It’s Noon in Israel: The Emirates of Gaza?
Also, the false academic consensus on Gaza, a defiant act of heroism in Iran, and more.
UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin with UAE Prime Minister Mohammed bin Rashid at the World Laureates Summit in Dubai. (@MohamedBinZayed/X)
It’s Monday, February 2, and the United Arab Emirates wants to taking a big bite of civilian control in the Gaza Strip. Israel is fully behind it—but where does that leave the technocrats?
The plan, as sketched, is straightforward: the Emirates—backed by billions in investment—would manage Gaza’s markets, buying goods in Israel and moving them into the Strip. Aid distribution centers would be upgraded into logistics hubs, with goods then handed off to Gaza’s private sector. Security for the centers and convoys will be handled by Emirati forces and U.S. private security companies.
It’s a model that resembles the Gaza Humanitarian Fund, the organization that was hated by the international community for taking aid distribution out of Hamas’s grip. The goal is essentially the same: strip Hamas of its chokehold on the flow of goods—and the subsequent income that fuels their recruitment and recovery.
Israel is all in. A deep-pocketed Gulf state that doesn’t back the Muslim Brotherhood—and that shares Jerusalem’s hostility to Turkish and Qatari dominance in Gaza—sounds almost too good to be true.
But it rubs up against the existing plan. I don’t believe the technocratic council meant to assume civilian governance expected to be liaising with an Abu Dhabi–run monopoly.
For now, how the two tracks fit together is unclear: the Emirati plan looks set to move first, while the council is still stuck in assembly limbo.
Protestors at Oxford University (Oxford Palestine Society/Facebook)
Anyone following Western academia over the past two years would come to a single conclusion: there is a consensus that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Just look at the countless open letters—signed by hundreds or thousands of academics—constantly circulating, and the sheer lack of responses from the universities.
According to Dutch academic Maשrten Boudry, the consensus is a product of a few things: peer pressure, groupthink, and smoke and mirrors.
Let’s look at a prominent example: the International Association of Genocide Scholars officially accusing Israel of the “crime of crimes” in 2025. Now, I’m not an academic, but I don’t need a doctorate to tell me that a territory whose population increased during the conflict is not one suffering the “crime of crimes.”
In the association’s declaration, there is no original research. Hamas is mentioned only once, in passing. Casualty figures supplied by the Gaza Ministry of Health are accepted without reservation. No distinction is made between civilians and combatants, or between deaths caused by Israel and those caused by Hamas. Not very academic.
But here’s the twist: only 28 percent of IAGS members voted on the resolution, and membership is open to anyone willing to pay a fee. What is presented as scholarly consensus is, in reality, a minority of ideological extremists.
According to Boudry, dissent from this narrative comes at a steep professional cost in Europe. Academics who question the genocide claim report deplatforming, disciplinary threats and social ostracism. Privately, many colleagues express agreement but plead for silence: they fear losing grants, promotions or even their positions. Younger scholars without tenure are especially vulnerable. Speaking openly in defense of Israel—or even in defense of analytical caution—has come to be seen as career suicide.
This dynamic produces what psychologists call pluralistic ignorance: individuals mistakenly believe they are alone in dissent, remain silent, and thereby reinforce the illusion of unanimity. The sad effect is that the louder the consensus appears, the higher the cost of challenging it.
The “Gaza genocide” accusation persists not because it is well supported, but because it is a moral litmus test. It acts like a hashing ritual—it signals ideological allegiance precisely by defying logic. The truth is that outside boardrooms and committees, the emperor has no clothes—there is no consensus.
The video of Mohammad Jabari holding the door against Basij forces. (Abu Ali Express)
A story of Iranian heroism is going viral on social media. Mohammad Jabari, a resident of Karaj in northwestern Iran, sacrificed his life trying to hold a door shut against Basij forces, giving other protesters time to escape.
Basij members eventually broke through the door, murdering Mohammad on the spot.
On social media, he’s being called “the Iranian Hodor.” If you’re a Game of Thrones fan, you might have made the connection. No spoilers—but Hodor’s defining act was also to hold a door against pure evil so that others could live.
It strikes me that Iranians deserve more than one brave man and a door to protect them.
Every protest has its symbols that embody the movement. The man sitting in front of IRGC motorcycles incarnated the first stage of the Iranian protests—a defiant and unexpected act of bravery. Mohammad, holding the door against insurmountable odds to keep the protest alive, may very well be the symbol of this second stage we are witnessing.
I hope we will one day see a third symbol—an icon of freedom that will forever be associated with the day Iranians regained their liberty.
(@trailblazers/X)
Deni Avdija has become the first Israeli player selected for the NBA All-Star Game. Put simply: Israel is excited.
This may surprise you, but the Jewish state isn’t known for producing basketball legends. It’s been not quite 20 years since Omri Casspi broke the NBA glass ceiling for Israelis, so when the few who do make it succeed, we get excited.
I don’t follow basketball closely, so I’ll skip the stats, the other all stars and Avdija’s odds. But here’s a fun Casspi footnote: After becoming Israel’s first NBA player, he became something even more Israeli—a hi-tech investor—turning his basketball earnings into hundreds of millions through Israeli tech ventures.
Back to Avdija. His achievement brings to mind a moment from the 1980 comedy Airplane! when an older passenger asks for some light reading and the stewardess hands her a single page titled Jewish Sports Legends.
Who knows—if we get a few more Deni Avdijas, that might finally be double-sided.
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what do you think of israeli sources (ie, the times of israel) supposedly coming forward to report that the original death toll (70,000+) from the gazan health ministry (hamas) is actually accurate? i have been seeing mainstream, western media outlets reporting this everywhere… stating that israel is now conceding to the ministry’s numbers, that their figures were always legitimate, and over 70k civilians + combatants truly have died during the war
Self-censorship aka preference falsification is one of the most damaging forces in the world today, and academia is not immune. We must continue encouraging people to speak up and share the truth as they see it, on any and all topics, or the vocal and often most radical minority of voices will dominate society. Most importantly, we must speak out against those who are egregiously violating our most sacred moral TABOOS, expressing overt bigotry, dehumanization, and calls for violence. Violators must be punished with strict social consequences, so their hate does not become normalized.