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In the annals of human folly and fleeting redemption, few chapters rival the saga of Gaza, a strip of land that has, for decades, served as both a launchpad for terror and a stage for the world's sanctimonious hand-wringing. Yet here we are, two years and a day after the barbaric onslaught of October 7, 2023, when Hamas's jihadists unleashed a pogrom of such savagery that it evoked the bloodiest echoes of the Holocaust, slaughtering Jews in their homes, at a music festival, and in the streets, before dragging the living and the dead into the tunnels of their infernal lair.
What followed was not merely war, but a humanitarian cataclysm of Hamas's own contrivance: a blockade of aid by its own fighters, a weaponization of suffering that the bien-pensants of the West have, with tiresome predictability, pinned on Israel alone, because, you know, Jews.
Into this morass strides Donald Trump, that most improbable of peacemakers, whose brash diplomacy has now, against all odds, pried open a door to something resembling peace. On Wednesday, the former, and perhaps future, president took to Truth Social to proclaim the improbable: "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. All Parties will be treated fairly! This is a GREAT Day for the Arab and Muslim World, Israel, all surrounding Nations, and the United States of America, and we thank the mediators from Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey, who worked with us to make this Historic and Unprecedented Event happen. BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS!"
Into this morass strides Donald Trump, that most improbable of peacemakers, whose brash diplomacy has now, against all odds, pried open a door to something resembling peace. On Wednesday, the former, and perhaps future, president took to Truth Social to proclaim the improbable: "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. All Parties will be treated fairly! This is a GREAT Day for the Arab and Muslim World, Israel, all surrounding Nations, and the United States of America, and we thank the mediators from Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey, who worked with us to make this Historic and Unprecedented Event happen. BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS!"
He did not, this time, add: "Thank you for your attention to this matter."
One scarcely knows whether to applaud the biblical flourish or to chuckle at the irony: Trump, the man once derided as a bull in the diplomatic china shop, quoting the Sermon on the Mount while corralling the very devils who began this inferno. Moments before his announcement, images flickered from the negotiation chamber in Sharm el-Sheikh--that Egyptian resort more accustomed to sunburned tourists than to the grim handshakes of sworn enemies. There was retired General Nitzan Alon, clasping hands with Qatar’s Prime Minister Al-Thani, the special envoy Witkoff lurking approvingly in the shadows. Across the table, Hamas's Khalil al-Hayya and his cadre of apparatchiks beamed like schoolboys awarded a prize for good behavior. An Israeli source murmured of preparations for an official unveiling, while whispers suggested the ink might dry as early as Thursday. Israeli outlets, ever vigilant, reported the signing would unfold in that same sun-kissed enclave.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the indomitable prime minister whose tenure has been a gauntlet of betrayals and bombardments, wasted no time in framing this as divine intercession. "With God’s help, we will bring them all home," he declared in a statement, before adding in Hebrew: "A great day for Israel. Tomorrow I will convene the government to approve the agreement and bring all our dear hostages home. I thank the heroic soldiers of the IDF and all the security forces, thanks to their courage and sacrifice we have reached this day. I thank from the bottom of my heart President Trump and his team for mobilizing for this sacred mission of freeing our hostages. With God's help, together we will continue to achieve all our objectives and expand peace with our neighbors."
From the other side of this chasm, the terrorist polity of Hamas issued its communiqué with the oily piety one might expect from a movement whose charter once called for the extermination of Jews, only later softened to mere subjugation. (How civil of them.) "After responsible and serious negotiations conducted by the movement and the Palestinian resistance factions regarding President Trump's proposal in Sharm el-Sheikh, with the aim of ending the war of extermination against our Palestinian people and the withdrawal of the occupation from the Gaza Strip, Hamas announces the reaching of an agreement that ends the war on Gaza, provides for the withdrawal of the occupation, allows the entry of aid and implements a prisoner exchange.
"We greatly appreciate the efforts of the mediators in Qatar, Egypt and Turkey, and thank U.S. President Donald Trump for his efforts to bring about a final end to the war and the full withdrawal of the occupation from the Gaza Strip. We call on President Trump, the guarantor states of the agreement, and all Arab, Islamic and international parties to oblige the government of the occupation to fulfill all the agreement’s commitments, and not to allow it to evade or delay implementation of the accords."
Ah, the lexicon of victimhood: "war of extermination," "occupation"--phrases honed in the propaganda mills of Tehran and Doha, designed to invert the aggressor into the aggrieved. One might almost admire the shamelessness, were it not so drenched in the blood of innocents. Dr. Majed al-Ansari, the silver-tongued spokesman for Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, chimed in on X with the mediators' seal of approval: "The mediators announce that an agreement was reached tonight on all terms and mechanisms for implementing the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, which will lead to stopping the war, releasing Israeli detainees and Palestinian prisoners, and allowing aid to enter."
