Trump and Mohammed bin Salman fight over Israel, Gaza and China
by Peter Gerard Myers
Date: Nov. 28, 2025; update Dec. 5, 2025.
My comments are shown {thus}; write to me at contact.html.
You are at http://mailstar.net/MbS-vs-Trump-&-Israel.html
Copyright: Peter Myers asserts the right to be identified as the author of the material written by him on this website, being material that is not otherwise attributed to another author.
MbS & Trump had a fight over Israel & Gaza. Saudis ditching USA for China
(1) MbS & Trump had a fight over Israel & Gaza. Saudis ditching
USA for China
(2) MbS had heated exchange with Trump over Israel, rejected Abraham Accords
(3) MbS woos Xi as China quietly replaces US in the Gulf - Hindustan Times
(4) Pentagon warns that Saudis might pass F-35 secrets to China
(5) MbS' lavish US visit is not Saudi realignment away from China - al-Monitor
(6) US promised Saudis F-35 jets to counter its shift to China - South
China Morning Post
(7) Melanie Phillips wants to drag the West into Israel's war with Islam
(over the Third Temple)
(1) MbS & Trump had a fight over Israel & Gaza. Saudis ditching USA for China
by Peter Gerard Myers, Nov. 28, 2025; update Dec. 5, 2025
Images of Trump and MbS making a deal to buy F-35 jets gave the impression that all is sweet between these allies.
That was just for public consumption. The reality is that Trump pressed Mohammed bin Salman to join the Abraham Accords (normalisation with Israel) and stop moving closer to China. MbS refused on both counts.
MbS said that there could not be any normalisation until the end of the war in Gaza and the resolution of the issue of Palestine's statehood.
Chinese Vice President Han Zheng met MbS in Riyadh during a five-day visit in October, just after the two nations completed a large-scale joint military exercise.
The deal to offer the same version of the F-35 that Israel has did not go down well in Zionist circles. But Israel's military edge would remain on account of its enhancements.
Why did Trump offer the F-35s? Firstly, because the USA needs the money, to reduce its Trade Deficit. And secondly, because Saudis may be looking at purchases of Chinese aircraft instead.
If keeping the Saudis sweet was so important, why did Trump get into a fight over Israel? Because his priority is MIGA over MAGA. Either he has secret Jewish ancestry (in the male line, fit for the Law of Return but not for Marriage in Israel; that would require conversion), or he's been 'bought' by Zionist donors or blackmailers.
Anonymous officials in the Pentagon warned that, were Saudis to get the F-35s, they could pass the technology on to China.
I doubt that the F-35 deal will go ahead, but for other reasons. Firstly, it's likely that the F-35s have a kill switch that inactivates the plane in the event of usage against Israel. Secondly, MbS does not like Trump's bullying tactics, given USA complicity in the Gaza genocide and in the Israeli attack on Qatar. Thirdly, in the event that Israel demolishes Al Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock, preparatory to building the Third Temple on the site, only China would stand in Israel's way. It was not without reason that AIPAC recently pitched a deal with Taiwan <https://alonmizrahi.substack.com/p/AIPAC-is-in-taiwan-and-i-have-questions>, and Israel swapped the IDF's China-made vehicles for ones made by Mitsubishi <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-11-02/ty-article/.premium/idf-drops-chinese-cars-switches-to-japans-mitsubishi-fleet/0000019a-45ac-d21b-a7db-edfe90400000>.
Israel recently revised its military doctrine, concluding that "Russia, China and North Korea are becoming Israel's new threat" <https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/hk95ws2oex>.
Why should the USA place its ties with Israel ahead of its ties with the whole Arab world? Given the antagonism between the two, it would seem to be more in USA interests to curtail Israel's aggression and force it to make peace, as was the policy of Eisenhauer and JFK Allowing Israel free rein risks losing the whole region to China.
But that objection ignores the power of the Jewish Lobby, which probably derives from banking (usury) and from ownership of assets privatised by Thatcherite governments in the Anglophone world, assets that used to belong to the people of those countries, but which now belong to Hedge Funds and their (50% Jewish) managers.
