When the history of this stupid, cruel, and false era is written, historians will remember, as most journalists today do not seem to remember, that a cease fire between Israel and Hamas took effect shortly before Donald Trump took office. In broad outline, historians will record that this cease fire, which Netanyahu and his stooges did not really want but into which they were pressured by then-President Biden, was undermined over the next several months primarily by the Israelis, who were emboldened by the seemingly more friendly attitude that the new president took towards them, compared to Biden, whose misplaced loyalty to the Israeli regime had become increasingly strained. The historians will note that Trump gave full military support to the Netanyahu regime's resumed war effort, even as it became progressively more openly
genocidal. At last, the war reached a point at which it no longer could be pretended that Israel had any more plausible, unaccomplished, legitimate military objectives, while global horror at civilian suffering in Gaza threatened to turn Israel into a pariah state, and American public support for Israel was rapidly dissolving. At this juncture, Netanyahu over-reached, conducting military strikes against Hamas leaders residing in Qatar. Qatar, whose territorial sovereignty Israel thus violated, was important to Trump for economic and diplomatic reasons, as well as for having bribed him early on with the gift of a $400,000,000 passenger jet. Personal enrichment is the royal path to that organ in Trump which is most analogous to what, in a normal human being, might be characterized as a heart. Perhaps Netanyahu failed to understand that Trump has no friends, only temporary, transactional partners, and that in these circumstances Netanyahu was little more to Trump than a potential source of liability, while Israel, as such, means absolutely nothing to him. The result was the cease fire we are presently celebrating. May it last longer and be more genuinely productive than its authors' venality and inhumanity might lead us to expect. After all, mushrooms grow on piles of shit; why can't peace do the same?
