May 29: Hamas Rejects Steve Witkoff Ceasefire Framework
Elon exits DOGE; Palmer Luckey vindicated; Trump presidential pardons and commutations
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The Big Story
President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff presented Israeli officials with a new proposal for a 60-day cease-fire and hostage deal with Hamas, the details of which emerged Thursday. N12 News Chief Political Analyst Amit Segal outlined the terms of the deal in a post on X:
On the first day, five living hostages and nine deceased will be released.
On the seventh day, five living hostages and nine deceased will be released.
In exchange for the living hostages, Israel will release 125 Palestinians serving life sentences and 1,111 prisoners arrested after Oct. 7.
In exchange for the 18 deceased hostages, Israel will release 180 bodies of Gazans.
Israel will cease offensive military operations in Gaza.
President Trump will declare a cease-fire and act as guarantor to ensure that the deal is respected.
On the 10th day, Hamas will deliver a detailed medical report on the conditions of the living hostages still in captivity.
This deal would not be great for Israel. Most concerning is the absence of instruction about who will be responsible for distributing food in Gaza. If it’s to be the United Nations, Hamas would essentially be given a lifeline that will allow it to regroup and rearm during the 60 days of temporary peace.
Nevertheless, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told families of the hostages that he has accepted Witkoff’s proposal, according to Al Arabiya.
Hamas, perhaps unsurprisingly to Scroll readers, said Thursday it will not accept the terms of Witkoff’s new framework. A source told The Jerusalem Post that Hamas feels “screwed over” by the U.S. administration, claiming that being forced to give up the hostages within a week would leave the terror group without leverage in future negotiations. Hamas also wants some confirmation, like a statement from Trump, that the war will end.
Another source close to Hamas told Walla! News that the militant group believes Witkoff’s new deal is more biased in favor of Israel than previous frameworks were, and accuses the envoy of relenting to all the demands made by Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer during Witkoff’s meeting with him Tuesday. Those demands haven’t been made public.
Earlier this week, you may remember, Hamas claimed that it had accepted the terms of a cease-fire deal that would allow for the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza without condition (per Al Jazeera), but Witkoff quickly denied that it was his proposal that Hamas had accepted, adding that what he’d seen from the group was “totally unacceptable.” Hamas was likely lying, hoping that it could use the media to pressure Israel to accept a less favorable deal. Later Thursday, Hamas sources told i24News that it will take the group “days” to review the latest proposal, but that ultimately “it’s a bad deal.”
Tablet staff writer Armin Rosen believes that Israel wisely accepted the cease-fire knowing that Hamas would reject it, highlighting the terror organization as a bad actor that can’t be trusted. Ultimately, he says, there’s never going to be any deal in which Hamas agrees to release all the remaining hostages. “There’s been all but 18 months between the summer of 2006 and today where Hamas didn’t have a living Israeli to ransom, torture, and serve as the embodiment of a conquered enemy,” he said. “Hostages are of supreme strategic and psychic importance to them—a dark mirror to the Israelis, in a way.”
Conversely, Tablet contributor Lee Smith worries that by continuing to negotiate with Hamas, the United States is inadvertently conditioning the public to believe that the militant group is a legitimate international actor, potentially diminishing the administration’s credibility on other key policies.
“How do you deport someone for supporting a designated foreign terror organization when you treat a terror organization like a legitimate political body?” Smith asks, continuing:
My understanding is that Steve Witkoff is as loyal to the president as the president is to him. I’m sure he’s doing his best, but these negotiations are a disaster. Every news article, every social media post saying that Hamas turned down a U.S. proposal is a blow to American prestige—which is what happens when you give a terror group an opening to rub America’s nose in the dirt. Trump should end these talks as quickly as possible. An administration that promotes national sovereignty should not be reinforcing globalist norms by dealing with a terror group.
Smith believes that the only viable basis for freeing the remaining hostages, American and Israeli alike, is contained within the president’s March 5 Truth Social post:
—Adam Lehrer
The Rest
→Elon Musk announced his departure from the Department of Government Efficiency Wednesday. Musk criticized President Trump’s “big, beautiful” spending bill in an interview earlier this week, arguing that it will increase, not reduce, government spending, and complained that the spending package would undermine the work DOGE is doing. The comments earned rebuke from White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who said on X Tuesday that DOGE cuts are related to discretionary spending—which, according to Miller, can’t be cut in a reconciliation bill. Despite that, The New York Times reported Wednesday that Musk and the president are still on good terms, but Musk’s disillusionment with the limitations of the federal bureaucracy has raised questions about the alliance between the two men. Musk has said he will devote more time to his companies. Both Musk and the White House said that DOGE will continue after Musk’s departure, and Vice President J.D. Vance said last month that Musk will continue to serve as an adviser to both him and the president following his exit from the federal government. Russ Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, is expected to take over the lead role at DOGE after managing much of the agency’s work during Musk’s transition, according to Newsweek.
→Palmer Luckey, the founder of military technology company Anduril Industries, announced on X Thursday that Anduril would be teaming up with Meta to “make the world’s best AR and VR systems for the United States military.” It’s the culmination of one of the wilder stories in American business, in which Tablet’s Jeremy Stern ended up playing a role. As detailed in our blockbuster profile last summer, Zuckerberg ousted Luckey from Meta on the basis of politics —actually, because of a $10,000 donation to a pro-Trump troll group dedicated to “shitposting in real life” (really, if you haven’t already, go read the whole piece).
