I hate MAGA. But the hostages are home. Do I have to give Trump credit?

A guide to the Gaza ceasefire for the conflicted.

A reader writes:

I hate the President, his wannabe authoritarianism, and what he’s doing to the rule of law in America. Seriously, don’t get me going. But this peace deal between Israel/Gaza seems like a great step forward. My pro-MAGA, pro-Israel friends are demanding I give him credit for it. Should I?

Alright, I confess. That’s not actually from a reader, it’s from inside my own brain.

Let’s get into it…

---

🔌 FYI I’ll be telling jokes in Narrowsburg, NY on Saturday (10/18) and in Seattle, WA on 11/20. Tickets available here.

---

Celebrate good times

Huzzah. They’re home. Loved this photo:

What a relief.

“So ya gonna give the President credit or what?”

Yeah, I will. 😬

He took the yes. He heard Hamas will release the hostages and said, “Done.” He went for momentum over substance. Someone had to do that.

He got Witkoff and Jared to corral the Arabs. And he pulled a reverse Dirty Dancing (i.e. somebody put Bibi in the corner). He spanked Netanyahu in the Oval Office and, in effect, sidelined Ben Gvir, Smotrich, and the rest of the far right wackos in Israel. Finally.

Basically, he brought his cult of personality to a bunch of cult members – and they got the message.

Is any of this sustainable? History says no. But sometimes you gotta fake peace until you make it. The hostages are home. The bombs have stopped dropping. The aid is flowing. That’s all great and let’s give credit where credit’s due.

[Brushes teeth ferociously and takes long, hot shower.]

But also…

A lot of this has a “when did you stop beating your wife” vibe. The guy who helped make peace was also the guy sending Israel all those bombs in the first place and giving it more greenlights than a Matthew McConaughey book tour.

See this Don Rickles joke for context:

“Still, the hostages are back.”

Great. However, Biden got way more hostages released than 🍊 did. Seems worth mentioning at least. Let’s not give the closer all the credit while ignoring all the outs the starter got in innings 1-7.

“The war is over.”

Um, is it? Just because you say the movie’s over doesn’t make it so. Already, Hamas is executing enemies and reasserting control over Gaza. In response, the President threatened to disarm Hamas “violently.” Uh, I hate to break it to you, but if you’re going into enemy territory and attempting to violently disarm your military opponent, you’re still at war.

“There was a peace summit.”

That “Peace 2025” shot was something. A US President staging a photo op declaring the end of a war with no idea how the “defeated” territory will actually be governed. Feels familiar…

It’s what we do!

“They signed a peace document.”

About that: Turkey, Egypt, and Qatar joined with the United States to sign it. But it wasn’t signed by Israel or Hamas. Sooooo, um, people not fighting a war agreed that other people were surrendering to each other. Kinda absurd. It’s like if your coworkers decided you and your ex-wife were no longer divorced. “Um, are you gonna live with her?”

Pretty sure this document exists mostly so 47 could force a bunch of world leaders to sign something called the “Trump Peace Agreement.” Because the man simply must put his name on everything.

---

🔌 Please support this Substack by signing up for the paid plan. It ain’t that much. You’ll get bonus stuff too. Thanks.

---

Why now?

For Hamas:

The on-the-ground equation changed in Gaza. Initially, Hamas believed hostages would help limit Israeli destruction and give them negotiation leverage. We all saw how that worked out. Eventually, it became clear the hostages had become an excuse for Bibi to keep the war going on forever. Basically, the hostages stopped being an asset for Hamas and turned into a liability. (Notice how they haven’t really agreed to any of the other conditions yet.)

For Arab countries:

That strike in Qatar freaked them out. It was the straw that broke the 🐪’s 🔙.(Perfect analogy for the region, right?)

Also…

Middle East rulers love dealing with 🍊. He shows up as a corrupt, grifting mafia boss who only cares about money and power and they’re all like, “He gets us!” He speaks their language (i.e. dictatorese) way more than all those silly State Department wonks who are always prattling on about human rights this and bone saw that. Who wants to deal with that?