The Saudis under MbS, like the India of Modi, are playing the non-aligned card, maintaining relations with both sides of the new cold war. But they know that Netanyahu's allies want to demolish Al Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock. The prospect of the Saudis joining the China bloc is the only thing making Trump restrain Netanyahu.
(2) MbS had heated exchange with Trump over Israel, rejected Abraham Accords
MBS had heated exchange with Trump over Israel, rejected Abraham Accords: Report
FP News Desk ¥ November 26, 2025, 13:42:35 IST
Donald Trump and Mohammed bin Salman had a heated exchange at the White House over Israel's war in Gaza and the Saudi Crown Prince rejected joining Abraham Accords until the creation of a pathway towards Palestinian statehood, according to a report.
US President Donald Trump had a heated exchange with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman when he suggested that Saudi Arabia should normalise the relationship with Israel, according to a report.
Axios reported that the two leaders got into a heated exchange when Trump broached the subject of Saudi-Israel normalisation as part of Abraham Accords' expansion as MBS Ñas the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia is widely known asÑ rejected the idea and pushed back.
MBS told Trump there could not be any normalisation until the end of the war in Gaza and the resolution of the issue of Palestine's statehood, as per the report.
Trump hosted MBS at White House on November 18. While they raised investment pledge and signed deals for nuclear energy and artificial intelligence (AI), he could not make any progress on his biggest priorities of pushing MBS to join Abraham Accords and persuading him to not get closer to China.
MBS tells Trump conditions for normalisation with Israel
Saudi Arabia has maintained for a long time that there could not be any normalisation agreement with Israel until the end of the war in Gaza and resolution of the question of Palestine's statehood. It has maintained that an irrevocable pathway to Palestinian statehood is a pre-condition to any normalisation deal.
In the tense White House meeting, MBS conveyed the same to Trump directly, according to Axios.
During the Nov. 18 meeting, when Trump raised the issue and pressed hard MBS to join the Abraham Accords, the conversation got tense, US officials told Axios.
MBS explained to Trump that while he wanted to do move forward with normalisation with Israel, he could not do so at the moment because Saudi public opinion remained highly anti-Israel because of the war in Gaza, according to the report.
MBS said that the Saudi society was not ready for such a move now, three sources told Axios.
Even as the conversation was tough, it was civil, an official said.
"The best way to say it is disappointment and irritation. The president really wants them to join the Abraham Accord. He tried very hard to talk him. It was an honest discussion. But MBS is a strong man. He stood his ground," a source said.
On his part, MBS demanded that any future normalisation should include a clause about the establishment of "an irreversible, credible and time-bound path" for a Palestinian state. .
"MBS never said no to normalisation. The door is open for doing it later. But the two-state solution is an issue," a US official told Axios.
(3) MbS woos Xi as China quietly replaces US in the Gulf - Hindustan Times
Watch the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr_Ga_FiXCs
Trump's Saudi era quietly coming to an end? MBS woos Xi as China quietly replaces US in the gulf
Hindustan Times
Published on Nov 01, 2025 07:49 am IST
Is Saudi Arabia turning away from Washington's security umbrella?
MBS 'LOSING FAITH' in Trump's promises after Qatar incident
A New Power Rises in Middle East, China's Quiet Takeover of Gulf
Saudi's Defense Deal Shocks Trump as Beijing Builds a New Alliance
Is America Losing Saudi Arabia? What New Defense Deals Mean
Is the Saudi - U.S. Era Coming To An End?
China and Saudi Arabia are deepening cooperation across multiple sectors as Beijing moves to broaden its influence in the region and engage more closely with longtime U.S. allies. On Wednesday, Chinese Vice President Han Zheng met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh, following the completion of a large-scale joint military exercise between the two nations earlier in the week.