Quoted in Stern’s article, Mark Zuckerberg said, “I was sad when [Luckey’s] time at Meta came to an end, but the silver lining is that his work at Anduril is going to be extremely important for our national security. I hope we can find ways to work together in the future.” Now, it would seem, the future has arrived.
To read Stern’s article, click below
https://www.tabletmag.com/feature/american-vulcan-palmer-luckey-anduril
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→Some of the notable figures among the 24 people issued presidential pardons and sentence commutations by Donald Trump on Wednesday:
Larry Hoover: This one may be a win for legendary artist and infamous antisemite Ye, who performed alongside Drake at the Free Larry Hoover Benefit Concert and reportedly lobbied the Trump administration on Hoover’s behalf. President Trump issued a sentence commutation to the founder and leader of the Gangster Disciples, a Chicago gang, who had been convicted of murder in Chicago in 1973. Hoover continued to direct criminal enterprise from prison and was sentenced on federal charges of drug trafficking and extortion in 1997, leading him to be held in solitary confinement in Colorado for three decades. Trump was only able to commute Hoover’s sentence on the federal charges. He doesn’t have the power to commute state charges, and Hoover will have to serve the remainder of his life sentence; he won’t be eligible for parole until 2062, when the convict will be 111 years old. Supporters of the former gangster say prison reformed him.
Michael Grimm: The former Staten Island congressman who pleaded guilty to felony tax fraud in 2014 is said by Trump’s aides to have been subjected to a political witch hunt much like the one the president endured in 2024 (per The New York Times). Grimm has been a loyal supporter of Trump in the media over the years, until he was left paralyzed by a horse riding injury in September. He was issued a full pardon Thursday.
Michael Harris: The cofounder of Death Row Records served 33 years of a 25-to-life sentence for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder of a rival member of a drug gang in 1987, according to the Los Angeles Times. Harris disavowed his criminal life in prison and became a social activist. He first had his sentence commuted by Trump at the end of the president’s first term. Harris endorsed Trump in October and was issued a full pardon Thursday (per The New York Times). With the pardon, Harris is absolved of his crime, and his civil rights have been restored.
NBA YoungBoy: The Louisiana rap artist was sentenced to two years in a Baton Rouge court in 2021 for gun charges after a long history of legal issues (per The New York Times). The rapper’s Wednesday pardon was confirmed by two anonymous officials in the administration Wednesday (per Associated Press). “I want to thank President Trump for granting me a pardon and giving me the opportunity to keep building—as a man, as a father, and as an artist,” said the artist in a statement published online.
→In yet another example of judges seemingly having the power to veto all executive branch policy, the Court of International Trade blocked most of President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs Wednesday, declaring that the president overstepped his authority by imposing across-the-board duties on imports from U.S. trading partners, according to Reuters. The court said the Constitution gives Congress the authority to regulate commerce with other countries, and it can’t be overridden by the president’s emergency powers. Following the ruling, the U.S. dollar rallied and Wall Street futures rose.
→Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Wednesday that the administration will begin imposing visa bans on foreign nationals whom it deems are censoring Americans on social media platforms, according to Reuters. “It is unacceptable for foreign officials to demand that American tech platforms adopt global content moderation policies or engage in censorship activity that reaches beyond their authority and into the United States,” he said in his statement yesterday. Both Facebook and Meta have said that the EU content moderation law amounts to censorship of their platforms; the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, seems to agree, having warned in March that the EU law excessively restricts expression and speech. While Rubio didn’t address any specific acts of censorship by foreign actors, most analysts agree that the move is an escalation in the administration’s conflict with Europe over speech laws.
→That wasn’t the only announcement made by Rubio Wednesday concerning foreign nationals; the secretary of state also vowed that the administration would “aggressively revoke” visas of Chinese students, including those with ties to the Chinese Communist Party and those who are studying in “critical fields,” according to The New York Times. The State Department will revise criteria to “enhance scrutiny” of all future applications from China, including Hong Kong. In 2024, roughly 20% of student visas were issued to Chinese applicants. Analysts believe that the move will lead to reprisal from the CCP.
→Article of the Day:
A new report from Wired published Wednesday quotes former staffers of South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace who alleged that the congresswoman forced them to create burner accounts on social media to both promote her and combat criticism online. Mace, who told her staffers that she’s a “self-taught coder,” allegedly used those skills to obsessively monitor her image across social media platforms, enlisting her staff to assist her in her efforts. “We had to make multiple accounts and go and reply to comments, saying things that weren’t even true,” said one former staffer to the magazine. “We were congressional staff, and there were actual things we could be doing to help the constituents.”
To read the article, click below:
https://www.wired.com/story/nancy-mace-former-staff-burner-accounts/
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Trump and Witkoff should both realize that this is not a real estate deal that has gone sour, but rather an ideologically driven refusal and dynamic that can only be changed with the refusal and obliteration of Hamas
Lee Smith is 100% on the mark Trump should end the farce of these negotiations as well as the same farce with Iran