And Nothing but the Truce

Ten minutes. That's how much time was left on the truce before it was extended (into Friday). Ten minutes.

Going into this, the last word from Israel was that they were ready to restart the war machine, but even more aggressively this time. That in response to Biden saying that what happened in northern Gaza could not happen in the south, Netanyahu said that bombing the south was "necessary". It did not look like a second extension was going to happen.

But it did, and I have to believe that Antony Blinken landing in Israel a few short hours before the deadline made the difference. So kudos to the Biden team - for adjusting position and finally putting limits on what is acceptable, and then forcing it by sending the Secretary of State to visit at the critical juncture.

That said - the truce only lasts until Friday. The hostages for prisoners agreement that has been reached is only for women and children, and this batch is the last of Hamas' hostages in that category. And there seem to be irreconcilable differences in where the two sides have staked their positions. With just the one day to finalize things, it's hard to see how this truce gets extended into the weekend. UNLESS - unless, there is enough pressure for Israel to hold off on mass slaughter without hostages being released.

Israel's position on this has already been taken apart. Their argument that the ONLY possible way towards peace is the complete and utter destruction of Hamas has just been proven to be pure bullshit. Hostages were returned via negotiation and a cessation of bombing. Israelis got their loved ones back only after Israel stopped dropping bombs - because Israel sat down at the negotiation table. That was productive - the previous seven weeks of indiscriminate bombing and raiding hospitals? All that produced was global resentment towards Israel and the US. And tens of thousands of Gazan casualties.

It does bring me some hope to see the US moving on this. Even if it is long overdue. They were working on a deal that ended up looking exactly like the truce we got at the end of October! So it is weeks overdue. 10,000 deaths overdue. Being late here as Biden was - morally reprehensible. Disgusting. But even though that is true, it is still better late than never. There are still people trying to survive in horrific conditions and anything that prevents them from being bombed even more is good.

Which brings us to the next critical juncture. These truce extensions have been kicking the can down the road. And now that we've reached the point where there is no longer an agreement on the hostage exchange, we've run out of road. It's now finally clear that Biden wants the war to stop - and it is also equally clear that Israel finds the very notion of this to be unacceptable and deeply antisemitic. Yes, Israel's position on this is that not allowing them to bomb tens of thousands more Palestinians to death is the same as hating Jews. So we are running the test. We are going to see if the US does have influence over Israel. And if they don't - we will see if Joe has the appetite to do anything about it.