Israel is Facing the Abyss

There again is hope that a ceasefire could be brokered with Hamas and the remaining 139 hostages returned. Talks have been deadlocked for months over Hamas’s demand that any deal lead to an end to the conflict, and Israel’s refusal to consider anything but “total victory”.

But late on Saturday night,  it was reported that a new Israeli proposal, brokered by Egypt, includes a willingness to discuss the “restoration of sustainable calm” in Gaza after an initial release of some 20-30 hostages. Since everything in diplomatic speak hinges on using one word or another, "sustainable calm" does not mean "premanent ceasefire". Netanyhau is refusing to end the conflict and wants to maintain the pressure, even if his intransigence leads to the death of the Israeli prisoners in Hamas's hands. 

No one really knows how many Israeli prisoners are still alive: but assuming that the Israeli terrorist organization doesn't lie (a very weak assumption, but....), they say they killed 12,000 Hamas terrorists as of the end of February, which is about half the total number of troops Hamas is estimated to have. If this is indeed the case, and assuming the Israeli captives are always closely attached to the Hamas combatants, one would expect that half the Israeli prisoners would have died in Israel's own shelling of Gaza, i.e. somewhere near 65 are the ones still alive. This explains the dwindling margin of negotiations that Hamas has: It doesn't have enough Israeli prisoners left to trade. In fact, some Israelis are saying that Netanyahu is willing to lose all his captives provided he goes into Rafah. In other words, it seems that Netanyahu and Hamas indirectly agree to continue the war, which is why the negotiations have been stalled for several weeks now. A hypothetical victory by Israel against Hamas, which is a far-fetched notion, will have to occur at the expense of the prisoners' lives.

It was previously reported that the number of prisoners Israel is asking Hamas to release in the initial phase of a ceasefire has also been reduced, which proves the point made above. Yet it is the proposal for an extended peace that is likely to make or break the new proposal, which the Hamas leadership is now considering and is expected to respond to in the next few days, although Hamas knows it is at the end of its rope and the opportunities offered by its war against Israel on October 7 will no longer be available in the foreseeable future.

“The proposal … includes a willingness to discuss the establishment of a sustainable ceasefire as part of the implementation of the second phase of the deal, which would take place after the release of hostages on humanitarian grounds,” reported the Axios news site on Sunday, quoting Israeli officials. But Hamas can read between the lines: It wants a permanent ceasefire and a return to the status quo ante, albeit it knows it will have to compromise on sharing power with the Palestinian Authority or with international troops on the ground and so on.

The reported shift in the Israeli position sparked anger from radical terrrorist circles close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday night who, playing with words, said Israel’s war aims remained unchanged - something the new formulation allows for. Nevertheless the new deal - if accepted by Hamas - could spark a political crisis in Israel. The extreme Jewish terrorist parties that Netanyahu’s finely balanced coalition relies on have long said they will pull out if he stops the war before Hamas is wholly defeated.

These parties, however, represent only a handful of seats and the opposition Yesh Atid party has said it will step in and support the government if it can secure a deal which sees the return of the missing 139 hostages.

The new offer comes at the end of a week in which Israel has been talking up preparations for a military push into Rafah in the south of Gaza where Hamas’s last four battalions are thought to be dug in. The threat of an Israeli invasion of Rafah remains real and may pressure Hamas to engage constructively with the new deal, say analysts.

Israel is also feeling the heat from the US and other allies who have been ratcheting up the pressure ever since intervening decisively to protect Israel from the Iranian missile barrage two weeks ago.

The growing pressure on Netanyahu's Israel stems from several issues: 

1-Israel's vulnerability could be exploited by a new wave of Iranian missiles, and all it takes is one missile to hit a target for the damage to be done to Israel's invincibility.

2-On the nothern border, Hezbollah presents a far bigger threat than Hamas does. 

3-Israel's image internationally has been severly tarnished.

4-Israel’s dependence on western military aid represents an element of structural weakness, again striking at the very heart of the image of Israel as a country that can defend itself.

5-The damage done to US-Israel relations against the background of Israel's violation of international law is huge; Never before has this issue been so openly discussed and contemplated. 

6-Talk of sanctions on Israel for genocide and action by the International Criminal Court in the Hague have been growing steadily louder. 

7-American public opinion has turned against Israel and wants a definitive solution to the Palestinian statehood question. 

8-Finally, even the UK, the midwife of the barbaric Jewish colony in Palestine, is demanding accountability; It wants to inspect Israeli prisons in which it is detaining Hamas suspects from Gaza.

In sum, Israel is facing enormous pressures it never had to deal with before, and it must make many critical decisions. “...every decision the Israeli government makes will have far-reaching consequences for its strategic situation for many years to come,” tweeted Shay Har-Zvi, a Senior fellow at the Institute for Policy and Strategy and a former official in the Ministry of Strategic Affairs. He added that a deal may pave the way for the advancement of the wider US peace plan for the region, including the rebuilding of Gaza and formation of a “coalition against Iran”.

“On the other hand, another failure could lead to a wide multi-arena escalation,” he said. Although there is cause for hope, the chances of success remain slim based on recent performance. “Every time we get close to a deal… there is sabotage taking place… from both sides,” said a top Qatari official in an interview with the newspaper Haaretz on Saturday.