President Trump presented a plan yesterday to end the war in Gaza that checks every box on Israel’s wish list. Return hostages living and dead; disarm and dismantle Hamas; allow Israel to maintain a military presence on the strip’s perimeter. If Hamas rejects the deal, Trump vowed as he stood next to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, “Israel would have my full backing to finish the job of destroying the threat of Hamas.”
It’s hard to imagine Hamas signing on to Trump’s plan — its leaders have previously dismissed most of its terms, and have little incentive to agree now. But the president’s lopsided approach was jarring given how much American public opinion has shifted since the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel that sparked this war. The New York Times published a new poll yesterday showing that a majority of Americans now oppose sending more economic and military aid to Israel. For the first time since The Times began polling on this issue in 1998, more U.S. voters sympathize with Palestinians than with Israelis.
Today’s newsletter looks more closely at the poll and at Trump’s plan for what he called “eternal peace in the Middle East.”
Dramatic decline. The Times/Siena poll documented a turnabout in public sentiment. At the end of 2023, nearly half of Americans sympathized more with Israelis and 20 percent more with Palestinians. Now, 34 percent sympathize more with Israelis, 35 percent more with Palestinians and 31 percent equally with both. “I actually was pretty pro-Israel the last few years,” one voter told our pollsters. “It just doesn’t feel like a level playing field anymore.” There’s also this:
Generational change. Millennial and Gen Z Americans already back Israel less than Gen X and baby boomers do. But now Israel has lost ground with older generations, too. Majorities of every age cohort, including 54 percent of people over 65, said Israel should stop its military campaign to prevent further civilian casualties even if hostages remain in captivity. Those between 45 and 64 years old were split on whether the U.S. should continue funding Israel’s military, 47 percent in favor and 45 percent opposed. My colleagues who specialize in opinion polls described the shift as “unusually large” given how polarized we are.
International isolation. The drop in American support comes as Israel’s allies France, Britain and Canada have defied its wishes and recognized a Palestinian state at the U.N. General Assembly. Most members there boycotted Netanyahu’s speech. The Eurovision Song Contest and European soccer’s governing body are also under pressure from broadcasters and athletes to ban Israel from their competitions.
Plan for peace? Trump unveiled his vision for Gaza with typical bluster, touting it as “potentially one of the great days ever in civilization.” He said Arab and Muslim leaders had already “committed” to it. Trump seems to see no need to include Hamas in his calculations. They can agree to walk away from Gaza, or they can be wiped out. Here are some of the key elements of the 20-point plan:
Gaza would become “a de-radicalized terror-free zone” and would be redeveloped for Palestinians.
Hamas members who agreed to disarm would be given amnesty and safe passage out.
Humanitarian aid would pour into the enclave.
Hostages dead and alive would be returned in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and the remains of slain Gazans.
A new International Stabilization Force would be deployed to Gaza, which would be governed by an “apolitical” Palestinian committee.
There would be a “Board of Peace” led by Trump and Tony Blair, the former British prime minister who famously negotiated the Good Friday Agreement in Ireland.
Early reaction. Some on the Israeli right, including one member of Netanyahu’s governing coalition and his former spokesman, have already called the plan a “total failure.” It does not include several of their ideas for Gaza: keeping Israeli troops permanently in the enclave, re-establishing Jewish settlements there, removing Palestinians. Hostage families and Israel’s moderate opposition leaders embraced it.
The foreign ministers of Qatar, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt said they welcomed Trump’s “sincere efforts.” And President Emmanuel Macron of France, who had proffered his own plan, said that “Hamas has no choice but to immediately release all hostages and follow this plan.”
More news on the war
“If both sides agree to this proposal, the war will immediately end,” the White House plan says. Read the full text.
The government is suing pro-Palestinian demonstrators who protested outside a synagogue in New Jersey.
THE LATEST NEWS
Government Shutdown
Trump met with congressional leaders from both parties. They said they were no closer to a deal to keep the government open. The shutdown deadline is midnight.
Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, spoke of “very large differences” over health care. Democrats want Republicans to reverse Medicaid cuts they enacted this year.
Which federal benefits and services would continue during a shutdown? Here’s what to expect.
Trump Administration
The man at the center of the push to expand Trump’s presidential powers is Russell Vought, the White House budget director. Coral Davenport explains his role in the video above. Click to watch. (Also, read what the Constitution says about this push.)
Hundreds of U.S. generals and admirals from around the globe are meeting today with President Trump and the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth.
The Trump administration is deporting some Iranians to Iran, according to officials there. The country has one of the world’s harshest human rights records.
ICE agents have stopped and detained many U.S. citizens as part of Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Trump’s approval rating is low, at 43 percent, but it’s also stable, according to a new poll from The Times and Siena University.
The Trump administration outlined a plan to mine and burn more coal, the largest contributor to climate change.
