Exclusive: Hamas Says It Will Not Unilaterally Disarm as Trump and Netanyahu Threaten a Return to Full-Scale War

Senior Hamas official Basem Naim: "It is clear that Netanyahu [is] searching for new justifications to continue the aggression against Gaza and resume the war."

Jeremy Scahill and Jawa Ahmad

Feb 16, 2026

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/trump-netanyahu-demands-hamas-disarmament-gaza-board-peace-negotiations-mladenov

As President Donald Trump prepares to convene the first official meeting of his speciously named Board of Peace on Thursday, he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have re-escalated demands that Hamas and other Palestinian resistance factions imminently disarm—with Netanyahu insisting that all small arms must be turned over before the Israeli military withdraws any of its forces.

“Very importantly, Hamas must uphold its commitment to Full and Immediate Demilitarization,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Sunday.

This demand is being presented as a condition for any reconstruction to begin in Gaza, with no guarantees for Palestinian security or sovereignty. A senior Israeli official also claimed Monday that Trump is considering imposing a two-month deadline for Palestinians to surrender their weapons. Both Trump and Netanyahu have threatened that a large-scale war against Gaza could resume if Hamas refuses to capitulate.

Meanwhile Hamas has not been part of any formal negotiations for several months. Amid media reports of new drafts and U.S. preparation for negotiations, Hamas leaders say there has been nothing formally presented to the movement and that no official meetings have been held with the group to discuss possible scenarios.

Basem Naim, a senior Hamas leader who has been deeply involved with ceasefire negotiations, told Drop Site that Hamas will not accede to sweeping demands that the Palestinian resistance unilaterally disarm, nor will it submit to a total demilitarization of the Gaza Strip. He reiterated that the group is willing to negotiate on disarmament of resistance forces only if it is linked to a long-term ceasefire that restrains Israel and is accompanied by a political process that leads to the establishment of a Palestinian state and armed force capable of defending itself.

“Our position on this matter is very clear,” Naim said. “Before speaking about disarmament or confiscation of weapons, we believe it is necessary for Netanyahu and his extremist government—along with the mediators and the American guarantor—to ensure full implementation of everything agreed upon in the first phase, so that there can be a fundamental change in the humanitarian situation in Gaza.”

“Palestinian resistance and its weapons are a legitimate right, and disarmament is rejected and will not be accepted by any Palestinian,” Naim continued. “The problem is fundamentally political, not security-based, and its solution lies not in the weapons of the resistance but in [ending] the Zionist occupation. Gaza is not a real-estate project; it is an integral part of the Palestinian homeland.”

Netanyahu has regularly and falsely claimed—often backed by Trump and other Western leaders—that Hamas agreed to a total disarmament of the Palestinian resistance as part of the limited-scope first phase of the “ceasefire” deal signed in October. He has justified the killing of more than 600 Palestinians since the “ceasefire” was signed by claiming Hamas fighters and civilians alike are violating the agreement. In reality, Hamas did not sign any terms having to do with disarmament, asserting that they could not unilaterally make an agreement on future governance or armed resistance on behalf of all Palestinians.

“It is clear that Netanyahu and his extremist government are searching for new justifications to continue the aggression against Gaza and to resume the war, despite all the regional and international positions rejecting a return to fighting,” Naim said. “Hamas also is exerting all efforts to avoid the return to war again. Until recently, Netanyahu used the issue of [Israeli] captives to justify continuing the assault on the Gaza Strip, refusing to withdraw, open the crossings, and allow aid in.”

Throughout the Gaza genocide, Israel has demanded a total surrender not only of Hamas, but of the Palestinian cause of liberation. Hamas officials have told Drop Site that while the group rejects total disarmament, it is open to negotiating the issue of weapons, including an internationally-verified warehousing or decommissioning of some “offensive” weapons on the condition that a Palestinian security force is established in Gaza.

Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad officials have maintained that the armed resistance would only disband in the context of the establishment of an internationally recognized Palestinian armed force capable of defending its territory and people. The Trump plan calls for the destruction of “offensive infrastructure, including tunnels and weapon production facilities” and a longer term vision for “an agreed process of decommissioning” other weapons.

“Life in Gaza today is unsustainable,” Naim emphasized, noting that the reported proposal and demands do not make any guarantees for Palestinian security. “How can there be talk of disarmament while the aggression continues and Netanyahu does not commit to the ceasefire? Armed gangs are being formed, supported, and backed to carry out dangerous security operations such as kidnappings and killings. How can disarmament be discussed while [nearly] 60% of the Gaza Strip remains occupied by Israel?”

Mutual Security Pacts

As Drop Site has previously reported, Hamas repeatedly suggested to regional mediators a solution to the weapons issue wherein the Palestinian resistance would agree to store or “freeze” its weapons and not deploy them in any attacks against Israel. This configuration, which would be part of an internationally-enforced long-term ceasefire, would come with the endorsement of the Palestinian resistance groups themselves. Violating such an agreement, especially one endorsed by large numbers of Arab and Islamic countries, would carry grave consequences for the broader Palestinian struggle. The key to its success, Palestinian officials cautioned, would be compelling Israel to respect the agreement. Israel has consistently violated ceasefire deals not only with Palestine, but also in Lebanon where it continues to bomb on a nearly daily basis despite a ceasefire signed in November 2024. Hamas’s proposals went nowhere and since Trump officially launched his board, there have been almost no substantive discussions with Hamas leaders.

On Sunday, Netanyahu sought to front-run any potential technical negotiations with Hamas that would permit Palestinian fighters to retain even small arms, declaring that the Gaza Strip must be entirely demilitarized as a condition for Israel to move to the second phase of a deal.

