Israel Rejected a Cease-Fire. The Media Isn’t Telling Us.
Israel Rejected a Cease-Fire. The Media Isn’t Telling Us.
Israeli officials just rejected a cease-fire deal that could have brought hostages back because Israel wants to continue waging war. This should be a scandal — but American mainstream media isn’t reporting on it.
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Israeli officials charged that its terms were “far from” their “obligatory demands.”
Those Israeli obligatory demands being starving and killing thousands of civilian men, women and children in Rafah.
Yeah, pretty much. This story goes into some details. If that's accurate, then the objections the Israelis have to the current plan boil down to:
- They want the deal to allow them to keep fighting the war and keep troops in Gaza (after its terms are fully implemented, which generally isn't how a cease fire works)
- They want to be able to keep Palestinians they have ("Iraeli veto over prisoners") while demanding the fast release of all Israelis that Hamas has ("Hamas has suggested a framework that would stretch out the hostage release")
This little section I think gets to the heart of it:
Israel has consistently opposed any deal that explicitly calls for a permanent cease-fire or an end to the war, and has said it would not agree to either until it felt its military offensive had achieved its goals. Ehud Yaari, an Israel-based fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that the Hamas timetable would commit Israel to ending the war while Hamas still holds hostages, leaving Israel without any leverage.
It's a very cunning little construction. The deal involves the release of all hostages, of course, in exchange for the end of the war. He's placing "commit Israel to ending the war" (after the deal) next to "Hamas still holds hostages" (before the deal) and getting all upset that they can't have the benefits of the deal before agreeing to their side of it, and also they want to avoid having to uphold substantive parts after agreeing to it.
Hamas must be deposed for meaningful safety, they've said they want to do October 7th over and over again. This is a last minute deal for them to try and weasel their way out of ultimate consequences for what they have done.
Occupying Gaza is probably also a good call considering their unilateral withdrawal arguably led directly to October 7th. I expect they will stay, try to implement a puppet government, do a little nation building, and only leave once Gaza is pacified. If this is not possible, expect more annexations and settlements.
Our fundamentally inhuman treatment of the Palestinian people led to October 7.
There are only two ways to prevent it happening again. We could stop the unconscionable deprivations we inflict on the Palestinian people or we could speed up the genocide we've been engaged in.
No surprises that the government compromised of war criminals and people the Israeli courts have deemed to be terrorists are going for the later. The far right are in charge and they're pretty open that this is the goal.
Is there any chance for this to change course short of US withdrawing support?
Or are we just gonna have to see this shit real time and then pretend never again, again?
I doubt it will change even if the US withdraws support, but I'm a cynical depressive type.
If the US would withdraw protection the rest of the international community could probably make more meaningful interventions in the genocide.
Yeah. It doesn't take this army of super sophisticated technology to overcome Hamas's souped-up mortars and the occasional rock. Diplomatic support and UN vetoes is where the US really can make a difference, and does.
I don't think they mean overcoming Hamas, given that it's not Hamas who are executing the war crimes right now.
I phrased my point a little poorly maybe -- I meant that from Israel's POV, I think US weapons aren't critical (and definitely not to fight against Hamas, although that's not their only regional enemy), but US diplomatic aid is absolutely crucial.
The issue that Israel's POV is working on a project to wipe out a civilian population so they can take all their land and pretend they never existed, and so US aid shouldn't be looked at purely through the lens of what's needed by Israel at any given time, is a pretty relevant addition to that, yes. 100%.
They sure got the ability to ear Gaza and west bank by themselves but loss of US support would make their geopolitical situation untenable mid to long term. That's my thinking and common understanding in geopolitical circles.
Is Israel government and military deranged enough to think they can go forward on their own?
US support for Israel continuing the current conflict or US support for Israel in general? If really forced into it, maybe the Democrats can withdraw their blessing for the current conflict, but I don't see how they could end support for Israel. If Putin wins the US election who knows what could happen but short of that Israel is just too important to the US empire and they know it. I mostly believe the official line from Washington that they don't have that much leverage against Israel - in the sense that Bibi&co have enough counter levers to make acting against them more costly than it's worth for the Democrats.
Hence the bullshit antisemitism law, the brutalizing of campus protests, etc. Democrats are even willing to drive down turn out among their base in one of the most important elections in US history over this - I just don't see them doing that if they had a better card to play.
