In which Polonial prattle and the bromancer add to the Daily Zionist's output ...

 

Everybody loves a barking mad billionaire.

Some time ago the pond referenced a yarn in Wired ... The Real Stakes, and Real Story, of Peter Thiel’s Antichrist Obsession, Thirty years ago, a peace-loving Austrian theologian spoke to Peter Thiel about the apocalyptic theories of Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt. They’ve been a road map for the billionaire ever since. (archive link)

Now the Graudian has come up wth important supplementary reading, Inside tech billionaire Peter Thiel’s off-the-record lectures about the antichrist, The political svengali and investor has been giving lectures on ‘an evil king or tyrant … who appears in the end times’, Peter Thiel’s off-the-record antichrist lectures reveal more about him than Armageddon

Fruity stuff, a rapture of apocalyptic sugar, like an over-ripe mango.

There's also earlier (2023) reading in The Atlantic, Peter Thiel Is Taking a Break From Democracy, It’s one of his many, many disappointments.

And a later (January 2025) profile, MAGA’s Demon-Haunted World, Peter Thiel is the latest pro-Trump luminary to take a conspiracist turn.

None of it would matter, except that Thiel is the force behind that couch molester JD, and it's entirely possible that the couch violator might ascend to King Donald's throne in the next year or so ...

And should that happen, it'll be more of the same ...

J.D. Vance Is an Oil Booster and Doubter of Human-Caused Climate Change
He once said society had a climate problem but changed his position sharply while seeking Donald Trump’s endorsement in his Senate race.

But great comedy can't go on forever, and so the pond turned to another serve of Zionism, as dished up in the Daily Zionist ...

The header: Sound and the fury of extreme Left fuel vile anti-Semitism, There is now a level of anti-Semitism that never existed in Australia before – and which resembles that which prevails in some Western European nations.

The caption for the ominous image: A Free Palestine rally on the forecourt of The Sydney Opera House in October 2023. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jeremy Piper

Et tu, Polonius?

Of course, though there will be some relief for correspondents who tend to fret and worry when Polonius isn't bashing the ABC in his prattle.

Relax, he's been hate binge watching the cardigan wearers yet again, and it sent him right off ...

On Monday October 9, 2023, I watched the opponents of Israel’s right to exist within secure borders march down Phillip Street en route to the Sydney Opera House. It was a noisy affair with much chanting and beating of drums.
This was an unauthorised procession. A protest meeting at Sydney Town Hall had developed into a procession to the Opera House. This was after the terrorist organisation Hamas, which was the government of Gaza, invaded southern Israel – murdering children and adults, and raping women. And it was before Israel retaliated by waging war on Hamas and invading Gaza.
Of the greatest surprise to me was that the NSW police riot squad was at the end of the unauthorised march – effectively protecting its rear. Later on, debate developed as to whether some of the Islamists and radical leftists outside the Opera House had chanted “Where’s the Jews?” or “Gas the Jews”.
I heard the latter. Others the former. It was a meaningless debate since, whatever the chant, it was a verbal attack on Jewish Australians. The protesters had declared that they either wanted to locate (and presumably harm) Australian Jews and/or gas them. In any event, it was a threat of considerable violence. There were no arrests at the Opera House.

Cue a terrifying snap, Protesters burn the Israeli flag on the forecourt of The Sydney Opera House in 2023. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jeremy Piper

And so to those bloody cardigan wearers, and if only Polonius had been allowed to stay on The Insiders, so he could set that ex-Murdochian, that heretic, that outcast - and his guests - straight ...

