laws passed with a huge majority,” Illouz said. The laws passed 92-to-10.

“It would be unprecedented because of the subject matter, which is foreign policy,” Illouz added. “Unfortunately, the court has done unprecedented things many times in the past and so it’s always something we have to watch out for.”

MK Yulia Malinovsky of Yisrael Beitenu, an opposition party, co-sponsored the law with Illouz. She also criticized the government’s failure to implement the laws in full, tweeting on March 10 slamming six coalition ministers, among them Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Eli Cohen, for not cutting power to UNRWA buildings, and Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich for not closing UNRWA’s Israeli bank accounts.

Illouz said that Malinovsky, as a member of the opposition, would naturally focus on the government’s failures. Still, he admitted, “We have to say she’s right. We have to get to 100%. But to focus only on the 20% that hasn’t been done is unfair. This government has passed a historic law, and it’s on the right track to implement it.”

David Bedein, director of the Jerusalem-based Center for Near East Policy Research, who has spent 35 years warning about UNRWA, said that Israeli business interests also may try to torpedo the legislation.

“There are 450 Israel corporations that operate in Judea, Samaria and the Palestinian Authority,” Bedein told JNS.

“These corporation have a de facto monopoly providing supplies to the P.A. and UNRWA facilities. For example, Dor Alon [an Israeli energy company] has a monopoly on providing gasoline inside UNRWA and the P.A. These companies don’t want anyone to mess with that,” he said.

“We’re looking into the things that David has brought up,” Illouz said. “It’s too early to say, but I tend to trust David because he’s been right on this subject for years.”

Bedein also expressed concern that “State of Israel” will be defined down. “From my point of view, ‘within Israel’ includes all of Judea and Samaria. However, certain politically correct people say otherwise. It’s a crazy interpretation but people have interpreted this law to only apply to pre-’67 Israel.”

Defining Israel’s borders

Juliette Touma, UNRWA’s director of communications, certainly sees it that way. “There is a difference between how we define in the United Nations the borders of the State of Israel and how Israel defines it. Because for the U.N., east Jerusalem is occupied territory and so we treat it as such.”

Touma said the laws barring UNRWA definitely have impacted operations. The agency’s employees are no longer working from UNRWA’s Jerusalem headquarters, which is responsible for Judea and Samaria—what she refers to as “the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem”—as their visas have expired. Some have gone to Jordan while others returned to their home countries to work remotely.

UNRWA has hired a security service to guard the building “but we don’t have international staff in it now because we don’t have visas,” she said. “And our local staff are understandably absolutely terrified. We’ve had several incidents of local staff being summoned by the police.”

Otherwise, UNRWA’s services in Jerusalem continue. “Two areas of focus are our schools that have 50,000 boys and girls, and also our primary healthcare clinics,” she told JNS. “However, since the law came into effect, there have been several attempts to close some of our facilities down.”

A small number of international staff remain in Gaza, the location of UNRWA’s main headquarters. Their focus is on humanitarian aid, she said.

UNRWA remains in the dark as to its future. “We’ve not received any communication from the State of Israel on how they plan to implement these two laws,” she said.

The biggest challenge is the law barring Israeli officials from communicating with the agency, Touma said. “What it means is that we’re not receiving any resources from the Israeli authorities; that we’re not able to call them as we used to.

“We also face a huge disinformation campaign and labeling campaign that bullies our staff, that refers to our staff as terrorists, and that links each and every single person who works for the agency, regardless of where they work, regardless of whether they’re local or international, as Hamas, or Hamas-affiliated, or terrorist-affiliated, and that’s harmful,” she added.

UNRWA continues to refer to Israeli revelations about the agency’s terrorism ties as “disinformation,” but the U.N.’s Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) confirmed that Israeli claims about the involvement of UNRWA employees in the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre were true.

Israel also uncovered “deep and systemic infiltration” by terrorist organizations, especially Hamas, into the ranks of UNRWA.

Illouz said that UNRWA has gone on a worldwide sympathy campaign, describing “how bad things are for it on the ground in order to try and get more money.”

His advice to the international community: ignore it. “The international community’s budget would be much better served investing in recognized international organizations that haven’t been infested with terrorism,” Ilouz said.

Bedein said anyone with lingering doubts about UNRWA should just look at its curriculum, which advocates for the “right of return” for descendants of Arab refugees and indoctrinates children to commit violence.

Despite his concerns, Bedein is optimistic that the agency will be closed. “Hundreds of IDF soldiers in Gaza saw UNRWA’s facilities stocked with weapons and ammunition. It’s no longer a theoretical problem,” he said.

‘There Are No Lone Wolves’: Ayaan Hirsi Ali Dismantles the New Popular Narrative on Islamic Terrorism

Center for Near East Policy Research

March 21, 2025

Author and public intellectual Ayaan Hirsi Ali is warning about the threat that Islamist activist organizations pose to the U.S. and the broader Western world.

Speaking at National Review Institute’s Ideas Summit on Thursday, Ali pushed back on the popular “lone wolf” narrative used to explain recent acts of Islamist terror, like that perpetrated on Bourbon Street in New Orleans earlier this year, arguing instead that terrorism is one tactic used by a global Islamist network that is pursuing a broader, unrecognized strategy.

That network, Ali argued, advances its goals by infiltrating American institutions and spreading its propaganda through ostensibly nonviolent Islamist activist organizations, which provide cover for violent terrorists.

“There are no lone wolves,” Ali declared.

“So now you have the nonviolent Islamization process that is overseen by groups like the Muslim Brotherhood that is international and universalist in its approach. And then you have the military offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood like ISIS and al-Qaeda and Hamas engaging in this strategic violence,” she explained.

“That’s a well-thought-through strategy that fits very well into one another, and we underestimate it because we talk about ‘lone wolves.’ We try to chase terrorism across the world. We allow them to establish this great infrastructure for Islamizing, for creating that pipeline through nonviolent means in America and in Europe. We are stupid and they are smart.”

Hirsi Ali’s comments came in response to a question from NR Senior Writer Noah Rothman about the Islamist terrorist who drove a car through a crowd of New Year’s Eve revelers, killing 14 and injuring many more. The perpetrator, a 42-year-old Army veteran, flew an ISIS flag in window of the pickup truck he used in the attack. He converted to Islam years before the attack and attended a mosque near his home in Houston.