“What has to happen is that Hamas must first be disarmed and then Gaza must be demilitarized. Disarmed means that it must give up weapons,” Netanyahu said in a speech at the conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jerusalem, dismissing the notion that any negotiations on decommissioning should take place. “There are practically no heavy weapons in Gaza. There’s no artillery, there are no tanks, there’s nothing. The heavy weapon, the one that does the most damage, is called an AK-47, okay, that’s it. That’s how they execute people. That’s how they shoot our people. That’s what they used, assault rifles. That’s what they used in the massacre of October 7,” he added. “That’s the main weapon, and that has to go.”

On Monday, Yossi Fuchs, Israel’s Cabinet Secretary and a senior aide to Netanyahu, claimed that the Trump administration had asked Israel for a two-month window to force Hamas to disarm before Israel re-launched a large-scale military assault on Gaza. ​​”We are currently preparing for a period of around 60 days during which Hamas will be given the opportunity. We are in complete coordination with the Americans, this is their request, we respect them,” Fuchs told a media conference in Jerusalem. “This process will be examined, if it goes well, great. And if not, the IDF will have to return and complete the mission.” Fuchs said he did not know when the 60-day deadline would begin, but predicted that if full disarmament did not happen by June, Israel would renew its total war against Gaza.

“Does talk of disarmament mean the absence of any reciprocal security arrangements, leaving Israel free to operate in Gaza Strip wherever, whenever, and however it wishes?” asked Naim. “Attempting to portray the problem as the existence of weapons in Palestinian hands—light weapons that cannot be compared in any way to the conventional, chemical, biological, or nuclear arsenal possessed by Israel—[ignores] what was witnessed over two years of genocide in the Gaza Strip. These light weapons in the hands of the Palestinian people are fundamentally for self-defense, not for aggression against anyone. Therefore, such a measure is rejected and cannot be allowed to pass, as they claim or demand.”

Naim said that Hamas’s position is that any proposals regarding weapons or disarmament must center around mutual security pacts, not unilateral demands put before the Palestinian side. “Israel must be restrained from continuing the aggression, and it must be ensured that a multi-year ceasefire—three, five, or seven years—runs parallel to the political process,” he said. “During this period, the resistance would commit—under Palestinian, Arab, and international supervision—to the ceasefire. In this time, the weapons would be removed from the field and stored, and full opportunity would be given to the Palestinian government or the administrative committee to manage all civil and security affairs in the Gaza Strip without interference from anyone.”

This position has been consistently articulated by Hamas officials since the signing of the October agreement at Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. Despite the pervasive false characterizations from U.S. and Israeli officials that Hamas agreed to all of Trump’s terms, Hamas and other Palestinian factions did not sign an agreement beyond a ceasefire, exchange of captives, and an initial framework for the redeployment or withdrawal of Israeli forces from some parts of Gaza. Officially, there is no deal on a “second phase.” Palestinian negotiators made clear that demands impacting the future of a Palestinian state, the weapons of resistance factions and other existential issues would require consultation with a broad cross-section of Palestinian political parties and factions.

“We have discussed a comprehensive and holistic approach. First, the humanitarian track must be entirely separated: the daily life of the people—their food, water, and medicine—cannot remain at the mercy of this fascist government and its political agenda, whose stated goal is to resolve the conflict by force in favor of the entity and to erase Palestinian existence,” said Naim. “There must also be a serious, time-bound political process that begins and ends with the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. At that point, the weapons and fighters of the resistance would become part of that state and its army.”

“Either disarmament or war”

Last weekend, Trump announced that he had received more than $5 billion in commitments for his board and that partner nations have pledged thousands of troops to deploy as part of an International Stabilization Force (ISF). While Trump did not name specific countries, Indonesia became the first nation to publicly declare its participation, announcing it was preparing for a potential deployment of up to 8,000 of its troops. Many nations have said they will not send troops if the mission includes disarming or clashing with Palestinian resistance factions.

Hamas has said it welcomes an international force, but only to serve as a neutral buffer between Israeli forces and Palestinians in Gaza. “Indonesia’s participation is not intended for combat missions and not for demilitarization missions,” read a February 14 statement from Indonesia’s foreign ministry. It added that the “mandate is humanitarian in nature, focusing on the protection of civilians, humanitarian and health assistance, reconstruction, as well as training and capacity-building for the Palestinian Police.” The statement declared that Indonesia would “terminate participation if the ISF’s implementation deviates” from that mandate.

The Trump plan also calls for a Palestinian police force to be formed under the banner of a newly-established technocratic governing body known as the National Committee for Administration of Gaza (NCAG). Composed of 15 Palestinians, the NCAG is the only component of Trump’s board that includes Palestinians and is situated on the lowest rung of the Board of Peace hierarchy. When Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, presented a slide deck at the launch of the Board of Peace in Davos, Switzerland on January 22, a slide titled “Demilitarization Principles” stated, “Heavy weapons decommissioned immediately. Personal arms registered and decommissioned by sector as NCAG’s police becomes capable of guaranteeing personal security.” The section concluded: “The end state: only NCAG-sanctioned personnel may carry weapons.”

A top official in Trump’s Board of Peace likewise indicated that efforts to disarm Palestinian resistance groups would occur as part of the establishment of a Palestinian security force and not as a formal surrender ceremony. That Trump officials appeared headed toward a slower process of disarmament than Netanyahu has demanded was also reinforced by a report in the New York Times describing a draft U.S. plan that would require Hamas to “surrender all weapons that are capable of striking Israel, but will allow the group to keep some small arms, at least initially.”

Hamas’s leader in Gaza, Dr. Khalil Al-Hayya, met recently in Cairo with Nickolay Mladenov, the high representative for Trump’s board, though a senior Hamas official told Drop Site that no official proposals for disarmament were presented at the meeting. “In some meetings, the topic was put on the table in general,” the official said. “Until now, no official discussion with us has been launched.”

