This morning I was surprised to read this headline in the NYT (click to read, or find it archived here). A halt in fighting for weeks?
Here’s the gist of the “deal” as the NYT reports it:
American-led negotiators are edging closer to an agreement in which Israel would suspend its war in Gaza for about two months in exchange for the release of more than 100 hostages still held by Hamas, a deal that could be sealed in the next two weeks and would transform the conflict consuming the region.
Negotiators have developed a written draft agreement merging proposals offered by Israel and Hamas in the last 10 days into a basic framework that will be the subject of talks in Paris on Sunday. While there are still important disagreements to be worked out, negotiators are cautiously optimistic that a final accord is within reach, according to U.S. officials who insisted on anonymity to discuss sensitive talks.
President Biden spoke by phone separately Friday with the leaders of Egypt and Qatar, who have served as intermediaries with Hamas, to narrow the remaining differences. He is also sending his C.I.A. director, William J. Burns, to Paris for Sunday’s talks with Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari officials. If Mr. Burns makes enough progress, Mr. Biden may then send his Middle East coordinator, Brett McGurk, who just returned to Washington, back to the region to help finalize the agreement.
“Both leaders affirmed that a hostage deal is central to establishing a prolonged humanitarian pause in the fighting and ensure additional lifesaving humanitarian assistance reaches civilians in need throughout Gaza,” the White House said in a statement Friday night summarizing the president’s conversation with Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, Qatar’s prime minister. “They underscored the urgency of the situation and welcomed the close cooperation among their teams to advance recent discussions.”
In a statement in Israel on Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed his commitment to securing the release of those hostages who were not freed as part of a more limited agreement in November. “As of today, we have returned 110 of our hostages and we are committed to returning all of them home,” he said. “We are dealing with this and we are doing so around the clock, including now.”
. . . The deal now coming together would be more expansive in scope than the previous one, officials say. In the first phase, fighting would stop for about 30 days while women, elderly and wounded hostages were released by Hamas. During that period, the two sides would work out details of a second phase that would suspend military operations for roughly another 30 days in exchange for Israeli soldiers and male civilians being held. The ratio of Palestinians to be released from Israeli prisons is still to be negotiated but that is viewed as a solvable issue. The deal would also allow for more humanitarian aid into Gaza.
I found this report dubious for several reasons. First, I don’t believe that Israel would suspend action in Gaza for two months, as that would give Hamas a huge opportunity to revive itself. Second, Netanyahu’s statement is hardly expressive of someone looking for a compromise, but a simple assertion that Israel is working to get the hostages released. Third, the hostages would not all be released at once, but in dribs and drabs. That is not something that’s propitious, especially because of condition #4: Palestinian terrorists in Israeli prisons are also to be released. And I’m very distressed that no deal has ever been proposed to let all the hostages go at once. There are about 120, but I suspect that about 20 of them are dead. The International Court of Justice stipulated release of all the hostages now, but of course Hamas won’t do it and the world is hardly even mentioning that. The UN in particular, which created the International Court of Justice and elects its 15 judges, should be pressuring Hamas and Palestine hard on the hostage issue. If Israel does obey the ICJ’s stipulations, then Palestine and Hamas should as well.
And then, when I read the website below, which gives opinions expressed in Israeli news, I became even more dubious.
The two paragraphs below, in informal language, are from Balkonic, a website that translate Israeli news from Hebrew into Polish. According to Malgorzata, it has been an almost totally reliable source of information, and the translator makes corrections when he/she is wrong. This time the translator said what’s below in Polish, and I’ve used Google translate to put it into English. It’s jargon, but that’s the way this informal website is written.
and again some fake news from the new york times, which reports, that ‘there is progress towards the release of all the kidnapped in exchange for a 2-month break in the war’… of course, in Israel they deny this information…
2 months yeah… I’m not saying that it would be total surrender to Hamas, practically the end wars and Hamas rearming at a rapid pace, but it is clear that Hamas would leave a few kidnapped people as a human shield and a bargaining chip… what normal-thinking Israeli can believe in such nonsense…
Now that doesn’t give sources, which is why I’m also taking Balkonic with a grain of salt. However, my suggestion is to take the NYT report with many grains of salt, and not start thinking that a cease-fire and hostage release are at hand.