NSW Premier Chris Minns has been the Australian political leader who has best handled the outburst of anti-Semitism two years ago. He apologised for the failure of NSW authorities to adequately defuse the situation, and promised that NSW would improve its handling of such situations.
There is now a level of anti-Semitism that never existed in Australia before – and which resembles that which prevails in some Western European nations. That’s bad enough. But there are individuals who do not present as anti-Semitic but who are in denial about what has happened in what until recently was regarded as a tolerant and accepting multicultural society.
Take, for example, recent comments by several Greens senators. Last Sunday, the political party’s leader, Larissa Waters, was interviewed by David Speers on the ABC TV Insiders program. During the course of the interview, Speers asked Waters whether the recent murders outside a synagogue in Manchester “changed your view at all about the danger and threat posed by anti-Semitism”.

It is worth remembering that the Opera House protests were a mere manifestation of anti-Semitism that had been on the rise in Australia since the turn of the century. Since 2001, there have been attacks on Jewish schools and synagogues along with the businesses of Jewish Australians.

Cue a snap of a politician who perhaps should be alarmed by being given a friendly reception by Polonius, NSW Premier Chris Minns has been the Australian political leader who has best handled the outburst of anti-Semitism two years ago. Picture: NewsWire / Jeremy Piper

On with those dire wretches, polluting the ABC in the Polonial absence ...

Waters replied with the expected “my heart goes out to the families of those people”. But she quickly moved to accusing Israel of “conducting a genocide” and berating the Albanese government for “selling weapons to Israel”. Speers tried a second time and questioned Waters about her attitude to anti-Semitism. Once again, her heart went out to the families of the murdered Manchester men but she added that “we’ve got to stop selling weapons components that are dropping bombs on 12-year-olds collecting water”.
Speers went back again. And Waters threw the switch to repeat, condemning “sending weapons” and “genocide”. And then there was a moment of moral equivalence, stating: “What we need to see is an anti-racist approach to anti-Semitism, to Islamophobia, to all of it – none of it is acceptable.” After which Speers said, “Okay, I understand that point”. I didn’t.
Last Monday, Greens senator Barbara Pocock was interviewed by Sally Sara on the ABC Radio National Breakfast program. Like her leader, the South Australian senator failed to directly focus on the Manchester murders.
Pocock stated: “Events like those in Manchester, which are so appalling to us, the loss of life, anti-Semitism, anti-Islamicism (sic), the attacks, Islamophobia, are utterly unacceptable.” And then she returned to the “genocide” in Gaza.

Well, yes, there's been an attempt at genocide, what with mass starvation, and there's been ethnic displacement in the West Bank, and ethnic cleansing in Gaza, but if you dare mention it and note the role of the current government of Israel, it's immediately conflated and confused with anti-Semitism, as if the entirety of Haaretz was a font of anti-Semitism ...

Cue snaps of the villains, Greens Leader & Senator Larissa Waters. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman; Senator Barbara Pocock .Picture: Hilary Wardhaugh/Getty Images

Polonius then did a Sgt. Joe Friday routine:

And now for some facts. An Australian company sells components to Lockheed Martin, which makes F-35 fighters. The planes are purchased by many nations, including Australia. No component made in Australia will necessarily end up in an Israeli fighter jet.
The accusation against Israel of genocide was popularised by the release on September 16 of the United Nations’ Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. It was compiled by Chris Sidoti (Australia), Miloon Kothari (India) and Navanethem Pillay (South Africa).
The UN is invariably hostile to Israel and this report was no exception. It found that Israel has committed genocide – despite the fact that it stated that “the crime of genocide covers acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such”.
In the Israel-Hamas war, the Israel Defence Forces has gone out of its way to advise Gaza residents of forthcoming attacks by air. This is a long way from acts committed with an intention to kill. David Marr is no fan of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But on ABC Radio National Late Night Live on September 16, Marr put it to Sidoti that his comments indicated “an animus in you, a set hostility to Israel and its policies”.

... as if having an hostility to the current government of Israel and its policies was a form of anti-Semitism, as opposed to a disagreement as to the politics and to the strategies Benji has devised to keep himself out of the clink.