In the wake of the attack, many commentators described the attacker as a “lone wolf” who had likely been radicalized online, free from the influence of major Islamist organizations. That explanation, Ali argued, discounts the broad reach of the Islamist movement.

As a former Muslim and Dutch-American Somali refugee, Ali speaks from a position of personal familiarity with radical Islam.

After fleeing Somalia, Ali became an outspoken atheist and rose to prominence for her critique of radical Islam, which drew upon her experience of oppression growing up in Somalia. Ali remains a critic of Islam and strains of left-wing ideology as a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. She converted to Christianity in 2023 after concluding that the faith is necessary for preserving Western civilization.

During the Thursday panel, Rothman also asked Ali about the marriage of convenience between Islamist and progressive ideologies seeking to put an end to American hegemony. Ali laid out how those ideologies emphasize the need to infiltrate American institutions and mentioned a Muslim Brotherhood document outlining the strategy. It was crafted in 1991, and over 30 years later, the Islamists have succeeded in developing an infrastructure within the U.S. and maintaining ties with immigrant communities.

The ideological fusion Ali described can be see on American college campuses, in academic departments and radical campus activist organizations. Anti-Israel protests broke out across college campuses last year during Israel’s multifront war in the Middle East, and many of demonstrators embraced a critique of the U.S. as a racist, colonialist project, drawing on strains of Islamist and radical left-wing thinking.

The Trump administration is combating the outgrowth of antisemitism on college campuses with civil rights investigations into dozens of colleges for antisemitic harassment. The White House’s task force on antisemitism has already cut $400 million of grants from Columbia University because of its high-profile tent encampment and the broader issue of antisemitic student activists and faculty on campus.

Unmasked yet again

Michael Kuttner

March 21, 2025

Purim is hardly over, and the true faces of the haters and loathers have already been revealed.

Michael Kuttner

Not so long ago, it was considered best to hide behind a mask and express slanderous incitement against Jews anonymously. Those days are now well and truly gone. Instead, we face openly expressed verbal and physical violence of the most pernicious kind.

The responses to this tsunami vary from genuine shock to bored indifference. The setting up of more commissions and committees is an exercise in futility. The perpetrators know this and that is why they are not deterred. Increases in punitive penalties sound great, but unless they are actually enforced by the police and judiciary, they also are mere window dressing.

As has been mentioned on more than one occasion, the introduction of the compulsory teaching of Holocaust studies in high schools would be a critical first step. Today, a generation of teenagers graduate from high schools without the faintest idea or knowledge about what Jew hate is all about and without the ability to counter this scourge.

Proof that ignorance about the Shoah years is rampant was provided in a news report that surfaced this week. A 16-year-old student in the USA who is a bright individual, a great sportsman and level-headed was caught drawing a swastika. It transpired after close grilling that this guy had no idea what the swastika represented, its sinister meaning and how it factored into the story of the Nazi period. In fact, on further probing, he admitted that he knew nothing about those years, had never met a Jewish person and even had no idea who Hitler was.

When faced with the actual facts, he was aghast. Instead of punishing him, the enlightened authorities decided that a far better course of action would be to have him mentored by a Rabbi. This proved to be an astounding success, and this young man not only now realizes how fatal his previous ignorance had been but now feels he is much better equipped to counter hate and incitement against Jews.

It is obvious that the sooner youngsters are exposed to the truth and learn about historical events the better. Prattling politicians who peddle useless panaceas should be told that the first step must be an inoculation of knowledge, especially during formative teenage years.

The continued refusal to implement this is a scandalous situation. A demand for immediate action should be at the top of the agenda. Now is the time to act with Yom Hashoah fast approaching and the usual annual and banal political rhetoric about to be unleashed.

This year, the knee-jerk Israel haters at the UN did not wait for Purim to end before firing off the latest volley of anti Israel resolutions and accusations. In fact the festivities had not even commenced as the misnamed UN Human Rights Council trundled out its knee-jerk condemnations.

Once again, Israel is accused of further “war crimes” in Gaza. This time around, according to the fetid minds of delegates on the Council, the heinous Israelis are “destroying the reproductive capacity of the Palestinians in Gaza.” Once upon a time,e Jews were accused of poisoning wells and killing Christian babies in order to make unleavened bread for Passover. This updated version has Jews deliberately destroying IVF clinics in an alleged devilish plot to prevent Palestinian babies from being born.

Nobody, of course, questioned why Hamas terrorists hide in hospitals and clinics and embed themselves among civilians. It’s much easier and more convenient to target Jews with outlandish libels. The brain-addled masses and the media can always be relied upon to spread these mistruths, knowing full well that once unleashed, they will take off.

Meanwhile, real and horrific war crimes are being committed in Syria, Iran, Sudan and parts of Africa without attracting any resolutions of censure from the UN and its associated corrupt institutions. The old adage that if it doesn’t involve Jews, it’s not news holds true.

In actual fact, the persecution of Christians in parts of Africa by jihadist fanatics has reached epidemic proportions. The silence of Church leaders in the face of this Islamic onslaught has been highlighted by the Chief Rabbi of South Africa. In a hard-hitting video, he denounced the hypocrisy of the South African Government and the resounding silence of Churches. This mass refusal to confront the rising tide of jihadist violence and murder against Africa’s Christians is scandalous.

The contrast between the selective outrage at each and every Israeli act of self-defence and the cowardly silence in the face of real jihadist genocidal actions exposes the realities behind the masks.

Recently, apologists for Palestinian Arab President Abbas lauded his supposed decision to stop “pay for slay” stipends to murderers of Israelis. Those not mesmerized by appeasement mirages knew that his declaration was merely designed to avert pressure from the US Administration. Lo and behold, it has just been revealed by Palestine Media Watch (PMW) that the Ramallah-based kleptocracy has paid out February’s instalment. In other words, as predicted, nothing has changed.

Needless to say this ongoing charade has attracted no attention from the world’s media or the UN Human Rights Council.

