Hamas rejected a hostage deal drafted in Paris over the weekend because it did not include a permanent ceasefire.
No surprise. What Israel is demanding is the release of all the hostages, at which point Hamas has no leverage against a state that has repeatedly demonstrated that they want to obliterate the Palestinians.
at which point Hamas has no leverage
It’s astonishing that it has to be said but rape is neither resistance nor leverage.
He’s talking about the hostages though, did you miss that?
Holding the hostages is leverage. There’s no proof their raping, they might be they might not be. Terrorists aren’t the greatest of people obviously. But we’re talking real politick, as in from their point of view, what’s the best thing to do to achieve their political aims, not what’s morally right. No one is defending Hamas, we’re just saying we could say why they wouldn’t want to release the hostages because then they have nothing to bargain with, and Israel will continue to kill Palestinians, oppress Gaza, and take West Bank settlements as they have for the last 70 years. They’ve even said their terms, they want a ceasefire.
Your reply is nonsensical with that context. It’s like your brain is so warped by rage and Zionist propaganda that you can’t imagine anything from anyone else’s point of view. Holding hostages is leverage whether you like it or not, because as long as their alive, people want to see their family members back.
As much as I wish the hostages can be freed, real politic says it’d be fucking idiotic of them to do so.
If they do agree to the ceasefire, they’ll continue to be slowly wiped out like they have by settlers and other apartheid policies over the past 70 years as soon as it ends - if Israel doesn’t break the truce early or just focuses purely on the West Bank who wouldn’t be part of the deal and who continue to be oppressed, kicked off their land, kidnapped, or murdered by Israel even without Hamas there.
Whereas right now is probably the most success they’ve ever had against Israel, large swathes of millennials and Zoomers worldwide are completely turned off supporting them after witnessing the genocidal unfolding. Meaning the future of western political support for Israel could dry up over the following decades as more boomers pass on.
I really don’t see how this could possibly be “the most success they’ve ever had against Israel.” Public support is still very much mixed, Israeli support has been all but fucking obliterated as the country shifts hard right in response, Gaza has been predictably utterly devastated, and the settler fuckwits are being given a blind eye by both the Israeli government and people now to thoroughly escalate their intrusions and crimes. The only “success” to come out of this entire situation is that Hamas I guess, as well as Likudnik ahitheads and worse, are reapectively experiencing massive rally round the flag gains.
More people know about the Palestinian conflict and Israeli war crimes than ever before. Plus, for a brief moment, the deaths on the Israeli side were higher than on the Palestinian side for the first time. It’s also the only time they’ve had a large number of hostages to use as leverage for a deal.
If your fundamental goals are dead people and just publicity, sure, then I guess this was a roaring success. Typically success for matters is defined by advancing, say, the freedom and dignity of the Palestinians suffering under oppression, though. And by that very reasonable metric, no, this whole thing has been a catastrophic failure on the part of Hamas, the group that (violently) usurped governance of Gaza years ago. There is unlikely, and this was predictable from the get-go, to be any substantive advancement of the benefit of the Palestinian people, or Gazans in particular. A random lemmy poster put it on a perfectly succinct and correct manner when reports of 10/7 first came out–Hamas shot every single Palestinian in both Gaza and the West Bank square in the dick this time.
Oh they definitely fucked up. You won’t hear any argument on that from me. We all saw it coming that day. But if I was them, I would also realize that it becomes especially worthless if they lose all their hostages, too.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In Washington US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the proposal handed to Qatar, “was a strong one and a compelling one that offers some hope that we can get back to this process, but Hamas will have to make its own decisions.”
Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Al-Thani indicated that a hostage deal would be phased with women and children first, as he described the framework agreement that emerged from the Paris talks.
US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told MSNBC News that a framework exists for a deal to release the hostages, but he cautioned that nothing had been finalized.
“The success of the Paris meeting is dependent on the Occupation (Israel) agreeing to end the comprehensive aggression on Gaza Strip,” senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters.
A Palestinian official, close to mediation talks, who requested anonymity, said that for Hamas to sign a follow-up deal to the November truce in which it released dozens of hostages, it wants Israel to agree to end the offensive and withdraw from Gaza – through implementation would not necessarily be immediate.
In an interview with Douglas Murray on Talk TV, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continued to stress that Qatar could do more to secure a deal, particularly given that top Hamas leadership lived in its country.
The original article contains 1,227 words, the summary contains 218 words. Saved 82%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Tell you what, we’ll stop bombing you just long enough for you to hand over the hostages, then we’ll carry right on where we left off.
No surprise as they already gave a hint earlier today: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hamas-fires-rockets-central-israel-army-intercepts-some-them-2024-01-29/
Hamas started this war for propaganda. They’ll never let those poor female hostages tell of their horrors - that will look bad.
They’ll pretend to want peace while never taking the next step, all while their people die.
The people on here pretending that continuing the war in any way helps the situation are sickening.
The people on here pretending that continuing the war in any way helps the situation are sickening.
No they’re saying that giving up your only leverage is a stupid idea. This is about the politics of war and negotiation. The only thing keep Palestinian and Hamas from being paved over into a parking lot are the hostages. But it’s not like the IDF gives a fuck about the hostages anyway
Hamas started this war for propaganda. They’ll never let those poor female hostages tell of their horrors - that will look bad.
Everyone knows Hamas is bad. How many ppl do you see saying, “I stand with hamas”. The ongoing opinion is there is no good guy in this. Only civilian (mostly Palestinian civilians) victims
Leverage? Hostages are getting raped and Palestinians are dying enmass and starving.
Perhaps you live in a universe where all this leverage hamas has in the hostages has in any way limited the IDF actions?
Leverage over lives…it sickens me.
Well they’re negotiating over it right now so clearly it’s has limited the IDF in that way
Hamas is never letting those women go. You’re deluding yourself if you think otherwise. In effect all you’re doing is arguing in favour of a terrorist organisation raping hostages. Mull on that sometime.
In the meantime the Palestinians will start eating all that leverage hamas has secured no doubt.
Hamas wouldn’t go through all the trouble to capture them if they weren’t willing to free them for a deal. They’re not excusing it, just explaining why militarily it would be dumb for Hamas to let go of their only leverage without a better deal. They let go of a bunch and it only led to a couple days before the massacre began again and Israel basically recaptured about the same amount of people they exchanged. When is the next chance they’ll get to have hostages for negotiation again? October 7th was an unprecedented attack that probably won’t happen again for a long time.
Of course they would. They’ve been trying to provoke a war for ages. The hostages aren’t for negotiations, they’re to force Israel to come after them.
Hamas walked away from the last exchange when Israel wanted younger women released which says a lot.
They forced a war, pushed it into the civilian centres to maximise casualties and there’s still people like you pretending this was a good option for the Palestinians or Israel.
Let them eat leverage hey?
They’ve already been dying. There’s basically been a war ongoing for decades, as they’ve slowly put the area under siege and taken territory and killed and imprisoned people. It’s just the international community has ignored it.
How did they push it into civilian centers? They aimed for a military base. I don’t know why Israel allowed a music festival right next to there. It’s more like Israel has been pushing civilian centers into them as they slowly but steadily take territory and put their own settlers on Palestinian land.
I don’t think this was a good option. You’re putting words in my mouth and I don’t appreciate that. I really think Hamas fucked up with October 7th. What I think is that Hamas probably won’t exchange their hostages, whichever ones they have left that haven’t starved to death or died from Israeli bombs, because it’s their only bargaining chip now.