Yossarian's Roost Resuscitated

Surprising how many are falling for the cease fire and peace negotiations ruse. There's no way Hamas will disarm and no way Israel will withdraw its troops. Meanwhile the food and supplies blockade continues.

A Cease-Fire at Last — and Still the Sound of Explosions
Tonight, even as Israeli warplanes are still bombing Gaza, a cease-fire framework has finally been signed.

Hamas and every major Palestinian faction have accepted the first phase of a deal brokered by President Donald Trump — a plan that promises the release of Israeli hostages, the freeing of roughly 2,000 Palestinian hostages, and the slow entry of aid back into a strip of land that has known nothing but starvation, rubble, and mourning for two straight years.

There is real hope in Gaza tonight.
I’ve heard from teachers in Khan Younis and families in Deir al-Balah who are weeping with relief that the war might, finally, pause. They deserve that hope.

But the truth, brothers and sisters, is that this deal is as fragile as the dust rising over the ruins of Gaza City. Let me explain….

Jeremy Scahill’s Reporting — What’s Real
I worked with Jeremy Scahill years ago at The Intercept. I trust his reporting more than almost anyone alive, and his piece for Drop Site News is the clearest account of what actually happened in Sharm el-Sheikh tonight.

Jeremy quotes senior Hamas officials confirming the words no one thought they would say:

“From our side, yes … It’s over. Everybody’s agreed on it.”

He reports that Hamas accepted the framework only because Trump personally guaranteed that the United States would stop Israel from resuming the war once hostages are released — a promise that any Palestinian would call a gamble, given Washington’s history.

“This is a risk,” Hamas negotiator Mousa Abu Marzouk told him, “but we trusted President Trump to be the guarantor … Had there been no commitment from the American president, we would never have agreed to take the risk.”

That single sentence explains the emotional contradiction of this moment: trusting the man who armed Israel’s genocide to guarantee its end.

What Trump and Netanyahu Are Calling Victory
Thirty-seven minutes after Jeremy’s story went live, Trump posted on Truth Social:

“I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first Phase of our Peace Plan… This is a GREAT Day for the Arab and Muslim World, Israel, all surrounding Nations, and the United States of America.”

In Tel Aviv, Benjamin Netanyahu echoed him:

“With God’s help we will bring them all home.”

By dawn, the talking points were set. Trump is already portraying himself as the man who “brought peace to the world,” and Netanyahu is declaring “a great day for Israel.”

But read the fine print Jeremy obtained: Israeli forces will not withdraw completely. They’ll simply redeploy to “an agreed-upon line” inside Gaza. The Rafah crossing will reopen — but under Israeli and Egyptian control. Six hundred aid trucks will enter daily — barely the UN’s minimum. And all of it rests on Trump’s personal word, not on law or binding resolution.

This is what peace looks like when written by men who bomb while they negotiate.

How The New York Times Spins It
Compare that to The New York Times. I read their late-night feed so you don’t have to. The Times calls this “a long-awaited breakthrough,” yet every paragraph softens Israeli accountability. Bombs are described as “deployments.” A massacre becomes “a two-year war.”

They celebrate Trump’s “20-point peace plan” as if it were the Camp David Accords, even though the plan demands Hamas disarm, foreign troops occupy Gaza, and a ‘Board of Peace’ chaired by Trump and Tony Blair oversee reconstruction. That isn’t peace; that’s privatized colonization with better branding.

The Times even quotes Trump bragging that he can “bring peace through tariffs.” Gaza doesn’t need tariffs. Gaza needs oxygen, medicine, and justice.

What the Deal Actually Does
If implemented, Phase One will:

Release 20 living Israeli hostages and the remains of 28 others.

Free about 2,000 Palestinian hostages — mostly women and children detained since October 7.

Resume aid shipments and reopen Rafah in both directions.

Establish a temporary cease-fire while negotiators hammer out Phase Two, which will decide the future of Gaza’s governance, disarmament, and reconstruction.

Those are real, measurable gains. For a mother in Gaza who hasn’t fed her child in two days, a single aid truck is not symbolism. It’s life.

But Hamas officials admit the trade-off is brutal. Once the hostages are returned, their only leverage disappears. If Israel resumes bombing, Trump’s guarantee will be the only shield they have — and history tells us how paper-thin that shield can be.

A Gamble Written in Blood
“This is a risk,” Abu Marzouk said plainly. “If it works, they’ll be considered geniuses. If it fails, fools.”

