Today, Israeli soldiers shot and killed at least seven Palestinians atop the massive rubble field they have made of the Gaza Strip. The Israeli government is threatening the fragile ceasefire by throttling humanitarian aid shipments meant to alleviate the genocidal famine they created. Defense Minister Israel Katz¹ instructed the military to resume its destruction of Hamas’ underground infrastructure in Gaza as soon as the hostages are out. And Hamas is taking advantage of the pause to execute Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel, thumbing its nose at Israel’s stated war aim to disarm them.

If any of that sounds like peace to you, we have very different definitions of the word. Yet if you turn to most American sources today, you’d think not just this war but maybe all wars in the region are over. They are saying that for one reason above all: because it’s what Donald Trump wants to believe, and most everyone else feels obligated to play along.

There are some genuinely good developments here: Israel released 1,700 Palestinian hostages and 250 prisoners in exchange for the last 20 surviving Israeli hostages. The massive bombing has stopped. Many Israelis and Palestinians believe this ceasefire might actually hold, unlike the last two that Israel broke.

But it is a far cry from the narrative of “PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST” that Trump and his acolytes are feverishly trying to sell. This is underscored in the details: Israel is forcing 154 of the Palestinians it is releasing into exile. The bombing only stopped after Israeli forces went on a post-ceasefire announcement arson spree. The most bitter irony is that, after two years of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet’s insistence that only slaughter and unconditional surrender could free the remaining Israeli hostages, it was once again negotiations and diplomacy that saved them — good, but too late for the dozens who died in Hamas captivity in the meantime.

As I’ve written, the hostages were, for many Israelis and their supporters, the justification for war, the unimpeachable reason for its continuation, and the primary war aim, all rolled into one. But for Netanyahu and the ultranationalist faction of his coalition they were at best a useful tool and at worst a distraction from their real aims: the “total destruction” of Hamas and the ethnic cleansing and annexation, in whole or in part, of the Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu, you’ll recall, rejected offer after offer to negotiate the release of hostages in the months after October 7. It was only after Trump convinced himself he might have an inside track at his dream bauble of the Nobel Peace Prize² — and, crucially, after Netanyahu severely pissed him off by trying to assassinate the negotiators at Trump’s own negotiations in Doha — that Netanyahu agreed to take the best option left to him: accept the remaining hostages and declare victory. Pretending it is a victory is a key part of that show. It will be to Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, and Jake Sullivan’s eternal shame that they could not do the same, tens of thousands of lives and one definitive presidential election ago.