Is the Ceasefire Real? With Gazan Writer and Israeli Negotiator

Useful Idiots

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This week, after over a year of genocide in Gaza, Israel and Hamas have finally reached a tentative ceasefire deal:

“The giant loophole in this deal is that it comes in three phases. A permanent ceasefire comes in the second phase. The first phase is a limited prisoner exchange, and so Hamas has very little reason to believe that Israel will go into this and actually see it through to the end of the three phases.”

And here’s another trick: this quote isn’t from this week – it’s from our interview with Nathan Thrall in May 2024 regarding the ceasefire deal that was never implemented. But Gazan writer Muhammad Shehada, who is based in Copenhagen but with family still in Gaza, points out this week’s deal is remarkable similar to the one from May:

“I started reading through [the recent deal],” he tells us, “and I looked up the May 27th deal. I read the whole text: word-for-word identical, one hundred percent, not a change. There's only an appendix of elaborations.”

So we’re having onto the show former Israeli negotiator Daniel Levy and Muhammad Shehada to analyze why this deal is back, whether it will actually signal an end to the mass killings in Gaza, and what really happened in the negotiations between Trump and Netanyahu.

“Could this then lead to a quid pro quo down the line where Netanyahu gets something from Trump that will be horrific for Palestinians, such as expanded theft of West Bank land?”

Daniel Levy also discusses “Bloody Blinken’s” terrible track record as Secretary of State, which has become a pressing matter as Blinken is now having journalists dragged out of press briefings for challenging him on his complicity in the genocide in Gaza. Muhammad Shehada discusses the Biden Administration’s false history of ceasefire negotiations, and shares what it has been like to lose so many friends and family in Gaza.

This week’s interview is free to all viewers. Thanks for your support of Useful Idiots and independent media.

Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Biden’s Ceasefire Joke

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Correction: Trump’s Middle East envoy is named Steve Witkoff. He was wrongly identified at 5:00.