Britain’s new Holocaust Memorial

 Updated version of article published in the Jerusalem Report, issue dated 12 January, 2026

          On January 22, 2026 King Charles gave his Royal Assent to The Holocaust Memorial Bill, which automatically converted it into an Act of Parliament.  In a few years the UK government hopes to unveil a striking new Holocaust Memorial close to the Houses of Parliament.  After more than a decade of setbacks, delay and frustration, the project has passed its last hurdle.  Now all that is left is to build it.

It was back in January 2014 that then UK prime minister, David Cameron, feeling that the UK had not done enough to memorialise the unique horrors of the Holocaust, set up a Holocaust Commission. 

“The Holocaust is unique in man’s inhumanity to man,” ran its remit. “…As the events of the Holocaust become ever more distant, they will feel increasingly remote to current and future generations. The Holocaust Commission will investigate what further measures should be taken to ensure Britain has a permanent and fitting memorial to the Holocaust...”

   It was not as though Britain had failed to commemorate the Shoah. A Holocaust Memorial was established in 1983 in Hyde Park, in the very centre of London. Conceived as a garden of boulders surrounded by white-stemmed birch trees, the largest boulder is inscribed with this text from the Book of Lamentations:  "For these I weep. Streams of tears flow from my eyes because of the destruction of my people."

            Remembrance services are held there every year, the most recent on July 7, 2025, when Prince William joined survivors and bereaved families, together with key figures from the Jewish community and British public life, to honor the victims of the Holocaust.

            There is also a permanent Holocaust exhibition in the Imperial War Museum in South London, designed to connect the Holocaust to the broader events of the Second World War.​ Following a multi-million redevelopment in 2021, the exhibition now extends over two gallery floors, presenting a detailed account of the Holocaust and its impact.

   In January 2015 Cameron’s Holocaust Commission issued its report and recommendations which were instantly accepted in full by the government, and endorsed by the Opposition.

It recommended there should be a “striking and prominent” new memorial, located in central London, to serve as the focal point of the nation’s commemoration of the Holocaust. In addition a world-class Learning Centre, to be located together with the Memorial, should become the hub for Holocaust education in every part of the country. 

To help carry the project forward, the government set up a UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation composed of eminent establishment figures including the Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis. The Foundation quickly embarked on a dual search – for a suitable location and a winning design.

The decisions it reached on both instantly plunged the whole project into a whirlpool of objections. Dispute and dissension have pursued it ever since.

The site selected for the new memorial, and included in the terms of the international design competition that the Foundation also announced, was a small park adjacent to the Victoria Tower, which stands at the far end of the Palace of Westminster, the seat of the UK parliament.  At less than five acres, Victoria Tower Gardens is about the size of three football pitches. 

The announcement was no sooner published than it was followed by a flood of objections.  Victoria Tower Gardens, it was argued, is too small to absorb a large memorial.  Much of its green open space and amenity for everyday public recreation would be destroyed. The scheme would harm the setting of the Palace of Westminster World Heritage Site, as well as existing listed monuments in the gardens.  Security, crowding, traffic, and flooding risk were additional problems. Siting it within the Imperial War Museum would be more appropriate. Finally it was pointed out that an Act of 1900 protected the gardens as public open space.

It was on this issue that objectors sought a legal ruling.  In 2022 they took their case to the High Court, and won.  The legal determination was that the Holocaust Memorial would breach the 1900 Act, which restricts the use of Victoria Tower Gardens to that of a public garden.

To overcome this legal barrier, the then Conservative government introduced a new piece of legislation – the Holocaust Memorial Bill – to disapply certain provisions of the 1900 Act, so as to allow the project to proceed as planned. This parliamentary strategy enabled the project to remain “up and running”.  Some objectors, however, signalled their intention to pursue further legal action.

The international design competition attracted 92 entries.  In October 2017 the Foundation  announced that the British-Ghanaian architect Sir David Adjaye, leading a team that included Israeli designer Ron Arad, had submitted the winning design.

Their memorial building features 23 bronze fins, with the gaps between the fins representing the 22 countries where the Holocaust destroyed Jewish communities.  Each gap acts as a separate path down to a hall leading into the Learning Center.

