The West's Self-Defeating Approach to Hamas
Israel must not, under any circumstances, acquiesce to the West’s delusional, corrupted, conceited approach to the Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah war and a potential hostage deal.
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Late last week, Hamas gave initial approval to a U.S.-backed proposal for a phased truce and hostage exchange deal in Gaza, dropping a key demand that Israel commit upfront to a complete end of the war.
At the same time, a key stumbling block appeared to be Hamas’ desire for “written guarantees” from mediators that Israel will continue to negotiate a permanent ceasefire deal if and when the first phase goes into effect.
A Hamas representative told The Associated Press that the group’s approval came after it received “verbal commitments and guarantees” from mediators that the war will not be resumed and that negotiations will continue until a permanent ceasefire is reached.
“Now we want these guarantees on paper,” the Hamas representative said.
Then, according to a news report Friday, Mossad chief David Barnea informed Qatari mediators that Israel rejects Hamas’ demand for a written commitment from mediators that the negotiations regarding the second phase of the ceasefire can extend indefinitely if needed.
And, on Sunday, ahead of the Israeli negotiating team’s departure for further hostage deal talks in Egypt and Qatar this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a list of what he said were four non-negotiable Israeli demands, including a guarantee that Israel could resume fighting, which would need to be met in any hostage release and ceasefire deal with Hamas.
Netanyahu’s statement, at a crucial phase ahead of the resumption of talks, sparked anger, both in Israel and among mediators, with some accusing him of attempting to sabotage hard-won progress.
Hamas responded by saying that Netanyahu is putting hurdles in front of ceasefire negotiations during ongoing talks aimed at reaching a deal to end the war in Gaza. The group, in a statement, called on mediators to intervene against what it called “maneuvers and crimes” by Netanyahu.
The four non-negotiable Israeli demands from Netanyahu are, in full:
“Any deal will allow Israel to return to fighting until its war aims are achieved.”
“Weapons smuggling to Hamas from the Gaza-Egypt border will not be possible.”
“The return of thousands of armed terrorists to the northern Gaza Strip will not be possible.”
“Israel will maximize the number of living hostages who will be returned from Hamas captivity.”
I never voted for Netanyahu’s Likud party and would like to see another person lead the Jewish state (mainly because he has been in this position for far too long), but I have learned to compartmentalize my own thoughts and feelings about Netanyahu when analyzing this war, including but not limited to these four non-negotiable Israeli demands.
As far as I am concerned, they are not only perfectly legitimate, but also completely necessary, for no other reason than the most obvious fact that Hamas is a self-proclaimed genocidal, Islamist terrorist organization. Say it with me: Terrorist. Organization.
And it is not as if Hamas was not founded yesterday. They have a very long, detailed history of habitually playing deceiving, disingenuous games (surprise, surprise) while not having a lick of care about “international law” or any other norm to which we hold other countries, like Israel.
This is what makes negotiating with terrorist organizations so incredibly stupid. Hamas is throwing darts, while Israel is being forced by the West to play tennis. It is a totally asymmetric attempt at “negotiations” — ultimately designed to make Israel the cold, hard loser (if not in intention, then in outcome).
In Israel and the greater Middle East (and unlike “Western conventional wisdom”) there is no such thing as a win-win situation. If one side wins, the other automatically loses. This goes for deals of all kinds, from business and government, to interpersonal relationships.
Knowing these win-lose “rules of the game,” why in the world would Israel hand Hamas a victory after what the terror group perpetrated on October 7th? And why should Israel stop in its tracks after being well on its way to badly beating Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other Gaza-based Palestinian terrorists?
Indeed, several senior Hamas figures in Gaza have urged the terror group’s political leadership to accept the ceasefire and hostage deal proposal championed by U.S. President Joe Biden, according to internal communications seen by The Associated Press.
The messages, shared by a Middle East official familiar with the ongoing negotiations, described the heavy losses that Hamas has suffered on the battlefield and the dire conditions in the war-ravaged territory.
The communications, from May and June, suggested that the war had taken a toll on Hamas fighters, with the senior figures urging the group’s political wing abroad to accept the deal despite the reluctance of Yahya Sinwar, the group’s leader in Gaza, who has been in hiding since the war erupted and is believed to be holed up in a tunnel deep underground, either not fully aware of the fighting’s toll or not fully communicating it to those negotiating outside of the territory.
Hence why, over the weekend, Hamas appeared to drop its longstanding demand that Israel promise to end the war (which Hamas started) as part of any deal (though Hamas indicated it was still demanding guarantees to that effect from mediators).
True to form, this is exactly the strategy that Israeli leadership has told us about from day one — military pressure on Hamas and its supporters will bend them to make an Israel-friendly deal — and it seems to be working, though there is still some way to go. We are already nine months into this war, so what is another month or two?
No doubt, another month or two of intense fighting in Gaza could very well jeopardize the lives of the remaining living hostages. And make no mistake: I am all for keeping the hostages alive and returning them home ASAP. But if I was running Israel, I would make it clear to senior Hamas officials behind closed doors that they have two choices:
Ensure our hostages do not die, go into exile, and relinquish control of the Gaza Strip, or
If you (Hamas) do not check all three of these boxes, we (Israel) will forcibly take control of the Gaza Strip out of your hands, and then assassinate you, wherever you are in the world, above or below ground.
The reality is that senior Hamas officials preach “jihad” for everyone except themselves. They don’t want to die. Some 1,700 of them have become millionaires because of Hamas (i.e. terrorism) and even a few billionaires, all of whom love their lives and prefer this one over the Islamic afterlife and its so-called “72 virgins in paradise.”