(4) Pentagon warns that Saudis might pass F-35 secrets to China
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr6V4DxlLDQ
Pentagon's 'Nuclear Nightmare': Trump-MBS F-35 Deal To Crumble As China Fear Spooks US | Report Times Of India
14 Nov 2025
The Pentagon is sounding the alarm. As the Trump administration pushes to finalise a massive F-35 fighter jet deal with Saudi Arabia, U.S. intelligence fears the move could unintentionally hand China access to America's most guarded stealth secrets. A classified assessment warns that Beijing could exploit its expanding security and missile-development ties with RiyadhÑraising the stakes of one of Washington's most sensitive arms negotiations. The deal comes ahead of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's visit to President Donald Trump in Washington, where Saudi Arabia is also lobbying for U.S. support on a civilian nuclear program. This has triggered concerns inside the Pentagon that the kingdom could attempt to use transferred technologies to pursue a nuclear weapons capability. The reported F-35 sale has also reignited a familiar regional flashpoint: Israel's "qualitative military edge." Israel remains the only Middle Eastern country with the F-35, and previous attempts to supply Gulf nations have faced intense pushback. Watch for more details.
(5) MbS' lavish US visit is not Saudi realignment away from China - al-Monitor
Why MBS' lavish US visit is not Saudi realignment away from China
For Riyadh, engagement with Beijing is not merely transactional Ñ it is part of a multipolar strategy that enhances Saudi leverage, accelerates Vision 2030 ambitions and reduces its exposure to the unpredictability of US policy.
Joyce Karam , Rosaleen Carroll Nov 20, 2025
Hi readers,
If you were in Washington this week, you couldn't have missed the extravagant welcome President Donald Trump gave Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). From black horses and a military flyover to photo ops with Cristiano Ronaldo, both sides went out of their way to impress Ñ successfully.
This was easily the grandest reception Trump has afforded any foreign leader. But for China, which remains a key backer of MBS, the visit poses little cause for concern.
Talk of a Saudi realignment as a result of the visit misses both the substance of what was achieved and the true nature of Riyadh's partnership with Beijing.
Let's unpack it Ñ and happy Thanksgiving to those celebrating next week! ??
Joyce and Rosaleen (sign up on LinkedIn or online here)
Leading this week
It is no overstatement to say that Saudi Arabia scored major wins during this visit. Ceremonially, diplomatically and economically, the trip transformed MBS's image. Once an isolated figure Ñ after the Jamal Khashoggi killing Ñ he is now received as a statesman with the stature of a future king, and is highly sought after by the current resident of the Oval Office.
On paper, the Saudis were able to get:
F-35s: Includes future deliveries of 48 F-35 fighter jets and nearly 300 American tanks. A Strategic Defense Agreement, the full details of which remain unclear, but it secures "new burden-sharing funds" from Saudi Arabia and affirms the US' status as the kingdom's "primary strategic partner." The designation of "major non-NATO ally," which will streamline Saudi Arabia's ability to acquire US military equipment and services, reducing the licensing hurdles faced by most other recipients of advanced American weaponry.
A memorandum of understanding on AI, which gives Saudi Arabia "access to world-leading American systems," according to the White House.
A civil nuclear energy cooperation agreement, which, per the White House, confirms that US companies will be the kingdom's "civil nuclear cooperation partners of choice" and "ensures that all cooperation will be conducted in a manner consistent with strong nonproliferation standards." The White House did not specify what particular protocols Saudi Arabia is bound by or whether the declaration signed marks the beginning of this collaboration or is a preliminary agreement.
Rare earth minerals agreement: This one is designed to counter China, especially in light of the trade war and as Beijing threatens to block these exports. According to Reuters, Saudi Arabia's total mineral reserves are valued at approximately $2.5 trillion and could help the United States in diversifying the supply chain.
But Saudi Arabia cannot replace China as a source of rare earth minerals due to China's overwhelming dominance in mining and especially in refining and processing technologies. According to the Associated Press, China controls nearly 70% of global rare earth ore production and over 90% of processing capacity, making it the only country able to meet global demand at scale. The complex refining process, lack of existing industrial infrastructure and delays in bringing Saudi projects online mean it will be years before the kingdom can fulfill a meaningful global supply role.
The United States also got Saudi Arabia to up its investment pledge of $600 billion Ñ first pledged during Trump's visit to Riyadh in May Ñ to $1 trillion, largely in AI and other advanced technologies.
