Some merit, but many obstacles in Donald Trump’s Gaza plan
February 6, 2025 | Colin Rubenstein
Controversy was assured from the start when US President Donald Trump announced his unconventional plans for the future of Gaza in various press conferences with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Tuesday.
UNRWA must lose funding before any peace can be found in Gaza
February 6, 2025 | Jamie Hyams
According to Israeli intelligence, 1,200 UNRWA employees in Gaza – 10% of its workforce – are Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) operatives, including school principals.
Ceasefire needed on Australian streets
February 5, 2025 | Rabbi Ralph Genende
As the news broke of a massive terror attack threat on the Sydney Jewish community, with a synagogue the likely target, I began to feel real fear in a way I have never felt before.
Gaza will need real aid, not Hamas in disguise
February 5, 2025 | Tzvi Fleischer
A key issue is that UNRWA does not consider either Hamas or PIJ to be terrorist organisations, as they’re not on the UN’s terrorism list. It thus refuses to vet its staff for terrorist links, and sees no problem in openly cooperating with Hamas.
Monsters and Heroes: An Australian perspective
February 4, 2025 | Justin Amler
It’s impossible not to be moved by a myriad of emotions as we watched young women and an old man go from the dark abyss of evil, hatred and despair into the euphoria of lightness, good and the loving embrace of their family and friends.
To succeed, the Gaza ceasefire must lead to hope and stability
January 31, 2025 | Ran Porat
The text of the ceasefire agreement is a masterclass of internal contradictions, vagueness, and word choices that enable both sides to claim they did not compromise on their key demands
A peaceful Gaza is possible
January 28, 2025 | Bren Carlill
It goes without saying that imposing conditions in Gaza is complicated. Hamas’s ideology is deeply entrenched; Hamas was in charge of school curriculum for 16 years, in a territory where the median age is 18. Erasing this influence will demand a sustained effort to reshape Gaza’s political, social and economic systems – something for which the international community has, historically, shown zero appetite.
A ceasefire is not enough for a strategic victory in the Middle East
January 28, 2025 | Colin Rubenstein
Israelis are overjoyed to see some hostages released after 15 months of captivity under the Hamas deal. However, they also overwhelmingly recognise that the second phase of the agreement, which is supposed to create arrangements for a permanent end to the war and whose details are still to be negotiated, must not preserve the status quo.
Price of the Israel-Hamas hostage exchange ‘excruciatingly high’ as hatred of Jews explodes across the Western world
January 21, 2025 | Justin Amler
To see our first three hostages, Emily, Romi and Doron, emerge from that darkness into the light illustrates what this war is truly about. We cannot even begin to imagine the suffering they have endured.
A welcome pause, but Hamas horror lingers
January 20, 2025 | Ahron Shapiro
Releasing terrorists is inherently risky for Israel. A similar prisoner release with Hamas in 2011 in exchange for Gilad Shalit freed Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7 attack. Nevertheless, most Israelis and diaspora Jews viscerally welcome the deal. For so many of us, since October 7, the families of the hostages have become part of our own. The plight of the hostages cast a pall on every holiday, wedding and birthday, and for many, kept us awake at night.
There is no big winner in the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal
January 17, 2025 | Jamie Hyams
Hamas will glory in the horrors of October 7. It will claim it won because it survived. However, it hoped to ignite a wider war with Israel which would be attacked with equal force from all sides and ultimately destroyed.
