Netanyahu’s Obvious Gift to Trump Lies in Gaza Ceasefire Details

The ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel announced Wednesday won’t take effect until Sunday, January 19, just before Donald Trump’s inauguration the next day. That does not appear to be a coincidence.

Since being elected, Trump has warned on multiple occasions that an agreement should come before his inauguration, saying that there will be “hell to pay” or “all hell will break out.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made no secret of his preference for Trump in the 2024 election, either, and Israel’s ceasefire with Lebanon was likely a gift from Netanyahu as well.

The timing of the ceasefire is a reminder of a similar situation faced by President Jimmy Carter in the final days of his presidency in 1980, as negotiations were underway to free American hostages in Iran. Ultimately, the hostages were deliberately released the day Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president, thanks to the efforts of the Reagan campaign.

With the release taking place this late, Trump gets a propaganda victory and is already claiming credit for the agreement, even though he’s not yet in office, and some Israeli officials are crediting the sudden progress in negotiations to him. But Trump can’t take total credit: Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has boasted about deliberately sabotaging ceasefire agreements over the past year.

According to one analyst, Wednesday’s deal is almost identical to a deal proposed on May 27 that Israel rejected, with six minor changes in the appendix. So what’s different now from eight months ago? Netanyahu has his preferred president, and Trump can take credit. The question is if Netanyahu is getting something in return—and what will happen to Gaza’s long-suffering civilians next.

Democratic Senator Adam Schiff delivered scorching criticism Wednesday of Pam Bondi, Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, over her closeness with the president-elect.

During her confirmation hearing, Schiff pressed Bondi on whether she “had the independence” to “tell hard truths” to Trump, despite their close relationship and the fact that she was chosen precisely for her loyalty.

“Let me start with an easy truth that you could speak to the president. Can you tell us, can you tell him, that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election?” Schiff asked.

“Senator, what I can tell you is I will never play politics. You’re trying to engage me in a ‘gotcha.’ I won’t do it.” Bondi replied. After the 2020 election, Bondi joined forces with Rudy Giuliani to sow doubt about the results on Trump’s behalf.

“I won’t play politics with any ongoing investigation, like you did, leaking your colleague Devin Nunes’s memo,” she replied, refusing to answer the actual question.

Schiff took a moment to explain why exactly Bondi’s loyalty was dangerous, and would come back to bite her.

“The president has a right to choose people he believes will be loyal to him. Our concern comes when that loyalty of the president conflicts with your duty, conflicts with the Constitution, conflicts with your oath,” Schiff said.

“And our questions have been designed to try to ascertain what you will do when that inevitable conflict arises. And you may say you believe that conflict will never come. But every day, week, month, and year of the first Trump administration demonstrated that conflict will come.

“Jeff Sessions may not have believed it would come to him—it came to him. Bill Barr may not have believed it would come to him—it came to him. It came to everyone. It will come to you. And what you do in that moment will define your attorney generalship, your public service. Everything you’ve done up to that moment will be judged by what you do in that moment,” Schiff said.

During her confirmation hearing, Bondi refused to answer simple questions about her views on birthright citizenship and whether she would pursue legal action against former special prosecutor Jack Smith; former Congresswoman Liz Cheney; and Bondi’s potential predecessor, Merrick Garland.

Israel and Hamas’s historic ceasefire agreement could have come a lot sooner, according to Israeli leadership.

The text of the ceasefire agreement, which was released Wednesday, shares copious similarities with the last ceasefire agreement brokered between Israel and Palestine in May, including mirrored proposals for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the “densely populated areas along the borders in all areas of the Gaza strip” and the release of 1,000 Gazan detainees who were not involved in the events of October 7.

Israel National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir practically boasted about successfully sabotaging ceasefire agreements over the last year, posting on X Tuesday that “through our political power, we succeeded in preventing this deal from moving forward time and time again.

“However, since then, additional elements have been added to the government, who now support the deal and no longer constitute a balancing act,” he continued, referring to Israel’s United Right Party, which grew from 64 to 68 Knesset members, according to The Jerusalem Post.

Still, Ben-Gvir torched the ceasefire as a “terrible deal,” imploring his opponents to join him in rejecting it yet again while advocating for Israel’s continued siege on Palestine.

“Along with this, I call on the Prime Minister to come to his senses and take steps that will lead to the defeat of Hamas and the release of our hostages without abandoning Israel’s security: completely stop the transfer of humanitarian aid and fuel, electricity, and water to Gaza, along with continuing the military crushing of Hamas until its complete defeat,” Ben-Gvir wrote.

But the defense minister’s plea was not received well by other Israeli politicians.

