Netanyahu's latest strategy to avoid a ceasefire

by Qassam Muadd

[This artical posted on 8/1/2024 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.sozonline.de/2024/08/netanyahus-neueste-strategie-zur-vermeidung-eines-waffenstillstands/.]

It is not Hamas that is blocking a ceasefire in Gaza, but Israel. Netanyahu has systematically sabotaged the negotiations at every turn, and his current demands for military control over Gaza ensure that they will fail. Since the beginning of the week, two reports have emerged about the latest ceasefire negotiations that seem to contradict each other.

One of them has attracted a lot of attention in the international press: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accepted the US ceasefire agreement and Secretary of State Antony Blinken has declared that the ball is now in Hamas' court.

The second topic was only taken up in the Israeli media: Netanyahu told a group of families of Israeli prisoners in Gaza that he is not sure a ceasefire agreement will be reached because Israel will not withdraw from the Netzarim and Philadelphi corridors in Gaza “under any circumstances”.

While in the first case Hamas is to be blamed for the lack of a ceasefire, the second case proves that it is in fact Israel that insists on continuing its genocidal assault on Gaza.

Netanyahu's insistence on control of Netzarim and Philadelphi - which even according to a US administration official is a “maximalist” demand that will not help “dry up a ceasefire agreement” - is tantamount to saying that Israel is not interested in a ceasefire at all.

How Netanyahu repeatedly sabotages the negotiations
The latest round of talks began after the USA, Egypt and Qatar called for negotiations to be resumed. The three governments rushed to revive ceasefire efforts after Iran and Hezbollah declared they would retaliate against Israel for the assassination of Hezbollah's top military commander, Fouad Shukr, in the southern Beirut neighborhood of Dahiya, and Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Both assassinations have heightened tensions and brought the possibility of a regional war within reach.

In a statement on Tuesday, Hamas said the US claim that it rejected the agreement was “misleading”, accusing the US of acceding to Netanyahu's desire to prolong the war. The organization also said “the mediators know that Hamas has responded responsibly in all rounds of negotiations,” it also accepted Biden's proposal to end the war in May based on the UN Security Council resolution.
The latest round of talks centered on a new US proposal, the details of which have not been fully disclosed. However, according to a statement by Netanyahu on August 20, the proposal takes into account “Israel's security needs”.

The proposal presented by Biden in May envisaged three phases, starting with a 42-day cessation of hostilities, during which an initial prisoner exchange would take place. The original proposal envisaged a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. At the time, the US claimed that the proposal was originally submitted to Washington by Israel, although Netanyahu publicly stated in a television interview that he was not yet ready to end the war.

On July 10, the Israeli daily Haaretz published a report showing how Netanyahu sabotaged a ceasefire at an early stage. During a round of negotiations in April, Netanyahu leaked sensitive information from the talks about the number of Palestinian prisoners to be released to the media via his Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. This damaged the negotiation efforts. At the end of April, Netanyahu recalled the negotiating team and ordered them to back away from agreements already reached without the knowledge or consent of his war cabinet.

Then, in May, as Israel's military and intelligence chiefs awaited a positive response from Hamas to Biden's proposal, Netanyahu announced that he would attack Rafah and would never agree to end the war as part of any future agreement. In early June, Israel marched into Rafah and the chances of an agreement faded again.

Hamas announced in early July that it accepted Biden's proposal as it provided for the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip, the return of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza and the start of reconstruction efforts after the completion of the prisoner exchange. The only changes Hamas made to the US agreement were guarantees that Israel would not resume the war after the completion of the prisoner exchange, that the Israeli withdrawal would be permanent and that reconstruction efforts would begin before the end of the final phase of the ceasefire.

This was a disaster for Israel. Hamas had essentially accepted an agreement proposed by President Biden himself. This put the ball back in Israel's court and backed Netanyahu into a corner. Netanyahu's position was made worse by the fact that Biden had presented the proposed agreement as an Israeli initiative.
Netanyahu's way out was to claim that Hamas had changed the terms of the agreement, and he insisted that there was no Israeli consensus to end the war. And so the war dragged on.