The design was immediately subject to a torrent of criticism.  The row of tall bronzed fins and sunken courtyard was, it was asserted, visually harsh and out of sympathy with both the subject matter and its surroundings. Some contended that combining an underground learning centre with a memorial would result in a cramped, didactic experience that risks oversimplifying the Holocaust.  Others that the design would create a “theme‑park” style procession and potential security target, subordinating contemplative remembrance to spectacle and crowd management.

All these, and a multitude of other objections have been thoroughly and meticulously addressed during the passage of the Bill through the House of Lords.  And now the Bill has become an Act of Parliament.  This means the groundbreaking ceremony could take place before the end of 2026. 

          Official project literature suggests that the construction phase would take around three years.  So Britain’s new Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre, envisioned way back in 2014, could finally become a reality some time in 2029.


Updated version of article published in the Jerusalem Report, issue dated 12 January, 2026:
https://www.jpost.com/jerusalem-report/article-881760

Yemen in chaos

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 21 January 2026

The people of Yemen are living through one of the world’s worst humanitarian and economic crises.  Yemen, long a tangle of competing interests, has become a battlefield.  Not only are three major entities, each wielding armed force, competing for power, but two Gulf states have been close to war with each other over Yemen-related issues. 

The three main combatants​ are the internationally recognized government, mainly operating out of Riyadh​ in Saudi Arabia; the Southern Transitional Council (STC) until recently based in Aden, but now dispersed;  and the Houthis, entrenched in the capital Sanaa.  Poverty, food insecurity and collapsed public services are affecting the population​s ​of all three.    

In 2025 over 19 million people – roughly half the population – were assessed as needing humanitarian assistance, while more than 80% of Yemenis were found to be living in poverty, many unable to meet basic food needs.

        Yemen’s internationally acknowledged sovereign authority resides in the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), established in 2022 after the previous unified republic disintegrated in the aftermath of the so-called “Arab Spring”.  The then-president ceded his powers and the governance of Yemen to the PLC, which is now led by Rashid Muhammad al-Alimi.  He holds the powers of the presidency, and is backed by Saudi Arabia. 

The Southern Transitional Council (STC) was formed in May 2017.  It is an attempt, backed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), to restore the independent South Yemen that had existed before the unification of north and south in 1990.  The movement is headed by Aidarus al‑Zoubaidi, once governor of Aden, who serves as its president.  Paradoxically al-Zoubadi, who is in armed conflict with the government, simultaneously serves as a vice-president in the PLC.

The STC’s political leadership was based in Aden, which it dubbed the capital of a future South Yemen, but its fortunes have recently undergone a dramatic reversal.  

On December 2 al-Zoubaidi launched a major offensive across southern and eastern Yemen.  Within a week STC forces controlled most of the former South Yemen’s territory, including almost all of the southern coastline.  

One month later, on January 2,  PLC president al‑Alimi ordered a counter​-offensive.  Backed by Saudi forces and airstrikes the PLC retook the towns captured by the STC, pushed its forces out of key positions, and assumed control of Aden, its main security sites and institutions.   By January 9 most of the STC’s December territorial gains had been reversed, and the PLC had re‑established its authority over the non‑Houthi south and east. 

Al-Zoubaidi fled to the UAE capital Abu Dhabi. Even so, the UAE, without formally renouncing its support for the STC, has announced its “counter​-terrorism mission” is at an end, and declared it ​intended to pull its remaining forces from Yemen.

​The present unhappy position stems back to 2011​, when popular forces within Yemen, imbued with the intoxicating zeal of the Arab Spring, forced President Ali Abdullah Saleh from power.  He abdicated in favor of his deputy, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.   

Hoping for a return to power, Saleh allied himself with the Houthis, who swept down from the north in a bid to overthrow the government.  Funded and supplied by Iran, and with Saleh’s help, during 2014-2015 the Houthis seized over 30% of the country including the capital, Sanaa.

