Plus, if Hamas actually does release the hostages, every country, including the US, would demand Israel back off. I don't think there's any doubt on that by anyone, not even Hamas (who seem pretty apt at predicting responses of the West in any case).
Hamas wants war. That's what they're getting paid for. Gaza is not really economically viable anyway, so this is the only way they're getting paid. Billions for a constant stream of dead Palestinians.
If Hamas releases the hostages, we have no idea what would happen. Israel has shown it self to be very unpredictable and unreliable in following expectations from the international community, and the USA has shown it self to have an unconditional backing of whatever Israel does.
I absolutely think that Hamas should release the hostages, immediately and unconditionally, but at the same time we have to be realistic that it is probably not going to happen without a ceasefire, and the non-civilian hostages are probably not going to be released without a permanent ceasefire and a prisoner swap.
Regardless of whether Hamas wants continued war or not (which I kind of doubt as most Hamas members have civilian family members victims of the ongoing genocide) we have to realize that Israel is the main actor here and is committing a genocide. Israel, with a backing of the USA, has consistently refused ceasefires in the past, even when Hamas has shown in the past that they do release hostages during a ceasefire.
I think the January ceasefire negotiations are very telling of how things usually go. Israel wants to continue the genocide and Hamas wants to keep the hostages, there is some settlements and concessions made, weeks go by, Hamas attends negotiations, Israel boycotts them, US state department blames Hamas for not wanting the deal, Hamas declares they want the deal, Netanyahu keeps insisting the war will continue regardless of deal, UN says they should make the deal, the deal falls apart, the US state department blames Hamas, the UN votes at the Security Council for a ceasefire resolution, the US veto’s it.
In an environment like this, there is no way Hamas will release the hostages. Israel has to be the one that takes the first step, regardless of how unfair it may seem to you.
This is a very creative re-imagining of reality. Israel has always respected ceasefires. The last time one was broken was in 2014 where Hamas killed Israeli soldiers during a ceasefire.
The US cut off Israel multiple times including in the 80s. If you go back further you can find a point in time where the UK and US had a plot to bomb Israel.
How ceasefires work is through a promise of hostage releases. E.g. on the last ceasefire we had we were promised all the women and children. Hamas didn't deliver on all of them and frequently delayed release to test the patience of Israel. They are a suicidal, religious cult.
> which I kind of doubt as most Hamas members have civilian family members victims of the ongoing genocide
First, there's no genocide.
Second. The head of Hamas posted a photo of him delivering the news of his sons death in the conflict to his wife. They were both smiling at the news in the photo. Hamas are not western people with western sensibilities and you should stop thinking of them in these terms.
They consider every death that's a part of Jihad (including children, including direct family) to be a blessing. That's insane. They purposefully started this conflict and are purposefully extending it in order to manipulate American sentiment. They understand that the west is soft of heart, that it's easy to manipulate us.
I’m sorry keep returning to this, but seeing today’s headlines in Haaretz kind of proofs my point (or at least you should be able to understand my point of view from it):
> Israel-Hamas Hostage Negotiations Hit Critical Juncture as Netanyahu's Statement Jeopardizes Progress
This is very similar to how the failed Qatar brokered ceasefire deal turned out in January/February [1]. It was also a temporary ceasefire with extension clauses, and all but ready to be signed and put into effect, meanwhile Netanyahu kept trying to vandalize it with statements of how Israel would not comply. And despite all that Hamas agreed to it, and it looked like it would come into effect, but at the last moment Israel withdrew and the genocide continued.
It may be true that Hamas is a bad actor in these negotiations, and it may be that they bear a ton of fault for there not being a ceasefire already. But as today’s headlines prove, Israel’s responsibility is at least as much.
Unless I totally misremember, Hamas sabotaged this deal. Not by threatening to not comply, but by actually not complying with the deal. The deal finally broke down when Hamas stopped being late with hostage releases, and actually canceled hostage releases.
Netanyahu's threats were probably an attempt at rescuing the deal, that even worked for a while.
I was talking about the failed negotiations in January/February 2024, you are talking about the temporary ceasefire in November 2023. So not the same deal. You can actually read about it in the BBC source I cited.
But lets talk about the 2023 temporary ceasefire. The deal never broke down, instead it expired. It was extended a couple of times, but negotiations to extend it a third time broke down. It did not end because of failure to comply. Neither Hamas nor Israel stopped releasing hostages all together until after the deal expired. I don’t know where you read that.
