Posted on 08/16/2024 9:46:32 PM PDT by jfd1776
Nine months into the war, and the latest complaint is that Israel is making it harder to get a ceasefire in Gaza, because Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government is adding new demands in the ceasefire negotiations.
The talks between Israel and Hamas have continued for months, facilitated – if that’s the right word, and it may not be – by Egypt, the United States, and Qatar. Hamas complains that Israel has been moving the goalposts in recent weeks, issuing new demands that make it harder to come to an agreement.
Is that true? And if so, is it fair?
In a way, the complaint can be discarded easily with one simple acknowledgment:
Of course the proposals will change. That’s how peace treaty negotiations work. You can always accept a proposal on the table when it’s on the table. If you don’t accept it, you cannot expect that same proposal to be offered the following month, or even the following day.
If Hamas is really unhappy that some points that Israel offered months ago are now off the table, and other conditions are in the current proposal that weren’t there before, it’s nobody’s fault but Hamas’. They could have accepted an earlier offer; they chose not to.
As long as Hamas continues to refuse to accept what’s offered, Hamas should assume that the conditions offered will change – maybe to their advantage, maybe to their disadvantage. They have no grounds whatsoever for complaining about it.
Hamas, after all, started the current war on October 7, by violating a cease fire, by encroaching on Israel’s territory, and by committing some of the most reprehensible, inhuman crimes in history. This is all on them.
That being said, we must consider who is managing these talks.
In any peace talks, the dream is that the facilitators are neutral parties. Are they, in this case?
Egypt is a neighbor, with about as friendly and honorable a government as the region has, as long as General el-Sisi remains in control. But Egypt has a serious concern: they are rightly worried that the worst undesirables of Hamas will leave Gaza and move into Egypt. Egypt naturally doesn’t want that. They can’t say the quiet part out loud, but every time Israel eliminates another Hamas unit, Egypt understandably breathes a sigh of relief. Egypt is therefore not necessarily anxious for the war to end prematurely.That being said, we must consider who is managing these talks.
In any peace talks, the dream is that the facilitators are neutral parties. Are they, in this case?
Egypt is a neighbor, with about as friendly and honorable a government as the region has, as long as General el-Sisi remains in control. But Egypt has a serious concern: they are rightly worried that the worst undesirables of Hamas will leave Gaza and move into Egypt. Egypt naturally doesn’t want that. They can’t say the quiet part out loud, but every time Israel eliminates another Hamas unit, Egypt understandably breathes a sigh of relief. Egypt is therefore not necessarily anxious for the war to end prematurely.
Qatar is an outright enemy, a partner of Iran, well-known for playing both sides against each other diplomatically. Qatar spends a mint, sponsoring the jihadist philosophy, if not specific jihadist acts, all over the world. Qatar has been spreading billions of dollars around U.S. universities for decades, turning our own children against us in our colleges and grad schools. Qatar is no neutral middleman; Qatar and Hamas are both arms of the Iranian bloc.
And the United States have been exhibiting a split personality of late; the majority of Americans are pro-Israel, but the Biden-Harris regime is largely pro-Hamas. It has recently become obvious that the Biden-Harris White House has been leaking secrets about Israel to the Iranians. Israel no longer dares trust the United States, despite decades of close friendship.
With “neutral facilitators” like this, is it any wonder that these peace negotiations have not yet borne fruit?
Next, what are the new conditions that Israel has allegedly added in recent weeks (these, it must be admitted, are all suspicions, from media reports, because the talks are confidential)?
It is reported that Hamas is upset that Israel added a requirement that the southern border of Gaza will permanently remain under Israeli control after any peace agreement. Another of the new conditions angering Hamas involves restrictions on the amount of land in northern Gaza that displaced Gazans will be allowed to return to; Hamas expects its territory to be increased, not decreased, after all this is over.
For their part, Israel maintains that these are not new conditions, and the Hamas side is irresponsible in classifying them as such. Israel says these are just clarifications of existing issues, which rings true.
But if these two points are new, are they reasonable?
Well, what has been happening for the past few decades, and what has been revealed as this war has progressed?
Massive tunnels have been found throughout Gaza; non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been exposed smuggling arms into Hamas at these key border points, and Hamas has been found to have installed infinitely more weapons caches, launch sites, and other control centers across the country than Israel had even suspected before.
Of course, conditions have to change, as these new revelations have been exposed.
Hamas has been given countless chances for a ceasefire, and has rejected the offers continuously since November.
Hamas has to be shown that there is a cost to pay in postponing a deal.
If Israel lets it be known that Israel will get more generous as the months go by, then Hamas may as well keep postponing any agreement. Only if they realize that what they see is the best deal they’ll ever be offered, and it might get worse and worse if they delay, only then might they realize that they would be best served by signing whatever Israel offers, right away.
