Monday, May 4, 2026
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Trump to welcome Hamas supporter to the White House

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
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US President Donald Trump is reportedly going to meet with Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, a man who, as Qatar’s prime minister, is a major financial backer of both Hamas and Harvard University.

Al Thani, who also serves as Qatar’s foreign minister and is a member of the ruling family that also includes Qatar’s emir, arrived in the United States this week for meetings with senior federal officials. They include Trump himself, according to reports.

The meeting comes one day after Harvard sued the Trump administration for freezing more than $2 billion in grants and contracts to the Ivy League university.

It also comes as Qatari officials attempt to revive a Hamas ceasefire deal. Al Thani, in his role as Qatar’s second most powerful official, is a top ally of both parties.

Qatar has given Harvard $3.8 million since 2020, federal records show. It is also one of Hamas’s primary funders and sheltered the terrorist group’s leaders in the wake of Oct. 7.

The Gulf state has a major lobbying presence in Washington, D.C., and has spent billions trying to influence US policy over the past two decades.

The Trump administration has mulled sanctions against some Qatari nationals as part of an effort to crack down on pro-Hamas campus groups, the Washington Free Beacon reported last month.

At the same time, some administration officials and members of Trump’s inner circle have also signaled their support for Qatar.

Trump’s Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff recently called Qatar an “ally of the United States” and said it has “moderated quite a bit.”

Trump ally Bernard Kerik, the former New York Police Department commissioner, registered as a foreign agent of Qatar earlier this month, according to lobbying disclosure records.

The evidence linking UNRWA to Hamas that Ottawa saw before resuming its funding

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
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After allegations in January of UNRWA members taking active roles in the Oct. 7 massacre, the United States announced a temporarily funding halt.

In contrast, the massive appropriations package passed by the U.S. Congress late last month included a statutory ban on funding UNRWA until March 2025.

The intelligence briefing shown to National Post included 43 slides laying out a comprehensive dossier of evidence, including information gathered from communications of Hamas operatives, social media, and video of the Oct. 7 attack. Some of it bore the logo of iNet, the Israeli operation that synthesizes open-source intelligence for the state’s defence establishment.

Gov. Josh Shapiro Keeps Dodging Motive for Arson Attack

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
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Even by the convoluted standards of politics, Gov. Josh Shapiro and Democrats are playing a strange game after the arson attack over Gaza on the governor’s mansion.

Gov. Shapiro has refused to discuss the motive for the attack even while Democrats, including supporters of campus Hamas activists like Halie Soifer, who heads the Jewish Democratic Council of America, blame Trump for an attack by one of their own people. This bait and switch depends on Shapiro keeping his mouth shut even as Dems attack Trump for not saying enough about the attack by a terrorist supporter.

What does Gov. Shapiro think about an attempt to kill his family over Gaza? Don’t ask him. Is it a hate crime? It would be inappropriate for him to comment on the matter.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said it would be inappropriate for him to label the fire last weekend at his official residence “a hate crime” — and didn’t think it was helpful for outsiders to do so either.

Speaking in an interview that aired Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Shapiro said, “I know as a former prosecutor how important it is to follow the evidence and apply the law and to do so without fear or favor. In this case, I’m the victim of the crime. I’m not the prosecutor. The prosecutors will weigh all the different evidence, determine what the motive is.”

This is not integrity, it’s dishonesty.

Hate crimes charges would most likely be federal. Shapiro is a state official and even if the charges were brought by the state, there would be no involvement by the governor’s office. State prosecutors are fully capable of investigating the attack even if Shapiro were to condemn the perp’s stated motive.

Instead, Shapiro keeps dodging and weaving, treating the whole thing as some sort of universal problem.

“This is, sadly, a real part of our society today,” Shapiro told Stephanopoulos, “and it needs to be universally condemned, George. I don’t care if it’s coming from the left, from the right. I don’t care if it’s coming from someone who you voted for, or someone who you didn’t vote for, someone on your team or someone on the other team.”

This one ain’t coming from the right. If it were, Gov. Shapiro would have condemned it by now.

Everyone knows that this ‘both sides have problems’ stuff, whether it’s true or not, tends to come out when it’s your side doing something wrong.

Society has issues, but in this case, Gov. Shapiro is trying not to talk about what happened because condemning antisemitism and support for terrorism within his own party is a career killer.