In what could qualify for the top prize in any Purim “shpiel”, the Russian Foreign Minister has demanded that the US cease its military action against the Houthis and instead engage in “dialogue.” Coming from the representative of a country that invaded Ukraine and continues to attack its territory, this piece of chutzpadik advice is hypocrisy in full bloom.

Time and again, those who suffer from the genetic defect of self-loathing manage to unmask themselves and reveal their true agendas.

They masquerade as anti-Zionists and protest that the return to Zion has nothing to do with Judaism. Whether adherents of Haredi sects awaiting the messianic age or disaffected individuals with an extreme secular left axe to grind, they are all united in hating the resurrected Jewish nation.

Just when one thinks that these groups and individuals can’t sink any lower, they manage to demonstrate that, indeed, it is possible to plumb new depths.

Four incidents this past week illustrate how easy it is for real intentions to be unmasked.

Popping out of the woodwork just in time for Purim were the opinions of several loathers, primarily in the USA, who condemned the celebration of this Jewish anniversary. Their general theme was to denigrate the Purim episode because “it celebrated retribution by Jews against Persians.” Stripped down to its bare meaning, their message of how Jews fought back and defended themselves against genocidal designs is intrinsically evil.

The corollary of these confused and ashamed Jews is, therefore, easily transferred onto today’s Jews/Israelis who are fighting back against terror schemes. It takes sick minds to twist the Purim story this way, but that is what passes for blind anti-Zionist/Israel paranoia. How else does one explain the establishment in the US of “anti Zionist” places of worship where so-called spiritual leaders propagate the belief that Israel has no connection to Judaism?

The second incident was the antics of those such as the misnamed “Jewish Voice for Peace” who invaded the lobby of a Trump hotel and who demonstrated against deporting foreign agitators who lead anti Israel/Jewish riots at universities. It never ceases to amaze when one sees rioting Jews defending the rights of Hamas and terror supporters while they remain mute when Israelis/Jews are massacred by these same groups. The media love the sight of these loathers with their masks and keffiyehs. They make great visual headlines, especially when they are besmirching Zionists.

The third “shande” (Yiddish for disgrace) was a viral video of Haredi youth at a wedding in Israel of a fellow Yeshiva student, singing and dancing against the IDF and defending the country. Urged on by the Yeshiva head and father of the Chatan (groom), this mass display of self-loathing for the very country that pays their stipends and supports their institutions caused a massive reaction of revulsion by all who viewed the video.

The fourth example of unhinged loathing was revealed in a report from the New York Post.

A Hollywood actress, Debra Winger, declared to Al Jazeera during an anti-Trump protest in New York that she has “a debt to pay” for having been born Jewish. “I was brought up Jewish with a lot of things that were untrue. I had to unlearn them and it’s taken a lot of years. I have a debt for what I grew up with and believed on what the State of Israel has done and what they haven’t done and how they are conflating Judaism with Zionism.”

In case her convoluted message was not clear enough, she rejected the idea of Israel as a Jewish homeland and added that she considered the US Administration as a fascist regime.

This is not the first time that so-called Jewish Hollywood elites have been unmasked as ignoramuses about Israel and Judaism.

We have been inflicted with these types throughout our long history.

The best response is to expose them and make sure that their warped narratives are countered.

Eli Sharabi’s full address at the United Nations

Center for Near East Policy Research

March 21, 2025

Eli Sharabi’s full address at the United Nations today. He survived 491 days of Hamas captivity in Gaza, and with remarkable resilience and strength, he shared his story with the world. Upon being released from captivity, he learned the heartbreaking news that his wife, Lianne, and their two daughters, Noiya and Yahel, were murdered by terrorists on October 7, 2023.

Douglas Murray Notices Something BIZARRE About The Israel-Hamas Ceasefire NO ONE Else Saw

Center for Near East Policy Research

March 20, 2025

Douglas Murray Exposes the lies against Israel for Attacking Hamas.

Douglas Murray Notices Something BIZARRE About The Israel-Hamas Ceasefire NO ONE Else Saw

Grim Lessons From Phase One of the Israel-Hamas Deal

Center for Near East Policy Research

March 19, 2025

Last week marked 17 months since, under the cover of thousands of rockets it rained down on civilian communities in southern Israel, Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza launched a savage invasion of the Jewish state. On Oct. 7, 2023, the jihadists killed some 1,200 persons, mostly civilians, among them more than 30 Americans, and kidnapped 251 persons, mostly civilians, among them as many as 12 Americans.

By means of its surprise attack, Hamas’ Gaza branch sought to draw Hamas in Judea and Samaria and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon into a multi-front war aimed at crippling and ultimately destroying the Jewish state. Instead, by November 2024 Israel had inflicted heavy losses on both Hamas and Hezbollah and, with precision air strikes, had severely degraded Iran’s air defenses and destroyed Tehran’s ability to produce ballistic missiles.

Yet Gaza remains a battlefield and a nightmare. Despite Israel’s extraordinary military accomplishments, Hamas still stands, and the jihadists have exploited the ceasefire that went into effect on Jan. 19 to recruit, rearm, and prepare for renewed fighting. Meanwhile, Israel continues without a concrete plan for dealing with Gaza’s approximately 2 million Palestinians once major military operations end.

President Donald Trump’s radical plan is not concrete, and the administration has not offered a clue about its implementation. On Feb. 4, at a televised White House press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the president startled many of his own senior staff, caught Netanyahu off guard, aroused indignation among Europeans, and rattled America’s moderate Arab partners. In front of the world, the president affirmed a more extravagant version of the idea of moving 2 million Palestinians from Gaza – so that the 50,000 tons of rubble produced by the war could be removed and the territory’s infrastructure could be rebuilt – than the one he first raised in a Jan. 25 telephone conversation with Jordan’s King Abdullah II. Trump’s staff defended the proposal, Netanyahu pocketed it, Europeans scoffed at it, and America’s moderate Arab friends and partners unequivocally rejected it.

Within two weeks, despite – or because of – Trump’s grandiose plan to displace Gaza’s 2 million Palestinians and construct there a “Riviera of the Middle East,” Egypt announced that it was working on its own plan to rebuild Gaza. The Egyptian proposal takes for granted that Palestinians will stay put and that even if they wanted to leave, other moderate Arab states, starting with Jordan and Saudi Arabia and very much including Egypt, won’t take them in.

