Republican elected officials, right-wing pundits, and gullible reporters all heaped mountains of praise onto President Donald Trump after Hamas and Israel agreed to a ceasefire on Oct. 9, which secured the release of hostages Hamas had taken in exchange for Israel to stop its military strikes in Gaza.
On its cover, Time magazine ran a photo of Trump alongside the words "HIS TRIUMPH." GOP lawmakers demanded the president be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for “brokering historic deals to end wars that have lasted for decades.” And The Washington Post’s editorial board said Trump had achieved a “generational accomplishment.” Others criticized Democrats for not giving Trump credit for the Middle East peace he supposedly brokered.
But those toadies now have egg on their face. The ceasefire between Hamas and Israel appears to be collapsing not even three weeks after the ceasefire deal was announced.
Israel on Tuesday carried out military strikes in Gaza after the nation accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire by attacking Israeli troops and not returning the remains of Israeli hostages killed in Hamas captivity.
The Trump administration claims that the peace deal still holds, even though the persistence of military strikes means there is, by definition, no peace in the region.
The ceasefire deal "doesn't mean that there aren't going to be little skirmishes here and there," Vice President JD Vance said Tuesday during a visit to Capitol Hill. "We know that Hamas or somebody else within Gaza attacked an [Israeli] soldier. We expect the Israelis are going to respond, but I think the president's peace is going to hold despite that."
In fact, Israeli society is bristling at the United States’ involvement in making sure the ceasefire lasts, with the Israeli news outlet Haaretz writing that “defense officials have the impression that American scrutiny of Israel has reached a point that usurps Israel’s military and diplomatic power.”
The Israeli government, for its part, claims the ceasefire is now back on after it carried out its latest attacks.
However, what kind of ceasefire is it if every so often either side is launching strikes or violating the terms of a peace deal that is supposedly in place?
It's almost as if a lot of people preemptively celebrated the end to a decades-old crisis that no politician has ever been able to solve.
“How long is the U.S. media going to pretend that there is really a ceasefire in place?” Tommy Vietor, who was a spokesman for former President Barack Obama’s National Security Council, wrote in a post on X. “Clearly [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu's plan is to bomb Gaza whenever he wants in perpetuity. Hamas has not been disarmed. Trump took a huge victory lap but none of the big problems are solved.”
