Israel is negotiating from a dangerously foolish position.
Deterrence does not work when sitting across the table from antisemitic, genocidal, death-cult terrorist organizations. But the Israelis are negotiating as if it does.
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High-stakes talks aimed at halting fighting in Gaza and freeing hostages held there for over 10 months paused after two days of progress Friday, mediators said, sounding a hopeful tone as they presented a revised proposal to close gaps remaining between Israel and Hamas.
U.S. President Joe Biden added that work remained to be done but negotiators were closer to a deal than ever, even as Hamas, which did not participate in the discussions, appeared to reject what it said were “new conditions.”
Talks between Israeli negotiators and mediators from the United States, Egypt, and Qatar began Thursday in the Qatari capital and continued Friday, with a joint statement from the three mediating countries describing the summit as “constructive.”
What they really meant is that the United States, Egypt, and Qatar are showing early signs of successfully twisting Israel’s arm to force a Hamas-friendly deal on the Jewish state for political expediency in their own countries. More specifically:
Biden’s Democrats, now led by his Vice President Kamala Harris, are hurrying a deal so they can parade around to American voters this “achievement” — regardless of how dismal this deal is for Israel, supposedly one of America’s greatest allies. (Although some in the Democratic Party act as though Hamas is one of their greatest allies, so I guess for them a Hamas-friendly deal would be fabulous news.)
Egypt is desperate for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas because an elongation of the conflict could spill into Egyptian soil and fuel Muslim Brotherhood-led unrest that in turn could very well threaten Egypt’s secular Arab governance.
Qatar is pining for a ceasefire because they are besties with Hamas, and a ceasefire would likely ensure that the terror group retains its prominent, controlling presence in the Gaza Strip (even if Hamas is badly bruised from this war that it started and Qatar undoubtedly knew about ahead of time).
Israel is also worthy of much critique, since it seems like the Israelis have been negotiating from a dangerously wrong position.
Throughout these negotiations and previous ones, a lot of the attention has been on details like the all-important Philadelphi Corridor in Rafah, Gaza — which Hamas exploits to smuggle weapons and other terrorist infrastructure from Egypt into the Strip to fuel their Jihadist worldviews.
Several weeks ago, as part of an operation that virtually all of the world tried to prevent Israel from executing, the IDF led a ground incursion into Rafah and seized the Philadelphi Corridor. This week it was reported that Israel purportedly hinted or explicitly told Hamas, the United States, Qatar, and Egypt several times in the last three months it would be willing to withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor to get back Israeli hostages from Hamas.1
Another point of emphasis in the negotiations has been the allowance of Gazan residents to the northern part of the Strip, an area that poses the greatest threat to Israel so long as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are still alive and kicking in Gaza. Israel has reportedly been demanding that a mechanism be put in place to prevent armed men (i.e. terrorists) from being able to reach the northern part of the Strip.
There is no question that all of these details are essential and must be hashed out as part of any hostages-for-ceasefire deal, but these details are nonetheless secondary to a more pressing, pertinent problem.
If I was the prime minister of Israel, I would make it very clear to everyone, and most notably Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, that there are only two options on the table.
The first option is that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad leadership release every single one of the remaining hostages, leave the Gaza Strip, and relinquish all governing and military control of the enclave — immediately and unconditionally.
The second option is that Israel will hunt down every single Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad “leader” and ultimately take Gaza by force until a new, Israel-friendly Palestinian governing apparatus emerges.
Everything else, including but not limited to the Philadelphi Corridor and northern Gaza, will be discussed thereafter.
It has been rumored that, as part of the second stage of a hostages-for-ceasefire deal currently on the table, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to demand, among other things, the disarmament of Hamas and the removal of its leadership as a condition for an enduring ceasefire. Naturally, such negotiations are not expected to go well. Hence why Netanyahu will not have Israel agree to a complete ceasefire upfront, for good reason.
And yet, this is beside the point. There is no way that the Biden Administration will allow Israel to return to fighting against Hamas regardless of how the negotiations proceed (or do not proceed) after an initial ceasefire is in place. How do we know this to be true?
Because the Biden Administration’s actions, from the very first weeks following October 7th, have broadcasted half-ass empathy for Israel. They know how to talk the talk with terms like “ironclad” support for Israel, but the all-too-inconvenient reality has gone more like this: The Biden Administration tells Israel precisely what to do while displaying a bloated combination of incompetence and self-interest bursting at the seams, and when Israel does not do precisely what the Biden Administration desires, they gaslight Israel on the world stage.
In a therapy session, any psychologist (either amateur or licensed) would tell you that this is the epitome of an abusive relationship which must either be massively modified or axed altogether.
One could argue that Israel can do “whatever it wants” — but in practice, the U.S. likely holds game-changing leverage over Israel. Plus, the U.S. could threaten Israel that, if it returns to fighting Hamas even though this might very well be in the best interests of Israel, the U.S. will not help Israel defend itself against impending attacks from Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran. Again, more unrelenting manipulation. What “great friends of Israel” this Biden Administration has become.
Thus, there is no rational reason to stop this war, including a temporary ceasefire, until Israel deservedly gets what is in the Jewish state’s best interests: the return of every single abductee, as well as the removal of Hamas as a military and governing power in Gaza, either by self-volunteered exile or assassination.
It must be stated that this approach will continue to endanger the remaining abductees in Gaza who are still alive. I am not advocating for such an approach because I do not care about the abductees; I care about them immensely. They have changed the way I think about my day-to-day life. Basically, whenever I get upset or sad or frustrated about something, I instantly remind myself that we have abductees who would do anything to replace their situation for the last 315 days with my “first-world” problems.