On March 4, at an Arab League summit in Cairo, “Arab leaders adopted a five-year Egyptian reconstruction plan for Gaza,” according to the Times of Israel, “that would cost $53 billion and avoid displacing Palestinians from the enclave.” The plan envisaged the eventual handover of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority but left unclear Hamas’ role. Hamas promptly welcomed the Arab proposal. On March 6, Israel and the United States rejected it.

Meanwhile, as of March 1 when the Israel-Hamas deal’s first phased ended, 33 Israeli hostages had been released, eight of them dead, in exchange for around 2000 Palestinian prisoners, many with blood on their hands. Hamas continued to hold 59 hostages, of whom 32 Israel believes to be dead.

Discussions about the second phase, which would have included Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and the end of the war in exchange for Hamas’ release of the remaining hostages, never commenced. Israel accepted and Hamas rejected United States Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff’s proposal for Israel to extend the phase-one ceasefire through Ramadan (Feb. 28-March 29) and Passover (April 12-20) and for Hamas to release all remaining hostages. In the absence of an agreement, Israel stopped aid to Gaza and considered resuming military action “to pressure the terror group into making further concessions.”

As Israel determines whether to return to the negotiating table or the battlefield, it grapples with the anguish stemming from the nation’s bargain with the devil. Israelis will not forget – they have trouble pushing to the periphery of their hearts and minds – the ghoulish spectacle Hamas made of the hostages’ return. The jihadists paraded abductees on stages in Gaza, turned over emaciated kidnap victims, and sent back in coffins to Israel the brutalized bodies of three members of the Bibas family – mother Shiri, and sons Ariel, who was four, and Kfir, who was not quite nine months old, when Hamas ripped them from their homes.

In “The Untold Story: How We Lost in the Negotiations Despite the Military Victory in Gaza,” Eyal Tsir-Cohen acknowledges the “great happiness steeped in anxiety and sadness” with which Israelis have experienced the ceasefire and hostages’ return. He nevertheless urges his fellow citizens to look beyond the here and now, the assignment of blame for the October 7 massacres, and the imperative to return the remainder of the hostages. A former member of Israel’s hostage-negotiation team, Tsir-Cohen brings the big picture into better focus by examining where the Jewish state went wrong in the Hamas negotiations. An improved understanding of Israel’s mistakes, he argues, enhances the nation’s grasp of, and ability to counter, the looming threats.

Four “erroneous working assumptions,” maintains Tsir-Cohen, led Israel to overestimate its capabilities.

First, Israel’s political echelon and defense establishment wrongly assumed in the winter of 2024 that Israel military force would in the coming months swiftly and decisively weaken Hamas’ senior leadership. Notwithstanding Israel’s killing of Marwan Issa (deputy commander of Hamas’ military wing) in March 2024, Mohammed Deif (Hamas military chief) in July 2024, and Yahya Sinwar (top leader of Hamas in Gaza) in October 2024, much of Hamas’ core leadership fled underground – literally – and survived. This substantially diminished Israel’s ability to dictate terms at the negotiating table.

Second, Israel’s political echelon and defense establishment wrongly assumed that intensified fighting and mounting death and destruction in Gaza would open a rift between Hamas and the rest of the Palestinian population that would impel the people to drive out the jihadists. The error sprang from the belief that Gazans are Hamas’ passive victims, prisoners of a fanatical terrorist organization. Too few on the Israeli side appreciated how thoroughly Hamas’ jihadist spirit is woven into the fabric of Palestinian society and how tightly it is bound up with Gazans’ identity. Add to that massive humanitarian aid flowing to Gaza during the negotiations – some 250 trucks a day – and a population whose median age is 19.5 years, and Hamas’ replenishment of its ranks with young and willing Gazan recruits ceases to baffle. “In Gaza in 2025,” writes Tsir-Cohen, “there is truly no bottom to the barrel of terror.”

Third, Israel’s political echelon and defense establishment wrongly assumed that if military pressure compelled Hamas to come to the negotiating table, Qatari and Egyptian mediators would persuade the jihadists to compromise. But, observes Tsir-Cohen, “Already by February 2024, it had become clear that even if the mediators’ heads were in the West, their hearts remained in the Middle East.” The Qataris and Egyptians operated with a cool and calculating professionalism, taking no sides between Hamas who wished to destroy the Jewish state and the Israelis who wished to survive and thrive. Qatar’s two-facedness is well known, hosting both Hamas leadership in Doha luxury hotels and American forces at Al Udeid Air Base, “the largest US military installation in the Middle East.” But Egypt’s refusal to take Israel’s side despite Cairo’s dislike of Hamas – the Palestinian branch of Egypt’s enemy, the Muslim Brotherhood – should be a stinging reminder that unlike the logic of politics elsewhere, the enemy of one’s enemy in the Middle East is not necessarily one’s friend.

Fourth, Israel’s political echelon and defense establishment wrongly assumed that the Israeli government’s excruciating 47-minute film documenting Hamas atrocities – featuring footage shot by the jihadists’ GoPro cameras – would shock consciences worldwide, compelling nation-states around the globe to stand by Israel and encourage it to demolish Hamas. This, according to Tsir-Cohen, is the most painful error, and it derives in part from overestimating the Biden administration. From January 2024 a procession of intellectuals and diplomats, foremost among them from the United States, visited Israel, writes Tsir-Cohen, “with one question: ‘When will you Israelis withdraw from your positions and terminate the war?’” The Biden administration was hardly alone in deploring Israel’s refusal to put the cessation of hostilities ahead of defeating Hamas. “It is difficult to exaggerate the intensity, the frequency, and the urgency of the cries of pain of our allies,” reports Tsir-Cohen. Hamas heard those cries and drew the obvious conclusion. The Gaza jihadists realized that they needn’t agree to painful compromises because even Israel’s friends, despite the seven-front war that Iran was waging against the Jewish state, put the pressure for major concessions on Israel.