In March 2015 Saudi Arabia, alarmed at the prospect of Iran gaining a foothold on the Arabian peninsular, formed an international coalition to support the government, and attacked the Houthis.  Since then the Houthis have entrenched themselves into their substantial tract of west Yemen from where, supported by Iran, they have been striking not only Israel, but international shipping which often had little or no direct connection to Israel.

Until December 30 Saudi Arabia and the UAE had never attacked each other directly.  On that day Saudi aircraft bombed the southern port of Mukalla, claiming they were targeting a UAE weapons shipment destined for the STC’s anti-government campaign. The Mukalla strike, an unprecedented escalation, was followed by the PLC’s successful counterattack on the STC.  

The international community continues to fail Yemen.  Despite President Donald Trump’s peace-making aspirations and close relations with the leaders of both the UAE and Saudi Arabia, the US has not pressured either to de-escalate the political tensions.

​The US has not interven​ed in Yemen’s internal civil war​, ​nor ​sought regime change in Sanaa.​ What the US concentrated on was degrading the Houthis’ ability to attack shipping​. US naval forces have taken the lead in coalition interception operations, shooting down Houthi missiles, drones and unmanned surface vessels aimed at merchant shipping and warships in and around the Red Sea.  The US directly linked these defensive actions at sea to targeted on‑shore strikes, since many of the radars and launchers destroyed were enabling the attacks on international shipping lanes.​

On May 6, 2025 a ​US-Houthi ceasefire arrangement brokered by Oman took effect, ending the US air campaign in exchange for a halt to attacks on US vessels.  The Houthis explicitly stated that this did not apply to Israel, and that they would continue to attack vessels in the Red Sea.​  The ceasefire has held.

As for the UN, it has long had the Yemen situation under review, although its efforts have not succeeded in resolving its conflicts, either political or military. 

It was on September 5, 2021 that Hans Grundberg took up the post of UN Special Envoy for Yemen.  He currently works under a Security Council mandate to mediate an end to the conflict in Yemen.  His remit is to facilitate a Yemeni‑owned political process leading to an inclusive political settlement. 

This is not entirely a “pie in the sky” aspiration, since in April 2022 Grundberg actually secured a nationwide two-month truce between the Houthis and the government.  He secured two renewals of the truce (to early August and then to October 2, 2022), providing roughly six months of relative calm.  Even though the truce later lapsed, Grundberg  was able to use it to open some limited political and economic space for a time.

The UN is now reduced to issuing ineffective, if well-intentioned, aspirations for Yemen’s future.  On December 22 the Security Council published a statement reaffirming its support for the efforts of the UN Special Envoy, and its…”strong commitment to the unity, sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Yemen, and to the Presidential Leadership Council and the Government of Yemen.”

Small comfort to the struggling, poverty-stricken and battle-weary Yemenis.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Yemen's fractured power struggle deepens its humanitarian, political crisis," 21 January 2026:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-883829

Published in Eurasia Review, 23 January 2026:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/23012026-yemen-in-chaos-oped/

The BBC and the Israel connection

 Published in the Jerusalem Post Weekend Magazine, 16 Jan 2026

In terms of weekly audience reach and reputation, the BBC is the world’s leading international broadcasting organization.  As well as serving the UK, it transmits entertainment, information, news and current events via TV, radio and the internet to audiences measured in hundreds of millions around the world. Yet it is perpetually struggling with the obligation, built into its very DNA, to operate to the highest standards of objectivity, impartiality and lack of bias. 

This problem, which has haunted it for more than half its existence, recently reached crisis point.  It has resulted in the resignations of the BBC’s director general, its head of news, and a member of the Board, and the threat by US President Donald Trump to sue the corporation for up to $5 billion.  In fact he has filed a lawsuit in a federal court for $10 billion.

          Launched in November 1922, the BBC was defined from its start by the high moral tone set by its first Director General, John Reith.  Reith summarized the nascent BBC's purpose as to “inform, educate and entertain”. The order of priority was deliberate. To his way of thinking, entertainment was far from broadcasting’s main purpose. Informing and educating the public was of far greater importance.

          His principles live on to this day in the BBC’s mission statement, which runs: "to act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain.”

