A number of nongovernmental organizations, most of which receive funding from the UN or from various European countries, purport to be dedicated to improving the lives of Palestinian women. In fact, writes Hodaya Shahar, they are just additional wings of the Palestinian national movement:

Last year, the Palestinian organization Women’s Affairs Technical Committee dedicated a youth center for girls in the Palestinian town of Burka. This was made possible thanks to funding from the UN and countries such as Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, and Sweden.

The center was named after Dalal Mughrabi, a Palestinian terrorist who led one of the most lethal terrorist attacks in Israel, killing 37 people, including twelve children, on a bus in 1978. When the donor countries found out, they issued a strong condemnation, saying the money was misused and departed from the original purpose for which it was given. Denmark even went so far as to freeze the funds it had earmarked for the organization. But this was too little, too late. . . . [Such] women [as Mughrabi] and many others have become role models for Palestinian girls and women, who will walk down their violent path and target Israelis. . . .

Women in the Arab world tend to have little if any freedom. Oppressive cultural traditions such as honor killings, female circumcision, child marriage, and restrictions on their freedom of movement, speech, and occupation have resulted in women staying at the lower rungs of society.

With the help of foreign assistance, the situation has become absurd: Palestinian women and their lack of equality are all but forgotten in Palestinian society, reinforcing their underprivileged status and hardships. Women’s rights are essential if society is to advance and thrive. Unfortunately, when it comes to Palestinian society, “women’s empowerment” is just a ruse for promoting the violent struggle against Israel.

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.