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Ceasefire deal agreed. Hamas to release all reaming hostages in next few days whilst Israel to release both militant prisoners and civilian hostages also to pull out of Gaza City but remain stationed in Palestinian territory
Sounds great in principle just remains to bee seen if both parties hold up their sides of the bargain
Hmmm. I mean, a ceasefire is good news obviously - but do we now quietly forget the reality of genocide? Shake hands, all better again, until the next time?
Its hard to imagine that Netanyahu will all of a sudden agree to a Palestinian State so Im skeptical that this is anything meaningful
they'll get their hostages back, Hamas will have a load of prisoners released, Israel will retreat, the "war" will end, the process will break down and then, at some point probably soon, the "terrorism meets genocide" will start again.
If Israel were actually serious about creating a genuinely popular Palestinian alternative to Hamas, then they would release Marwan Barghouti, who has been in Israeli jails for over twenty years, but given their priority is to weaken the political leadership and annex the West Bank by degrees, that won't be happening:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marwan_Barghouti
Bizarrely, Austria are now saying they won't host the Eurovision next year if Israel are banned.
I presume the UEFA vote on them is now quietly shelved. It appears Eurovision is the most likely place for sanctions against them. Which kind of sums up the world's approach to this.
When various bans started to gain traction there did seem to be a backing off by Netanyahu, he needs the Israeli people to at the very least stay pretty quiet and this was turning on him. The world will back off calls for bans and sanctions now and in the short term the conduct of Netanyahu and the IDF will just not be spoken about. It will be up to history to record that the Israeli state actors were responsible for a genocide and to express the irony.
It will take time to play out obviousl but seeing whether Hamas is viable as a paramilitary now will determine the sustainability of this process. I dont think they expected such a response to October 7th, they have been all but eliminated. Their support from Iran has been significanly undermined and allies in Lebanon and Yemen acted with token support when I think Hamas expected an all out response. The West Bank has been very very quiet. In this regard the Israelis have succeded and frightened the fook out of would be active (para)milititary opponents.
Has this all fed Hamas ranks with angry next gen Palestinians, or are the average Palestinians angry with Hamas for disregarding them, using them as human shields, and the Israelis just ddnt care about innocent civilians. Can a Palestinian Authority type elected group thrive by marginalising hardline groups like Hamas in fear of a future repeat? I think its possible, that Hamas have agreed already to this 20 point plan as a starting point, already allowing some aspects to apply - 'negotiating' some points like demilitarisation is a charade of still having capability which they dont. They could fight a limited insurgency but not a confontational urban conflict that they thought they could as it would require Israeli restraint from causing major collateral casualties which didnt happen this time.
Netanyahu is distancing himself from semantics of the 20 points like issues of statehood. But there is a potential mechanism included and he will be long gone, as will many of ourselves, by the time such conditions exists that this could be progressed. But he too seems to have been reigned in, by what or whom? Trump, well that pains me a bit but maybe credit where its due. Knowing that the Israeli people wre on edge under the weight of growing international condemnation, you cant ignore multiple countries recognising Palestinian statehood, a true fear for Israeli, it wasnt little Ireland but international powers that at the very least would make a hole in finances if boycotts were next step.
Israeli have 'won', at enormous cost of life, and sadly for now people are going to see a cessation as a success to political pressure. At least hostages will be released which is a great relief to all. Nobody is going to end up in the Hague, things will just carry on, Hamas is for now smashed. We will see how a rebuild of Gaza goes and whether the people will risk further Hamas support. There will be a power vacuum there so who knows what will fill it, an Israeli well funded proxy is likely.
I hope he gets pulled in by ICC at some point. I still think he might.
No more than Putin all he has to do is pick where he travels to. We will only see him in the likes of the USA, so an arresst by the ICC is not going to happen. A bit like how the world is treating Trump with kids gloves it will be the same with Netanyahu, keep him sweet and not bombing innocence relentlessly in targeting militants. While the end doesnt justify the means there is a part of me that sees the reasoning to what they did to eliminate a serious foe and it worked - they can justify the collateral death to themselves. Usually growing nternal revulsion takes its toll but not this time, things just stopped in time. Its in the ball park of dropping the bomb on Hiroshima to scare the rest in to submission, and the argument of saving lives elsewhere, different scale but I think other groups like Hezbollah might think twice of attempting something similar in the future. Its a fake stability through fear which may eventually go bang, but the arrogance of these groups thinking they can draw in a country to fight in their urban theatre while opponents holding back using weapons that would obliterate everything is unlikely to be tested again. Id be more worried now about Bin Laden type attacks on allies and proxies, softer embassies in Europe, back to airline targets, becoming Russian trained cyber cells in the west - all this assymetric tactics we hear again these days. That pager attack on Hezbollah while seriously unethical was some operation and it is that kind of thing on both sides ths will continue to play out.