“Lower your expectations,” my wife has said to me many times over the years. She knows I tend in the other direction: always thinking the best of people, always ignoring the signs. By nature and preference, I am a hopeful man.
So, I put aside so much to celebrate with so many both the return of the people to their land in Gaza and the return of the hostages to their homes in Israel. Although you would be forgiven if you were unaware of the former given how dominant has been the latter.
I am not the only one who noticed that media coverage and presidential attention has been almost totally focused on the return of the hostages and all the hullabaloo in Israel. I had to look for images and articles about the two million displaced Gazans and their slow, sad walk home… to nothing: no streets, no utilities, no buildings, no food, no attention, just nothing.
I turned to The Free Press, that “independent” source of news launched by Bari Weiss (and sold last week to CBS for $150 million on the day Ms. Weiss was elevated to editor-in-chief of CBS News). Their primary article led by noting four things: living Israeli hostages came home, President Trump hailed as a hero in Israel, Israel releases 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, and the Trump Peace Plan signed in Sharm El Sheikh.
What is missing in that report? Or better, who is missing?
Two names not missing in all the festivities are Trump and Netanyahu. It was, truly, a meeting of the mutual admiration society, with Israeli Prime Minister canonizing President Trump as the greatest U.S. President ever (as far as Israeli interests are concerned) and Trump calling publicly for the president of Israel to pardon Netanyahu. The latter is under inditement by an Israeli court, and many in his own country have accused him to initiating and sustaining the war in Gaza as a way to postpone the criminal proceedings in an Israeli courtroom. Trump, we all know, is already a convicted felon and is currently tied up in cases, both personal and official.
Both of these men needed this peace plan, badly. Both are deeply unpopular in their own countries. And many people are convinced that Trump is planning to stay in office by initiating martial law and postponing elections scheduled for the fall of 2026 and again in 2028.
My AI supported Google search reveals that Trump and his businesses were party to more than 4,000 legal cases in state and federal courts between 1973 and 2016. Since 2016, The Associated Press has an entire website dedicated to tracking the current court cases of Trump and his administration. The litigation involving his personal matters on top of those involving official government business is, literally, too vast and complicated to summarize in this paragraph.
The timing of the Trump Peace Plan is suspicious in the extreme. Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize. He has said so repeatedly in public. A video montage of these pleas is pathetic and sad and embarrassing. During the week of Nobel announcements (October 5-12), Trump pushed hard to do what many of us are convinced he could have done months ago: pressure Netanyahu to make peace with Gaza.
If this Peace Plan works, and Gaza is rebuilt, and Israel accepts the Palestinian state, the Nobel committee should give the Peace Prize to all those involved in the process this include, including Trump (and including President Biden, who first proposed the plan). I hope all this happens, but the committee needs to delay this recognition until Trump is out of office. Assuming that will indeed happen; the postponement of the presentation may be one powerful strategy to make that happen. As in, “As soon as you leave the White House, we will give you the Nobel Peace Prize.” That is something that will make everybody happy.
As to jail or fines, I doubt that Trump or Netanyahu will ever pay a dime in fines or spend a day in jail. Both will die rich and free.
Not so the people of Gaza. They will live poor and harassed, just like the people of the West Bank. If they strike out against their Israeli overlords, they will suffer massive death and destruction. Not so the people of Israel. They will continue to bomb countries around the Middle East when and why they want.
In 1973, while living in Jerusalem before the Yom Kippur War, I made my way to Gaza to visit, among other things, the famous hospital owned and operated by the Baptists. I would like to go again, this time to help rebuild something: perhaps that hospital, a house, or even a street.
Perhaps a garden. That might assuage some of my skepticism.
“Lower your expectations,” my wife has said to me many times over the years. She knows I tend in the other direction: always thinking the best of people, always ignoring the signs. By nature and preference, I am a hopeful man.
So, I put aside so much to celebrate with so many both the return of the people to their land in Gaza and the return of the hostages to their homes in Israel. Although you would be forgiven if you were unaware of the former given how dominant has been the latter.
I am not the only one who noticed that media coverage and presidential attention has been almost totally focused on the return of the hostages and all the hullabaloo in Israel. I had to look for images and articles about the two million displaced Gazans and their slow, sad walk home… to nothing: no streets, no utilities, no buildings, no food, no attention, just nothing.
I turned to The Free Press, that “independent” source of news launched by Bari Weiss (and sold last week to CBS for $150 million on the day Ms. Weiss was elevated to editor-in-chief of CBS News). Their primary article led by noting four things: living Israeli hostages came home, President Trump hailed as a hero in Israel, Israel releases 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, and the Trump Peace Plan signed in Sharm El Sheikh.
What is missing in that report? Or better, who is missing?
Two names not missing in all the festivities are Trump and Netanyahu. It was, truly, a meeting of the mutual admiration society, with Israeli Prime Minister canonizing President Trump as the greatest U.S. President ever (as far as Israeli interests are concerned) and Trump calling publicly for the president of Israel to pardon Netanyahu. The latter is under inditement by an Israeli court, and many in his own country have accused him to initiating and sustaining the war in Gaza as a way to postpone the criminal proceedings in an Israeli courtroom. Trump, we all know, is already a convicted felon and is currently tied up in cases, both personal and official.
Both of these men needed this peace plan, badly. Both are deeply unpopular in their own countries. And many people are convinced that Trump is planning to stay in office by initiating martial law and postponing elections scheduled for the fall of 2026 and again in 2028.
My AI supported Google search reveals that Trump and his businesses were party to more than 4,000 legal cases in state and federal courts between 1973 and 2016. Since 2016, The Associated Press has an entire website dedicated to tracking the current court cases of Trump and his administration. The litigation involving his personal matters on top of those involving official government business is, literally, too vast and complicated to summarize in this paragraph.
The timing of the Trump Peace Plan is suspicious in the extreme. Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize. He has said so repeatedly in public. A video montage of these pleas is pathetic and sad and embarrassing. During the week of Nobel announcements (October 5-12), Trump pushed hard to do what many of us are convinced he could have done months ago: pressure Netanyahu to make peace with Gaza.
If this Peace Plan works, and Gaza is rebuilt, and Israel accepts the Palestinian state, the Nobel committee should give the Peace Prize to all those involved in the process this include, including Trump (and including President Biden, who first proposed the plan). I hope all this happens, but the committee needs to delay this recognition until Trump is out of office. Assuming that will indeed happen; the postponement of the presentation may be one powerful strategy to make that happen. As in, “As soon as you leave the White House, we will give you the Nobel Peace Prize.” That is something that will make everybody happy.
As to jail or fines, I doubt that Trump or Netanyahu will ever pay a dime in fines or spend a day in jail. Both will die rich and free.
Not so the people of Gaza. They will live poor and harassed, just like the people of the West Bank. If they strike out against their Israeli overlords, they will suffer massive death and destruction. Not so the people of Israel. They will continue to bomb countries around the Middle East when and why they want.
In 1973, while living in Jerusalem before the Yom Kippur War, I made my way to Gaza to visit, among other things, the famous hospital owned and operated by the Baptists. I would like to go again, this time to help rebuild something: perhaps that hospital, a house, or even a street.
Perhaps a garden. That might assuage some of my skepticism.
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