“For a year now, I’ve been saying that you have been preventing a hostage deal from materializing for political gain,” responded opposition leader Yair Lapid, calling Ben-Gvir’s comments a “terrible truth.”

Donald Trump jumped to claim credit for brokering the ceasefire moments after it was announced on Wednesday, despite the fact that he was not in office for the duration of the conflict. But his instinct may not be far off: A diplomat briefed on the negotiations credited their sudden progress to the incoming forty-seventh president, reported The Washington Post.

Trump warned last week that “all hell” would break loose if the two nations did not reach a ceasefire agreement by the time he returned to the White House on January 20. That was, apparently, the “first time there has been real pressure on the Israeli side to accept a deal,” the diplomat told the newspaper.

Pam Bondi, Donald Trump’s nominee for the next U.S. attorney general, refused to give a basic yes or no answer, during her confirmation hearing Wednesday, regarding her views on birthright citizenship, which is etched into the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.

“You’ve testified repeatedly to this committee that you will uphold the laws of this country and defend the Constitution of the United States,” said Democratic Senator Alex Padilla. “Do you believe birthright citizenship is the law of the land, and will you defend it regardless—a child born of the United States—regardless of their parents’ immigration status?”

Bondi refused to answer the question. “Senator, I will study birthright citizenship, I would love to meet with you regarding birthright citizenship—”

“Ma’am, you’re asking to be considered to serve as the attorney general of the United States, and you still need to study the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution?” Padilla retorted. “That is not helping me have more confidence in your ability to do this job.”

Bondi’s nonanswer is deference to President-elect Trump, who said he’d end birthright citizenship via executive order on Meet the Press in December.

The Fourteenth Amendment states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

Senators on both sides of the aisle took issue Wednesday with Donald Trump’s nominee to run the Office of Management and Budget, noting that Russell Vought’s evasive and bureaucratic nonanswers as to whether he’d obey the law while serving the country were alarming.

When pressed on whether he would obey the Impoundment Control Act—in which Congress reexamines executive branch withholdings from the budget—and break away from Trump on his plans to withhold congressionally approved funds, Vought deferred and said that he would obey the law.

“I’m not going to continue to break the law,” Vought said. “I’m giving you my commitment to uphold the laws of this land.”

But the nominee then followed up by claiming that the law is unconstitutional and suggested that Trump’s incoming administration would have to consider on their own whether or not they would follow it.

Vought also refused to pledge that he wouldn’t deny grants based on the requester’s political alignment.

“I’m astonished and aghast that someone in this responsible a position would, in effect, say that the president is above the law and that the United States Supreme Court is entitled to their opinion, but mine should supersede it,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal during the hearing.

Vought ran Trump’s Office of Management and Budget from July 2020 to January 2021, during which time he froze military aid for Ukraine, claimed that foreign aid expenditures were “wasteful spending,” and worked to expand the number of federal employees required to work during a government shutdown.

He scooped up another supporting role in Trumpworld during the incoming executive’s presidential campaign: developing a 180-day “transition playbook” to expedite Project 2025’s implementation in the federal government. But his appointment to run the nation’s budget office could see him enter a critical role in shrinking the federal government and advancing Trump’s agenda.

The 920-page Christian nationalist manifesto advanced outwardly outrageous policy positions, including dismantling wholesale staples of the executive branch such as the Department of Education. But as time has marched on, those outlandish policies have morphed from a fascistic pipe dream to a forthcoming reality among the far right in Congress: On Monday, North Carolina Representative David Rouzer introduced legislation in the House formally filing to eradicate the public education agency.

Other portions of Vought’s Project 2025 proposed revisiting federal approval of the abortion pill, a national ban on pornography, placing the Justice Department under the control of the president, slashing federal funds for climate change research in an effort to sideline mitigation efforts, and increasing funding for the U.S.-Mexico border wall.

Vought was also the architect of Trump’s “Schedule F” proposal, which plans to fire thousands of civil servants and replace them with as many as 54,000 pre-vetted Trump loyalists to the executive branch via executive order.

In oral arguments for a First Amendment case before the Supreme Court Wednesday, Justice Samuel Alito pursued an odd line of questioning regarding free speech and pornography.

The case, Free Speech Coalition et al. v. Paxton, concerns a Texas law that requires adult users of pornographic websites to verify their ages before they can view content. The law is opposed by free speech advocates, including the ACLU, which is representing a coalition of organizations, including some adult websites, in the lawsuit against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

During Wednesday’s arguments, Alito brought up the pornographic website Pornhub, one of the members of the coalition, and asked the lawyer representing the coalition how much of Pornhub’s content is “obscene” to children. The attorney, Derek Shaffer, couldn’t provide exact numbers, but ultimately Alito and Shaffer arrived at an estimate of 70 percent. Then Alito revealed his ignorance about the topic.

