What to make of the Gaza ceasefire？
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Summary
Trump and Biden are both taking credit for the ceasefire between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but what does that mean for the future of peace in the Middle East? And what does it say about Trump's relationship with Russia and Vladimir Putin?
Transcript
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Everyone, I hope you're well. I was just going to talk briefly about the ceasefire agreement
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that just came down. Both Trump and Biden are taking credit for it. And in a way,
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they're both justified. Obviously, Trump is not in office yet, even though it almost feels like
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he is, and some people might think he is, in fact. It is the Biden administration diplomats who are
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securing this deal. Although I think Trump probably should get credit for it. His contradictory,
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ambiguous shit talking no doubt had something to do with this. There's going to be hell to pay if
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the hostages aren't released by the time I get in office. I think stuff like that is seemingly
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meaningless jabber, but I actually think it's important. And it no doubt affected this deal.
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So in many ways, Trump could take credit. Here's the problem. And I do want to talk about this
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on a big picture level. I'm certainly not an expert in these matters, A. But B, I think oftentimes you
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can get lost in the weeds or lost in the trees and not really see the forest and kind of get into
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these tedious disputes about details. Nothing has really fundamentally changed. Now, I think some
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things have changed. First off, there have been people who have been held hostage. Many of them are
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no longer alive, no doubt. They're going to be returned. That's great. Israeli military is pulling
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out of Gaza and some trucks are going to get in and so on. You can correct me on some of these details
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if you like. All good stuff. Fewer people are going to die in the coming months than in the previous
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months. Great. Who could really be against that? I also think that Trump wants to present himself
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as a peacemaker. And this has been an important... I don't know what it means to him personally,
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to be honest, because Trump is such an enigma. But it's definitely been an important meme among
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Trump supporters. Under the Trump administration, 2017 through 20, no new wars were started. Now,
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that's a bit of a deceptive way of talking, but sort of true. I mean, no wars were ended. And yet,
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a war under the Biden administration was ended. And Trump dropped the mother of all bombs and
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got us very close to a major war with Iran, blah, blah, blah. But let's not talk about that.
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It's a meme for him. And it's a meme for a lot of his supporters and the Trump intelligentsia such
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as it is. And so he can present himself as a peacemaker. He wants to present himself as a
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peacemaker in Ukraine as well. Ukraine is going to have to give up some territory. We might sort of
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freeze the conflict, but we're going to end the actual fighting and dying, which is so horrible,
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and so on. So all of that is fair. And it's also fair for Trump fans to take a victory lap.
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Sure. The problem is, I think Trump is going to have some real difficulties with his friends,
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and not necessarily with his enemies. So let me explain what I mean by that. And I'll go to
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Ukraine first. Now, of course, officially, Ukraine is our friend. Zelensky is our friend and Putin is
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our enemy. But the dynamic of the situation for the last few years has been very different than that.
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Putin is the friend of the MAGA movement. Putin panders to the MAGA movement. Putin has clear
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involvement with MAGA influencers, speculatively with Tucker Carlson, et cetera, and quite literally
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with the erstwhile tenant media. Trump wants to get along with Putin. This is something that he's
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consistently said for a long time. The problem is, let's say that Trump goes to Putin or makes a Nixon
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to China trip to Russia. And he says, all right, why don't you just, we're going to freeze the
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conflict. You're going to take these territories. You're welcome. Zelensky, shut up with the war talk.
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We're ending this thing. Might Zelensky accept that deal? Perhaps. Perhaps. I mean, he effectively
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accepted the seizure of Crimea for some time. Now, he never officially did, and he probably didn't
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accept it in his heart of hearts. But there was this kind of slow simmering conflict around these
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areas. But in effect, Russia controlled Crimea, et cetera. So is Zelensky in Ukraine reeling?
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They have such a smaller population size. Can they not afford to engage in this for 10 years? There
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are going to be no Ukrainians left. He'll accept some L to get the bigger W, which is Western involvement
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in West Ukraine or whatever it's called, and an end to the dying? Maybe. Fair enough. He might want to
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accept that. And the Ukrainian people might want to accept that. Will Putin accept that? Putin is not
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in full control of territories that he has already officially annexed, brought into the Russian sphere.
