“You know what would be great? If we could make a peace deal with [Iran].”
So declared Donald Trump on Monday, waxing delirious from jet lag during a rambling speech in the Knesset to mark the release of 20 remaining living hostages from captivity in Gaza.
The idea was for Trump to get in there, take care of business and get out, but like the IDF in Gaza, that turned out to be easier said than done. He went off script at regular intervals, detouring into self-congratulatory non sequiturs and at times dead-ending in the preposterous. (At one point, Trump said Marco Rubio was the greatest Secretary of State in US history and likened Steve Witkoff to Henry Kissinger.)
There’s no utility (none at all) in delving any further into the specifics of Trump’s off-the-cuff monologue. Suffice to say Israeli lawmakers were subjected to a full complement of Trumpian tropes and all the absurdist hyperbole we’ve come to expect from a man lost irretrievably down the same rabbit hole he drug the rest of us into beginning in 2016. (“We’re all mad here,” as the Cat says.)
I penned a requiem for the 2023-2025 Gaza war last week. It’s called “Shame.” If you haven’t read it, you should. I won’t recapitulate here other than to emphasize that the civilian death toll in the enclave is a damning indictment of the international community.
If you’re a family member or a friend of the hostages released on Monday then certainly you have something to celebrate. If not, any gaiety’s misplaced. This is a day to mourn humanity’s incurable penchant for murdering one another on the basis of superstition.
More broadly, it’s a day to lament our species’ collective inability to recognize that any and all deviations from a path defined by the pursuit of scientific progress in the service of alleviating human suffering, extending our lifespans and exploring the mysteries of the cosmos, is a tragic misadventure by definition.
We have the capacity already to feed everyone, clothe everyone, house everyone and provide basic medical services for everyone. We don’t, though. Deprivation, while far rarer than it was a century ago, is still alarmingly pervasive for a species which put men on the moon and supercomputers in pockets.
If we’d cease and desist from acting on medieval shibboleths, our potential is for all intents and purposes limitless. Instead, we kill each other because it pleases our gods. Then — and at every juncture during the killing — we thank those gods for giving us the opportunity to murder and maim.
Trump on Monday at least managed to read faithfully from that part of the script he was handed. “[We] give our deepest thanks to the almighty God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” he told the Knesset, adding that the ceasefire marks “not only the end of a war” but “the end of the age of terror and death” in the Mideast and a “historic dawn” for the region.
I realize I’m preaching to the dour choir, but I’m compelled to quote George Santayana, even at the risk of trafficking in a philosophical cliché hackneyed by overuse: Only the dead have seen the end of war. Nowhere is that more true than the Mideast.
The New York Times quoted a 44-year-old man pondering the hopeless abyss in central Gaza. “It’s important the bombing has stopped, but there’s nothing to be happy about,” he said. “My home was destroyed and my two daughters were killed.” Only the dead.
To be sure, Trump is a terrible person and isn’t fit to be president of anything, let alone the President. Yet, in part at least, it was superstition that got him elected—twice. That says a lot about us humans as a species. We get the leader we deserve.
But let’s be clear: the Gaza war didn’t start under his watch. Neither did Ukraine. But Gaza is ending under his watch. Ukraine might too, eventually, if he keeps pushing. Sure, only the dead see the end of war. But what else can we expect from a terrible person? Bring them back?
We’re a terrible species, after all. We should all thank Hiroshima and Nagasaki that we’ve somehow gotten back on track in the pursuit of scientific progress and made it this far. It should’ve all turned to dust by now if it weren’t for them.
I’m not sure what happened in Gaza will get the Mideast back on track. Maybe it’s really time to make a peace deal with Iran. That’d be really great.
We did move on from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, didn’t we?
We didn’t have to move on from Hiroshima, they did. Especially since our occupation of their country for seven years at the end of the war finally allowed them to do so. My dad was stationed on Guam when the bomb destroyed Hiroshima and was part of the initial group of naval officers sent in to catalog the devastation. He was the official naval photographer in the area. If you’d seen the initial pictures you’d know there was no real moving on. Michael Douglas was in a movie about this time called “Black Rain.”
This is all political theater.
Two criminals, Trump and Netanyahu, are still trying to avoid prison and will do anything or kill anybody in the way.
Oh, and the 3 real estate salesmen: Trump, Witkoff, and Kushner are wanting to develop Mediterranean Sea front property.
And Trump still thinks he’s buying his way into heaven.
My guess is that the “war” will be back on in a week or two. Bibi has to keep it fresh.
Japan was not still in the stone age, like these fanatics are and want the rest of us to be.