The Social World

Tag: Israel

  • Who deserves credit for the Gaza ceasefire?

    Who deserves credit for the Gaza ceasefire?

    Since the Gaza ceasefire was announced last week, two distinct narratives have emerged. The first gives President Donald Trump the lion’s share of credit. The second, mostly pushed by former Biden officials, is trying to share the glory. Both are wrong and for the same reason: they give the United States unrealistic credit and ignore the obvious fact that it is the belligerents who decide the fate of a war. More than any world leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu deserves credit.

    After the return of the living hostages, Biden-administration Secretary of State Antony Blinken posted on X to explain the ceasefire’s emergence: “It’s good that President Trump adopted and built on the plan the Biden Administration developed after months of discussion with Arab partners, Israel and the Palestinian Authority.”

    Blinken is correct that Biden and Trump plans are similar, but there’s a big difference between devising and implementing a plan. The Biden administration had an uneasy relationship with Israel. This led to Israeli distrust of any American proposal on the one hand and Hamas’s hopes that, by exploiting the tensions, it could get more favorable terms or even a unilateral Israeli withdrawal.

    More important is the fact that the Biden plan contained clauses that doomed it to failure. The initial stages of that plan saw Hamas agree to release the living hostages drip by drip. Israel was wary of this as it would have potentially allowed the terrorist group to leverage hostages even after a ceasefire had been reached. The only plan Israel could expect – given Hamas’s habit of “playing games” with hostages – was one that saw a simultaneous liberation. By March, it became clear that the drip-feed Biden framework would not secure an ending to the war, and Israel resumed fighting. As the Persian proverb goes, if the mason lays the first stone crooked, the wall will be crooked all the way up to the stars.

    The Trump plan made sure to plant the first stone straight: it ensured the initial stages were acceptable to Israel. It made Hamas responsible for starting the ceasefire by releasing all the living hostages at once and then returning the dead bodies.

    Even so, Trump can’t really take credit for this. As the Israeli journalist Amit Segal wrote, “Every Trump plan [for] the Middle East is a plan written by Ron Dermer (senior adviser to Netanyahu) and just wrapped in this shining bright gift package to President Trump.” Avi Shavit further reports that Dermer, former U.K. prime minister Tony Blair, and Emirati president Mohamed bin Zayed had been working on this plan since December 2023. This proved mutually beneficial for Israel and Trump. Any plan that seemed to come obviously from Israel would have been rejected by Hamas and Arab states, so by allowing Trump to take credit for a framework, the Israelis increased the likelihood of its acceptance. And by putting his name on it, of course, Trump got to be the peacemaker. The genius of the so-called Trump plan is that it was conceived in Jerusalem then slapped with a “Made in America” label.

    Many of the talking heads who Trump deserves most of the credit for ending the war argue – without evidence – that he did so by exerting pressure on Netanyahu to wrap things up. There is no evidence that he did so. In fact, all evidence points to the opposite. The attitude of the Trump administration toward Israel behind closed doors has been to ask, “What do you need from us?” This was a reversal of Biden-administration policy, which berated Israel and frequently withheld arms deliveries.

    In other words, the Trump administration applied pressure not to Israel, but to Hamas. And they did so primarily by getting out of Israel’s way. After the President chose not to resist Israel’s invasion of Gaza City, Hamas’s last stronghold, the terrorist group realized it could not drive a wedge between the US and the IDF.

    What this means is that the majority of the credit must go not to Trump – and certainly not to Biden – but to Benjamin Netanyahu and the strength of Israeli soldiers. This is not a criticism of Trump, who did everything right, but a simple fact that the belligerents are the primary drivers of change.

    Non-belligerents can only do so much to end a conflict. This war only ended when the US decided to get out of Israel’s way. As our nation’s policymakers again turn their full attention to Russia and Ukraine, they would be wise to remember this fact.

  • Zohran Mamdani pledges free everything on Fox News

    Zohran Mamdani pledges free everything on Fox News

    Ahead of tomorrow night’s debate with Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa, Democratic socialist and future mayor of New York City Zohran Mamdani appeared on Fox News this afternoon for the first time.  

    Anyone expecting a clash of cultures, or 15 minutes of pure ideological arguing, would have been disappointed. Fox anchor Martha MacCallum asked tough, pointed questions, but it was a respectful exchange between two New Yorkers who clearly don’t summer in the same ZIP code.  

    That doesn’t mean the interview lacked news value. The most shocking part came before the commercial break, when Mamdani said it was “too early” to give President Trump credit for the Middle East peace deal. When MacCallum asked him to denounce Hamas, he instead invoked the “crimes” of the Israeli military, who he said had killed five Palestinians this week. Hamas has killed more Palestinians that that, MacCallum said, but Mamdani deflected. 

