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18 minute read

The Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal.

Plus, a reader question about conservation and the Los Angeles wildfires.

Gazans celebrate news of a ceasefire deal on January 15, 2025. (Photo by YOUSSEF ALZANOUN via Getty Images)
Gazans celebrate news of a ceasefire deal on January 15, 2025. (Photo by YOUSSEF ALZANOUN via Getty Images)

I’m Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.”

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Today's read: 14 minutes.

☮️
Israel and Hamas have tentatively reached a ceasefire deal. Plus, a reader question about conservation and the Los Angeles wildfires.

Tomorrow.

As President-elect Trump starts his second term, we’re going to highlight a series of his promises and broader metrics for the country that we will track over the next 2–4 years. 


Quick hits.

  1. President Joe Biden delivered his farewell address, speaking about the role of democracy in the United States and warning about the potential consequences of a rising “tech industrial complex.” (The speech)
  2. The consumer price index increased 2.9% over the year and 0.4% from the previous month, according to the Labor Department’s December inflation report. Core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, rose 0.2%, the smallest month-over-month increase since July. (The report)
  3. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) announced that he has selected state Attorney General Ashley Moody to replace Sen. Marco Rubio if confirmed as secretary of state. (The announcement)
  4. The Food and Drug Administration announced it will ban the use of the synthetic dye Red No. 3 over concerns about its links to cancer. (The ban)
  5. The Supreme Court appeared divided during arguments over a challenge to a Texas law requiring pornography sites to verify the age of their users before providing access. The court is expected to rule on the case this summer. (The case)

Today's topic.

The ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. On Wednesday, negotiators announced a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas that will pause fighting in the Gaza Strip and could potentially end the 15-month war that heightened other conflicts in the region and leveled much of Gaza. The deal is still pending approval by the Israeli government, which delayed a meeting to discuss the agreement on Thursday over alleged concerns that Hamas had not accepted all of the terms. Hamas senior officials said they remain committed to the deal. 

The deal is structured in three phases and includes the return of all living and dead Israeli hostages, the total withdrawal of Israel from Gaza, the exchange of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, and eventually a Gaza reconstruction plan. Egypt, Qatar and the United States are guarantors of the peace deal, which was mediated in Doha, Qatar, and included negotiators from Arab countries and the United States, as well as an envoy from President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration.

According to Qatar’s prime minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, phase one of the deal will begin on Sunday and last roughly six weeks. The first phase consists of a ceasefire, a gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops from central Gaza, the return of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza, admittance of humanitarian aid into Gaza, Hamas’s release of 33 hostages (including two Americans), and Israel’s release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Specifically, Israel agreed to release all Palestinian women and children under 19 detained since October 7, 2023, returning 30 Palestinian detainees to Gaza for every civilian hostage and 50 Palestinian detainees for every female soldier Hamas releases. Israel would also retain control of the Philadelphi Corridor between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, though this provision is reportedly now a point of contention. 

Negotiations over the second phase will begin on the 16th day of phase one. While discussions are still ongoing, that phase is expected to include the release of all remaining living hostages to Israel, a permanent ceasefire, and Israel’s total withdrawal from Gaza. The third phase of the deal includes the return of the remains of deceased hostages to Israel and a reconstruction plan for Gaza. 

"There was no other way for this war to end than with a hostage deal, and I'm deeply satisfied this day has finally come, for the sake of the people of Israel, and for the families waiting in agony, and for the sake of the innocent people in Gaza who suffered unimaginable devastation because of the war," President Joe Biden said in a statement

“This EPIC ceasefire agreement could have only happened as a result of our Historic Victory in November, as it signaled to the entire World that my Administration would seek Peace and negotiate deals to ensure the safety of all Americans, and our Allies,” President-elect Trump posted on Truth Social

The Israel-Hamas war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched a surprise attack, killing over 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israel. Since then, Israel’s ground and air campaign in Gaza has killed over 46,600 people, over half of whom are women, children or older people, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.

Below, we’ll get into what the left, right, and writers from Israel and Palestine are saying about the deal. Then, I’ll give my take.


What the left is saying.

  • The left is glad the two sides reached a deal and primarily credits Biden, but many say the president’s handling of the conflict deserves scrutiny, too. 
  • Some suggest Trump made the deal happen given his unique political leverage.