However, and this is where we ought to get painstakingly sober despite the lack of humanity that it entails, the abductees are bargaining chips. Right now, Hamas is leveraging them to bend the will of Israel and its supporters into increasingly languishing for a ceasefire that would, in all likelihood, ensure that Hamas can pull off another October 7th in X years time, which means we will find ourselves in this very situation again (and again and again).
Or as the more poetic writers would call it: cutting off your nose to spite your face (an expression used to describe a needlessly self-destructive overreaction to a problem).
Israel, one of the most humane societies on planet Earth, has no choice but to also leverage the abductees as bargaining chips, by communicating to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad: Either you return every single one of our hostages and go into exile immediately and unconditionally, or you are all dead men and women walking.
The reason for this painstakingly sober approach is simple: The only real way to defeat a terrorist organization is to play their game better than them. By taking the “higher road” and being the “better person” when seated across the table from terrorists, you make the game asymmetrical and automatically set yourself up for failure.
Of course, some folks in Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad will likely challenge Israel to assassinate them rather than release our hostages and go into exile immediately and unconditionally. Others will attempt to kill the hostages as they are inevitably killed themselves. That is one side of the coin.
The other side is as follows: Many thousands of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives have already surrendered to the IDF because they realize that their perverted game is over. Finito in Italian. Gamur in Hebrew.
And Israel has already infiltrated top Hamas leadership; a few days ago, it was reported that a Hamas operative reportedly confessed to having tipped off Israeli security forces on the location of the terror group’s military chief, Muhammad Deif, in what led to the IDF launching a strike that assassinated him moments later.
This was just one of hundreds of successful assassinations that Israel has notched in just 10 months of this Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah war which, we must remind some in the crowd, Hamas launched on October 7th and Hezbollah joined 24 hours later, a few weeks before Israel’s ground incursion into Gaza.
So, two things can be true and often are: The IDF’s ability and execution to decimate Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s top brass have been working extraordinarily well, and Israel also needs more time (a few more months) for it to apply maximum pressure on the remaining Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad leadership to give back our hostages and go into exile immediately and unconditionally, or suffer the same fate as their fellow comrades.
Those who contend that “Israel will never be able to completely destroy Hamas” — as multiple American officials, working for the Biden Administration, told The New York Times this week — are lying through their two front teeth to us for reasons that have nothing to do with Israel or Hamas, and everything to do with the Biden Administration’s increasing desperation to save political face and help Vice President Kamala Harris make Israel a sacrificial lamb for the benefit of her own political calculations.
There are others, both in Israel and abroad, who argue that October 7th should have never happened in the first place, and that the buck ultimately stops with Israel’s leadership. We can play the “could have, should have, would have” game all we want across every millimeter of life, but I have no interest in pretending like I live in an alternate reality.
Instead, I prefer to be pragmatic about what is, not what “could” or “should” or “would” have been:
October 7th did happen.
It was an astronomic f*ck-up by Israeli leadership.
Israeli leadership, including but not limited to the prime minister, should be held accountable immediately after this war ends, according to how Israeli society (and not foreign actors) believes they should be held accountable.
Until then, this war should not end until (a) we get our hostages back and Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad go into exile, immediately and unconditionally, or (b) Israel forcibly wrangles control of Gaza away from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and assassinates whomever needs to be assassinated in the process.
Another group I hear from, both in Israel and abroad, is the one which argues that Israel should agree to a ceasefire for the sake of returning the abductees, and then reestablish its defensive posture (e.g. deterrence) so as to prevent another October 7th or the like in the future.
On the surface, this sounds like the humanitarian and even Jewish thing to do. But the October 7th catastrophe shattered several deeply rooted assumptions, at least among Israelis, most notably that deterrence does not work when dealing with antisemitic, genocidal, death-cult terrorist organizations.
Thus, dismantling their capabilities and removing them from Israel’s borders in all of Gaza via self-volunteered exile or assassination — instead of negotiating with them — is absolutely necessary to prevent future attacks. In this case, it really is that black and white.
Remember, we are not dealing with rational, respectful, compromising actors in Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and their chief sponsors, Qatar and Iran. In other words, applying “Western conventional wisdom” to these nefarious actors in the Middle East will do one thing and one thing only: get you killed.
Jews have incessantly faced this harsh reality in this part of the world since at least the 1800s (and likely prior). Propositioned with life or death, we choose life (unlike these Islamists), and to choose life means dismantling these Islamists’ capabilities and removing them from Israel’s borders in all of Gaza via self-volunteered exile or assassination.
If the Israelis continue down the path of detailed negotiations that ultimately allow Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad to hold on to their prominent presence in Gaza (even if they are at the moment badly battered and bruised), Israel will lose this war, the Middle East will become increasingly unstable, and Jews across the world will continuously feel the adverse effects (which will only trend worse and worse).
But if the Israelis reposition our negotiating position to this clear and obvious proposition — effectively life outside of Gaza or death for Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad leaders of all kinds and ranks — Israel will win this war, the Middle East will experience much-needed stability, and Jews across the world will remain relatively safe from the powers that wish to annihilate them.
May God (or whatever you believe in) bless us with the latter.
“Gaza ceasefire, hostage deal could hinge on IDF exiting Philadelphi Corridor - analysis.” The Jerusalem Post.
USA and western nations need to stop being two faced Palestinian lovers and genuine support shown to Israel the only democratic nation in their area instead of ignorant thinking and hindering Israel from carrying out their mission to end this war . The west has become completely deceived by these Hamas/ Palestinian terrorists that have in mind to commit genocide not only against Israel but the rest of humanity that does not hold to their radical beliefs. Let Israel do their job unhindered
Great article. 100% on point.