Then came an AV distraction, Labor MP Gordon Reid says the Labor government is focused on “making sure that we stamp out antisemitism”, after a court ruling blocked a pro-Palestine protest. “We obviously live in a free, open, and democratic society,” Mr Reid told Sky News Australia. “Social cohesion is absolutely paramount in Australia at this time, but also as is the safety and security of Australians.”

That set up a final burst of Polonial rage ...

It’s notable how many Australian leftists and Islamists complaining about Israel’s alleged genocide are silent about Hamas’s murders before, during and after October 7. Hamas not only kills Jews, it also kills Palestinians who object to its totalitarian rule over Gaza – as described in these pages recently by Moumen al-Natour.
On Thursday, the NSW Court of Appeal, in a unanimous judgment, prohibited a public assembly and procession from Sydney’s Hyde Park to the Opera House scheduled for Sunday, October 12.
The protest, proposed by the Palestine Action Group, declared that the purpose of the march was “to oppose the war on Gaza and call for a stop of the bombing, end to the siege, withdrawal of Israeli troops and for the Australian government to enforce sanctions on Israel and an end to the two-way arms trade”.
The PAG made no call on Hamas, which commenced the war, to surrender or to end its totalitarian rule in Gaza. Do not expect any change if there is another unauthorised march to the Opera House on Sunday. If it still takes place after the peace deal.
Gerard Henderson is executive director of The Sydney Institute.

It's the same old, same old, if you don't like Benji, then you must be an anti-Semite and a lover of Hamas barbarism ...

Frankly reading the Daily Zionist is very wearing,.

It's got so the pond can't even summon a bleat about the shameful behaviour of the National Press Club... 

Sadly the few alternatives offered by the reptiles are distinctly unappealing.

The pond made do with the Ughmann yesterday, in the manner of Oliver served a bowl of gruel.

At least the war on China by Xmas needs a constant stoking, but the pond simply couldn't come at Dame Slap ...

Two women. Two sex assault claims. Two very different payouts
‘Australian politics’ #MeToo moment turned into a #MeOnly soap opera,’ says Anna Hough. Her $120,000 commonwealth settlement over alleged sexual assault and workplace mistreatment is starkly different to Brittany Higgins’s $2.4m. For a start it’s 20 times less.
By Janet Albrechtsen
Columnist

The pond is so over Dame Slap constantly bitching about the Lehrmann matter. Liberals up each other and blaming #MeToo is simply too weird.

And the pond is so over the Daily Zionist's current obsessions that it abandoned thoughts of a late arvo post, unless a treat like the Lynch mob turns up.

The pond certainly isn't going to make late arvo space for the dog botherer, doing what every other reptile seems to be doing ...

Anti-Israel protests see ayatollahs and anarchists marching arm-in-arm
Protests have been portrayed as a mainstream movement when they are an affront to human intelligence and decency.
By Chris Kenny
Associate Editor (National Affairs)

Just a whiff - like sniffing soiled panties - just a small excerpt will give more than enough of an indication why the pond baulked at the gate:

