A Trump-Brokered Peace Deal in Gaza

Dear Weekend Jolter,

Audrey Fahlberg here, National Review’s political reporter, filling in for Judson Berger today.

What an extraordinary week. After two years of war, Israel and Hamas have both finally agreed to the first phase of a cease-fire agreement in Gaza brokered by President Trump. Everything we know about Hamas suggests we should be skeptical that the Iran-backed terrorist group follows through on its end of the bargain next week. But for now, Israelis are feeling optimistic that all living hostages will soon be free and that the war will soon come to an end -- with a weakened Hamas to show for it.

As Phil Klein writes, it’s far too early to declare that this peace deal will bring “total victory” for Israel.

After all, Hamas still exists, in some capacity. Despite the talk about its potential disarmament and plan for a transitional international authority in Gaza, there is a very real possibility that the terrorist group will slowly and methodically rebuild its ranks and weapons arsenal in expectation that international monitors will be tempted to look the other way to avoid the resumption of hostilities.

Israelis are holding out hope that the peace deal holds. If it does, the agreement will mark “the biggest victory yet for Donald Trump’s hyperactive, transactional diplomacy,” National Review’s Rich Lowry writes:

A lifetime of maneuvering for advantage in the real estate and media worlds in New York City — searching for and using every ounce of leverage — was better preparation for high-level international diplomacy than if Trump had spent a lifetime on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Whereas “international opinion” believed we had to isolate and cut off Israel, Trump armed the Jewish state, bombed Iran, and squeezed Qatar to bring Hamas to heel — and it worked. The deal is a tribute to avoiding the well-worn ruts of Middle East diplomacy.

As for Israel, it needed to find a way out of a conflict that had become a PR disaster. Getting the hostages back is an important national goal, even if the exchange is lopsided (these swaps always are). Meanwhile, Israel will pull back to an agreed-upon line but still hold an estimated 53 percent of Gaza as a security buffer. Even if things eventually go south again, Israel has bought time by decimating Hamas and significantly diminishing the threats from Iran and Hezbollah.

As we reflect on the second anniversary of the October 7 massacre, we must also appreciate the extraordinary military victories Israel has secured “that were, at the outset of this war, all but inconceivable,” Noah Rothman observes. “Hamas has not been scattered to the winds, but it lost the war it started on October 7,” Noah writes. “The recognition of that, not any piece of paper, is what will beget a genuine and durable peace.”

In other news, the Nobel committee announced that the winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize is Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado. As expected, Trump’s team was displeased with the news. As Jim Geraghty observes:

In this case, President Trump has a stronger argument than usual. The most recent headline is the nascent cease-fire and peace deal between Israel and Hamas that is expected to get the rest of the hostages released. Just about everyone, left, right, and center, would agree that if the administration’s efforts really do build a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, he deserves not just the Nobel Peace Prize but probably first-ballot induction into whatever Hall of Fame the Nobel committee has. And even if it doesn’t, Trump and his team deserve credit for putting considerable time and effort into ameliorating a conflict that appeared utterly intractable.

Now, onto the best of the week.

NAME. RANK. LINK.

EDITORIALS
Democrats’ attorney general nominee has some growing up to do: The Jay Jones Misdirection

The Editors endorse New Jersey Republicans’ 2025 gubernatorial nominee: Jack Ciattarelli for New Jersey Governor

Remembering October 7, 2023: Anniversary of a Horror

The Mainstream Gets a New Boss: Good Luck to Bari Weiss at CBS

ARTICLES

Kathryn Jean Lopez: Happy Birthday, Pill That Kills?

Michael Brendan Dougherty: Falling Fertility Rates Are Unsustainable

Charles C. W. Cooke: Jay Jones’s Text Messages Reveal a Disqualifying Worldview

Jeff Blehar: Brett Kavanaugh’s Would-Be Assassin Gets Time Off for Trans Behavior

Dan McLaughlin: How Many Democrats Will End Up Running on Hamas’s False Claims of Genocide?

Noah Rothman: The GOP Is Letting Democrats Win the Shutdown

Rich Lowry: The War Against Immigration Enforcement

Andy McCarthy: Trump’s War Notice: The Issue of Equating Narcotics Trafficking with Terrorism

Rebeccah Heinrichs: To Secure the Next American Century, America Will Need Her Allies

James Lynch: Miami Officials Tried to Cancel the City’s Election. This Mayoral Candidate Fought Back and Won

Christian Schneider: You Do Not Gotta Hand It to Marjorie Taylor Greene

Brian Allen: A Deep Dive in All Things LBJ

CAPITAL MATTERS
Ryan Ellis: Trump Should Use His Tariff Instincts to Lower Drug Prices

Jeremy Lott: Time to Spring Trump’s Tariff Trap

LIGHTS. CAMERA. REVIEW.
Let’s just say Armond White didn’t enjoy After the Hunt: Julia Roberts Plays the Victim-Villain Card

Brian T. Allen gets us caught up on all things culture and gives us an early look at the Obama Presidential Center: Arts Uproars: Open, Shut, Fired, Down for the Count, and Nowhere to Be Found

FRIDAY EXCERPTS

PSA to all Republican and Democratic candidates this midterm cycle: If you make a big mistake, you’d better hope and pray that National Review’s Jeff Blehar doesn’t hear about it. Check out Jeff’s latest piece on Democratic candidate for California governor, Katie Porter, in which he torches the former congresswoman for condescendingly dismissing a reporter’s question about whether she intends to seek the support of Trump supporters to win statewide.

