There is a peculiar, and telling, absurdity to the coverage of the Trump Administration’s agreement between Israel and Hamas. After entering office, this administration faithfully continued the efforts of its predecessor by providing the means Israel requires to conduct its genocidal campaign in Gaza. One could therefore be forgiven for thinking that leveraging this support to—at least temporarily—reduce the level of violence shouldn’t be considered praiseworthy. I hope this doesn’t sound hopelessly utopian, but I aspire to a state of affairs where withholding participation in mass murder is expected conduct, not something perceived to merit praise. Instead, the temporary suspension of a war crime is considered a diplomatic triumph. The arsonist is lauded for dousing the flames, while earlier exertions to maintain the kindling are forgotten.
A casual glance at the American press reveals the rot. A Washington Post editorial tells us that in attaining the agreement between Israel and Hamas, “the president can fairly claim a generational accomplishment.” Michael Wilner, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, calls the deal “a significant U.S. diplomatic achievement that has ended hostilities in Gaza.” For those keen on seeing the distinct ways the Trump diplomatic initiative was applauded, the administration compiled a list of quotes from various news sources and political figures. It is a testament to the sheer volume of praise, and the utter poverty of its discernment.
To appreciate the full cynicism of the performance, one need only glance at the earlier acts. Upon assuming power, this administration, with dreary predictability, continued to supply the props for genocide. During the presidential debate in June of 2024, Trump said that the aim of American policy should be to “let Israel finish the job” in Gaza; since he took office, this maxim seems to have guided his approach. American weapons—which Israeli officials have said their campaign is fully dependent on and could not continue without—are still being sent to Israel. They are then used with the stated intention of depopulating Gaza, with genocide being the methodology to achieve this.
That the goal is the ethnic cleansing of Gaza cannot be doubted. The intention to remove the Gazan population has been attested to by a myriad of Israeli officials. It’s the motivation for the erasure of Gaza’s infrastructure. When addressing a committee in the Knesset (Israeli Parliament), Benjamin Netanyahu said that they were “demolishing more and more homes” so the Palestinians would have “nowhere to return.” The “obvious result,” as Netanyahu phrased it, “will be the desire of the Gazans to emigrate outside the strip.” In March, the Israeli Security Council adopted a plan to establish a bureau within the Defense Ministry to oversee what they call the “voluntary departure” of Palestinians from Gaza.
And our American President? He did not recoil from this horror, he embraced it with enthusiasm. He saw in this desolation the perfect site for a “Riviera of the Middle East.” He endorsed the ethnic cleansing campaign and made clear his desire, once the population was properly disposed of, for the United States to acquire control of the territory. Israeli officials were, quite naturally, elated. The minister of environmental protection identified Trump as an agent sent to effectuate divine will; she said, “God has sent us the US administration, and it is clearly telling us–it’s time to inherit the land.” Trump was apparently viewed as the antithesis of Moses, facilitating the removal of people from the promised land rather than leading them in. Netanyahu began identifying the implementation of Trump’s proposal to be among his “clear conditions” for ending the war.
Upon entering office in January, the Trump administration managed to secure a brief pause in hostilities. Various conditions were agreed upon, including the release of hostages, the resumption of humanitarian aid, and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from some areas of Gaza. The Israelis at once began violating the deal, with the full acquiescence of the Trump administration. Aid was blocked from entering Gaza, Palestinians were still being killed by Israeli forces, and Netanyahu refused to allow the Israeli negotiating team to confer in good faith on how to move beyond the first phase of the agreement. When Israel unilaterally abandoned the cease-fire and resumed the slaughter, Trump and his officials deceptively blamed Hamas for the deal’s unraveling.
This has been a recurring maneuver: in May, Hamas accepted the framework, which had been established by the Trump administration, for another ceasefire; the proposal was presented to the Israelis and was hastily disavowed. Administration officials then inverted blame for the plan’s failure, castigating the Hamas’s behavior as “disappointing and completely unacceptable.”
Trump’s efforts have achieved one objective: they have extended the genocide in Gaza and increased the number of its victims. He provided the weapons needed to maintain the slaughter, proposed his own plan for ethnic cleansing, diplomatically supported Israel when it sabotaged agreements to end the violence, vetoed United Nations resolutions calling for an end to the massacre, and sanctioned the International Criminal Court for issuing arrest warrants for Israeli officials. Now that he perceives his interests to have changed, he leveraged his support for Israeli violence to compel Israel’s agreement to a ceasefire—an agreement that could have been achieved long ago. Perhaps commentators at major news outlets could retain at least a modicum of integrity by not offering praise for this?