Melanie Phillips is an extraordinarily gifted writer/broadcaster/analyst. And – unlike so many others in her profession – she has a clear understanding of what is going on in Israel, Gaza and, more generally, the Middle East.
Her latest commentary, titled “It’s Not Over Yet”, is not just brilliant. It is an absolute must-read for anyone who wants a serious evaluation of what is going on in that part of the world.
Here is how it begins:
If anyone thought that the return to their homes of the 20 living Israeli hostages meant the end of Israel’s Oct. 7 war, they can’t have been paying attention.
U.S. President Donald Trump himself said repeatedly that the war had ended. Then he noticed that, true to form, Hamas was reneging on aspects of his own 20-point ceasefire deal.
In particular, it has failed to return all of the bodies of the hostages it murdered and has also refused to disarm. Instead, it instantly started to kill its enemies among Gaza’s clans to show that it was not defeated and still able to control the population.
How this will play out is currently unclear. Trump has said, “If they don’t disarm, we will disarm them.” What “we” presumably means in this context is that the Israelis will be permitted to finish them off—thus making the adulation Trump has received for “ending the war” from all those prime ministers and presidents lining up to grovel at his feet in Sharm-el-Sheikh look distinctly premature.
Far from feeling defeated, Hamas knows that it has been handed a powerful card for its continued survival—the Trump administration’s infatuation with Qatar. Astoundingly, Doha is now very firmly one of Trump’s supposed guarantors for making a permanent peace.
Qatar is hated by the other Gulf States because, as a Muslim Brotherhood jihadi regime, it’s the fount of Islamist extremism that threatens these states’ own security. It’s also the sponsor, funder and protector of Hamas. So not surprisingly, Saudi Arabia is alarmed that Qatar will restore Hamas to Gaza and undermine attempts to deradicalize the population of the coastal enclave, which is a central pillar of this peace plan.
In addition, if anyone thought that a fragile peace in Gaza would mean an end to the war against Israel and the Jewish people, which has been raging out of control in the West for the past two years, they also haven’t been paying sufficient attention.
And here is how it ends:
This is a movement, through Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood, to replace the Jews and Christians with Islam—and it’s now got the wind in its sails. Does Trump realize this? Israel does. The West’s craven elites certainly don’t.
Want to read the rest? You’ve got the link (here it is again). I hope, for both our sakes, that you do. And tell your friends to read it as well.
