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If Netanyahu wants to renew the fighting in Gaza, then Hamas reads the mood in the Israeli leadership and political echelon very well.
By GADI HITMAN FEBRUARY 11, 2025 09:41
US PRESIDENT Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu walk through the White House last Tuesday. Trump’s Gaza proposal is brilliant, amazing, and historic, the writer maintains.
(photo credit: Avi Ohayon/GPO)
Negotiating with an enemy is never easy to digest, but if a decision was made to hold it, the meaning is one thing: Israel wants something from the enemy that it cannot achieve on its own. Therefore, through mediators, it conducts negotiations.
This time, negotiations were underway for the release of 100 Israeli hostages - living and dead - from the Gaza Strip.
As of Tuesday, the continuation of the hostage deal is in doubt. Hamas announced that it has suspended the continuation of the deal due to its claims of Israeli violations of the agreement.
How to go forward
The question of whether Israel violated the agreement or not is not important at all - the critical factors are:
1. What do the leaders of Hamas think? Well, for them - Israel's shooting in the Gaza Strip, the failure to introduce humanitarian aid as agreed and the failure to return Palestinian evacuees to the north of the Gaza Strip are an Israeli violation. Israel can explain to the world that it did not violate the agreements at all and it may even be right. It doesn't matter at all, as long as the decision-makers in Hamas are not convinced that the agreement is indeed being fulfilled as agreed between the parties.
2. The second issue is much more complicated: What does Israel want, or more precisely what does the Prime Minister of Israel want? Netanyahu returned from the United States satisfied, to say the least, with Trump's statements regarding Gaza. Well, talking high is fine. In the end, it has to be translated into action.
Currently, the Palestinians are in Gaza and Hamas controls the territory, also because Israel has not been able to produce a governing alternative.
If Netanyahu wants all of the hostages at home, he must do two things immediately: Make sure that the mediators - Egypt and Qatar - make it clear to Hamas that there are no Israeli violations of the agreement and at the same time to give the Israeli team of the negotiations a mandate to handle a practical discussion for the implementation of phase two of the deal.
If Netanyahu wants to renew the fighting in Gaza, then Hamas reads the mood in the Israeli leadership and political echelon very well.
Hamas’s analysis is that Netanyahu will strive to resume the war while Hamas itself is interested in ending it.
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Netanyahu's history as a decision-making prime minister does not favor him. He hesitated many times, ponders for a long time and many times decides not to decide. On October 7, 2023, reality slapped him in the face and he was forced to go to war, which he is at least convinced has not come to an end.
Finally, a word about the American administration: You don't have to be a psychologist to characterize Donald Trump as a bully of words and actions. A culture of threats that he uses against those he does not like, such as Hamas, is not an accepted form of negotiation in the Islamic world.
Trump thinks and speaks in English. The Palestinians, certainly Hamas, think in Arabic and Islam. Only Qatar and Egypt can bridge this gap. They must now be the person responsible will bring the deal to its full realization. Currently, there is no real guarantee to see the deal completely done.
It is very likely that Netanyahu will publicly claim that Hamas has failed to fully implement the deal and will strive to resume fighting. In this sense, Hamas' announcement of the delay in implementation plays into the hands of Netanyahu, who wishes to return and fight (with American backing).
Paradoxically, Hamas's decision, which is apparently only a tactical threat, may turn out to be a strategic concept. And it was already said above: everything is a question of interest. personal and national. or the opposite.
Dr. Gadi Hitman is the Middle East and Political Science Department, chair of Ariel University
English (US) ·