Likely fake. So, theoretically …..
Israel should make a deal.
The moment the last hostage is free, repudiate any and all agreements.*
IDF sweep thru Gaza like George Patton.
Once Hamas eradicated, invite the World to conduct the most titanic humanitarian project in history.
Israel control Gaza indefinitely.
* there is no such thing as a valid and binding accord or contract under duress. AKA “with a gun pointed at your head.’
I understand your position, viscerally. That response would, however, guarantee that there would be no negotiations with Israel by any of the Palestinian representatives ever again.
Israel controlling Gaza indefinitely is going to be the most likely outcome, which will lead to more accusations of genocide and apartheid by the usual anti-semitic suspects. Any other solution will just allow Hamas, perhaps under another name, to re-arm and kill more innocents.
A two state solution is currently untenable. There is no good resolution unless and until Islam goes through a reformation, which seems vanishingly unlikely. As Hitchens said, religion poisons everything.
“there is no such thing as a valid and binding accord or contract under duress. AKA “with a gun pointed at your head.’”
That is only true in intra-national civil law (where the rule of law is intact at least). In inter-national law contracts under duress are valid. If they weren’t then most peace treaties would be invalid by default. Those quite often signed at gunpoint. In this context saying that contracts signed under duress are invalid is the same as saying that the peace treaties closing both World Wars are invalid.
(Note that I would agree with that from a purely law-philosophical standpoint, but in practice contracts under duress are seen completely differently in this situation than in the civil law.)
The Second World War did not end with a treaty. Italy, Germany, and Japan all surrendered unconditionally. The victorious Allies dictated terms to them and a durable peace followed that lasts to this day.
The First World War was concluded with the Treaty of Versailles. Germany was not allowed to attend the conference because it had been militarily defeated in 1918 and, in effect, sued for peace with the Kaiser abdicating. The new government signed the harsh Treaty that emerged without having official input into its terms, a gun to its head almost literally. It was this Treaty that Adolph Hitler abrogated as unfair when he took power and began to re-arm, with war breaking out just 20 years after the treaty.
The conclusion would be that forcing unconditional surrender is better than armistice -> treaty because it forces the losing party to confront the reality of its total defeat. It can’t use the excuse of duress to justify breaking its word.
“It can’t use the excuse of duress to justify breaking its word.”
I’d say it is quite the opposite, that excuse is even more apt in the situation you described.
Nobody needs either excuses or agreements when they have dominating power and will. All the rest is mere words.
The West had better hope it never encounters an adversary with overwhelming military and industrial power who operates by Old World ways. Such a foe would make Ukraine look like child’s play.
There have been on-again, off-again reports of such a deal for the last few days, with varying terms and little detail. This website summarizes news from Israel and has a long list of other Israel-related web sites that specialize in news and comment: http://www.worldjewishdigest.com/. I often start here and branch my reading out from there.
A deal does not seem out of the question, but it’s hard to discern the truth in the fog. Here’s a piece in today’s Jerusalem Post: https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-784074. But the again, there is also this at Ynet News: https://www.ynetnews.com/article/sywlfh7ct.
There have been on-again, off-again reports of such a deal for the last few days, with varying terms and little detail. This website summarizes news from Israel and has a long list of other Israel-related web sites that specialize in news and comment: http://www.worldjewishdigest.com/. I often start here and ten branch out.
A deal may not be out of the question. Here is a piece from today’s Jerusalem Post: https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-784074. Yet here is another post denying the supposed progress: https://www.ynetnews.com/article/sywlfh7ct.
It’s hard to tell the smoke from the fire.