And while world leaders congratulate themselves, Israel is still bombing Gaza tonight.
The smoke outside al-Shifa Hospital doesn’t care that diplomats are tweeting hashtags about peace. The cease-fire may be signed, but the killing has not ceased.

That contradiction — hope announced over the sound of explosions — is the only honest way to describe this moment.

What Comes Next: Phases Two and Three
The real fight now moves to what negotiators are calling Phase Two — questions of disarmament, governance, and long-term reconstruction.

Trump’s draft plan hands control of Gaza to a “technocratic, apolitical committee” overseen by his new “Board of Peace.” In practice, that could mean U.S., Israeli, and British oversight of a territory they’ve spent years destroying.

Hamas, the Popular Front, and Islamic Jihad have all said these demands are unacceptable. So has nearly every Palestinian civil-society group. They know what “technocratic” means in Western diplomacy: a polite word for occupation without the uniforms.

If those talks collapse, the bombs return in full force. If they succeed, Gaza could see the first sustained calm in two years — but only if the world holds Netanyahu to a promise he’s broken every previous time.

That is the fragility of this peace. It can live or die on any phone call between Trump, Netanyahu, and the billionaires who fund them both.

What We Must Remember
I’ve covered Gaza for years. I’ve watched cease-fires come and go like mirages: each one greeted with headlines, each one violated before the ink dried.

But tonight feels different because ordinary Palestinians are daring to hope again. They are texting relatives abroad. They are imagining tomorrow.

We owe it to them not to let that hope be stolen by politicians who never keep their word.

What We Do Now
Hold them accountable.
Demand that Israel’s bombs actually stop.
Insist that aid trucks roll and that Rafah truly opens.
And remind the world that a cease-fire is not peace until Gaza lives free from siege, surveillance, and starvation.

Trump and Netanyahu can claim victory; Jeremy Scahill can report the facts; but history will remember what the people of Gaza did with the silence between the bombs.

______________________________________________________
I personally don't believe Trump and Netanyahu can be trusted. I believe Trump is already tasting the prospect of owning Gaza. eb

I think it's too early to pour cold water on this.

The main problem as I understand it is the difference between disarming and decommissioning.

Hamas signed up for the latter, but Netanyahu wants the former.

Decommissioning is a process, it takes a number of years and requires an honest broker, as was the case with the Good Friday Agreement.

Palestinians have disarmed before, only to be murdered by the IDF and settlers.

💔 Gaza’s Is Being Bombed Like Crazy Before Ceasefire Begins.

Let Me Give You a Full Update on Where Things Stand
Trump calls it peace. Netanyahu stalls it. And Israel is still killing civilians as the world pretends a deal is already in place. It isn't.
Shaun King
Oct 9

A Cease-Fire That Exists Only on Paper
Last night much of the world celebrated a cease-fire.
Tonight, Gaza is still being bombed like crazy.

Israel’s cabinet has postponed approval of Phase One of the agreement for the third time today. As they argue behind closed doors, fighter jets are pounding Gaza City again. According to journalist Nour Odeh, the latest strike killed two women and buried forty people beneath the rubble. Locals are calling it a massacre.

The same politicians who promised a “historic peace” can’t even stop firing long enough to vote on it.

What Hamas Has Already Agreed To
As Jeremy Scahill reported for Drop Site News, Hamas and other Palestinian factions have already signed off on the first phase.

They made major concessions: agreeing to release all remaining Israeli captives without securing a full Israeli withdrawal.

Scahill explains that Palestinian negotiators “concluded the only path to a diplomatic resolution … the only way to end this genocide without fighting Israel to a stalemate … was through Donald Trump.”

That line says everything about the desperation of Gaza’s leadership and the vacuum of international power.

The deal includes humanitarian openings — the Rafah crossing is supposed to reopen in both directions, and aid convoys are to resume immediately — but those promises mean nothing while missiles are still falling.

Trump’s Word Is the Only Guarantee
When asked what guarantee he could offer that Israel won’t resume bombings after retrieving its captives, Trump said: “We’ll see.”

That’s it.
”We’ll see.”

Palestinians are hinging their whole lives on those two words.

That’s where we are: a U.S. president treating genocide as a campaign spectacle, an Israeli prime minister using delay as cover for continued slaughter, and a Palestinian population praying that the word of the man who armed their killers might now protect them.

What’s Next?
Tomorrow, perhaps in a special session, the Israeli congress (Knesset) will vote to approve the first phase of the deal which is just an exchange of hostages. Within 72 hours the hostages are supposed to then be exchanged and Israel is supposed to move out of central Gaza, but even these lines are being debated as we speak.

