I’m not fan of Netanyahu but I think he is orders of magnitude smarter than Trump will ever be. However, I think Bibi has made the mistake of thinking that Trump being easy to manipulate is something that can be exploited in the long run. Yes, flattery will get you everywhere with Trump but it does have diminishing returns over time. Trump’s narcissism will eventually kick in and he’ll start messing with his “allies” just to establish dominance.
Since Bibi nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize and Trump didn’t get it, Trump can certainly figure out a way to make that into Bibi’s fault. And someone might eventually tell Trump that when Bibi dubbed him an “out-of-the-box thinker” he meant dumbass and purposefully said it in a way a dumbass wouldn’t understand. Trump has a memory like an elephant when it comes to people laughing about him behind his back. If Trump catches a whiff of this from Netanyahu, there will be no repairing that relationship, ever. After all, when it comes to Trump’s name in gold letters on hotels in the Gaza strip, Netanyahu isn’t a necessary part of the equation.
The way I’ve heard it described in the past is that he’s very easy to manipulate in the moment, and tends to buy whatever the last person he talked to said. But, he always swings back to his baseline beliefs and attitudes (aka, bigoted malignant narcissism) some time afterwards.
So long term, he’s very hard to manipulate. Not because he’s smart, but because he’s inflexible.
…so the discussion about how many aid trucks are allowed into Gaza is an example of “bait and switch” that so often happens with these sorts of peace deals.
On paper, Israel should be letting in 600 aid trucks.
As discussed earlier in the thread, Israel threatened to cut that number down to 300 trucks. They later withdrew that threat.
So that would mean 600 trucks are getting into Gaza every day right?
From the Gaza Media Office:
So, Israel are supposed to be letting in 600 trucks. They threatened to reduce that number to 300 trucks, then withdrew that threat.
But in reality they are only letting in on average 90 trucks per day.
Most people won’t even notice that bait and switch. What Israel are letting in though are commercial trucks. These are much needed and necessary. But they aren’t “humanitarian aid and relief materials and fuel.” Not in the way any ordinary person would imagine it. They shouldn’t be included in the count.
And the reality on the ground is that Israel have been violating this peace agreement daily. From the BBC yesterday:
So the amount of land taken in the “control line” isn’t really defined in the agreement…and keeps changing. And Israel have secured more land than they said they would.
And Israel are still killing people.
From six days ago:
Janina Dill, Co-Directorof the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict, outlines what the occupying power’s responsibilities are here under international humanitarian law in this Tweet.
The expectation is that the occupying force adhere to law enforcement standards and not “shooting to kill.” They cannot just blow up a bus containing a family, including multiple children.
And then there is the bodies.
Because so many of the bodies are unidentified, Palestinians have been forced to have viewings, where mutilated faces and identifying markers are shown on a TV screen in front of families who hope to see people they know. (Nothing grisly in the video, but I’m spoiling it anyway as it does show some images of dead bodies playing on a TV)
So what does this peace deal mean? It means the daily slaughters have stopped…but the killing is ongoing. Humanitarian aid and food being allowed in is still only a fraction of what is needed, and a fraction of what was promised under the peace deal.
All of the living hostages held by Hamas have been returned. Hamas still have to return some of the remaining dead bodies of hostages, but because much of Gaza has been flattened, are claiming its difficult to recover those bodies without heavy equipment. (And it’s important to note that there are an estimated 10,000 Palestinians still buried under the rubble.)
Israel still hold thousands of Palestinian prisoners, many held under administrative detention without trial or charge, with many credible charges of beatings, torture, and humilation. https://www.btselem.org/publications/202408_welcome_to_hell
So should Trump get credit for this deal? I hate to say it, but yes. Probably not Trump himself. Because he really doesn’t call the shots.
But this interview with Kushner and Witkoff is quite revealing.
The missile strike on Qatar appears to have been the final straw. Qatar of course had earlier gifted Trump a “gold-plated, cushion-festooned Boeing 747.” . And in the Trump hierarchy, money trumps everything. And pissing off Qatar was enough to force this deal.
Is it a good deal though? No it isn’t. But as I said earlier, at least the daily slaughters have stopped. The rhetoric coming from Isreali leadership seems to indicate that this is a defacto anexation along the yellow line. The international community need to make sure that this doesn’t happen.
And the situation on the ground is still dire. From WHO:
The famine is still ongoing and even those that don’t die will have lasting, ongoing health issues. Hospitals still need to be rehabilitated. Thousands of bodies are burried under the rubble. There are more child amputees in Gaza than anywhere else in the world.
All aside, it looks likely that by the time they next vote on the Nobel, there’s not going to be a real prize-worthy “peace” to show for it. Just a return to skirmishing but now with a population in far worse living conditions.
…because Gaza has been destroyed, because their families are being starved, because for two years Israel have been waging a genocidal campaign, and they want it to stop.
Every week Israel kill hundreds of people, including children. Hundreds of children were being killed every week. I don’t understand the question. Why wouldn’t they want a ceasefire?