How Israel can tackle UNWRA & the UN’s terror problem | Basic Law

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
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Host Aylana Meisel, Executive Director of the Israel Law and Liberty Forum, sits down with leading international law expert Professor Avi Bell (University of San Diego, Bar-Ilan University, Kohelet Policy Forum and board member at NGO Monitor) for a powerful exposé on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and its deeply controversial role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Amid renewed global debate over humanitarian aid to Gaza and Israel’s legal obligations, this never-before-released episode investigates the systemic infiltration of UNRWA by Hamas, its misuse of foreign aid, and the legal battles now unfolding. Professor Bell explains how UNRWA schools have promoted radical ideology, stored weapons, and employed individuals complicit in the October 7th terror attacks—all while funded by taxpayer money from the U.S., Canada, EU, and others.

Witkoff: Hamas Can Stay in Gaza

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
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Steven Witkoff, the Trump administration’s official envoy who had past business ties to Qatar, sat down with Tucker Carlson, the former FOX News talking head turned Qatari apologist who had recently featured Qatar’s leader, to talk about how wonderful Qatar is.

“Sheikh Mohammed… is a good man,” Witkoff gushed.

“He certainly is,” Tucker Carlson agreed.

“He’s a special guy. He really is,” Witkoff said.

“In the case of the Qataris, they’re criticized for not being well motivated. It’s preposterous. They are well motivated. They’re good, decent people. What they want is a mediation that’s effective, that gets to a peace goal. And why? Because they’re a small nation and they want to be acknowledged as a peacemaker.” Witkoff said of a country that serves as a state sponsor of every Islamic terrorist group from the Taliban to Hamas, and which harbored the mastermind of 9/11.

Tucker complained that Witkoff was being attacked for working for Qatar by the “news media and social media.” The truth is that the news media praises Witkoff, he’s being condemned on social media.

Witkoff replied by defending Qatar. “I’ve had a couple of experiences where first I was attacked as being pro Qatari sympathizer. By the way, Qatar is a mediator here. They’re not a party to the conflict, they’re a mediator. So I am—how could I not collaborate with the mediator? And if I’m not collaborating with the mediator, I’m bound to be ineffective. It’s not even possible that I could do the job. I had to know everything that they knew. So that means collaboration.”

Qatar is not a mediator. It’s a state sponsor of Hamas and other Islamic terrorist groups. By collaborating with Qatar, Witkoff is by definition collaborating with Hamas.

Witkoff praised Biden envoy Brett McGurk. According to Witkoff, McGurk told him, “this is where I want to get to, Steve.”

And that’s what led to the first disastrous deal with Hamas.

Tucker Carlson then lied that this approach of appeasing Islamic terrorists was “so different from the posture that the last couple of generations of diplomats have taken, which is like, here’s what we want. Shut up and do it. And I just don’t think, leaving aside moral considerations, I don’t think it’s been very effective.”

In reality, trying to win over terrorists is exactly what Bush, Obama and Biden did.

And it never worked.

Tucker knows it. He’s talked about it back when he wasn’t acting like an employee for the Gulf Muslim oil states.

Tucker Carlson then lied that Qatar are “often accused, almost universally accused in the US Media of being agents of Iran.” In fact the media bends over backward and promotes anything that Qatar and its Al Jazeera media outlet say. There’s virtually no criticism of Qatar in the media here. Tucker knows it. He’s propagandizing for Qatar to his conservative audience by making it seem like it’s at odds with the media.

In reality, the media is in Qatar’s pocket.

“They’re a Muslim nation. In the past, they’ve had some views that are a little bit more radical,” Witkoff claimed. “From an Islamist standpoint than they are today, but it’s moderated quite a bit. There’s no doubt that they’re an ally of the United States. There’s no doubt about that.”

Tucker agreed with Witkoff at every turn about how wonderfully moderate Qatar is.

Witkoff told Tucker that he had never spoken to Hamas, but “I think you have to trust the Qataris. If I didn’t trust the Qataris, then that would be really problematic, not meeting with Hamas.”

After the Qatari propaganda, Witkoff and Tucker turned to Hamas.

Witkoff then made an argument for the UN’s 15-20 year reconstruction plan for Gaza.

“What’s acceptable to us is they need to demilitarize. Then maybe they could stay there a little bit. Be involved politically. But they can’t be involved militarily. We can’t have a terrorist organization running Gaza because that won’t be acceptable to Israel,” Witkoff said.

