By Jim Geraghty
Tuesday, May 07, 2024
What kind of a person or organization do you have to be
to take Hamas at its word at this point?
Gullible? Naïve? Foolish? In denial?
As I laid out back at the beginning of November, Hamas has
a notorious record of breaking cease-fires that its leaders have just accepted
and touted. Then at the end of that month, during the first cease-fire between
Hamas and Israel, Hamas “later claimed responsibility for the deadly shooting in
Jerusalem.” Now, lest there be any confusion in the ranks of Hamas, the
rules of a cease-fire are right there in the name. You’re supposed to cease
firing. If you don’t cease firing, the other guys are not obligated to cease
their firing, either.
If Hamas really wanted another cease-fire after breaking
the last two, it could always make a good-faith gesture and release some more of the estimated 137 remaining hostages.
Instead, Hamas has conceded that it isn’t even sure if
it still has 40 women, elderly, and sick men left alive.
Israel is stuck with the ultimate bad-faith negotiator.
Early yesterday afternoon, our Phil Klein urged everyone to be “highly skeptical”
of the reports that Hamas had agreed to a cease-fire:
It is of course theoretically
possible Israel’s signaling that a Rafah invasion is imminent has gotten the
terrorist group to finally agree. But far more likely is that Hamas has
essentially made a counteroffer that it knows would be a nonstarter for Israel
merely as a propaganda move to make it seem that Israel rejected peace and
chose to invade Rafah instead.
That is exactly what happened.
Credit Peter Baker of the New York Times for not
going with the “Hamas agrees to a cease-fire, but Israel rejects it” narrative.
This morning’s edition of the Times clarifies, “In fact, Hamas
did not ‘accept’ a cease-fire deal so much as make a counteroffer to the
proposal on the table previously blessed by the United States and Israel — a
counteroffer that was not itself deemed acceptable but a sign of progress.”
But there’s a glaring snag in the deal, as apparently
Hamas began by promising live hostages and then quietly changed that to
corpses:
After months of stalemated talks,
Israel came back on April 26 with a proposal that American officials believed
changed the dynamics and offered a serious chance for agreement.
Under the first phase of the
proposal, Israel would halt the war for 42 days and release hundreds of
Palestinians held in its prisons while Hamas would release 33 hostages,
specifically women, older men and the sick and wounded.
The number 33 was an increase
from 18 proposed by Hamas but lower than the 40 originally demanded by Israel,
in large part because Israeli officials came to understand that there were not
more than 33 hostages who met the criteria, according to people informed about
the discussions who insisted on anonymity to describe sensitive talks. Indeed,
Hamas revealed to the Israelis on Monday that the 33 would include the remains
of hostages who have died as well as those still living.
Here’s how two other New York Times reporters, Edward
Wong and Julian E. Barnes, characterized the emerging deal Monday
afternoon:
The proposal for a
hostage-prisoner exchange and cease-fire that Hamas said on Monday that it
could accept has minor wording changes from the one that
Israel and the United States had presented to the group recently, according to
two officials familiar with the revised proposal.
The officials said that the
changes were made by Arab mediators in consultation with William J. Burns, the
C.I.A. director, and that the new version keeps a key phrase, the eventual
enactment of a “sustainable calm,” wording that all sides had said earlier they
could accept. [Emphasis added.]
I don’t know, does altering “live hostage” to “corpse”
seem like a “minor wording change” to you? Kind of a big deal, no?
Axios reports on a bombshell accusation from
Israeli officials, claiming the Biden administration blindsided them with the
terms of this deal, and allowed Hamas to execute its public-relations strategy
of announcing it had agreed to a deal that Israel hadn’t even seen yet:
The officials claimed CIA
director Bill Burns and other Biden administration officials who are involved
in the negotiations knew about the new proposal but didn’t tell Israel.
The Israeli officials also said
the last touches on the proposal were made on Monday morning in Doha with the
Biden administration’s knowledge.
On Monday morning, Burns spoke on
the phone with Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant, a source with
knowledge of the call said. But when Hamas released its statement the Israeli
minister was also surprised.
