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There is Good News Today, Fingers Crossed (oops, not so fast)

A hostage and ceasefire deal negotiated by both the Biden and incoming Trump administrations

5 min readJan 16, 2025

I’m going to do something you might never see me do. I’m going to give Trump some credit for today’s announcement of a deal between Israel and Hamas. The lion’s share goes to the unending efforts of Joe Biden in the face of complex politics on all sides.

But nearly 47,000 Gazans have died and hundreds were killed just this past week. And over twelve hundred Israelis were killed in the Hamas terrorist attack that started this war. Those numbers are horrible and they ripped apart Americans as we watched the death tolls mount and the endless images of dead children.

The question now is will it last, will both sides really try to stick to it, and how many of the hostages will be released, alive or dead? The deal has three stages and each depends on a real balancing act on both sides, an act that any incident could destroy.

The world needs this conflict to end but the question in my mind today is, does Bibi Netanyahu need peace? That’s an open question as he needs his government to hold together or he personally risks prosecution for corruption.

Uh, Trump's people had NOTHING to do with the negotiations. They were brought in at the last moment to be informed and available as a transition.

So, not Trump and his people had nothing to do at all with that ceasefire.

Yes, our small moment of hope is being dashed. It is Netanyahu who drags his feet and his extremist minister Ben-Gvir who threatens to quit over it. No question who to hold accountable for the ongoing atrocities.
“Blessed are the peacemakers”

Oh, the humanity……