So from a starting point of expelling Hamas and Gazans, we’re now down to Hamas getting to be “politically involved” in running Gaza as long as it goes through some show of disarming.

“You know, what we heard in the beginning of this conflict is Hamas is ideological. They’re prepared to die for a whole variety of reasons,” Witkoff told Tucker. “I don’t think that they are as ideologically locked in. They’re not ideologically intractable. I don’t. I never believe that.”

The contention that Hamas is not really ideological and is willing to make a deal was a feature of both the Bush and Obama administrations.

“Smart. Smart. That is total. That is smart. But it’s. How hard was it to come to that conclusion?” Tucker cheered.

The rest of the conversation essentially had Tucker Carlson channeling the Saudi line, claiming that “looming over all of these countries and their remarkable success both economically and socially, there’s like great countries, in my opinion is the conflict in Gaza. And not just Gaza, but the idea that, wow, this could all blow up tomorrow because we don’t know what the Israeli plan is.”

During the conversation, Tucker repeatedly demonstrated that he knew nothing about the region except whatever the Saudis and whoever else in the Gulf oil states was feeding him, leading him to say at one point that, Turkey’s “Erdogan is seen by some in his country as a tool of Israel.” In reality, Erdogan recently threatened war against Israel and praised Hamas.

Tucker claimed “that the conflict in Gaza, which is of course streamed in everyone’s iPhone, a lot of people killed in Gaza, a lot of kids. And that’s inflaming the populations of some of these countries again, specifically Egypt and Jordan.”

Tucker complained to Witkoff that the ‘two-state solution’ has become controversial.

Witkoff said that “the Israelis going in is in some respects unfortunate and in some respects falls into the “had to be” bucket. It kind of had to be. Hamas was not responding. And their responses were unreasonable.”

Then Witkoff recycled most of the Bush/Obama calls for “real elections in Gaza”.

That’s how Hamas took over Gaza in the first place.

One of Tucker’s parting remarks to Witkoff was, “I hope for our sake you wind up in Tehran.”

How Bibi Buggered On to Victory

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
-

When you’ve worked long enough in the field of strategy, you eventually come to the depressing realization that victory in any major war is not won by some brilliant strategy, feats of generalship, or even superior technology. Rather, it’s won by sheer tenacity.

Tenacity is the most important virtue of national leaders at war, which allows them to press on with no assurance of victory, fending off tremendous political pressures to fold. Winston Churchill displayed this quality in 1940. In June of that year, Germany appeared unstoppable. Paris and the entirety of Western Europe had fallen. The Luftwaffe was grinding down the grossly outnumbered British pilots, and German invasion barges were being assembled in Belgian ports. Even then, with Britain desperate for U.S. support, the American national debate on interventionism, prompted by the outbreak of war in September 1939, continued to break decisively in favor of the isolationists.

Exploring an accommodation with Germany appeared as the eminently reasonable and prudent course of action because of Herr Hitler’s generous offer to leave Britain and its vast empire intact. When British parliamentarians pressed Churchill to explain his plan, he confessed to his intimates that he had no plan at all. He was determined to just keep buggering on.

Then the situation became bleaker still for the British and for Churchill personally. In June 1941, the German army smashed its way into Russia, advancing rapidly toward what looked like an imminent victory. Although the Wehrmacht’s swift conquests promised to wholly remedy Germany’s only weakness—its lack of petroleum—the isolationists in the U.S. Congress remained dominant. Meanwhile, at home, London was abuzz with talk of Churchill’s heavy drinking, his personal dependence on gifts from his Jewish friends to pay for his extravagant tastes and, above all, his utter lack of strategy—he had failed to offer any path at all that could conceivably lead to victory.

Things looked grim all around. In North Africa, the brilliant German tactician Erwin Rommel was outmaneuvering British forces with ease. Much worse were the first reports of Germany’s astonishing technological progress: the world’s first jet fighter that could easily outfly every single British and American fighter; the world’s first air-to-surface missile (Fritz X) that, in September 1943, would sink the Italian battleship Roma (to prevent it from surrendering to the Allies); and the Tiger tank that could crush British armor.

Nevertheless, the isolationists in Congress refused to fund even a prosaic piston-engine fighter project—the P-51 Mustang, the war’s best Allied fighter—which was developed with fast-dwindling British funds.

