When the Israeli Knesset passed its 2025 budget this past week, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu breathed a sigh of relief. Had the budget not been approved by March 31, the Knesset would have been automatically disbanded, and new elections would have been called. Polls indicate that Netanyahu and his coalition would have decisively lost.  

Significant attention and/or concern has been generated by President Donald Trump’s early Executive Orders and actions.

The combined efforts of President Donald Trump, Republicans in Congress, and pro-Israel groups, like the Anti-Defamation League, have declared war on the liberal ideals of freedom of speech and assembly and the very idea of the university.

When I first heard President Donald Trump’s “Gaza Riviera” scheme, it brought back memories of the hopes Palestinians had three decades ago during the heyday of the Oslo Accords. Back then, I was serving as co-chair of “Builders for Peace,” a project launched by Vice President Al Gore to encourage American businesses to invest in the Palestinian economy to support the fledgling peace process. 

This past week began on a deeply disturbing note. Elon Musk reposted on X (formerly Twitter) a dangerously false attack on more than a dozen American entities who had received USAID or State Department grants over the past decade.

Among the significant differences between Donald Trump’s first term as president in 2017 and his return to the White House in 2025, this time around he appears more in control and better prepared. And despite the drastic measures of his first weeks in office, the opposition he is facing appears more subdued and less focused. 

A combination of pro-Israel advocacy groups and political action committees, including right-wing Christian fundamentalists, neoconservative hawks, and weak-kneed liberals, have not only enabled Israel’s genocidal campaign against Palestinians—they’ve done so much more.

There’s an insidious blame game occurring on social media. Whenever President Donald Trump takes one of his outrageous actions, Arab Americans are subjected to a flood of abusive messages.

President Donald Trump’s “shock and awe” assault on virtually every major institution in Washington has been, to a degree, successful. There’s a perverse logic behind his radical cabinet appointments, widespread firings and threats to the federal workforce, and his seemingly scattershot Executive Orders that upset apple-carts up and down the street.