...For two years, across the Western world, so many leaders in public debate have shamelessly propagated Hamas-led propaganda that has served only to embolden the terrorists and therefore extend the war, costing more Palestinian lives and fomenting animosity towards Israel and Jews globally.
It is a disgrace. But the truth will out.
Anthony Albanese this week desperately welcomed US President Donald Trump’s breakthrough by citing how he had repeatedly called for ceasefires. Yes, if Israel had laid down its weapons each time our Prime Minister made the suggestion, Yahya Sinwar would still be running all of Gaza, hundreds of hostages would still be held by Hamas, an army of Hezbollah soldiers and an armoury of weapons would still be poised on Israel’s northern border, missiles would still be raining on Tel Aviv and Iran would by now be in possession of nuclear weapons.
Sorry something went wrong
Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong have made Australia irrelevant, turning their backs on Israel and diverting from the US strategy, only to watch on and see their strength prevail. In essence the peace deal is a Hamas surrender in response to a US-Israeli ultimatum, backed up by a plausible reconstruction plan.
Now that this plan is being put in place under Trump’s leadership and the war could finally be ending, the protesters insist their demonstrations must still go ahead on Sunday. Will they cheer for peace, applaud Israel for liberating the Palestinians from the evil rule of Hamas, extend the hand of friendship to Australians who are Jewish?
No, they will do what they always do. They will stick with their core purpose, delegitimising Israel by spreading lies.
The leftists who campaign elsewhere for gay, women’s and civil rights, and against racism and religious conservatism will continue to share this cause with the fundamentalist Muslims who support regimes that punish gays, subjugate women, impose sharia law and refuse to tolerate Jews or any other religion. These polar-opposite world views come together only through their shared hatred of Israel.
The hard left hates Israel because it is a US ally in a troubled part of the world and a bastion of intellectual freedom and free enterprise. The Muslim extremists hate Israel because of deeply ingrained religious prejudice.
So, more than two years after they swarmed across the Sydney Opera House forecourt chanting “F..k the Jews” and “Where’s the Jews” and reportedly “Gas the Jews” these protesters will be barred from that same iconic location. But they will gather elsewhere to promote essentially the same message, however they package it.
Peace is breaking out not because of their efforts but despite them and those of their political and media soulmates. Peace is within reach because of the strength of Israel and the intercession of Trump.
It might be difficult to accept for the true anarchists because their cause du jour could be taken away. But for most of us, and the people of Israel and the Palestinian territories, it looks like a welcome opportunity to grasp a new dawn.

There was a lot more of it, much with the air of hate speech about it.

Off to the archive cornfield with him.

But there had to be a bonus, and even though it was just the bromancer in the same turf, it was the bromancer, devoted betrothed of the onion muncher, and he'd have to do ...

The header: The art of the deal: Trump’s bold peace gambit likely to meet fatal resistance, There’s every chance Trump gets phase one completed. There’s little chance he gets phase two. There’s no chance at all that he gets phase three.

The caption, suggesting there was art involved in the snap: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio whispers to President Donald Trump. Artwork by Emilia Tortorella

Sorry, Emilia, this is the pond's idea of artwork...

As for the pond preferring 10 minutes of ranting bromancer over 6 minutes of ranting dog botherer, what to say? 

The pond has always been deeply masochistic and deeply weird, but also is inclined to sadistic cruelty, delighting in inflicting pain on unsuspecting innocents who drop by the pond ...

Donald Trump is reshaping the Middle East by treating it like a Manhattan real estate deal. It doesn’t matter how much the parties dislike each other, they’ve got to sort out who owns the property and who pays the rent.
Trump, like previous US presidents, won’t be able to bring long-term peace and stability to the Middle East. Large parts of the Middle East, unrelated to Gaza, are a smoking ruin.
But it looks all but certain that Trump has brought an end, at least for the moment, to the fighting and killing in Gaza. He has secured the return of the Israeli hostages, perhaps as early as Monday, although the price is the release of a ridiculous number of 2000 Palestinian prisoners, including hundreds of murderers. Trump has brought an end to major Israeli military operations within Gaza.
These are huge achievements and Trump deserves a lot of credit. This is the good Trump. Israeli and Hamas negotiators could not even go into the same room together, their negotiations had to be indirect, but Trump got them to a deal. He injected great White House energy and applied pressure on everyone, on his Israeli ally Benjamin Netanyahu and on Hamas through bloodcurdling threats, but mainly through adroit diplomacy that recruited the Arab and Muslim worlds to his plan. The involvement of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, one of the most competent figures in his first administration, was important.
Of course, Trump wildly, almost beyond parody, overstates what has actually been achieved. He proclaimed the phase one agreement on Truth Social in the following terms: “I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first phase of our peace plan. This means that ALL of the hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their troops to an agreed upon line as the first steps toward a strong, durable and everlasting peace. All parties will be treated fairly! This is a great day for the Arab and Muslim world, Israel, all surrounding nations and the United States of America, and we thank the mediators from Qatar, Egypt and Turkey, who worked with us to make this historic and unprecedented event happen. BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS!”