Yet much of the West’s political leaders seem to be siding with Hamas, not necessarily in rhetoric but more consequentially in action. Pining for a hostage deal that halts Israel’s military achievements and ultimately results in the IDF withdrawing from Gaza — all prematurely, thus leaving Hamas in governing control of the Strip — is indeed an act of siding with the terror group.
The United States is even trying to bribe Israel by communicating to the Jewish state that, if an agreement for a hostage deal and ceasefire is reached, Egypt will work with the U.S. to help build a high-tech underground barrier to prevent the smuggling of weapons into Gaza, according to a recent report from Israel’s Army Radio.
Mind you, this is the same United States that spent more than $320 million to build a pier to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza that the Palestinians do not want and that the Americans cannot get to work. Now the U.S. is trying to convince Israel that they can build a “high-tech underground barrier” to prevent the smuggling of weapons into Gaza.
That is “a bunch of malarkey,” to borrow a line from the mouth of Joe Biden during his pitiful presidential debate performance two weeks ago.
Hence why Israel must not, under any circumstances, acquiesce to the West’s delusional, corrupted, and conceited approach to the Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah war and a potential hostage deal. If that means Netanyahu and Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant telling Western leaders, with all due respect, to “f*ck off” — so be it.
Ironically, that would be to the West’s benefit; all we have to do is look at what the Islamic Republic of Iran (Hamas’ chief sponsor) is currently trying to do in Jordan to know how dangerous Iran’s terror tentacles are to the Middle East and, ultimately, the West.
To create a terror stronghold in Jordan, Iran is using its tried-and-true method of regional expansion: its proxy militias. Iran and Hamas have a marriage of convenience. Iran uses Hamas to fuel the Israeli-Palestinian conflict under the pretext of “liberating Palestine,” in order to strengthen its influence in Arab countries. Hamas, in turn, uses Iran’s military and financial support to escalate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.1
According to my friend and longtime Israeli security official Avi Melamed, targeting Jordan is a shared goal for Hamas, a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is committed to establishing a global caliphate. Hamas’ Islamic emirate in Gaza is its first stage.
The next one is destroying Israel in order to establish an Islamic emirate in the territory presently known as the State of Israel, as well as the West Bank. Jordan is next. Expanding the Hamas-controlled Islamic emirate into Jordan would put Hamas three steps closer towards its goal of a global Islamic caliphate.
Despite the Jordanians having a peace treaty with Israel, anti-Israel sentiments are widespread across Jordan. This is partly because so many Jordanians are historically Palestinians, plus the active presence of Islamists in the country.
In May of this year, Murad al-Adaileh (a Hamas-affiliated Jordanian politician) became the secretary-general of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan. During an interview with Al Jazeera, he urged the government to improve relations with Hamas and Iran’s “resistance” movement, as well as to “push back” against the Israeli threat.
According to Melamed, the strategy is as follows: Iran and Hamas escalate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and then exploit widespread public hostility in Jordan towards Israel. As the Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah war evolves and Israeli military pressure on Hamas in Gaza increases, Hamas leaders call on Jordanians to protest “by any means.”
Responding to that call, Islamists in Jordan have and continue to initiate protests and demand the Jordanian government abolish its peace treaty with Israel. Some of these protests have become so violent and disruptive that Jordanian security agents have had to suppress them with force.
According to Melamed, Iran’s goal is to turn Jordan into a launching base for attacks against Israel. In the early stages of the Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah war, Iraqi militias loyal to Iran asked Jordan to open its border so they could reach the Israel-Jordan border to fight Israel.
Jordan refused.
Israel should follow suit, by (a) refusing to be a pawn in much of the West’s own domestic political affairs, even as Israel stands up for the West in the Middle East; and (b) countering this Iran-Hamas masterplan by systematically dismantling their so-called “Axis of Resistance.”
First Israel takes care of Hamas in Gaza — which is closer than most people think —then they proceed to deal with Hezbollah in Lebanon. There are also the Houthis in Yemen and other pro-Iran (i.e. anti-Israel) militias in Syria and Iraq, but Hezbollah and Hamas are by far two of the most prominent Iranian proxies.
Once Israel deals them lethal blows, all roads lead to Tehran, where hopefully Israel and the West can do the Iranian people a favor by removing the Ayatollah and his crony regime from power.
Naturally, this would involve tremendous amounts of dirty work that takes a long, long time (and thus requires a ton of patience from Western populaces) — but if we truly want “peace in the Middle East” then Israel and the West must go to the source of the problem. Of course I am talking about Iran and its Islamist “Axis of Resistance.”
As a matter of fact, many countries in the region (such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, and Jordan) would be more-than-willing partners in the fight against the Iranian octopus.
The other option is to force a hostage deal on Israel — and hand Hamas a ridiculously undeserved victory — because Western leaders are increasingly struggling to “sell” the continuation of the Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah war to their own people, either due to incompetence, or to a foreign actor (e.g. Qatar, Iran) compensating them to hold back Israel from achieving a justified victory.
By doing so, these Western leaders would essentially be inviting more of the most grotesque, inhumane Islamist terrorism. Not only against Israel, but against every country in the West.
Melamed, Avi. “Iran and Hamas are targeting Jordan, hoping to create a new terror stronghold.” USA Today.
Make no deal with terrorists. Eliminate Hamas
Yup! In fact, Israel should issue a call to the citizens of Gaza demanding they release all hostages or the destruction of Gaza will increase tenfold as of now. No stopping until Hamas is utterly destroyed, Gaza is conquered, the IDF controls all life there and Jews move in to settle it while Muslims clear it of rubble with their hands.