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October 12, 2025
Key Developments and What We're Discussing Today:
- I hope this is the last time you read this and that by the time you do, it will be out of date: Today, October 12, marks 737 days since October 7, 2023. The Hamas-led attack on Simchat Torah resulted in 1,182 fatalities (including 44 Americans) and over 4,000 wounded. 251 hostages (210 alive, 41 dead bodies) were taken during a day of brutal savagery and sexual violence. It was the largest single massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, with more than one in every 10,000 Israelis killed, and the third overall deadliest terrorist attack in the world to date.
- The 48 remaining hostages, 25 known to be dead, 20 thought to be alive, and three of unknown status, include the bodies of two Americans: Omer Neutra and Itay Chen. It is beyond outrageous that for two years, they endured torture and starvation in tunnels with no outside contact. Their nightmare might soon be over.
- The wait is excruciating. Maybe by the time you read this, some hostages will have crossed the border. This deal is not peace in the Middle East by a long shot, but the return of all the hostages has long been our goal. If/when they cross the border into Israel, Trump and his team will deserve credit for it.
- We should give Trump credit for distinguishing between the government of Israel and the state of Israel and for pressuring all sides, including pressuring Netanyahu publicly, to get this done.
- Nixon was able to go to China and to achieve detente with the Soviet Union because he knew that he would be spared the GOP criticism that a Democrat would have faced. Trump's cultish domination of today's Republican Party insulated him from the criticism that his pressure on Netanyahu would have drawn from Republicans had Biden done the same.
- Trump did not win the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. He did not deserve it, and not only because the committee stopped receiving nominations in January.
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Greetings!
As I write this, the return of the remaining living hostages appears imminent. I won't let out my breath until all of them cross the border into Israel, but hopes are high. Sukkot is the holiday of joy. Two years ago, the days after Sukkot were days of unspeakable tragedy and grief.
By the time Sukkot ends this year, all of the hostages might be back. If they are, the agreement the parties have accepted will be proven an important achievement.
Trump's plan will not instantly lead to peace between Israel and the Palestinians, let alone peace between Israel and all of its neighbors.
To quote Winston Churchill, "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
Phil Gordon put it less poetically: "The deal is a long way from 'peace in the Middle East.' I would call it more of a respite from the hell of the past two years and an opportunity to move forward."
Nevertheless, returning the remaining hostages to their families and ending the Gaza war (if the war really ends) is an achievement worthy of celebration.
Rob Eshman wrote that he still thinks Trump "is a clear and present danger to democracy in the U.S. and to the well-being of the most vulnerable Americans, as the current government shutdown makes clear.
"But credit where credit is due. This is an artful deal, one that returns hope to a region where it had all but disappeared."
If Trump's framework leads to a flood of humanitarian assistance for Gaza and paves the way for a two-state solution, it will be a major achievement. The question is whether Trump, having proven he can get things done if he wants to, will have the attention span to follow through and build on this success. He might not even care after Phase One.
Losing the opportunity this deal presents would be a tragedy. In this fascinating interview about the Gaza deal, Phil Gordon explains why a two-state solution remains the only solution:
"No one can talk with a straight face about a two-state solution as a realistic near-term prospect today, given Israeli hostility and disarray among Palestinians. But the alternatives to a two-state solution remain equally unrealistic or unacceptable. One is a single state with equal rights for Palestinians and Jews, which would be wonderful but is simply impracticable given attitudes on both sides.
"The other alternative is essentially a form of apartheid, with Palestinians isolated into enclaves surrounded by Jewish settlers. At some point, the Israelis will have to accept they and the Palestinians would both be better off if the Palestinians had a state of their own. There are a lot of different forms that state could take, but I remain convinced they are all better than either a true multinational single state or an even-worse version of the status quo that denies Palestinians self-determination and security."
Hostage father Yehuda Cohen put it this way.
Could this war have ended sooner? In January, Trump warned that “all hell will break out in the Middle East” if Hamas did not release the hostages in Gaza by the time he was inaugurated. January 20 came and went nearly nine months ago.
All hell did not break loose. Ilan Goldenberg notes that Trump could have ended this war and the hell the hostages have endured much sooner. Whether Biden could have ended it, as Goldenberg explains, is more complicated. But Goldenberg adds this:
"I’m haunted by what a former senior IDF official told me after I left government: 'Our initial plans for Gaza were to fight for three months and then stop. We assumed you — the Americans — would make us stop. But you never did.”'