While I know most of us have zero faith in Israel, I am simply choosing to remain hopeful even though the facts of them being impossible to trust are staring me right in the face.

Politics Over Human Life
Netanyahu’s far-right coalition is split between those who want to end the war for political optics and those who want to keep Gaza burning until no resistance remains.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called the agreement “a moral victory” but warned against “emptying the jails and releasing the next generation of terrorist leaders.”

Translation: he plans to resume the war the minute hostages are home.
This is not a peace process — it’s a PR process.

What This Moment Reveals
This fragile cease-fire shows three truths:

Hamas is gambling its leverage on Trump’s word because the world offered no alternative.

Israel cannot stop bombing long enough to prove it wants peace.

The United States has lost moral authority to mediate anything in the Middle East.

If the bombing continues while leaders congratulate themselves, the cease-fire becomes another layer of cruelty — a mirage of mercy while mothers dig for their children.

What Comes Next
Netanyahu’s cabinet meets again tonight. Hamas has done its part. The mediators are waiting.
Every hour of delay costs lives.

And yet, inside Gaza, people still dare to hope. Families are cleaning what’s left of their homes, checking their phones for news, whispering that maybe tonight will be the last night of war.

The least we can do is not lie to them. Not call this “peace” while the sky is still on fire.

This truth costs courage.
That’s the price of journalism free from governments and propaganda. Please subscribe so we can keep telling the truth while the powerful rewrite it.

Occupy Democrats
13h
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BREAKING: Colombian President Gustavo Petro exposes the horrifying truth behind Donald Trump's murderous strikes on boats in the Caribbean and destroys the lie that they're part of a "war against smuggling."
This is absolutely grounds for impeachment...
"Senator Adam Schiff is correct. Now I find myself in a meeting with the European governments and I will say the same thing. A new war scenario has opened up: the Caribbean," Petro wrote on X.
He quote-tweeted a post from Schiff in which the senator announced an effort to block Trump's use of the military to carry out the Caribbean strikes because they are "illegal and risk dragging America into another war.
"Indications show that the last boat bombed was Colombian with Colombian citizens inside it," Petro continued. "I hope their families come forward and report it. There is no war against smuggling; what there is is a war for oil and it must be stopped by the world. The aggression is against all of Latin America and the Caribbean."
His analysis is spot on. These military strikes are clearly designed for two purposes. The first is to drag the United States closer to war with Venezuela, a long simmering objective of the American military-industrial complex and war hawks like Secretary of State Marco Rubio. They want to get their hands on Venezuela's vast oil reserves and are willing to drag America into another disastrous war to achieve that goal.
The second purpose of the strikes is to bolster Trump's strongman persona with his MAGA base. Releasing videos of the murderous bombings of these boats — which for all we know could have been carrying migrants innocent fishermen — is a vile as it is transparent. Trump sees these murders as just another PR stunt.
Petro previously spoke before the United Nations and called for a criminal investigation into Trump's strikes, stating that the victims were not Tren De Aragua gang members as claimed by the White House but were “simply poor young people from Latin America who had no other option.”
The time to launch that investigation is now. If the world stands by waiting, we will soon seen a tragic new war erupt.

Listen - for the next few minutes - I am going to speak optimistically to you, OK?

I know who Israel is.
I know who Trump is.
I know who America is.
I know what the weapons industry is.

But right now, today, for this moment at least, Gaza is far safer than it was yesterday, or last month, or last year.

I don’t know how long it will last.
Trump told negotiators he would guarantee it would last, but that man has never found a lie he won’t tell.

In the next 72 hours a very complicated hostage exchange will happen. This will be the single safest period of the ceasefire. And I just need you to understand that my friends in Gaza that I spoke to today - are just grateful to have a single day without bombs. 72 hours without them sounds like Heaven to them.

Israel still controls over 50% of Gaza. It is their hope to always control it, no doubt, but they’ve moved out of 50% - and that is giving people some breathing room for once.

Aid is supposed to be let in today. And every day moving forward. A massive influx of aid.

After the 72 hours are over, what is supposed to happen is that Israel will move even more out of Gaza, and a very complicated process on the security of Gaza, the leadership of Gaza, and the future of Gaza is supposed to begin.

I will be honest with you - it will take a miracle for it to work, but I am choosing to believe in miracles. I don’t quite know how it will work, but for the sake of our sisters and brothers in Gaza, I am choosing to believe it’s all very possible.

