THE war is over.

I saw it, it must be true. Trump got his little note from his little friend, and it’s the greatest day in the history of civilisation since the last time he proclaimed it was the greatest day in the history of civilisation.

That’s the thing about being the greatest: what marks that sort apart from the rest of us mere mortals. Records tumble, and every day is just another high.

Not an eyebrow seems to be raised as the secretary of war fistpumps while his boss talks peace and scribbles his signature on the leather-bound paperwork thrust before him.

Beloved by Hamas, Netanyahu, Starmer, Farage, Putin, and so many more, it’s hard to truly comprehend this staggering genius — not least because his grasp of language is so very special.

Thousands of miles away in “Hostage Square” Tel Aviv, the skyscrapers loom as the friends and family of Israelis taken two years ago rejoice. Singing and cheering, the stars and stripes dangling alongside the Star of David on a pole carried by someone dressed as a Minecraft version of Donald Trump — tan lines around the eyes and all.

Fifty miles from there, in the dust that remains after the Gaza open-air prison became a death camp, survivors rejoice too. No fancy dress and little left in the way of flags, otherwise the dancing and singing, the joy, the sheer relief, would not have looked out of place in Tel Aviv.

For two years, people on those streets and around this Earth have wondered just how many people had to be starved to death, how many bodies had to be ripped apart, how many children had to be used as target practice to make some toy titans feel like men.

We now have an answer.

At the time of writing, it is 67,173, around 20,000 of them children.

Some estimates have put the real number near three times that total, but the official figures are bad enough. Two per cent of the children living in Gaza at the end of 2023 are now dead.

Donald Trump is easy to mock. The ego, the misogyny, the 6’2” spoilt-brat made president, the front-man for a proto-fascist cabal. The man who trades on the status of the wildly successful billionaire businessman would famously have been richer if he’d just cashed in his daddy’s property portfolio and opened a National Savings account.

Throughout his journey, though, the prodigy who once managed the truly remarkable feat of running a casino into bankruptcy has demonstrated one thing time and time again.

He understands power.

He’s leveraged it to get away with all manner of misdeeds over the years, building a gilt-edged reputation for not paying his contractors, going bankrupt to avoid creditors, and making awkward allegations of sexual misconduct go away.

Like most bullies, he’s thin-skinned, and the idea that Barack Obama would have a Nobel Peace Prize over him is just too much to bear. On this, I admit some sympathy. I have genuinely no idea what Obama did to immediately be granted that honour, and his behaviour throughout his term should have seen it torn off his wall.

Gave a good speech at the correspondents’ dinner, though. That mic drop! What a guy.

It’s a shame about what else he was so fond of dropping.

Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, and Pakistan were all used as testing grounds by Obama for the new drone army; civilians slaughtered, and a new round of angry young men duly created. It has been the way of US foreign policy for so long now that it would have been more of a shock if he had demurred, but of course, he did not.

Trump hasn’t either. He proved something very important this week, however, something that every opponent of the Gaza genocide has said from the very first: the US president had the power to pull the plug on this carnage from day one.

Having power and being willing or able to use it are very different things. Trump is willing to use it if it gets him a trip to Oslo, and he has proven himself more than able to do so.

Not through the silver-tongued negotiation, but the straightforward bully boy tactic. The pictures released by the White House showing Trump holding the phone as Netanyahu is forced to read the apology to Qatar drafted for him were, I’ll confess, satisfactory for me.

There was at least some quantum of justice in seeing a kid-killing bully like the Israeli prime minister put in his place by the biggest bully on the block — after a generation in power, the people of Palestine know only too well that no-one else had managed this or even tried.

The idea that this proto-deal on Gaza could not have been reached long ago is fanciful; what was lacking was political will.

The tide did begin to turn in recent months as the governments of Europe began to sidle away from Israel as the protests grew, the direct action mounted, and just a fraction of the horror of it all began to reach our screens in ways that even the most dismissive of the broadcast media could no longer fully deny.

Even sections of Trump’s Maga base were beginning to ask awkward questions about how little attention Netanyahu seemed to pay to the wishes of a state that bankrolled his — to the tune of over $40 billion over the last decade.

You know I started with a lie though. The war is not over. The bombs still fall, the Palestinian villages still face their daily humiliations, terrors, and home invasions; and thousands of those people, much of the media ludicrously insist on calling “prisoners” still languish in torture facilities built on the Yankee dollar.

At home, our governments have spent the last couple of years playing the military game. Throwing billions at a war economy to secure Britain’s long-cherished role as armourer to the planet — including genocidal despots like Netanyahu — and rattling those sabres to spook the electorate into backing a more dangerous, more miserable, and poorer world even as they take their places in the foodbank queue.

I say governments, because as far as I can see, they are all on board the war train now. At least there’s some sort of perverse honesty in Starmer’s stated dream to tool up for a war economy, but in Scotland, Swinney plays a cuter game.

While the Scottish government recently backed Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel, they loosened their rules on public cash being funnelled into companies supplying other killing sprees. It was hardly noticed in all the excitement that, in pulling the plug — as best they can — on the war of the day, they happily cast the seeds for the next.

It’s a long way from the “Bairns not Bombs” slogan Swinney once campaigned on.

I live in hope that the pots and pans that at 6pm every day around the country have been rattling for Gaza will one day drown out those sabres.

Netanyahu has lost the dressing room at home and abroad, while Starmer lurches to authoritarianism as he runs from his shadow. Both desperately vying to be the giggling sidekick to bully boy Trump with state visits and nominations to the Nobel committee.

Most power is a transient thing. In a few years’ time, none of those people will have it.

The millions of workers around this earth who celebrate the glimmers of peace, who marched for it, who crossed seas putting their lives on the line to feed the hungry, who stood up to smash the weapons of war, will still have it, though.

That power is latent, permanent, and our best chance for peace.

Until we realise it, the war is never over.