The week long pause freed 105 of Hamas’ captives, while Israel freed 240 Palestinians. The deal called for the release of 50 hostages by Hamas and 150 imprisoned Palestinians by Israel. The extension called for 20 of Hamas’ hostages to be released and 60 more Palestinians to be freed by Israel.
So in total Hamas promised to release 70 hostages but released 105 (35 more than promised; including 24 foreign nationals), while Israel promised to release 210 but actually released 240 (30 more then promised). Israel also promised to allow 200 trucks of aid into Gaza every day the truce stays in effect. I don’t have the number of trucks that actually entered, but I believe this was also met (though some truck drivers still complained about unnecessary and lengthy checks at the border).
Before the ceasefire came into effect, both Biden, Sunak, and Scholz had voiced their opposition to the ceasefire. Several Israeli officials had also voiced oppositions to it. Hamas had supported it. Unlike in January though, Netanyahu did not oppose it, but rather stayed silent.
During the ceasefire, Netanyahu wowed to continue the fighting and opposed any extensions to it. The USA on the other hand switch their stance and now supported extensions to it.
On December 1, the truce ended. Hamas blamed Israel for not wanting to release more Palestinians, while the USA blamed Hamas for not wanting to give them a list with names of some of the captives. We will have to wait for some documents to be released before we know what really happened in Doha day. Hamas then lunched rocket attacks onto Israel. If you wanted to blame Hamas for anything here, those rocket attacks are a better target then some fabrication about not failure to meet demands of negotiations. Israel promptly resumed their attacks the same day, with 180 Palestinians martyred that day, including in Khan Younis, who’s residents where then forced to flee to Rafah, where most still live.
On December 2, Netanyahu ordered the Israeli delegation to leave Qatar, which they did, and any prospects of further extensions were over. Since then Netanyahu has been staunchly opposed to any more ceasefire, and hostage negotiations, including the January prospects, and including the current prospects.
Then, refusal (with "between the lines" that Hamas wasn't in control of the hostages, and it was more that Hamas "leaders" weren't actually in control of the hostages than a case of refusing a deal)
"Hamas then (in response to hostage negotiations) launched rocket attacks onto Israel ... Netanyahu has been staunchly opposed to any more ceasefire and hostage negotiations"
I mean you're not reasonable. Hamas, quite literally, blew up negotiations, again and again and again and again. They killed, massacred, exploded, destroyed, WHATEVER they could, every attempt at negotiations since the month they were created, almost 5 decades back. Blowing up negotiations with massacres is literally the reason they exist, initially the Oslo accords. Which means I will need A LOT of VERY DIRECT AND CLEAR evidence before I will even consider it was the Israeli side that ended negotiations.
Israel were equally delayed in releasing their prisoners as well. And skirmishes happens on both sides of the table. And despite all that, the terms of the ceasefire—at least as related to the hostages—were met, and thensom, on both sides, and despite all this, they still extended the ceasefire a couple of times. Meaning that neither the delays, nor the skirmishes were the reason they failed to extend it the third time.
Nowhere in your sources does it say Hamas nor Israel failed to deliver on promise, only that it was taking slower then expected. Your BBC article even cites the reason given by Hamas was slowness in delivering aid (we now know this is true). In fact all of your sources were published prior to the failure to extend the truce, which happened on December 1st. So I still don’t see where you read that the reason for the failure to extend were non-delivering on promises by Hamas.
The truth is, it may very well be the fault of Hamas that the deal wasn’t extended. But we will not know that until Qatar releases documents which explains what really took place at the negotiating table on December 1st. Until then we are just speculating, and given what we know, it is equally likely that both parties are equally to blame.
Either the sources are wrong, or—more likely—they don’t exist. I find it suspicious that you can’t seem to provide me with any. Wikipedia has a different story, and provides plenty of sources:
Sure. And we went out to demonstrate against that. There were huge demonstrations in Israel just last night (as there are every week but this was larger) trying to force the government to take the deal.
Netanyahu is terrible and his partners are worse. But unlike Hamas there are ways we can pressure them and also ways to remove them at most by the next election cycle. When people demonstrate in US campuses this strengthens Netanyahu who can then lump them as "useful idiots" and "antisemitism".
Notice the demonstrations to release the hostages, those are the exact anti Netanyahu demonstrations that work. Israelis can't lump them as "uninformed" or "antisemitism". The result is far more effective as it puts pressure on him to reach a deal while keeping the blame on Hamas as well.
Hamas wants war. That's what they're getting paid for. Gaza is not really economically viable anyway, so this is the only way they're getting paid. Billions for a constant stream of dead Palestinians.