AAnother round of ceasefire and hostage talks, this time in Doha, ended in disappointment. This is mainly because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is unlikely to accept an agreement that Hamas could portray as a victory – and he has tied up the Israeli mediators with conditions that seem impossible for Hamas to accept.
Beyond the content of a possible agreement between the two sides, there is the emotional tension that defines Israeli-Palestinian relations: the struggle for national dignity and honor. Israel has dropped huge quantities of explosives on Gaza since October 7 because all Israelis, especially the Israeli leadership and military, felt humiliated. This war, which has been going on for more than ten months, has been fought to a large extent as a war of revenge by both sides. Yet it also has significant strategic consequences for Israel, Hamas, the Palestinian people, the nations of the region and the major powers of the world – especially the United States.
Hamas will view and portray any agreement with Israel that ends the war in Gaza, leads to the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, and releases Palestinian prisoners as a victory and Israeli surrender. Therefore, Israeli negotiators will not agree to a complete withdrawal and are demanding a long-term Israeli military presence along the Gaza-Egypt border and a security mechanism that will ensure that Hamas and other military gunmen cannot advance from southern Gaza into the north. In addition, Netanyahu is demanding a veto right over the Palestinian prisoners to be released under the agreement and that those serving life sentences be expelled from Palestine for life. These additional conditions are unacceptable to Hamas.
It is also difficult to imagine that Netanyahu will make any deal with Hamas before killing the key Hamas leaders in Gaza, most notably Yahya Sinwar. If the Israeli military finds and kills Sinwar, he will likely be surrounded by Israeli hostages and the bunker may be rigged with explosives. There will likely be a fight to the death in which Israeli soldiers and hostages could be killed in addition to the Hamas leaders and their soldiers. There is also the risk that Hamas militias will kill more hostages if their leader is killed.
For most people in Israel, there is no victory without the return of the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza. Yet these negotiations make clear that Netanyahu has put his impossible goal of total victory ahead of their safe return. Many of them may no longer be alive, either killed by Hamas or Israeli bombs. There is a chance that some of those bodies will never be found and returned. Historically, Israel’s ethos has been guided by the principle that no one is left behind. The world was stunned in 2011 when Israel released 1,027 Palestinian prisoners (more than 300 of whom were serving life sentences for violent attacks) in exchange for just one Israeli soldier. At the time, about 80% of Israelis supported the deal, and 26 members of Netanyahu’s government voted for it while only three ministers opposed it. That ethos now appears to have been broken. No one can blame Netanyahu for not wanting to bring the hostages home, but it seems pretty clear that this is not his top priority. Most Israeli experts believe that Netanyahu’s “total victory” is more about prolonging the war as long as possible in order to stay in power. The prime minister’s poll numbers are slowly rising as his base, which largely abandoned him after the Hamas attack, slowly returns.
The chances of successful negotiations between Israel and Hamas depend on how much pressure mediators apply to both sides when talks resume next week. The US has considerable influence over Israel, both through the political cover it provides Israel at the UN and through its ability to stop the flow of bombs into Israel. The US could say it would support Israel if it Although Israel could no longer be attacked by Iran or Hezbollah, it would no longer supply bombs that Israel could drop on Gaza. Egypt and Qatar both have significant influence over Hamas: parts of the Hamas leadership are based in Doha, while the Rafah border crossing is a lifeline to the Gaza Strip. Reports suggest that 160,000 Palestinians have escaped the horrors of the war in Gaza and are overstaying their residency permits in Egypt. This is another point of influence over Hamas and the Palestinian people.
Now, more than ten months after the war began, in which over 40,000 people were killed in Gaza and over 1,600 Israelis were killed, this war must end. There is no military solution to this conflict and there never has been one. There must be a new path to a negotiated end to the larger conflict, but it begins with ending this war, Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, the return of Israeli hostages and the establishment of a secure border between Gaza and Egypt. This would pave the way for the creation of a responsible and legitimate non-Hamas government in Gaza, an Arab-led international force in Gaza for a limited period, new elections in Palestine, new elections in Israel and then a regional peace process that will bring about a two-state solution with an end to the Israeli occupation, a free, democratic Palestine and freedom, peace and security for all.
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