June 4, 2024
On Friday, some news arrived that would have received more attention had it not come on the heels of the Trump guilty verdict. President Biden announced the framework for a possible ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war. On its face, it sounded like not bad news. Yet a foreign policy reporter I think a lot of described it as “interesting.” It wasn’t a compliment, nor was it an insult. If anything, it was a question. He didn’t know what to make of the deal, where it came from, or how any of the main players felt about it. The timing and vagaries all just struck him as very strange, which made today’s column stand out to me. Questions on the ceasefire remain, even for the author, but he provides some plausible explanations and predictions worth considering. We’ll see if he’s right, or if things get curiouser and curiouser.