“Oct 7 2023”

There is a question Washington should ask more directly: what do the Gulf states really want?

The official language is familiar: de-escalation, sovereignty, dialogue, Palestinian rights, regional stability, and balanced relations. These are legitimate concerns. But behind the communiqués lies a harder reality. Gulf capitals know that Israel is no longer isolated. They know that Iran is not merely a difficult neighbor. They also know that saying one thing in Washington, another in Tehran, another in Jerusalem, and another to Arab public opinion has become increasingly difficult to sustain.

Nearly two-and-a-half years after the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacre in Israel, the Islamist terror group is still firmly entrenched in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas remains armed, organized, and committed to its declared goal of destroying Israel through jihad (holy war). Yet instead of confronting this reality, international diplomats continue to indulge in dangerous fantasies about negotiating Hamas out of existence.

It takes a special kind of evil to destroy posters that have been distributed to help locate a missing child.

But Toronto has seen this kind of evil before. Back after Oct. 7, 2023, hostage posters of Jewish children kidnapped by Hamas were also ripped down or defaced.

To the people tearing down the “Help Find Esti” posters in my neighbourhood: STOP IT‼️

A 14-year-old girl is still missing.

I don’t know what you think you’re accomplishing, but I promise you, for every poster ripped down, many more will go back up, until Esti is back home. pic.twitter.com/N4kkAE6INw

— Michael Levitt 🇨🇦🎗️ (@LevittMichael) May 24, 2026

Anyone who understands the history of the Middle East knows the wars against Israel by the Arab-Muslim world are in reality wars against Jews.

That doesn’t mean criticism of Israel is antisemitic.

For years, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has promised the US, Europe, and Arab donors that he is committed to reforming Palestinian institutions, fighting corruption, introducing transparency, and preparing the ground for a new generation of Palestinian leadership. The recent elections for his ruling Fatah faction, however, prove otherwise.

Documents captured by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the Gaza Strip should finally bury one of the most dangerous illusions: the belief that Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Iranian regime can somehow be persuaded to halt their jihad (holy war) and accept Israel’s existence.

On the morning of the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led invasion of Israel, three senior leaders of the terrorist group – Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, and Marwan Issa – sent a message to Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah requesting support for the attack that had begun.

At Tuesday’s anti-Semitism ‘summit’ in Downing Street, Sir Keir Starmer achieved a personal first. He used the word ‘Islamists’. But in order to utter a word he had previously avoided in relation to the subject, Sir Keir had to approach it crabwise. Instead of identifying Islamists as the main ideological and physical threat to British Jews, he said: ‘We’re clear-eyed about the fact that anti-Semitism does not have one source alone: Islamists, far-left, far-right extremism, all target Jewish communities.’ Islamists were thus inserted into the conversation but also downplayed. It is obsolete not to recognise that the far right in Britain – for the moment at least – more or less leave Jews alone. The far left is indeed a breeding ground for anti-Semitism, but not a factor unrelated to the Islamists. Indeed, the two have forged the modern equivalent of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The Prime Minister cannot say this, because he is not brave and because that pact is now so strong that he feared further punishment in Thursday’s local elections if he suggested its existence. If you watched Kemi Badenoch dealing firmly, two days earlier, with a verbal attack by a pro-Palestinian activist, you could see a leader who speaks freely because she knows what she thinks. Has poor Sir Keir ever known?