Theater of Peace

From a hollow Gaza disarmament deal to a coordinated invasion of Spain and more executions in Iran, this week made one thing clear: calm is not the same thing as peace.

It has been unbearably hot in Tel Aviv this week, but otherwise strangely, and relatively, calm. Of course, “calm” in Israel rarely feels peaceful anymore, it feels more like the pause before everyone knows the big storm is coming. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, is once again announcing “peace”…not that that really means anything.

This time, Trump is claiming Hamas has agreed to disarm under a roadmap based on his 20-point Gaza plan. The announcement sounds wonderful until you read what Hamas is actually saying. Hamas wants Israel to stop fighting and withdraw first, and only afterward would its weapons be “stored” under a Palestinian-run body. Obviously, Israel has not agreed to that sequence, and in fact there is no Israeli commitment to withdraw before Hamas is verifiably disarmed and Gaza is demilitarized— nor should they.

The truth is that Hamas never accepted the central premise of Trump’s plan. From the beginning, it embraced the parts that would stop Israel and preserve Hamas while evading the requirement that it surrender its weapons, dismantle its tunnels and cease functioning as an armed organization. Trump chose to call that acceptance because he wanted a victory announcement (again).

The grandiose declarations without follow through from the White House prompt the question of who exactly do they think they are kidding? Moving Hamas weapons into storage controlled by another Palestinian body is not disarmament, and Hamas members changing uniforms or entering a new security force is not dismantlement. We have already run this experiment multiple times with forced “ceasefires.” And now is a great time to remind everyone how after Israel withdrew completely from Gaza in 2005, Hamas was elected, built a terror state and launched multiple wars against Israel including the invasion of Israel on October 7. Israelis are not interested in repeating that disaster so Western leaders can enjoy another peace ceremony.

The West keeps projecting its own idea of a ceasefire onto Israel while bearing none of the consequences. In Washington or London, a ceasefire means the violence has ended. But as we have learned the hard way, for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic, a ceasefire, or “hudna”, means time to regroup, move weapons, and prepare for the next round. We Israelis are exhausted by the theatrics. We do not need another declaration of peace, we need security restored.

Trump tried this in Lebanon, where the Lebanese state was once again supposed to restrain and disarm Hezbollah. Hezbollah remains armed. He tried it with the Islamic Republic; the MoU accord collapsed and Trump himself declared it “over.” He also repeatedly claims to have ended wars and conflicts that are in fact ongoing.

He loudly proclaimed success in reaching “peace” with the Islamic regime in Iran before he was forced to conduct another 13 day bombing campaign. He claimed there was peace in Lebanon when Hezbollah hasn’t been disarmed. He claimed he had resolved 3,000 years of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians when there was a ceasefire which Hamas didn’t even agree to and Hamas is still armed. He claimed he made peace between Thailand and Cambodia, where violence returned after the “ceasefire.” In Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, they signed an agreement while violence and the M23 problem persists. Ukraine and Russia are still very much at war. The list goes on and on. Preventing immediate bloodshed is worthwhile, but calling every pause a permanent peace is something else entirely.

Islamists keep proving Israel right because they do not treat these agreements as Western leaders do. They use them tactically. It is high time Trump learned that lesson too.

I explained the problems with this Gaza proposal in my interview with Ian Collins on TalkTV this week. I laid out why an Israeli withdrawal before complete, verifiable disarmament would simply allow Hamas to survive under another name. Nothing changes until Hamas ends—and Hamas doesn’t end until the Islamic regime in Iran is defeated.

5 Stories You Shouldn’t Miss

1. Ceuta Invasion

As most have heard by now, tens of thousands of military age Muslim men crossed illegally from Morocco into Ceuta, Spain by land and sea. In response, Spain deployed troops and the city was completely overrun by hordes of migrants. From initial indications, it seems it was fuelled by massive Facebook groups organizing invasions together, but is unclear who is behind it.