At the Munich Security Conference on February 13, Mladenov was asked where he wanted to see the situation in Gaza a year from now. “I hope that we will be significantly advanced on deploying a new security force of Palestinians inside Gaza and Hamas would have given up a significant part of its weapons so that we are moving forward to the point at which Israel can withdraw from the yellow line,” said Mladenov, a Bulgarian diplomat who served as the UN’s top envoy to the region from 2015-2020. “These are conditions that I think are critical if we are ever to return back to the political resolution of the Palestinian question because the political resolution to the Palestinian question requires negotiations, it requires one Palestinian leadership over the entire occupied territory, and it requires a dialogue that is facilitated—not overseen, but facilitated—by the United States, Europe and others as it has been in the past.”

While Mladenov’s theoretical timeline appears to contradict Netanyahu’s demands for immediate disarmament, he also acknowledged that no serious reconstruction or Israeli military withdrawals would occur unless the resistance was disbanded. On this issue, Mladenov said that not only Hamas’s armed wing would need to disarm, but also Islamic Jihad and all other armed factions. He called Trump’s plan “the only option for going ahead with anything that makes sense in Gaza and that stops this war and doesn’t allow a return to violence.” He added, “Gaza needs to be governed by a transitional authority as authorized by the Security Council resolution under which it needs to take on the full civilian and security control of Gaza and that includes the disarmament of all factions in Gaza, not just Hamas.”

Mladenov said that is the condition for Israeli forces to withdraw and for reconstruction to begin. “The reality is that all of this needs to move very fast,” he said. “Let me be absolutely clear about the risks that we’re facing here: The first risk is that we are not going to implement the second phase of the ceasefire, but we’re going to go to the second phase of the war and that is a serious threat.” He said that if Israel resumed the war, there would be no place for the Board of Peace “until we see what is left and pick up the rubble, potentially, at the end of it.” Mladenov warned that if Phase 2 was not implemented swiftly, the Israeli division of Gaza into two halves and the treatment of Gaza as a separate entity from the West Bank and not as two parts of the same occupied territory would be “cemented.”

Naim, the Hamas official, blasted Mladenov’s statement. “It is a disgrace to hear some American or international politician like Mladenov saying, ‘Either disarmament or war’ because this makes him a spokesperson for the Israeli government, instead of being a representative of a body working to create peace.”

That coercive ultimatum constitutes the centerpiece of Israel’s campaign to ensure it maintains full control of the eastern half of Gaza, an ability to strike at will in the western areas and to impede the minimal concessions offered to the Palestinian side. Phase 2 of Trump’s plan envisions a large-scale reconstruction plan, expanded freedom of movement for Palestinians through the Rafah crossing with Egypt, the empowerment of the Palestinian transitional technocratic committee, under the direction of Mladenov, to assume basic governance duties and the gradual deployment of a Palestinian security force in Gaza. It also includes terms that call for the withdrawal of Israeli forces to a perimeter encircling Gaza, rather than the status quo of Israel occupying more than half of the enclave.

“The U.S. is playing the good cop in this moment to Netanyahu’s bad cop position. They are talking reconstruction and peace while he keeps the threat of war hanging. So I see them doing a diversionary tango that constantly moves Hamas further and further into a corner,” said Sami Hermez, a political analyst and professor of anthropology at Northwestern University in Qatar. “I don’t think we can separate the U.S. and Israel or Trump and Netanyahu into two different strategies versus partners in one overall strategy working in tandem. It is naive to think otherwise or to follow the media narrative that Trump is not seeing eye-to-eye with Netanyahu every now and then.”

Devastation in Gaza

Despite the overarching colonialist structure of the Board of Peace and Trump’s constant deference to Israel’s agenda, Netanyahu continues to publicly reject any plan that would allow Palestinians to remain in Gaza with even a semblance of autonomy or an ability to rebuild homes, hospitals, roads or schools. Israel has systematically refused to uphold the terms of the October agreement. Over the four months since the so-called ceasefire took effect on October 10, approximately 1,620 Israeli violations have been recorded, according to the latest figures from Gaza’s Government Media Office. These include hundreds of shooting incidents, repeated shelling and airstrikes, incursions into residential neighborhoods, and the demolition of homes and buildings. These violations resulted in the killing of at least 603 Palestinians and the wounding of more than 1,600.

Israel has also refused to allow in the agreed-upon levels of food and other life essentials stipulated in the agreement. Although 600 aid trucks per day were supposed to enter the Gaza Strip, the average has been only around 260 trucks per day. Fuel deliveries have been especially restricted, with just 861 trucks entering out of the 6,000 agreed upon. Israel has severely restricted passage in and out of Gaza at the Rafah crossing since its partial reopening last week, allowing roughly a quarter of the expected number of Palestinians to depart or return to Gaza. As Israel continues to move its forces deeper into Gaza than permitted, it has also been constructing infrastructure in areas of eastern Gaza that indicate long term plans for open-ended occupation.

In the bigger picture, Netanyahu is manufacturing a state of chaos in Gaza that relegates Palestinians to fragile tent encampments and limited access to basic life necessities. He has made no secret that Israel’s aim is for Trump to empower ongoing Israeli attacks, severely limit any improvement to living conditions or the hope of reconstruction and to encourage the large-scale removal of Palestinians from Gaza. By making a boogieman of the small arms of the resistance, Netanyahu is maintaining a political justification to continue a low intensity war—that Amnesty International has deemed a continuation of the genocide—with the spectre of resuming larger operations.

“The longer Netanyahu can keep Gaza unlivable the better, the longer he can stall any reconstruction and relief the better. The idea of total disarmament is a good way to ensure nothing gets done in Gaza because he knows it is an unrealistic demand,” said Hermez. “To a great extent, the US and Israel are following the same playbook they used in the West Bank for decades: they talk peace and the US even funds peace initiatives, while the troops on the ground make life hell for Palestinians and continue to squeeze them. All in the name of some future promise—it was statehood post Oslo, it is mere reconstruction in Gaza. The wild card, of course, is Hamas and the resilience of life on the ground.”

