(JNS) Dr. Fiamma Nirenstein - Yes, Trump's team negotiated directly with Hamas to secure the release of American hostage Edan Alexander. And yes, the U.S. struck a side deal with the Houthis to prevent attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea. But at the core of Trump's Middle East policy remains a strategic call for Saudi Arabia and the broader Arab world to join the Abraham Accords. According to Netanyahu's strategic doctrine, Israel's role is to provide regional security by defeating Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. Without that, any regional architecture involving the Saudis, Emiratis, Egyptians and Jordanians risks collapse. Yet Israel faces international condemnation driven by a tidal wave of lies about the IDF, a military that, unlike any other, goes to extraordinary lengths to minimize civilian casualties. The goal of the war in Gaza is to corner Hamas until it relinquishes its weapons and returns the hostages. If Hamas were to surrender its hostages and weapons, the fighting would end. What kind of twisted logic imagines that Israel fights for pleasure? This is a war for survival. In the near-unanimous global condemnation of Netanyahu's refusal to capitulate there lies an implicit endorsement of the Oct. 7 atrocities, and a disturbing societal absorption of lies about supposed Israeli war crimes. It was Hamas that made the humanitarian situation in Gaza catastrophic by seizing food at gunpoint. Video evidence confirms this, even as Israel is scapegoated. Civilian casualties are the direct result of Hamas's militarization of homes, schools, hospitals, children's bedrooms, and its deliberate policy of preventing civilians from sheltering in its underground tunnels. Israel cannot allow this terror regime to survive. The writer, a fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, served as vice president of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the Italian Chamber of Deputies.
2025-05-20 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive