Last night (Monday), I watched the entire inauguration of Donald Trump. I came to it prepared to be critical – as is understandable in light of the pressure brought to bear on us for the ceasefire with Hamas.
Yet in most respects my response was exceedingly positive: I surprised myself.
I am proudly Israeli and have been so for more than 23 years now. But I am still American as well. And in recent years I have grieved for the nation I grew up in, as I witnessed deterioration in one aspect after another. I recognized that the US I knew was no more. Had Kamala – with her empty-headed far-left, “woke” approach – won, America would have been taken down so far along a negative trajectory it would have been finished.
But what I saw last night was an opportunity – in a second Trump administration – for America to be redeemed. I felt hope. So many of the things Trump announced that he would be doing sat very well with me.
There was, for example, his important promised action against the illegal immigrants, who have brought increased crime and disease into the country and cost billions to sustain.
And the matter of the armed forces. It has been alarming to me that “woke” indoctrination had entered the armed forces; the result has been time in soldier instruction devoted to non-military issues, with tensions generated between the races. Now Trump said: “I will sign an order to stop our warriors from being subjected to radical political theories and social experiments while on duty. It’s going to end immediately …Our armed forces will be free to focus on their sole mission: defeating America’s enemies.”
Right on!
There was a great deal more, of course, such as: restoring free speech via halting of government censorship; forging a society that is colorblind and merit based; re-establishing energy self-sufficiency; etc., but this suffices here.
My point here is that I felt a sense of hope about America that has been missing for a long time. It is true that even last night he tended towards grandiose statements, such as that America will be better than it ever has been. That’s Trump; I see it as an extension of his ego. But, when all is said and done, his delivery tone was actually more subdued, less bombastic, than what we had come to expect. This is also reassuring.
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But then there was this:
“My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier, that’s what I want to be, a peacemaker and a unifier. I’m pleased to say that as of yesterday, one day before I assumed office, the hostages in the Middle East are coming back home to their families.”
https://globalnews.ca/news/10967848/donald-trump-full-speech-inauguration-day/
And I thought, AH HA, so there it is: He wanted the ceasefire in place so that he could make this statement. It would not have played as well had he only been able to say that he was working on negotiating a ceasefire. And for this, we have ended up with a deal that will grant freedom to thousands of terrorists.
This remains very definitely NOT OK.
The message I want to deliver to President Trump is that you do not achieve true peace – you do not become a “peacemaker” – by enabling a vicious terrorist group to remain standing so that they might attack on yet another day. Such a ceasefire is an illusion, a temporary respite and no more.
There is evil in this world – evil that must be acknowledged as such. Only when it is eradicated, or at minimum rendered too weak to do further harm, can there be peace. Only those who facilitate or support action against evil – so that it can be eradicated or severely weakened – can call themselves true peacemakers.
PERHAPS THIS IS A LESSON DONALD TRUMP MUST YET LEARN. I PRAY THAT HE WILL.
We do not ask for the assistance of US troops. We ask only for the weapons we require to do the job and political/diplomatic support for us as we do it. No demands – such as that we continue to bring in more aid, which will be grabbed by Hamas – or limitations on our movements.
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THIS MESSAGE I ASK EACH OF YOU TO SHARE BROADLY. NOT ONLY IN OP-EDS, ETC., BUT IN MESSAGES TO YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS.
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Senator Cotton (R-AK) delivered this message clearly in a recent interview with Mark Levin (emphasis added):
“We shouldn’t negotiate with terrorists. We shouldn’t ask Israel or any other country to negotiate with terrorists. You know we didn’t negotiate with Japan after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We said unconditional surrender and release the 40,000 Americans you hold, and that’s what they did.
“We wouldn’t be in this position here in January of 2025, if that’s the position Joe Biden had taken in October of 2023. If we had simply backed Israel to the hilt, from the beginning of this war, providing Israel the weapons that it needed, when it needed them, and in the quantities that it needed them, and certainly not putting diplomatic and political pressure on Israel to cut bad deals for the last 15 months.”
