Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained that if Tel Aviv agrees to a new hostage deal with Hamas, it will only “delay” the Israeli attack on Rafah. International aid organizations have warned that an attack on the city of 1.5 million will be devastating to the civilian population of Gaza.
On Friday, the US, Egypt, and Qatar presented a new hostage deal that would see the release of 40 Israeli captives in exchange for a six-week pause in fighting. The deal was negotiated without the input of Tel Aviv and Hamas. While US and Israeli officials have presented the hostage release proposal as progress, neither Tel Aviv nor Hamas have signed on to it.
Hamas’ top priority is ending the Israeli onslaught. Netanyahu’s remarks signal Israel is unwilling to end the war until every city in Gaza is destroyed. “Once we begin the Rafah operation, the intense phase of the fighting is weeks away from completion. Not months,” Netanyahu told CBS. “If we don’t have a deal, we’ll do it anyway.”
From north to south, Israel’s operations have systematically annihilated the Strip. The operations have killed over 30,000 Palestinians and driven 1.5 million to the southernmost city of Rafah. Aid organizations that operate in Gaza warn an assault on Rafah will be catastrophic as there is no other place for the Palestinian people to flee.
“Rafah is the end of the line. There is nowhere else to flee. Even if displaced people return north, they will find no homes to go back to, and no supply lines to bring in food, water, medicines, or any other essentials,” Avril Benoit, executive director of Doctors Without Borders, said. “The consequences of a full-scale assault on Rafah are truly unimaginable. We cannot stand by and wait for this to unfold.”
The White House has asked Tel Aviv not to attack Rafah until a plan is in place for the Palestinians. However, Israel has routinely ignored US requests since the war in Gaza broke out. President Biden has refused to condition US support for Israel on Tel Aviv’s compliance with Washington’s demands.
Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com, news editor of the Libertarian Institute, and co-host of Conflicts of Interest.
Netanyahu clearly does not want a hostage deal.
Why would Hamas give up the hostages when the Israelis announce they will attack Rafah anyway?
He knows Hamas is smarter than that, but he also knows we’re absolutely stupid. He is saying this to us because he knows we can’t put 2 and 2 together.
Right – US requests that the Israelis not attack Rafah until a plan is in place for the Palestinians asked for with a lot of winks and nudges, ‘cuz Genocide Joe is such a great humanitarian.
He would say, “start crying” if it said that on the teleprompter, but he forgets.
One problem for the Palestinians is that most of the Islamic world is ambiguous in their support for them. Countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Tunisia don’t like Hamas because Hamas is allied with Iran and is extremely violent. None of those Islamic countries want Palestinian refugees coming to their countries, nor do they want Hamas coming to their countries either.
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.”
And the best way to remove all doubt is to repeat empty slogans.
Basically, you are correct. Except, it is the Arab world that is ambiguous. toward the Palestinians. Always have been. Fear and loathing.
It is a lot more complex than that.
None of them want to help Israel complete another Nakba, because their own populations would revolt and overthrow the government.
But they don’t want to take on a serious burden of confrontation with the Israel and its US/UK/German backers, who support genocide and apartheid and anything else Israel chooses to do. So they duck.
BUT in all this, they deeply detest Israel, and it is all based on refusal to help Israel, and refusal to be forced into a confrontation with it either.
There is no comfort here for those who kill Palestinian babies.
What isn’t complicated is the dislike in the region for HAMAS.
The crime minister is indirectly saying he already agreed with the hostage deal…!
Basically, he is saying we will give you a sprinkle of detainees for the rest of the hostages, then we will kill the rest of you, and/or, herd you in the nice little compound Egypt has for you.
Note – the Israeli prisoners held in Gaza are nearly all IDF Military or Paramilitary. Therefore best described as POWs.
Also note Scott Ritter believes most of these POWs are IDF intelligence officers captured when Al-Qassem brigades raided the central command bunker for the area. It’s been suggested that the Likud does not want these Intelligence Officers to live and tell their stories.
Hannibal Directive
There are a bunch of commoners, but there were folks at the rave and kibbutzim that were or are IDF. They had weapons, hence, the firefight that killed Isaelis, and 300 IDF. It is mandatory that every able bodied person serves in the IDF.
Perhaps Hamas should protect their lives from Israeli bombardment so they could survive and tell their true stories to non-US media…!
The government in Gaza has been trying to protect the PoWs from being killed by the IDF.
