What Next - Is the Gaza Deal Real?
Slate News
Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 7 October 2025
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s been two years since Hamas attacked Israel and set off a devastating war. Since then, talks have fallen apart over and over again. Trump says – this time is different. But should anyone believe him?
Guest: Yair Rosenberg, staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of Deep Shtetl, a newsletter about the intersection of politics, culture, and religion.
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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of the State of Israel. |
| 0:12.8 | About a week ago, President Trump hosted Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. |
| 0:17.2 | For a meeting, he would go on to describe to the press as historic. |
| 0:22.7 | So this is a big, big day, a beautiful day, potentially one of the great days ever in civilization. |
| 0:32.2 | Trump was promising peace in the Middle East. What he was delivering was a 20-point plan for some kind of Gaza |
| 0:39.2 | ceasefire, a plan that only one side had agreed to. |
| 0:43.0 | Our allies in Europe, Europe has been very much involved, and as I was called by many of the |
| 0:48.4 | European leaders, most of them, saying, is this true? Are you really doing peace in the Middle East? This is the most |
| 0:55.9 | incredible thing we've heard. Some think it's the biggest thing they've ever heard. |
| 1:02.1 | What they were doing was saying, here's a plan. Now Hamas has to respond, and Trump was presenting |
| 1:07.9 | it as non-negotiable, take it or leave it, an ultimatum. |
| 1:12.0 | The Atlantic CIA Rosenberg listened along as the president presented his plan as a fait accompli and had an immediate reaction. |
| 1:19.8 | This deal is not even close. |
| 1:23.3 | We've heard this sort of talk before, and Trump himself has a tendency as a consummate salesman |
| 1:28.8 | to sort of argue past the sale, to assume that the thing has already happened to try to help |
| 1:33.5 | move it along. And I think that's kind of what we saw there in that press conference where |
| 1:37.9 | he presents this as a fait accompli, when in fact there's a tremendous number of things that |
| 1:42.1 | have to come together for it to actually work out. |
| 1:48.9 | But over the course of the week, the vibe seemed to shift. |
| 1:54.6 | And good day. We are coming on the air right now with breaking news and what appears to be a major breakthrough in the Middle East, |
| 2:00.4 | Hamas saying in a statement obtained by NBC News that it agrees to release all Israeli hostages, |
| 2:02.5 | both living and dead, who are still in captivity inside of Gaza. |
... |
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