In The Forward, Emily Tamkin said “this hostage deal is Biden’s victory. It’s also Biden’s shame.”

“President Joe Biden’s administration has secured a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas — and President-elect Donald Trump is taking much of the credit. The parallel that immediately jumps to mind is that of President Jimmy Carter, whose work to resolve the Iran hostage crisis only paid dividends after his successor had been sworn into office,” Tamkin wrote. “Like Biden, Carter spent his last year in office as a one-term president consumed with negotiations over trying to get hostages released… But as tempting as it is to see history rhyming — a crisis in the Middle East, inflation, a president finally achieving a deal only on his way out the door — there is an important difference. Namely: Israel is not Iran.

“Where Carter was exclusively negotiating with an enemy country, one of the two parties with whom Biden was negotiating was Israel, an American ally. And although the Biden administration repeatedly placed primary blame on Hamas for scuttling ceasefire efforts, we know that, for example, ceasefire negotiations this summer were reportedly complicated by conditions that Netanyahu added in,” Tamkin said. “It is perhaps too early to make sweeping assessments about what this deal shows us, but one question we can ask now is whether Biden privileged preserving U.S.-Israel friendship — even as his own relationship with Netanyahu reportedly deteriorated — over reaching a deal.”

In The Atlantic, Yair Rosenberg wrote “Trump made the Gaza deal happen.”

“The terms largely echo a proposal laid out by Biden himself in May 2024, but the incoming president dragged the parties over the finish line. What changed was not Washington’s general orientation toward the conflict. Far from turning up the heat on Israel, Trump telegraphed a further embrace of its positions during his 2024 campaign,” Rosenberg wrote. “Hamas could reasonably surmise that it would not get a better deal during Trump’s presidency, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government likely acceded to the arrangement in order to stay in the new leader’s good graces as he assumed office.”

“Put another way, it’s not that Trump had a stick with which to beat Israel that Biden didn’t have; it’s that his presidency holds out the prospect of carrots that Biden would never offer,” Rosenberg said. “It was less the president-elect’s pressure than his potential promise that brought the Israeli far right onside. With Trump, everything is a transaction, and for his would-be suitors—not just Israel, but also Hamas’s sponsors in Qatar—the Gaza cease-fire is a down payment.”


What the right is saying.

  • Many on the right argue there are few winners in this conflict but that Trump clearly made the deal happen. 
  • Some say Israel faces an uncertain future and an unpredictable American ally under Trump. 

In Reason, Matthew Petti said “nobody won the war in Gaza.”

“President Joe Biden tacitly endorsed the ‘de-escalation through escalation’ strategy, flooded Israel with weapons at U.S. taxpayer expense, and even deployed U.S. troops onto Israeli soil. In November 2024, the Hamas negotiating team was kicked out of Qatar, reportedly because of Biden administration pressure. Thousands of Lebanese and Palestinians were killed,” Petti wrote. “Hamas will rule over a traumatized population living in bombed-out wreckage. The dead have still not been properly counted; the official death toll of 46,600 may have missed 40 percent of violent deaths, and it doesn't include deaths from starvation and disease.”

“Iran, which had given Hamas vague assurances of support in a war with Israel, was caught by surprise in October 2023 and turned out to be unprepared for the confrontation that followed,” Petti added. “Iranian losses, however, are not necessarily American gains. The United States now has more responsibilities in a Middle East that is more chaotic and violent than before… The only winner so far is Trump. Discontent over Biden's war helped swing the election to Trump, and a ceasefire on the eve of inauguration is the best of both worlds for the Trump administration.”

In The New York Times, Bret Stephens suggested “the Israeli right may soon be disenchanted with Trump.”

“Thanks largely to Trump, a deal demanded by the Israeli left and reviled by the right is about to come into effect. A year’s worth of diplomacy by the Biden administration is finally about to bear fruit on account of its political nemesis. The far-right parties that are part of Netanyahu’s coalition may bolt the government,” Stephens said. “In the hostage deal, the price for Israel will in many ways be heavy. For every Israeli hostage released by Hamas, Israel will release several-fold Palestinian prisoners, many of them with Israeli blood on their hands… This doesn’t mean the deal is a bad one for Israel’s national interest.”

