Hamas appeared to signal tentative agreement with a peace plan president Donald Trump proposed. Under the plan, as reported by the NY Times,
“…Hamas would free the remaining hostages within 72 hours and hand over its weapons, and its rule in Gaza would end. Israeli forces would gradually withdraw from Gaza and allow an internationally supervised Palestinian administration to assume responsibility for public services there.”
Hamas then attached conditions to its ostensible acceptance of the plan. As an examination of the terms of Hamas’s acceptance makes clear, the real purpose of the conditions is to (1) buy time, and (2) undermine the whole purpose of the plan.
For instance, Hamas demanded certain conditions on the ground be met which would require further negotiations. Further, Hamas was vague about whether it would fully disarm or to fully relinquish its dominant role in Gaza.
Specifically, Hamas said that:
“…In this context, the movement affirms its readiness to immediately enter, through the mediators, into negotiations to discuss the details.”
So much for releasing the hostages in 72 hours. And while Hamas agreed to some basic terms of the prisoner swap, there is no agreement on whom the Israelis will release back to Hamas. We can therefore expect Hamas to attempt to bargain, name by name, over who the 250 convicted prisoners will be and also the 1,700 prisoners captured during the war.
Further, the reference to “necessary field conditions” really means that Hamas will claim that it either does not hold or cannot find some of the hostages it agreed to turn over. It further suggests that Hamas will attempt to bargain over the scope of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and that Hamas will try to prolong any negotiations for as long as possible.
Now also consider that Hamas said that it would act “…based on Palestinian national consensus and supported by Arab and Islamic backing.” How exactly does that square with Hamas agreeing to end its role in Palestinian decision making? And not to put too fine a point on it, when was the last time Hamas truly cared about a Palestinian national consensus. They had a one-and-done election in 2006 and that was it. And they used the Palestinian population as human shields for their fighters. So much for their concern about the population.
The upshot of all this is that the Trump Administration demanded what effectively amounts to an unconditional surrender. And Hamas will never agree to that unless they are finally beaten, full stop. Absent that, they simply have no reason to, or intention of, quitting the fight.
Besides which there is (possibly) a split in the leadership of Hamas. For the sake of argument we will play along with the idea that there are distinct political and military wings of Hamas. The political wing resides in Qatar where, the story goes, the leadership was shaken by the Israeli bombing of the capital. They, it is argued, want to take the deal Trump offered. They are supposedly practical.
On the other hand, according to this version of the story, the military wing is still active in Gaza and wishes to continue the fight. They are full of religious conviction. They are fighting a holy war. If such is actually the case, it begs the question, who is in charge? If the political wing is incapable of enforcing its agreement, then as a practical matter, its pronouncements are irrelevant.
And let’s get around to admitting what should be an obvious truth. The Palestinian people (while we are pretending that there really is such a people) enthusiastically and overwhelmingly supported the October 7 attack on Israel. What makes anybody think that an agreement with Hamas is going to change that? Why wouldn’t another group, like e.g., Islamic Jihad, simply pick up the reins.
Even if Hamas were to agree to an unconditional surrender and lay down its arms, its followers are unlikely to do so. So we have a recipe for guerrilla war. And as long as Arab and Persian governments in the Middle East continue their propaganda campaigns against Israel and refuse to differentiate between Church (or Mosque) and State it is unlikely that anything will fundamentally change.
Hamas, and its allies, are winning the propaganda war both in the Middle East and the West. But they are losing the military war. It is in their interest (given their set of beliefs) to draw out the “peace” process as long as they can, while in the meantime trying to rebuild their strength. At the same time they continue to hammer a feckless West with propaganda. (And let’s not forget that the Arab states backed Hitler’s Germany in WWII.)
The way forward is for both the West and the governments of the Middle East to adopt (or in the case of the West to re-adopt) the classical liberalism of the Enlightenment. And the same holds true with respect to Russia’s war on Ukraine and the increasingly tense situation in Taiwan. Quite simply, the West must be willing to defend Western civilization.
Will that happen? Who knows, it’s a tough call.
JFB
