While negotiations with Hamas were inevitable, especially given the need to free the hostages, the Qatar-mediated process has served to give the terrorist group a degree of legitimacy. There is an awful precedent for conferring such respectability on terrorist groups, especially those dedicated to killing Israelis. Fifty years ago last November, Yasir Arafat—dressed in fatigues and with an empty holster at his waist—addressed the UN, announcing that he was carrying “an olive branch and a freedom fighter’s gun,” and threatening, “Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.”

Martin Kramer considers the backstory to the speech’s composition, as well as the PLO’s official translation:

Arafat was no neophyte and had savvy advisors like Nabil Sha‘ath and Shafiq al-Hout to guide him. . . . Given the UN setting, Sha‘ath aimed to frame the Palestinian cause as less specifically Arab and Muslim, and more universal and progressive: not against the Jews, but against Zionism; not against the West, but against colonialism and imperialism; and less about revolution than about freedom. Every theme in the Palestinian litany of historical grievances is present in the text, which oscillates between victimhood and resistance.

Similarly, the speech swapped the official PLO goal of seeing all of former Mandate Palestine “cleansed of Jews who had arrived ‘after the beginning of the Zionist invasion,’” for “the creation of a unified ‘democratic, non-racist, secular state’ for Arabs and Jews alike.” The bowdlerization of Arafat’s platform was continued in the translation:

Arafat twice referred to himself as a “revolutionary” (tha’ir), but neither instance was translated accurately. “I am a revolutionary for freedom” was rendered as “I am a rebel, and freedom is my cause.” (This may have been intended to evoke the famous title of the 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause, whose hero stands up to bullying.) . . . This phrasing reframed Arafat as a fighter for freedom against oppression, rather than as a threat to the established order.

An intriguing mistranslation introduced a now-ubiquitous concept. In Arabic, Arafat referred to Zionism as a project “to settle invaders from the West in Palestine.” The English translation radically alters this: Zionism’s purpose was described as “the establishment of Western-style settler colonialism.”

A year later, the PLO was a participant in the Lebanese civil war, terrorizing rival Lebanese and planning cross-border attacks into northern Israel.

For more than a year, the Iran-backed Houthis have been launching drones and missiles at ships traversing the Red Sea, as well as at Israeli territory, in support of Hamas. This development has drastically curtailed shipping through the Suez Canal and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, driving up trade prices. This week, the Trump administration began an extensive bombing campaign against the Houthis in an effort to reopen that crucial waterway. Burcu Ozcelik highlights another benefit of this action:

The administration has a broader geopolitical agenda—one that includes countering China’s economic leverage, particularly Beijing’s reliance on Iranian oil. By targeting the Houthis, the United States is not only safeguarding vital shipping lanes but also exerting pressure on the Iran-China energy nexus, a key component of Beijing’s strategic posture in the region.

China was the primary destination for up to 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports in 2024, underscoring the deepening economic ties between Beijing and Tehran despite U.S. sanctions. By helping fill Iranian coffers, China aids Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in financing proxies like the Houthis. Since October of last year, notable U.S. Treasury announcements have revealed covert links between China and the Houthis.

Striking the Houthis could trigger broader repercussions—not least by disrupting the flow of Iranian oil to China. While difficult to confirm, it is conceivable and has been reported, that the Houthis may have received financial or other forms of compensation from China (such as Chinese-made military components) in exchange for allowing freedom of passage for China-affiliated vessels in the Red Sea.