Israel and Hamas have a confusing tangle of divergent viewpoints, both within the US management, about how negotiations should continue, which has stalled US President Joe Biden’s months-long efforts to arrange a peace for the Gaza war and talks intended to secure a lasting Middle East serenity.
In almost eager voices, the Biden presidency is appealing for deals to start in Qatar, a Persian Gulf mini-state. US forces are also getting ready for war with an eye on potential loss.
This uncertainty in a contentious time in a troubled region reflects Washington’s baffled political approach, which set out goals while both conflicting parties resisted progress and insisted on advanceing their own competing, conflicting goals.
On May 31, Biden announced his authentic goals with little aplomb when he laid out the likely results of the following negotiations:
- Second, to obtain a “full and total” agreement, as well as the release of women and older captives held by Hamas from populated areas of the Gaza Strip.
- Therefore, more than ten months of fighting may cause people to flee to Gaza and to their stricken neighborhoods, where they had been displaced by more than ten months of suffering.
- Second, if Hamas follows up by releasing the rest of the victims, a continuous “cessations of warfare” had started and all Israeli troops would leave the entire Gaza Strip.
- European countries may pay to restore civil infrastructure, including thousands of devastated residences in Gaza, as a sweetener for the Palestinians after so much death and destruction.
Biden likewise declared victory on behalf of Israel:” They’ve devastated Hamas causes”, he said, adding that, “at this place, Hamas no more is capable of carrying out another October 7th” – a guide to the meeting in 2023 when Hamas troops invaded southern Israel and killed around 1, 200 Israelis, most of them civilians.
Biden also mentioned, in passing, that the sequence he outlined constituted” the Israeli proposal”.
For a day, that seemed to be the case. Benjamin Netanyahu’s top foreign policy advisor, Ophir Falk, called Biden’s declaration” a deal we agreed to,” on July 2. It’s not a good deal, but we dearly want the hostages released, all of them”.
The next day, Netanyahu contradicted Falk. He informed Israeli lawmakers that his negotiators would move on to the war, which has claimed the lives of thousands of civilians, if they agreed to a six-week ceasefire.
” The proposal that Biden presented is incomplete” , , Netanyahu said. ” The war will stop in order to bring hostages back, and afterward, we will hold discussions. There are additional details that the US president did not provide to the public.
On August 13, Netanyahu further declared he was interested only in a “partial deal” that would free” some of the hostages”, and was not interested in a ceasefire thereafter. ” We are committed to continue the war after the pause, in order to achieve the goal of destroying Hamas” he said– preferring the word “pause” to ceasefire, as is his habit.
Netanyahu’s government then elaborated. In a statement, it set out plans for continuing the war, allowing for only a temporary ceasefire.
” Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed: the destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel”, the government announced in a written statement.
The statement read,” The notion that Israel will consent to a permanent ceasefire before these conditions are fulfilled is a non-starter.”
Israel’s specific demands include the permanent stationing of troops in Gaza along the Egyptian-Gaza border. Hassan has meanwhile oscillated between admonitioning Biden’s plan and imposing own conditions, finally announcing that its representatives will not even speak at the kick-off talks.
A “permanent” ceasefire must begin after the temporary one and the release of hostages, according to Hamas, an Islamic group that governs Gaza while the secular Palestinian Authority governs some of the West Bank.
Israeli forces ‘ permanent stationment in Gaza was rejected by Hamas officials, who said the country would not accept its request to control the Gaza-bound border with Egypt. Has also rejected an Israeli strategy to search Palestinians who return to their destroyed homes during a ceasefire.
On Monday, Hamas returned to its original stand: Talks must adhere to the  , plan “agreed upon by the ( Hamas ) movement on July 2, 2024, based on Biden’s vision”.
Hamas said in a statement on Tuesday that its negotiators would concentrate on the need to” completely” end the war and on obtaining the withdrawal of all Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip.
Hamas claimed its representatives would not attend the discussions, however, after receiving no agreement from the US regarding its own requirements. A representative made the announcement that Hamas would not attend the discussions but would rather wait to hear what Israel will say to the mediators.
” We are not against the concept of negotiations and we were flexible in the previous rounds,” said Ahmad Abdul Hadi, Hamas’s representative in Lebanon. He listed reasons for not attending:
- Israel’s rejection of Biden’s permanent ceasefire idea, and
- the murder of Hamas leader Ismael Haniyeh, who was killed last month while visiting Iran by an Israeli missile.
” Therefore, we wo n’t participate,” Abdul Hadi said flatly.
Nonetheless, Hamas officials would be willing to hear from Arab mediators — Egypt or Qatar – about Israel’s position following the scheduled talks, Abdul Hadi said.
Amid all this pre-negotiation back-and-forth, US officials provided their own suddenly ambiguous positions.
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, blamed Hamas for the logjam, without referring to Biden’s detailed plan. Instead, in exasperated tones, he reduced the goal of diplomacy to a single issue:” Our aim is to bring this process to a conclusion, “he said”. Our view is that the time for haggling is over — it’s time for a ceasefire.”
The blame game has also begun, in case of a diplomatic failure. For Washington, the target is already Hamas.
” Israel accepted the proposal as it was,” said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who in recent months had laid blame on Netanyahu for intransigence”. Hamas could have answered with a single word: ‘ yes.’ “
The Americans are getting ready for an extravagance in light of a potential diplomatic blunder. Iran has pledged to retaliate for Haniyeh’s killing, which took place while he was visiting Tehran. Iranian leaders have blamed the Biden administration.
Israeli military exercises are being planned, according to US Defense Department officials. To deter an Iranian assault on Israel, the US Navy’s aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln has been dispatched to the Lebanoni coast, as well as to frighten Hezbollah, an Iranian ally there.
Hezbollah has been engaged in tit-for-tat artillery, drone and rocket fire with Israel since October 7. The tat from now on may be more destructive.