    “I have no issue in critiquing Hamas and the Israeli government because my focus is on universal human rights,” he said. He also refused to retract his call to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if Netanyahu visited New York. Mamdani said he would respect the judgment of the International Criminal Court, which has issued a warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest. Again, when MacCallum pressed him, Mamdani wouldn’t say a crossed word about Hamas. “I don’t really have opinions about the future of Hamas and Israel other than questions about universal safety,” Mamdani said, having clearly sewn up whatever percentage of the Jewish vote he needs to win.  

    Part two of the exchange, about Mamdani’s plans for the city, was actually the friendlier of the two segments. Mamdani said New York should be “the capital of where working people can afford to live,” and MacCallum agreed with him that the city was too expensive. “You’ve done a lot to bring people’s attention to affordability,” she said. “I appreciate that,” Mamdani said.  

    She didn’t seem too keen on his proposals to raise taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers by 2 percent, or on his proposals to raise corporate taxes, which is out of his power anyway because Albany sets New York tax policy. “What Andrew Cuomo said is that if he had $959 million he’d give it to Elon Musk for tax credits,” Mamdani said. “I’m talking about raising taxes on the wealthiest. When I’ve spoken to Trump voters, they told me it was cost of living that drove them to vote for Donald Trump. What we’re seeing time and time again is a focus on billionaires instead.”  

    That’s Democratic socialism, folks – and Mamdani said he’ll use that increased tax revenue to pay for his controversial program to make city buses free, as well as everything else. “I think everyone would love to have free healthcare and free buses and all these things,” MacCallum said, sounding skeptical.  

    Unappealing to Republicans, and almost everyone else, is Mamdani’s plan to place mentally ill New Yorkers into “peer-led rehabilitation programs,” which is where he said he would have placed the man who murdered a 64-year-old on a subway platform last year. He wants to “end the revolving door” of a “broken system.” When MacCallum asked Mamdani to apologize to police officers, who he’s called racist, “wicked and corrupt,” he looked at the camera and said, “I’ll apologize to police officers right now. I’m looking to work with these officers. They put their lives on the line every single day.” And then he invoked the Central Park Five, Eric Garner and George Floyd, which I’m sure put backers of the blue at ease.  

    Zohran Mamdani didn’t get to his current position by tacking to the center, and his Fox News appearance was pretty consistent with what he’s put out with the rest of the campaign: a mix of left-wing populist economics, which the Democratic party sorely needs, and foreign-policy and criminal-justice positions that wouldn’t be out of place on BlueSky. But he didn’t come across as crazy, weird or unprepared. He’s got his plans – and he’s sticking to them. New York already has its most hilarious mayor of all time in Eric Adams. The Mamdani years might end up being a tragedy, but the comedy is about to end. 

  • Can Trump’s peace hold?

    He came, he saw, he conquered. That just about describes President Trump’s 12,000-mile round trip from Washington, D.C. to Israel and Egypt. He addressed Israel’s Knesset in Jerusalem, greeted the hostages and their families, hopped on Air Force One for a flight to Sharm el-Sheikh, signed the first phase of a Gaza peace deal, delivered a moving speech, met with the leaders of 27 countries to push the next phases of his 20-point peace plan forward and take a well-earned victory lap, and returned to Washington after what most people would consider a full day.

    The guns are silent, relief supplies are being poured into Gaza, IDF troops have withdrawn to agreed areas and the 20 surviving hostages have been released, along with four of the 28 bodies of the dead, the others to be returned when they are found by Hamas. That spikes the most powerful weapon Hamas had. In return, Israel released some 2,000 Palestinians, some from Hamas, some serving life sentences for murder. Perhaps more importantly, President Trump’s personal promise that Israel would retreat to agreed areas has allowed Gazans to return to their homes.

    A key ingredient in the deal was the culture of the New York real estate business. Jared Kushner, the President’s son-in-law and a man with deep relations in the Arab world; Steve Witkoff, who says his goal is to deliver what Trump wants; and the President himself all learned in delis, board rooms and bank C-suites: “get to yes.” Kushner described himself in a New York Times interview as a “deal guy,” and says deal-making is “a different sport” from diplomacy. You take what you can get from the key players, with whom you have formed close relationships, as Trump demonstrated when he acknowledged many personally, and worry about the details later. 

    Now come those details, the time to move on to a durable peace as laid out in the President’s plan. The prospect is not bright, and the televised image of 27 nations gathered to applaud Trump deceiving. Hamas did not attend. The attendance of Israel’s Prime Minister, Bibi Netanyahu, was vetoed by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey, who threatened to absent himself if Netanyahu were present. Crucially, Iran announced support for “ending the genocidal war” in Gaza but will continue to back Hamas “if Israel continues its expansionist and racist plans.” The mullahs promise to re-arm their proxies throughout the region so they are equipped to continue their battle to destroy Israel. Never mind that Trump has warned that he has ordered 28 “beautiful” new B-2 bombers and that “we will be back” if Iran interferes with progress towards peace in Gaza.