While significant, those promises still fell short of a full mutual defense pact that would obligate the United States to come to Saudi Arabia's aid in the event of attack, a comprehensive nuclear agreement with clear, binding safeguards and cycle limitations, and progress toward a normalization agreement with Israel.
Why these developments don't signal a Saudi realignment away from China
The kingdom's engagement with China represents a deliberate strategy to diversify its partnerships and maintain flexibility. From the moment MBS was appointed in 2017, China was quick to embrace him. The Saudi leader visited Beijing in 2016 as deputy crown prince at the time, and then again in 2019. He hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping in Riyadh in 2022 and quickly embraced the Chinese authoritarian model in ruling the kingdom. In the aftermath of the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, China was careful not to condemn Saudi Arabia and stuck with its position of noninterference.
In aftermath and as MBS was being labeled a pariah by US leaders, China brokered a Saudi-Iran deal, expanded investment in Neom and doubled down on its backing of the young prince.
For MBS, engagement with Beijing is not merely transactional Ñ it is part of a multipolar strategy that enhances Saudi leverage, accelerates Vision 2030 ambitions and reduces its exposure to the unpredictability of US policy. According to the Financial Times, China has emerged as the top source of greenfield foreign direct investment in Saudi Arabia, contributing $21.6 billion between 2021 and October 2024, largely in clean technology projects.
China has also been Saudi Arabia's biggest trading partner since 2013, with bilateral trade surpassing $100 billion in 2023.
Even militarily, the two sides have held three naval exercises: in 2019, 2023 and 2025.
Last week, the New York Times, citing Pentagon officials, reported US defense and intelligence officials have raised concerns that F-35 technology could be passed to China, particularly given China's close ties with Saudi Arabia. Similar worries led the Biden administration in 2021 to suspend a planned F-35 sale to the United Arab Emirates over the possibility that China might gain access to the aircraft's sensitive technology.
Our take: There's no question that the crown prince's visit strengthens Saudi-US ties and may reduce Riyadh's reliance on China in areas such as technology and AI. However, that alone does not amount to a strategic realignment.
The volatility of US politics continues to make a more predictable China an appealing partner for MBS. Riyadh is not likely to concede that leverage Ñ especially without treaty-level commitments or concrete security and technology guarantees from Washington. Neither of those materialized during this visit.
(6) US promised Saudis F-35 jets to counter its shift to China - South China Morning Post
The China factor behind Trump's sale of F-35s to Saudi Arabia
The deal swaps F-35 jets for 'guardrails' on Chinese tech in the Gulf, analysts say with Israel assured its military edge is safe
Tom Hussain
South China Morning Post, Hong Kong
Published: 5:30pm, 24 Nov 2025
The US is poised to supply Saudi Arabia with its most advanced F-35 stealth fighter jets, a move that analysts say reflects a new era of Middle East policy in which countering Chinese influence is fast becoming as important for Washington as maintaining Israeli military superiority.
It would make Saudi Arabia only the second country in the region, after Israel, to operate the fifth-generation jet.
US President Donald Trump announced the decision following a meeting with Saudi Arabia's visiting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last week. Yet Israel has so far played down the implications, even after Trump's confirmation that Riyadh would receive the same advanced F-35 variant currently operated by the Israeli Air Force.
Saudi Arabia "is a great ally, and Israel's a great ally, and I know they'd [Israel] like you to get planes of reduced calibre. I don't think that makes you too happy", Trump said, addressing Salman.
"We're looking at that exactly right now, but as far as I'm concerned, I think they are both at the level where they should get top of the line."
Trump's remarks appeared to run counter to the Naval Vessel Transfer Act of 2008, which obliges Washington to ensure that any arms sale in the Middle East does not erode Israel's military edge over its neighbours.
After a subsequent call with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had received explicit assurances that Washington would "continue to preserve Israel's qualitative military edge in everything related to supplying weapons and military systems to countries in the Middle East".
The China 'factor'
China was "certainly a factor" in the White House's decision to accede to Riyadh's long-standing request for F-35s, said Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, a Washington-based think tank.