From its earliest days Reith successfully established and maintained the independence of the BBC from political interference, and by 1939, when the UK went to war with Germany, the BBC’s reputation for accuracy, objectivity and impartiality was firmly established.  

Throughout World War II the BBC broadcast in a multiplicity of languages to Nazi-occupied Europe.  People all over the continent literally risked their lives to hear the truth from London.  Listening to foreign broadcasts could result in the death penalty. 

The BBC’s shortwave transmissions also covered the world.  At its peak the corporation was broadcasting across the globe in some 80 languages.  The wartime reputation that the BBC acquired of honesty, objectivity, and lack of bias is the bedrock on which today’s BBC stands.  Regrettably, in the more recent past the structure has wobbled badly on its foundations.

There is no doubt that, at some point during the 1960s-1970s, something began to go very wrong within the BBC.  Not a deliberate policy, perhaps, but reflecting a general shift to the left among the opinion-forming élite, the BBC’s editorial standards came to be dominated by what became known as “political correctness” – an unspoken consensus of ultra left-leaning views. 

In 2010 Mark Thompson, one-time Director General of the BBC, admitted: "In the BBC I joined 30 years ago there was, in much of current affairs…a massive bias to the left. The organization did struggle then with impartiality."

This shift to the left permeated the BBC’s output across many types of programming including domestic political comment and even comedy.  The philosophy that finally dominated left-wing thinking was termed “intersectionality”.  It asserted that victimhood was interrelated, and that all victims in whatever context – ethnic, sexual, economic, political – were to be supported.  Opposition to one form of discrimination, the doctrine ran, demanded opposition to all.  Palestinians were perceived to be victims of Israeli oppression, so it became de rigueur for left-wing activists to carry the Palestinian flag and chant pro-Palestinian slogans in mass demonstrations on a whole variety of topics, many having no connection with the Middle East.

Reflecting this, the BBC’s editorial stance began to shift significantly into the politically correct pro-Palestinian mode.  Eventually it became obvious that the corporation was no longer adhering to its much vaunted high standards of impartiality.

In April 2004 the Israeli government wrote to the BBC accusing its Middle East correspondent, Orla Guerin, of antisemitism and "total identification with the goals and methods of the Palestinian terror groups" over a report on a 16-year-old would-be suicide bomber.

That protest followed numerous examples of anti-Israel bias broadcast by the BBC.  Three years before, a British lawyer, Trevor Asserson, had become increasingly incensed with what appeared to be the BBC’s obvious departure from its declared principles.  Asserting that “the BBC’s coverage of the Middle East is infected by an apparent widespread antipathy toward Israel,” Asserson commissioned a series of in-depth studies.  For a seven-week period in 2001, his team recorded the bulk of the BBC’s Middle East news output on TV and radio, and for comparison they simultaneously recorded reports from a variety of other sources. Their conclusion: the BBC was in frequent breach of its obligations to be unbiased and impartial.

Trevor Asserson's report, matched by vociferous Palestinian claims of pro-Israel bias in the BBC, finally led the corporation to commission an investigation and report from one of its senior journalists, Malcolm Balen.

Balen examined hundreds of hours of broadcast material, both TV and radio, analyzing the content in minute detail.  This exhaustive study resulted in a 20,000-word report.  At the end of 2004 it was given highly restricted circulation within the top echelons of the BBC, but thereafter it was treated as Top Secret and locked away.  Although no details of its findings were released to the media, Keith Dovkants, a journalist working for the London Evening Standard, later claimed that elements of the report had been leaked, “including Balen's conclusion that the BBC's Middle East coverage had been biased against Israel”.

After repeated legal applications for its release under the UK Freedom of Information Act – actions defended by the corporation at a cost of over £330,000 – in 2012 the House of Lords, then the UK’s supreme court, ruled that as “a document held for journalistic purposes”, the report was explicitly excluded from the requirements of the Act.  So the Balen report remains under lock and key, but calls to the BBC to release it continue to this day.

Then came Hamas’s bloodlust assault on Israel on October 7, 2023, followed by the Israel-Gaza war. It was feared that the mindset within the BBC and its left-orientated, London-centric, news staff was too unshakably established to result in even-handed, unbiased reporting of the conflict.

