War Is Over

Plus: Zohran Mamdani's new allies, NBA returns to China, free Ayn Rand, and more...

Now come the hard parts: Figuring out the governance of the Strip. Rebuilding Gaza. Working out a deal regarding Hamas disarmament and Israeli presence in the region, plus figuring out how the terrorist group will be monitored to prevent future attacks down the road. Not to mention all those unemployed liberal-arts school keffiyeh protesters needing to get real jobs instead of shutting down the streets of major American cities.

Yesterday, as covered in Roundup, President Donald Trump delivered a victorious (and honestly rather good) speech to the Knesset, Israel's parliament, heralding the dawn of a new era following the return of the 20 remaining living hostages who had been taken by Hamas. The terrorist group is still looking for the remains of the 28 hostages they killed, to hopefully return the bodies to the families of those still grieving their loss. Meanwhile, 2,000 Palestinian prisoners were released back to the West Bank and to Khan Younis, in the Gaza Strip, to fulfill the terms of the deal. Many of those prisoners were taken due to their role in committing terrorist attacks. (Roughly 1,300 prisoners remain in Israeli custody.)

Trump deserves an awful lot of credit here—as do Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, who worked closely with senior Hamas officials to secure buy-in. This is a massive accomplishment that bears out why many people—some libertarians included!—have long perceived Trump to be a president who is oddly skilled at foreign policy and who is more prone to end conflicts or reduce American entanglement abroad than to further them. But there's still so much more to be worked out, which Trump alluded to when meeting with Middle Eastern leaders in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, last night to sort out Phase Two of the process.

"The main issue still hasn't been solved: Hamas's weapons," Akram Atallah, a London-based Palestinian journalist, told The New York Times. "The Israelis are demanding Hamas disarm, which is not a simple administrative measure. Hamas was founded on the basis of bearing arms." The most likely possible outcome looks like Hamas refusing disarmament, the Israeli military responding with some amount of continued surveillance and physical presence in the Strip, and some amount of conflict bubbling up sporadically.

There's also a high likelihood that other stakeholders will complicate negotiations: Egypt is concerned about its own domestic security as well as preventing an influx of refugees flooding over the border from Gaza. Saudi Arabia has voiced concerns about overstepping authority and violating Palestinian sovereignty—they seem to believe the Palestinian Authority, which is in charge of the West Bank, needs to assent to the new arrangement—or there essentially being a continuing occupation of the region (whether by Israel or by other peacekeeping/monitoring forces sent by other countries).

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Scenes from New York: "Attorney General Letitia James of New York is expected to rebuke President Trump and urge voters to support Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor, at a rally on Monday night," reports The New York Times. "It will be her first public appearance since she was indicted on federal charges of bank fraud and making a false statement." Of course, James is going to lean into the martyred-by-Trump thing. Naturally.

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QUICK HITS

• Inside the NBA's return to China, six years after falling out of favor for political reasons.
• "In the short term we have to start stigmatizating the consumption of short form video the way we did with cigarettes," writes Freddie deBoer on Substack in response to a Jerusalem Demsas essay talking about how she'd easily fallen into the throes of TikTok addiction, watching 10 hours of short-form content per day at one point. "Beyond that, we need muscular policy. It's pointless to say 'just practice moderation!' when giant companies have spent billions to prevent their users from practicing moderation. These tech platforms are too ruthless and too effective to expect individual resolve to work at scale." I don't know if I agree with deBoer, but the idea of power users throwing their lives away via this type of addiction makes me rather sad.
• Is the "lipstick index" no longer a good recession indicator?
• Free?

yacht party but with free ayn rand books, just in case you forgot you're in sf pic.twitter.com/mWRbBArrVp

— "paula" (@paularambles) October 13, 2025

• A $130 fine for not having papers on you, if you're a legal resident. What? Isn't this just a government cash grab?
• Interesting:

BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Dozens of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice: pic.twitter.com/UXDRkFyGEz

— Sheryl Gay Stolberg (@SherylNYT) October 11, 2025

• Yep:

Wow, it's almost like making unlimited federal loans available for universities allowed them to continually raise prices with no responsibility https://t.co/ZHIJu7FbTj

— Inez Stepman ⚪️????⚪️ (@InezFeltscher) October 13, 2025