Churchill’s answer? Just keep buggering on.

With a remarkable array of forces, external and internal, bearing down on him, Netanyahu’s tenacity was the only thing that mattered.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long advertised his admiration for Churchill; the British leader’s portrait hangs in his office. He shares Churchill’s taste for cognac and cigars and has been in trouble with Israel’s exceptionally stringent political gift laws for years because he accepted gifted cognac from a gent who neither asked for, nor received, any government favors.

But it’s in his handling of Washington during his war that Netanyahu has earned the comparison with his role model. Whereas Churchill’s problem was an isolationist Congress that constrained a generally sympathetic president, Netanyahu enjoyed ample support on the Hill but faced an American administration determined to cut Israel down to size and to remove him from power.

As Israel fought a major, multifront war in October 2023, key U.S. officials encouraged domestic uproar against Netanyahu and worked to constrain him and even collapse his government.

That was not all the president’s doing, but Joe Biden’s administration was stacked with Barack Obama’s leftovers, who ran the gamut of pathological Israel haters, from Samantha Power to Robert Malley—the red-diaper baby of Stalinist Jewish parents in Paris whom I met in my youth when they were working for Algeria’s National Liberation Front, which was not merely fanatically anti-Israel but also declaredly anti-Jewish, much like Yemen’s Houthis today. With the CIA mostly very hostile (as it has been since it was established in 1947, as declassified documents fully reveal), only the Pentagon harbored some friends of Israel—although that hardly stopped the administration from using every trick in the book to delay mid-war weapons supplies to Israel.

Netanyahu faced a concerted campaign, directed from Washington, that brought together Israeli nonprofits and Netanyahu’s political opponents. Almost from the get-go, Netanyahu had to overcome calls and protests by well-educated—and some even well-meaning—Israelis and American Jews, as well as all the usual suspects in European capitals and almost every other world government incessantly demanding a cease-fire, not as a pause, but as an end to the war.

Worse still, several of Israel’s retired and barely retired generals threw their weight behind the cease-fire push. Some did so with the authority of true heroes, such as Yair Golan, the head of the unsubtly named The Democrats (a merger of the left-wing Labor and Meretz Parties) and former IDF deputy chief of staff no less. Golan jumped into his small car on Oct. 7 to successfully rescue people with his handgun, as did the former head of the IDF’s Operations Directorate Israel Ziv, now a very successful security contractor overseas after distinguished service, who became the guru of an entire cabal of retired generals, including some who served in Netanyahu’s government until they left it to oppose him. Then, inevitably, there were tawdry time-servers who somehow became generals without doing much other than talking, like Amos Gilead, who’s well known and much-favored in U.S. officialdom because of his hostility to Netanyahu.

All those former generals demanded the same thing, albeit at different times: to stop the war with no way of recovering the Israeli hostages and no way of forcing Hamas to accept supervised disarmament, therefore allowing it to use a cease-fire to reconstitute.

Furthermore, these generals offered no solution whatever to the Hezbollah dilemma in the north. The day after the Oct. 7 attack, Hezbollah started launching rockets against Israel. If Israel did not attack, Hezbollah forces, then assuredly the most powerful non-state army in the world, was certainly capable of burning every Jewish town and village north of Haifa with countless rockets (the number 110,000 that was widely circulated turned out to be simply invented) while targeting power stations, Ben Gurion Airport, port facilities, every chemical plant and refinery, and every air base with thousands of guided missiles. If Israel were to attack, those massive barrages would immediately begin.

As Netanyahu pondered this dilemma, he had to deal not only with his security establishment but also with unremitting pressure from Washington. A mere few days after Oct. 7, the Biden administration intervened and made clear its opposition to an Israeli preemptive strike against Hezbollah—a position it would maintain over the next year. In fact, when Israel finally eliminated Hassan Nasrallah in a strike on his bunker on Sept. 27, 2024, Biden’s reaction was an irate “Bibi, what the fuck?”