Correspondents will immediately recognise the bromancer riff, which has become a parody of itself, with its good/bad Trump routine.

As for the cheesemakers being blessed, please allow the pond to detour to Susan B. Glasser in The New Yorker, in ...

Letter from Trump’s Washington
Trump, the Self-Styled “President of PEACE” Abroad, Makes War at Home
The President’s martial rhetoric against fellow-Americans is a striking contrast with his push for an end to hostilities in Gaza.

Blessed is the domestic war monger ...for this he wanted a Nobel Peace Prize?

...Prize or no prize, Trump seized on the moment to declare that, because of him, the war was over. “We settled seven wars or major conflicts—but wars—and this is No. 8,” Trump said at a Cabinet meeting on Thursday. “This is peace in the Middle East.” There were no caveats or quibbles about what a phase two might look like.
It was hard to square all the encomiums for Trump rolling in from Republicans, hailing him as, basically, the Greatest Peacemaker in the History of the World, with the martial rhetoric that had actually been emanating from the President this week. Talk about cognitive dissonance. Even as Trump was negotiating an end to hostilities in the Middle East, he was at the same time ordering hundreds of National Guard troops to what he insisted were “war-ravaged” American cities, such as Portland and Chicago, and all but provoking open conflict with the Democratic elected officials who run those places.
Trump has not only likened Portland to a war zone but called it “under siege” and in a state of “insurrection” against the federal government. He’s used similar language about Chicago. “It’s like a war zone,” he said of crime in the city. “It’s probably worse than almost any city in the world.” If the courts block him from deploying the troops he’s already called up, he’s said he’s considering using the Insurrection Act to call out more of them. He seemed both infuriated and undeterred after a federal judge, whom Trump himself appointed, warned that America should be governed by “constitutional law, not martial law.”
There are many remarkable aspects to Trump’s decision to escalate his fight against large swaths of America, not least of which is that it is all based on the lie that there is anything approaching war-like levels of civil unrest in the cities he’s targeted. “There is no rebellion in Illinois,” the state’s lawyers argued in court on Thursday. Oregon’s Democratic governor, Tina Kotek, similarly declared, “There is no insurrection in Portland, no threat to national security.” Does it even matter? The federal judge in Oregon found that Trump’s rationale for the deployment was “untethered to facts,” but reports on Thursday from the federal appeals court that will decide whether the lower court’s ruling stands suggested the judges there were inclined to overturn it and let Trump have his war anyway.
And that, in the end, is the most amazing thing of all. The threats that haunt Trump, and against which he rallies our troops, as in that chilling seventy-two-minute speech he made to America’s entire military leadership in Quantico just a week ago, come not from foreign powers but from “dangerous” domestic battlegrounds that ought to be used as “training grounds” for the U.S. military. Trump has labelled himself a “President of PEACE,” as he searches for international accolades. But at home in America it is the battle with what he calls “the enemy from within” that has consumed him and come to define his Presidency. 

Oh a few celebratory cartoons won't hurt, the bromancer's Zionism will stay warm ...

The reptiles had their own form of visual interruption, replete with weird framing ... Liam Mendes reports from Hostage Square as the ceasefire and return of hostages is announced.

