This podcast is supported in part by the New England Innovation Academy in Marlborough, Massachusetts,

where today's students become tomorrow's innovators by discovering their passions and purpose while preparing for what's next,

reimagining education with a future-focused curriculum, entrepreneurial mindset, and real-world application,

currently enrolling grade 6 through 12, day and boarding students.

Learn more at NEI Academy.org.

For a different perspective now, we turn to Moin Rabanin.

He's a former United Nations official and non-resident senior fellow at the Middle East

Council on Global Affairs.

He's also co-editor of Jadalia, and that's an online publication that focuses on the Middle East.

And welcome to the News Hour, Mouin. I want to begin by asking you just about what we heard from the Israeli ambassador there, saying it was the combination of pressure from Arab countries on Hamas leadership and the Israeli military pressure on Hamas in Gaza,

that that's what got Hamas to the table and to sign off on this deal.

Do you agree with that?

Yeah, it's a fantastic distortion of events.

What actually happened is that this is an agreement that Israel,

and specifically Israeli Prime Minister bin

Yemeni Netanyahu did not want but what happened is that the United States took the

decision that this agreement was going to be reached and implemented and it took no

more than a single phone call from Trump to Netanyahu and the deal was done. Of course, there was

military pressure in the Gaza Strip in the form of genocide, and there was pressure from Arab and Muslim

leaders on Hamas. And this led them to make some concessions they rather would not. But Israel has consistently rejected an

agreement now for two years. And as we saw already in January and again now, a simple message

from the United States to Israel is all it takes to make things happen. Well, from the Hamas perspective here, though, they have previously wanted guarantees

...