These grim lessons for Israel – about Hamas leadership’s elusiveness, Hamas’ power over Gazan hearts and minds, moderate Arabs’ ambivalence, and international public opinions’ cluelessness or rottenness – ought also to inform Trump administration thinking about the Jewish state’s strategy and Gaza’s future.

Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. From 2019 to 2021, he served as director of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. State Department. His writings are posted at PeterBerkowitz.com and he can be followed on X @BerkowitzPeter.

New Investigation Exposes UN Agency’s Shocking Ties to Terror Groups

Center for Near East Policy Research

March 19, 2025

A bombshell new investigation from international human rights group UN Watch exposes the disturbing links between the UNRWA and Palestinian terror organizations. According to the report, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have not only infiltrated the $1.5 billion UN-funded agency but are actively influencing its operations and fueling violence against Israelis.

The explosive findings reveal that UNRWA has employed Hamas militants, allowing the terror group to interfere with key agency policies and operations in Gaza and Lebanon.

UN Watch is calling for the immediate dismantling of UNRWA, saying the organization has become a conduit for terrorism and a facilitator of violence in the Middle East.

“UNRWA isn’t just a bystander in the Arab-Israeli conflict – it’s a primary enabler,” observes Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch. “By allowing terrorists to infiltrate its ranks and incite violence, UNRWA isn’t promoting peace, they’re perpetuating hatred and war.”

The report includes images of terror leaders with UNRWA officials, and details years of instances where leadership of the UN agency closely cooperated with terror groups in secret. The report implicates many members of UNRWA leadership, including current-UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini.

“People need to understand that UNRWA isn’t the firefighter, it’s the arsonist. The U.S. and other Western nations who have given billions to UNRWA need to wake up. Your money is being used to employ terrorists, indoctrinate children, and build the infrastructure of hate and violence. The U.S. alone has given more than $1 billion to UNRWA over the past four years. This is a betrayal of your taxpayers and your values.”

“The time has finally come to dismantle UNRWA, an agency that glorifies terrorism,” said Neuer.

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Read Full Report: The Unholy Alliance: UNRWA, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad

An investigation into the secret ties between terrorist organizations and the UN’s largest aid agency

Executive Summary

This report reveals how UNRWA, despite its claims to be a humanitarian agency, has forged an unholy alliance with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist organizations. This secret relationship allows the terrorist organizations to significantly influence the policies and practices of a UN agency with 30,000 employees, and a $1.5 billion annual budget that is funded primarily by Western states.

The report shows how UNRWA’s international officials, and its senior local managers, routinely meet with terrorist groups in Lebanon and Gaza, mutually praise each other for “cooperation,” and describe each other as “partners.”

The terrorist groups frequently make demands of UNRWA and influence its decisions. Moreover, when the terrorists oppose specific actions by UNRWA— such as the introduction of biometric IDs for beneficiaries of UNRWA financial assistance, an ethics code affirming LGBT rights, or suspension of employees for promoting terrorism—the terrorist groups are often able to foil implementation, including by issuing threats.

Examples of the UNRWA-Terrorist Alliance

Examples of the UNRWA-terrorist alliance, documented in the report below with 68 photos obtained from open sources, include:

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini made a deal with Jihadi terrorist groups, at a Beirut meeting in May 2024, by which UNRWA allowed Hamas leader Fathi Al-Sharif to remain as principal of a major UNRWA school, and as the head of the UNRWA Teachers Union. For years, Al-Sharif had openly glorified Hamas terrorist attacks, including on his Facebook page, and published photos of his fraternization with heads of terrorist organizations. Contrary to its claims of robust neutrality mechanisms, UNRWA for years allowed Al-Sharif to occupy a senior position overseeing thousands of UNRWA teachers and students. Only when a formal complaint was made to UNRWA by a government, in early 2024, did the agency give Al-Sharif a slap on the wrist by suspending him. Immediately, Hamas and other terrorist groups responded by effectively shutting down UNRWA in Lebanon, mobilizing massive protests by UNRWA teachers and students. Three months into the shutdown, Lazzarini flew to Beirut and met with the alliance of terrorist organizations who were behind the strike. Local media reported on June 1, 2024 that Lazzarini and the terrorist groups reached “understandings” that would lead to a “positive” result for Al-Sharif, and the strike was called off. On September 30, 2024, Al-Sharif was eliminated by an IDF missile. Hamas announced that indeed he had been their leader in Lebanon, and eulogized the senior UNRWA figure for his “Jihadi education.”
Former UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krahenbuhl met with terrorist leaders from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in February 2017, where he emphasized the “spirit of partnership” between them and UNRWA. He invited the terrorist leaders to privately challenge any UNRWA decision which he could then change or “tear up.” The head of UNRWA urged the Jihadi terrorist groups to ensure that their “discussions not be made public” so as to avoid harm to UNRWA’s “credibility.” Mr. Krahenbuhl, who was forced to leave UNRWA in 2019 due to a corruption and sexual abuse scandal, was this year absurdly appointed to head the International Red Cross, prompting a sharp protest by 17 members of the United States Senate.
Likewise, in June 2022, current UNRWA chief Lazzarini stressedthe importance of “partnership” with Gaza terrorist groups. He met regularly with Gaza terrorist groups under the umbrella of the “Joint Refugee Committee,” which is headed by Mahmoud Khalaf, a member of the central committee of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), designated as a terorrist organization by the United States and the European Union.
Matthias Schmale, the former UNRWA director in Lebanon, addressed a Hamas rally in August 2018 alongside Ali Baraka, one of six Hamas terrorist leaders indicted in September by the US Department of Justice, as the latter told the crowd that donor states must support UNRWA “until we return to Palestine.” Schmale thanked the terrorist groups “for their understanding” and reassured them that UNRWA is on their side. In October 2020, now serving as UNRWA Director in Gaza, Schmale met with the Joint Refugee Committee headed by DFLP official Mahmoud Khalaf, to discuss “the problem of forcibly dismissed employees.” In numerous such cases, local UNRWA staff suspended for links to terrorism were reinstated under pressure by the terrorist groups.
Former Deputy Commissioner-General Leni Stenseth personally went to Gaza, in June 2021, to kowtow before Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas terror chief who masterminded the October 7^th massacre. Hamas had been angry with UNRWA after its then Gaza Director Matthias Schmale, an ardent supporter of the Palestinian narrative, unwittingly admitted in a TV interview that Israeli strikes on Hamas, during the May 2021 war, were “very precise.” The interview was widely shared by supporters of Israel. Outraged, Hamas declared Schmale a persona non grata, and orchestrated mob protests to threaten him. Stenseth obediently removed Schmale from his post, throwing him under the bus to appease Sinwar, and called Schmale’s interview “indefensible.” She went to visit Sinwar in Gaza to personally thank him “for his positivity and desire to continue cooperation in facilitating the agency’s work in the Gaza Strip.” Stenseth is now Director-General of the foreign ministry of Norway, UNRWA’s most ardent state supporter. Stenseth uses her current position to fund groups that lobby for UNRWA, such as the Chr. Michelsen Institute, which was unethically chosen to conduct the “independent review” of UNRWA led by Catherine Colonna.
UNRWA Lebanon Director Dorothee Klaus shared a stage with the leader of Hamas in Lebanon, Fathi Al-Sharif, was as noted above was also an UNRWA school principal and head of the UNRWA Teachers Union. At the event, before a cheering crowd, Al-Sharif proclaimed his support for “the resistance.” Ms. Klaus did not object.
UNRWA managers have participated at an annual Hamas conference which discusses internal UNRWA affairs such as employee vacancies and UNRWA Teachers Union elections. At the 2021 conference, Hamas offiical Ahmad Abd Al-Hadi announced the launching of a joint committee to “supervise the relationship with UNRWA and ensure it implements its obligations.”
In February 2018, UNRWA Program Director in Lebanon Gwyn Lewis met with Hamas official Ahmad Fadl, and they agreed on “ongoing cooperation and coordination.”
UNRWA regional directors routinely meet with local terrorist leaders for “cooperation and coordination.” At a November 2017 meeting, they told UNRWA’s Sidon Director Fawzi Kassab that UNRWA must exist until Palestinian refugees “return to their homes” and threatened that if donors do not continue funding UNRWA, the Palestinians will start a “popular revolution.”
In February 2022, UNRWA Lebanon Director Claudio Cordone, the former acting chief of Amnesty International, visited Ain Al-Hilweh camp to meet with a coalition of terrorist groups, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Ansar Allah. The terrorists told Cordone that the Palestinian issue in Lebanon is “a political issue and cannot be reduced to a humanitarian or security issue.” Likewise, in January 2018, Cordone met with Hamas official Ahmad Abd al-Hadi who affirmed that the terrorists support UNRWA because it “remains a living witness to the 1948 Nakba.” Contrary to what the world is told, UNRWA’s main purpose is not humanitarian aid, but rather to promote the narrative that Israel’s creation was an “injustice” and that the Palestinians will one day dismantle Israel.
In February 2017, UNRWA Lebanon Director Hakam Shahwan told terrorist leaders that UNRWA was “fully prepared” to have “a strong partnership mechanism” with them, so long as the partnership should not reach a stage “where some believe that we are partners in decision-making.”