International
Octopuses have invaded the English coast, and fishing boats are hauling them up by the netload.
A wildfire has burned more than a third of one of Africa’s biggest national parks.
Other Big Stories
The man accused of killing at least four people at a church in Michigan held a grudge against Latter-day Saints, friends told The Times. They traced his feelings to a breakup.
Some New York leaders worry that Eric Adams’s rocky tenure as mayor could undermine Black political power in the city. (Read more about Adams’s rise and fall.)
Influencers have spread conspiracy theories about Charlie Kirk’s assassination, while some people who criticized him have been dismissed from their jobs.
After a young Black man was found dead in Mississippi, a coroner and a medical examiner concluded that he hanged himself. Claims that he was lynched have spread widely, without evidence.
A Florida man killed, cooked and ate two of his own pet peacocks during a feud with a neighbor.
THE MORNING QUIZ
This question comes from a recent edition of the newsletter. Click an answer to see if you’re right. (The link will be free.)
Viv Prince, a rock drummer who died recently at 84, was renowned as a wild man. Which of these anecdotes was not in his obituary?
He released a colony of termites at a parliamentary hearing about obscenity in music.
He was too rowdy for the Hells Angels and the Who, both of which kicked him out.
He refused to play a gig because a pub across the street had declined to serve him.
He sabotaged another musician’s performance by laying carpet onstage during the show.
OPINIONS
Starbucks threw baristas under the bus when they wouldn’t write “Charlie Kirk” on cups, though they were trying to follow company policy. Unionizing would stop this mistreatment, Cassie Pritchard writes.
Here’s a column by Thomas Friedman on Trump’s Gaza peace plan.
MORNING READS
Aging well: Charlotte Chopin, 102, has been bending and stretching for decades. Here’s how she keeps moving.
Your pick: The most-clicked story in The Morning yesterday was about the church shooting in Michigan. Read the latest reporting on the shooting.
Trending: Jared Kushner is trending on Google. His private equity firm and Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund have teamed up in a deal to buy the video game giant Electronic Arts.
Globe-trotting reporter: Lally Weymouth, a journalist and socialite from the family that once owned The Washington Post, died at 82. She secured hard-to-land interviews but found few opportunities for a leadership role.
M.L.B. PLAYOFFS
The Major League Baseball playoffs begin today. The first round, known as the Wild Card Series, comprises best-of-three series hosted by whichever teams hold the higher seed. Here are a few things to know about this year’s matchups:
The enemies: The sport’s fiercest rivalry, Yankees-Red Sox, gets its first postseason matchup in years, at Yankee Stadium. “If history is our guidepost, ‘excited’ doesn’t even begin to describe what this week could be like,” Steve Buckley writes.
The comeback: The Guardians trailed the Tigers by 15.5 games in the A.L. Central over the summer, but went on a historic run to win the division. Now those teams will meet in the first round.
The big spenders: The Dodgers’ half-billion-dollar payroll (including tax penalties) is the largest in baseball history, but it wasn’t enough to earn the team a first-round bye. Still, fans can feel good that their opponents, the Reds, haven’t won a won a playoff series in 30 years.
See a preview of the first-round matchups.
More sports news: The Dolphins beat the Jets, and the Broncos bulldozed the Bengals.
CABLE NEWS COMEDY
Fox News’s spin on the late night comedy show, “Gutfeld!,” is named after its host, Greg Gutfeld. But on nights he’s not available, it turns into “Timpf!” Kat Timpf, Gutfeld’s co-host, offers an alternative to the show’s usual insult comedy, focusing her jokes instead on her own experiences — pregnancy, a breast cancer diagnosis, a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. In a new story, Amanda Hess explores Timpf’s role on Fox News and the new chapter of her life:
Inside Fox News studios, Ms. Timpf’s storytelling around her pregnancy and her cancer fits the network’s impulse to lift the veil on its anchors’ personal lives, to position its personalities as a television family. But when “Gutfeld!” airs, it also projects Ms. Timpf into a political ecosystem in which women’s autonomy over their bodies and lives is under review — where pronatalist influencers urge women to produce babies by the half-dozen, right-wing streamers preach wifely submission and critics convene in “Gutfeld!” feeds to demand that Ms. Timpf retreat from public life.
Related: On late night, Stephen Colbert joked about Trump sending the National Guard to Oregon. “It’s Waregon,” he said.
More on culture
Can college students stand to ditch their phones for an hour or so? A campus movement aims to find out.
Dolly Parton postponed her residency in Las Vegas because she said “health challenges” required her to have a “few procedures.”
THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …
Bake fish in gingery oil, layered with olives and capers.
Read one of these 27 new books out in October.
Take your suit to a tailor — it likely needs one.
GAMES
Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was occupant.
And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Sports Connections and Strands.
Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow.
Jonathan Wolfe contributed to this newsletter.
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