After that mangled visual mess, the bromancer turned gloomy:

We should enjoy the good news while we can get it. For the truth is, it may not last. A few days before the deal was signed, Trump posted: “Based on the statement just issued by Hamas, I believe they are ready for a lasting peace.”
Alas, there’s simply no evidence of this at all. The great US general and one-time secretary of state Colin Powell believed optimism could be a force multiplier. But not if it’s fantasy optimism.
There’s every chance Trump gets phase one completed. There’s little chance he gets phase two, though it’s certainly worth trying for. There’s no chance at all that he gets his “everlasting peace”.
Ehud Yaari is a legendary Israeli journalist, author, think tank scholar, international analyst, perhaps the most sagacious strategic thinker in Israel. He tells Inquirer: “There are two separate issues here which are both part of the Trump outline. The first is the release of hostages, the release of Palestinian prisoners, the withdrawal of the Israel Defence Forces to lines within Gaza. That’s been agreed.
“The second part is not agreed, and that is what happens in Gaza next.”
Gregg Roman of the Middle East Forum puts it this way: “The framework (Trump’s plan) speaks optimistically of Hamas agreeing to disarm, to leave Gaza, to accept peaceful coexistence. But Hamas has committed to none of this. They’ve agreed only to phase one – the hostage exchange … Points two to 20 of Trump’s plan remain aspirational, contingent on Hamas’s voluntary compliance with demands no genocidal movement has ever accepted without military defeat.”
Roman is too negative. There’s a chance for long-term peace, but it’s a small chance. But phase one is beneficial itself and, even if the peace bid fails, the situation could still be vastly better than it has been during the past two years.

Um, is it wrong to mention that Benji and his government of barking fundamentalists also fancy their chances of never allowing a Palestinian state, and of continuing their form of apartheid, while gradually taking as much land as they can?

Not to worry, People celebrate in Hostages Square in Tel Aviv. Picture: AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti

The bromancer kept on worrying about everybody, except for the barking mad Zionist fundamentalists in the current government of Israel, or for that matter, the duplicitous Benji, who needs some kind of ongoing action to keep himself out of the clink ...

Trump’s 20-point plan boils down to a few simple propositions. Hamas goes out of business, surrendering its weapons while its remaining personnel commit to peace and enjoy an amnesty, or go and live somewhere else. An apolitical committee of Palestinians runs the utilities and basic services of Gaza. It’s overseen by an international Board of Peace, chaired by Trump himself and involving former British prime minister Tony Blair. The peace plan doesn’t say it but Blair would be boss of this outfit.
The various parties, chiefly the US and the Gulf Arabs, organise an international stabilisation force to provide basic security for Gaza and train “vetted” Palestinian police. The IDF, having withdrawn to internal lines of control, gradually withdraws further and hands over territory to the stabilisation force. All remaining terror infrastructure, such as tunnels and missile workshops, is to be destroyed by the international force.
After the Palestinian Authority has completed its reform process, which presumably involves getting rid of corruption, holding elections and a few other things, it takes over Gaza. Finally, the peace plan says, this may form the basis of the aspirations for a Palestinian state, presumably a long way off.
That’s a very good plan but there’s no indication Hamas or the other key players in Palestinian politics, or indeed Israel’s Arab neighbours, are up to playing their assigned roles.
The first question: who will control the parts of Gaza the IDF will now be withdrawing from? That’s not a question for six months’ time but for next week. There are clans, mosques, local associations that could perhaps, with help, do the job. But all Hamas needs to reassert control in these areas is people with guns, or at least more people with guns than any other party.
It never figures in the Western media but Hamas is vicious and murderous towards any dissenting Palestinian. There’s no evidence Hamas has changed one speck of its ideology.
People should google and read the inaugural Hamas charter. It’s full of deranged anti-Semitism. Hamas hates Jews as a core part of its ideology, cosmology, demonology. Hamas was created by Iran, which regards America as the Great Satan and Israel as the Little Satan. Hamas does not fear death. It accepted the first part of the Trump plan because Israel put it under such intense military pressure and because one of its key international backers, Qatar, joined the rest of the Arab world in demanding it do so.
But it remains an open question whether Hamas will accept in reality any significant element of the second part of the Trump plan.

Um, will the current government of Israel accept in reality any significant element of the woolly proposal that sometime in the sweet bye and bye there might be a Palestinian state?

Please don't trouble the bromancer with difficult questions ...