This was obviously a coordinated mass violation of European sovereignty. Pedro Sánchez spent years weakening controlled borders, only to act shocked when Spain’s border was breached on an industrial scale. The response from other European countries has been expected with Austria and Italy canceling Schengen agreements with Spain and other EU states requesting to follow suit.

2. Quincy Institute Expose

This week the Quincy Institute published a report claiming Israel is running a billion-dollar influence operation inside the United States. I read it cover to cover. The claim is bogus.

The report combines global public-diplomacy budgets, proposed allocations, ordinary advertising, delegations, American advocacy and contracts already disclosed under FARA. It then packages all of it as a sinister Israeli conspiracy.

My full breakdown exposes ten of the report’s central distortions and the New York Times-style obsession with treating pro-Israel advocacy as sinister.

Read my summary HERE and the full expose HERE.

3. Ms Rachel’s Campaign Funding

This week it was revealed that children’s star and Hamas fan girl Ms. Rachel donated $3,000 to DSA candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s Michigan Senate campaign. This continues a long and rich tradition of Ms. Rachel’s increasingly radical positions when it comes to Israel. She’s repeatedly posted blood libels against Israel accusing the state of “genocide” in Gaza and using fake stories and fake photos to show persecuted Gazan children. Her obsession with the Palestinian cause and bad faith criticism has seeped into her work for children when she at one point invited a pro-Hamas Palestinian influencer Motaz Azaiza to “speak to kids”. But back to El-Sayed…

El Sayed is yet another pro-terror DSA candidate who labels the war in Gaza a genocide and obsesses over a conflict thousands of miles away. When Khamenei was killed, he refused to say it was a positive thing and expressed some of his constituents were “sad” about the event… so of course Ms. Rachel loves him. Isn’t that who you want your little kids watching?

4. Like Clockwork: Israel to blame for Ceuta

As is always the case, any major event that takes places invariably gets blamed on “Israel” or the “Mossad” or whatever the preferred moniker for Jews is. Ceuta is no different. Within hours the usual suspects were alleging that Israel was somehow “involved” in getting tens of thousands of young Moroccan men to invade sovereign Europe (because Israel is so famously adored by young Arab men?!). One of the most hilarious conspiracies came from an 2019 tweet by Yair Netanyahu, the son of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who had flippantly posted about Spain occupying the Northern Africa territory of Cueta. This of course has resurfaced somehow as “evidence” of Israeli involvement. Right…

As absurd as it is, people like Ana Kasparian were busy posting away about how the “Morocco thing” proves Israel has become “an enemy of the West,” adding: “People are finally waking up.”

And then there is Hollywood actor and notorious Jew hater Javier Bardem, who shared a post claiming Israel had engineered the crisis as punishment for Spain’s position on Gaza, citing Yair Netanyahu’s post. Yes, Javier wants you to believe that Israel planned the 2026 Ceuta crisis seven years in advance and announced the operation publicly through the prime minister’s son.

These people are not the brightest crayons in the box, are they?

5. Executions Continue

This week the Islamic republic of Iran is increasing their savagery against the Iranian people with horrific public executions in Isfahan. The Islamic Republic publicly hanged Abolfazl Sepahi Badjani and Amirhossein Safari Hosseinabadi in Alikhani Square in Isfahan on July 28. They had been arrested over the January protests and were denied fair proceedings and subjected to coerced confessions.

When footage leaked of scaffolding being set up in Isfahan on that day, thousands of Iranians gathered overnight hoping to stop the executions. The regime responded by surrounding the square with Basij ams IRGC forces and opened fire on the people. The prisoners were hanged at dawn.

These public executions are theater designed to terrorize an entire population…and it is precisely why this regime must be stopped by any means necessary. Dozens more Iranians are set to be imminently executed for bogus charges of “spying for Israel” and other absurdities. The time to act is now.

What’s Next

Well on the personal and professional fronts, most likely Iran.

The Islamic Republic remains the central story in this region, regardless of what temporarily captures the news cycle. I will also be traveling for work, so next week’s newsletter may come from somewhere outside Tel Aviv.

For now, Israel is calm, but don’t confuse it with peace.