News Digest — 7/17/26
Foreign Minister Reveals How Hamas Finances Pro-Palestinian Arab Flotillas
A disturbing synergy between Palestinian Arab terrorist organizations and far-left elements in Western nations took center stage during a speech by Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, who attended a special ministerial conference on Thursday (16th) in Washington on “The Resurgence of Political Terrorism”
Addressing the summit, hosted by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the Foreign Minister detailed the joint operational methods of radical left-wing movements and Palestinian Arabs as well as regional terrorist organizations. He focused specifically on the political and media exploitation of protest flotillas aimed at the Gaza Strip.
“Terrorist organizations are working hand in hand with radical left-wing forces – building an operational alliance with far-left elements in Western democracies across Europe, Latin America, Africa, and beyond. Together, they are upending the global order. They pose a direct challenge to the values of democracy and freedom. And through the lens of the BBC and the pages of The New York Times, the world fell right into their trap,” Sa’ar charged.
He noted that “the so-called ‘Global Sumud Flotilla’ is a textbook example of this. It is framed as a humanitarian mission, but in reality, there was no humanitarian aid on these ships. The true goal of the flotilla was to breach a legal naval blockade and serve the interests of terrorist organizations, primarily Hamas.”
According to Sa’ar, “Hamas documents seized by the IDF reveal funding, operational involvement, and covert ownership of the vessels through a Spanish shell company. The flotilla is run through a network linked to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, providing terrorism and its objectives with legitimacy and a civilian cover. Operations of this nature rely on laundering terrorism and its goals through left-wing activists. Networks of activists supply the logistical envelope, recruit participants, mobilize student groups, and generate public pressure. Hamas provides the strategy . The activists provide legitimacy in Western media and beyond.
The evidence is clear: Hamas funded and even secretly owned what were ironically dubbed ‘peace ships.’ We have documented direct ties between the flotilla’s organizers and terrorist organizations, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Senior Hamas operatives are running the campaigns straight out of the UK and other Western capitals,” he concluded.
Why Iran Has Avoided Attacking Israel – Analysis
In the past week, Iran shattered a fragile detente by launching a massive wave of missile and drone attacks targeting US military bases and facilities across the Gulf, including Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Oman, and Jordan.
These strikes have triggered air raid sirens, caused material damage, and resulted in injuries from falling debris during interceptions.
Simultaneously , the IRGC has intensified its campaign in the Strait of Hormuz, attacking commercial vessels, declaring the waterway closed to navigation, and threatening to halt all regional energy exports.
The dual-front assault represents a severe escalation, directly attacking the US military and global energy security by combining kinetic strikes on sovereign Gulf states with asymmetric naval warfare in the critical shipping lane.
Incredibly, during this entire time, Iran has not shot a single missile at Israel, perhaps its most hated enemy, as it has in the past.
Geopolitical assessments from the Heritage Foundation and the Alma Research Center point out that this buffer has been permanently disrupted.
With Hamas dismantled and Hezbollah’s leadership and infrastructure severely degraded, Iran can no longer hide behind its proxies.
Following intense IDF operations that eliminated over 5,000 terrorists and shattered their capabilities, Iran’s Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah has been left “begging for a ceasefire.”
The Iranian patrons are panicking because “their threats have no actual backing in reality” once their primary operational weapon on Israel’s border was crushed.
Meanwhile, Hamas has suffered catastrophic losses and has little access to new armaments.
Israeli experts argue that Iran is afraid to escalate its attacks on Israel because Tehran’s aggressive rhetoric has no actual backing in reality, its proxy network has been severely crippled, and it is terrified of devastating retaliation from both Israel and a heavily armed United States.
Military analysts at the RAND Corporation highlight a severe technological and operational mismatch between the two nations.
Despite the heavy volume of missile and drone salvos fired by Iran, Israel’s advanced Arrow, David’s Sling, and Iron Dome frameworks regularly intercept the vast majority of incoming threats, minimizing structural damage. In contrast, Iran’s domestic defenses are today almost non-existent.
Defense experts at the Atlantic Council note that Israel possesses the intelligence and stealth capabilities to systematically penetrate Iranian airspace to strike critical infrastructure, including energy grids, refinement plants, and hardened nuclear enrichment facilities like Natanz.
Tehran has learned that distance no longer guarantees immunity. Any major attack means the war will be taken directly to Iran’s doorstep, exposing its home front to immediate retaliation.
Despite being handed a lenient “soft landing” through international diplomatic ceasefires and temporary sanctions relief, Iran can not risk an all-out war with Israel that would completely vaporize its economy, trigger domestic regime instability, or cause the permanent loss of its vital energy corridors.
But the ultimate driver behind Iranian strategic calculation is the survival of the Islamic Republic.
Analysts from the Deakin University Centre for Middle East Politics note that while Tehran relies heavily on aggressive rhetoric, the leadership “does not have a death wish”
Experts from the Stimson Center and the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) emphasize that an all-out, uncalibrated attack would give Israel and the US the ultimate justification to launch devastating decapitation strikes targeting Iran’s political command hierarchy and internal security apparatus, potentially triggering an uncontrollable domestic uprising.
Colombia’s New Government Will Open An Embassy In Jerusalem
Colombia’s incoming foreign minister has told his Israeli counterpart that the South American country will open an embassy in Jerusalem, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said Wednesday (15th), making good on President-elect Abelardo de la Espriella’s election pledge.
