Feb. 27: ‘Israel’s Going to Have to Decide What They’re Doing’

90% of USAID projects slashed; trans people barred from military; Trump seeks end to congestion pricing in NY

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The Big Story

On Wednesday evening, Israel began to release the more than 600 Palestinian security prisoners who had originally been scheduled to be freed over the weekend. In exchange, Hamas released the dead bodies of four hostages.

Several of these prisoners were high-profile terrorists, The Times of Israel reports. One, for instance, was Ammar al-Zabban, a Hamas commander who planned attacks that killed 27 Israeli citizens in the 1990s. Another was Nael Barghouti, the longest-serving Palestinian inmate in Israeli prisons, who was jailed in 1978 for killing 27-year-old Israeli bus driver Mordechai Yekuel. Barghouti was briefly freed in the 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange but was arrested three years later and convicted on terrorism charges. Jerusalemite Ala al-Din al-Bazyan, released in the latest exchange, served 42 years in prison for multiple terror attacks and was involved in a 2014 kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers. While most of these prisoners were deported abroad, some—including the Hamas operative Hamza al-Kaluti, who was serving a life sentence for planning suicide bombings in the 1990s—were allowed to return to the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

On the other side, Hamas released the body of Tsachi Idan. On X, Open Source Intel shared GoPro footage of terrorists detaining Idan and his family in their home on Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7, 2023, shortly after executing Idan’s eldest daughter. According to his family, Idan was still alive at the time of the last hostage exchange, in November 2023, but died or was killed—executed, we assume—at some point since then.

Once again, President Donald Trump appeared revolted by the spectacle:

In an email to The Scroll, Tablet’s Lee Smith wrote that the president seems to be communicating that he is disgusted by Hamas and no longer cares how they are dealt with:

I don’t mean that anyone is encouraging mass slaughter, but the world recognizes that Israel has to play by the rules set by Europeans and American leftists, who think like Europeans, i.e., the people who exterminated Jews in the last century. Normal people are sick of this garbage, which leads only to death and soul death.

Smith also believes that Trump’s stance toward Hamas is consistent with his pragmatism and the seriousness with which he regards his role as a leader and statesman.

The leader of any nation that takes its own security seriously does not want to see its allies abused. We know how the Romans responded to this sort of thing. When Trump says the Israelis have to decide, he means they have to be decisive, because it is not good when your allies appear to be uncertain—because it reflects on you. The allies’ losses stick to you as much as the allies’ victories ennoble you. It was very good for the United States when the Israelis brought down more than 80 Soviet jets and destroyed a Soviet-made SAM [surface-to-air missile] during what is known as the Bekaa Valley Turkey Shoot in 1982. An American ally crushed a Soviet ally. We want our allies to win all the time. When they lose, it is bad for us because we, too, look weak. In this case, Trump made a strong statement, which he has repeated many times. In the meantime, the hostage process is bad for Israel and its citizens primarily and also for anyone who believes in right and wrong—and for Americans, including the president, who believes that our own national security is tied in part to the strength of our allies.

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The Rest

→Chief Justice John Roberts intervened Wednesday to allow the Trump administration to keep foreign aid frozen, overturning U.S. District Judge Amir Ali, who had imposed a Wednesday deadline on the administration to resume those payments. Roberts issued a stay to Ali’s order after Solicitor General Sarah Harris filed an emergency application arguing that officials couldn’t possibly comply with that urgent deadline, preventing the possibility that administration officials could be held in contempt of the courts. Following Roberts’ intervention, the administration announced it is eliminating 90% of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s foreign aid assistance and $60 billion in overall U.S. assistance worldwide, according to the Associated Press. The cuts would leave very little USAID projects left to save. Roberts is almost certain to refer the matter to the full Supreme Court, and his stay is likely to remain in place until the full court acts.

→Unless they receive an exemption, transgender service members will be separated from the military, according to a Pentagon memo filed in court on Wednesday. This move goes further than Trump’s 2018 Mattis Policy—which allowed trans military members who had already transitioned to continue to serve, but prevented those who hadn’t fully transitioned from doing so—and essentially bans all trans people from serving in the military. The memo ordered the Pentagon to create a procedure to identify trans troops within 30 days; it allots another 30 days to start discharging them from service. The memo states that the medical, mental, and surgical needs of trans military members make it difficult for them to meet the high standards of military readiness. To meet the waiver, trans people must be able to show that they can spend 36 consecutive months living as their birth-assigned sex without psychological stress. Out of 1.3 million service members, trans-rights advocates say 15,000 are trans service members, while officials say the number is closer to the low thousands, according to The Guardian.

→The Trump administration set March 21 as its deadline for New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and her administration to comply with its Feb. 19 order to halt congestion pricing in New York City on Wednesday, lest the state face legal repercussions, according to the Associated Press. The New York administration was given the order in a letter sent Wednesday, a day after Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy called congestion pricing “a slap in the face to working-class Americans.” Hochul, who met with Trump at the White House last Friday to present him with a booklet demonstrating the success of congestion pricing, is planning to fight the order, citing the 10% overall reduction in New York traffic and the prospective $500 million the tax will generate.