Israeli officials, pragmatic as ever, peg the release of the living hostages to a brisk 72 hours, a single, merciful phase. The remains of the dead will lag, a grim logistical hurdle, with Israel unyielding on their repatriation. Hamas, parroted by certain Israeli leaks, blames the delay on bodies lost to rubble, convenient rubble, one suspects, in a landscape they themselves have mined and booby-trapped into a labyrinth of death.
The families of the captives, those whose anguish has been the war's most piercing refrain, erupted in cautious jubilation. From their headquarters came a missive of raw gratitude: "The hostages' families wish to express deep gratitude to U.S. President Donald Trump and his team for the leadership and determination that led to this historic breakthrough: an end to the war and a comprehensive agreement to return all the hostages. There are 48 hostages in Hamas captivity. Our moral and national commitment is to bring them all home, both alive and fallen alike. Their return is a condition for the rehabilitation and revival of Israeli society as a whole. We will not rest or be quiet until the return of the last hostage. We will bring them back. We will rise."Netanyahu had, just last week, nodded to America's 20-point blueprint: a full Israeli pullback from Gaza in swap for all 48 souls--21 of them, by the grim calculus of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, still drawing breath.
One scarcely knows whether to applaud the biblical flourish or to chuckle at the irony: Trump, the man once derided as a bull in the diplomatic china shop, quoting the Sermon on the Mount while corralling the very devils who began this inferno. Moments before his announcement, images flickered from the negotiation chamber in Sharm el-Sheikh--that Egyptian resort more accustomed to sunburned tourists than to the grim handshakes of sworn enemies. There was retired General Nitzan Alon, clasping hands with Qatar’s Prime Minister Al-Thani, the special envoy Witkoff lurking approvingly in the shadows. Across the table, Hamas's Khalil al-Hayya and his cadre of apparatchiks beamed like schoolboys awarded a prize for good behavior. An Israeli source murmured of preparations for an official unveiling, while whispers suggested the ink might dry as early as Thursday. Israeli outlets, ever vigilant, reported the signing would unfold in that same sun-kissed enclave.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the indomitable prime minister whose tenure has been a gauntlet of betrayals and bombardments, wasted no time in framing this as divine intercession. "With God’s help, we will bring them all home," he declared in a statement, before adding in Hebrew: "A great day for Israel. Tomorrow I will convene the government to approve the agreement and bring all our dear hostages home. I thank the heroic soldiers of the IDF and all the security forces, thanks to their courage and sacrifice we have reached this day. I thank from the bottom of my heart President Trump and his team for mobilizing for this sacred mission of freeing our hostages. With God's help, together we will continue to achieve all our objectives and expand peace with our neighbors."
From the other side of this chasm, the terrorist polity of Hamas issued its communiqué with the oily piety one might expect from a movement whose charter once called for the extermination of Jews, only later softened to mere subjugation. (How civil of them.) "After responsible and serious negotiations conducted by the movement and the Palestinian resistance factions regarding President Trump's proposal in Sharm el-Sheikh, with the aim of ending the war of extermination against our Palestinian people and the withdrawal of the occupation from the Gaza Strip, Hamas announces the reaching of an agreement that ends the war on Gaza, provides for the withdrawal of the occupation, allows the entry of aid and implements a prisoner exchange.
"We greatly appreciate the efforts of the mediators in Qatar, Egypt and Turkey, and thank U.S. President Donald Trump for his efforts to bring about a final end to the war and the full withdrawal of the occupation from the Gaza Strip. We call on President Trump, the guarantor states of the agreement, and all Arab, Islamic and international parties to oblige the government of the occupation to fulfill all the agreement’s commitments, and not to allow it to evade or delay implementation of the accords."
Ah, the lexicon of victimhood: "war of extermination," "occupation"--phrases honed in the propaganda mills of Tehran and Doha, designed to invert the aggressor into the aggrieved. One might almost admire the shamelessness, were it not so drenched in the blood of innocents. Dr. Majed al-Ansari, the silver-tongued spokesman for Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, chimed in on X with the mediators' seal of approval: "The mediators announce that an agreement was reached tonight on all terms and mechanisms for implementing the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, which will lead to stopping the war, releasing Israeli detainees and Palestinian prisoners, and allowing aid to enter."
Israeli officials, pragmatic as ever, peg the release of the living hostages to a brisk 72 hours, a single, merciful phase. The remains of the dead will lag, a grim logistical hurdle, with Israel unyielding on their repatriation. Hamas, parroted by certain Israeli leaks, blames the delay on bodies lost to rubble, convenient rubble, one suspects, in a landscape they themselves have mined and booby-trapped into a labyrinth of death.