“A more difficult quandary for the Israeli right is what else Trump may want them to accept. The president-elect clearly wants an Israeli-Saudi normalization agreement as a capstone to the Abraham Accords he oversaw in 2020. For that to happen, the Saudis will demand a road map for a Palestinian state. Trump may also prefer to use Iran’s current weakness to negotiate a second nuclear deal,” Stephens wrote. “Donald Trump may have the soul of a bully, but he also has the instincts of a dealmaker — and a yearning for acclaim, including the Nobel Peace Prize he thinks he was denied for the Abraham Accords. Whatever else his next four years in power bring, it won’t conform to ideological type.”


What Israeli and Palestinian writers are saying.

  • Israeli writers celebrate the hostages’ potential return but worry that some terms of the deal will embolden Hamas. 
  • Palestinian writers express relief at the prospect of an end to the fighting in Gaza but say it is little consolation after the last 15 months. 

In The New York Post, Liel Leibovitz wrote “praise that Israeli hostages are coming home, but a deal that keeps Hamas in power is a bad one.”

“The cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas is meant to be a first step, and we don’t know what happens next, or the promises that were made behind the scenes… most importantly, the idea of dozens of Israelis — including toddlers — returning home after more than a year in purgatory is enough to dull even the most hawkish observer’s concerns,” Leibovitz said. “Yet it is very hard to observe this deal and see it as anything other than an utter and complete disgrace — and an embarrassment for America. First, and most devastating, Hamas remains in power. Greatly weakened, true, and hampered by increased Israeli military presence in Gaza, but able to claim ultimate victory.”

“Why would Trump, who repeatedly said there would be ‘hell to pay’ if the hostages weren’t released before he takes office, put his weight behind a deal that, with very few and very minor details, is the exact same one peddled, unsuccessfully and for many months now, by the Biden administration,” Leibovitz wrote. “The unspeakable horrors of October 7, 2023, ought to have inspired a new and bold rethinking of American policy in the region, one that no longer tolerates terrorists or their handlers. Instead, we’re getting yet another deal that telegraphs a lack of resolve, and rewards the terrorists for their heinous crimes.”

In Al Jazeera, Afaf Al-Najjar described “a fragile calm amid unending struggle.”

“As a Palestinian, receiving this news feels like standing in the eye of a storm, in a moment of ghostly calm surrounded by chaos and destruction. For me, at least it marks the end to the bloodshed, but the fact is, the ones we lost will never return, and these scars will never heal. How would a ceasefire ever change that fact,” Al-Najjar wrote. “Ceasefires are often hailed as victories for diplomacy, but to me, they are more like pauses in a constant nightmare. This latest agreement is a reminder that, for the people of Gaza, survival often hinges on the fragility of politics. Children, mothers, and fathers carry the unbearable weight of uncertainty. I find myself asking: Is this truly a step towards peace, or just another chapter in a story of delayed justice and extended suffering?”

“The ceasefire’s terms, reached under immense international pressure, include a halt to air strikes and rocket fire, along with provisions to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. These measures are desperately needed. But their necessity is also an accusation of the international community’s failure to act sooner to prevent the crises that make such measures critical,” Al-Najjar said. “Temporary peace cannot replace the right to live freely and to dream beyond survival. This prompts another crucial question: Will Palestinians ever get their rights to have full control over their political and diplomatic path to justice, or will they always be eliminated from the political stage and portrayed to fit in the victim’s role?”


My take.

Reminder: "My take" is a section where I give myself space to share my own personal opinion. If you have feedback, criticism or compliments, don't unsubscribe. Write in by replying to this email, or leave a comment.

  • I’m cautiously relieved about this deal, which is off to a tenuous start.
  • Leaders in Israel and Gaza have been scandalously self-interested throughout the negotiations.
  • In the U.S., the deal is one final embarrassment for Biden and a huge achievement for Trump.

First and foremost, I am glad Israel and Hamas seem to have reached a deal. Even if I have to explain a million different caveats (which I will in a moment), this is an important turn that everyone can celebrate, at least to some degree. In December of 2023, I wrote a piece titled 10 thoughts on what is happening in Israel, and in thought #3 I insisted that the most important story in the war was the death and destruction in Gaza. A couple months later, I wrote the Zionist case for a ceasefire. A key point of that piece was that Israel was creating a generation of new adversaries by continuing this war. Today, the United States believes Hamas has recruited almost as many new fighters as Israel has killed since the war began. 