→Florida has become the first state to enter into an agreement with the Trump administration allowing state and local law enforcement officials to exercise federal immigration duties, according to the Washington Examiner. All 67 county sheriff’s departments across the state have signed what are known as 287(g) agreements with the federal government that permit non-federal law enforcement in the state to perform some immigration responsibilities. As reported last week by The Wall Street Journal, officials from the Trump administration have been disappointed with a slower-than-predicted pace of carrying out Trump’s mass deportation initiative. Acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Caleb Vitello was removed from his post on Feb. 21 as a result of that disappointment, with Louisiana Secretary for Wildlife and Fisheries Madison Sheahan expected to fill Vitello’s role. Vitello will remain at ICE and head the office responsible for carrying out arrests and deportations. Reportedly, Trump officials wanted ICE to carry out at least 75 deportations a day, a number it has yet to reach, leading some officials in the administration to openly wonder if executing Trump’s deportation agenda with the current government infrastructure is feasible.

→Stat of the Day: 33%

That’s the percentage of Democratic voters that are no longer “backing” Israel, according to a Gallup poll published Monday. The figure represents a steep decline in Israeli support within the party, down from 63% three years ago. According to the same poll, 83% of Republican voters are favorable to Israel. The poll represents the deep chasm between how voters from both parties see the issue, after decades of Israel being a bipartisan issue, according to The Times of Israel.

→Brothers and right-wing influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate left Romania earlier today and are expected to land in Florida sometime today, according to The New York Times. The brothers, who have been held in Romania while under criminal investigation for the past two years, have faced a protracted legal battle with Romanian prosecutors who charged them with sex trafficking and trying to form an organized crime syndicate. The brothers have also been charged in the United Kingdom based on allegations of sexual aggression in cases that allegedly transpired between 2012 and 2015. Romania lifted travel restrictions on the brothers Wednesday and said it was not pressured to do so by U.S. authorities. Despite that, the brothers’ sudden departure from Romania has led to questions about the Trump administration’s involvement in their move. The Tates’ lawyer Joseph McBride said he had no comment on U.S. officials’ involvement but added, “Do the math. These guys are on the plane.” The Tates endorsed Trump’s candidacy in 2024, and following the advice of his youngest son, Barron, Trump reportedly sought the endorsements of popular online influencers like Jake Paul and Adin Ross. According to research conducted by the Pew Research Center, the endorsements of online influencers were far more favorable to Trump than Kamala Harris. In a joint press conference with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer today, Trump said he knew nothing about the Tates’ arrival to Florida.

→Quote of the Day

Did I say that? I can’t believe I said that. Next question.

That’s President Trump in his joint press conference with Keir Starmer responding to a reporter asking him whether or not he still thinks Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a dictator.

→Turkey’s jailed militant leader Abdullah Ocalan called on his Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to lay down arms in a statement posted Thursday—a move that could end its 40-year conflict with the Turkish government, Reuters says. If PKK heeds its founder’s advice, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan would gain a historic opportunity to develop southern Turkey. That said, Tablet News Editor Tony Badran reminded us that Ocalan has long maintained dialogue with the government even while jailed and has even asked his party to dissolve once before, in 2015. “What’s interesting about it isn’t so much the call itself, which of course is meaningful, but the context in which it’s made,” says Badran. “That is, the victory of Turkey’s allies in Syria, the end of the Assad regime, and the possibility of a U.S. withdrawal. With this, the call opens the door for talks about a new arrangement, with the understanding that the PKK is out of options in Syria. PKK’s position has weakened considerably, especially if the United States is going to withdraw.”

Earlier today, PKK’s Syrian wing Kurdish Democratic Union Party leader Salih Muslim said that his party agrees with Ocalan’s statement. “There would be no need for weapons if we are allowed to work politically,” he said. “If the reasons for carrying weapons disappear, we will lay them down.”

→Iconic actor of the New Hollywood generation Gene Hackman was found dead alongside his wife and dog at the family’s home in New Mexico. The bodies of Hackman, 95, and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, 64, were found by maintenance workers in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Santa Fe on Wednesday afternoon. The couple’s other two dogs were found alive, roaming the property. Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza said in a phone interview with The New York Times that an emergency call was placed Wednesday afternoon by the actor’s family after Hackman and his wife couldn’t be reached. While there was no sign of a gas leak, investigators conclude from what appear to be the swift deaths of Hackman and Arakawa that there might have been one. While no foul play is as of yet suspected, The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this afternoon that authorities believed the deaths were suspicious enough to warrant serious investigation.

Hackman shot to fame after receiving his first Academy Award for his legendary role as Det. Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle in William Friedkin’s 1971 crime thriller The French Connection. He also won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his performance as the villain in Clint Eastwood’s 1992 Western epic Unforgiven. He solidified his legacy with similarly beloved performances in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums, and Jerry Schatzberg’s Scarecrow, among many others. Hackman left home at age 16 to enlist in the Army to fight in Vietnam, lying about his age to bypass age restrictions on recruitment. He later joined the performing arts troupe Pasadena Playhouse, in which he and his friend Dustin Hoffman were considered the “least likely to succeed” in their class. The two actors moved to New York together to pursue acting, becoming roommates with Robert Duvall. Film critic Pauline Kael said that Hackman’s distinctly non-leading man look contributed to the power of his performances: “He has bags under his eyes, and his face has caved in a bit. Maybe that’s why when he lights up, it really means something.”

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