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/402581
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I have been asked by several people if I felt joy at the news of the release of three of our hostages two days ago, and I think I have surprised many by responding in a tempered fashion. The truth is that I was struggling with great emotional dissonance.
Yes, of course, it is so good that they are out! Here we see former hostage Emily Damari and her mother Emily.
The stories of their suffering and fear are just emerging and there is only gratitude for the fact that they are past it.
But I remain saddened/angered/frightened by the prospect of more deaths of innocent Israelis yet to come as a result of the parameters of the first stage of the ceasefire.
To hold both emotions at the same time is a heavy task.
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Consider some of the terrorists who are slated for release as part of the ceasefire deal:
[] “Mahmud Abu Varda, who is serving 48 life sentences for masterminding multiple terror attacks, including a 1996 bombing on a bus in Jerusalem that killed 45 people.”
[] “Notorious Fatah terrorist Zakaria Zubeidi, the former Jenin commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades. Zubeidi was detained in 2019 for his part in shootings near Beit El…He is thought to have been involved in numerous terror attacks, including a bombing that killed six people at the Beit Shean branch of the Likud party in 2002.”
[] Wael Qissam, Wissam Abbasi and Muhammad Odeh, all members of the so-called Silwan Squadron. “They were responsible for attacks that caused dozens of casualties, including bombings at Café Moment in Jerusalem, the Sheffield Club in Rishon Lezion, and the Frank Sinatra cafeteria at Hebrew University in the early 2000s.”
[] Ahmed Barghouti, a relative and former aide to Marwan Barghouti. Ahmed “was convicted for orchestrating several deadly attacks, mostly in early 2002, including the bombing at Tel Aviv’s Seafood Market restaurant that killed three Israelis and wounded 30, an attack in Jerusalem’s Neve Yaakov neighborhood that killed a policewoman and wounded nine people, a shooting attack during a bat mitzvah celebration at a banquet hall in Hadera in which six Israelis were killed and 26 were injured, and a bombing on Jaffa Street in Jerusalem that killed two women.”
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-838053
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There are families of hostages who demonstrated after the first stage of the ceasefire was put in place, urging that the deal continue to the end so that all the hostages can be released. I cannot help but wonder if – in spite of their understandable eagerness to see their loved ones freed – they might feel a niggling guilt about what this implies: release of more terrorists and allowing Hamas to remain standing.
And with this I come to the final question I want to examine here: whether there will be an end to the deal after the first phase and a return to fighting.
The evidence we have is mixed, and thus worrisome. Finance Minister Smotrich (Chair, Religious Zionists) said that he would stay in the government because he had reassurances that we would go back to fighting.
“I demanded and received a commitment from Prime Minister Netanyahu that Israel will return to the battle to destroy Hamas…and, therefore, I made a difficult decision to remain in the government to ensure that these commitments to destroy Hamas will be implemented.”
But Minister David Ansalem (Likud) insists that Netanyahu made no such promise to Smotrich.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-838432
Netanyahu, when announcing the ceasefire deal, said, “He [Trump] welcomed the agreement and rightly emphasized that the first stage of the agreement is a temporary ceasefire. That is what he said, ‘a temporary ceasefire.’”
All fine and good, but this temporary ceasefire is supposed to be followed by a permanent one. In fact, negotiations for that permanent ceasefire are to be carried out during the first stage: “Netanyahu described the agreement as a provisional short-term deal as negotiations for a second stage remain underway.”
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National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said last week: ”We’ve made it very clear to the Israelis, and I want the people of Israel to hear me on this: If they need to go back in, we’re with them. If Hamas doesn’t live up to the terms of this agreement, we are with them.” (Emphasis added)
Waltz, a former green beret, is nobody’s patsy.