Israel needs to admit, to themselves and to the world, once and for all, that this entire 17-year Gaza experiment has failed utterly. The idea of giving Hamas the authority to run a government has turned out to be nothing but what every sane observer expected from the start: thus empowered, Hamas operated a rogue government, a group of islamofascist money-launderers at the top, making life miserable for their own people, waging a continual and illegal war against their benefactors and neighbors – the innocent people of Israel.
If we want there to be peace, Iran’s surrogate Qatar has no business at the table.
If we want there to be peace, Israel needs to be in complete control of Gaza’s borders going forward.
And if we want there to be peace, some new method must be devised to provide the people of the Gaza strip with a reformed and peaceful leadership class in place of Hamas – a class dedicated to developing for their people a peacetime economy, free of the corruption, brainwashing, and constant war that Hamas has promulgated throughout its tenure.
What are the odds of the press reporting these common-sense points?
Slim to none.
Because most of all, if we want there to be peace, the anti-semitic, pro-terrorist world press would have to be reformed as well.
Copyright 2024 John F. Di Leo
John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based trade compliance trainer and transportation manager, writer, and actor. Once a County Chairman of the Milwaukee County Republican Party in the 1990s, after serving as president of the Ethnic American Council in the 1980s, he has been writing regularly for Illinois Review since 2009. Professionally, he is a licensed Customs broker, and has worked in freight forwarding and manufacturing for over forty years. John is available for very non-political training seminars ranging from the Incoterms to the workings of free trade agreements, as well as fiery speeches concerning the political issues covered in his columns.
His book on vote fraud, “The Tales of Little Pavel,” his three-volume political satires of the Biden-Harris regime, “Evening Soup with Basement Joe,” and his new non-fiction work covering the 2024 campaign, "Current Events and the Issues of Our Age," are available in eBook or paperback, only on Amazon.
Ceasefire talks should be conditioned first on the release of all American and Israeli hostages. Until then, any member of HAMAS should be shot on sight.
Ham@$$ are the ones who don’t want to give it up.
All they have to do is release the live and dead hostages and disarm.
They could then live happily thereafter forever more.
Israel knows the game of endless negotiations that go nowhere. Israel is now grinding down Hamas as they negotiate, which reverses the usual dynamic of having negotiations and being desperate to make a deal. Hamas seems to have figured out at last that time is not on their side and that they have less and less to offer.
So brilliant of Trump to move embassy to Jerusalem. That was always their ace in the hole during negotiations, to demand half of Jerusalem, so then negotiations would stop. Not anymore!
Without the goal of peace, a cease fire only serves to keep the pot boiling. The constant arming with missoles and funding from Iran requires one now a winner. Those who refuse to live in peace with Israel are waging war against the system of nations. Let this conflict continue until it reaches Terhan and Quatar.
Israel is playing a skillful diplomatic game with Iran and its principal quasi ally the USA. Israel just has to prolong this process until November. If Trump somehow overcomes the most extensive vote chicanery in American history hen Israel is in the clear to deeal with its proximal enemies. If the Regime stays in place then Israelis in the same cauldron as the rest of Western Civilization and will only survive by the grace of G-d. A Harris/(Obama) government will move quickly to destroy Israel finally with invasion if necessary.
Ceasefire talks should be stalled and stymied until Israel has reached its goals. Ceasefire is a trap being set by Iran and its partner the USA to try to keep the Extinction of Israel Project on track.
I tend to think that a series (4 to 5 maybe) of local governments by area would be best for Gaza.
There is a chance one or two might not be highly corrupt.
Some delegates might get sent to the main PLO government.
Perhaps:
24 hours of no bombing for every live hostage returned
12 bonus hours for each additional live hostage returned on the same day
6 hours of no bombing for every dead hostage delivered up
24 hours of no bombing if a complete set of tunnel maps is furnished to the Israeli negotiating team before September
Israel to supply a list of possible hostages within ten days.
Israel otherwise reserves the right after 2024 to use 500 kilograms of high explosives via aerial bombs as there are possible hostages not accounted for after 60 days on Gazan targets it believes hold at least one terrorist.
Israel reserves the right to shoot to kill by gunfire any suspected terrorist not incarcerated and any person presenting an apparent armed threat to Israelis.
Except during no bombing periods, Israel shall have the right to kill by missiles with warheads of less than six kilograms of high explosive suspected terrorists not incarcerated.
HAMAS and the Palestinian Authority separately and jointly agree to criminally prosecute all unlawful violence against hostages.
Restrictions imposed on Israel by this agreement shall voided by any Gazan source action in gross violation of this agreement.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.