Is the Ceasefire Real? With Gazan Writer and Israeli Negotiator
Useful Idiots with Katie Halper and Aaron Maté
Useful Idiots, LLC
4.5 • 4.6K Ratings
🗓️ 17 January 2025
⏱️ 93 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Watch this week's Thursday Throwdown: Biden’s Ceasefire Joke https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/bidens-ceasefire-joke?r=je5va&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
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This week, after over a year of genocide in Gaza, Israel and Hamas have finally reached a tentative ceasefire deal:
“The giant loophole in this deal is that it comes in three phases. A permanent ceasefire comes in the second phase. The first phase is a limited prisoner exchange, and so Hamas has very little reason to believe that Israel will go into this and actually see it through to the end of the three phases.”
And here’s another trick: this quote isn’t from this week – it’s from our interview with Nathan Thrall in May 2024 regarding the ceasefire deal that was never implemented. But Gazan writer Muhammad Shehada, who is based in Copenhagen but with family still in Gaza, points out this week’s deal is remarkable similar to the one from May:
“I started reading through [the recent deal],” he tells us, “and I looked up the May 27th deal. I read the whole text: word-for-word identical, one hundred percent, not a change. There's only an appendix of elaborations.”
So we’re having onto the show former Israeli negotiator Daniel Levy and Muhammad Shehada to analyze why this deal is back, whether it will actually signal an end to the mass killings in Gaza, and what really happened in the negotiations between Trump and Netanyahu.
“Could this then lead to a quid pro quo down the line where Netanyahu gets something from Trump that will be horrific for Palestinians, such as expanded theft of West Bank land?”
Daniel Levy also discusses “Bloody Blinken’s” terrible track record as Secretary of State, which has become a pressing matter as Blinken is now having journalists dragged out of press briefings for challenging him on his complicity in the genocide in Gaza. Muhammad Shehada discusses the Biden Administration’s false history of ceasefire negotiations, and shares what it has been like to lose so many friends and family in Gaza.
This week’s interview is free to all viewers. Thanks for your support of Useful Idiots and independent media.
Correction: Trump’s Middle East envoy is named Steve Witkoff. He was wrongly identified at 5:00.
Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Biden’s Ceasefire Joke
00:00 Intro
01:26 Protesters interrupt Blinken's farewell
04:44 Trump Admin's response to ceasefire
10:25 NY Post mocks Biden for the wrong thing
15:53 ADL CEO proposes IDF terrorism against US protesters
17:49 Blinken has reporters DRAGGED OUT of press conference
24:36 Daniel Levy on the ceasefire deal
27:52 Netanyahu's motive
30:34 Is this Biden's fault?
34:07 Does Trump get credit?
37:57 What motivates Blinken?
41:33 Muhammad Shehada read the full ceasefire agreement
55:16 Are Israeli officials more honest than US officials?
58:45 Will Israel follow the agreement?
1:03:09 Is this deal the same as the May 27 deal?
1:06:39 Does Hamas want to stay in power?
1:21:04 Muhammad's friends and family in Gaza
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Useful Idiots. I'm Katie Halper. |
| 0:07.8 | And I'm Mary Matte. Thanks so much for joining us. Our website is Useful Idiots Podcast.com. |
| 0:13.1 | As we say goodbye today to the Joe Biden administration, the guy who saved democracy, only to preside over a genocide, a horrible |
| 0:25.0 | proxy war, and to top it all off, went ahead and pardoned his son, Hunter, after saying he wouldn't |
| 0:31.3 | do that. There's so much to look back on. But we're going to focus today, of course, on what will |
| 0:35.8 | always be Joe Biden's legacy and that of everyone around him, which is the genocide in Gaza, which, fittingly, just as he leaves, it looks like, there might be, and we can't say for sure, there might be a deal to end this whole thing. There might be. |
| 0:49.4 | And, you know, Aaron, I feel like we should give Biden his due. And I feel like you missed a very important |
| 0:56.1 | element of Biden's legacy, which is, of course, handing the presidency back to Donald Trump, |
| 1:00.6 | which he did do in large part by overseeing this genocide. And of course, Kamala helped by |
| 1:06.1 | refusing to stop it. And now we know from a polling that that was a big factor in people staying home. |
| 1:13.6 | And people who had voted for Biden last time staying home this time. |
| 1:17.8 | So congrats Biden. Your legacy is helping destroy Gaza and also not even doing well politically for your own self-interest. |
| 1:27.1 | And speaking of Democrat sucking and the genocide, let's take a look maybe for the last time, |
| 1:33.2 | at least for the last time while he's Secretary of State. |
| 1:37.6 | Let's take a look at Anthony Blinken during his own farewell address, how he was greeted |
| 1:43.1 | by people in the audience. |
| 1:46.4 | At the same time, we strengthen America's robust sanctions regime on Iran and delivered on President Biden's commitment. |
| 1:52.9 | You will forever be known as Bloody Blinken, Secretary of Genocide. |
| 1:59.5 | You have the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent people |
| 2:03.6 | on your hands. We have spent a year. |
| 2:06.6 | Thank you. |
| 2:07.6 | I respect your views. |
... |
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