For most of the past 17 months, the idea of a political settlement to the war in Gaza, much less the Israel-Palestinian conflict, has appeared far from reality \u2013 eclipsed by a devastating military campaign that has killed tens of thousands, and black and white rhetoric. <\/p>\n
Hamas members are \u201csick and twisted,\u201d in the words of US President Donald Trump. The only option, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly pledged, is to \u201celiminate\u201d the militant group \u2013 his oft-vaunted \u201ctotal victory.\u201d <\/p>\n
And yet on Wednesday it emerged that the US president may be willing to settle for something far more practical: His government is breaking with its longstanding policy of not talking with groups it deems to be terrorist organizations. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe special envoy who\u2019s engaged in those negotiations does have the authority to talk to anyone,\u201d the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters Wednesday. \u201cThese are ongoing talks and discussions.\u201d <\/p>\n
Beyond Trump\u2019s rhetoric of expelling Palestinians from Gaza and taking over the enclave, it appears as though the US government wants to hear what Hamas might want in exchange for the release of 59 hostages it still holds. Only one American still believed to be alive, Edan Alexander, remains in Gaza. The group also holds four dead Americans. <\/p>\n
Previous talks have all been held through the intermediaries of Qatar and Egypt. <\/p>\n
Hamas, which grew out of the Muslim Brotherhood, was founded in the late 1980s and is dedicated to resisting the Israeli state. It had long advocated for the destruction of Israel, but in 2017 said that it was prepared to accept a Palestinian state in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem \u2013 inside the borders that existed before Israel captured large swaths of territory from Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. <\/p>\n
Under international law, Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem are considered to be militarily occupied by the Israeli state. <\/p>\n
A central goal of Israel\u2019s devastating war on Gaza has been to remove Hamas from power and to eliminate its ability to threaten Israel. <\/p>\n
On at least that first point, Hamas\u2019 leadership abroad has been increasingly clear that it is willing to step aside. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe say clearly that it is not necessary for Hamas to be part of the political or administrative arrangements in the next phase,\u201d spokesperson Hazem Qassem told Al Arabiya last month. <\/p>\n
When Arab leaders, scrambling to respond to Trump\u2019s Gaza plan, proposed this week an interim coalition government for Gaza which would not include Hamas, the militant group quickly endorsed the plan. <\/p>\n
The mundane realities of providing schooling, healthcare, and basic municipal services is incompatible, he said, with resisting Israeli occupation. \u201cSince they won the elections in 2006 and they took over the Gaza Strip in summer 2007, it has become obvious to Hamas that they cannot do both things,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The fact that so many of Hamas\u2019 political leaders \u2013 who have for years live abroad in Qatar and Turkey \u2013 were unaware of the plan to attack Israel on October 7 speaks to the relative supremacy of resistance over governance within the movement. <\/p>\n
But the central, unresolved issue is whether the group will disarm. <\/p>\n
\u201cI am aware that discussions on this matter are ongoing within Hamas\u2019s leadership abroad, and opinions are divided,\u201d Gershon Baskin, a veteran Israeli negotiator-turned-peace activist who has a long history of speaking with Hamas, said recently. <\/p>\n
Publicly, the group has been unequivocal. The idea that Hamas would lay down its arms is \u201ca red line and is not up for discussion or negotiation,\u201d Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesperson, said in a recent interview. <\/p>\n
The reality may be a bit more complicated. <\/p>\n
\u201cHamas are not lunatics,\u201d said Hamz\u00e9 Attar, a Palestinian journalist and defense analyst from Gaza who has lived abroad for more than a decade. \u201cThey know that there is a point where weapons mean nothing, and they will be more of an obstacle than a leverage.\u201d <\/p>\n
That point, however, will be hard for Netanyahu to stomach: a Palestinian state. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor them it is inconceivable to ask Hamas to lay down their weapons or their arms before there is a meaningful political settlement to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,\u201d Abusada said. \u201cFor them, according to international law, any occupied people \u2013 like the Ukrainians for example \u2013 have the right to defend themselves.\u201d <\/p>\n
The group is also very aware, analysts say, that any commitment to a state must be ironclad and backed by international actors such as Saudi Arabia, which has said that normalized diplomatic relations with Israel are conditional on Palestinian statehood. <\/p>\n
Even before October 7, the Israeli prime minister paid only the most passing lip service to the two-state solution. Since then, he has steadfastly vowed that a state would be \u201ca reward for terrorism.\u201d He has endorsed Trump\u2019s plan to encourage the emigration of all 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza, and his far-right coalition partners are readying their plans to re-establish Jewish settlements in the enclave. <\/p>\n
Trump has proven over and again that he is willing to force longtime American allies into uncomfortable positions if he thinks it will benefit him. <\/p>\n
His administration negotiated with the Taliban to withdraw Western forces from Afghanistan, leading to the eventual overthrow of the longtime American-backed government of President Ashraf Ghani. <\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s leaders are clearly nervous about what Trump might negotiate with Hamas. When it was revealed that the US was speaking with Hamas, the prime minister\u2019s office released a terse statement that \u201cIsrael has expressed to the United States its position regarding direct talks with Hamas\u201d \u2013 without saying what that position was. <\/p>\n
The question now will be how far Trump is willing to go. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe US has almost no leverage on Hamas and US threats against Hamas are almost useless,\u201d Baskin said. \u201cThe US is not likely to bomb Gaza or to have US boots on the ground.\u201d <\/p>\n
The main danger, in his view, is that the US would give a green light to \u201cfurther Israeli breaches of international law, such as cutting humanitarian supplies.\u201d Israel denies breaching international law in Gaza. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no deal without ending the war and without Israel exiting Gaza. There is no end to the war without all of the hostages being freed. There is no real end to the war if Hamas \u2013 militarily or politically \u2013 continues to control Gaza.\u201d <\/p>\n
Trump may tell Hamas\u2019 leadership that \u201cnow is the time to leave Gaza,\u201d but his national security advisers will surely be telling him that America believes that the militant group has recruited more members than it has lost fighting Israel. <\/p>\n
A senior member of Hamas\u2019 politburo, Osama Hamdan, said recently that the group has \u201can opportunity to expand,\u201d and that any outside actor who comes into Gaza to do Israel\u2019s bidding \u201cwill be treated like Israel.\u201d <\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s new military chief warned this week that the country must prepare for a \u201cprolonged multi-front war of attrition.\u201d <\/p>\n
That will not sit well with an American president who casts himself as a peacemaker. <\/p>\n
\u201cI understand that we are all still in a state of deep trauma,\u201d Baskin said of his fellow Israelis. \u201cI understand that the majority of Israelis today reject the idea of a Palestinian state. But the reality of more than 7 million Israeli Jews and more than 7 million Palestinian Arabs living on the land between the (Jordan) River and the (Mediterranean) Sea is much stronger and compelling than the current mood of Israeli public opinion.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
For most of the past 17 months, the idea of a political settlement to the war in Gaza, much less the Israel-Palestinian conflict, has appeared far from reality \u2013 eclipsed by a devastating military campaign that has killed tens of thousands, and black and white rhetoric. Hamas members are \u201csick and twisted,\u201d in the words […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":10268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}