Naim said that the unfolding events underscore the continuance of Israel’s multi-decade campaign to annihilate not only the aspirations for a Palestinian state, but an intensification of the war to force Palestinians entirely from the land. He pointed to Israel’s ongoing siege of the occupied West Bank, replete with regular Israeli military invasions, the expansion of illegal settlements, and the terror being unleashed on Palestinians by state-backed settlers on a daily basis. He also cited recent judicial actions that allow Israel to register land in areas of the West Bank as legal property of the state for the first time since 1967.

“The Palestinian experience over more than 33 years since the Oslo Accords—which were supposed to end with the establishment of a Palestinian state—shows how Israel, especially during Netanyahu’s tenure since 1996, used every means to destroy that opportunity, weaken and undermine the [Palestinian] Authority, and expand annexation by all means. Recent decisions bypassing previous Israeli laws and obligations toward both Palestinians and Jordanians and canceling Jordanian law and the administrative capacity of the Palestinian National Authority, amount to de facto and legal annexation,” he said. “This experience confirms that the problem has never been the Palestinians or the resistance, but rather the Israeli colonial settlement project aimed at erasing Palestinian existence and ending the Palestinian cause in favor of a Jewish state between the river and the sea.”

Naim added, “What Netanyahu and his army have failed to achieve over the course of two years, they will not succeed [in attaining] by any other means—regardless of the support he may receive from any party.”

First Gaza, Then the World: The Global Danger of Israeli Exceptionalism

by Ramzy Baroud | Feb 16, 2026

https://original.antiwar.com/ramzy-baroud/2026/02/15/first-gaza-then-the-world-the-global-danger-of-israeli-exceptionalism/

While many nations occasionally resort to a “state of exception” to deal with temporary crises, Israel exists in a permanent state of exception. This Israeli exceptionalism is the very essence of the instability that plagues the Middle East.

The concept of the state of exception dates back to the Roman justitium, a legal mechanism for suspending law during times of civil unrest. However, the modern understanding was shaped by the German jurist Carl Schmitt, who famously wrote that the “sovereign is he who decides on the exception.” While Schmitt’s own history as a jurist for the Third Reich serves as a chilling reminder of where such theories can lead, his work provides an undeniably accurate anatomy of raw power: it reveals how a ruler who institutes laws also holds the power to dismiss them, under the pretext that no constitution can foresee every possible crisis.

It is often argued that Israel, a self-described democracy, still lacks a formal constitution because such a document would force it to define its borders – a problematic prospect for a settler-colonial regime with an insatiable appetite for expansion. But there is another explanation: by operating on “Basic Laws” rather than a constitution, Israel avoids a comprehensive legal system that would align it with the globally accepted foundations of international law. Without a constitution, Israel exists in a legal vacuum where the “exception” is the rule. In this space, racial laws, territorial expansion, and even genocide are permitted so long as they fit the state’s immediate agenda.

Isolating specific examples to illustrate this point is a daunting task, primarily because nearly every relevant pronouncement from Israeli officials – particularly during the genocide in Gaza – is a textbook study in Israeli exceptionalism. Consider Israel’s relentless assault on UNRWA, the UN-mandated body responsible for the survival of millions of Palestinian refugees. For decades, Israel has sought the dismantling of UNRWA for one reason: it is the only global institution that prevents the total erasure of Palestinian refugee rights. These rights are not mere grievances; they are firmly anchored in international law, most notably via UN Resolution 194.

While UNRWA is not a political organization in a functional sense, its very existence is profoundly political. First, it stands as the institutional legacy of a specific political history; second, and more crucially, its presence ensures the Palestinian refugee remains a recognized political entity. By existing, UNRWA preserves the status of the refugee as a subject with the legal right to demand a return to historic Palestine – a demand that the “state of exception” seeks to permanently silence.

In October 2024, Israel unilaterally legislated the closure of UNRWA, once more asserting its “exception” over the entire framework of the United Nations. “It is time the international community (…) realizes that UNRWA’s mission must end,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had already declared on January 31, 2024, signaling the coming erasure. This rhetoric reached its physical conclusion on January 20, when the UNRWA headquarters in occupied Jerusalem were demolished by the Israeli military in the presence of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

“A historic day!” Ben-Gvir announced on that same date. “Today these supporters of terror are being driven out.” This horrific act was met with bashful responses, mute concerns, or total silence by the very powers tasked with preventing states from positioning themselves above the law.

By allowing this Israeli “exception” to stand unchallenged, the international community has effectively sanctioned the demolition of its own legal foundations.

In the past, Israeli leaders masked their true intentions with the language of a “light unto the nations,” projecting a beacon of morality while practicing violence, ethnic cleansing, and military occupation on the ground. The genocide in Gaza, however, has stripped away these pretenses. For the first time, Israeli rhetoric fully reflects a state of exception where the law is not just ignored, but structurally suspended.

“No one in the world will let us starve two million citizens, even though it may be justified and moral until they return the hostages to us,” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich admitted on August 5, 2024. This “justified and moral” stance reveals a localized morality that permits the extermination of a population as an ethically defensible act. Yet Smotrich also lied; the world has done nothing practical to dissuade Israel from its savage pulverization of Gaza.

The global community remained idle even when Smotrich declared on May 6, 2025, that Gaza would be “entirely destroyed” and the population “concentrated in a narrow strip.” Today, that vision is a reality: a genocide-fatigued population is confined to roughly 45% of the territory, while the remainder stays empty under Israeli military control.

Netanyahu himself, who has stretched the state of exception beyond any predecessor, defined this new reality during a cabinet meeting on October 26, 2025: “Israel is a sovereign state… Our security policy is in our own hands. Israel does not seek anyone’s approval for that.” Here, Netanyahu defines sovereignty as the raw power to act – genocide included – without regard for international law or human rights.