Shifting goals in relation to the Gaza Strip
In mid-July, Egyptian and Qatari mediators called Israel and Hamas back to the negotiating table. Netanyahu sent a smaller delegation with limited powers to Cairo. The Israeli team returned to Tel Aviv hours later after an argument with Netanyahu over what has become an increasing focus for the Israeli prime minister in the negotiations: the future of the Netzarim and Philadelphi corridors.

Why the focus on these two areas? The answer lies in their strategic location and Israel's vision for the future of the Gaza Strip.

The Netzarim corridor is a four-kilometer-wide strip of land in the center of the Gaza Strip that the Israeli army has cleared of its inhabitants and uses as a military zone for the deployment and redeployment of its troops. Above all, Netzarim stretches from the eastern edge of the Gaza Strip to the west, dividing the coastal enclave in half and thus cutting off the northern Gaza Strip from the south. The Philadelphi Corridor plays a different strategic role. It is a two-kilometer-wide strip along the border with Egypt through which Hamas smuggles weapons, according to Israeli sources.

Netanyahu's statement that he was sticking to these two corridors came after Blinken left Israel for Egypt, where he met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Egypt's position was clear: Israel must withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor. A statement from the Egyptian presidency said that Sisi had made it clear to Blinken that it was time to agree a ceasefire and then recognize a Palestinian state internationally as part of a two-state solution.

Netanyahu claims that the Philadelphi Corridor along the Egyptian border is of “strategic importance” and necessary for Israel to have the guarantee that no more weapons will be smuggled into Gaza in the future. However, even within the Israeli military there is disagreement about the importance of maintaining the Netzarim and Philadelphi corridors.

The Chief of Staff of the Israeli army, Herzi Halevi, was quoted by Israeli radio in mid-July as saying that Israel could deal with the Philadelphi corridor without maintaining troops there. Israel's Minister of War, Yoav Gallant, also said in July that Israel could withdraw from the area under certain conditions, namely if surveillance technology was installed to prevent weapons smuggling.

According to Israeli observers, however, Netanyahu's tough stance seems to have little to do with security reasons. Unnamed Israeli sources told Israeli public radio that the powers granted by Netanyahu to the negotiators were so limited that they had to constantly leave the meeting room to report to Netanyahu and take his instructions. The Israeli daily Haaretz wrote in its editorial on Aug. 20 that it was hard to believe Netanyahu because he had made similar statements in favor of an agreement in the past, “while in reality he was working to torpedo the proposals.”

This criticism echoes the testimony of the mother of one of the Israeli prisoners in Gaza, who told an independent civilian commission of inquiry that the head of Israel's foreign intelligence agency, Mossad, had told her it was impossible to reach an agreement under the current Israeli government. Netanyahu's office issued a statement denying that the Mossad chief had made these remarks.

Israeli media also quoted unnamed Israeli negotiators as saying that Netanyahu's comments about not withdrawing from Philadelphi and Netzarim were intended to “derail the talks” and that he must stop harming the chances of reaching an agreement.

At the conclusion of his visit to Israel, Blinken said Netanyahu assured him that Israel accepted the latest US ceasefire proposal and emphasized that it was up to Hamas to accept it in order to proceed with discussions on the details of implementation. But as the above timeline of events shows, Israel has repeatedly undermined the ceasefire talks throughout the genocide in Gaza, and Netanyahu's conditions on Philadelphi and Netzarim are just the latest ploy.

This is exactly what Netanyahu wants: nominally, he accepted the US proposal, putting the ball in Hamas' court, but later doubled down on his demands, making it impossible for Hamas to agree. The result is that it looks like Hamas is responsible for the failure of the talks, and the Biden-Harris administration is happy to play along. In the meantime, the Israeli genocide in Gaza continues.

1. August 2024
   

Source: https://mondoweiss.net/2024/08/netanyahus-latest-strategy-to-avoid-a-ceasefire-explained/%23comments