Hamas Consolidating its Role in Ongoing Rule of Gaza and Threat of Further October 7s

"[A deal to bring peace to Gaza represents a] great breakthrough [despite signs from both Hamas and Israel that significant hurdles remained before a deal can be implemented]."

"It's a big step for the Middle East, and people are really impressed by it, and they're surprised by it."  

"[Israel is] very happy [about the deal]."

"Israel helped us, and they've been very good."

"Will it go through its ups and downs? It's a very complex situation over there."

U.S. President Donald J. Trump 

 

"Israel has conveyed its comments and concerns on the proposed framework to our American counterparts."

"The version that has been made public does not reflect Israel's positions."

Doron Spielman, spokesman, office of Israeli Prime Minister 

President Donald Trump gestures during a family photo during a summit to support ending the more than two-year Israel-Hamas war in Gaza after a breakthrough ceasefire deal, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025, in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, as Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani watch. In back are the Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Meshal Al Ahmad Al Sabah, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Netherland’s Prime Minister Dick Schoof (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, Pool)

 

"[Hamas will not change its mentality and] resisting the occupation is its holy mission."

"This is an exceptional phase in Palestinian history. Because of forced necessity, the hard circumstances in Gaza, we accept this agreement."

"But I think that as Hamas, I can confirm that we didn't change our mentality, our goal to end the occupation, to continue to end the occupation with the Palestinian factions, because this is our holy mission."

Hamas's Ghazi Hamad 

Ghazi Hamad, member of Hamas Political Office, speaks during a protest in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Beirut, Lebanon, October 29, 2023; illustrative. (credit: REUTERS/AMR ALFIKY)

 

U.S. President Donald Trump may make his triumphant 'peace' statements to burnish his efforts to be recognized as a global peacemaker, in the process leaving the most affected party to continue to cope with the fallout, but that doesn't mean that the nation whose existential future is impacted by such decisions must accept them. And Israel did not, voicing its objections over the plan promoted by Mr. Trump to bring an end to the Gaza war. 

 

Demanding "verifiable" disarmament by the terrorist group Hamas, which had declared for Western consumption that it was prepared to surrender its weapons under a plan supported by the American president, to a Palestinian governing committee yet to be established, Israel knows what the U.S. president prefers not to acknowledge. Any seeming cooperation on the part of Hamas to appear to be on board with that peace plan simply buys it more time to get on with its goal.

 

That time fruitfully used in restoring what it has lost, post October 7, 2023; weaponry, territory, trust of Palestinians in Gaza, and Hamas operatives lost to the Israel Defense Forces huntdown of Hamas members, hiding behind the civilian population in Gaza. The latest document the Board of Peace released calling for Israel to cease its military operations "without delay", for "phased withdrawal" from Gaza is a losing proposition.

 

In control of 60 percent of Gaza, Israel "will not retreat" -- stated an Israeli politician -- from its position in the Gaza Strip. Which essentially protects Israeli citizens --from a repeat of October 7, promised time and again by members of the Hamas politboro. Yet the Board of Peace insists: "We have provided a pragmatic path forward to transform Gaza by removing Hamas from power and seeing it hand over its weapons" said one of the Board's officials. The plan is meant to result in "improvement of life in Gaza and enhancement of security in Israel".

 

The 20-point plan focused on ending Hamas rule along with its stockpile of weapons to be replaced with a Palestinian government and police to enable reconstruction and reconciliation with Israel. Reconciliation means what...a recognition of Israel's right to exist, a fundamental issue the Palestinian Authority has never agreed to? 

 

Hamas to shed its heavy weaponry as part of a bridging proposal reviving the peace process following months of mediated negotiations in Cairo. Heavy weaponry...rockets and other violent propulsion systems, but arms so beloved by the Hamas rank-and-file, an issue set aside for the present... Pointing out that actions by Hamas since both signed that plan, signify unmistakably that preparations for "further October 7-type massacres", went nowhere.

 

Hamas has agreed to a disarmament plan, according to the Gaza Board of Peace, but only if Israel withdraws from the territory. Former Canadian ambassador to Israel Jon Allen is 'highly skeptical' about the deal announced by U.S. President Donald Trump, saying the president has made many promises, but significant controversy remains over the outcome.  CBC News

 

 

 

 

The Oppressed People of Revolutionary Iran Amidst its Nuclear Threat

"[Negotiating with the United States would be neither] wise, intelligent nor honourable. Negotiating with such a government should not be done."

"We must understand this correctly and not be misled into thinking that sitting at the negotiation table with that government will resolve certain matters. No, negotiations with the United States will not solve any problems."

"They make statements about us, express opinions and issue threats. If they threaten us, we will threaten them. If they act on those threats, we will do the same. If they undermine our nation's security, we will undoubtedly respond in kind."