    The hope that a ceasefire will eventually reduce the bitter enmity between Gazans and Israel seems similarly unrealistic

    Then there is the problem of the positions taken by Hamas and Netanyahu. Hossam Badran, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, announced, “The proposed weapons turnover is out of the question and not negotiable.”

    Netanyahu has promised that if Hamas do not disarm there will be no further compromises. Rumors that Israel might offer amnesty to Hamas fighters if they do surrender their weapons – “decommission their weapons” in the language of Trump’s plan – seem to reflect unbridled optimism. The head of Mossad has made it clear: “Let every Arab mother know that if her son took part in the massacre he signed his own death warrant.” Israel obviously intends to treat these Hamas fighters as it did the terrorists who assassinated Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, and hunt down and assassinate them no matter where they are and how long it takes.

    The hope that a ceasefire will eventually reduce the bitter enmity between Gazans and Israel seems similarly unrealistic. The thousands of Gazans trekking across Gaza to their former homes will find only debris, adding to their anger about the death of family members and friends. The Israeli euphoria will give way to anger as the tales of the horrors inflicted on the surviving hostages circulate, and some of the bodies of hostages remain unfound. Meanwhile, Hamas remains in charge of governing Gaza. The Israeli press estimates that 16,000-18,000 Hamas fighters have survived, and reports that they are now setting about killing internal opponents. The peace plan calls for an international peace-keeping force to replace Hamas, but as General Keane points out “most peace enforcement does not do well.”

    Nor is it realistic to believe that the gleaming towers envisioned on the Gaza coast by Trump will ever emerge from the sands and debris of the Strip. The birth in Gaza of “some of the thriving modern miracle cities in the Middle East” requires concrete and steel. And Israel is not likely to abandon its barrier to the importation of materials that permitted Hamas to build its tunnels and manufacture arms.

    Then there is the small matter of the $50 billion the UN estimates would be required to rebuild Gaza, which Trump sees as well within the ability of rich Arab nations to provide. Those nations have not yet unzipped their wallets. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates cannot agree on the governing structure that must be in place before the billions in cash flows. The Saudis would rely on the Palestinian Authority, the Emirates won’t until the PA is reformed, and Netanyahu says he will never agree to turning over the governance of Gaza to the PA. Whether the Kushner-Witkoff “get to yes” team can unleash the needed flow of funds cannot be counted a certainty.

    Even if the funds become available, the reconstruction of Gaza will tax the skills of the world’s builders and the patience of the Gazans. The UN estimates that the 50 million tons of debris created by the war will take 20 years to remove. Trump, reverting to his New York builder’s argot, told Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi – “I call him General’ – that Gaza needs ‘a lot of cleanup’, and says ‘rebuilding will be the easiest part.’” Easiest compared with negotiating a ceasefire, perhaps, but extremely difficult. The Strip is strewn with buried, live mines and ammunition; its infrastructure has been destroyed; thousands of its most talented professionals and entrepreneurs are reported by Palestinian sources to have fled, “draining the territory of the very minds needed for reconstruction and development …. [That] undermines its ability to build a resilient society capable of forging a path toward stability and prosperity,” writes Omar Shaban of the Brookings Institution.

    And yet, and yet. The value of the existing “yes” should not be ignored. Any party that breaks the current ceasefire or walks away from future negotiations will face the combined displeasure of the powerful group of world leaders who attended the signing ceremony in Sharm el-Sheikh including, crucially, the Presidents of America, Egypt, Turkey; the Emir of Qatar; the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia; the King of Jordan; the rulers of the Emirates, and the president of Indonesia, an important Muslim country that does not recognize Israel.

    The leaders of the wealthy Arab nations looked at the seas and created spectacular, prosperous cities. They just might find it in their interests to look at the debris of Gaza and imagine a skyline to match theirs and Tel Aviv’s. For now, we have a ceasefire. The one negotiated in Korea has held for over 70 years. As Jews chant during Passover services, at the mention of each blessing from God, “Dayenu”: that would be enough.

  • Donald Trump’s finest hour

    Donald Trump’s finest hour

    This is Donald Trump’s finest hour. Speaking in the Knesset on Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called him Israel’s “greatest friend” and nominated him for the Israel Prize,” the nation’s “highest award.” Trump himself was greeted rapturously by the parliamentarians for securing a breakthrough peace deal in Gaza. Trump basked in the applause for his months-long diplomatic effort, declaring that “this is the historic dawn of a new Middle East.” But can one truly emerge? Or is this simply a temporary truce between the warring parties?

    Trump’s immediate accomplishment was to arrange for the release of the remaining 20 living Israeli hostages held by Hamas since its attack on October 7, 2023, when more than 1,200 Israelis were murdered. The plight of the hostages upended Israeli society, leading to weekly demonstrations against Netanyahu whom his detractors accused of needlessly prolonging the conflict to maintain his own hold on power. When Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff appeared in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, they were cheered by the crowd but a mere mention of Netanyahu’s name drew loud boos.