As Jeff writes, “Porter’s response must be seen to be properly appreciated. Her eyes narrow into reptilian slits, like a milk snake spotting a field mouse, and she leans forward with a frozen-smiled hiss: ‘How would I need them in order to win, ma’am?’ Then she turns to mug for the camera with a ‘can you believe this fool?’ shrug.” More from Jeff:

The first thing that must be said about this implosion is that it is perfectly in keeping with everything else we know about Katie Porter, a woman who once poured scalding-hot mashed potatoes on her husband’s head in a fit of pique. (They are now divorced.) Porter was politically mentored by Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, which is fitting — both carry themselves like Dolores Umbridge — as well as deeply ironic, given that Warren is well-liked by her staff and Porter was famously loathed by hers.

But beyond that, Porter’s petulance, lack of preparation, and sense of self-entitlement were staggering. She was genuinely offended to have to answer a mildly difficult question, one that (as Watts emphasized) every other candidate handled with ease. She acted like it was an insult not only to her intelligence but her personal dignity. I have seen celebrities walk out on interviews, but rarely political candidates, rarely for such unfathomable reasons, and never with the whine of a spoiled brat: “I don’t want to have an unhappy experience with you! I don’t want this on camera!” (I was hoping for “I want it now!” to complete the trifecta, but alas it never came.)

Dealing with the press is a requirement for elected politics. Donald Trump famously hates the press — and is happy to talk with them constantly, taking any question flung at him and chewing the cud verbally for hours. If even Kamala Harris is willing to go out there and serve up bowls of word salad like the Swedish Chef, it certainly shouldn’t be beneath the likes of Katie Porter. Porter’s beastly reputation has long preceded her (you don’t become an inner-circle member of Washington’s informal “bad bosses” Hall of Fame any other way), but this interview is an amazing display of who she really is — the ugliness inside her heart — that voters will find impossible to ignore. I suspect Xavier Becerra had the best fundraising day of his campaign today.

National Review’s Haley Strack has been closely covering how a male sex offender in Virginia got away with leering at young girls in a public school locker room. She’s got another excellent and disturbing behind-the-scenes look today on how an Arlington School Board member protected this convicted sex offender’s access to a girl’s locker room because he identified as transgender:

Sex offender Richard Kenneth Cox claimed to be transgender in order to access women’s bathrooms and locker rooms in Virginia where he exposed himself to women and young girls. When he reached out to a local school board member using an alias to complain about a pool’s locker-room policy and the alleged transphobic treatment he faced, he received a sympathetic reply.

Arlington School Board member Kathleen Clark told Cox that she hoped he “did not experience transphobic statements from the staff. You should be able to use the showers and changing rooms that you are most comfortable using.”

Cox reached out to Clark via email using the alias “Riki Cox” to plead his supposed “right” to use women’s facilities, new documents show. It’s unclear whether Clark knew Cox was a sex offender when she responded to his email.

Cox used women’s facilities multiple times in Northern Virginia, including at an Arlington Public Schools-operated pool locker room. Because of the district’s policy that allows transgender-identifying individuals to use whichever facilities align with their chosen gender identity, Cox was allowed unfettered access to shower and expose himself around women and girls.

Cox decried women who complained about the presence of a man in their locker-rooms and bashed the women’s concerns as discrimination, according to emails obtained by Defending Education and first reported by 7News.

Rich Lowry gives us his take on Trump’s decision to deploy the National Guard to Chicago:

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson hate the notion of the National Guard in the streets of the city, but have failed to rally Chicago residents to do the one thing necessary to avoid the deployment — let federal officers do their jobs.

The word should have gone out long ago: Don’t riot outside ICE facilities. Don’t ram cars into ICE vehicles. Don’t keep ICE officers from making arrests. Don’t follow ICE vehicles in an attempt to disrupt operations. Don’t act as though the Gestapo has descended on your city and that civil disobedience, or violence, is the only answer.

None of this should be a big ask. Instead, Pritzker and Johnson consider ICE operations inherently out of bounds and have played into the belief that something terrible is being done to Chicago.

According to Johnson, “the president of the United States has declared war on the people of Chicago,” as if detaining people who have no right to live or work here is a hostile act against U.S. citizens.

Pritzker says ICE needs “to get out of Chicago.”

The resistance to ICE shows that we have created enclaves that, as far as their political leaders and a significant element of the population is concerned, are supposed to be no-go zones for federal immigration enforcement. What should have been the exception — the defiance of federal immigration law — is now considered the norm, such that any disturbance of it is intolerable.

CODA

Have a wonderful weekend, and thanks for reading. Judd will be back in your inboxes next week.