Today is Monday, October 13, 2025, Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Of course, the purists out there prefer to cling to its old name, Columbus Day. And here, the day was marked by intermittent rain, bringing to three the number of days it has rained here. However, few away in the Middle East, the dumbskulled president heralded a new beginning for the war-torn region in remarks delivered to Israel’s Knesset, its parliament. In an online article for NBC Politics entitled “Celebrating a hard-won ceasefire, Trump pushes for ‘lasting harmony’ in the Middle East,” and it’s written by Peter Nicholas.

As all of the 20 living hostages rejoined their families in Israel, Dump spoke to the nation’s parliament in Jerusalem and marked a momentous breakthrough in a war that began just over two years ago.

The U.S. president stated that “the long and painful nightmare is finally over.” But is it?

Being overjubilant , Dump rejoiced, “This is not only the end of a war. This is the end of an age of terror and death and the beginning of the age of faith and hope and of God.” (Little does he know of the Divine One!)

Already, an accusation of bad faith came immediately when family members said Monday that Hamas had released the remains of only four of 28 deceased hostages, breaking what they felt was a commitment to release all of the remains. These families called for an “immediate suspension” of the ceasefire agreement until all of the bodies are returned.

When hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on television yesterday, he clearly indicated “The campaign is not over,” thus breaking Dump’s jubilant bubble of peace right away. He also indicated that “some of our enemies are trying to recover in order to attack us again.” Does this sound as if the matter has been completely resolved in favor of peace? I would dare say no here.

Of course, when the delusional president was confronted with Netanyahu’s comments on Air Force One, Dump repeated to reporters: “The war is over. The war is over. The war is over, OK? You understand that?” As if repeating this mantra three times makes it so!

When addressing the Knesset, Chump chastised Netanyahu, saying, “Now, you can be a little nicer, Bibi, because you’re not at war anymore, Bibi,” using Netanyahu’s nickname.

After finishing his speech (which I refused to watch), Dump flew to Egypt to take part in a peace conference with the leaders of 20 nations, posing for pictures in front of a sign proclaiming, “Peace in the Middle East.”

Notably absent from the signing ceremony were the two factions who had been at war: Hamas and Israel. Netanyahu was indeed invited to the ceremony in Sharm el-Sheikh, but he declined to attend because of observing the holiday of Simchat Torah. And there was no representative from Hamas there either. Thus the day lacked what often turns out to be an iconic picture at such Middle East peace observances: the U.S. president and the combatants linking arms.

As for maintaining that peace long term, the Dump administration has less of a specific plan for achieving that. In the 20-point plan that was released last month, the administration’s 19th point lays out certain conditions that include reconstruction of Gaza and political reform that must be met first and then, once that happens, “the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.” The authors set no hard deadlines or timetables for deciding the Palestinians’ fate.

I now learned that Dump inevitably went on for far too long: a full hour. During this longwinded speech, Dump went so far as to beseech the Israeli President Isaac Herzog to pardon his other Trumpian Little Me, Benjamin Netanyahu, which is definitely an abnormal thing to say during such an address proclaiming the end of hostilities between two hostile foes.

Foreign policy analysts now say that this “leader” needs to stay involved in the situation even if the fighting has temporarily stopped and the hostages have been returned to make progress on his vision of a transformed Middle East.

If he doesn’t, then things can easily fall apart. Aaron David Miller, a former State Department Middle East analyst and negotiator in Republican and Democratic administrations, says, “You have to wonder whether he stays with this. That will depend primarily on whether there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: the elusive Nobel, which he believes he deserves.” So, as former President Ronald Reagan famously said during that presidential debate with Jimmy Carter, “There you go again!” Could this jockeying for peace be just another ploy in order to snag the Nobel Peace Prize in 2026, given if he’s still around by then?

I will probably be absent here tomorrow since Elliot and I are meeting our two adopted “nieces,” “Esther” and “Rebecca,” for dinner in Astoria at 7. We haven’t seen them in a while and we might just stay late catching up with current developments in all of our lives.

So have a good Tuesday. Let’s hope it won’t be marred by more rain, even though it seems it has been forecasted again.

And so it went!