And so it proved. The BBC’s consistent anti-Israel bias in its news reports and comment became  too outrageously partisan to be allowed to continue without protest.

Once again Trevor Asserson, now senior partner of an international law firm centered in Tel Aviv, gathered together a team of some 20 lawyers and 20 data scientists, and on a pro bono basis undertook a meticulous research programme analyzing how the BBC was reporting the Gaza conflict.  

Their report, published on September 6, 2024, presented a detailed analysis of the BBC’s news coverage during a four-month period beginning October 7, 2023.   

The BBC’s editorial guidelines demand impartiality, accuracy and adherence to editorial values and the public interest. The Asserson report identified no less than 1,553 breaches.

“The findings,” said the report, “reveal a deeply worrying pattern of bias and multiple breaches by the BBC of its own editorial guidelines.”

It also found that the BBC repeatedly downplayed Hamas terrorism, while presenting Israel as aggressive and militaristic.  It also revealed that some journalists used by the BBC in its coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict had previously expressed sympathy for Hamas and even celebrated its acts of terror.

            A week into the war came the explosion in the parking lot of the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City.  In reporting it, the BBC’s correspondent, speaking live from Gaza, said "it is hard to see what else this could be, really, given the size of the explosion, other than an Israeli airstrike or several airstrikes."  The BBC’s Arabic service repeated this assessment, and anti-Israel protests immediate broke out in both the Arab world and the West. 

It did not take long for the truth to emerge, but by then the damage had been done.  The explosion was the result of a misfired rocket by Islamic Jihad.  In its mealy-mouthed apology days later, the BBC still failed to make clear that the evidence showed conclusively that the explosion had not been an Israeli attack.

The hasty and unverified assertion that Israel must be responsible for the explosion at the Al-Ahli Hospital was followed by a further example a few weeks later.  On that occasion the BBC reported that IDF troops had entered Gaza’s Shifa Hospital, "targeting medical teams and Arab speakers."  This was either a willful or an unprofessional mis-reading of an IDF release, which stated that the troops had entered the hospital "accompanied by Arabic speakers and medical teams" to assist patients. The BBC did broadcast an adequate apology, but the report demonstrated the ingrained tendency for the BBC to rush to judgement against Israel.

As Hamas’s vast network of tunnels criss-crossing the Gaza Strip was slowly revealed, the BBC appeared to be doing its best to undermine the IDF’s discovery of a Hamas military command post directly underneath a hospital.

In his report Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s International Editor, seemed to suggest that Kalashnikov assault rifles found beneath the hospital might have nothing to do with Hamas, but be part of its own security.

          Examples of anti-Israel bias or inaccuracy by Bowen in reporting the Gaza conflict took up no less than 16 pages of the new Asserson Report.  It also singled out the BBC’s Arabic service as one of the most biased of all global media outlets, identifying eleven news and comment programmes that featured reporters who, it showed, had previously made public statements in support of Hamas – something viewers were never informed of.

The BBC promised to respond to Asserson.  After a few weeks it issued a short dismissive statement, questioning the methodology used in compiling and analyzing the data.

The current furore surrounding the BBC arises from the publication by the UK’s Daily Telegraph of a 19-page whistle-blowing memo written by a respected journalist named Michael Prescott, who served as an independent adviser to the BBC’s Editorial Standards Committee for three years. 

When Prescott found that his repeated concerns about the corporation’s failings were ignored by top BBC management, he left his post.​ He then wrote his memorandum and distributed it to every member of the BBC’s Board. 

His report accuses the BBC of persistent and serious breaches of impartiality, alleging a chronic failure by senior management to uphold editorial standards or to correct errors.​

The most high-profile case cited involves the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme Panorama, which aired just ahead of the US 2024 presidential election.  Prescott reported that the programme doctored Donald Trump’s January 6, 2021 speech, making it appear Trump had incited the Capitol Hill riot.

