By Noah Rothman
Thursday, June 13, 2024
Hamas has at least two core objectives in the war it
inaugurated. The first is to survive it, and the second is to preserve its
leadership structure, much of which is ensconced in lavish conditions in Doha
provided by their Qatari hosts. The hostages the terrorist sect seized on
October 7 are crucial to both goals. Drawn-out negotiations over the status of
its captives secures Hamas’s position in Qatar while prolonging the war, giving
Hamas the opportunity to impose costs on the Israelis sufficient to force
Jerusalem to abandon its goal of neutralizing the terrorist regime in Gaza.
The president has repeatedly and nonsensically claimed
that Hamas would willingly negotiate itself out of existence. That never made any
sense, but Joe Biden seemed committed to it. Today, though, Hamas has once
again demonstrated that it is not a good-faith negotiator. In its formal and
irritatingly belated response to a peace plan Biden has spent weeks drumming up
support for, Hamas demonstrated that it will not trade away the only leverage
it has.
“The Hamas demands include a complete halt to the war,
even if no agreement is reached regarding the second stage of the three-phase
deal,” Israel’s Channel 13 reported:
Hamas is also reportedly demanding
that the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip start during the first phase of the
deal, rather than the third phase; that Israel not be allowed to veto the
release of any Palestinian security prisoner, after Israel agreed to compromise
greatly on this matter; and that no murder convicts be deported abroad or to
the Gaza Strip.
In addition, a Lebanese news outlet reports that Hamas
has demanded the immediate withdrawal of IDF troops from the Gaza Strip on day
one with almost all crossings and checkpoints surrendered by the end of the
first week. If Israel is non-compliant by this point, the release of the
hostages will cease.
Israel will not agree to these terms. It will not abandon
its ability to exercise discretion over the Palestinian prisoners it could be
compelled to release. It will not agree to a permanent cessation of hostilities
even if the hostages remain in Hamas’s custody. Hamas’s counterproposal isn’t
designed to collapse negotiations — that would undermine its core strategic
objectives. Its demands are just rational enough to convince the terrorist
network’s interlocutors that it is a serious negotiating party. But Hamas’s
asks are sufficiently ambitious that they will have to give way to another
extended round of negotiations. That’s just what Hamas wants, and the Biden
administration knows it.
“Hamas could have answered with a single word: Yes,” a
frustrated Antony Blinken told reporters in Doha this week.
“Instead, Hamas waited nearly two weeks and then proposed more changes, a
number of which go beyond positions that it had previously taken and accepted.”
All that indignation notwithstanding, Blinken promised that he would continue
to “bridge the gaps” in talks that will extend into the horizon.
This isn’t the first time Hamas has embarrassed the Biden administration. They did so in April,
too, when the terrorist group confessed that it had been negotiating over the
status of hostages who could not be located and who were likely dead. And yet,
the Biden White House didn’t change its posture toward Hamas. Its members seem
possessed of an insatiable appetite for humiliation at the hands of this
barbaric death cult. Hamas will continue to mortify the Biden administration
until it encounters limits to the White House’s tolerance for shame. So far,
there are no such limits in sight.
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