The second problem: will any Arab government really commit troops to a stabilisation force? Most of the so-called peacekeeping forces in the Middle East are tourists and observers. I’ve visited and talked to so-called peacekeepers on Israel’s border with Lebanon and with Syria. I found them good people who would like to help the cause of peace. But they’re neither equipped nor commissioned or willing to undertake any military action at all.
If the Arab members of a stabilisation force in Gaza are to have any consequence they have to enforce the observance of international agreements. That means, among other things, they must prevent Palestinian terror attacks against Israel. To do that, Arab soldiers would have to be willing to shoot Palestinian militants to protect Israeli lives. It’s a very difficult scenario to imagine. And if the international stabilisation force doesn’t perform that security role, the IDF will perforce perform the role itself.
Continuing acts of terror don’t necessarily require an ongoing big Hamas movement. The next Palestinian who feels moved by grievance, or by Islamist ideology of the type that motivates Hamas, could undertake such terrorism even if he had no affiliation with Hamas.
Here’s another problem. “Reform” of the PA normally includes scheduling new elections. Yet the last time there were elections in Gaza people voted for Hamas. That’s not to say they would do so again, especially after the horrors of the past two years. But in a sectarian society with no tradition of democracy, voters tend to go for the party that most emphatically expresses their sectarian identity. Naturally, sectarian identity among Palestinians will be expressed by being most stridently anti-Israel or, as in Hamas’s case, blatantly anti-Jew. Remember, when the young Hamas operative on October 7 rang home from among the dead in the kibbutz he and his friends had slaughtered to boast of his great deeds, he told his parents to be proud of him because “your son has killed Jews”.
Elections don’t really work in the Middle East. The only properly functioning democracy is Israel. The most stable Arab states are hereditary monarchies. These may or may not have elections but the power lies with the royal family. The other relatively stable states are military regimes such as Egypt. When Egypt held elections during the Arab Spring it produced a disastrous Muslim Brotherhood government.
And then, Palestinian politics cannot be completely immune from the broader trends in the region. The Middle East forces that really hate Israel, such as Iran, have not gone away. The Middle East is in great disarray generally. Three nations, Syria, Libya and Yemen, are essentially failed states locked in chronic civil war.
Even a stable state such as Qatar has backed Hamas for years, sponsors Al Jazeera with its endless cascades of anti-Western, anti-US and anti-Israel propaganda, while also hosting a giant US military base. Like many in the Middle East, it walks both sides of the street
So what might happen next? If through some miracle the Trump plan is implemented in full, that would be the best chance for peace between Israelis and Palestinians we’ve seen in decades. But for that to happen, the Palestinian leadership, and most of the Arab neighbours, have to be fully committed to peaceful coexistence with Israel.

Cue another snap, Palestinians celebrate in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip. Picture: AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi

Now to look through the wrong end of the telescope again ...

And after all these decades of terrorism and attacks the Israeli public will need to see many years of normalisation in relations with Palestinians before they would look again at a Palestinian state.

Put it another, not quite bromancer, way ...

And after all these decades of apartheid and brutal land grabs and attacks and the recent acts of mass starvation and mass displacements, the Palestinian people will need to see many years of normalisation in relations with a new government of Israel before they could have any expectation of a Palestinian state, a situation which began in 1947-48 with the nakba, and has continued in much the same way ever since ...

But carry on ...