    Netanyahu is also in bad odor among Trump’s America First followers. They are construing the peace deal as a defeat for Netanyahu. On his show Real America’s Voice, Steve Bannon remarked, “This is a catastrophic defeat for the Israel America First crowd… because they overreached, pushed this greater Israel project, and it came crashing down around them.” Still, Trump called upon Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, to “give him a pardon” for the criminal allegations that he faces.

    Trump’s ambitions clearly exceed simply overseeing a deal between Israel and Hamas. He has fortified American relations with the Gulf States who played a pivotal role in nudging Hamas to accede to the agreement. Pilots from Qatar will soon be training in Idaho, a move that has triggered hysteria among some of Trump’s MAGA followers who see it as an opening wedge to introduce Sharia law into America. In his Knesset address, Trump vowed that the ceasefire deal would result in “a very exciting time for Israel and for the entire Middle East, because all across the Middle East, the forces of chaos, terror and ruin that have plagued the region for decades now stand weakened, isolated and totally defeated.”

    Well. The forces of disruption and hatred and violence will not be uprooted as easily as Trump’s exuberant language might suggest. His exuberance is understandable. It may even be understood as a form of exhortation. But Iran and its terrorist allies are unlikely to surrender their ambitions overnight. The isolation and defeat that Trump alluded to has not yet occurred. Rather, these malignant forces are working overtime to regroup. Already Hamas is seeking to reestablish control in the Gaza strip, which could easily lurch back into warfare. Nor do Iran’s nuclear ambitions do appear to be in a state of inanition.

    For now, Trump can revel in his accomplishment. But the first test of his vision of a new Middle East will come on Monday afternoon at the “Summit for Peace” in Egypt, where 20 world leaders are gathering, including Trump. Netanyahu, however, will not be in attendance.

  • Donald Trump is the real anti-fascist hero

    Donald Trump is the real anti-fascist hero

    Tell me: who has done more for the cause of anti-fascism? Real anti-fascism? Those masked momma’s boys of the antifa movement for whom “fighting fascism” means little more than hurling abuse at blue-collar workers who voted for Donald Trump? Or Donald Trump himself, the man they love to loathe, who today accomplished the miraculous feat of liberating 20 Israelis from the anti-Semitic hell of Hamas captivity? It’s Trump, isn’t it?

    As of today, following the soul-stirring emancipation of the last living Israeli hostages, whenever I hear the phrase “anti-fascist” I will think of Trump. Forget those sun-starved digital radicals who bark “Fascist!” at every politician on the right, or the snotty lefties whose “anti-fascism” entails yelling at working-class mothers protesting against illegal immigration. Those people have sullied the noble cause of anti-fascism by appropriating it as a mask for their bourgeois sneering.

    No, it was Trump who took the fight to fascism. He has cornered – we hope – a brutal organization that was founded with the express intention of killing Jews and destroying the Jewish state. He has freed 20 men whose only “crime” is that they were Jews in the Holy Land. He has landed a spectacular blow against the forces of Islamo-fascism and helped to fortify the beleaguered Jewish nation. Give me that over the am-dram activism of antifa’s balaclava bores any day of the week.

    Today should be the day that Trump Derangement Syndrome is laid to rest. No one has to agree with everything the US President says or does – that would be weird. But we should acknowledge that he has achieved something extraordinary. He expertly deployed both threats and talks to drag Hamas to the table. And, in the process, he made good on the 20th-century cry of “Never Again” by securing the release of Jews from the limbo of Islamist cruelty.

    We have just lived through one of the most extraordinary moral inversions of modern times. Truth and reason have been entirely turned on their heads these past two years. Israel was unjustly assaulted by a genocidal terror group, and yet it was Israel that was branded “genocidal”. More than a thousand Jews were slaughtered by an army of anti-Semites, and yet it was the Jews who were called “racist”. Israel was ravaged by the war-making of a hostile neighbor, and yet it was Israel that was damned as warmonger.

    Nowhere was this moral inversion more starkly, and more grossly, expressed than in relation to the hostages. These 251 men, women and children were the innocent victims of a fascistic rampage. And yet they were reimagined as “colonisers” by activists in the West. Their posters were rabidly torn down. Their images were desecrated with slurs and insults. There was a time in late 2023 when parts of many cities were papered with the flapping remnants of these posters following the frenzied clawing of anti-Israel activists.

    The most shameful moment came in late October 2023, mere weeks after Hamas’s pogrom, when a poster in London featuring three-year-old twin girls, Emma and Yuli Cunio, was defiled in the most horrific way. Someone drew Hitler mustaches on these two children who’d been taken from their homes by Hamas. It was 2023 and Jewish kids were once more being treated as legitimate targets for bigoted invective. So much for “Never Again”.

