Biden cease-fire push falters again after new demand by Hamas
Source: Washington Post
President Joe Biden’s months-long push for a cease-fire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas has been upended again in recent days, putting the deal on life support as U.S. officials say they have indefinitely postponed their plan to present the two sides with a “take it or leave it” proposal.
The latest obstacle — the abrupt introduction by Hamas of a new demand surrounding which prisoners Israel would release — underscores the frustrating, often excruciating process that has preoccupied top U.S. officials, and Biden himself, for nine months. At several recent points the United States, along with Qatar and Egypt, believed a deal was within reach, only for Israel or Hamas to derail the talks with new demands that set negotiators back weeks or months.
Overall, Biden’s chances of ending the 11-month war in Gaza and bringing home the remaining hostages before he leaves office appear ever more remote, making it more likely that he will end his presidency without mediating an end to the conflict that engulfed his final year in office and threatens to tarnish his legacy.
Negotiators increasingly fear that neither Israel nor Hamas is truly motivated to reach a deal. White House officials, lawmakers and diplomats say a cease-fire is key not only to addressing the tragic humanitarian situation in Gaza and releasing the remaining hostages, but also to avoiding a broader regional war.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/09/07/biden-ceasefire-gaza/
No link yet.
Hamas is not serious about these negotiations. They are playing a waiting game.
= new reply since forum marked as read
When in war, most parties have, traditionally, wanted to actually, you know, win. We did in WWII. Some, from WWII to the KW we forgot that. Maybe the act of actually winning hurt our collective psyche (or that of our leaders and their intellectual descendants). I mean, we eliminated Japanese, Italian, and German totalitarianism, but somehow think that using the same kind of means to eliminate other horrors is somehow wrong? Or maybe we've decided that we're wrong and those committing the horrors are the good folkx.
Whatever, I'm not a philosopher, I'm a science teacher that was a translator and still an amateur linguist (in the philologist, historical, descriptive, and generative senses of the latter). Still ...
Now we think that old-style winning's for losers, and True Winning consists in both sides "losing"--which means one side loses a but the other side scores a minor victory that we decree unsubstantial. And what matters isn't what participants think are the important issues, but what the Right Thinkers know History is tending towards.
Netanyahu was crystal clear what his goals were and to say we supported "Israel" when those goals were announced means supporting those goals when we said we supported what was announced. Stunningly, blather to the contrary means that his repeatedly restating his original goals are less ever-new demands and in fact simply renewed demands. Hamas is clear what its goals were, and when a tactical sub-goal is added in support of its strategic goal, that's not a new demand but a demand that is plausibly entailed by the overarching demand(s). It's consistency, a principled consistency (and not a "foolish consistency"
and can only be a shock to those who refused to believe what their ears heard months ago or don't want to admit having heard and understood. But if their ears won't hear, let them read the signs.