"Saudi Arabia has been clear that it needs more security cooperation and reassurance from Washington if it is going to continue to forgo closer security ties to China," he told This Week In Asia.
While Riyadh has expanded its economic and diplomatic engagement with Beijing, it has been "very careful not to cross the US red line of giving China a new strategic foothold" in the Middle East, according to Ibish.
The apparent success of the Saudi crown prince's Washington visit last week "will help continue that restraint", he said.
{caption} Chinese Vice-President Han Zheng meets Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh on October 29. Photo: Xinhua
The spectre of greater Saudi-Chinese defence cooperation gives Washington a powerful incentive "to anchor Riyadh" within the US-led security ecosystem, according to Andreas Krieg, an associate professor of defence studies at King's College London.
However, he said any F-35 deal with Riyadh would come with "stringent guardrails on Chinese presence" to limit access to sensitive networks, bases and supply chains.
"Beijing's footprint shapes the terms and risk management, even if it did not determine the headline decision," Krieg said, adding that Trump's rhetoric "overstates equivalence" between the Saudi and Israeli warplanes.
While Saudi Arabia may be cleared for the F-35A, Israel's customised F-35I Adir represents a unique ecosystem, with bespoke capabilities mission data, software, electronic warfare systems and weapons integration that the US has not replicated elsewhere.
More fundamentally, Israel's military edge is as much about operational experience and doctrine as it is hardware. By the time Riyadh took delivery, likely years from now, the Israel Air Force would "have fielded further upgrades, so the relative gap persists", Krieg said.
Rare earths and chips
Trump's decision to sell Riyadh 48 F-35s was locked in alongside a strategic bargain that grants the US preferential access to Saudi Arabia's large reserves of heavy rare earth minerals, a resource essential for manufacturing the F-35 and other advanced defence systems.
China currently dominates the global supply and refining of rare earths, which it has leveraged in broader economic and trade negotiations with the US.
A White House fact sheet issued on Tuesday last week said the new critical minerals framework with Saudi Arabia would "deepen collaboration and align our national strategies to diversify critical mineral supply chains".
Under the deal, state-owned mining giant Maaden will partner with the US Department of Defence and MP Materials to build a rare earth refinery in Saudi Arabia.
On the same day, the Trump administration also loosened export curbs on high-end US artificial intelligence hardware, allowing the sale of 35,000 sought-after Nvidia GB300 AI servers to Saudi Arabia and a matching number to the United Arab Emirates a move widely seen as an attempt to counter China's rising influence in the Gulf's tech sector.
In parallel, US firms were named preferred partners for the construction of Saudi nuclear power plants, though Washington remains opposed to Riyadh's push for domestic uranium enrichment, which could pave the way for a nuclear weapons capability.
Trump "does not follow the conventional US playbook on ranking US allies, not even when it comes to Israel", said Leslie Vinjamuri, a professor of international relations at SOAS University of London.
"He has clearly demonstrated his overwhelming interest in selling American products. And he has also demonstrated his keen interest in Saudi Arabia," she said.
Yet political resistance from Israel and its allies in the US Congress could still delay or reshape the deal. "Trump may use this as a bargaining chip," Vinjamuri said.
The novelty here is the readiness to move despite Israeli sensitivities
Andreas Krieg, defence studies professor
Ibish said that Washington's commitment to Israel's military edge was now being balanced against a "more mature, equitable" alliance with Saudi Arabia "that is, effectively, security for security, rather than oil for security".
"The addition of this one potent and very expensive system does not put Saudi Arabia on military parity with Israel nothing close to that," he said.
Nonetheless, Krieg said the F-35 deal "signals a willingness in Washington to decouple Saudi deliverables from Israeli diplomacy".
Rather than conditioning the sale on normalisation with Israel, the White House "appears to be sequencing the Saudi track on its own merits", he said.
This reflects a broader trend in which the US has aimed to reduce permanent military footprints while enhancing partners' capabilities with a focus on regional, partner-led air and missile defence architecture.
High-end arms transfers, interoperability initiatives, data sharing and "over-the-horizon" weapons were all tools of this evolving posture, Krieg said.