    Emma and Yuli were held in captivity with their mother, Sharon, for 52 days before being released in November 2023. Their father, David, was also kidnapped. The girls have asked after him every day for two years. Today they will be reunited with him: David is one of the 20 who has staggered back into the sunlight courtesy of Trump’s deal-making. Who has contributed more to the cause of humanity – the “Be Kind” mob who desecrated posters of Emma and Yuli? Or the president who gave them their dad back?

    Today is a day of celebration, tinged with sadness of course, given Israel is also due to receive the remains of 28 hostages who did not survive the Hamas hell. But tomorrow must be a day of reflection. We need to ask why so many in our own societies took the side not of the oppressed Jewish hostages but of their oppressors. Why so many chose to make excuses for Hamas while demonizing the nation it invaded. Today we can share in Israel’s joy. Tomorrow we must interrogate the blackened western soul that this infernal war has exposed.

  • The return of the Israeli hostages goes beyond politics

    The return of the Israeli hostages goes beyond politics

    This morning in Israel began like no other: layered, dissonant, momentous. A collision of spectacle and salvation, of grief and hope, of noise and meaning. It was a morning composed of many parts: part show, part hope, part illusion, part bluster, part redemption, part commercial deal, part peace plan, part threat, part diplomacy, part war. For a few hours, all those contradictions briefly aligned to form a kind of harmony. They may yet fall apart again, but for now, they have converged in one extraordinary sequence of events.

    On one side of the news screen, Donald J. Trump descended the stairs of Air Force One at Ben Gurion Airport, fist raised in his characteristic gesture of triumph. On the other, Israeli hostages were being shepherded to safety under the watch of the IDF and Shin Bet, emerging after 738 days of brutal captivity. This was a day choreographed like theatre. The world was invited to watch. And the world watched.

    Trump, ever the master of spectacle, timed his arrival to perfection. The plane banked low along Tel Aviv’s coast, passing over the beaches spread with an enormous welcome sign. President Isaac Herzog announced he would award him the country’s Medal of Distinction. Netanyahu walked beside him. Trump grinned, basked, orchestrated. “Everybody wants to be a part of it,” he said of his peace plan as he spoke with journalists inside the plane. “It’s a unique period in time.”

    If Hamas once used hostage handovers for grotesque theater, with drones capturing staged presentations of hastily printed certificates, terrorists preening and Palestinian children cheering as the captives were forced to perform and even kiss their captors, today the tables were turned. Hamas had been warned: no stunts, no provocations, no theatrics. This time, the show belonged to Trump, and to Israel. And nobody engineers a show like Trump.

    But for all the cameras, this was not just a spectacle. It was a day of raw human emotion. As the hostages emerged – first Eitan Mor, Alon Ohel, Ziv and Gali Berman, Guy Gilboa-Dalal, Omri Miran, and Matan Angrest – Israel held its breath.

    Families received confirmation in real time. Some spoke with their loved ones by video call, others waited in silence, eyes fixed on the screens. The father of Omri Miran said only, “We are waiting, waiting and waiting” to embrace his son. A cousin of Alon Ohel described the morning as the best of his life, saying, “I just want to hug him.”

    On Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square, thousands gathered waving flags, watching the Red Cross convoys inch across the screen. Across the country, the atmosphere was charged – anxious, breathless, and exultant in turns.

    And now, the next chapter begins. The other thirteen hostages are in Red Cross custody, preparing to cross from Khan Younis into Israeli hands, their families waiting. The IDF has confirmed preparations are complete. The nation holds its breath again.

    This may have seemed like a pageant of diplomacy and spectacle. But beneath the politics and choreography lies something deeply embedded in Jewish thought – an ancient, relentless imperative to redeem the captive. The drive to bring the hostages home is not merely emotional or nationalistic; it is sacred.

    The source lies in Leviticus: “After he is sold, there shall be redemption for him”. On this verse, the medieval commentator Rashi writes, “It is a positive commandment to redeem him.” The obligation is not optional. It begins with family but extends to the entire community, and ultimately, to the whole nation. The Talmud adds that “there is no greater mitzvah than redeeming captives” (Bava Batra 8b). Because the captive is vulnerable, exposed and often in mortal danger, redeeming them becomes the highest form of piety – an act that binds law, love, and life itself. In halachic terms, this duty surpasses almost every other form of charity.

    For Jews – and especially for Israelis – the commitment to hostage redemption is more than a cultural reflex. It is a covenantal instinct, encoded in scripture, enforced by sages and lived with aching urgency in moments like these. Today’s deal may have the hallmarks of a political agreement, but for many, it is something older, deeper and profoundly moral.

    Trump, for his part, believes this is the beginning of something larger. He has declared that Arab nations are behind his plan, and that peace and prosperity may yet emerge from the ashes of Gaza. Once stabilized and normalized, he claims, Gaza can succeed.