Conclusion

This report reveals how UNRWA’s senior management not only knowingly employ individuals tied to Hamas terrorism, but also allow the terrorist groups to influence critical agency decisions and policies.

Through uncovered photographic evidence, the report exposes the close relationship top UNRWA officials have with designated terrorist organizations.

Current and former UNRWA officials with terrorist ties included in the report are:

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini (2019-present)
UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl (2014-2019)
UNRWA Director-General in Lebanon Dorothee Klaus (2023-present)
UNRWA Director-General in Lebanon Claudio Cordone (2017-2022)
UNRWA Deputy Director of Programs in Lebanon Gwyn Lewis (2015-2018)
UNRWA Director-General in Lebanon and Director of Operations in Gaza Matthias Schmale (2015-2021)
UNRWA Director-General in Lebanon Hakam Shahwan (2016-2017)
UNRWA Gaza Director Thomas White (2021-2024)
Acting UNRWA Director-General in Lebanon Munir Manna (2023)
UNRWA Director-General in Lebanon Ann Dismorr (2012–2015)
UNRWA Deputy Commissioner-General Leni Stenseth (2020–2023)
Numerous UNRWA Regional Directors in Lebanon

Israel’s Second War of Independence

March 19, 2025

During the summer of 2024—because I could no longer bear the thought of not taking an active part in our ongoing war, and thanks also to my stubborn refusal to acknowledge my advancing years—I volunteered for the IDF reserves. For the first time in decades, I put on a uniform, donned a helmet, and picked up a gun; the uniform still fit me, more or less, while the latter two items were far heavier than I’d remembered.

My assignment was to help guard a kibbutz in the Upper Galilee near the source of the Jordan River: an area that was then under constant rocket fire from Hizballah terrorists based in neighboring Lebanon. Among my fellow reservists were women and men who’d been on duty, without a break, since the attacks of October 7, 2023. On that day they had faced the very real possibility of a Hizballah assault many times larger and deadlier than Hamas’s in Gaza—and yet their kibbutz’s emergency squad was armed with but a single automatic rifle. By the time I joined them in the following August, they still lacked the heavy weapons needed to repel any serious Hizballah infiltration.

In off-duty hours during my ensuing weeks of service, I interacted with the members of the kibbutz: extraordinary people who, despite the daily shelling, refused to leave their homes. Many were veterans, or the descendants of veterans, who’d defended the kibbutz through successive wars in the past.

On one such occasion, I attended a meeting of the community’s emergency committee, gathered to determine procedures in case Hizballah were to attack us directly. One participant reported that there were not enough sandbags on hand to barricade all the kibbutz’s windows. Another registered the lack of sufficient gravel to fill the industrial-sized sacks behind which the soldiers would defend the crossroads. Still others asked how the children could be evacuated in the event of an emergency. And what about the elderly? The bedridden?

Sitting there, witnessing this conversation, I couldn’t believe I was in modern-day Israel. If I closed my eyes and just listened, I could swear instead that we were not in 2024 but in 1948, three-quarters of a century earlier, at the height of Israel’s War of Independence.

That same sensation of déjà vu also hovered over a question that, ever since October 7, I was being frequently asked: which if any of Israel’s previous wars did today’s war most closely resemble?