Two Israeli officials said the
feeling is that “Israel got played” by the U.S. and the mediators who drafted
“a new deal” and weren’t transparent about it.
Yesterday afternoon, Phil concluded, “Despite Hamas’s
having rejected cease-fire offers for months even as Israel made more and more
concessions, the media — as well as much of the Biden administration — will
adopt the Hamas spin.”
Well, check out the headlines this morning:
PBS: “Israel strikes targets in Rafah, hours after Hamas
agrees to a cease-fire.”
NBC News: “Hamas says it agreed to a cease-fire proposal;
Israel strikes Rafah and says deal ‘far from’ meeting its demands”
The
Associated Press: “Israel begins military operation in Rafah, hours after
Hamas agrees to a cease-fire”
Reuters: “Hamas accepted Gaza ceasefire proposal, Israel
‘will continue its operation’”
The Economist: “Hamas talks up a truce, but
Israel may still invade Rafah”
Semafor: “Israel begins Rafah strikes as Hamas says it
accepts ceasefire deal”
Those headlines all make Hamas sound reasonable and
conciliatory, and Israel sound like an intransigent warmonger. This is exactly
the result that Hamas wanted, and all Hamas had to do was announce that it had
agreed to a cease-fire proposal that it wrote. And, as far as we can tell, the
U.S. government played along with the ruse.
The last hiding place for Hamas forces is Rafah; the IDF
contends there are four battalions hiding in the city of roughly 1.4 million
residents and refugees. (For more information on Hamas battalions, see here.)
The Biden administration is desperate to prevent the IDF
from rolling into Rafah. The fight would likely be a bloodbath — Hamas’s last
stand — with a lot of civilian casualties. It would also make the Biden
administration look absolutely impotent in its ability to deter or influence
the decision-making of the Israeli government and make the anti-Israel punks
marching in the streets even more livid with the president they ludicrously
deride as “Genocide Joe.”
Seven months ago, the Biden administration policy was to
help protect Israelis from the wrath of Hamas. Now, the Biden administration
policy is functionally attempting to protect Hamas from the wrath of the
Israelis.
On May 3, Biden issued a statement for “Proclamation on Days of
Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust”:
We honor the memories of the
victims, the courage of the survivors, and the heroism of those who stood up to
the Nazis, and we recommit ourselves to making real the promise of “Never
Again. . . .”
As United States Senator, as Vice
President, and now as President, I have met with many Holocaust survivors,
promising them that our Nation would neither forget what they endured nor ever
again stand by silently in the face of antisemitism.
The charge has never been more
urgent than in the aftermath of Hamas’ vicious terrorist attack on October 7th
— the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. Among the 1,200 innocent
people who were slaughtered and the hundreds taken hostage were elderly
survivors of the Shoah, who were forced to relive the horrors they thought they
had escaped decades ago.
And then Biden deliberately chose to delay selling Israel 6,500 Joint Direct Attack Munitions — kits that enable
unguided bombs to be steered to a target.
Nothing says “never again” like refusing to send promised
military aid to Israel as it fights a foe that pledges to “bring annihilation upon the Jews.”
ADDENDUM: Further evidence that you can blurt out any old racial stereotype with minimal
consequences, as long as you have a “D” after your name:
At the Milken Institute Global
Conference, the annual gathering of billionaires and business leaders in
California, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York was given a spotlight on Monday to
expound on her new artificial intelligence initiative.
But as she explained her desire
to make technology more widely accessible, especially in low-income
communities, the governor made an extemporaneous comment suggesting that Black
children from the Bronx were unfamiliar with computers.
In an exchange with the
moderator, Jonathan Capehart, Ms. Hochul said that “right now we have young
Black kids growing up in the Bronx who don’t even know what the word ‘computer’
is.”
Really? They don’t know the word “computer”?
Boy, I’d hate to be the governor of a state with such
abysmally failing public schools!
Right now, Ralph Northam is thinking, “Jeez, what a racist
governor.”
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