“Is it like the old Playboy magazine; you have essays there by the modern-day equivalent of Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley Jr.?” Alito asked, drawing an audible laugh from Shaffer.

“Not in that sense, but in the sense you have wellness posts about women recovering from hysterectomies and how they can enjoy sex,” Shaffer replied. “That’s on there, discussions about age verification proposals and where the industry lines up, as far as what they think should be legislated and what should not.”

While Alito’s question might seem funny, it also creates the impression that only serious essays merit free speech protection, and nothing else, which doesn’t seem to be in line with what the First Amendment actually says.

Texas’s law, as well as similar laws in Republican-led states across the country, are part of a greater right-wing effort, as spelled out in the Project 2025 manifesto, to target not just pornography but also drag queens, trans people, LGBTQ library books, and more. By placing such a high standard for free speech, the right would be able to criminalize what it previously could only demonize.

Donald Trump is moving his pawns around the board.

The incoming forty-seventh president has reportedly encouraged Vivek Ramaswamy to take the Ohio Senate seat vacated by Vice President–elect JD Vance, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

Vance officially resigned from the post Friday. The next senator will be chosen by Republican Governor Mike DeWine, who under Ohio law will be tasked with appointing a replacement until 2026, when a special election will determine who will serve in the role until the term expires in 2029.

Two anonymous sources with knowledge of the matter told the Post that Trump had personally appealed to Ramswamy to take the high-powered position if offered.

DeWine has been tight-lipped during the months-long process to fill Vance’s vacancy, but potential candidates have included Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague, former state Senator Matt Dolan, Ohio Secretary of State Frank Larose, Columbus-area Congressman Mike Carey, former Ohio Republican Party Chair Jane Timken, and Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted, the last of whom has emerged as a clear front-runner.

But a visit to Mar-A-Lago on Thursday could have planted another suggestion.

“I’ll have an announcement probably next week,” DeWine told reporters in Florida that day.

Blade Columbus Bureau chief Jim Provance had the inside details on DeWine’s process.

“He has said that, number one, he wants somebody who can legislate and have Ohio in mind for any progress that would be made. He’s also said that he wants somebody who can raise money,” Provance told WTVG on Monday. “You have to remember that the Moreno–Sherrod Brown race set records.”

Ramaswamy publicly backed out of the race to replace Vance in November after Trump announced him as a potential co-chair for the not-yet-real Department of Government Efficiency alongside world’s-richest-man Elon Musk. The bold new agency was tasked with identifying what they determined to be wasteful government spending to help the Republican trifecta make sweeping spending cuts. Ramaswamy’s exit could call the project’s future into question, especially as Musk’s presence (and his opposing views on immigration) face heightened scrutiny in Trumpworld.

“Trump’s decisive victory on Tuesday opens up a lot of possibilities to change the country,” Ramaswamy told ABC affiliate News 5 Cleveland in the wake of the election. “We’re obviously having discussions, and they’re not going to be sorted out in the press.”

It doesn’t seem like Greenlanders are warming up to Donald Trump’s pitch to take over their territory.

Fox News’s London-based correspondent Alex Hogan traveled to Nuuk, Greenland’s frigid capital, where she reported Tuesday that there had been a “lot of mixed reaction” to Trump’s threat to acquire the island. But she quickly revealed that they spoke to only one native Greenlander who seemed interested in the idea. 

“Most other Greenlanders we spoke with bashed Trump’s comments, calling them offensive,” Hogan explained.

She spoke to one resident, Jørgen Boassen, whom she described as an “avid Trump supporter.” The man, who was decked out in MAGA merch, had been “trying to convince others that a partnership between Greenland and the U.S. just makes sense,” Hogan explained. 

Boassen told Hogan that the U.S. could potentially protect Greenland from aggression from China and Russia.

Meanwhile, three other Greenlanders said they weren’t the slightest bit interested in becoming U.S. citizens. One man said he would like to “stick with” the current Danish government. Another noted that he would “prefer to be with Denmark than with the U.S.”

“The United States used to be a place that was sort of admired here, and basically all the goodwill that they used to have is almost gone now,” said a third man. 

This is consistent with other reports indicating that there isn’t much enthusiasm for a Trump takeover. Earlier this month, Trump sent his idiot son on a futile mission to the world’s largest island to drum up hype for his bad idea. However, the event they held with supposed MAGA fans was completely staged, according to local reports. Instead of finding actual supporters, staffers reportedly just rounded up a group of “homeless and socially disadvantaged” people who are often outside the supermarket directly across from the hotel where the event took place, put them in some merch, and filmed them.