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Tehran, Iran

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Photographer: Majid Saeedi/Getty Images

 

The Islamic Republic of Iran has for years suppressed the wishes of the Iranian people to live fruitful lives without the interference of strict medieval-era Sharia law that imposes restrictions on every aspect of people's lives. Iranians have attempted time and again to convey their wishes to the hardline Islamist government that the version of Islam they have been forced to live under has made their lives a torment. The advent of the return of former Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini from exile in 1979 and the downfall of the Shah of Iran introduced the Iranian public to repression, subjugation and poverty of opportunities. 

The octopus arms of Revolutionary Iran that brought the dictatorship of a theocracy intolerant of any sign of its population rejecting the imposition of Islamist principles and practises under the watchful eyes of the ruling mullahs and their military arm, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has diminished quality of life entirely for the population they command. But the aspirations of the Islamic Republic goes well beyond imposing their version of Islam on its citizenry. In forming a sectarian alliance with other Shi'ite-led and majority governments, Tehran aspires to transform the entire Middle East including Sunni-majority nations into its satellites.

 

The sole exception being the State of Israel -- whose presence on land formerly 'consecrated' to Islam, irrespective of that land being ancestrally the heritage of Judeans and current Israeli citizens --  destined, as far as the Iranian government is concerned, to be destroyed. To that end, the al Quds division of the IRGC founded, sponsored, armed, organized, trained and guided Islamist terrorist groups whose primary function would be to attack and ultimately vanquish the Israeli Defense Forces, and that done, destroy the Jewish state and its Jewish inhabitants. Its proxy militia Hezbollah was conscripted into the Republic's vision for that singular purpose. In tandem with Hamas in Gaza and the Houthis in Yemen they formed a formidable threat to Israel, fortified by Shi'ite militias in Iraq.

 

Iran said it is ready to negotiate with the United States over its nuclear program

The IRGC nuclear program that began with ever more advanced centrifuges enriching uranium in hidden locations to the point where the creation of nuclear bombs could be created to match the technological advances of the short- and medium-range ballistic missiles that could be fitted with nuclear heads, continues to concern Western intelligence agencies, and certainly it does Israel. Iran's claims that its interest in nuclear is restricted to domestic purposes is clearly a feint that fools no one. It has made no secret of its intentions against Israel and its antipathy to the United States.

 

"With me, it's very simple: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon", said American President Donald J. Trump. Signing an executive order on Tuesday for the reimposition of "maximum pressure" sanctions on the Islamic Republic, Mr. Trump said he felt "torn" on signing the order. "It's very tough on Iran", he said, without doubt referring to the additional economic pressure imposed on an  already flailing economy. "Hopefully we are not going to have to use it very much. I'm unhappy to do it"; not for any sympathy with the government, but empathy for the Iranian people living under economic hardships.

 

For months prior to this latest setback for Iran, the Republic has been signalling its readiness to re-engage in talks with the United States in the interests of negotiating the issue of its rapidly advancing nuclear program -- ostensibly in exchange for lifting crushing economic sanctions draining billions of dollars from the Iranian economy. With Khamenei's latest comments, the Iranian rial crashed to a record low of 872,000 rials to US$1 in aftermarket trading. 

"The Americans did not uphold their end of the deal. The very person who is in office today tore up the agreement. He said he would, and he did", complained Khamenei dolefully. Reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian on Thursday promised dialogue with the West. Several days later Khamenei contradicted that statement. While Iran's Foreign Minister stated that Iran would never engage in talks under the kind of pressure the newly imposed sanctions bear on the country.

 

Thousands of Iranians from across Europe rallied impressively in Paris on February 8, urging world leaders to put more pressure on Iran’s ruling clerics."Instead of appeasing the mullahs, [the world] should stand side by side with the Iranian people", Maryam Rajavi, president of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (the political wing of the People's Mujahedin of Iran), told the rally. "We say your demise has arrived. With or without negotiations, with or without nuclear weapons, uprising and overthrow await you", NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi said.

 

Supporters of the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran wave a flag of their organization (C) along with Iran’s pre-revolution flag during a demonstration in Paris, on February 8, 2025, on the occasion of the 46th anniversary of the uprising against the Shah. (Thibaud MORITZ / AFP)

Creating a New Palestinian Haven

 

"The United States will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it, too"

"We'll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site, and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out, create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs."

"We have a plan to build new settlements for Palestinians outside of the Gaza Strip, and for the U.S. to take "ownership" in redeveloping the war-torn territory into] the Riviera of the Middle East."

U.S President Donald J. Trump

Donald Trump delivers remarks in the Oval Office at the White House. Photograph: Abaca/Rex/Shutterstock

A bold new vision for the Middle East emerges with the change of presidency in the United States; a proposed move that visualizes moving an entire population away from its familiar landscape which that same population has perpetually failed to develop into its potential as an economic, thriving and self-reliant nation, a population that mourns the fact that it has not  yet achieved national status, but one whose leaders consistently and adamantly reject peace with its neighbour, a condition required before statehood. 