    That is the promise. But reality is more unforgiving. Since the ceasefire, Hamas has turned inward with ruthless efficiency, executing suspected collaborators and rivals in brutal purges across Khan Younis and Gaza City. Palestinians not aligned with the regime’s grip are hunted, tortured, and silenced. The prospect of a peaceful Palestinian polity still stumbles against a foundational obstacle: a political culture steeped in violence, a history of rejection, and a leadership that elevates martyrdom over statecraft.

    As the Israeli scholar and Arabist Dr Mordechai Kedar put it in a recent interview: “Victory in war, by our definitions, is not victory by their definitions. For us, victory means dismantling an army, destroying its command, forcing surrender. But for them – even one survivor, amputated, seated on the rubble of his home, raising a V sign with his only two remaining fingers – that is victory. He has not lost. He will have children, and they will continue the struggle.”

    History casts a long shadow. But today, for a moment, there is light. Relief, reunion, joy, and yes – grief. For those not returning alive. For those lost. For those still waiting. In all this complexity, one thing endures: the determination of a nation which never stops fighting to bring its people home. Today, the traditional Jewish “shehecheyanu” blessing will be uttered by thousands around the world: Blessed art thou oh Lord our God, who has kept us alive, sustained us, and brought us to this moment. Amen.

  • Will Israel always have America’s backing?

    Will Israel always have America’s backing?

    Marc Lynch is angry. The word “rage” appears six times on the first page of America’s Middle East: The Ruination of a Region, and comes in response to Israel’s war in Gaza. This should be sufficient warning to anyone expecting a cool, calm, dispassionate analysis of the Middle East that they might have picked up the wrong book. That is not to say that Lynch, who runs the George Washington University’s Middle East program, is not worth reading. On the contrary, and despite the occasional lapse into the sort of political-science-speak favored by academics, he is a fierce and compelling voice.

    Lynch dates the beginning of America’s Middle East to 1991, the conclusion of a swift military campaign against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and the end of the bipolar era in which the US and the Soviet Union had for decades shared the responsibilities of international mediation. Contrast the hopes for the region then – Israeli-Palestinian peace, the spread of democracy and liberalizing economic reforms – with the reality of what followed: multiple wars between Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah; another war and a decade-long insurgency in Iraq; civil wars in Syria, Yemen, Libya and Sudan; and continued internal repression by regimes that can be classified as autocracies, if you are being kind, or varying shades of dictatorship if you’re feeling less charitable.

    Both Israel and the United States come in for a vigorous kicking, more so than the region’s Islamists, Hamas foremost among them. This is a pity, as well as a mistake, because it undermines a wider analysis of American policy towards the Middle East that is otherwise brave, bracing and original.

    It is Washington’s complicity with Arab autocracy combined with the impunity it allows Israel, irrespective of whether Republicans or Democrats are in government, which infuriates Lynch. And much of the rest of the world, too. The author is unsparing in his critique. The US, he writes, consistently likes to present itself as “seeking to liberate the people they are immiserating”. Washington’s inability or refusal to take regional public opinion seriously has long been its “fatal flaw”. “The starting premise of American policy has always implicitly been that Palestinians are not fully human beings.”

    As an avowed Obama fan who advised both presidential campaigns, he cuts the former president a lot of slack, though the title of this chapter, adapted from Obama’s memoir, gives the game away: “The Audacity, and Failure, of Hope”. Given Obama’s much vaunted hopes of changing both American policy in the region and the mindset behind it, the charge sheet against him makes depressing reading: a free pass to Gulf forces to help Bahrain’s monarchy crush its Arab Spring uprising in 2011; failure to uphold his “red line” in 2012 over Syrian president Bashar al Assad’s use of chemical weapons against his own people; the refusal to brand the 2013 Saudi- and UAE-backed rising against the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt a coup. In the words of a 2016 Brookings report, not quoted by Lynch, “when it comes to Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, no US president has promised more and accomplished less than Obama”.

    The years ahead, Lynch argues, should cause concern for Israelis. The younger generation of Americans, who do not have political memories extending to Israel’s foundation in 1948, are considerably more pro-Palestinian than their parents. When the US finds itself alone, again and again, wielding its Security Council veto in defense of Israel, that demographic shift should ring alarm bells in Jerusalem and Washington. Likewise, as Lynch observes, for decades the bipartisan consensus in the US on Israel barely needed to be openly defended. Today it is under active discussion at every level.

    There is a reason that Benjamin Netanyahu refuses to discuss “the day after” the war in Gaza has ended. We know that it does not involve the beginning of talks with the Palestinians leading to a two-state solution, because he has ruled out a Palestinian state. In many minds, the obvious alternative, a single state, will be tantamount to apartheid. Lynch notes that the quartet composed of Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem and the International Court of Justice considers “the international legal criteria for the crime of apartheid” to have been met already.

    On 16 September, a UN report accused Israel of committing genocide, adding to the country’s deepening international isolation days ahead of the planned recognition by a handful of countries, including the UK, France, Canada and Australia, of the state of Palestine at the UN’s General Assembly.

