Ceasefire talks on life support as western diplomats lay blame on Netanyahu
Biden’s “bridging proposal” for a Gaza ceasefire increasingly appears to be a bridge to nowhere.
A former Israeli hostage negotiator says chances for a deal are now “slim”, Hamas – which isn’t officially involved in the latest round of talks – has decried the new plan as “essentially an Israeli proposal”, and yet, the Biden Administration told the UN yesterday the deal is now “in sight”.
The American President has clearly been wearing rose-tinted spectacles.
Earlier this week, Blinken hailed the “constructive” discussion he had with Netanyahu during his ninth visit to the nation, affirming that the Israeli PM had accepted the new bridging proposal. The proposal’s exact details remain elusive, but likely resemble the three-stage framework that Biden initially claimed both Hamas and Israel had agreed to back in early July, a claim later refuted by Israel.
On Tuesday, just one day after Blinken’s visit, Netanyahu boasted that he had convinced America’s top diplomat to accept Israeli forces remaining in the strip, among other demands. US officials countered and characterised the PM’s positioning as “maximalist” and “not constructive”.
In a statement to Reuters today, three frustrated western diplomats who asked not to be named, in addition to two Hamas officials, criticised Israel for intentionally squandering the deal.
According to these diplomats, Israel is demanding that its troops remain along two critical corridors in the Gaza strip, the Netzarim and the Philadelphi. The former splits the strip in half at its centre, and has served as a major staging point for IDF operations across the enclave. The latter spans the crucial border crossing to Egypt, and while its seizure by the IDF has been credited with greatly reducing the flow of arms to Hamas, it’s also been contested by Egypt as an unacceptable breach of their 1979 peace treaty.
The second demand of Israel is to veto the release of certain Palestinian detainees and mandate the exiling of others in a potential hostage-for-prisoner exchange. Hamas says both demands are unreasonable and not up for discussion.
While negotiations ground to halt in Doha, “ceasefire” was in the spotlight at Chicago’s Democratic National Convention. In her nomination speech, Kamala Harris insisted: “Now is the time to get a hostage deal and a ceasefire deal done”.
The plight of the hostages, and the importance of a ceasefire, was driven home by the impassioned speech of US-Israeli film director, Rachel Goldberg, and her husband, Jon Polin, whose son has been held in Gaza following the Nova music festival massacre on October 7. With tears in her eyes, Goldberg made a heart-wrenching plea directed to her son.
“Hersh, if you can hear us, we love you…stay strong, survive”.
The grieving pair advocated for an immediate cessation of violence, so that the “surplus of agony, on all sides” could come to an end. Their speech followed the recovery of the bodies of six Israeli hostages this week, and amplified the calls from fellow hostage families who increasingly see diplomacy as the only way to free their relatives. The clock is ticking.
Time is also running out for Gaza’s civilian population, as the first case of polio paralysed a young child today. The UN warns that without a pause in fighting, a mass vaccination campaign will be impossible and tens of thousands could succumb to the outbreak.
In the midst of a potential pandemic, Hamas still managed to fire a barrage of indiscriminate rockets into Israel today. Israel is equally undeterred, killing at least a dozen Palestinians in various strikes since this morning.
Despite Biden’s seemingly unwavering optimism about an imminent deal, both sides appear diametrically opposed to concessions. Thus a ceasefire remains untenable. The suffering of the Israeli hostages, and of the Palestinian civilians, looks set to continue.
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