To sit here in January of 2025 having just begun this ceasefire process is in some ways a relief — an outcome I've been praying for every day for over a year — but it's also disheartening that the deal took so long and seems so incomplete. 

I wish I could tell you this war is over, but I can't; the hard part doesn’t start until the first stage is completed. Negotiations for phase two will begin on the 16th day of phase one, and will require Hamas to coordinate the release of all its remaining living hostages and Israel to commit to a lasting peace and total withdrawal from Gaza. We are a long way out from a more secure future — this agreement in many ways is a baby step.

Sadly, even that small step is off to an inauspicious start. This morning, we got this update from Israel, via The New York Times:

Israel’s cabinet was expected to vote Thursday… but at midday Israel had yet to convene ministers to discuss the proposal, citing last-minute disputes with Hamas. On Thursday morning, the office of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, accused Hamas of reneging on parts of the agreement, without specifying which ones. Izzat al-Rishq, a senior Hamas official, said the group was committed to the deal.

I could say a lot about the timing of this deal. For starters, I have long believed that the biggest obstacle to ending this war, aside from Hamas holding hostages, was Netanyahu's understanding that doing so would cause a collapse in his coalition. That coalition has depended on far-right extremists in the Israeli government, and Netanyahu knew that if he agreed to a deal to end the war that allowed Hamas to retain control the coalition would likely abandon him and he would lose his power. Here is how The Wall Street Journal reported on the changing dynamics:

The agreement isn’t much different from the terms that were available months ago when more Israeli hostages remained alive and before thousands more Palestinians lost their lives. But several factors have pushed the parties closer recently... Netanyahu, meanwhile, has solidified his governing coalition, reducing the leverage of right-wing parties who have opposed any deal.

I really can't overstate how disgusting this entire spectacle is. It should be one of the great political scandals of our time that an obstacle to ending this horrific spate of violence was a prime minister fearing he would lose his job if the war ended, exactly what many Israelis have been accusing Netanyahu of for more than a year. Instead, it's a mere footnote in the coverage.

This, of course, is not to absolve Hamas. From Day 1 they could have laid their arms down and returned the hostages to end the war, but opted not to. You can read their actions in two ways: 1) They mortgaged tens of thousands of innocent lives — and the infrastructure of the entire Gaza Strip — in their delusional belief that they could win the war. Or 2) They were glad to martyr the Gazan people, uninterested in the pain and suffering they invited onto those they supposedly care for.

Then, of course, there's the question of who should get the credit in the U.S. My view is that this ceasefire deal is one of the great embarrassments of the Biden administration — the cherry on top of a foreign policy record that is teetering on abysmal. Consequently, if the deal holds it will be one of Trump’s great accomplishments, beginning before he even took office (a goal he stated during the campaign). The Times of Israel reported that Trump's envoy swayed Netanyahu more in one meeting than Biden did all year. The Washington Post reported that this was "the first time there has been real pressure on the Israeli side to accept a deal" since the war began, crediting Trump’s influence.

If this deal holds — again, if — it will also reflect poorly on me. I wrote repeatedly that the Arab-American voters in Michigan and across the U.S. who opposed Harris or outright supported Trump in protest of Biden’s handling of the war would be sorely disappointed. Perhaps my view there proves accurate in the long run — I still believe Trump is a staunchly pro-Israel president whose interests are diametrically opposed to Palestinian liberation. But if Trump begins his term by helping negotiate an end to this war, I'll be eating some crow, and those voters will have both increased their political power and gotten the result they wanted.

What comes next is anyone's guess. I've seen reports and heard from a few sources that Trump is going to pursue a Saudi normalization deal, which would likely include recognizing the right to a Palestinian state. Gaza, which has been completely leveled, will have to be rebuilt. Only 16 of the 36 hospitals in the entire strip remain operational, and even they are only partially functioning, with just over 1,800 beds available in total. Schools, places of worship, and homes across the strip have been destroyed. There is no economy. Infrastructure like sewage, water, and power lines have been wiped out. The scale of the task is incomprehensible. 

