Following the UN Security Council vote to approve a three-phase ceasefire in Gaza, U.S. officials and other international allies of Israel are cynically placing blame on Hamas for a stall in current ceasefire negotiations — even as Israel has insisted on indefinitely continuing its massacre in Gaza and Hamas has said its main request is a guarantee that Israel would actually honor the ceasefire.
But reports from a wide variety of news sources on how both Israel and Hamas are approaching the ceasefire proposal suggest that Blinken is lying about which party is accepting of the deal. Indeed, reports have found that it is actually Israel that won’t agree to the deal’s framework: an immediate ceasefire with a limited prisoner and hostage exchange, then a permanent ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, and ultimately the reconstruction of Gaza and return of Palestinians to their homes.
Israel’s insistence on continuing its genocide has been consistent throughout the last eight months, including in reaction to the most recent ceasefire proposals of the past weeks. Officials have said Israel will only stop bombarding Gaza when they decide that Hamas has been eliminated and Palestinians there no longer pose a threat to Israel — a pledge that requires the mass slaughter of Palestinian civilians, as military procedures and Israel’s own public statements have shown.
But the main demand from Hamas appears to be straightforward, according to other officials familiar with the negotiations. Multiple outlets citing such sources have echoed what Hamas officials have said: that they are primarily concerned with getting guarantees from the U.S. and Israel that the deal will actually lead to a ceasefire and withdrawal from Gaza.
Specifically, Hamas is concerned about a lack of assurances from the current proposal about the transition between the first and second phases of the plan, Reuters reports, citing multiple sources involved with the talks. The first phase involves a six-week ceasefire, with the release of some Israeli hostages, while the second phase calls for a permanent ceasefire and Israeli troop withdrawal.
Archived version: https://archive.ph/vNwMx
I hope this doesn’t just dissolve into hand-waving and general dismissal based on “he said / she said”. Someone call the bluff and let’s see the cards face-up.
Disclaimer: I have no idea and it’s confusing; I just read a bunch of stories just now; and people lie sometimes. That said, these are the details of the full plan as of a couple weeks ago, which supposedly came from Israel but which they immediately clammed up about whether or not they actually would agree to, not saying either yes or no for quite some time, which was weird. There is still some uncertainty over whether they will “agree to” their own proposal.
This is the best story I could find which actually somewhat explains what’s going on at this point. According to it:
- Hamas didn’t reject the deal but they asked for changes (details not made public and people disagree about what they were and how big they are). Personally I tend to put quite a lot of faith in the Qatari spokesman whose blackly comic summary of the issue was “two fundamental differences; between what Hamas wants as a permanent ceasefire, and what Israel wants as a hostage release and maybe a plan to continue the war.”
- On that note, someone in Israel’s government (no one knows who) said yesterday, “Israel will not end the war before achieving all its war objectives: destroying Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, freeing all the hostages and ensuring Gaza doesn’t pose a threat to Israel in the future.” I.e. we get all the hostages back and keep killing you until we feel like we’re done, and then at that point, we’ll be happy to cease fire.
- We finally see the details of what’s going on in Israel’s government: Sounds like Benny Gantz (who already resigned) and Yair Lapid are supporting the cease-fire, and Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir have threatened to “collapse the government” if it goes through. Nothing public about what Netanyahu thinks but Benny Gantz cited disagreements with him as why he was resigning.
- Both Blinken and Qatar are blaming both Israel and Hamas for doing too much bickering and not enough agreeing to the cease fire. Blinken points out, with maybe a certain amount of validity, that Hamas could have simply said “yes” to the US/Israel/UN/Qatari approved plan already on the table instead of giving the Israelis any room to blame them and keep the war going which is clearly what they wanted to do anyway.
TL;DR it’s probably Israel’s fault
That’s why Blinken is there. Hamas suggested an altered version of the ceasefire that Israel won’t agree to. Now Blinken needs to find middle ground.
That’s why Blinken is there
To lie to the world and pretend to be a neutral arbiter while clearly being on the side of the genocidal apartheid regime like every other secretary of state for the last 75 years?
Well, in that case I’ll say something I would never otherwise say, based on all he’s done so far: Blinken is doing a great job! Well done!
(Autocorrect changed great to grotesque, which is more accurate in general)
