Since October 7, 2023, the Middle East’s underlying fault lines have sharpened into two broad camps. On one side are the Islamist fundamentalist regimes including Hamas (Gaza), Hezbollah (Lebanon), the Houthis (Yemen), and Iran, whose actions, despite causing severe harm and human rights violations, face too little opposition and even occasional sympathy from certain Western governments, media outlets, UN institutions, and segments of Europe’s Muslim immigrant populations.

On the other side are the United States, Israel, the world Jewish community, the Abraham Accords signatories, and other stability‑oriented states pursuing economic growth, coexistence, regional integration, and partnership with the West.

The sections that follow examine how these layers interact and shape the region’s ongoing dynamics.

Gaza: As Israeli military involvement in Gaza has diminished, Western attention has faded even though conditions remain catastrophic, suggesting that earlier intense scrutiny may have been driven less by humanitarian concerns for Gazans and more by opportunities to censure Israel. Gaza’s suffering stems not from a lack of resources or because of Israel, but from two longstanding Hamas policies: diverting funds earmarked for civilian needs into military projects and attacking Israel belligerently provoking a military response. Before October 7, Hamas diverted civilian funds into building its vast military tunnel network, and more recently it has redirected humanitarian aid toward rearmament rather than rebuilding, underscoring that the public welfare of Gazans has never been a Hamas priority. Despite publicly dissolving its “emergency committee,” Hamas has de facto tightened its grip by installing loyalists and tightening control over security forces. Its abuses persist: hijacking aid, reselling it to civilians, taxing supplies, and manipulating distribution. The UN has raised alarms but has taken no effective action, leaving immense civilian suffering.

UN institutions: Regrettably the UN and UNRWA continue to play a deeply negative role in the Palestinian Israeli conflict. First, from its creation in 1949, UNRWA established a unique system in which refugee status became hereditary and did not automatically end even when individuals gained citizenship elsewhere, thereby perpetuating the problem. As a result, rather than being resettled, the original number of roughly 700,000 refugees has swelled to nearly 6 million. This contrasts with the experience of an even larger number of Jewish refugees, mostly from Arab countries, who were successfully absorbed by Israel after 1948.........

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