"The novelty here is the readiness to move despite Israeli sensitivities, provided Israel's advantage can be credibly certified and maintained," he added.
(7) Melanie Phillips wants to drag the West into Israel's war with Islam (over the Third Temple)
Ehud Olmert warned in Haaretz that Jewish Fundamentalists want to keep expanding Israel's borders, and even to build the Third Temple on the site of Al Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock.
THIS is the reason why Zionists envisage war with Islam; and why Israel wanted nukes.
Professor George W. Buchanan, and other authors, showed that the Fundamentalists have the wrong site. The Wailing Wall was part of the Antonia Fortress housing Roman legions; the First and Second Temples were located 600 feet further down the hill, in the City of David, where they used gravity-feed water from the Spring of Siloam for their rituals.
For details on the location and the politics of the Third Temple (it was a factor in the assassination of JFK), see my book Holocaust Reparations And The Gaza Genocide: Does One Holocaust Justify Another? https://www.amazon.com/Holocaust-Reparations-Gaza-Genocide-Justify/dp/064583615X
Bear the above in mind when you see Melanie Phillips' hate, below. - Peter M.
'Home truths' from Melanie Phillips convey one message: Israel will always be at war
David Hearst
25 November 2025 19:56 GMT | Last update: 1 day 15 mins ago
In a speech filled with Islamophobic vitriol, the British commentator has ripped away the last fig leaf concealing Zionism's true purpose
Melanie Phillips speaks at the 'Rage Against the Hate' conference at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City, on 27 October 2025 (Screengrab/X)
I have known Melanie Phillips for some time. In fact, she was at one point my home desk news editor at the Guardian.
Strange though it may now seem, Phillips in that era epitomised the anguished North London liberal, existentially unsure about whether to obey the dictates of her heart or her head.
Phillips is by no means the only former Guardian colleague to make the journey from soft liberal left to hard Islamophobic right, from an Ed Miliband figure to a Michael Gove. But unlike some I could mention, this rite of passage had little to do with money.
Phillips thought it could help her better serve the cause of Israel, which is now, according to her, under more threat than ever before.
For her, the current idea of Israel is very different from the one she proclaimed at the Guardian, where she was fully at home. It had always been a Zionist newspaper.
The Guardian's most prominent former editor, CP Scott, was the first major figure in the British media in the early 20th century to espouse the Zionist cause of Chaim Weizmann, an alliance that set the stage for the 1917 Balfour Declaration.
But Phillips has gone far beyond the realms of liberal Zionism. She recently gave a chest-thumping account of what she thinks is at stake at a conference in New York City, entitled "Rage Against the Hate".
All the hate seemed to be coming from the platform, but there was no parody intended in the title.
Phillips declared that it was time to reveal a few home truths. These words are the inevitable precursor to a PR disaster for supporters of Israel, which is what her speech has since become.
Religious war
Very much in the mode of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Phillips declared that there was no such thing as Palestine or Palestinians. In fact, the only indigenous people around were the Jews, who were the only people with any historic, legal or moral entitlement to this land.
To say this while activists in Britain are being arrested for shouting "from the river to the sea" as an allegedly pro-Hamas chant, hands their defence lawyers a get-out-of-jail card.
Because what Phillips is claiming is that all the land from the river to the sea is Jewish. And as she knows, but the Crown Prosecution Service appears not to, "from the river to the sea" has been Likud policy since 1977.
For Phillips, Jewish supremacy is too big a civilisational deal to be confined to territorial borders. It also crosses religious boundaries.
Phillips branded Christianity a Jewish sect that had "got slightly out of hand", to much laughter from her audience, and suggested that all the core values of the West were Jewish.
Phillips branded Islam a "death cult". She said: "By adopting the language and the moral inversion of the Palestine cause, the West has bought into the agenda for its own destruction at the hands of Islam. This is a death wish by the West, and if you have a death wish, you cannot fight a death cult, which is what the West is facing in the forces of Islam."
For Phillips, a permanent war that pitches seven million Israeli Jews against 450 million Arabs and 92 million Iranians is somehow not big enough.