To such a question, the obvious answer would have been the Yom Kippur War, which had erupted on October 6, 1973, exactly 50-years-and-a-day before this latest outbreak. Indeed, Hamas deliberately chose this date to start the war in a sadistic effort to reignite Israel’s Yom Kippur trauma.

As did the new war, the earlier one had begun in a massive surprise attack—led then by the Egyptian and Syrian armies—that had caught Israel and its armed forces completely off guard. And, as in 1973, Israel in 2023 and 2024 has turned that initial rout into a military victory not only in Gaza but now also in Lebanon. Cadets at West Point and other military academies around the world study Israel’s astonishing success in 1973. They will study our success in this war no less.

What is more, in addition to the similarities between our current conflict and the Yom Kippur War, we might also consider other parallels that range still farther back in time.

Take, for instance, the Six-Day War of 1967. That earlier conflict had broken out when the nationalist Arab forces of Egypt and its partners—Jordan, Syria, and Iraq—surrounded Israel and pledged to throw it into the sea. Similarly, 56 years later, on October 6, 2023, Israel would again find itself surrounded, this time not by nationalist Egypt and its proxies but by jihadist Iran and its proxies—Hamas, Hizballah, and the Houthis—all correspondingly bent on Israel’s destruction. And once again Israel would succeed in turning imminent existential disaster into a battlefield success every bit as impressive as that of the Six-Day War.

Nor is that all. Other clashes bearing parallels to this most recent one have included the First (1982) and Second (2006) Lebanon Wars, as well as the brief Gaza operations of 2008, 2012, and 2014. Each of these, to one degree or another, can realistically be seen as foreshadowing the current conflict—so that now, with Israel continuing to fight, we can discern sharp echoes not only of 1973 and 1967 but also of our more recent series of border clashes.

But for me the larger truth remains that in the roster of Israel’s conflicts over the decades since achieving statehood, none today continues to echo so resonantly—or so instructively—as does the one I named at the start: the 1948–49 War of Independence.

Let me explain.

First, as in our War of Independence,the current war has been fought not deep in enemy territory but nearby and indeed within the state itself: in our farms, towns, settlements, and municipalities.

Next, like its predecessor at Israel’s birth, this latest war has been waged not only or even principally against our armed forces but rather against our civilian population—with similarly horrifying results in the toll of Israelis killed and grievously injured or seized, tortured, and hauled into captivity. This war, again like the War of Independence, has seen civilian Israeli volunteers picking up guns to protect and secure their homes and their families huddling in bomb shelters.

Finally, this war—for which we do not yet have a nationally accepted name—not only resembles the War of Independence but also rivals it in terms of its duration. As of the January 19th cease-fire, the current conflict has outlasted our independence struggle by four days.

Like Israel’s other wars, this latest one, too, has been fought for our security, if not for our very survival. But the current war is also being fought for something even more fateful. That something is Israel’s soul.

That is what was at stake from the very moment this war began, at 6:29 on the morning of October 7, 2023, when our soul was already torn by political schisms. The catalyst was the launch by the newly elected government, under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, of a far-reaching reform of the judicial system. With the subsequent hardening of positions on either side came the dangerous refusal of IDF reservists to report to duty and the government’s refusal to heed warnings of the threats of such internal divisions to Israeli security.

The scene, only days before October 7, of Israelis clashing in Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Plaza over the nature of public Yom Kippur prayers revealed how deep and dangerous those schisms had grown. Whether for or against the judicial reforms, Israelis appeared united in believing that they could continue to indulge in this open drama of severe civil strife and not, as a society, be required to pay a price for it. Bound by the belief that the “Startup Nation”—that world-renowned destination for culinary tours, that champion winner of Eurovision musical contests, that recipient of the highest awards in the fields of literature and film—was somehow located geographically in Paris, or San Francisco, we forgot that we were, in fact, in the Middle East.

Hamas did not forget. We now know from documents found in Gaza that Israel’s internal struggle helped Hamas determine both the timing and the ferocity of its October 7 attack.

That onslaught ripped Israel’s soul apart even more widely. It threatened to tear asunder our twin duties to guard the land and people of Israel and to redeem those captured in its defense. We remain torn by two interwoven fears: first, that if we were to fail to secure the freedom of the hostages, Israeli parents would no longer be able with a clear conscience to send their children to serve in the army; and second, that if we fail to defeat and crush Hamas, Israelis will no longer have an army to send their children to.

Meanwhile, in the world at large, Israel was finding itself increasingly isolated, accused of committing genocide even as Hamas and its supporters were celebrating the genocide that its terrorists had attempted to commit. Despite the supreme efforts of the IDF to reduce civilian casualties in Gaza, despite registering the lowest ratio of civilian-to-combatant deaths in modern military history, we were widely condemned, even by our American ally, of responding “disproportionately” and “over the top” to the slaughter of October 7, of killing “entirely too many Palestinians,” and of dehumanizing and deliberately starving non-combatants. Across the United States and Western Europe, the university campuses where many Israelis had studied or taught turned into arenas for anti-Semitic spectacles. Classic anti-Semitic tropes, stipulating the Jewish people’s penchant for vengeance or its thirst for children’s blood, proliferated in Western media.

As if all these nightmares proved insufficient, Hizballah soon physically joined Hamas’s assault, and so did the Houthis of Yemen and the Iran-backed militias in Syria and Iraq. Iran would fire some 700 ballistic missiles and drones at Israel. As millions of Israelis sheltered from the incessant barrages, 200,000 became internal refugees, fleeing their residences in both the north and the south. What certainty did we have—did any of us have—that the Jewish state could nevertheless prevail?

This, in short,was a true 1948 moment, evoking nothing so threatening as the evening of May 14, 1948, only hours after David Ben-Gurion had proclaimed Israel’s independence, when five Arab armies joined by barbarous terrorist bands invaded the nascent Jewish state in order todestroy it. That, too, was a genocidal campaign, smashing through our borders in the Negev and the Galilee, triggering desperate fighting in Jerusalem, Safed, and Jaffa, and claiming the lives of thousands.

