The Abraham Accords countries, and I include for the moment the Saudis even though that normalization isn't a done deal yet, they desperately want, and Israel desperately wants, both sides really desperately want an alliance and as

explicit and as robust as they can make it

against the great existential threat

that they both perceive in Iran.

And that means an alliance also against all the proxies that Iran has built to essentially

dismember the Sunni Arab world.

The Abraham Accords countries would invest massively, would build Gaza, and would be trying their best as a matter of fundamental policy

as a front against Iran

to rebuild, stabilize,

and essentially get the Gaza question off the table as a point of disagreement with the Israelis, as a front against Iran, and turn Gaza into a Palestinian option that isn't the Iranian option option which is what Hamas has become.

Everything else is a much worse option. It's 10.

10.30 p.m. on Sunday, December 10th in New York City.

It's 5.30 a.m. on Monday, December 11th in Israel as

Israelis get ready to start their day. Looking back at the pause in war fighting, which feels like it was many weeks ago, in fact the end of the

pause was just about a little over eight days ago, there was a sense in the midst of that pause, at least among

some U.S. officials and among many in the media, that this just might be where the war begins to end.

The ceasefire would be extended and extended and extended and

extended and

and Israel would slow walk itself into a permanent ceasefire. Ultimately though, Hamas broke the

ceasefire and the US government supported Israel's resumption of military

operations but even with the pause we got a preview of

the questions being asked of Israel and a preview of the pressure on Israel for

...