Hamas doesnt give a shit about the people of Gaza (except as protection, propaganda, and selling them aid foor-, If they did, they would have agreed to several UN suggest ceasefire, and not attacked on October 2023. They steal food from aid trucks and sell it to their own people. They recruit and arm kids as young as 12- when you read “so many children were killed in a strike” how many were armed Hamas soldiers?
Why do you think an illegal warmongering Terrorist group care about their people? The leaders are often well off-
Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh, who in 2006 was elected prime minister over all Palestinian territories, has remained outside of Gaza since 2019. Haniyeh — whom Israel estimates is worth $4 billion — splits his time between luxury hotels in Qatar and Turkey. He and his associates have been photographed flying in private jets, enjoying fine dining, and attending international sporting events.
Haniyeh’s adult son, Maaz Haniyeh, reportedly both controls a real estate empire in Gaza and lives a playboy lifestyle in Turkey. Mousa Abu Marzouk, a senior member of Hamas’s politburo, lives in Egypt and is estimated by Israel to be worth $3 billion. Israel also estimates former Hamas political chief Khaled Mashal — who also lives in Qatar — to be worth $4 billion.
…Hamas isn’t just the terrorist arm. It’s the government. And the people who work in the civilian arm certainly care. And I’m sure most people fighting for Hamas care as well. Because why do you think they took up arms in the first place?
And can you stop with the talking points? Hamas didn’t steal food aid from aid trucks. I’ve shown you evidence of this in other threads. Every aid agency on the ground said Hamas weren’t the problem. It was gangs funded and supported by Israel and once the GHF ended and Hamas resumed security the attacks on aid convoys stopped.
At least 1,009 of the children killed were under age one, with nearly half (450) of these babies born and killed during the war.
How many of those babies under the age of one were Hamas? Can you give me a number? Did they get issued an AK47 at birth?
I want you to show me any evidence at all that those targeted in the daily bombing were “armed Hamas soldiers.” I’ve issued this challenge multiple times. We know who was killed, where they were killed, how old they were when they died, but we don’t know why.
But if they were “armed Hamas soldiers”, then it should be trivially easy to show this. But attacks on “armed Hamas soldiers”, especially 12-year-old ones, are the exception, not the rule.
And bringing it back to the peace deal: the deal is over.
Let’s stop pretending that it ever really started. Aid deliveries are averaging less than a hundred trucks per day…well below the 600 that the peace deal promised. Israel have been dropping bombs and killing people every single day, and yesterday showed that they can kill over a hundred people in a day and get away with it.
Gaza needs intervention. It needs foreign troops on the ground. It needs Israel to stop the occupation and withdraw from Gaza.
If they cared about the people of Gaza, they’d do literally anything except fight war after war against Israel, each time with the openly stated intention to eliminate Israel as a state.
If they have a single solitary fuck about the people of Gaza, they wouldn’t use them as ammo for winning international sympathy.
You could read the statements they themselves make about why they are fighting. They’re very clear about their desire to destroy the so-called “Zionist Entity” and end the “Occupation” of places like Tel Aviv and Haifa.
They absolutely did.
Yes, Hamas says of people they want to execute in the street that they “collaborated” with Israel. I’m not sure why anyone would believe them. I mean, you complained about due process in Israel’s detention system; did Hamas give due process to all the Gazan civilians they’ve been butchering in the street since Israel withdrew? Or does that not matter, we can just trust Hamas if they say they collaborated with the “Zionist Entity”?
Wow, someone should tell Hamas - they just announced that they’re going to release more bodies, but if Banquet Bear says the deal is over, they don’t have to do that!
This on the other hand is 100% true. Gaza needs foreign boots on the ground or Hamas will continue their terroristic ways. As we can see by the way they are currently terrorizing civilians and political opponents under the guide of dealing with “collaborators”. This is why the ISF needs to be formed as quickly as possible.
You should believe what Hamas has always said about why they took up arms and why they carried out every attack they’ve ever carried out against Israeli or Palestinian civilians - they actually believe in an extremist religious fantasy and think the suffering of innocent civilians is a minor concern in comparison.
That’s why they’ve brutally oppressed their own people since they became the government in gaza. I’m sure there are people who just wanted to help the healthcare system work that chose to work with hamas as they were the only game in town, but like all authoritarian terror states, those people were never working for a civil service that could operate independently from the political leadership - the political leadership dictates everything.
Hamas has described the attack as a response to what it says are decades of Israeli oppression, the killings of Palestinians and years-long blockade of the Gaza Strip. … Hamas has also said the attack was a reaction to what it claims are Israeli efforts to take over the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem - Islam’s third holiest site. Hamas also wants the release of thousands of Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
The year leading up to the attack was also the deadliest in the occupation of the West Bank, since the UN began recording data in 2005. By the end of the year at least 505 Palestinians had been killed there, mostly by Israeli soldiers and settlers. In the same year, 30 Israelis were also killed in the West Bank.
I think that the Hamas attacks on October the 7th were an atrocity and a warcrime and those that did it should be held responsible. But there is nothing about “extremist religious fantasy” here. The decades of Israeli oppression, the killings of Palestinians, the years-long blockade of the strip, the efforts to take over the al-Aqsa mosque, the thousands of Palestinians held without trial or conviction BEFORE October the 7th, these were all things that were happening.