Hamas will have to make some of the most painful decisions of their lives, no doubt. International security forces will need to be allowed in. And it is my belief that nothing will keep Gaza safer than people from the world outside of Gaza being allowed in.

Inshallah we will see many good things happen in the days ahead.

Now listen, I am holding back a lot of negative thoughts here. And I am sure you are too.

But for now, I am choosing to celebrate the strength, patience, dignity, resilience, courage, faith, steadfastness, and persistence of the Palestinian people. They are the most amazing people I’ve ever seen in my life.

Love and appreciate you all.

Shaun

Max Blumenthal
MaxBlumenthal
The Nobel Committee has decided to make the case for Trump’s war on Venezuela, giving its “Peace Prize” to Maria Corina Machado, a US govt-funded regime change activist who’s helped lead failed military coups, violent street riots, and has likely promised her country’s oil and mineral wealth to a consortium of MAGA aligned billionaires in exchange for financing her political arsonism. This icon of peace has even appealed to Benjamin Netanyahu to help her lead a military invasion of Venezuela.

Maria Corina Machado is a marionette for Marco Rubio, a creation of the CIA-sponsored Gusano Industrial Complex that has brought violent terror and siege to any Latin American country defying the Washington Consensus of privatization and austerity, and a would-be Pinochet in a skirt.

Machado has spent years lobbying for US and EU starvation sanctions on her own country, resulting in waves of migration to the US, fueling the nativist resentment that gave rise to Trump. When Trump shipped Venezuelan migrants to a torture camp in El Salvador this year, Machado predictably sided with Trump, the main sponsor of her putchist career, over her countrymen.

Giving the Nobel to Machado is a green light for regime change war on Venezuela, and then Cuba. But the decision is consistent with the Committee’s role as a soft power instrument of Western empire. Just recall its award to Obama at the beginning of his first term, granting him infinite legitimacy in advance of his destruction of Libya, escalation of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and facilitation of Gaza’s decimation. Given that nothing has happened in Machado’s career without the support and guidance of Washington, the Committee’s decision must be seen as the result of another Western op - a coup in Oslo to pave the way for one in Caracas.

it's authorized, let's get on with it
(C. Bukowski)

Look," he told me,
"all those little children dying in the trees."
And I said, "What?"
He said, "look."
And I went to the window and sure enough, there they were hanging in the trees,
dead and dying.
And I said, "What does it mean?"
He said, "I don't know it's authorized."
The next day I got up and they had dogs in the trees,
hanging, dead, and dying.
I turned to my friend and I said, "What does it mean?"
And he said,
"Don't worry about it, it's the way of things. They took a vote. It was decided."
The next day it was cats.
I don't see how they caught all those cats so fast and hung them in the trees, but they did.
The next day it was horses,
and that wasn't so good because many bad branches broke.
And after bacon and eggs the next day,
my friend pulled his pistol on me across the coffee
and said,
"Let's go,"
and we went outside.
And here were all these men and women in the trees,
most of them dead or dying.
And he got the rope ready and I said,
"What does it mean?"
And he said, "It's authorized, constitutional,
it passed the majority,"
And he tied my hands behind my back
then opened the noose.
"I don't know who's going to hang me," he said,
"When I get done with you.
I suppose when it finally works down
there will be just one left
and he'll have to hang himself."
"Suppose he doesn't," I ask.
"He has to," he said,
"It's authorized."
"Oh," I said, "Well,
let's get on with it."

ALJAZEERA
Mohamed Tun
·
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ISRAELI SOLDIERS LEFT #TOYS FOR PALESTINIAN #KIDS, THE TOYS WERE FILLED WUTH EXPLOSIVES.

ץ Israel Katz
Israel_katz
·
8h
Auto-translated
Israel's great challenge after the phase of returning the hostages will be the destruction of all of Hamas's terror tunnels in Gaza, directly by the IDF and through the international mechanism to be established under the leadership and supervision of the United States.

