GNITN - Special Edition

Israel At War – Day 240

Hamas Will Not Lead Gaza

No Place For Hamas

As the offer promoted by the United States may make some think a deal is near, Israel’s Defense Minister is saying that they are working on someone else to lead Gaza as we see in a report from The Times Of Israel:

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Sunday that Israel was working on finding a replacement for Hamas’s rule in the Gaza Strip, vowing that the war will not end until the terror group is dismantled of both its military and governmental capabilities.

We’ve heard the Prime Minister say the same thing in response to that proposal from the negotiators. Gallant went on to give more details on his initial statement:

“In any process of ending the war, we will not accept Hamas rule. We are advancing an alternative government to Hamas, within the framework of which we will isolate areas, remove the Hamas members and bring in other forces that will enable a different government,” Gallant said following an assessment at the Southern Command in Beersheba.

He sees their stated goals being met by eliminating Hamas entirely:

“On one hand, military action, and on the other, the ability to change the regime [in Gaza], will lead to the achievement of two of the goals of this war: the dismantling of the Hamas government and its military power, and the return of the hostages,” he added.

Gallant’s comments came after US President Joe Biden on Friday presented what he described as the latest Israeli proposal for a hostage deal and ceasefire to end the war in Gaza. The US president’s address triggered shockwaves in the Israeli government, where far-right parties threatened to bring down the coalition if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to see it approved.

Israel is mulling over their options after the Biden speech:

The war cabinet convened Sunday evening to discuss the proposal and its possible implementation, given international and domestic pressure to accept the deal aimed at securing the release of 121 hostages believed to be held by Hamas in Gaza since being kidnapped on October 7.

The PM is having to deal with all sides of his leadership now:

Despite Netanyahu’s insistence that there will be no permanent ceasefire in Gaza until Hamas’s military and governing capabilities are destroyed, the heads of the government’s two ultranationalist parties, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of Religious Zionism and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir of Otzma Yehudit, both threatened Saturday night to bring down the government if the new deal is adopted.

War cabinet minister Benny Gantz has also issued an ultimatum to Netanyahu, demanding last month that the premier commit to an agreed-upon vision for the Gaza conflict that would include stipulating who might rule the territory after Hamas’s defeat, and warning that he would bolt the coalition should this not happen by June 8.

And Hamas won’t agree to the proposal until the fighting stops permanently. I’d say that any deal is Dead On Arrival or DOA, no matter how rosy anyone says this is.

In Other Delusional News

I’m not totally joking on the news that came out of a Sunday interview with the White House national security director saying that Hamas is on the ropes and Israel is totally onboard with this proposal. If they want Hamas to agree, this kind of talk is not helping. In any event, lets listen to what was said in the ABC News interview with John Kirby:

Well, it is an Israeli proposal, one that they arrived at after intense diplomacy with our own national security team, and over at the State Department. It is a phased approach, George. So where we are right now is that proposal, an Israeli proposal has been given to Hamas. It was done on Thursday night, our time. We're waiting for an official response from Hamas.

Kirby said that Hamas is said to like the offer:

We would note that publicly Hamas officials came out and welcomed this proposal. So, what would we hope will happen is they would agree to start phase one as soon as possible, and phase one would allow for some hostages, the elderly, sick, women hostages to get out over a period of six weeks. No fighting, more humanitarian assistance in, and while that's all going on, the two sides would sit down and try to negotiate what phase two could look like and when that could begin.

Kirby was asked if Hamas agrees, would Israel say no, He replied like this:

No. This was an Israeli proposal. We have every expectation that if Hamas agrees to the proposal, as was transmitted to them, an Israeli proposal, that Israel would say yes. Again, all you get in a yes right now, George, and it's not a small thing, but what you get is the start of phase one.

Kirby added this noting how things would go in he first phase of the deal:

So you get some hostages coming out, initial hostages. You get some calm. You get some more humanitarian assistance, maybe up to 600 trucks, and then the two sides can start talking about phase two.

So, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s team, in fact, his foreign minister again just said that they welcome this – this announcement by the president, and that they did, in fact, agree that this was their proposal.

Kirby apparently isn’t listening to Netanyahu or Defense Minister Gallant because neither of them are agreeing to stop fighting and let Hamas off the hook. On the issue of Israel controlling the war and Hamas losing, Kirby said this to back up the claim that Hamas can pull off another attack:

It is based on accumulation of our own intelligence assessments across the intelligence agencies that militarily speaking Hamas isn’t in position to conduct another attack like October 7th.

Now, we're also not saying that Hamas has been wiped out – off the face of the – the map. We're not saying that Hamas has no military capabilities. We've not said that they don't still represent a viable threat to the Israeli people. Of course they do. But they don't have the military capabilities to do what they did on the 7th of October. And so from a military perspective only, George, as President Biden said, the Israelis have accomplished most of their goals in Gaza.

Except for two rather big ones. Annihilate Hamas and get the hostages back. I think those are two pretty big goals and they represent the two major roadblocks to a ceasefire. Kirby is doing the equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig and hoping no one notices it’s still a pig. I for one am not fooled.