Why did they take up arms in the first place? For some, there might be some extremist religious fantasy. But I just posted about how in the last two years Israel have killed over a thousand children under the age of one. Half of them were born during the conflict. Of course that sort of thing will motivate people to take up arms. Israel are now occupying over 50% of Gaza and shooting anyone who dares cross over an imaginary line. People are going to fight back against that.
And I’ve got zero reason to believe that the political leadership wanted the war to continue because the political leadership also have family and friends that have been killed and maimed. Hamas leadership have been agreeing to all of the ceasefire deals, and it’s been Netenaguhu that torpedoed them. All of the hostages have been released. They agreed to an absolutely ridiculous “peace deal” that everybody knew Israel were going to break and Israel breached it on the first day and have breached it every single day since. They’ve agreed to step down.
They wouldn’t have done these things if they didn’t want a ceasefire.
What is happening in Gaza is what every single reputable human rights agency, the United Nations, and a broad consensus of genocide scholars have called a genocide. There is no equivalence here. What Hamas did was a warcrime, an atrocity, how they have treated their people is disgusting, and the sooner they are gone the better.
But Israel needs to get the hell out of Gaza. Gaza needs international troops on the ground. They need to allow in the aid that they promised. What people are calling a genocide isn’t over. It’s a pause. And I’m worried about what will come next.
…Gaza won international sympathy because Israel are committing a genocide.
I’ve read them and quoted them.
Take it to the other thread. And when you do, bring a cite.
Not sure what the eyerolls are for.
The United Nations has identified Abu Shabab’s gang as one of those raiding aid convoys when they entered Gaza, saying they were doing so with the apparent protection or indifference of the Israeli military.
Former French diplomat Jean-Pierre Filliu, who spent one month in Gaza with Doctors Without Borders from December 2024 to January 2025, said he witnessed the gang being protected by the IDF while looting trucks.
“The Israeli military recognised its inability to promote a clan-based alternative to Hamas and decided to rely more or less openly on organised crime,” he wrote in Le Monde.
I believe people like Jean-Pierre Filliu.
Someone should tell Israel to start letting in 600 aid trucks per day as promised.
Thank you for the perfect demonstration! Yes, as long as this is the international reaction, why shouldn’t Hamas continue doing exactly what they’re doing? It’s working exactly how they want it to work!
Fortunately, the ISF plan, if actually implemented, short circuits that whole problem.
“We have the Israelis right where we want them,” Yahya Sinwar told other Hamas leaders recently, according to one of the messages, the WSJ reported Monday. In another, Sinwar is said to have described civilian deaths as “necessary sacrifices” while citing past independence-related conflicts in countries like Algeria.
It’s an incredibly classic mistake of this conflict dating back to the late 1800s. Palestinians and their Arab allies (until 67) often think of Israelis in Israel as being akin to French colonizers in Algeria. It’s a delusional and deadly mistake, because it leads them to assume that if they make the lives of Israelis miserable enough, they’ll just pack up and leave.
…this isn’t a “perfect demonstration.” Because whatever it is you are claiming Hamas’s goal here is, it’s utterly irrelevant to what Israel have chosen to do.
Israel (as in the government) chose to engineer a famine in Gaza that has killed hundreds so far. Israel are committing in the opinion of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the UN, along with a broad consensus of genocide scholars, a genocide. They’ve flattened much of Gaza and even during the “peace process” the flattening of Gaza continues. Israel have killed over 70,000 people that we know of so far, including 1000 babies under the age of one. There are still an estimated ten thousand people still buried under the rubble, bodies that are difficult to recover because Israel are still limiting the amount of heavy equipment allowed into Gaza, and are restricting letting in international search and rescue teams.
So yes, Gaza has won my sympathy. Not because of some Hamas trick or sleight of hand. But because they are trapped, and Israel are depriving them of the basic conditions of survival, things that under the peace deal Israel agreed to stop doing but continue to do.
If this were true, then the obvious thing for Israel to do then would be to stop committing genocide. End the occupation. Stop the pogroms in the West Bank. Start letting in 600 aid trucks per day. Help rehabilitate the healthcare system in Gaza.
From your cite:
CNN has not seen the leaked messages viewed by the WSJ and is not able to confirm the authenticity of the communications.
Oh dear. That’s a bit of a red flag, don’t you think? And considering that, this bit is also a bit suspect:
In another, Sinwar is said to have described civilian deaths as “necessary sacrifices”
Bolding mine. What were the actual words here, and who did the translation?
The original WSJ reporting is paywalled, so I can’t even read it. But if we were to accept this is true, then this isn’t “what Hamas said.” It’s what Sinwar said in discussion with others in Hamas leadership.
And it doesn’t matter any more because Sinwar is dead. He’s been dead for over a year and isn’t a party to the negotiations. I think its very clear that Hamas wanted this peace deal, wanted the ceasefire, and this isn’t proof otherwise. If they didn’t want it they wouldn’t have released the hostages and agreed to this very very bad deal.
