Recently Hamas approvingly quoted Germany’s Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who had compared Israel with apartheid-era South Africa. Gabriel, for his part, seems to get his information about the Jewish state from those committed to defaming it. The editors of the Jerusalem Post write:

Gabriel touted his hyper-critical attitude toward Israel during a panel discussion organized by—of all groups—the Kreuzberg Initiative against Anti-Semitism. The public event was held in Berlin in mid-December, as thousands of demonstrators—most of whom were migrants from Muslim countries—thronged the streets, burned Israeli flags, and denounced Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. . . .

Gabriel reportedly [brought up] his [previous] harsh criticism of Israel during a 2012 visit to Israel that included a tour of Hebron. After the tour—which was likely organized by one of the many groups that use freedoms provided by Israel’s democracy to present a tendentious, pro-Palestinian account of the Israel-Palestinian conflict—Gabriel wrote on his Facebook page that Israel is an “apartheid regime” and advocated including Hamas in the “political process” in the Middle East. Gabriel later apologized after Jewish groups took him to task. . . .

In April of last year, Gabriel once again showed his partiality to Israel’s many detractors, when during another short visit to Israel he insisted on meeting with representatives of [the “human-rights” groups] B’Tselem and Breaking the Silence. The vast majority of Israelis view the political agendas of these two organizations as dangerous and overly sympathetic to a Palestinian population that has repeatedly chosen terrorism and violence over peace and negotiations. . . .

[Many serious] dangers . . . can result when men like Gabriel, leaders of liberal Western democracies, grant legitimacy to a slanted narrative of “the conflict.” Now, with Gabriel being enlisted by Hamas, we are given a concrete example of how progressives are exploited by terrorist organizations to advance their own totalitarian agendas. If Germany’s foreign minister insists on perpetuating the false claim of apartheid against Israel, can the German government object when thousands of migrants from the Middle East take to the streets of Berlin and call for Israel’s destruction?

To Elliott Abrams, Donald Trump’s plan to remove the entire population of Gaza while the Strip is rebuilt is “unworkable,” at least “as a concrete proposal.” But it is welcome insofar as “its sheer iconoclasm might lead to a healthy rethinking of U.S. strategy and perhaps of Arab and Israeli policies as well.” The U.S., writes Abrams, must not only move beyond the failed approach to Gaza, but also must reject other assumptions that have failed time and again. One is the commitment to an illusory stability:

For two decades, what American policymakers have called “stability” has meant the preservation of the situation in which Gaza was entirely under Hamas control, Hizballah dominated Lebanon, and Iran’s nuclear program advanced. A better term for that situation would have been “erosion,” as U.S. influence steadily slipped away and Washington’s allies became less secure. Now, the United States has a chance to stop that process and aim instead for “reinforcement”: bolstering its interests and allies and actively weakening its adversaries. The result would be a region where threats diminish and U.S. alliances grow stronger.

Such an approach must be applied above all to the greatest threat in today’s Middle East, that of a nuclear Iran:

Trump clearly remains open to the possibility (however small) that an aging [Iranian supreme leader Ali] Khamenei, after witnessing the collapse of [his regional proxies], mulling the possibility of brutal economic sanctions, and being fully aware of the restiveness of his own population, would accept an agreement that stops the nuclear-weapons program and halts payments and arms shipments to Iran’s proxies. But Trump should be equally aware of the trap Khamenei might be setting for him: a phony new negotiation meant to ensnare Washington in talks for years, with Tehran’s negotiators leading Trump on with the mirage of a successful deal and a Nobel Peace Prize at the end of the road while the Iranian nuclear-weapons program grows in the shadows.