Recently a Gazan mother of six was imprisoned for 23 days, and possibly tortured, by Hamas before being released. Meanwhile, Ahed Tamimi, a young West Bank Palestinian who was arrested after physically assaulting two IDF soldiers, is serving an eight-month sentence in an Israeli jail. Bassam Tawil contrasts the two cases:

Tamimi has, since [her arrest], become a symbol of the Palestinian “struggle” against Israel. She is glorified by many in the mainstream media in the West and by advocates of Palestinian human rights around the world, who have turned her into an icon. Tamimi has won all this fame and glory because she and her family members have long been staging skirmishes with Israeli soldiers in their village of Nabi Saleh. The teenager and her parents have made it a habit to invite journalists—or anyone carrying a camera—to document their provocative actions against the soldiers.

Abu Ghayyath, however, the woman from the Gaza Strip, has been less fortunate than the golden girl from the West Bank. Unlike Tamimi’s arrest, [hers] did not spark an international outcry. . . . Had Abu Ghayyath been arrested by Israel, her name would have appeared on the front pages of the New York Times and in the broadcasts of the BBC and CNN. The only ones who picked up her ordeal and demanded her release, however, were a few Palestinian women’s groups and, of course, her family. Predictably, only a handful of Palestinians—and no Westerners—dared to denounce Hamas for arresting the woman.

Even after Abu Ghayyath’s release, it remains unclear why Hamas’s security forces arrested her in the first place. Some Palestinians speculated that she could have been taken into custody because of her affiliation with Hamas’s rivals in Fatah, the secular faction headed by the Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmud Abbas. Others believe she may have been arrested because of her activities on behalf of women’s rights in the Gaza Strip.

This is yet another reminder of the dangerous double standard of the international community. Where are all those who claim to be “pro-Palestinian” and are spewing hatred against Israel and Jews on college campuses in the U.S. and Canada? If they really want to help the Palestinians, let them stand up and shout about the rights of women and gays living under Hamas’s repressive regime, and journalists who are being harassed and arrested by Mahmud Abbas’s security forces. Yelling lies about Israel and Jews does not make one “pro-Palestinian.” It only makes one an Israel-hater. Hating Israel does not [protect the] the human rights [of] Palestinians living under Hamas and Fatah. Instead, it serves as a distraction and even facilitates Fatah and Hamas in suppressing public freedoms and human rights.

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”