But who decides when Hamas isn’t living up to the terms of this agreement? What happens if fewer hostages are released than promised? Does this qualify, or will we be told, look, you’re getting hostages out, take what you can and don’t walk away?
Hamas is not a dependable entity with which to negotiate. Pinpointing areas in which they have failed to deliver should not be difficult, if there is a determination to resume the war. And resuming the war is precisely what we MUST do.
Smotrich says that “The U.S. has provided Israel with a written guarantee that Jerusalem can resume its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip if negotiations for the second and third phases of the ceasefire agreement fail.” This would be with regard to a good deal more than how many hostages have been released on time, it would concern such matters as the timing and parameters of an IDF pullout. Most serious issues.
Yet as recently as last Saturday, Trump had delivered this mixed message:
The new ceasefire, he said, “better hold”: “Well, we’re going to see very soon, and it better hold.”
He said he told Netanyahu: “Just keep doing what you have to do. You have to have — this [the war] has to end. We want it to end, but to keep doing what has to be done.”
Talk about mixed messages and confusion. According to Axios, three sources claimed that Mike Waltz on Saturday “pledged to relatives of hostages in Gaza that the Trump administration would ensure that the full three-stages of the ceasefire will be implemented.”
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I have been deeply concerned about this aspect of the situation, but today less so.
Last night, while signing presidential proclamations after his inauguration (he wasted no time!) Trump said to reporters, in response to a question, that he was not confident that the deal would hold through all three phases. “It’s not our war. It’s their [Israel’s] war…they [Hamas] didn’t exactly run [Gaza] well. Run viciously and badly. You can’t have that.”
https://www.jns.org/trump-not-confident-gaza-ceasefire-deal-will-last-through-final-phase/
This was not an ironclad guarantee from the president that he will back our returning to war after the 42 days of the first stage, but it sure points in that direction. It may yet be that he got what he needed for his inauguration speech and will be more flexible moving ahead. We shall see soon enough.
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We now learn that “President Donald Trump is expected to lift a Biden Administration freeze on heavy bombs for Israel in the coming days, according to Axios.
“The shipment of 2,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs was withheld by President Joe Biden early last year…”
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Also reassuring are two other actions Trump took last night:
“President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order permitting the deportation of students and other foreign nationals who express support for terrorist organizations that are officially designated as such by the US government.”
This would include the deportation of foreign students at American universities who demonstrate for Hamas.
President Trump also signed an executive decree that deleted 78 Biden executive actions. Among them was “Executive Order 14115 of February 1, 2024 (Imposing Certain Sanctions on Persons Undermining Peace, Security, and Stability in the West Bank).”
This was “a significant reversal of a major policy enacted by the Biden administration, which had imposed sanctions on numerous Jewish settlers and entities. These sanctions froze their US assets and broadly prohibited Americans from engaging in business with them.
“In the 11 months following Biden’s executive order against Judea and Samaria Jews, 17 individuals and 16 entities were sanctioned in eight separate rounds.”
This move was much appreciated. It must be noted that the Biden administration never pinpointed a single Palestinian Arab or Palestinian Arab entity in Judea & Samaria that was undermining “peace, security and stability.”
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IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi has now resigned, declaring that he is responsible for failures that led to October 7. He said that the ceasefire was an appropriate time to resign, and he will leave on March 6.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/402660
This change of command is highly significant in terms of how the war in Gaza will be fought from this point on. I will follow in my next posting with a good deal more about his possible replacement.
Following Halevi’s resignation, Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman, head of the Israel Defense Forces Southern Command, announced his intention to resign, “citing responsibility for the IDF’s failures before the terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, 2023.”
https://www.jns.org/finkelman-follows-halevi-and-resigns-over-oct-7-failures/
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I ask for prayers for Israel’s wellbeing – for the strength of our leaders and the safety of all Am Yisrael.
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©Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by independent journalist Arlene Kushner. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution.
