These fires are really really worth the paper they're written on if it's working and it wasn't working except for the fact that they were getting hostages back.

At the end of the day, that's the central fact that one has to remember here.

Hundreds of people taken from their

homes or from a party, kept in horrific conditions in the Gaza Strip, deliberately tortured, starved,

killed, given that that's the basis upon which Israel made any kind of agreement with Hamas,

as soon as that dried up, as soon as those hostages aren't being released anymore, not even

dead ones. Why on earth

would Israel keep to the cities fire? Hello, welcome back to the Brendan O'Neill show with me,

Brendan O'Neill and my special guest this week, Jonathan Satchad Doty. Jonathan, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me. It's great to have you on. I've, as you know, I've been a keen follower of your writing for some time.

You're writing on Israel, in particular, in The Spectator and Elsewhere. Everyone should read it if they're not reading it already.

And there's a lot for us to talk about on this topic matter this week. The week that we're speaking, a lot is happening. And I guess

let's kick off with talking about the conflict itself, because it has restarted. Israel has

broken the ceasefire. That's what the headlines are saying. And has restarted its military crusade against Hamas in Gaza,

and it's kicking off and everyone's talking about it.

So let's start just by asking you,

what did you think about that when that happened?

Were you surprised?

Did you see this coming?

How do you feel about the resumption of those hostilities?

Well, Israel had found itself, I think,

trapped in an untenable situation because over recent weeks, there was no active combat. It

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