Hamas' cease-fire ‘counteroffer' is just a demand for Israel to give up the war
Hamas on Saturday announced it had 'responded to' the latest ceasefire proposal from US envoy Steve Witkoff, apparently seeking assurances that Israel won't simply go back to eliminating it when the 60-day pause is up.
Reality check: The terrorists are only talking because they're losing, badly — losing whatever support they had from ordinary Gazans as well as militarily.
Hamas' main hope is to somehow manipulate Team Trump's peace efforts into a license to survive — to somehow have the war end with it intact in Gaza, still in power and with its sponsors and enablers again resupplying it.
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To that end, it aims to leverage President Donald Trump's hopes to end the bloodshed as well as:
Israeli public opinion, include the deep desire to recover the 20 or so still living hostages as well as the remains of the dozens who've died in captivity, plus general war-weariness and partisan opposition to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition
Sympathy for its other hostages: Gaza's 2 million civilians. Hamas has never cared a whit for their lives or well-being, except as potential recruits, human shields and reason for an influx of aid that the terrorists can siphon off for their use. It will happily martyr any or all of them for the cause of destroying Israel — even as it pretends to make concessions in their name to serve its true agenda.
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Its de facto fifth column all across the West, including the 'tentifada' fanatics and fools on Columbia and other campuses, and all the politicians and media figures who buy the terrorists' propaganda.
The dogged self-deception of the international 'peace process' veterans, still imagining that a 'two-state solution' is the key to resolving all the region's conflicts — an 'answer' that's now a complete fantasy that disregards every development of the last three decades.
Arab rulers' inability to simply abandon decades of anti-Israel propaganda even though they (mostly) recognize it no longer serves their most urgent needs.
Israel's current offensive has already taken out hundreds more Hamas fighters and yet another round of leadership, including the last Sinwar. The IDF is poised to take full control of Gaza, clear the final bunkers and tunnels and crush the remaining terror brigades.
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And Jerusalem has cut off Hamas' resupply, refusing to allow aid to enter Gaza without firm controls that ensure it goes straight to civilians.
Not allowing the terrorists to capture it — and to charge civilians for access to any of it — has helped turn the tide of public opinion: Ordinary Gazans increasingly know the war continues only because Hamas won't surrender or even negotiate a departure of its remaining forces.
Witkoff's latest offer would have Hamas turn over 10 living hostages and a dozen or two bodies, in exchange for 125 terrorists serving life sentences plus another 1,000-plus jailbirds and a 60-day ceasefire and ongoing talks toward a full peace settlement.
But Hamas knows full well that Netanyahu won't end the war until the terrorists are all dead, surrendered or expelled from Gaza: He refuses to allow for any possibility of another Oct. 7, and Israeli public opinion so far supports him.
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So the terror group's counteroffer is to demand some kind of guarantee that Washington won't let the IDF resume operations when the 60 days are up, as well as the resumption of aid entering under UN or similar auspices, without Israeli controls.
As things stand, Hamas is toast within months.
To get hostages returned, Israel will allow it a respite — and so risk some development (Netanyahu's ouster, a drastic shift in the region, Washington concluding it needs the war ended; who knows?) that would let the terror group hang on in Gaza.
Unless Team Trump decides to overrule Israel's unchanged war goals, Hamas will have to settle for that hope of a lifeline, or no deal is happening.
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