The families of the captives, those whose anguish has been the war's most piercing refrain, erupted in cautious jubilation. From their headquarters came a missive of raw gratitude: "The hostages' families wish to express deep gratitude to U.S. President Donald Trump and his team for the leadership and determination that led to this historic breakthrough: an end to the war and a comprehensive agreement to return all the hostages. There are 48 hostages in Hamas captivity. Our moral and national commitment is to bring them all home, both alive and fallen alike. Their return is a condition for the rehabilitation and revival of Israeli society as a whole. We will not rest or be quiet until the return of the last hostage. We will bring them back. We will rise."Netanyahu had, just last week, nodded to America's 20-point blueprint: a full Israeli pullback from Gaza in swap for all 48 souls--21 of them, by the grim calculus of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, still drawing breath.
The negotiators, Israeli and Hamas alike, had jetted to Egypt on Monday to chisel out the devilish details, though the fine print remains as opaque as the tunnels beneath Khan Younis. The skeleton of the deal echoes the original: Hamas's disarmament for Israel's halt to operations; a surge of aid to the beleaguered enclave; the first sketches of reconstruction. Amnesty for those jihadists who meekly surrender their Kalashnikovs; and, once the last hostage is accounted for, Israel's release of "250 life sentence prisoners plus 1,700 Gazans who were detained after Oct. 7th, 2023."
The 72-hour clock on releases ticks urgently, though Hamas, in a weekend wittering, hinted at snags, deceased captives allegedly entombed under debris of their own making. They nodded to chunks of Trump's terms but fretted over disarmament's bite and Israel's supposed perfidy: a resumption of arms once the bargaining chips are cashed in.
Ambiguities linger like smoke over the rubble. Who mans this vaunted "Board of Peace," chaired by Trump and that erstwhile British prime minister Tony Blair, tasked with Gaza's stewardship and rebirth? Trump teased "leaders from other countries" to join the roster soon enough. The blueprint envisions Gaza's interim rule by a "technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee," a phrase redolent of bureaucratic fantasy, charged with the mundane toil of services and sanitation.
The 72-hour clock on releases ticks urgently, though Hamas, in a weekend wittering, hinted at snags, deceased captives allegedly entombed under debris of their own making. They nodded to chunks of Trump's terms but fretted over disarmament's bite and Israel's supposed perfidy: a resumption of arms once the bargaining chips are cashed in.
Ambiguities linger like smoke over the rubble. Who mans this vaunted "Board of Peace," chaired by Trump and that erstwhile British prime minister Tony Blair, tasked with Gaza's stewardship and rebirth? Trump teased "leaders from other countries" to join the roster soon enough. The blueprint envisions Gaza's interim rule by a "technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee," a phrase redolent of bureaucratic fantasy, charged with the mundane toil of services and sanitation.
Backed by Arab potentates and a chorus of Middle Eastern voices, the plan was funneled to Hamas last month via Qatari and Egyptian couriers. It sidesteps the siren song of Palestinian statehood, endorsed by 157 UN members, those paragons of wisdom, opting instead for a panel of "experts, who have helped birth some of the thriving modern miracle cities in the Middle East," to blueprint an economic phoenix from the ashes.
No expulsions under this scheme, no echoes of Trump's past musings that so riled the chattering classes. No annexations, either; Gaza remains, in the White House's emollient words, a place "We will encourage people to stay and offer them the opportunity to build a better Gaza."
No expulsions under this scheme, no echoes of Trump's past musings that so riled the chattering classes. No annexations, either; Gaza remains, in the White House's emollient words, a place "We will encourage people to stay and offer them the opportunity to build a better Gaza."
Trump, ever the showman, dangled the carrot and cracked the whip: reject this, he warned Hamas, and Israel would have America's untrammeled license to prosecute the war to its logical end.
Skepticism, of course, is the sage's default in these parts. Hamas has shattered ceasefires before, like a child smashing toys for sport. Israel, scarred by betrayal, will watch with one eye on the horizon. Yet for a fleeting moment, amid the exhaustion and the elegies, one dares to glimpse a sliver of light: peacemakers blessed, hostages homeward bound, and perhaps, just perhaps, a Gaza unshackled from the tyrants who have long held it, and its neighbors, in thrall.
Skepticism, of course, is the sage's default in these parts. Hamas has shattered ceasefires before, like a child smashing toys for sport. Israel, scarred by betrayal, will watch with one eye on the horizon. Yet for a fleeting moment, amid the exhaustion and the elegies, one dares to glimpse a sliver of light: peacemakers blessed, hostages homeward bound, and perhaps, just perhaps, a Gaza unshackled from the tyrants who have long held it, and its neighbors, in thrall.
If only the world, with its selective outrage and moral myopia, might now turn its gaze from condemnation to construction.
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