If all states adopted this, the world would fall into a lawless frenzy. In his seminal State of Exception, Giorgio Agamben diagnosed this “void” – a space where law is suspended but “force of law” remains as pure violence. While his recent stances have divided the academic community, his critique of the exception as a permanent tool of governance remains an indispensable lens for understanding the erasure of Palestinian life.

Israel has already created that void. In the hands of a genocidal settler-colonial society, the state of exception is a relentless nightmare that will not stop at the borders of Palestine. If this “exception” is allowed to become the permanent regional rule, no nation in the Middle East will be spared. Time is of the essence.

Israel’s West Bank annexation moves raise security alarm in Jordan

Amman fears a ‘soft transfer’ of Palestinians from the occupied territory, with experts warning it could trigger a ‘regional earthquake’

By Mohammad Ersan in Amman

Published date: 15 February 2026

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/why-jordan-fears-soft-transfer-west-bank-after-israeli-annexation-steps

When Israel announced sweeping changes to the occupied West Bank, measures widely seen as accelerating annexation, Jordan was among the first to condemn the move.

For decades, Amman has feared the mass displacement of Palestinians from the West Bank. But analysts say its concern is no longer limited to “creeping annexation” or gradual land seizures.

Instead, the latest measures - which Jordan has described as null and void - are seen as the start of a “total annexation” phase, threatening not just the geography of the West Bank but the very core of Jordan’s national security.

“This measure represents a leap across strategic stages,” Omar al-Ayasrah, a member of Jordan’s Senate, the upper house appointed by the king, told Middle East Eye.

“They aim to completely remove Jordan’s influence on the Palestinian cause and the legal protections for Arab landowners, opening the door to ‘legalise’ their transfer to the occupation,” he added.

The Israeli changes, announced last week, include a wide range of measures - one of which is particularly sensitive for Jordan.

That is the revocation of the 1953 law introduced when Jordan administered the West Bank, which banned the sale of property in the Palestinian territory to non-Arabs.

The law was intended to prevent land purchases by Israelis that could accelerate settlement expansion.

Another measure involves the declassification of land registers in the West Bank. Keeping those records classified had been intended to protect property from being transferred through intermediaries or through forged claims to settlers.

The changes will also enable Israel to legalise the confiscation of unregistered or abandoned lands by reclassifying them as “state lands”.

The measures are seen as a radical shift in the legal and civil reality of the occupied West Bank, stripping the Palestinian Authority (PA) of the limited self-rule it gained under the 1993 Oslo Accords and entrenching de facto annexation.

“The revocation of the Jordanian law is not merely a symbolic change,” Ayasrah warned.

“It is a transition to a phase of accelerated, incremental annexation of the West Bank.”

‘Soft transfer’

Historically, Jordan maintained deep ties with the West Bank, administering it from 1950 until its administrative and legal disengagement in 1988.

Despite that disengagement, the West Bank has remained central to Jordan’s national security because of profound demographic, economic and geographic links.

Jordan, already home to a large Palestinian refugee population, now fears fresh waves of displacement that could destabilise its internal security and impose severe economic and social strain.

That is why, according to Ayasrah, the real battle is demographic.

“Suffocating the Palestinians’ geographic space and crippling their economy by seizing land and farms is a prelude to what we call ‘soft transfer’,” he said.

“This systematic pressure, coupled with the absence of a political horizon and soaring unemployment, is designed to push Palestinians towards emigration - a scenario Amman views as a nightmare striking at its national security.” 

In response to the Israeli moves, some in Jordan have called for escalation, with options ranging from revoking the 1994 peace treaty to military confrontation.

For now, however, Ayasrah says the government is exhausting diplomatic and legal avenues.

That includes maintaining diplomatic pressure on Israel and supporting the PA and the West Bank economy to help Palestinians remain on their land.

“Jordan has only the ‘hammer of diplomacy’,” Ayasrah said, describing revoking the peace treaty as “political suicide”.

At the same time, the Royal Hashemite Documentation Centre (RHDC), an arm of the Jordanian royal court, is intensifying efforts to restore thousands of historical documents and deeds proving Palestinian land ownership, some dating back to the Ottoman era and earlier.

According to its director, Muhannad Mubaidin, the documents could be used in a legal challenge at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against the decisions taken by Israel.

"The centre’s work on Palestinian land documents is not new; it has been ongoing for 18 years," Mubaidin told MEE. "We have restored records pertaining to land registers from the 1858 Ottoman Land Code, and subsequently, registers from the British Mandate period."

"Today, this archival work is of paramount importance," he added. "Even if Israel disregards international law, these records are vital for memory, and the 'memory wars' Israel employs to depict Palestinian lands as having no owners, residents, or history."

Red lines

Political analyst Lamis Andoni believes Jordan cannot continue with a policy of “waiting out the storm” or relying solely on security arrangements.

The latest Israeli measures are a “moment of truth” that no previous Israeli government has dared to reach, she said.

Amman has leverage it could use, she added, including the gas deal with Israel and the United States’ reliance on Jordan’s strategic location, especially amid rising tensions with Iran.

“The current strategy, which hesitates to use real leverage such as cancelling the gas deal or halting normalisation tracks, may be interpreted in Israel as a green light to proceed with the liquidation of the Palestinian cause at the expense of Jordanian territory,” Andoni told MEE.

Retired Jordanian major general and military expert Mamoun Abu Nuwar said the land confiscation moves in the West Bank amount to an “undeclared war” on Jordan.

He explained that Amman relies on “preventive diplomacy backed by force”, with clear red lines focused on the custodianship of holy sites, including Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem.

“Jordan’s options, should diplomacy fail, could include suspending agreements, downgrading diplomatic ties, or even halting security coordination,” Abu Nuwar said.

“Jordan could even be forced to declare the border with the West Bank a military zone to prevent displacement,” he added.