The road ahead is certain to be rocky, with little guarantee that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad will stop attacking Israel or that Israeli soldiers will leave Gaza and stay out. When the war does end, journalists will enter Gaza in earnest, and the truth of the destruction will come into focus. There will be trials, charges for war crimes, and ongoing allegations of genocide. A massive power struggle to lead Gaza will unfold. 

Moments to celebrate in this conflict have been rare, so for now I’ll take it. But nobody should mistake this moment for an end to the war. This is just the first step on a long, brutal road toward reconciliation and stability. 

Take the survey: Do you think the reported ceasefire deal will result in a lasting peace? Let us know!

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Your questions, answered.

Q: Is your answer about the “smelt living in brackish water not being an issue” really your answer to the more important question “has fresh water been diverted to preserve the brackish water of the smelt?”

— Joe from Naples, FL

Tangle: For background here, in our issue on the Los Angeles wildfires, we dismissed President-elect Trump’s claim that protections for the delta smelt were responsible for Los Angeles’s water security issues by saying these fish don’t live in zones where the city sources its water. This question presents a good point: The issue Trump’s highlighting might not be with the estuaries themselves, but with the upstream water that feeds them.

In fact, part of the preservation plan for the delta smelt is “outflow augmentation,” meaning that conservation efforts have indeed called for the state to commit to providing more freshwater to these areas. However, the critique that this hurt Los Angeles’s water access falls flat for two reasons: 1) The plan the state enacted only pertains to pumping delta zones in the winter and did not include changes to managing upstream flows. 2) The smelt’s habitat is in the San Francisco Bay Area, and conservation efforts on the rivers that empty on the Northern California coast wouldn’t affect Los Angeles. 

All that said, we still think it was correct for us to say smelt conservation isn’t relevant to wildfire responsiveness in Los Angeles — and we appreciate this probing question for allowing us to more fully expound on why.

Want to have a question answered in the newsletter? You can reply to this email (it goes straight to our inbox) or fill out this form.


Under the radar.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) is set to announce his appointment to fill Vice President-elect JD Vance’s now-vacant Senate seat this week, and one name is beginning to gain public traction: Vivek Ramaswamy. President-elect Donald Trump has reportedly been pushing the tech entrepreneur to fill the seat if offered, and Ramaswamy is said to be open to the idea. While Trump previously named Ramaswamy to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) alongside Elon Musk, a Senate appointment would likely require him to vacate that role. Whomever DeWine appoints will run to keep their seat in 2026, and the winner of that election will serve the remainder of Vance’s term ending in 2029. The Washington Post has the story.


Numbers.

  • $18.5 billion. The estimated cost of damage to critical infrastructure in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war, according to an April 2024 report by the World Bank and the United Nations.
  • 66%. The percentage of structures in Gaza estimated to have sustained damage during the war, according to a September 2024 United Nations assessment. 
  • 80%. The approximate percentage of Gaza’s health facilities that have been damaged or destroyed.
  • 64.5%. The percentage of Israelis who said President-elect Donald Trump would be a better president than Vice President Kamala Harris for Israel’s interests in a November 2024 Israel Democracy Institute poll. 
  • 13%. The percentage of Israelis who said Harris would be a better president than Trump for Israel’s interests.
  • 57%. The percentage of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who said they expected Hamas would control the strip at the end of the current war in September 2024, according to the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. 
  • 36%. The percentage of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who said they prefer Hamas to control the strip at the end of the war. 
  • 37% and 24%. The percentage of Americans who said the U.S. should play a minor or major role, respectively, in resolving the Israel-Hamas war, in a September 2024 Pew Research survey. 

The extras.


Have a nice day.

At 16 years old, Renee Wang was already seeking solutions to important societal issues. She noticed the extensive number of homeless individuals in her community, prompting her to research constraints on the existing shelter system. Inspired by the efficient design of Rubik’s cubes and LEGOs, Wang created a model for sustainable housing that could be implemented on a massive scale. Currently, she is communicating with nonprofits, San Diego City Council members, and others who can help turn her model into a prototype — then hopes to turn her focus towards implementation. Good Good Good has the story.


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