Prescott also pointed to issues with BBC Arabic’s coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict, demonstrating that it used known Hamas supporters in its programmes, minimized Israeli suffering, used unverified casualty figures, and ran a fundamentally biased narrative consistently portraying Israel as the aggressor.​ 

In September the parliamentary Culture, Media and Sports Committee summoned the BBC chairman, Samir Shah and the BBC director general, Tim Davie, to answer allegations of bias, editorial failures, and recent scandals, including how the BBC had come to transmit a TV programme about the Gaza war that turned out to have been narrated by the son of a Hamas official. 

Shortly afterwards, the broadcasting regulator Ofcom found that the film was "materially misleading".  It ordered the BBC to inform its audience of its finding and remove it from the BBC’s streaming service.

To get a handle on the current turmoil,  the Committee subjected both Shah and Prescott to intense questioning on November 24.  Although the corporation has doughty champions among political figures and opinion formers who appreciate much of its output, there is a widespread and growing conviction that its news and political comment departments are, as Prescott seemed to tell the Committee, systemically warped.  Speculation is already rife about who might be appointed as the next BBC director general. 

Most hope that a new broom will indeed sweep clean.

Published in the Jerusalem Post Weekend Magazine, 16 January 2026:
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-883445

Stalemate in Gaza

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 14 January 2026  

   President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan would appear to be stuck.  Whatever covert preparations may be in hand to implement its later stages, the clock seems to have stopped.

The first stages of the 20-point  “Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict”, signed by Israel and Hamas in Sharm el‑Sheikh on October 9, 2025, required an immediate ceasefire, the return of all the hostages both alive and dead, the transfer of Palestinian prisoners in exchange, and a substantial increase in the flow of humanitarian aid.  Having released the live hostages, Hamas chose to eke out the return of the dead over a period of six weeks, and still holds on to the remains of Ran Gvili.

So the first stage has not been completed and Gaza is effectively trapped.  A fragile ceasefire is in place, the IDF have withdrawn to the “yellow line,” there is increased humanitarian access – but all are subject to ongoing violations.

As for conditions in the Strip, most media reports suggest that, rather than advancing the peace process, the ceasefire has reduced Gaza’s significance on the world scene.  It has  changed little on the ground.  Large parts of Gaza remain in ruins, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are still displaced, and aid distribution is even more difficult because of new restrictions placed by Israel on some 37 humanitarian agencies that refuse to reveal whether their staff are connected to Hamas.

The 20‑point Trump plan was not originally issued as “three phases”.  It was first presented essentially as a single 20‑point framework, and the text adopted as Annex 1 to UN Resolution 2803 is also structured as 20 numbered points.  It was media and policy coverage that quickly reframed the 20‑point scheme into three phases:

Phase 1: immediate ceasefire, hostage–prisoner exchanges, front‑line freeze, humanitarian surge.​

Phase 2: demilitarization, destruction of Hamas’s offensive infrastructure, progressive Israeli withdrawal and deployment of the International Stabilization Force.​

Phase 3: governance transition and reconstruction, including the Board of Peace and multi‑year rebuilding of Gaza.​  Finally, “when the PA reform program is faithfully carried out, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.”

Any sort of progress is blocked by unfinished business from Phase One. The unresolved issue of hostage Ran Gvili’s missing body has become a precondition for any further Israeli withdrawals, for changes at the Rafah crossing, or for movement to the next stage.  In practice, this traffic jam maintains the territorial “yellow line”– in other words, the continued presence of the IDF in eastern Gaza.​

In any case implementation of Phase Two is beset with obstacles.  It seems obvious that the bargaining positions of Hamas and Israel are mutually incompatible.  Hamas has declared that any disarmament on its part is tied to the prior achievement of Palestinian statehood and a restoration of Palestinian control over Gaza.   Israel rejects Hamas disarmament on that basis, or indeed any outcome that concedes Palestinian statehood under pressure.