    What comes after Gaza? Like many experts, Lynch has already written off the two-state solution and reckons “an unsustainable apartheid may be a surer route towards the attainment of Palestinian rights than the perpetual pretense of the fantasy of two states”. To quote the title of the Egyptian-American writer Omar El Akkad’s excoriating book on the West’s complicity in the horrors of Gaza, One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This.

    The article first appeared in The Spectator’s UK edition.

  • Why did Trump even want the Nobel Peace Prize?

    Why did Trump even want the Nobel Peace Prize?

    Did anyone seriously think that Donald Trump was going to emerge this morning as winner of the Nobel Peace Prize? First, there were the mechanics. Nominations for the prize closed on 31 January, at which point Trump was only 11 days into his second term and there was hardly a glint of hope in Gaza. The prize committee will have met for the last time around a week ago, when there was still doubt as to whether Hamas would accept this deal. The committee will have had to make its decision a few days before the announcement, because certain formalities have to be undertaken ahead of time, such as checking whether the recipient actually wants the prize.

    For those reasons, next year was always going to be a more appropriate time for Trump to win the prize. But even then, don’t hold your hopes. While the prize committee prides itself on its independence, it is not really free of outside pressure. As we have seen many times, part of the liberal mindset is a tendency to put yourself in a straightjacket of thought, sewn together by the opinions of other liberals. Had they awarded the prize to Trump, members of the committee would have faced cancellation. Dinner invitations would have dried up, high-powered jobs at universities and NGOs would have been denied to them. Norway has a pretty small establishment. There would have been nowhere to hide from angry liberal opinion. Even had the committee members been prepared to face up to that, it is only natural that a committee – even one not made up by liberals – would be a bit irritated by the brazen way in which Trump and his people have been lobbying for the prize, and be inclined to award it elsewhere as a result.

    That said, what Trump has achieved over the past couple of weeks is surely deserving of the prize. While other world leaders such as Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron dealt with the world they would like to exist, Trump dealt with the one which really does exist. It is hard to imagine anyone but him being able to moderate Benjamin Netanyahu and simultaneously being able to apply pressure on Egypt and other Arab countries to influence what is the effective surrender of Hamas. It is laughable to think that it could have happened under Joe Biden, and not much more far-fetched to think that Barack Obama – who really is a Nobel Peace laureate – could have achieved it.

    The big mystery, though, is why Trump actually wants the Nobel Peace Prize. He has spent his time in office scorning international bodies. He has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Agreement, from the World Health Organization. He has treated the United Nations pretty sniffily. His whole philosophy in international affairs revolves around the idea that international bodies have grown too big for their boots: they are run by unelected busybodies who deserve to be cut down to size. He likes to see the world as being run by strong men, not worthy NGO types. So why does he even want the Nobel Peace Prize? He should want to scorn the idea of a bunch of aloof worthies appointed by the Norwegian government trying to sit in judgment on who is good and who is bad in the world.

    A little note ought also to be added for Maria Corina Machado, the actual recipient of the prize. It was always likely, given the lobbying by the Trump, that the Nobel committee would go for someone few have heard of. But there is the possibility, of course, that Machado is actually a deserving choice. Had it not been for Trump and Gaza we would this morning be heralding the Venezuelan opposition leader who was robbed on victory in her country’s elections by Nicolas Maduro. Trump doesn’t need a Nobel Peace Prize and shouldn’t really want it. For Machado and the people of Venezuela, on the other hand, the prize might actually do some good, by rewarding someone who has stood up against dictatorship.

  • Give the Nobel to Jared

    Give the Nobel to Jared

    On a season eight episode of The Simpsons, newscaster Kent Brockman interviews a man who’s woken up from a 23-year-long coma, and lets him know that Sonny Bono is now a Congressman and Cher has won an Oscar. The man dies soon after. If someone were to wake up from a coma today to find out that Donald Trump, who 23 years ago was hosting The Apprentice, is now the leading candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize, it would have a similar result. 

    But who else deserves the award? If you can give Peace Prizes to Al Gore and Barack Obama for basically being Cool Liberal Guys Who Aren’t Dick Cheney, you can give one to Donald Trump. Look at who’s nominated him: Benjamin Netanyahu, the government of Pakistan, The Israeli Hostages Family Forum. It’s not exactly Rudy Giuliani, Kayleigh McEnany and an anonymous account from Barron’s burner phone. The “President of peace” does seem a little too eager to get his hands on the medal. “I should have gotten it four or five times,” he said in June. 

    But, again, who else should get it at this moment in history? Jimmy Carter deserved one in 1978 for brokering the Camp David Accords. What Trump’s done is equally significant. The list of other deserving candidates is pretty small: They could always give it to Pope Leo, who seems like a nice Pope, or to Chef José Andres, who’s fed millions of refugees in need. If the Nobel Committee hands it to Greta Thunberg, it might actually cause World War III.

