Thoughts On The Ceasefire Deal
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
Israel and Hamas have reportedly agreed to a ceasefire and hostage deal, which is scheduled to take effect January 19. The deal as written is apparently virtually identical to the one Hamas agreed to last May, which Netanyahu then sabotaged with the complicity of the Biden administration.
As usual, Israel appears to be ramping up its aggressions to kill as many people as possible before the fighting comes to an end. These next few days will be an especially terrifying time to be living in Gaza.
The Times of Israel reports that according to two unnamed Arab officials, the middle east envoy for the incoming Trump administration did more to sway Netanyahu in one day than the Biden administration did all year. The Trump camp’s pivotal role in securing the deal has been acknowledged by pretty much everyone at this point, including Biden’s State Department.
So it looks like Trump winning ended up being the better result for the people of Gaza, as weird as that sounds. Not because he’s a fantastic peacemaker, but because he did something instead of doing nothing.
Which would mean that everyone who said a Trump win will make things worse for Gaza was objectively wrong, and that Biden-Harris were undeniably the greater evil.
Cool. Lesson learned.
Don’t get me wrong, Trump is going to be terrible for the Palestinians, terrible for the middle east, and terrible for the world. And it’s very possible that even this basic, bare-minimum end to an active holocaust won’t hold. I’m not praising Trump, I’m shitting on Biden.
Biden, who could have ended this all with a phone call at any time and chose not to, every day for 15 months. Whose unique combination of dementia, corruption and lifelong virulent Zionism made these genocidal atrocities possible in ways that couldn’t have happened to the same degree under any other administration. Whose Zionist handlers pushed through as many crimes against humanity as they could possibly cram into the remainder of their administration while stalling peace efforts by hiding their true intentions.
Yes, we can expect to see more cruelty inflicted upon the Palestinians in general and the people of Gaza in particular. Yes, we can expect Trump to shower Israel with gifts while ramping up tensions with Iran like he did in his previous term. None of this changes the clearly established fact that Joe Biden was a uniquely horrible president for this point in history, and that humanity would probably be better off if he’d lost in 2020.
This development comes as new polling shows us that Kamala Harris’ depraved position on Gaza probably cost her the election last November. A poll released on Wednesday by IMEU Policy Project and YouGov found that among people who voted for Biden in 2020 but didn’t vote for Harris in 2024, Gaza was their number one reason — surpassing even issues like the economy and healthcare.
So it turns out all those Muslims in Michigan that liberals have been screaming at for refusing to vote for Harris were right all along. Kamala Harris told them “I’m speaking” when they protested her genocidal atrocities at a political rally in Detroit. Well, who’s speaking now?
I’ve only just begun allowing myself to emotionally process the possibility that this could be the beginning of the end of the Gaza holocaust. My default position on such matters always tends toward intellectual pessimism, but when I saw the relief and celebrations of the people of Gaza it really hit my guts that this nightmare could possibly be winding down, and I have now allowed a tiny ray of hope to touch in.
I don’t mind getting my hopes up, because I don’t really mind feeling disappointed if things don’t go the way I was hoping. I don’t like using pessimism as an emotional sedative to hide my heart and blunt the impact of the ups and downs of life.
I have never enjoyed this job less than I have these last 15 months. Having to look at dead and mutilated children every day, month after month, has changed my experience of the world. Changed my insides. Changed what it feels like to be alive. The idea that this particular horror might be on its last legs is causing some major emotional rumblings in my depths that I still haven’t allowed to fully express here.
I’ve definitely got a big cry in my future. A lot of tears. A lot of shaking. Some throat-splitting screams of white hot rage. There are a lot of feels that have yet to be felt here. When the picture of what’s happening gets a little clearer and when the time is right, I will feel them. There’s an emotional tsunami in the mail.
This will take a long time to process, and of course the fight is very, very far from over. But I am allowing myself to feel some sliver of hope that, in this one small part of the world, things might start getting a little better.
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"Having to look at dead and mutilated children every day, month after month, has changed my experience of the world. Changed my insides. Changed what it feels like to be alive."
Caitlin has perfectly encapsulated what most of us have felt since this genocide began.
Let's see whether Israel sticks to any ceasefire deal before taking a victory lap, what say?