***Hi there! I’m doing a Q&A on the podcast next week, so please send your questions to questions@imightbewrong.org. As always, priority goes to questions from paid subscribers, because — as it says in Leviticus — “paid subscribers before free imbibers.”
I want peace to take hold in Gaza — I really do. I was thrilled when the hostages came home; being a hostage is a fate so terrible that I wouldn’t wish it on most of my enemies. And the people of Gaza have suffered so much that I won’t even make a cheap joke about how Gaza sounds almost as bad as New Jersey — the suffering is so severe that it transcends a comedian’s impulse to shit on Jersey. I’m hoping for peace, and I mean it when I say that Trump should be given whatever Nobel Prizes, sexual favors, and sugary snack treats he wants if he actually pulls it off.
But do I think he’ll pull it off? Oh God no, absolutely fucking not. I consider Trump’s 20-point peace plan to be mostly Wilsonian wishcasting mixed with naïveté that supports the quickly-gaining-credence theory that everyone is 12 now. It solves none of the hard problems in the region and demonstrates a deep misunderstanding of who Hamas are and what’s causing the conflict. The plan is basically a prisoner exchange, and that’s great, but those have happened before. Now that the hostages are home, let me explain why I think the wheels are going to fly off this plan like a soapbox derby car built by a kid with an alcoholic father.