The Biden administration displayed a similar hands-off attitude toward Iran’s proxy in Yemen, allowing Tehran to pile more pressure on Israel. The Houthis joined the fight with their skirts, sandals, and Iranian supplied anti-ship missiles and drones that not only deprived Israel of its secondary Red Sea sea port access but also targeted commercial vessels, blocking navigation in the area and forcing shipping companies to find longer, more expensive routes, thereby augmenting U.S. and international pressure on Israel to end the war. Washington allowed Iran to stop maritime traffic in the Red Sea and Suez Canal without any retaliation against Tehran and its own maritime traffic, while Western disarray was compounded by the spectacle of very expensive European navies doing nothing much even as their Mediterranean ports lost all their Asian traffic.

This shameful passivity reinforced the Israeli conviction that France, Italy, and Spain, unable and unwilling to defend even their own direct material interests, would only yield to Muslim demographic and political pressure in other respects as well. Only the British joined the United States in eventually striking the Houthis, though mostly symbolically and nowhere near the sustained and targeted campaign required to destroy Houthi capabilities.

Between American permissiveness toward Iran’s multipronged campaign and Washington’s support for Netanyahu’s domestic opposition, calls for a Gaza cease-fire intensified and became the default position across the political landscape, from Israel’s left and even moderate center to most European governments, in addition to the Biden administration.

It is against this backdrop that Netanyahu’s pure resolve must be understood. With this remarkable array of forces, external and internal, bearing down on him, his tenacity was the only thing that mattered.

Having withstood this unrelenting pressure over the course of a year, Netanyahu had maneuvered into a position where, in the second half of 2024, Israel was able to turn the tables and reshape the entire geopolitical picture in a historic sequence of events. The Mossad and the IDF brilliantly wrecked Hezbollah with the awe-inspiring three-part takedown of exploding pagers, which forced the use of booby-trapped field radios, which in turn forced the in-person meeting of senior Hezbollah commanders, who were then eliminated in a precision strike that left the group totally paralyzed, nullifying its vast rocket and missile arsenal. Because he had monopolized Hezbollah’s command and control, Nasrallah’s death shut down the organization.

Although the Biden administration would succeed finally in imposing a cease-fire in Lebanon, after reportedly threatening to sponsor a Security Council resolution that could lead to international sanctions on Israel, by then the die was cast. As a consequence of Hezbollah’s demolition, Iran’s Syrian vassal, Bashar al-Assad, found himself defenseless, having long become dependent on Hezbollah and Iranian militias for manpower. In early December 2024, the half-century rule of the Assad family came to an end. With the fall of their fiefdom in Syria, and with the IDF in control of the Gaza-Egypt border, the Iranians lost the ability to rebuild Hezbollah and Hamas, giving Israel its most conclusive victory since 1949.

Israel’s astounding technical prowess and the fighting spirit of its military are, of course, integral to this victory. But none of the above could have happened had Netanyahu not held out against an unfriendly American administration and an accompanying assortment of authoritative figures and institutions, as well as howling mobs in Israel and around the world that demanded a cease-fire and the Israeli prime minister in handcuffs.

Netanyahu still faces a major test. With the Houthis now in the crosshairs of the new friendly and engaged U.S. administration and its British ally, only Iran itself still stands, now on the verge of machining fissile material for a bomb. Israel destroyed Iran’s best air defenses in precision strikes last October, leaving it vulnerable to Israeli attacks on its nuclear sites as soon as Israel’s new air refueling tankers arrive. But without the large bomb loads of American B-2 and B-52 long-range heavy bombers, the targeting must depend on hitting exactly the right building in the right base. The penalty of imperfection is too great, for it would allow the obscurantist regime to have a nuclear device, even if not missile-delivered warheads. That is not an acceptable risk. Netanyahu has no option but to keep buggering on.

Foreign Ministry: ‘Some details Germany unfortunately left out’

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
-

The German Foreign Office published a statement condemning an Israeli strike on a hospital in Gaza, writing, “The cruel Hamas terror must be fought. But international humanitarian law applies — with a special obligation to protect civilian sites. How is a hospital supposed to be evacuated in under 20 minutes?”

Israel’s Foreign Ministry replied: “We would expect a clear and strong condemnation of Hamas’s use of hospitals, not rhetoric that encourages Hamas’s continued abuse of civilian infrastructure.

“Here are important facts that are unfortunately missing from your statement: This was a precise strike on a single building that was used by Hamas as a terror command and control center. There was no medical activity taking place in this building.”

Israel clarified that “prior to the strike, an early warning was issued. There were no civilian casualties as a result of the strike. The strike was carried out while avoiding further damage to the hospital compound, which remained operational for continued medical treatment.”