Hamas’s position is, of course, quite at odds with the Trump plan which it has signed.  That places the issue of Palestinian self-determination at point 19 of the 20-point plan, namely well after the total disarmament of Gaza in general and Hamas in particular.  The result of Hamas’s intransigence is deadlock as regards further progress.  Hamas will not voluntarily disarm and Israel cannot realistically force full disarmament without collapsing the ceasefire.​

On the face of it the Trump peace plan is at an impasse.  Despite reports of negotiations in hand, there is as yet no agreed path to the demilitarization, international force deployment, or new governance that would mark a genuine implementation of Phase Two.​ 

Trump, however, is unlikely to sit idly by while Hamas plays fast and loose with a peace agreement it has signed.  The president has repeatedly coupled the Gaza peace plan with threats that if Hamas does not comply, “all hell” or direct military action will follow.  Trump’s Venezuela operation is no blueprint for what is likely in Gaza; US or allied operations against Hamas are not currently in prospect.  The characteristic Trump ambiguity, however, is deliberate, and designed to coerce Hamas while keeping options open.​

What is more relevant, perhaps is Trump’s warning as he unveiled the 20‑point plan.  If Hamas rejected it, he said, “Israel would have the full backing of the US to proceed with any actions it sees fit.” 

In subsequent posts and remarks, he repeatedly referred to his peace proposal as Hamas’s “one last chance” and warned that if agreement was not reached “all hell, like no one has ever seen before, will break out against Hamas.”  In short, his consistent core message has been that refusal to comply with the plan and disarm will bring severe, potentially direct, force against Hamas.

Several forms of action are more plausible than a dramatic new US‑led offensive.  The most credible is Trump’s repeated  assurances that, if Hamas blocks key steps like disarmament or the transfer of authority, Israel will enjoy “full backing” to intensify targeted operations against remaining Hamas infrastructure and leadership.  He has publicly pledged his “complete support” to Israel to “finish the job” and “do what you need to do” against Hamas.​​

An alternative scenario could involve incremental coercive measures applied to Hamas, short of invasion. These could include tighter financial and travel sanctions on Hamas leadership, increased pressure on Qatar and other mediators to curtail Hamas’s external operations, and further restrictions or conditioning of reconstruction money and crossings on verifiable disarmament steps.​

Trump observers will be aware that the language about “all hell” functions as strategic ambiguity.  Without any specified timelines or specific troop deployments (both of which would be resisted by allies and Congress), it is designed to convince Hamas that the US and its partners might ultimately enforce disarmament militarily.​

Taken together, these factors suggest that Trump’s recent threats are best read as signaling, designed to push Hamas toward implementing its disarmament, ahead of a greenlight to the IDF to “finish the job” with Washington’s backing. 

Hamas, well aware that world opinion would castigate the US and Israel if the Gaza war was resumed, might calculate its best course is to maintain the stalemate.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Hamas, Israel deadlock leaves Trump's Gaza plan in deadlock", 14 January 2026:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-883080

Published in Eurasia Review, 17 January 2026:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/17012026-stalemate-in-gaza-oped/

Iran and Russia – too close for comfort

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 6 January 2026

          When Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian met at the Kremlin on January 17, 2025 to sign a new treaty, the media were not much interested. The world’s attention was focused on other matters. The war in Ukraine was in its third year, the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza was still unresolved.

          Yet the Iran–Russia Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty, which came into force on October 2, has significant implications for the Western alliance. The new treaty, developed out of years of ever-tighter Western sanctions on both parties, aims to deepen cooperation between Russia and Iran over the next 20 years across a wide range of fields including political, military‑technical, economic, energy, and financial issues.

          ​On December 17, ​eleven months to the day after the treaty was signed, ​Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi visited his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, and together they signed a new cooperation program aimed at putting flesh on its bones.

          They agreed to set up a three-year program of regular consultations between the two foreign ministries, framed explicitly as a “roadmap” for cooperation. The agenda specifies coordination on a wide range of matters – political, economic, cultural, defense and security – but also includes regional and international questions. That could imply future joint action in the Middle East or beyond. Both sides described the collaboration plan, which is aimed at implementing the treaty’s 20‑year strategic approach, as the first such formalized program between their foreign ministries.

​          Despite the widespread anti-government riots​ currently shaking Iran, and Russia's problematic situation in Ukraine, this formal consolidation of the Russo-Iranian relationship gives cause for concern, because it strengthens the rapidly expanding structures that have emerged in the past few years aimed at countering Western power and influence.