As always, look for the grift.

For Israel:

At some point, Israel was going to have to admit its stated goals were, as even Israeli military officials pointed out, unachievable fantasies.

• There was no way to both dismantle Hamas and bring back the hostages.

• Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel.

• In the beginning, it was the most just war in the world. After 22 months, it was not.

Those views weren’t coming from a bunch of snowflake activists, they were coming from the former director of the Mossad, the Israeli security agency Shin Bet, the former deputy chief of staff of the IDF, the former commissioner of Israel’s civilian police force, etc.

The war couldn’t go on forever. Iran got denuked, Hezbollah got beepered, Gaza is in ruins, and Israelis are tired. Sometimes you gotta take the chips you’ve got, put ‘em in your pocket, and walk away from the blackjack table.

For the US:

Everything shifted when Bibi foolishly tried that (failed) strike within Qatar. Oh, silly Bibi. Lesson #1: Don’t 👏 Mess 👏 With 👏 The “flying palace.”

How it worked:

• Israel attacks Gaza: No problem

• Israel attacks Lebanon: No problem

• Israel attacks Iran: No problem (”Actually, we’ll help!”)

• Israel attacks country giving 🍊 a $400M plane: END THE WAR NOW!

The President even put the phone on his lap and made Bibi call up Qatar and apologize like some third grader caught giving wedgies on the playground.

Dying to hear a journalist ask 47 about all this just so he can play dumb like he did with Ghislaine: “A Qatari plane? Y’know, I haven’t heard that name in so long. I would have to take a look at it. They offered us a plane? And what happened? I see. Well, I’ll take a look.”

The “ceasefire now” crowd

Meanwhile, the ongoing silence from “ceasefire now” folks is remarkable. How ya gonna scream for something 24/7 and then pretend it ain’t happening? And how about Hamas executing its enemies on the streets of Gaza now? Any thoughts on that?

Perhaps this will force “anti-Zios” to confront the fact that Hamas is less Black Panthers/Che Guevara/artsy revolutionaries and more ISIS/Al Qaeda/Charlie Hebdo/Bataclan/9-11/beheading monsters.

Let’s get over this silliness…

“I don’t hate Jews, I hate Zionists.”

OK. But “I only hate 90% of Jews” isn’t the big win you seem to think it is.

“But they’re colonizers.”

I pray the left starts to let go of lazy binaries. It’s intellectually sloppy to force everything through a prism of racist/antiracist, colonizer/colonized, oppressor/oppressed. It simply ignores the complexity of reality. It’s like baby food for your mind: You don’t have to chew, just swallow. At some point though, you gotta grow up.

What’s important

Hopefully all this spurs an attitude shift in Israel too. The entire country was operating from a place of ongoing trauma due to the hostages. Analogy: It was like making the victim’s family the judge/jury/executioner – and on top of that, the crime was still going on. Tough to behave rationally in that situation. Let the healing begin.

And thankfully, innocent Gazans no longer have to fear bombs and starvation. I pray they wind up with leaders who dare to say, “What if we decide to give up on destroying Israel?” It’s something Palestinians have never tried. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. (Just don’t tell them it was a Jew who said that).

It’s tough to find beauty in all this ugliness. But sometimes the wound lights up the path. Here’s a freed hostage on what he learned in captivity:

You have a lot of time to think in captivity and you distill what is important. You realize that this race that we are on doesn’t matter. What you miss is home. And it doesn’t matter if your home has two bedrooms or four bedrooms, if you have a Mercedes or a Subaru, or how much you have in your bank account. You think: I am ready to pay all the money in the world just to be with my loved ones for two more minutes. For another smile. For one more hug. Be truly grateful for what you have. Hug your family and the people around you. Don’t take anything for granted.

Amen.

Up ahead: 16 thoughts on that Republican group chat, RFK Jr., Antifa, ICE, shiksas, and more…