Yes, I am also a bit surprised by Democratic party willing to risk election over this but I am guessing their calculation is that losing support of Israel lobby is 100% loss?
But yeah at this rate Putin is gaining serious ground in the US presidential elections. Not sure how much face US got left to lose, but likely won't be anything left.
I am guessing their calculation is that losing support of Israel lobby is 100% loss?
Yeah, I've been presuming that's a significant part of it. That and the importance of a dependent and dependable ally to help anchor US security architecture in a vital region. Israel needs US imperial presence in the region. Saudi just benefits from it.
Is Israel government and military deranged enough to think they can go forward on their own?
Seems that way
I suspect that in usual fashion, when that approach blows up and they get shit all over them, it'll be everyone else's fault that it happened that way
Hamas must be deposed for meaningful safety
Likud materially supports Hamas, in my opinion specifically because of their propensity for violence that was useful to Likud's goals of sabotaging the peace process.
- Increasing the violence and repression as a solution to terrorism hasn't been working for decades in Israel; it's unlikely that doing more of it would suddenly start working now
- Your whole premise that Netanyahu is aiming to increase the safety of the Israelis is totally at odds with his actual behavior
Yes, they tried to divide and conquer but it backfired, I don't think they're doing that anymore.
It's not divide and conquer, that implies keeping multiple groups at parity and fighting each other. Israel intentionally kept the crazies in charge to undermine the viability of a Palestinian state.
They did exactly that, the two groups kept at parity and fighting each other were Fatah and Hamas.
That ended over 15 years ago.
The rivalry continues to today, as detailed in the link it seems like you didn't read.
In March 2024, Hamas and its allied groups in the Gaza Strip criticized Abbas' appointment of Mohamed Mustafa as the Palestinian Authority's new prime minister following Mohammed Shtayyeh's resignation. They issued a statement referring to the changes as "formal steps that are devoid of substance" and questioned the Palestinian Authority's ability to properly represent the Palestinian people. In response, Fatah condemned Hamas as being itself disconnected from the Palestinian people and accused them of "having caused the return of the Israeli occupation of Gaza" by "undertaking the October 7 adventure".
Later that month, Hamas accused Fatah of sending security officers into northern Gaza in collaboration with Israel, saying it had arrested six individuals and were "in pursuit" of the others. The Palestinian Authority issued a statement refuting the claims by Hamas.But Hamas won, they completely control the 'unity' government and Fatah have vastly less power. If divide and conquer was the goal Netanyahu would have been funneling resources to Fatah and not Hamas. But he has consistently empowered Hamas because the international community can't accept a Hamas-led state.
Hamas is a response to Israeli violence and colonialism for the last 70 years. You can depose them but another group will rise up with arms to resist colonialism as long as Israel keeps doing the same thing. And they did before Hamas, so of course they will after. Plus, it will be even harder as these events drive recruitment for Hamas. America didn't get rid of the Taliban by bombing Afghanistan for 20 years, either. It doesn't work.
Israel has been occupying Gaza the whole time despite their rhetoric. They control all their infrastructure and built a big wall to keep them in, and control all travel in and out, plus they constantly spied on them with everything from drones to listening devices to taking random hostages and trying to get info out of them. Gaza doesn't have control of their own food, power, trash, travel, water, sea territory, money, etc. That's basically an occupation, no matter what they say. The only reason to need to take it a step farther and put troops on the inside instead of all along the wall outside is so they can kill more Palestinians.
The scare tactics of claiming they'll never be safe is how you get a genocide, both now and in the past. It's that thought in WW2 that leads to rhetoric like, "We tried to let them live in peace with these stars and putting them in their own spaces in towns, but they keep causing trouble. They even want to do a Warsaw Ghetto Uprising over and over again. We're going to need to kill all the Jews, it's just the only solution."
I agreed with you up until your last paragraph: that is some serious exaggerating. Never did the original commenter say that the solution was to kill all Palestinians.
I don't agree with their view that eradicating Hamas followed by a temporary occupation by Israël will magically help the Palestinian people, but reducing an opposing viewpoint to a literal Nazi isn't going to help or convince anyone.
That's fair. The last paragraph I should have attributed to the Zionist thought instead of that commenter in particular. I mostly just wanted to demonstrate how the "They want to do an October 7th over and over again!" scare tactic leads to the genocidal thoughts and actions we see happening now. I was commenting while emotional, I'll edit it so it's not so harsh and personally aggressive.