As a lightbulb aspiration, to separate two warring populations; one accused of 'occupation' of the second on the basis of its being forced to deploy its military in attack-prevention mode against its citizens from the neighbour's never-ending efforts at violent and lethal expressions of rejection of their presence on their very own Judaic ancestral geography, willing to share it in part with the other which rejects such offers in favour of destroying the established state entirely.

 

There is logic in separation. Where the violently covetous group can move to another geographical location, there to found its final place of residence as people have been doing since time immemorial. Leaving the continuously assaulted nation to live in peace and enjoy the prosperity it has worked for over the generations, a prosperity that Palestinians shunned in favour of continuing to live on the charitable generosity of a world that both pities and wonders at its lack of  dignity in refusing to raise itself to a level of independence through strategic and worthwhile devotion to proving itself capable of self-determination, advancing its own future, not that of the status of refugees.

 

Qatar's prime minister and foreign minister Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani attends a meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025.  (AP Photo/Khaled Elfiqi)

To the Arab world at large, the suggestion is one of forced displacement in favour of  giving a non-Arab nation breathing room to continue developing and thriving as it can and it must. That this represents a deliberately blinkered form of hypocrisy is more than obvious to even the casual eye. The Palestinian population which has grown in numbers through procreation supported by global charity refused to surrender its dedication to violent attacks on its neighbour. A separation solution fails to sit well with its Arab brethren despite that those same nations sharing the Middle East have no interest in nor intention of giving Palestinians a portion of their own large territories. 

 

The Syrian Civil war which began in 2011 and continues in some form to this day eliminated a half-million Syrians in a tribal/sectarian war. Far more Syrians were displaced during the conflict than would be the case with Palestinians leaving the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, a man who rivalled Iraq's Saddam Hussein in butchery, retained its legitimacy with the Arab League, despite chemical-gassing and barrel-bombing its citizens.  

Saudi Arabia, in response to President Trump's announcement of  his intention to clear Palestinians out of an unlivable environment their very own actions created in attacking Israel, rejects the prospect of Palestinians leaving the territory to strike out as refugees to find a welcoming home elsewhere, where they can shed their lethal antipathy to Jewish Israel, and focus on building lives for themselves and their offspring. Saudi Arabia's retort that its insistence on a Palestinian state is "firm, steadfast and unwavering" might think of generously extending a gift of land out of a portion of the vast geography of Arabia it holds.

 

In the same token, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Britain and others who deplore such a recommendation as Mr. Trump's might consider how attractive it might be for them to live alongside a neighbour constantly plotting to murder their citizens as a symptom of racial disaffection. They are so obligated in their support of the Palestinians, it might behoove them to offer space sliced out of their own geographic holdings and enjoy the penchant of Palestinian leaders to foment disorder. 

 

"The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia also stresses what it had previously announced regarding its absolute rejection of infringement on the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, whether through Israeli settlement policies, annexation of Palestinian lands or efforts to displace the Palestinian people from their land", offered Saudi Arabia which in an tribal contest ousted the Hashemite tribe in Arabia so the House of Saud could have  unobstructed and  unchallenged conquest, necessitating the migration of Hashemites to Jordan to found their kingdom there.

 

"The comments last night [Mr.Trump's solution for the Palestinians] were, of course, very concerning. I always adopt the approach when it comes to the U.S. administration of: judge them based on what they do and not what they say", remarked Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin, a man whose loathing of Israel comes close to matching the Palestinians'. He might consider inviting them to make their home in Ireland; a match made in their version of Heaven. 

Trump's proposal on "deportation from Gaza is not something that either the region or we would accept. Even thinking about it, in my opinion is wrong and absurd", stated Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in an interview with the state-run Anadola Agency. Turkey, of course, infamously created its own version of genocide against Armenians, a reality which it refuses to acknowledge. Turkey's longstanding war against Kurds infamously rejects the very idea that the 60 million Kurds in the world are stateless because Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria co-opted the Kurds' ancestral territory.

 

As for Germany's rejection of the idea of moving Palestinians out of direct contact with their Israeli victims, Germany has much to answer for. The scale of its assault against the humanity represented by Europe's pre-Second World War Jewish population was a massive display of state-organized inhumanity in its Final Solution meant to rid Europe entirely of its Jewish population, and it succeeded to an unimaginable extent. Germany alone is hugely responsible for the resurgence of Zionism, the desperate need for the rebirth of Israel to prevent another Holocaust. 

 

Jordan's foreign minister Ayman Safadi, left, and Saudi foreign minster, Faisal bin Farhan, attend a meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025.  (AP Photo/Khaled Elfiqi)