He stressed that the military was prepared to handle such Israeli threats and warned that the forced displacement of Palestinians from the West Bank would shatter Jordan’s demographic balance.

“Jordan will not allow this project to pass,” he said.

“Israeli overreach could spark a violent conflict across the region, and Israel would not succeed in such a confrontation with Jordan, given the kingdom’s strategic geopolitical position - which could trigger a regional earthquake.”

The UAE: One state or seven competing emirates under one flag?

Behind the skyscrapers lies a fragile federal bargain shifting toward Abu Dhabi and tested by the Emirates’ ties to Washington and Israel.

Mohamad Hasan Sweidan

FEB 13, 2026

https://thecradle.co/articles/the-uae-one-state-or-seven-competing-emirates-under-one-flag

In December 1971, seven rulers sealed a pact that fused their territories into a federation. There was no uprising in the streets, no grand constitutional rupture shaped by popular will. 

What emerged was a calculated bargain among hereditary rulers who understood both their fragility and their ambition, as British power receded from the Persian Gulf and Washington’s shadow stretched steadily across the region.

That bargain still holds. But it has never been equal.

Seven Emirates, one destiny? 

The UAE is routinely portrayed as a unified, stable, forward-looking state – a Gulf success story that leveraged oil wealth, global trade, and strategic alignment with the US to project power well beyond its size. 

In recent years, it has added normalization with Israel and deepening security integration with Washington to that formula. Yet what is rarely acknowledged is that the UAE is not a monolithic state in the classical sense. It is a federation of seven hereditary emirates, each with distinct economic models, political cultures, and varying levels of wealth and influence.

The question, then, is not whether the UAE is stable today. It is whether the structural imbalances built into its formation can endure the mounting internal and external pressures of the coming years.

A federation built on asymmetry

The UAE was not created by a single ruling family consolidating power. It was born of negotiation. In December 1971, six emirates formed the federation. Ras al-Khaimah joined in February 1972, bringing the total to seven. From the outset, the union brought together territories that were unequal in resources, demography, and geopolitical weight.

Before British protection agreements carved out the Trucial Coast, large swaths of today’s UAE lay within Oman’s sphere of influence, where tribal confederations and maritime rulers operated under shifting Omani suzerainty. The federation is thus a recent political settlement, not the continuation of a historical state.

Abu Dhabi controls the commanding heights of the federation, overseeing roughly 96 percent of oil and gas production capacity – giving it not only the largest share of hydrocarbon reserves, but also decisive control over how and when that wealth enters global markets.

Dubai charted a different course. With limited oil, it built its identity on economic openness – ports, aviation, re-export, finance – turning geography into leverage. It compensated for resource scarcity through hyper-connectivity and risk-taking.

According to the Central Bank of the UAE, Dubai received 9.9 million international visitors who spent at least one night in the first half of 2025, and Dubai Airport handled about 46 million passengers during the same period.

The northern emirates followed other paths. Ras al-Khaimah relied more heavily on manufacturing, quarrying, and mid-scale trade. Sharjah positioned itself around education, culture, and a more socially conservative public identity, even as it sought to expand industrial capacity and job creation. 

Fujairah capitalized on geography, sitting on the Gulf of Oman and serving as a critical energy and shipping outlet beyond the Strait of Hormuz. Ajman and Umm al-Quwain, smaller and more financially constrained, depended more directly on federal redistribution and shared sovereign infrastructure.

These differences remain embedded in the federation’s architecture.

The federal design itself acknowledges hierarchy. The Federal Supreme Council, composed of the seven rulers, holds ultimate authority over major national matters. Yet substantive decisions require the agreement of Abu Dhabi and Dubai. 

In practice, this grants both emirates veto power on key federal issues. Rather than being merely two of seven; they are the twin pillars of the state. While that structure has ensured stability, it has also entrenched asymmetry. 

Abu Dhabi’s consolidation

The ruler of Abu Dhabi chairs the Supreme Council for Financial and Economic Affairs (SCFEA), established by law in December 2020. This body sets policy on financial, investment, economic, petroleum, and natural resource affairs, oversees relevant entities, and appoints members of strategic investment bodies.

For the other emirates, this council formalized what had already become reality, that decisive national economic authority increasingly emanates from Abu Dhabi.

On 30 January 2026, Abu Dhabi’s new sovereign wealth entity, Limad Holding, acquired Abu Dhabi Holding, consolidating hundreds of billions of dollars in state assets – airlines, utilities, and ports – under the direct leadership of the Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohammed bin Zayed. A Reuters report described the move as placing vast strategic assets under a tighter circle of control worth “hundreds of billions of dollars.”

Such consolidation reduces institutional fragmentation at the top. It also narrows the circle of decision-makers. In a federation built on negotiated balance, that has consequences. Fewer actors at the apex can mean greater efficiency. It can also raise the stakes of elite disputes during crises, particularly if other emirates feel sidelined.

The unease is rarely voiced publicly. It surfaces instead in subtle signals – commentary in Gulf media since 2019, warning of potential fragmentation; muted frustration among elites; and social media expressions that occasionally break through before being erased.

The episode involving Haitham bin Saqr bin Sultan Al-Qasimi, deputy head of the Ruler’s Office in Kalba, who briefly posted a tweet attacking President Mohammed bin Zayed (MbZ) before deleting it, offered a glimpse into tensions that rarely see daylight.

Dubai, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah: Pressure points

If fragmentation were ever to materialize, it would not resemble street protests or separatist parties. Political parties are banned, public dissent is tightly controlled, and internal mobility is regulated. The UAE is not structured for open contestation.

Instead, pressure appears in less visible domains such as elite cohesion, socio-economic bargains, and exposure to external financial shocks.

Glitzy Dubai illustrates the first line of vulnerability. Its model depends on credibility as a predictable, dynamic global hub. The Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) emphasizes its independent legal and regulatory framework to attract global capital. Yet that openness makes Dubai sensitive to shifts in the global regulatory climate.

