Israel and Hamas have agreed to a ceasefire deal. This is almost exactly where we were in January, when my very first newsletter for the year was comparing the 2014 and January 2025 ceasefire deals — which both, ultimately, failed.

But of course, there is one very big difference between January and now. That is the at least 13,598 people Israel killed in Gaza after breaking the ceasefire deal in March. It also injured at least 57,000 (as reported by Al Jazeera). And that’s just in Gaza. It doesn’t count the casualties from illegal attacks it launched on Syria and Lebanon. Hours after agreeing to the ceasefire deal, Israel was bombing Lebanon so that’s also something to keep in mind.

A ceasefire is not peace, nor liberation. But still, at the time of writing the ceasefire is in place in Gaza. Thousands and thousands of displaced Palestinians are beginning to return to what’s left of their homes.

Just as we did in January, let’s compare the current ceasefire deal to previous iterations.

This is not the so-called “20-point Peace Plan” that Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu proposed at the end of September, as a lot of that is still being negotiated and disputed. Outlined below is the ceasefire components that have been agreed to by Israel and Hamas, comparable to “Phase 1” of the January 2025 deal.

As for the Trump’s bigger proposed “peace plan”, I’m incredibly skeptical for three specific reasons.

Firstly, the US drafted it with Israel’s input but no contribution from any Palestinian representatives. Yes, Qatar and Egypt were involved (as they were with the January proposal) but these are not representatives of Palestine. When the deal was put to Hamas it was accompanied by a threat: Trump said if they do not accept the deal then he would give Israel the greenlight to “finish the job” and complete the genocide. 

That’s not negotiation — it’s coercion.

Secondly, the peace proposal makes a general mention of Palestinian liberation (at point 19): “[When the re-development of Gaza is advanced] the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognize as the aspiration of the Palestinian people.”

Not only is this vague, but the very same plan puts very specific conditions on what Palestinians are not allowed to do. Hamas “and other factions” are not allowed to govern, even if that’s what Palestinians want. The plan insists that only the Palestinian Authority is allowed to govern Gaza, and even then only after it is “reformed” (what does that even mean?)

Dictating how another state’s government is formed and who is allowed to run it does not give people self-determination. I understand that some will say that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, and it’s not “good” for such a group to govern an independent state. The truth of the matter is that Australia not only tolerates but co-operates with terroristic, violent or corrupt leaders and governments of many other nations — including both Israel and the US — so I don’t think it’s a particularly good reason to have “veto power” over who Palestinians would choose to lead them.

And thirdly, the full Trump proposal states that while the Palestinian Authority is being “reformed” (still a very scary concept to me) Gaza will be controlled by a "Board of Peace”. Who will be on the board? Foreign heads of state, including Trump and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, and tech billionaires. I am not joking.

History tells us that leaders from the ‘West’ taking control of a territory to impose their own rules never works out for the people.

Unless of course, the goal of those wealthy foreigners was never to achieve Palestinian self-determination, but to use this proposal as an opportunity to seize control of Gaza so they can develop it for their own purposes. For example, forcing out Palestinians to create the “Gaza Riviera” — a disgusting ethnic cleansing-turned-property-development plan that was circulated in the White House, and leaked in July this year. Who was reportedly involved in developing this plan? A US-Israel “aid” organisation and… the Tony Blair Institute. As in, the think tank founded by the very same Tony Blair whom Trump has appointed to the Gaza Board of Peace.

Which do you think is more likely: that Trump the humanitarian really cares about Palestinian liberation, or that Trump the property developer sees Gaza as prime coastal land for development?

– Crystal
Founder & Chief of Everything at Zee Feed
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Smart stuff on the Internet 💭

All the stuff I found on the web that made me think, smile, or have an ‘aha!’ moment. Spend your Sunday reading them – you'll be better off for it:

The Uncanceling of Chris Brown on Vulture
"Very little writing about Breezy Bowl has framed it as a response to a moment when jail time could be in the cards. The narrative of Brown’s summer was that of a generational talent abiding, not a villain prevailing."

AI “cheating”, anti-intellectualism and the carceral on Overland
Mark Yin is doing a PhD in criminology and makes incredible videos about the topic on TikTok. He wrote this meaty, nuanced examination of morality and AI cheating. “We need to be wary of a punitive, and indeed carceral, approach to students’ AI use. A carceral approach is one characterised by mistrust, policing, surveillance and discipline — one that naturalises punitive responses to harm. It pervades our culture and can be embodied by anyone, for example in the desire to “tattle-tale” on cheating classmates. But this is a kind of approach we come to accept and learn from authorities. Consider the fact that even before ChatGPT launched in December 2022, universities were using AI to police students in the name of enforcing academic integrity.”

Without polyester, would there be no slave labour? on The Line substack
Lucianne Tonti quickly becoming my favourite fashion writer. “If Shein can squeeze more labour out of their workers, why can’t Apple? Of course to an extent they do, but not with the same consequences. [The] answer to this, was revelatory. Most other goods rely on a combination of raw materials and parts which necessarily limits production capacity. Whereas fashion, especially now that the cheap fashion being produced has very simple construction and is largely made from polyester, has no limits.”

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