And then too, Israel had been alone. We had no major allies. Although President Truman had seen to it that the U.S. would be the first nation to recognize the re-created Jewish state, he just as swiftly slapped on that state a total arms embargo.

The late Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres, with whom I had the honor to work, once told me that, on May 14, 1948, Israeli forces possessed barely enough bullets to fight for a single week. Just so, visiting an artillery base last summer in the north, I was told that, as a result of the cutoff of American supplies, our cannons were down to firing a mere five shells per day.

In the current war, Israel has had to make such excruciating decisions as whether to continue destroying Hamas no matter what or, in return for the hostages’ release, to risk the state’s long-term security. In 1948–49, Ben-Gurion had to decide which part of the embattled Jewish state to preserve first: Jerusalem? Tel Aviv? Beersheva? The entire country could not be defended at once. Like today, Israeli forces in 1948 were stretched thin, traumatized by battle, exhausted.

Israel also entered its first war with its soul already divided between competing Zionist visions and ideologies: politically, between liberal-socialist Zionism and revisionist Zionism; militarily, between the Irgun and Leḥi on one side and the Haganah and Palmaḥ on the other. It was an internal schism every bit as bitter, if not more so, than that of prewar 2023.

Was it in light of those similarities between 1948 and today that Prime Minister Netanyahu has called this latest struggle a war of revival (milḥemet t’kumah)—a Hebrew phrase that has also become a longstanding popular term for the 1948 War of Independence? Be that as it may, and setting aside strategic and logistical parallels, this war, as I see it, also recalls the War of Independence in a more fateful, morally direct, and in the end transformative way. As I see it, this must be the war to correct, and to get right, the things we got wrong in 1948.

For example: this must be the war in which the Israeli public will no longer be required to abide the refusal of Haredim to serve in the IDF. That exemption, first conferred by Ben-Gurion in 1949 to no more than 400 yeshiva students, has expanded to include 70,000 eligible conscripts. Such gross imbalance cannot continue.

This, then, is the war in which the citizens’ army of Israel must and will become an army of all its citizens—an army in which Haredim serve just as they served without protest, proudly, in 1948. And serving too will be not only Haredim but also the Israeli Arabs whom Hamas and Hizballah refused to distinguish from Israeli Jews, slaughtering us all indifferently.

There is more. In 1948, the state of Israel secured its territorial sovereignty at an excruciating cost: a sovereignty that over the decades it has largely forfeited in such crucial geographical areas as the Negev—62 percent of the country’s territory—where the state’s laws against polygamy, drug trafficking, and gun trafficking are rarely if ever enforced, and where, especially among the Bedouin community, illegal construction continues apace.

In this war, we Israelis will remind ourselves of other lessons from 1948 that we’ve steadily forgotten. We will recall that we live not in Sweden or California but in the homicidal, fratricidal, and genocidal Middle East. We will recall that, while we can form crucial alliances, at the end of the day we alone are responsible for our defense. We will also recall that, rather than remaining dependent on foreign sources of arms, to the greatest degree possible we must be munitions-independent. As in 1948, we must manufacture not only our own bullets, grenades, and “Davidkas” (homemade mortars) but ordinance for tanks, artillery, and combat aircraft.

As in 1948, a war fought a mere three years after the Holocaust, we today and tomorrow must grapple with the reality of anti-Semitism. We must come to grips with the reality of a world that cares little for Jewish life while, and despite the superhuman efforts of the IDF to minimize Palestinian and Lebanese casualties, condemning us for non-existent war crimes and issuing warrants for our leaders’ arrest.

Most crucially, this is the war in which we must once again learn the meaning of Zionism. That meaning can itself be defined, and encompassed, in a single word: responsibility. While the disaster of October 7 was the product of many Israeli failures, the most egregious of all was the failure to have assumed responsibility for the defense of our border and the population living alongside it.

We must fulfill that responsibility, along with the responsibility to pursue an effective public diplomacy and protect our image in the world. We must also adequately and responsibly arm and equip our soldiers, while contributing as well to the defense of Jewish communities abroad. Above all, we must be responsible in demonstrating to our people, beyond all conceivable doubt, that the state has done the utmost to secure the release of any who have been taken hostage.

In this, our second war of independence, we have the opportunity—and beyond that, the duty—to ensure Israeli and Jewish unity. Our leaders have the opportunity to exhibit and personify the kind of behavior urged by Ben-Gurion in his most exalted (if untranslatable) coinage: mamlakhtiyut: i.e., acting in a respectable, responsible, and statesmanlike manner. Perhaps that would even be a more fitting name than the war of revival, or Iron Swords (the IDF’s formal name for its current military operations): milhemet ha- mamlakhtiyut, the war for attaining true sovereignty.

Thus, along with winning the war on the battlefield, we must triumph also in the war for Israel’s soul. Even though the extraordinary solidarity we experienced at the beginning of the war is today once again in danger of unraveling, there is reason to believe we will avoid the bloody internecine hatred of the kind once openly unleashed when, at the height of the Arab invasion of 1948, one Israeli armed force deliberately sank a ship (the Altalena) bearing the fighters of another.

Above all, we have every reason to be optimistic about the generation that has fought and continues to fight this war: the 360,000 reservists who, proportionally speaking, made up the equivalent of 20 million Americans—four million more than served in all of World War II.

They, the members of this generation, are tempered, steeled, anything but fragile, and intensely patriotic. They are the greatest such generation we have known since 1948. They are the Levi Eshkols and Golda Meirs, the Yitzhak Rabins and the Moshe Dayans of the future. They have been, and they remain, united, transcending all of the usual Israeli divisions—politics, religion, ethnicity—to live and to fight as a single force and with singular purpose. They are unparalleled in their resilience, their camaraderie, their quiet moral confidence, and their courage.

This generation will lead our country in rebuilding, reviving, and breathing new life into the Zionist project. This is the war for restoring our dignity, our identity, our independence, and for reaffirming and embracing our responsibility. This is the war after which, each time we rise to sing our national anthem anywhere and everywhere in the strong, sovereign, responsible Jewish state of Israel, we can stress, without modification, elision, or irony, the final phrases that say exactly who we are: “a free people, in our own land, in the land of Zion, in Jerusalem.”