Like Israel's national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, or Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Phillips now wants to turn a conflict principally over land into a religious war - and take on in the process two billion Muslims.
The only truth
But it was when she tucked into Jews in the diaspora that the wheels truly came off the apple cart. To wield a large scalpel over the very umbilical cord on which Israel depends takes some doing - even for her.
Phillips reminded diaspora Jews that their first loyalty was to Israel. She said they were not just Americans or Britons with Judaism added on; they were part of the "Jewish nation", and that should come first. Everything else was secondary.
Diaspora Jews, according to Phillips, were too soft, too appeasing, too frightened of global public opinion, altogether too Talmudic - which she defined as being too defensive. And Israel should no longer continue "mowing the lawn" - a euphemism for Israeli wars that have killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians - but plough up that land altogether.
She declared that it was time for Jews to go on the offensive; to reclaim the Tanakh, the Hebrew bible full of stories of Jews in antiquity, "fighting real battles and killing real people".
The war in Gaza was nothing less than the resurrection of the Tanakh Jew, the return of the heroic Davidic warrior, Phillips proclaimed in triumph.
And so it turns out that Israel's genocide in Gaza was not a righteous war of self-defence at all, after the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023, but the resurrection of a biblical prophecy as spelt out in the Tanakh.
In ripping away the last fig leaf that concealed the purpose of Zionism, Phillip's "home truths" contained one truth, which is now difficult for anyone on any side to deny: that henceforth, the state of Israel is and will be in a permanent state of war.
This message is exactly what Palestinians need New Yorkers to hear.
False ceasefires
For decades, liberals fed willingly at the trough of Israeli myths - principally that Israel would be at peace if only they could find Palestinian moderates to talk to.
Now, they are being told the very opposite: that it is Israel's biblical destiny to regain a land well beyond its current borders, because all of the land belongs and has been assigned to them by God himself.
Messages like these have already lost the Democrats, but it is from the Christian isolationist wing of Trump's MAGA support base that Israel has the most to fear.
There is no love lost for Palestinians among this influential group. But they know well and truly get the fact that a messianic Israel permanently at war means a US that is also permanently at war, with large numbers of American troops pinned down forever in the Middle East.
With speeches like that, Phillips, and others like her, will ensure that Israel's current nosedive in popularity among diaspora Jews in the US will hit ground at an angle of 90 degrees. For this reason alone, I would heartily encourage her to keep talking.
An Israel permanently at war will hardly be news to Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians, because that is what they have experienced every day since the so-called ceasefire deal.
To date, more than 300 Palestinians have been killed in around 500 separate violations of the Gaza ceasefire agreement. Gaza is following the pattern set by the "ceasefire" in Lebanon, where Hezbollah withdrew and disarmed its forces south of the Litani River, only to find Israel staying in outposts and continuing to bomb the country, killing more than 300 people and injuring more than 900 in the past year, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
Furthermore, Israeli demands have grown. On Sunday, it returned to its campaign of targeting top Hezbollah leaders by assassinating Haytham Ali Tabatabai, Hezbollah's chief of staff, in a strike in Beirut clearly aimed at provoking a Hezbollah response.
The ceasefire is deemed to exist only because Hamas and Hezbollah have not returned fire. The moment they do, the western media, with one voice, will proclaim the ceasefire is broken.
Unprovoked invasion
In southern Syria, where Israel has seized land the equivalent of the size of Gaza, without a missile or a shot being fired over the border by any militant group, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has just performed a victory parade with some of his cabinet ministers.
His appearance on sovereign Syrian territory spelt the end of talks with the new Syrian government, which were in any case deadlocked.
According to sources close to the talks, Israel had demanded not only safe passage to the province of Sweida, but also permanently unimpeded military access to the Kurds in the north, along with the right to inspect and veto all weapons acquired by Damascus.
Netanyahu issued a fresh warning that the string of bases the Israeli army had already set up on Syrian territory, one of them 25 kilometres from Damascus, may not be enough: "This is a mission that can develop at any moment," he warned.