The move comes amid a right-wing wave sweeping across Latin America that is reshaping alliances with the United States and Israel.
Israel and Colombia have agreed to fully restore diplomatic and economic relations next month with the inauguration of the new government, reversing a two-year freeze initiated by outgoing left-wing President Gustavo Petro over the war in Caza.
The agreement follows a meeting in Washington between Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Colombia’s Foreign Minister-designate Omar Bula Escobar.
Colombia’s historic relations with Israel nosedived after Petro severed diplomatic ties with Israel in 2024 over the Gaza war triggered by the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack, and expelled Israeli diplomats from the South American country.
De la Espriella, a 47-year-old lawyer and political outsider nicknamed “The Tiger,” who was elected last month with the backing of conservative and evangelical groups, pledged during the election campaign to open an embassy in Jerusalem and renew a strategic alliance with Israel.
He will be inaugurated on August 7.
The Colombian election heralds another gain for the right-wing wave sweeping across Latin America, whose leaders share US President Donald Trump’s tough approach in dealing with drug traffickers and offer a marked shift in foreign policy alliances.
Israel’s top diplomat also held a joint meeting in the US capital with his counterparts from Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia.
Eight countries currently have embassies in Israel’s capital: the United States, Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, Paraguay, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Somaliland.
All the other nations which have diplomatic relations with Israel maintain their embassies in Tel Aviv or its suburbs, due to the political sensitivities of Jerusalem.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to move the American embassy to Jerusalem during his first term set the stage for other countries to follow suit, with at least two more nations expected to do so by the end of the year.
The PA’s Army Threatens Millions Of Israelis – Lt. Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch
In breach of the Oslo Accords, Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) is now host to an armed force ten times larger than the number of terrorists who invaded from Gaza on Oct. 7. The Palestinian Authority (PA) security apparatuses are a trained military body that holds tens of thousands of assault weapons. Many of its members have already participated in terrorism against Israelis (12% of Palestinian security prisoners originate from its ranks), and it trains exclusively for one scenario: war against the State of Israel.
Unlike the Gaza envelope, the areas adjacent to Judea and Samaria contain Israel’s largest population centers. The distance from the PA town of Qalqilya in Samaria to the Mediterranean Sea is only 19 miles. Millions of Israeli citizens in the Tel Aviv region live under direct threat.
Hundreds of PA security personnel participated in the Second Intifada (2000-2005). Since then, the PA security forces in Judea and Samaria have grown by 400%, transforming from a small policing force into an army. There is no meaningful difference between the PA and Hamas. Both embrace terrorism and both seek to destroy the State of Israel.
Under the Oslo Accords, the PA was supposed to have a body responsible for maintaining local public order, to combat crime and terrorist organizations. For this purpose they were allowed a limited quantity of weapons. Originally , they were limited to 12,000 personnel in Judea and Samaria equipped with 4,000 rifles, 4,000 pistols, 120 light and heavy machine guns, and 15 armored vehicles. They now number 70,000 soldiers.
Palestinian society does not suffer from unusually high crime levels that would justify such a large armed force. If Israel does not act to significantly reduce these forces to the agreed-upon dimensions, millions of Israeli citizens will remain under threat of a massacre that may dwarf the horrors of Oct. 7.
Given the severity of the threat, the Israeli government must adopt a strategy of “dismantling and demilitarization.” Halt all approvals for the transfer of weapons, ammunition, or armored vehicles to the PA. Demand the immediate return of any armament exceeding Oslo limits (such as heavy machine guns, RPGs, and explosive devices). Condition all aid to the PA on reducing the size of the security apparatuses to the original agreed level of 12,000.
Close all facilities and training bases whose purpose is to provide “military training.” Prepare the IDF operationally to protect Israelis living near the seam line with Judea and Samaria. Cease foreign training of PA security personnel abroad, including in Pakistan.
The writer, former director of the Military Prosecution in Judea and Samaria, is director of the Palestinian Authority Accountability Initiative at the Jerusalem Center.
(jcfa.org)
We Are The Luckiest Jews Who Have Ever Lived – Ben Freeman
For three years we have watched Jew-Hatred erupt on campus, online, inside political movements, and among people we once called friends. Institutions we helped build, funded, and sat on the boards of have turned away from us and showed us exactly what they were made of.
But we should recognize that these betrayals provide us with information.
Something in these institutions changed over the last decade: principle was traded for donor comfort, standards for slogans, scrutiny for the easier feeling of being on the right side of a hashtag. Thank God they threw us overboard. It may have been the only way for us to have avoided going down with them.
For years, many of us worked to earn a permanent berth – a faculty appointment, a board seat, a spot at the table – on the theory that enough usefulness would eventually purchase real belonging. Losing our place on board returned us to a vessel we already owned, one we had spent 2,000 years building in exile and then, against every reasonable expectation, actually finished building in our own land.
No earlier generation of Jews had a country of their own to run to. We are the first generation who already have somewhere of our own to go. That is the shape of our fortune: not that no one throws Jews overboard anymore. That when they do, there is a shore now, and there wasn’t one then.
Most Jews alive today have never known a world without Israel, never known a world in which self-determination existed only in prayers, songs, and distant hope. Jew-hatred has shaped our history, but it does not define our civilization. The Jewish story is a record of what we built, preserved, and carried forward in spite of what others have done to us.
The writer is the author of Jewish Pride: Rebuilding a People, Reclaiming Our Story, and The Jews:An Indigenous People. (Tablet)