Corporate tax, introduced for the 2023 fiscal year, and a local supplementary minimum tax taking effect on 1 January 2025 have forced Dubai’s long-standing model of easy entry and differentiated zones to adapt to a more uniform federal tax environment.

At the same time, repeated western warnings about the use of UAE-based networks for sanctions evasion and financial opacity have heightened reputational risk. Dubai carries a disproportionate share of financial exposure. A sudden contraction in capital flows or a reputational shock tied to sanctions enforcement could reverberate quickly through its economy.

Dubai has drawn closer to the federal core. The appointment of the crown prince of Dubai as minister of defense in July 2024 tethered Dubai’s leadership directly to a central sovereign function. It was a strategic alignment move – one that reduces the likelihood of overt divergence.

Ras al-Khaimah presents a different test. The emirate has pursued differentiated growth projects, most notably the Wynn Al Marjan Island integrated resort. In September 2023, the UAE Commercial Gaming Regulatory Authority (GCGRA) was established as a federal body to develop a framework for commercial gaming and national lotteries. 

On 5 October 2024, Wynn Resorts received the UAE’s first commercial gambling license for Ras al-Khaimah. This marks a major policy shift in a federation that had long prohibited gambling.

The test is twofold. Federal regulation means centralized oversight, largely from Abu Dhabi. Yet social and cultural norms vary across emirates. If gaming becomes a significant revenue source and tourism magnet, Ras al-Khaimah’s bargaining power within the federation will increase. It may draw tourist flows that would otherwise head to Dubai or Abu Dhabi, sharpening internal economic competition.

Sharjah, meanwhile, balances a conservative cultural identity with industrial and energy expansion. In November 2025, Sharjah’s Petroleum Council announced a new natural gas discovery at the Al-Hadiba field, reinforcing the emirate’s long-term push to strengthen its domestic energy position.

Yet Sharjah also carries a heavier debt burden relative to its size. In its May 2024 sovereign rating assessment, S&P Global Ratings underscored the emirate’s comparatively elevated debt burden, with gross government debt standing at roughly 52 percent of GDP in 2023.

Each of these emirates operates under the same flag. Each also pursues a distinct model of legitimacy and growth.

Security state and elite cohesion

The second axis of potential strain lies in how dissent is managed. In the UAE, opposition is treated primarily as a security issue. Over the past year, high-profile cases linked to what authorities describe as terrorism-related offenses have resurfaced.

Human rights groups have reported on the so-called UAE84 case, a mass trial involving 84 individuals. On 4 March 2025, Human Rights Watch (HRW) stated that the State Security Division of the Federal Supreme Court rejected appeals and upheld convictions. Authorities accused the defendants of establishing or running a secret entity designated as terrorist under the Anti-Terrorism Law.

Such cases reinforce elite discipline. They also send a message about the boundaries of permissible discourse. In a federation dependent on negotiated power-sharing among ruling families, cohesion at the top matters more than public contestation below.

However, the absence of visible opposition does not automatically translate into the absence of tension. It means tension, if it exists, circulates within elite networks rather than in the streets.

External entanglements and internal cost

The UAE has deepened its integration with Washington’s security architecture and normalized relations with Israel, embedding itself further in US-led regional frameworks. These alignments deliver technological, military, and financial advantages. They also carry political and reputational costs across West Asia.

As the federation expands its involvement in Israeli-linked projects, it risks widening the gap between external strategy and internal social currents. For smaller or more conservative emirates, the calculus may not be identical to that of Abu Dhabi’s strategic planners.

The UAE remains far from collapse. Division is unlikely in the near term. But the federation’s durability rests on continuous management of asymmetry – economic, political, and cultural. As Abu Dhabi centralizes authority and external commitments deepen, the margin for error narrows.

The UAE is one country in law. In practice, it is seven emirates negotiating pow

Leading Papers Call for Destroying Iran to Save It

Gregory Shupak

February 10, 2026

https://fair.org/home/leading-papers-call-for-destroying-iran-to-save-it/

The United States has no right to wage war on Iran, or to have a say who governs the country. The opinion pages of the New York Times and Washington Post, however, are offering facile humanitarian arguments for the US to escalate its attacks on Iran. These are based on the nonsensical assumption that the US wants to help brighten Iranians’ futures.

In two editorials addressing the possibility of the US undertaking a bombing and shooting war on Iran, the Washington Post expressed no opposition to such policies and endorsed economic warfare as well.

Crediting Trump with “the wisdom of distinguishing between an authoritarian regime and the people who suffer under its rule,” the first Post editorial (1/2/26) approvingly quoted Trump’s Truth Social promise (1/2/26) to Iranian protesters that the US “will come to their rescue…. We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”

For the Post, the problem was not that Trump was threatening to bomb a sovereign state, but that “airstrikes are, at best, a temporary solution”:

If the administration wants this time to be different, it will need to oversee a patient, sustained campaign of maximum pressure against the government…. The optimal strategy is to economically squeeze the regime as hard as possible at this moment of maximum vulnerability. More stringent enforcement of existing oil sanctions would go a long way…. Western financial controls are actually working quite well.

Thus, the paper offers advice on how to integrate bombing Iran into a broader effort to overthrow the country’s government in a hybrid war. Central to that project are the sanctions with which the Post is so thoroughly impressed. Such measures have “squeeze[d] the regime” by, for example, decimating “the government’s primary source of revenue, oil exports, limiting the state’s ability to provide for millions of impoverished Iranians through social safety nets” (CNN, 10/19/25).

That the US continues to apply the sanctions, knowing that they have these effects, demonstrates that it has no interest in, as the Post put it, “free[ing]” Iranians “from bondage.”

