Trump’s “Ceasefire” and the Emperor’s New Clothes

An Open Letter to the Western Media

To the editors, anchors, and correspondents who still claim to report the truth,

You’ve done it again. You’ve clothed another act of violence in the language of virtue and called it peace. You’ve turned a ceasefire—forced by exhaustion, outrage, and exposure—into the redemption story of Donald Trump, the man who “brought calm” to a war he helped sustain.

All around you, the media echo the applause. The Independent reports that “the turning point came when Trump convened meetings … that made this happen.” The Guardian breathlessly describes him as “a juggernaut” who “really did put pressure on the Israelis.” One Palestinian-American mediator told The Times of Israel that Trump had “demonstrated the power of diplomacy in the face of decades of entrenched conflict.” And Republican figures were quoted declaring, “President Trump just did what career diplomats never could – he brought the world closer than it’s ever been to peace in Gaza.”

But these words, when stacked against reality, do not signal virtue — they signal the success of spectacle. What you call news has become theatre. You applaud from the front row while the emperor struts naked, confident that if you all cheer loudly enough, the audience will mistake illusion for achievement. You call it “historic.” You call it “a triumph of diplomacy.” But what history are you writing when the victims of this “peace” are silenced, when Palestine becomes a footnote to the choreography of American power?

You speak of a ceasefire as if it descended from heaven, not from Washington’s command room. You ignore Netanyahu’s open declarations that “America is our greatest ally,” as if U.S. missiles, funding, and political cover are invisible. You do not ask why Israel suddenly had the firepower to escalate, or why, when it faltered, America stepped in to bomb Iran directly. You do not see the elephant in the room. But let’s be honest—these are not elephants anymore. They are herds trampling across your headlines, and somehow you still write as though you see nothing.

Trump did not end a war; he merely paused a cycle he fed. For years, billions of dollars in American weapons and constant diplomatic protection at the United Nations made Israel’s war possible. The United States vetoed repeated ceasefire resolutions, shielding Israel from accountability while Palestinian civilians paid the price. Like his predecessor, Joe Biden, who armed Israel to the teeth after the October 2023 Hamas attack, Trump refused to use his leverage over Netanyahu. He allowed Israel to defy global outrage and isolation and continue its onslaught—and now reappears to collect credit for restraint. The arsonist is congratulated for blowing out his own match.

And let’s face it: Israel is a proxy in the region, and this dog too will have its day—and then expire. That is the nature of proxies. They are indispensable only until they are inconvenient. The Middle East has seen a long parade of them—Mubarak, Saddam, Gaddafi—each once portrayed by Western media as autonomous strongmen, supposedly defying Washington, even as they served its strategic designs. When their usefulness ended, so did their sovereignty. Yet even then, the press maintained the fiction of independence, the mythology of leadership. The same myth now cloaks Israel, whose leash is woven from American dollars, arms, and vetoes.

And you—seasoned journalists, award-winning analysts—dutifully replay the performance, mistaking self-congratulation for insight. Even a child in a playground could see through it: the bully telling his friend to stop hitting doesn’t become a hero. He wants the credit for restraint.

I just wanted to let you know that your reporting no longer informs. It performs. It sells the illusion that the empire can absolve itself through its own restraint, that violence becomes noble when managed efficiently. You have abandoned the first duty of journalism—to speak truth to power, not decorate its lies.

The emperor is naked. The elephants are everywhere. And yet you keep drawing curtains instead of pulling them back. Journalism dies the moment it stops naming what it sees.