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“Israel's government ratified a ceasefire with the Palestinian militant group Hamas on Friday, clearing the way to suspend hostilities in Gaza within 24 hours and free Israeli hostages held there within 72 hours after that. The Israeli cabinet approved the deal early Friday morning, roughly 24 hours after mediators announced the agreement, which calls for the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and the start of a phased withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza under U.S. President Donald Trump's initiative to end the two-year war in Gaza.” Reuters
Many on both sides are cautiously optimistic about the deal:“
As news broke of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, I thought back to a conversation I had in Tel Aviv with a senior Israeli official a month after Hamas’s horrific Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack. ‘We are so traumatized by what has happened to us that we won’t make good decisions about how to end this war,’ he told me. ‘We need America to push us to make the right choices.’ President Joe Biden, for all his effort, couldn’t find a way to do that. But Trump did…
“Trump’s peace plan could fall apart, obviously. This is the Middle East. Key details like disarmament of Hamas aren’t yet resolved. But in achieving his ceasefire, Trump demonstrated skills and used tactics that showed more flexibility and cooperation than are typical of him. He listened to expert advice and changed some of his views. He engaged in subtle secret diplomacy, especially with Qatar… An imperious, go-it-alone president listened to others and built the coalition he needed.”
David Ignatius, Washington Post
“I want to pay tribute to the wonderful creative insanity Donald Trump can display on the international front. At moments when the Mideast is blowing up, American presidents always begin to ape the language, preoccupations and granular knowledge of the regional experts, some of whom follow from White House to White House. It’s always into the weeds with them. The settler issue may complicate the loan-guarantee schedule if the ’67 lines are even retrievable. It was all opaque and meaningless and meant to be…
“That isn’t what Mr. Trump did in this crisis. He looked at the whole complicated picture, the long history, the writing etched on the stones of the oldest archeological sites, and said: That’s fabulous beachfront property going to waste. We can build a luxury resort… It was so Trumpian, he thinks everything can be a big building with his name on it, but in his insane way he was saying: Imagine it differently. And for a second you did.”
Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal
Other opinions below.
“One reason for optimism is the terrorist group’s willingness to cede its only real leverage in these negotiations. Agreeing to free all hostages at once in the first 72 hours of the deal — not in phases, and without the degrading release spectacles of the past — shows that the leaders of Hamas recognize that they have reached the end of the line…
“Trump, meanwhile, pressured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to end the fighting short of his stated goal of the total annihilation of Hamas. Credit Trump for pushing Netanyahu after Israel’s bombing of Hamas targets inside Qatar nearly derailed the sensitive negotiations. No other American president has managed the relationship with that difficult partner more intuitively.”
Editorial Board, Washington Post
“We’ve reached the ceasefire and hostage-for-prisoner exchange stage of such agreements twice before… The fact that statements announcing the deal said nothing about the disarmament of Hamas or full withdrawal of the IDF does not inspire confidence. It makes clear that neither Hamas (a terrorist group devoted to the cause of destroying Israel), nor Netanyahu’s cabinet (dominated by extremists devoted to Israel’s expansion), want to end this war. They’re being forced into it.”
Marc Champion, Bloomberg
“Trump let this genocide go on for almost another full year as children in Gaza starved and Israel’s bombing continued. Gaza is in ruins, it’s unclear if the Palestinian Authority will play any role at all, and what’s instead being offered is a ‘Trump economic development plan to rebuild and energise Gaza,’ a project that, if it proceeds, will very likely favor Israel and its illegal settlements…
“Most tellingly, Trump’s administration has come to this ‘deal’ not by using the simplest, most effective lever that America has to pull: that of the purse, of unfailing international diplomatic cover, and of the arms we’ve continually rushed to Israel whenever they’re depleted. Without meaningfully withdrawing our support on any of those fronts, I remain pessimistic about this agreement’s long-term prospects.”
Katherine Krueger, Discourse Blog
“Israel has decimated Hamas, killing its entire top leadership from Gaza to Iran. Israel has destroyed Hezbollah's efficacy and killed its terror master Hassan Nasrallah… Iranian proxies in Iraq have gone silent, too. The Houthis in Yemen have been bombed thoroughly… The conventional wisdom said that military action could not guarantee security. That wasn't just wrong; it was catastrophically wrong: It was military action that took out the supporting pillars beneath Hamas' feet…
“The conventional wisdom said that the United States ought to play a peculiar neutral role between Israel and its genocidal enemies. That wasn't just wrong; it was idiotically wrong: The Trump administration's open support for Israel's military victory led to actual victory. The conventional wisdom said that threatening to kill terror leaders abroad would be conflagrationist. That, too, was wrong: It was Israel's willingness to kill terror masters in Iran and Qatar that led to Qatar and Turkey deciding to press for Hamas' ouster.”
Ben Shapiro, Creators
“If the Israeli hostages do all come home on Monday then there will be rejoicing in Israel. But the celebration will be mixed with foreboding and mourning. Not just for the dead bodies that Hamas continues to use as bargaining chips, but because other relatives of other victims of Hamas will see their loved ones’ killers released onto the streets. I can’t think of any other country in the world that would accept such terms. Dead bodies of your murdered citizens in exchange for the murderers of your citizens…
“[Yahya] Sinwar spent years in an Israeli prison, where he studied his enemy. Then in 2011 he was released along with more than 1,000 other Palestinian prisoners in exchange for one kidnapped Israeli soldier… Sinwar went back to Gaza and increased his control inside Hamas. His renown among his fellow jihadists was only increased through his time in prison. And then he launched October 7th, 2023. How will this time be different? How will the Israeli public know that the hundreds of prisoners released in exchange for their hostages will not be the next Sinwar?”
Douglas Murray, New York Post
Stepping Back in Time at the Race of Gentlemen.
New York Times