‘Always more room for sanctions’

The second Washington Post editorial (1/23/26) expressed disappointment that, despite “mass killings” and the “most repressive crackdown in decades,” “Trump has ratcheted back his earlier rhetoric.” It emphasized that “the regime is now mocking Trump for backing down.” The paper offered advice for the president:

Airstrikes alone won’t bring down the regime—or make it behave like a normal country. But Israel and the US have shown in recent years that bombing can cause significant tactical setbacks. And there is always more room for sanctions pressure….

The president cannot maintain effective deterrence by turning the other cheek [in response to Iranians who have taunted him]. How he responds is just as important as how quickly he does it.

The implication is that, to deter Iran’s government from killing Iranians, the US needs to kill Iranians. After all, bombing campaigns come with “mass killings” of their own: The US/Israeli aggression against Iran last June killed more than 1,000 Iranians, most of them civilians.

Meanwhile, those sanctions the paper wants to use to deter the Iranian government from “harm[ing] its own people” do quite a bit of damage in their own right, often causing “low-income citizens’ food consumption” to “deteriorate due to sanctions”—a rather novel approach to harm reduction.

Bombing other countries, depriving them of food—is this what it means to “behave like a normal country”?

‘Too depraved’ for reform

Over its own pro–regime change piece, the New York Times editorial board headline (1/14/26) declared: “Iran’s Murderous Regime Is Irredeemable.”

“The Khamenei regime is too depraved to be reformed,” the editors wrote, spending the majority of the piece building its case to that effect before turning to solutions. For the Times, these start “with a unified expression of solidarity with the protesters,” and quickly move to punitive measures against the Iranian government:

The world can also extend the sanctions it has imposed on Iran. The Trump administration this week announced new tariffs on any countries that do business with Iran, and other democracies should impose their own economic penalties.

For the authors, “deprav[ity]” needs to be resisted by Washington and its partners, who have demonstrated their moral superiority with their presumably depravity-free sanctions. These have, as Germany’s DW (11/23/25) reported, “caused medical shortages that hit [Iran’s] most vulnerable citizens hardest,” preventing the country from being able “to purchase special medicines—like those required by cancer patients.”

The Times also supported US military violence against Iran—if with somewhat more restraint than the Post, asking Trump to “move much more judiciously than he typically does.” The Times wants him to seek “approval from Congress before any military operation,” and make “clear its limitations and goals.” The paper warned Trump not to attack “without adequate preparation and resources”:

Above all, he should avoid the lack of strategic discipline and illegal actions that have defined the Venezuela campaign. He should ask which policies have the best chance of undermining the regime’s violent repression and creating the conditions for a democratic transition.

One glaring problem with suggesting that a US “military operation” should be based on “policies [that] have the best chance of…creating the conditions for a democratic transition” is that very recent precedents show that US wars don’t bring about democracy and are not intended to do so; instead, such wars bring about social collapse.

Consider, for example, US interventions in Libya and Syria. In both cases, the US backed decidedly nondemocratic forces (Jacobin, 9/2/13; Harper’s, 1/16) and, as one might expect, neither war resulted in democracy. In Libya’s case, the outcome has been slavery and state collapse (In These Times, 8/18/20). In Syria, the new, unelected government is implicated in sectarian mass murder (FAIR.org, 6/2/25).

If DHS killed Pretti, why not bomb Iran?

There are no grounds for believing that the US would chart a different course if it bombs Iran again. But that hasn’t stopped other Times contributors from suggesting that the US should conduct a war in Iran—for the good of Iranians, of course.

Times columnist Bret Stephens (1/27/26) worried about the “risk” posed by “the example of a US president who urged protesters to go in the streets and said help was on the way, only to betray them through inaction.”

Invoking the DHS’s killing of Minneapolis resident Alex Pretti, Stephens urged “thoughtful Americans” to encourage the same administration that killed him to exercise “the military option” in Iran:

But if Pretti’s death is a tragedy, what do we say or do in the face of the murder of thousands of Iranians? Are they, as Stalin might have said, just another statistic?

Stephens is citing people’s outrage against the US government killing a protester as a reason they should support the US government inflicting more violence against Iran. The logical corollary to that would be that if you’re opposed to Iran suppressing anti-government forces, you should therefore be in favor of Tehran launching armed attacks to defend protesters in the US.

Masih Alinejad, a US-government-funded Iranian-American journalist, wrote in the Times (1/27/26) that Trump

encouraged Iranians to intensify their mass protests, writing, “HELP IS ON ITS WAY.” That help never came, and many protesters now feel betrayed. Still, the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group has recently arrived in the Middle East. Mr. Trump has not said what he plans to do now that it is there, but it does give him the option of striking a blow against government repression.

Policy of pain

Both Stephens and Alinejad present their calls for the US to assault Iran in moral terms, suggesting that the US should demonstrate loyalty to Iranian protestors by “help[ing]” them through an armed attack on the country in which they live. Their premise is that the US is interested in enabling the Iranian population to flourish, an assertion contradicted by more than 70 years of Washington’s policy of inflicting pain on Iranians in an effort to dominate them.

That US policy has included overthrowing Iran’s democratically elected government in 1953 (NPR, 2/7/19), propping up the Shah’s brutal dictatorship for the next 26 years (BBC, 6/3/16; AP, 2/6/19), sponsoring Saddam Hussein’s invasion of the country and use of chemical weapons against it (Foreign Policy, 8/26/13), partnering with Israel in a years-long campaign of murdering Iranian scientists (Responsible Statecraft, 12/21/20), and currently maintaining—along with its allies—a sanctions regime that is associated with a substantial drop in Iranian life expectancy (Al Jazeera, 1/13/26).

If Stephens or Alinejad had evidence that the US is so radically re-orienting its conduct in the international arena, one imagines that they would want to share with their readers the proof that the Trump administration’s magnanimity is so profound that it overrides the UN Charter, and justifies America carrying out a war to “help” a country it has terrorized for decades.