          This Russo-Iranian entente is no flash in the pan. It grew out of a long-term relationship between them. Back in 2001 Russia and Iran had signed a treaty aimed at strengthening mutual relations and cooperation, and it was still in effect. Negotiations ​to revise their "marriage of convenience" started in 2020, but progress was slow. By supplying Russia with drones and ballistic missiles for its conflict in Ukraine, Iran acquired significant leverage in Moscow. That was one of the factors leading to the signing of the new understanding.

         Another was the collapse in late 2024 of the  Assad regime in Syria. Both nations had supported Assad, and now, shorn of their main regional foothold, they felt the need to strengthen their ties in order to prevent further erosion of their influence in the Middle East.

          One example is the developing Tehran–Moscow–Beijing “triangle” linking Iran, Russia, and China through overlapping energy, arms, and sanctions‑evasion networks. Although not a formal alliance, the triangle poses a significant and growing challenge to Western interests.

          Another example is the emerging economic system known as BRICS (the acronym is formed from the initial letters of the original five members - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). There are now 11 members, among whom Iran features.


          BRICS – a loose grouping of major emerging economies cooperating on economic, political, and financial issues – is specifically designed to act as a counterweight to Western‑led institutions. It has growing significance, because its enlarged membership now represents a large share of global population and output.

          The implications for Israel of this newly bolstered Russo-Iranian relationship are not precisely in line with those of the West generally. Israel has a special interest in its relations with Russia​, tied to the need​ to avoid provoking Russian retaliation ​when ​the Israe;li Air Force takes military action in Syria aimed at disrupting Iran’s supply of armaments to Hezbollah​​.  As a result, Israel has avoided joining Western sanctions on Russia​, and has severely limited military aid to Ukraine.

​​          During the Assad era, Syria was used by Iran not only as a military arsenal, but as a key corridor for transporting military hardware to Lebanon. Following the collapse of the Assad regime, Iran’s ability to use Syria has been sharply reduced, but it is not eliminated. Smuggling continues in more limited, covert, and higher‑risk forms. Iran and Hezbollah still exploit pockets of Syrian territory, especially where state control is weak, using covert overland smuggling from areas such as Homs and rural Damascus into Lebanon and also drawing on weapons stockpiles left in Syria.

           Consequently Israel has conducted repeated airstrikes on Syria​-Lebanon border crossings, roads, and other infrastructure – for example Arida and other crossings in the al‑Qusayr area – that are used to move weapons to Hezbollah.

          When Russia intervened militarily in the Syrian civil war in 2015, it became the key external power controlling Syrian airspace and propping up Assad. At the same time Israel was intensifying its strikes against Iranian and Hezbollah assets on Syrian territory. To avoid accidental clashes, the two sides created a formal deconfliction mechanism, allowing Israel to continue its anti-Iran campaign as long as it coordinated with Russia and avoided striking its assets.

          Continuous hotline and other procedures between the IDF and Russian forces in Syria enable Israel to notify Russia of forthcoming air operations, so preserving its strike capacity against Iran‑linked targets.

          As long as Russia maintains a concentrated but still significant military presence in Syria (principally at Khmeimim air base, with associated access to its naval facilities at Tartus), Israel will continue to operate a separate, interest-based channel with Moscow that often diverges from Western preferences.

          Since the new Russo-Iranian treaty notably lacks a mutual defense clause, neither side is obligated to come to the other’s aid militarily if attacked. Russia’s main obligation under the treaty is effectively not to side with Israel, something that was unlikely anyway. Accordingly space remains for Israel to keep its compartmentalized cooperation with Russia.

          As a result, Israel maintains its back channel with Moscow while, together with the Western world as whole, prepares for the less favorable environment emerging from the ever-strengthening forces ranged against it, exemplified by this renewed Russo-Iranian accord.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 6 January 2026, and the Jerusalem Post online, 5 January 2026, titled "Moscow and Tehran's new partnership is bad news for the West":

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-882233

Published in Eurasia Review, 14 January 2026:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/09012026-iran-and-russia-too-close-for-comfort-oped/