“We cannot stand by and wait for this to unfold.”
That’s exactly want the West will do. And there’s nothing anyone can do about that. It’s up to the Axis of Resistance to destroy Israel. The time is approaching, if not come yet. But that is the inevitable outcome of this war, just as the elimination of Ukraine as a state is the inevitable result of that war.
To quote Kurt Russell in “Big Trouble in Little China”: “Son of a bitch must pay.”
This is an American genocide. Funded by American taxes. Biden could stop the massacre in a day. Just sign an executive order freezing the delivery of ammunition, bombs and spare parts to the Israeli military until Israel withdraws from Gaza and declares a permanent ceasefire. Democrats, Republicans and independents all want a ceasefire. Biden is ignoring his constituents, the interests of his country and destroying his own reelection chances because he serves the Israel lobby instead of his own country. I hope he gets punished in the Michigan primary tomorrow. Never again for anyone!
Mark my words, Biden is not going to be on the ticket. They’re already blaming his age because they don’t want to blame it on him being “Genocide Sloppy Joe!”
Get used to saying Mme. President Obama.
The entire world is condemning Israel’s genocide verbally. But the world continues to do business with Israel as usual. China remains the largest exporter to Israel and even South Africa continues to export raw diamonds to Israel. Israel imports 220,000 barrels of oil a day from Muslim and African countries, including Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Gabon. Without the oil from OPEC and OPEC+ countries Israel could not keep its military campaign or its economy running. In the 1960’s when the US and UK were blocking action against apartheid South Africa in the Security Council, the General Assembly not only condemned apartheid, but in 1962 the GA called on the nations of the world to impose an economic, military and cultural blockade of South Africa. Specifically the GA called on member states to deny use of their air space and ports to South African commerce. In 1974 the General Assembly suspended South Africa’s membership, effectively expelling South Africa from the United Nations.
While the countries of the world condemn Israel’s genocide and its occupation, they have not been willing to stop doing business with the Zionist regime. Only the Houthis are really standing up for Palestine.
Business and money super cedes morality, humanity.
Well it’s a double edged sword, on the one hand the system is working as designed, in that I had my doubts, but then on the other hand we’re at the very beginning and the system doesn’t dictate actions, sovereign states signed the Geneva Convention, know their obligations under it and need to act. You know, your point.
But in a world of 193 sovereign states with national interests and priorities a lever’s needed; that’s where the grassroots comes in. Not that it’s much comfort watching genocide live-streaming daily, but that too is working, American Muslims have the DNC panicked and we can see it in Europe. Remember the recent GA resolution on Palestinian self-determination was 189 for and against 4: Israel, the US, Micronesia under compact to vote w/the US and a forgettable atoll in the South Pacific with a population of 12,000.
Nothing with get through the SC, but there is much the GA can do, about which the US will pull out every dirty trick in it’s deep well-used bag. Be the lever, believe and chocolate (sometimes vodka.)
I agree with your point. But I don’t recall a 189 to 4 vote in the GA. The December 12th vote on a ceasefire was 153-10 with 23 abstentions and 7 countries not voting.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/12/1144717
Not the ceasefire vote, self-determination, quoting Jeff Sachs, however inaccurately in the For tally (which now that you mention it potentially waters my EU point, would have to dig for recent quotes – Borrell, Macron, even Ursula von der Crazy, as I remember, but then I was “remembering” the vote tally – rebut welcome 🙂
“In a recent UN General Assembly vote, 174 countries, with 94% of the world population, voted in favor of Palestinian political self-determination, while just 4 countries with 4% of the world
population – Israel, the United States, Micronesia and Nauru – voted against (another 15 countries abstained or did not vote). Israel’s hardline militarism has united the world against it.”
https://www.jeffsachs.org/newspaper-articles/ssm8mz6kfzysdwb9gh6m7ykhlk7sa7
Psychopaths are in control of the leading democracies. The intellectually and morally bankrupt donor class picked them to serve their own interests.
Just some names, Biden, Boris, Scholz and all the Russophobe neocons and senile incompetent opportunistic people like Pelosi and McConnell, Blinken, Sullivan, Nuland and all the others. There are no officials with honor, and decency. The system is corrupt and no election will change that.
Pelosi is a real work. When she told the pro-Palestinians protesters to “go back to China”, I believe she revealed her preference for military action against China. A Freudian slip of sorts.
My impression is that she has passed her sell by date. Everything she blurts out these days is meaningless drool.