WITH HAMAS TALKS ON THE VERGE OF COLLAPSE, NETANYAHU PUTS UP A REJECTIONIST FRONT

With Hamas Talks on the Verge of Collapse, Netanyahu Puts Up a Rejectionist Front

The director of the CIA was dispatched to the middle east in an effort to save the hostage deal, and Netanyahu is considered to be the main obstacle. The intensity of U.S. pressure will determine whether he accedes to President Biden's demands

May 06th, 06AM May 06th, 12PM

The United States, Egypt and Qatar applied a steamroller of pressure on both Israel and Hamas on Sunday night in an effort to prevent the negotiations over a hostage deal from blowing up. As part of this effort, CIA Director William Burns flew from Cairo to Doha after the Hamas delegation submitted objections to the mediators' proposal and returned to Qatar.

Meanwhile, Israel is intensifying its threats to invade Rafah, in part due to Sunday's severe incident, in which three soldiers were killed and 11 others were wounded in a Hamas mortar attack near the Kerem Shalom border crossing.

Hamas gave the mediators a list of objections, but the heart of the dispute has revolved for months around a single question. Hamas demands that any deal include the end to the war and a full retreat of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip, backed by guarantees from the mediators. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refuses to agree to this, because it would mean admitting his failure to achieve the war's stated aims and could therefore open a political hornet's nest.

Veteran Netanyahu watchers – and by this point, that includes most Israeli adults – have long known that he is the sum of his fears and the pressure exerted on him. Today, it's hard to distinguish between the two. But Mariano Edelman's years-long portrayal of Netanyahu on the satirical television show "Eretz Nehederet" conveys the man's essence – wild eyes, constant fear, serial excuses.

It's no secret that Netanyahu is now in a vise. On one hand, even though Hamas' leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, continues placing obstacles before a deal, the Biden administration is pushing Netanyahu to be even more flexible and seek an agreement. And the Americans' next moves will have a decisive influence over developments.

They have offered to wrap the Israeli concessions in a plethora of sweeteners, first and foremost a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia. But if Netanyahu refuses, and especially if he orders an invasion of Rafah, the result may well be restrictions on the supply of American arms to the Israel Defense Forces and a worsening of the international siege (the economic boycott Turkey announced is just the first bit of bad news; more will likely follow).

And around the corner lies the threat of arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court – something that particularly worries Netanyahu, since it's aimed directly at him.

Yet on the other hand, his political base is urging him to invade Rafah, as he has been threatening to do for three months now. A month ago, Netanyahu declared that we're just a step away from total victory, which would be achieved by invading Rafah and dismantling the four Hamas battalions present there. Since then, he hasn't said whether we've moved closer to that goal or farther away from it.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir filmed a threatening video inside the Prime Minister's Office this weekend in which he said that Netanyahu "knows the price of not keeping his promises." Ben-Gvir's partner/rival, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, paused at the entrance to the cabinet meeting on Sunday to address a group of demonstrators, including some bereaved families, who were urging the government to finish the job of beating Hamas.

Netanyahu himself posted a video on Sunday in which he promised to continue fighting in Gaza until all the war's goals have been achieved. The cabinet meeting approved a decision to close the Israeli office of the Qatari television station Al Jazeera for 45 days.

Netanyahu's moves over the weekend were frighteningly transparent. Saturday morning, the mediators began leaking optimistic predictions of an imminent hostage deal to the Arab and American media. Netanyahu's office responded with two press statements later that day in which a "senior government official" promised that the war would continue and the IDF would invade Rafah.

The meaning of this step was perfectly understood in Washington, Jerusalem and Cairo – Netanyahu seeks to torpedo progress should Hamas by some chance respond positively. Now, Sinwar is likely to demand more rigid U.S. guarantees that the war will end, thereby further delaying a deal.

The press statements, amplified by Netanyahu's mouthpieces after Shabbat ended, were meant to obscure the concessions that the war cabinet, headed by Netanyahu, approved almost two weeks ago. According to international reports, Israel agreed to greatly reduce the IDF's presence in the corridor that bisects Gaza, remove most of the restrictions on Palestinians returning to northern Gaza and be more flexible about freeing Palestinian prisoners. But if the deal is torpedoed, these concessions won't take effect.

And meanwhile, the pro-Netanyahu Channel 14 TV can continue spouting the fiction that the prime minister ordered an invasion of Rafah last week, but was somehow stymied by a cowardly coalition consisting of the defense minister, the IDF chief of staff and the two National Unity Party ministers in the war cabinet.

In reality, an invasion of Rafah is on the table if negotiations on the hostage deal once again blow up. But even then, given the American opposition, the IDF isn't likely to invade the entire city. Instead, the security cabinet would probably order limited operations on the outskirts of Rafah. That wouldn't stop Netanyahu and his fans from presenting it as the achievement of his promise in full.

Based on the many recent statements from the Israel side, it's hard to escape the impression that Netanyahu seeks to "confirm the kill" of the hostage deal because Hamas has refused to soften its positions.

Cloud over MI director's appointment

The more time passes, the more it seems that IDF Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi didn't foresee the magnitude of the public storm his decision to promote the head of the Operations Brigade, Brig. Gen. Shlomi Binder, to director of Military Intelligence would provoke.

Halevi made sure to secure the approval of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who informed Netanyahu. But he ignored the warnings he heard over the previous week that it wouldn't pass quietly. Besides sparking criticism from within the army and the political system, the decision enraged families of the soldiers and civilians killed in Hamas' October 7 attack on southern Israel. Some are even preparing to petition the Supreme Court over the issue.

As long as the army hasn't finished its internal probe of the day's events and determined the Operations Brigade's role in the troops' belated arrival to rescue citizens under attack, a cloud will hover over Binder's appointment. Halevi can insist on his right to decide on urgent appointments as long as he's chief of staff, though this too is controversial. But his insistence on promoting this officer – however outstanding he was prior to the war – without fully clarifying the facts is very hard for the public to swallow.

Halevi says appointing a new Military Intelligence director was urgent, since the incumbent, Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, has resigned. But he also used the opportunity to promote four other people to major general, and this will likely lead to the retirement of more senior major generals, even those who weren't directly connected to the events of October 7. It's not clear why these promotions were so urgent at a time when it's not clear how long Halevi himself plans to remain on the job.

A secondary dispute has also arisen over these promotions, stemming from the obsessive counting of religious Zionists on the General Staff. Three of the five new major generals attended religious schools. But some people think not all of them are religious enough, and have deemed their appointments more or less worthy based on their presumed ideological upbringing.

This is another assault by ultra-Orthodox religious Zionists, a community that has turned self-pity into an art form when it comes to IDF appointments. Their angst relates primarily to Brig. Gen. Ofir Winter, who was once again left behind. Like his two predecessors, Halevi evidently thinks that Winter, despite his many merits, isn't fit to serve on the General Staff. This is the fourth or fifth time in the last eight years that a minor storm has erupted over his non-promotion.

As usual, Smotrich – who has yet to accept even a smidgen of responsibility for October 7 – had something to say on the issue. Netanyahu, also as usual, didn't intervene. But it's a safe bet that he's happy to fan the flames, as he is with every argument that diverts discussion from his own responsibility for the failures of both October 7 and the war to date.

2024-05-06T03:08:28Z dg43tfdfdgfd