    The only logical answer is Trump’s son-in-law, and the man who’s quietly done all the actual work on negotiating the Israel-Hamas peace accords: Jared Kushner. We’ve heard Kushner’s name in the Peace Prize conversation before. In 2022, Congressman Lee Zeldin nominated him for his role in brokering the Abraham Accords between Israel and the UAE, and the year before, Alan Dershowitz nominated him for the same reason. Then-CNN political writer Chris Cilizza, who’s never been nominated for anything other than “Weenus of the Year,” said that these nominations were “less of a big deal than you think.” But they were actually a pretty big deal. 

    In 2022, Jared Kushner was not anywhere near the seat of power. The Washingtonian wrote an article about him called “Javanka In Exile,” as he and Ivanka Trump tried to navigate their way in what a prematurely triumphant media considered to be a post-Trump Washington. And what was Jared Kushner doing in “exile”? Getting Nobel Peace Prize nominations while quietly going about his billionaire business trying to achieve an impossible 3,000-year-old dream of bringing peace to the Middle East. 

    Hamas’s horrifying October 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel and Israel’s response in Gaza were the opposite of peace in the Middle East. If anything, it created a situation where regional war could explode into world conflict, with calls to “globalize the intifada.” The war between Islamic militants and defenders of Israel spilled off computer screens and into the streets of the world, sometimes violently. Once the Trump Restoration occurred, Trump sent Kushner back into the fray. In his calm, patient, non-spotlight-seeking way, Kushner has once again sought to bring peace where, as long as any of us have lived, there’s been war. 

    Of course Trump is taking credit. That’s what he does. “All I can do is put out wars,” he said at the United Nations recently. “I don’t seek attention. I just want to save lives.” Trump always seeks attention, and it might be hard to sell him to the Nobel Peace committee on a week where he threatens to arrest the Mayor of Chicago, orders the National Guard to Portland and brags about blowing Venezuelan drug boats out of the water. Even if he goes to Egypt this weekend and parts the Red Sea, it still might not be enough. But peace in our time, despite all that, is still within reach. 

    The late Tom Lehrer once said “political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize.” And it’s true, they gave the prize for ending the Vietnam War to the architect of the firebombing of Cambodia. Political satire is now either obsolete, or maybe we all just live in it daily. Donald Trump didn’t start the fire in the Middle East, but he’s certainly doing all he can to end the conflict, or at least Jared Kushner is. Give Jared the Nobel Prize. Javanka is no longer in exile. 

  • Has Trump won peace – or a pause? 

    Has Trump won peace – or a pause? 

    Donald Trump is on a roll. He not only wrangled Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu into submission, but also the terrorist organization Hamas, which has apparently agreed to release all remaining hostages. The war in Gaza, which has claimed the lives of at least 67,000 Palestinians, looks to be coming to an end. On Thursday evening, Trump took a victory lap as Israel and Hamas, who have been negotiating in Egypt, assented to the first phase of his 20-point peace plan.

    “I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first Phase of our Peace Plan. This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed upon line as the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS!”

    They are indeed. A jubilant Trump has indicated that he is planning to visit Israel and Egypt. So far, so good. His push for peace and readiness to confront Netanyahu has been vindicated. Netanyahu himself called the agreement “a great day for Israel.” The cessation of hostilities after two years of combat may be a testament to exhaustion on all sides as much as anything else. But will the agreement bring something more substantial than a temporary ceasefire?

    Vexed questions remain. Among them: will Hamas disarm? How far will Israel withdraw from Gaza? And who will run the denuded area and supervise its reconstruction?

    For Netanyahu, an end to the conflict will pose significant risks. He has been able to dodge accountability for the grievous national security lapses that took place on October 7, when Hamas attacked and murdered numerous Israeli civilians. His rickety right-wing coalition partners, who harbor the dream of expelling the Palestinians, may also abandon Netanyahu over the agreement. Still, they would lose their privileges and prerogatives should they exit the coalition.

    The most likely prospect is that a special election will take place in advance of the one scheduled for October 2026. This would almost surely result in a new and more centrist government. The possibility of a grand coalition that excludes far-right figures such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich would seem to be very much in the offing. For one thing, opposition leader Yair Lapid has supported Netanyahu over the past week, declaring that the fate of the hostages trumps any quotidian political concerns. Lapid is also intent on creating a unity government after elections take place. After the turmoil that Israel has endured over the past several years, it might well be a winning message, though Netanyahu’s skill at pulling electoral rabbits out of a hat should never be discounted. 

    But these considerations remain in the future. The most pressing issue is what will transpire with the Gaza strip itself, which has been largely reduced to rubble by Israel. When Trump travels to the Middle East later this week, he will be seeking to ensure that the temporary ceasefire becomes a permanent one, rather than devolving into a fresh round of violence. Nothing would please him more to accomplish what his loathed predecessor Joe Biden could not. And then there is the small matter of the Nobel Peace Prize he covets.