- cross-posted to:
- worldnewsnonus
- cross-posted to:
- worldnewsnonus
Netanyahu is under pressure to keep his coalition government intact. Two far-right partners have threatened to bolt in protest at any deal they deem to spare Hamas. A centrist partner, ex-general Benny Gantz, wants the deal considered. Hamas has provisionally welcomed the Biden initiative.
Axios seems to have some more details in this article:
https://www.axios.com/2024/06/01/israel-gaza-hostage-ceasefire-deal-confirms-biden
Basically the deal is a temporary cease fire that would then allow negotiations for a full ceasefire after that. It’s a gamble, but the US seems to think that if they can get the conflict to a very low grade state, they can convince the Israeli’s not to go back in. In a vacuum this isn’t a terrible strategy, but there is broad public support for the war in Israel and the ruling coalition knows their days are numbered if there is no war. Even a temporary ceasefire is better than nothing though.
It’s not something the Palestinian public can accept. Give over ALL your leverage in exchange for a temporary deal that has no incentive to prevent a resumption of war, no quantifiable guarantees of aid or allowing people to return to their homes, or advance to Two State solution? To say nothing of the West Bank pogroms and Al Aqsa incursions that triggered the Oct 7 reprisal attack in the first place.
There’s a reason Hamas originally rejected the Israeli offer; it was insultingly bad and only benefited Israel. That’s why the original offer argued over “ceasefire” versus “sustainable calm,” whatever that means.
A ceasefire is just kicking the can down the road until Hamas rearms and breaks it again. it’s literally worse than nothing because it solves nothing and it undoes all the progress Israel has achieved in securing Gaza from the terrorist group Hamas.
The US should be calling for the unconditional surrender of Hamas and for the return of all the hostages and/or their remains, anything less is just kowtowing to Islamic terrorism.
I’m pretty doubtful that much progress has been made to destroy Hamas. They use Israeli unexploded ordinance to make bombs which they now have more than they know what to do with, and they couldn’t ask for a better recruiting tool than this war. At a certain point you have to be realistic about the situation and realize they will have to deal with Hamas in negotiations.
The US already calls for that. And Netanyahu has said repeatedly that even if Hamas returns every hostage and surrenders the war will not end.
Kicking the can down the road in Gaza has been Israeli policy for over a decade. The strategy is called “mowing the grass”. The idea being you can destroy the terrorist of the week’s tactical ability to strike and buy Israel a few years of peace. Repeat this cycle every few years until ???, then magically resolve the issue.
This failed catastrophically on October 7, because the typical cycle of Gazan attack happened to allign with a catastrophic security failure on the part of Israel.
The question remains: what comes next. The US’s complaint from October 8 on has been that Israel has no day-after plan. Without a day after plan, all that destroying Hamas will accomplish is have the next round be conducted by a terrorist group not called Hamas.
Every tactical move Israel makes today harms its strategic position for the day after plan. At the beginning of the war, some strategic concessions were needed to adress the very real tactical concerns. But there are massively diminishing returns.