Netanyahu's unprovoked invasion of Syria is the surest and quickest way I know of ensuring that Israel's northern border will be attacked in the future by a rich variety of radical Islamist groups.
If he succeeds in his goal of toppling the US-backed government of Ahmed al-Sharaa, and making central government impossible in a land riven by sectarian tensions, that vacuum will be filled by groups that will have no hesitation in bringing the war to Israel via ground incursions.
Apart from destabilising Syria and making it as difficult as possible for a post-Assad regime to govern nationally, Israel's military adventurism in Syria is clearly aimed at preparing the ground for another attack on Iran.
Tehran is expecting that attack to come sooner rather than later - but this time, it will not be caught off guard by the presence of fake peace talks with the US.
Spillover conflict
Iranian officials described the country's posture as defensive during the 12-day war that broke out after it was unilaterally attacked by Israeli and US warplanes this past June. In the next war, it will go on the offensive, particularly against the countries it now sees as a launchpad for drones and surveillance flights: Azerbaijan on its northern border and the UAE just across the Gulf.
"When Israel starts the next round of this war, Iran will respond. But the next time we are attacked, it will spill over into the Gulf and the region. The United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan, who are betraying the region, will pay a huge price," a senior source with knowledge of Iranian thinking told me.
This is no idle threat, as the Emiratis themselves are the first to realise.
In fact, neither Iran nor any of the resistance groups that Israel thinks it has defeated in the last two years regards itself as defeated.
They acknowledge the blows they received when Israel wiped out their leadership multiple times. But each describes those setbacks as tactical rather than strategic - and this is not just propaganda. Each is quickly rearming.
As a movement, Hamas, which is a proscribed organisation in the UK, is more popular and has more offers of support in the region than it has ever had in its existence.
According to a poll conducted last month by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, if new legislative elections were held in Palestine tomorrow, 65 percent said they would participate, and of those, 44 percent would vote for Hamas, while 30 percent would support Fatah. Around 70 percent said they staunchly opposed the disarmament of Hamas.
This is chiefly down to the fact that this generation of fighters learned the lessons of the Nakbas of 1948 and 1967, and former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's humiliating exit from Beirut when surrounded by the Israeli army in 1982.
Empty resolution
The second stage of the "ceasefire" in Gaza, after Hamas handed over all of the live hostages and the bodies of dead hostages in its possession, is just as mired as the first was.
No Arab or Muslim countries are willing to contribute troops to the proposed International Stabilisation Force without either a clear mandate or a path to Palestinian statehood. Azerbaijan will not agree to deploy troops unless Turkey does.
King Abdullah of Jordan will not touch it. He told the BBC: "Peacekeeping is that you're sitting there supporting the local police force, the Palestinians, which Jordan and Egypt are willing to train in large numbers, but that takes time. If we're running around Gaza on patrol with weapons, that's not a situation that any country would like to get involved in."
It's the same story from the UAE, Egypt and Indonesia. Forced to look ever further east, US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff have approached Singapore, which was reportedly surprised by the request.
And it's the same story with the proposed membership of the "Board of Peace". No one knows who is on it or where the money for it is coming from. No Palestinian government has been formed, and there is no clear plan to do so.
One could go on, but it is clear that the UN Security Council resolution that set all this up has no planning, no commitments, no money and no personnel behind it. Of all the empty resolutions the UN has passed on this conflict, this is surely the emptiest.
If this counts as peace, it is unsustainable. Sooner rather than later, and probably for purely electoral reasons, Netanyahu will make good on his threat to "finish the job" - after two years of war where he patently failed to do just that.
And Phillips, for one, will be delighted, as yet more blood is shed. Her unvarnished Islamophobic vitriol will not bar her from appearing on BBC Question Time or the Moral Maze, nor will anyone dare to challenge her zealotry.
Phillips is right. The West, and the BBC along with it, is sinking - but it is sinking because it tolerates and accommodates voices like hers.
END
Copyright: Peter Myers asserts the right to be identified as the author of the material written by him on this website, being material that is not otherwise attributed to another author.
END
Write to me at contact.html.