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So it would be a little bit of an L for Putin. Is Putin, psychologically speaking, a man who
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has is going to engage in the sunk cost fallacy? He has invested so much in this that he will not
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accept it. I think that is a good psychological reading of Vladimir Putin. Might Putin really dislike
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the idea of a Ukraine with intense Western involvement directly on the border of the Russian
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sphere. So there's no real buffer zone. Now, there could be a promise that Ukraine won't join NATO for
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10 years, but Putin would likely view that accurately, I would say, as I'm going to put this off for 10
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years, they're going to slowly rearm, and then we're going to have this conflict again 10 years later
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when I or my successor is in office. I don't think he likes this ideal. I don't think this is how he
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thinks. I think it's very likely that Putin would just reject Trump's peace proposal if these are more
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or less the terms that it would have to adhere to. Similar thing in Israel, where Trump is going to
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have to deal with his, he's going to have problems dealing with his friend that is Netanyahu, as opposed
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to his enemies. Okay, so some 40 to 50,000 deaths have occurred in Gaza. And it's in some ways that
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underestimates the human toll that has taken place over the past two years. It's just been a complete
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disaster, or I should say a year and a half. But Hamas has, from what I have read, recouped its losses.
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This is something that Elon Musk said quite insightfully at one point, that sure, you can go
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and kill a bunch of terrorists, but you have to look at the cost benefits of killing a bunch of
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terrorists. If for every terrorist you murder, two more people get radicalized as terrorists or future
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terrorists, then it's actually not worth it. You have to look at some point in life, you have to look at a
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cost benefit of analysis. And if you're just simply creating a more radicalized population, then this is
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actually not a good thing at all. That's an insightful comment. Certainly, he's not the first one to make
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it, but insightful. Nonetheless, he seems to have forgotten this over the past year or so. But anyway, Hamas has
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reportedly recouped its losses. It has enough recruits to fill out the roles of the dead terrorist.
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And so exactly what Elon Musk suggested might happen is happening. So they can use this time,
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a ceasefire to redo the tunnels, regroup, come up with a new strategy, not purchase pagers or things
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like that. Like they can use this time to regroup when the Israeli armies are withdrawing to some degree
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and not engaging in a direct violent assault against them. So what is Bibi Netanyahu
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going to think about this? Is he going to like this? Is he going to like the possibility that we have a
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ceasefire? Hamas has been, at least the Hamas of 2023 has just been devastated. Millions, not millions,
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thousands of deaths, destruction of hospitals that were hiding terror caves or whatever the hell they
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were saying. But you end up in the same place. You end up at the same place in 2005 when George W. Bush
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in his democratic fervor basically said, we need elections in occupied Gaza Strip.
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And lo and behold, what happened to those elections? Hamas won. The terrorists won. They kind of, that was
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almost the end of the democratic dream in many ways. They elected the terrorists. They elected the
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anti-democratic forces. You might as well have a situation where you have a democracy and they elect a
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king and there's a referendum to end democracy. It was this weird contradiction of popular will
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that was expressed in 2005 and certainly is the background cause of where we are now. Does Bibi Netanyahu
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really want this? Now, is he willing to reinvade? That would be something. What else is sort of on offer
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here as well? There is reporting that Sheldon, it's not Sheldon, Miriam Adelson's, Sheldon Adelson's widow
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who gave Trump a hundred million dollars or something like this. The deal in that was we are going to
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help you win. You're not going to jail, Donald Trump. You were down low, but we're going to lift you up,
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resurrect you. And what we get in return is going to be the annexation of the West Bank, perhaps the annexation
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of Gaza as well. Now, what do you even do with Gaza? Gaza is effectively rubble. I don't know the degree to which
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infrastructure exists in Gaza. I'm sure it does to some degree. It's a disaster zone. So if that is the
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case, then we are going to be in another shit show where the international community is going to be
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against the Trump administration. Netanyahu will, of course, like this, but we're just sort of back where
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we were, uh, where, uh, you know, not, not immediately after October 7th of 2023, but, but certainly
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throughout 2024, um, where, uh, Bibi is, is sort of a pariah, uh, uh, leader, uh, America is begrudgingly
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supporting him, uh, et cetera. Um, so we could be in there. Um, if that happens, there's no doubt that
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the Gazans are going to go balls to the wall, uh, everything or nothing. Uh, we support just
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outright attacks against Israel if they see quite accurately Israel as a expansion, annexing state.
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So I guess my point is sure. It's great. You know, it's a W take a victory lap. If you're a Trump fan,
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you could even arguably do that if you're a Biden fan, but nothing's fundamentally changed.
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And Donald Trump is going to have a lot of problems dealing with his friends in this case,
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uh, Bibi Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin. So anyway, just some thoughts on the matter. Uh, if you have a
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question or two, I could, uh, answer them. I keep trying to do this to try to get feedback.
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And all you guys do is press the heart button and then just make brief comments. Maybe that's what
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you want. You want me to just talk at these things. Uh, okay. I'm not seeing a, uh, a real question,
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so I'll just leave it there. All right. So that was my, uh, uh, quick reaction and, uh, hope that you
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Alex, you, which, uh, where we, uh, do serious study of a, uh, a major text in the canon. And we're
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of course reading the Bible. So, um, uh, awesome stuff. All right. So please subscribe. I'll talk to