Some Hopeful News and Some Bad News

Prime Minister Netanyahu and Steve Witkoff (VIN)

First the (almost) good news. I say ‘almost’ because it isn’t a done deal yet.  I’ve heard it all before. Too many times. A cease fire deal that included releasing hostages home was on the verge of being made only to fail at the last minute (usually because Hamas decided to reject the deal). So it’s hard to take the latest version of a deal seriously. But still my hope is that this time it will happen. There seems to be more optimism this time than there was in the past. And details of the deal appear to be more positive.

There is no way of knowing for sure why there seems to be more optimism, but the one thing that’s different this time is that the US is about to have a change of leadership and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy as been involved in the negotiations.

According to VIN here is what the deal looks like. 

Hostages will be released in stages. During the first phase Israel will withdraw from several areas, and their residents will return to them.. Humanitarian aid will be increased.

In the second phase for every Israeli female soldier released, Israel will release 50 female prisoners which will include 50 terrorists serving life sentences. And perhaps most significantly:

Egypt and Qatar have committed that Hamas will not return to rule Gaza and that a new mechanism will be put in place to manage the Strip. Additionally, the agreement includes a “tactical withdrawal” of the IDF from several sites in the Gaza Strip, which will allow it to attack any activity considered to have a military nature. 

Prime Minister Netanyahu has already agreed to this deal. It’s up to Hamas. One can only hope that this time will be different and they will agree. If they do the biggest winner politically will be the prime minister. He will have achieved his goal of vanquishing Hamas from Gaza and getting the hostages back. And that his tactics and strategies in war were for the most part successful. 

The only downside has already happened. Which is  condemnation of Israel for committing genocide against Palestinians. Israel’s ‘friends’ in Europe and in some cases even the US are leading that charge

Which brings me to the the bad news. Last night on the highly popular and well respected CBS television news magazine, 60 Minutes, I watched with horror as reporter Cecilia Vega presented the worst hit piece against Israel I have ever seen on network television. I could not believe what I was watching. Hamas could not have done a better job smearing the Jewish state and the US government under President Biden. That’s how bad it was.

This 60 Minutes segment was about officials that resigned from the State Department in protest over US support of Israel’s war in Gaza. painting it as genocide. (Of course they didn’t use that word themselves but said that is how many others saw it.).

Vega began by nearly doubling the number of Palestinian civilians killed by Israel to 75,000. Hamas says there were 45,000. She referred to the Hamas terrorists who slaughtered 1200 Jews as ‘militants’.  

Vega treated these former state department officials as heroes that championed the cause the poor Palestinians suffering purely at the hands of Israel and their enablers, the US. As though innocent Palestinians were targeted on purpose for no reason at all. They blamed Biden for giving Israel the means to murder the 75,000 civilians that were mostly women and children murdered by Israel through indiscriminate bombing. Thus accusing Biden, Blinken, Sullivan and company of willfully supporting Israeli genocide. Israel was also accused of continually preventing humanitarian aid into Gaza.

There was not the slightest attempt to present the Israeli side or even the US side. It was a pure blood libel by former state department officials. Aided and abetted by CBS.

Not a word was said about how this war came about. Or why there were so many civilian casualties. Or that many of those casualties were actually Hamas terrorists - not innocent civilian even though Hamas counted them that way. Or that Hamas’s own figures were 45,000 casualties - not 75,000. Or that Hamas terrorists embedded themselves among civilians in highly sensitive areas like schools and hospitals in order to maximize civilian casualties. Which they had been caught admitting to publicly . 

Or that humanitarian aid was in large part not well distributed because Hamas terrorists took it for themselves. Or because of Palestinians gangs and assorted thugs looted the food trucks and sold it back to desperate civilians at exorbitant prices.   

And finally it was suggested that the US as a target on its back because of its support for Israel.

I might have understood 60 Minutes presenting the Palestinian side had they balanced it with the Israeli side. Or even the US side But they didn’t. They presented it as the singular truth about Israeli genocide and US complicity in it.

Normally I would just write off such extremist yellow journalism for what it is. But as noted this news magazine is one of the oldest and most respected news sources in the US. A lot of people trust what they see and hear on that program. Their influence on public opinion cannot be understated.

Needless to say, this report sickened me. But it shouldn’t have surprised me considering their primary foreign correspondent reporting on the war is a former Al Jazeera reporter who always made Israel look as bad as possible.

I have lost all respect for CBS as a reliable news source. They were once the most trusted news source in the broadcast news industry. But they have morphed into the right hand maiden of Hamas terrorists.   

CBS can deny it all they want. But this 60 minute piece tells an entirely different story.  Honest journalists all over the world ought to condemn this report - and anyone that had anything to do with it. They ought to all be drummed out of the news reporting  business!