1980 All Over Again.
After months of negotiation and pressure being placed on the United States to enforce a cease-fire deal between Israel and Gaza, it’s finally happened. President Joe Biden and his Administration have been working practically neck over head for the past fifteen months to bring both parties to the table and come up with an agreement which both sides would agree to without any hassle. President Joe Biden and his Administration successfully delivered such.
Today, on January 15th of 2025, the President announced Hamas will release 33 hostages, including women, children, and elderly individuals captured during the October 2023 attacks. Israel will release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and will withdraw from populated areas of Gaza. This will all take place during the first phase of the cease-fire. The second phase will focus more heavily on freeing remaining hostages, including male soldiers and further Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. The third and final phase as we know it will begin the initiation of Gaza's rebuilding, with oversight from international entities such as Egypt, Qatar, and the United Nations.
The cease-fire itself was brokered with the assistance of Qatar, Egypt, and the United States and will facilitate the entry of humanitarian assistance into Gaza from said nation-states and other countries within the region.
The reason this has been written as an opinion piece rather than statement is because of what you are about to read next. What I feel is the (un)shocking and (absolutely) appalling decision and action by Donald Trump, the President-elect, to claim credit for the ceasefire.
If this feels familiar, it should. It’s the same playbook Ronald Reagan ran in 1980 during the Iran hostage crisis. Just like Reagan swooped in to bask in the glow of hostages coming home—hostages freed after months of painstaking diplomacy under Jimmy Carter—Trump is trying to rewrite history to make himself the hero. And just like back then, it’s insulting, it’s opportunistic, and it’s dead wrong.
Biden did the work in 2024 and 2025, Carter did the work in 1979 and 1980. Both of these men weathered months of grueling negotiations, endured public scorn, and put in the hours to get those hostages home. But Reagan stood there on Inauguration Day, smirking as if his mere presence had parted the seas. Trump plans on doing the same.
History might have let one get away with it, but we cannot let another get away with it as well.
Donald Trump did not in any way influence the outcome of these negotiations. He didn’t sit at the table, didn’t make the calls, didn’t endure the political and diplomatic sacrifices required to get this ceasefire over the finish line. To suggest otherwise is not just misleading—it’s insulting to the families of hostages, to the people of Gaza and Israel, and to everyone who worked tirelessly to bring this nightmare to a close.
And I write all of this really to say this ceasefire is fragile.
It’s not a political trophy; it’s a lifeline for countless civilians caught in the crossfire of what is a years-long conflict. Turning it into a political prop risks unraveling the delicate balance that’s been so painstakingly achieved. The Biden administration, along with international partners, worked to create a framework for peace and rebuilding—work that deserves acknowledgment, not erasure.
The spotlight on this one does not belong to Donald Trump.
He’ll throw his usual tantrums and claim it’s ‘biased’ and ‘unfair’ that the media aren’t calling him the Great Savior for bringing peace to the Middle East. But we must do what’s right here.
Stop letting him control the narrative. It’s only doing us more harm than good.