The Israeli statement goes on to explain: “At Al-Nasr Hospital, the Head of the Nursing Department, Muhammad Sakr, just published a Facebook post in which he stated that he had received death threats from Islamic Jihad operatives after he and his colleagues refused to allow terrorists who did not require medical treatment into the hospital compound.

“Hamas and other terrorist organizations use hospitals in Gaza for terrorist activities. This is what you should be speaking out against.”

Rekindling a Forgotten Legacy: A Pesach Journey into the Heart of Sephardic-Portuguese Heritage in the Caribbean

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
-

Our recent Pesach Seder, hosted by Rabbi Dr. Yehonatan Elazar-DeMota’s esteemed family in Santiago—the Dominican Republic’s vibrant second-largest city—was an experience of profound cultural resonance and renewal. Amid the flicker of candlelight and the low hum of heartfelt melodies, we gathered with Rabbi Dr. Elazar’s family and several dedicated community members. The air was alive with the intermingling of Spanish and Ladino, as new melodies intertwined with time-honored chants.

At the Seder table, a lamb spinal cord—a symbolic centerpiece—spoke to the ancient traditions, while local fruit juices, including tangy tamarindo, refreshed our spirits. Over Shabbat and throughout the Chag, we delved deep into the community’s storied past: a history that began in the New World, nurtured by pride, resilience, and a passion embodied by Rabbi Dr. Yehonatan Elazar-DeMota himself—a man determined to pursue a doctorate in international law and champion the legacy of Sephardic-Portuguese contributions. His extensive research, including dives into the archives and testimonies preserved in the Amsterdam Library, affirmed a commitment to giving overdue recognition to a people whose influence transcends borders and centuries.

A Tapestry Woven in Time: Sephardic-Portuguese in the Caribbean

Dating back to the forced expulsions from Spain in 1492 and Portugal in 1497, Sephardic-Portuguese Jews carried with them the resilient spirit of survival as they established vibrant communities across the Caribbean. Historically, these communities not only became integral to local economies but also played a formidable role in controlling trade routes and establishing strategic outposts. Their maritime legacy is especially remarkable—many among them assumed roles akin to pirates, engaging in daring naval skirmishes and even fighting against Portuguese ships on behalf of the Dutch. This adventurous facet adds a layer of commerce, courage, and cultural resilience to their rich heritage.

Historian Mordechai Arbel, renowned for his exhaustive research into Sephardic cultural heritage, observes:

“The Sephardic-Portuguese communities of the Caribbean are living testaments to endurance and adaptation. Their legacy is etched into the social and political fabric of the Dominican Republic, much like the enduring memory of our own people’s journey from slavery to sovereignty.”
(Quoted in an interview in February 2024)

Complementing this perspective, Menashe Ben Yisrael has meticulously documented the interplay between Sephardic heritage and Caribbean history. He explains:

“The Sephardic-Portuguese not only preserved their cultural identity in the face of adversity but also actively engaged in shaping the socio-political evolution of the Caribbean. Their story is a dynamic chronicle of migration, trade, and resilient statecraft that has been underrecognized by the broader Jewish world.”
(Quoted at an academic symposium in March 2024)

Voices from the Journey: Scholarship and Commitment

Among the voices at our Seder,  Rabbi Dr. Yehonatan Elazar-DeMota stood out, advocating for both cultural remembrance and sustainable future action. His words resonated:

“Many of the diaspora Sephardic-Portuguese communities were very concentrated on preserving and remembering the past. There isn’t much thought or sustainable action looking into the future.”

Rabbi Dr. Elazar’s call is clear—beyond memory, there is an urgent need to nurture renewed leadership and create economic opportunities that bridge heritage with modern sustainability.

Charting a New Course: Sustainable Heritage Through Community and Tourism

The vision for the future is both ambitious and inspiring. A Sephardic-Portuguese family from Florida has proposed transforming a substantial tract of land into a style kibbutz—a sustainable community hub aimed at reconnecting scattered Sephardic-Portuguese individuals throughout the Caribbean, with the first goal of gathering up to 400 community members in the Dominican Republic. This initiative is a tangible effort to forge a self-sustaining future that honors a rich history of cultural interaction and enduring resilience.

