Today was a glorious day for the Middle East.   As Donald Trump stated, this might be the moment to bring true peace to the region in 3000 years . I asked Google AI, when did the Jews and their neighbors first have problems: Conflict between Jews and other groups has a long and complex history, with roots in ancient, religious, and political tensions.   The first notable conflicts are recorded in the   6th century BCE , involving ancient empires like the Babylonians, though the nature of these conflicts has evolved significantly over time .   3000 years  is a period even longer that the 2600 years noted above. In any case, what happened today is not quite peace, but more a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, compounded by the return of all 20 living hostages, providing a platform for truce in the Middle East, a situation almost unique in history.  Here is what the  New York Times  sent me this morning: They’re free. Two years — 737 days, to be ...

You know this Israel-Hamas War is newsworthy because I've been gazing at MSNBC all morning, and there has yet to be even one commercial.  On nostalgic Tuesday today, I focus on the Hamas and the Gaza Strip.   My posting 15 years ago said :   End to the Gaza Strip War : “Why don’t those #&%#@* Hamas idiots just stop lobbing rockets into Israel,” courtesy of a golf buddy pundit expressed at the Ala Wai Golf Course Clubhouse. He wanted me to repeat this in my daily blog, but I thought we should protect both of us from any possible fatwa by not specifically identifying the source.  Two years later in 2010 , I reported that the 128th country to visit this blog site, was the  Gaza Strip , with, then, a population of 1.5 million.   I might add  that I am now up to 221 entities and 2,731,530 pageviews.  That 875,512 pageviews in the graphic is because, I stopped paying Google many years ago to carry my blog. While there are only 195 countrie...