By the numbers. President Biden announced his unprecedented $14 billion aid package to Israel on October 20, 2023, which was delayed for six months because Democrats did not control Congress. Since October 7, 2023:
- The IDF rescued eight hostages alive, one in 2023 and seven in 2024.
- The Biden administration helped broker a deal that brought home alive 81 Israelis and 24 foreign nationals in 2023.
- The Trump administration followed through on the deal that the Biden administration helped broker to bring home alive 25 Israelis and five Thai nationals in early 2025.
- The Trump administration later obtained the release of the lone remaining live American hostage.
- So far, since October 7, 2023, 57 deceased hostages have been brought back to Israel.
Let's hope that the remaining 20 live hostages and as many deceased hostages as possible will be brought home this week.
Trump proved this newsletter's theory of the case. Republicans and other right-wing Jews praising Trump for bringing peace to the Middle East and calling him the most pro-Israel president ever are guilty not only of exaggeration but of unknowingly undermining positions they have held for decades.
If this deal succeeds, it will be because Trump recognized the difference between pro-Israel and pro-Netanyahu and that the government of Israel is not the state of Israel. Once one realizes that, daylight between the U.S. and Israel, pressure on the government to do what the U.S. wants it to do, and similar factors are no longer signs that someone is not pro-Israel. Republican faux outrage about daylight during the Obama and Biden administrations might lead one to believe that if those objections were principled, they'd strongly object to what Trump has done instead of lavishing him with praise.
By calling Trump the most pro-Israel president ever, or citing this deal as an example of what it means to be pro-Israel, Trump's fanboys and fangirls are conceding these points.
This plan is similar to previous proposals from the Biden administration. The difference is that despite Republican claims that Biden was pressuring Israel, he did not apply nearly the pressure on Netanyahu that Trump did.
Imagine if Biden had done what Trump did: Trump humiliated Netanyahu by making him publicly apologize to Qatar. Trump released a video thanking many countries by name for helping to put together his Gaza agreement but did not mention Israel. Trump re-posted a Hamas statement.
The Republican reaction to any of this would not have been pretty. Note that (to our knowledge) Trump did not threaten to withhold weapons from Israel. He did not have to. He had a tool not available to Congress: The power to embarrass Netanyahu on the world stage and the power to use the unique voice and influence of the President of the United States to bend others to his will.
As Michael Koplow writes, "Trump decided that it was time for the war to end, told Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as much, announced a 20-point plan containing elements that both sides had categorically ruled out, and then took to social media to ram it down everyone’s throats."
How did Trump get away with it? Trump knew that at this point, even AIPAC-oriented Democrats would not criticize him for publicly pressuring Israel. He knew that whereas Republicans would have excoriated Biden if Biden did the same, Republican members of Congress would not dare criticize Trump; they make David Koresh's Branch Davidians seem like freethinkers (hence GOP refusal to criticize Trump for his long undeniable record of antisemitism).
Trump does what he thinks is best for Trump, not anyone else. If Trump was motivated by envy over Obama winning a Nobel Peace Prize, that's fine with me. I'll take the win. If Trump gets standing ovations when he visits Israel and addresses the Knesset, that's fine--when the last hostages cross the border, it will be because Trump pushed for it to happen.
But poor Trump. On Friday, Maria Corina Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize. If you read the press release, you'll understand why Trump might never win it.
In a thread written before the winner was announced, Monica Marks spells out why Trump did not win the prize and why he'll probably never win it. Check out what the chair of the committee said when asked why Trump did not win. Read more from JDCA CEO Halie Soifer.
What matters more than whether Trump gets his prize is that the hostages are united with their families.
In Case You Missed It:
- My thoughts in Jewish Insider on how October 7 reshaped American politics.
- Shaul Magid's separate deeper dive is worth reading too, if only to see which of the six modalities Magid describes matches your viewpoint or the viewpoints of your friends--if any (modalities, not friends; I know you are popular).
Tweets of the Week. Modern Talmud, JasonKander, Gabriel Mitchell, and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
Video Clips of the Week. Alex Edelman's Yom Kippur sermon and Gov. JB Pritzker describing the hellscape that is Chicago.
Vintage Music Clip of the Week. Somehow timely: Revolution.
For those new to this newsletter. This is the newsletter even Republicans have to read and the original home of the viral and beloved Top Ten Signs You're At a Republican Seder (yes, I wrote it). If someone forwarded this newsletter to you, why not subscribe and get it in your inbox every Sunday? Just click here--it's free.
I periodically update my posts on the IHRA definition of antisemitism and on why Democrats are better than Republicans on Israel and antisemitism. My definition of "pro-Israel" is here (it's a work in progress, as am I).
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