In the last month, Trump has been outspoken about his pipe dream to acquire the Danish-controlled territory, for its value as a geopolitical asset and mineral and oil resources. After Danish officials made clear that Greenland wasn’t for sale, Trump refused to rule out the prospect of taking it by force.

Of his outlandish imperialist claims (he’s also made threats against Canada and the Panama Canal), this is decidedly the most unserious, but it does reveal a startling obsession with size and a penchant for picking on countries he knows won’t fight back.  

Pam Bondi, Trump’s attorney general pick, revealed in her confirmation hearing Wednesday that there probably is an enemies list after all.

When asked by Senator Mazie Hirono about specific people who have been targeted by Republicans in the past, Bondi refused to say she wouldn’t use the Justice Department against them.

“On Fox News, you said ... ‘The prosecutors will be prosecuted, the bad ones. The investigators will be investigated,’” Hirono said. “Is Jack Smith one of those bad prosecutors that you will prosecute as A.G.?”

Bondi pushed back, stating that she wouldn’t answer “hypotheticals.”

“I’m just asking whether you would consider Jack Smith to be one of the people,” Hirono responded. “How about Liz Cheney? How about Merrick Garland?”

Bondi would not answer—revealing that those individuals are very likely among the top targets of a Trump DOJ.

Earlier in the hearing, Bondi refused to disavow Trump’s FBI pick Kash Patel’s past comments on compiling an “enemies list.”

“Would you have hired someone to the Florida Attorney General’s Office who you knew had an enemies list?” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse asked Bondi.

“Senator, to cut to the chase, you’re clearly talking about Kash Patel,” Bondi said. “I don’t believe he has an enemies list. He made a quote on TV, which I have not heard.… He has great experience in the intel department and Department of Defense. I have known Kash, and I believe that Kash is the right person at this time for this job.

“There will never be an enemies list within the Department of Justice,” she added, a disingenuous comment given the full-throated defense of Patel.

This list comes from Patel’s own 2023 book, Government Gangsters. While he does not include a literal hit list in the book, he does attach an appendix titled, “Members of the Executive Branch Deep State.” Patel refers to this “deep state” as “a cabal of unelected tyrants” and “the most dangerous threat to our democracy” in other sections of the book. The list includes names like Bill Barr, Joe Biden, Lloyd Austin, Sally Yates, Kamala Harris, and 55 other people whom Trump considers political opponents.

Israel and Hamas have brokered a ceasefire agreement, marking a pause to the violence that has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians and wounded 109,000 more since the conflict began 15 months ago.

But on Wednesday, an American leader who was never in office during the war jumped to take credit for the historic deal.

“WE HAVE A DEAL FOR THE HOSTAGES IN THE MIDDLE EAST,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “THEY WILL BE RELEASED SHORTLY. THANK YOU!”

“This EPIC ceasefire agreement could have only happened as a result of our Historic Victory in November, as it signaled to the entire World that my Administration would seek Peace and negotiate deals to ensure the safety of all Americans, and our Allies,” Trump continued in a separate post. “I am thrilled American and Israeli hostages will be returning home to be reunited with their families and loved ones.

“With this deal in place, my National Security team, through the efforts of Special Envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, will continue to work closely with Israel and our Allies to make sure Gaza NEVER again becomes a terrorist safe haven,” Trump said, promising to expand the Abraham Accords.

“We have achieved so much without even being in the White House. Just imagine all of the wonderful things that will happen when I return to the White House, and my Administration is fully confirmed, so they can secure more Victories for the United States!”

The Biden administration had yet to make an announcement by the time Trump made his posts.

Trump warned last week that “all hell” would break loose if the two nations did not reach a ceasefire agreement by the time he returned to the White House on January 20.

“It will not be good for Hamas and it will not be good, frankly, for anyone. All hell will break out. I don’t have to say anymore, but that’s what it is,” Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago, remarking that there “should have never been” the October 7 attack that obtained the hostages.

Trump’s remarks were well received by his allies, who claimed that it was singularly Trump and his threats that were responsible for expediting the hostage release.

“We’re hopeful there’s going to be a deal that is struck toward the very end of (Joe) Biden’s administration—maybe the last day or two,” Vice President-elect JD Vance said in an interview with Fox News Sunday.

“It’s very clear that President Trump threatening Hamas and making it clear that there is going to be hell to pay, is part of the reason why we’ve made progress on getting some hostages out,” Vance said.