If, as is more likely, phase one gets implemented but the deal stalls there, we still might get a much better outcome than the past two years. Clause 17 of the plan even says that if Hamas rejects the deal the other parties can implement it in the parts of Gaza Hamas doesn’t control. That would be difficult.
Israel itself has a strong incentive to stop the fighting. It has lost 900 soldiers killed in the war in Gaza and thousands have been seriously injured or traumatised. That’s on top of the 1200 killed on October 7 two years ago. It’s a citizen army with many soldiers over 40 years of age who’ve been at war or on duty for 500 days or more.
Yaari suggests that if the IDF partly withdraws and Hamas doesn’t disarm and give power to other Palestinian groups, then Israel could treat Hamas as it treats Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. It could allow in food and medicine, and whatever aid is needed to clear away the rubble but prevent any reconstruction aid going in until Hamas surrenders. Meanwhile, if Hamas sticks its head up Israel would strike it, as it does with Hezbollah.
In that circumstance, Israel would not be conducting major operations among large numbers of civilians.
Yaari believes momentum for genuine political development in Gaza depends on how closely Trump and the US generally stay involved in Gaza. The whole Gaza war and the breakdown in the Middle East demonstrate the disaster that comes when a strategic vacuum is created by the US withdrawing or its allies losing faith in it. One of Trump’s weaknesses is that he invests his administration only in things that he does personally. And there’s only one of him. His attention is often fickle.

Pause for another visual distraction, Israel's government has ratified a ceasefire deal with the Palestinian militant group Hamas. It clears the way to suspend hostilities in Gaza and will lead to Israeli hostages being released. Israel's cabinet agreed to the deal early on Friday morning in the first phase of US President Donald Trump's initiative to end the two-year war in Gaza. The ceasefire is now due to start 24 hours after that confirmation of Israeli ratification, meaning hostages could be released 72 hours later. Donald Trump will travel to Egypt on Sunday to possibly attend a signing ceremony.

Ah, that image brought back fond memories of the cheesemakers together in triumph ...

That's aged well and brought back fond memories ...

And so at last to the final, truly wearying burst from the bromancer ...

The decision to send 200 US troops to Israel to oversee implementation of the deal is a very good sign.
He’s intensely focused on Israel and Gaza now. He’ll visit the Middle East, including Israel, for a lap of honour. In a shrewd remark, Trump observed that the conflict has gone on so long that Israel has lost a great deal of international support, but he would get it back for them.
That’s a fine aspiration. But the global crisis in anti-Semitism, which the Albanese government in Australia has never recognised or properly combated, has been greatly worsened by this war. It has been worsened by Albanese government actions. By formally recognising a Palestinian state when no such state exists the Albanese government implied that Israel has been the main obstacle to a two-state outcome, whereas historically that’s the opposite of the truth. By demonising Israel, the Albanese government unintentionally encouraged the demonisation of Jews in Australia.
Which brings us to the most severe and depressing element of this whole saga. Although Trump and Netanyahu secure a victory in this peace agreement, with precious lives saved all round, and while critical Israeli enemies such as Iran and Hezbollah have been seriously weakened, nonetheless Hamas has achieved a great deal of its objectives in this war. Hamas wanted the Palestinian people to suffer. That’s why it was so extravagant and obscene in its terrorism on October 7, to produce the Israeli reaction it got, and why it refused to end the war at any time in the past two years by releasing the Israeli hostages.
Hamas failed in its effort to get Iran, Hezbollah and other forces to join a general war against Israel. But it succeeded in three key aims.
It derailed the move towards Saudi Arabia establishing diplomatic relations with Israel. It produced a conflict that gravely damaged Israel internationally and inflamed anti-Semitism. In 2024, more than 80,000 Israelis emigrated, a big increase on the year before. And it put Gaza and Palestinian grievance at the top of the international agenda. That so many of its leaders have died is no disincentive to Hamas.
This evil war has damaged everyone. The Hamas agenda of hatred has spread around the world.
Trump has now given us a circuit-breaker. Here’s a chance to calm down, for the killing to stop, maybe even a chance, just a chance, for something better in the future.

Yes, and perhaps even the current Israeli government's agenda of mass starvation and collective punishment and ethnic cleansing has produced revulsion around the world, and done much to harm the status of Israel, as well as doing harm to Israelis and to Palestinians...

Oh never mind, there's no way you can stop the Daily Zionist, might as well enjoy a few closing cartoons celebrating the current cheesemaking in the disunited states ...