Beyond establishing the kibbutz, the plan calls for innovative sustainable tourism. In collaboration with Rabbi Dr. Elazar, I have offered to help develop an eco-friendly tourism infrastructure designed to enhance hospitality services across the Dominican Republic and other Caribbean islands where Sephardic-Portuguese communities and individuals reside. This dual approach—combining communal renewal with modern economic development—seeks to generate new income streams while reclaiming the influential narrative of Sephardic-Portuguese impact on Caribbean culture and politics.

The Intersection of History, Politics, and Pesach Spirit

Pesach ties the past to the present as we commemorate liberation from bondage. The Sephardic-Portuguese witnessed the rise and fall of empires and catalyzed pivotal changes in local and international arenas. Their contributions to the Dominican Republic’s independence underscore a broader struggle against subjugation—a struggle echoed in every Seder plate and every retelling of our shared history. Even as historical accounts recount Amsterdam’s role as a hub for Sephardic leadership—only to see its vibrant community decimated during the Shoa, leaving a void that still challenges collective memory—there remains an urgent need to nurture new leadership, particularly in the Dominican Republic, where only around 1,000 affiliated Jews remain, 400 of them Sephardic-Portuguese descendants. This remnant community carries the weight of centuries of history and resilience, yet faces the pressing challenge of revitalizing identity, community structures, and educational continuity for future generations.

A Pesach of Remembrance and Hope

This Pesach, as we break Matza in Santiago and recount the vivid tales of Sephardic-Portuguese daring—from their control of trade routes and audacious maritime exploits to their far-reaching cultural legacy—we are reminded that freedom is a living dialogue between past triumphs and future aspirations. The insights of Mordechai Arbel, Menashe Ben Yisrael, and  Rabbi Dr. Yehonatan Elazar-DeMota serve as a clarion call: it is time to embrace a future where historical memory fuels sustainable progress, cultural revival, and renewed unity.

Let this op-ed serve as both tribute and testament—a narrative of liberation spanning centuries and oceans. In the memory of our ancestors and the promise of tomorrow, may the legacy of Sephardic-Portuguese resilience inspire a new chapter of hope and unity across the Caribbean and beyond.

Attn; US Foreign Relations Comm Chair Senator James Risch from David Bedein in Jeruslem

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
-

Dear Senator Risch,

I write to you because of our longstanding relationship due to your courageous stance on UNRWA.

There are two issues to bring to your attention,

First,US Middle East envoy Steven Witkoff has issued a directive which asks that Israel participate in negotiations on this coming Sabbath, April 17, in Vienna.

US Envoy Witkoff is more than aware of the law in Israel which forbids the conduct of official business on the Sabbath except in matters of life and death.

This is not the first time that Witkoff has issued a directive to Israel to break the Sabbath.

Second,it has come to our attention that the US now considers renewal of civil aid to UNRWA, following the spread of false information that UNRWA has changed its policies.

Kindly peruse these links for an update on UNRWA policy, where the situation gotten worse:

https://israelbehindthenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/p14-17.pdf

https://www.terrorism-info.org.il/app/uploads/2024/05/E_114_24.pdf

https://www.cfnepr.com/205640/Movies

https://israelbehindthenews.com/2024/11/27/an-updated-unrwa-peace-initiative

It goes without saying that you would be a welcome guest in Jerusalem.

Thank you,

David

Cognitive Dissonance in Israel Foreign Policy decision making.

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
-

On Thursday, April 10, 1025, I traveled with Middle East education expert Dr. Arnon Groiss to conduct on-the- record interviews of European Union officials concerning EU policy towards UNRWA and the PLO, also known as the PA, with an aim to sharing research conducted concerning UNRWA and the PA.

Links for recent research that we shared with the EU:

https://www.terrorism-info.org.il/app/uploads/2024/05/E_114_24.pdf

https://israelbehindthenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/p14-17.pdf

https://www.cfnepr.com/205640/Movies

An Updated UNRWA Peace Initiative

Officers by Day Terrorists by Night

Following this presentation, EU officials said that Israel government policy makers had said that Israel would continue to support the PA,and the Palestinian security forces with no restrictions on education. EU officials emphasized that their prime concern was the stability of the PA. EU officials do not seem to know about the 2007 Mecca accord, which assures Hamas permanent standing inside the Palestininan Authority,

Ten Obstacles to Middle East Peace – Israel Behind the News

Waiting to hear a response from the government of Israel to this EU messagel

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