No, Netanyahu Is Not the Reason the Hostage Talks Aren’t Going Anywhere

Can Washington realize that Hamas doomed them from the start?

Hamas carried out years-long campaign to fool Israel before attack, source says. (The Times of Israel)

Ynetnews, an English website of Israel’s popular Hebrew daily Yediot Aharonot, reports:

Foreign officials involved in the cease-fire and hostage release [talks] said on Monday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence on an IDF presence on the Philadelphi Corridor was not the only obstacle to a deal.

The Philadelphi Corridor runs along the border between Israel and Egypt and for almost two decades has been the gateway to Hamas’s smuggling of enormous quantities of weapons into Gaza. Netanyahu has been saying that if Israeli forces, which have reconquered the corridor, retreat from it again, the smuggling resumes and Hamas rebuilds. This stance of his has been portrayed by many as a fatal blow to peace.

But the abovementioned “foreign officials” see it differently:

“Hamas made more demands after the execution of the six Israeli hostages and increased the number of Palestinian prisoners it wants Israel to release in the first phase of the deal, knowing the Israelis would refuse because it is unreasonable....”

The officials said they were frustrated and rejected the claim that Israel was at fault for failing to reach a deal. “You have a list of hostages and another list of thousands of Palestinian prisoners. Now six hostages were murdered and it’s not like Hamas officials in Doha said that was done inadvertently. On the contrary. They use this murder as propaganda so all our focus is on Hamas.”

By “propaganda,” the officials probably mean that Hamas has used the murders to increase the sense that a deal is urgent. Unfortunately, the stratagem has worked to an extent in Israel, sparking especially bitter nightly demonstrations trumpeting the claim that Netanyahu—loathed as a demon by not a few of the demonstrators—is the obstacle to a deal.

Yet the Jerusalem Post quotes “US officials” taking a similar line to the “foreign officials” in the ynetnews report:

“We were never in a situation when Hamas said yes and Israel said no. This is a false conspiracy. We’ve spoken with the families [of hostages]. Their desire and the thought that the door would be open only if Israel did something—is not where we are.”

Were they able to get through to the families? One can only hope so, since not a few of the families and their supporters are deeply attached to the notion that Netanyahu is the villain.

The Jerusalem Post report continues:

Senior American officials said that over the past week, [President] Biden’s top advisers have held discussions and have become increasingly skeptical about reaching a deal soon.

The murder of six hostages, including American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin, and Hamas’s new demand for the release of 100 additional Palestinian prisoners, have fueled pessimism within the White House.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeated demands that Israel continue to maintain military control along the Philadelphi corridor have led to frustration in Washington. 

Should the two be juxtaposed—murdering six people and insisting on control of a strategic border?

The Biden administration faces a tough dilemma, as it believes Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is uninterested in a deal, according to senior US officials. Even if Sinwar were open to negotiations, Biden is reluctant to offer further concessions to Hamas after the murder of hostages and amid increasing demands.

Those last lines suggest that a light of truth just might be glinting through. There is, of course, confirmation that Hamas’s game is cynical manipulation and not a satisfactory ending for all.

As reported a few days ago, a document from Sinwar’s computer in spring 2024 “articulates Hamas’s strategies and objectives in negotiations with Israel over a potential deal that would see hostages released in exchange for a ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.” The document

lays out a strategy of psychological warfare through the hostages, calling to “continue to exert psychological pressure on the families of the [hostages], both now and in the first phase [of the ceasefire] so that public pressure on the enemy government increases.”

Since the murder of the six hostages, Hamas with diabolical cruelty has been implementing that strategy by publishing videos of them pleading to be freed while they were still alive.

The document also reveals that

Hamas is indifferent to whether the ongoing war ends quickly, instead prioritizing maintaining the terror group’s military capabilities, “exhausting” Israel’s military and political apparatuses, and increasing international pressure on Israel.

It sounds, of course, a lot like what’s happening now, and it indicates that Sinwar’s goal has never been the sort of stable ceasefire so desperately prized by the Biden administration.

Instead of chasing the phantasm of Hamas as a constructive actor, US officials should be acting on their sense of exasperation and disgust by finally taking measures to penalize the murderous, morally depraved organization.