The people in this description are the true story of our country. It waxes and wanes in intensity. And, yet ---
eb

Paul Eisenstein
I’ve seldom seen anyone so succinctly identify what Trump’s appeal is to so many Americans. His niece summed up the fact that the Incontinent Autocrat hasn’t a single redeeming human value. Here Robert Lee White nails the fact that this is precisely why he won two elections and, the worse his rule the more his appeal to millions of Americans.
I used to wonder how it was possible that Trump could have won in 2016, and this second time in 2024 given how emotionally toxic and depraved he is.
I no longer do. I actually think he won, for that precise reason. Because he had at least one fucked-up part to mirror the fucked-up parts of millions.
If you are a racist, you found your guy. If you are a misogynist, you found your guy. If all you care about is money, you found your guy. If you have an emotionally armored heart, you found your guy. If you make fun of disabled people, you found your guy. If you hate intelligent people, you found your guy. If you are a rapist, you found your guy. If you like golden showers with Russian sex-workers, you found your guy. If you have not done a stitch of work on your emotional issues, you found your guy. If you are a serial cheater, you found your guy. If you are a perpetual bankrupt, you found your guy. If you don’t pay people for their honest work, you found your guy. If you are a hustler and a conman, you found your guy. If you mock people’s physical appearances, you found your guy. If you long for a toxic Daddy, you found your guy. If you are dissociated and disembodied, you found your guy. If you are unconscionable in all your economic dealings, you found your guy. If you lie day and night, you found your guy. If you have never eaten green vegetables, you found your guy. If you are a white supremacist, you found your guy. If you have a hole in your ego so big that not even the presidency could fill it, you found your guy. If you are a sociopath, and care not one iota about other humans, you found your guy. If you...
If he only had two of these issues, he never would have won. It was the fact that he had hundreds of them, that made him the winner. Because millions of humans are toxic. So they could relate to him, in one form or another.
It's never been about trump. It's always been about the people who finally have their twisted feelings about others validated. trump has given "those people" permission to disparage and hate their fellow human beings.
trump is only symptomatic of a much larger issue of a collective toxicity. If there is a single sentence that characterizes trump it is this: “He says the things I’m thinking.”
That may be what is so terrifying. Who knew that so many tens of millions of Americans were thinking unconscionable things about their fellow Americans?
Who knew that tens of millions men felt so emasculated by women and challenged by minorities? Who knew that after years of seeming progress on race and gender, tens of millions of white Americans lived in seething resentment, waiting for a demagogue to arrive who would legitimize their worst selves and channel them into political power?
Perhaps we had been living in a fool’s paradise.
Now we aren’t.

Dr. Simon Goddek

goddeketal
·
🚨🇮🇱 I CAN‘T STAND THIS PROPAGANDA ANYMORE.

Yes, I’m glad that Israeli hostages have been freed. And just as glad that Palestinian prisoners have been released. But a few things need to be made clear:

FIRST: It’s absurd that Israelis are called “hostages” while Palestinians are labeled “prisoners.” That’s propaganda. It’s the same thing: human beings who’ve had their freedom taken away, on both sides.

SECOND: The released Israeli hostages appear well-fed, smiling, not a single kilo lost. Clearly treated well under the circumstances. In contrast, the Palestinian prisoners look like they’ve just walked out of a death camp: emaciated, scarred, aged by years of abuse. Tortured. And no one talks about it.

THIRD: Everywhere I read: “Hamas killed all the women, only men were released.” That’s simply a lie. A malicious one. The women who were still alive had already been released in earlier exchange deals. But facts don’t matter when it’s time to push the next hate-driven narrative for $7000.

FOURTH: Everyone talks about a handful of Israeli hostages, but no one mentions the tens of thousands of Palestinian hostages abducted by Israel. Many of them children. Imprisoned without charges, without trial.

FIFTH: And no one talks about the tens of thousands of civilians killed in Israel’s genocide.

SIXTH: While the ‘ceasefire’ (it’s just a matter of time until Israel breaks it again) is being celebrated, radical Israeli settlers are still violently stealing land in the West Bank; with full impunity. They break international law daily, and no one seems to care.

SEVENTH: Politicians across the world are shamelessly cucking for Israel, offering blind support while refusing to even mention the crimes committed in Gaza, the ongoing apartheid in the West Bank, or the endless aggression toward neighboring countries.

EIGHTH: The same governments and media that claim to stand for human rights, international law, and “never again” are now either silent or fully complicit: funding, arming, and excusing an apartheid regime in real time. When Palestinian lives are dehumanized, erased, and bombed into dust, suddenly all those values vanish

So no, I will not take part in this propaganda. I will not whitewash Israel’s crimes.

And yes, I still stand by my words: A STATE LIKE ISRAEL SHOULD NOT EXIST.

They outright refused to release key Palestinians, yet blame Palestinians for not returning bodies, which they destroyed with bombs. - eb

Shaun King
shaunking
·
Israel has functionally broken the ceasefire.

They've killed people all over Gaza today and are now saying they will not open the Rafah border crossing and allow aid in.

And are blaming it on people not being able to find remains of dead Israelis in Gaza which is destroyed.