Middle East Crisis: Blinken Calls Some Hamas Changes to Cease-Fire Proposal Unacceptable
www.nytimes.com
The secretary of state said the U.S. would keep pushing Israel and Hamas ‘on an urgent basis’ to reach a deal.

Speaking at a news conference in Doha, Qatar, alongside Qatar’s prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Mr. Blinken said that “a deal was on the table that was virtually identical” to one that Hamas put forward on May 6.

At some point, he said, “you have to question whether they’re proceeding in good faith or not.”

  • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
    616·
    15 days ago

    I genuinely don’t understand what Hamas gains by continuing this conflict.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
      224·
      15 days ago

      Really?

      You know the human rights abuses and land grabbing happened prior to 10/7, right?

      And they want the permanent ceasefire so that it finally stops.

      If it’s not an internationally recognized permanent ceasefire, Israel is going right back to what they were doing prior to 10/7.

      Anything else is just Hamas giving up every bargaining chip they have for no gain…

          • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
            34·
            15 days ago

            Did you read the article? We are here talking about the most promising permanent ceasefire, supported by Egypt, Qatar, USA, and the UN, which Israel has not ruled out. Hamas is now drastically changing the terms to sabotage the ceasefire. It makes no sense to me. They seem to have the most to gain by ending this conflict.

            • goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org
              11·
              15 days ago

              Did you read it?

              But Hamas officials rejected his claim that they had made any changes to their previous stance in May and reiterated their accusation that Israel was blocking a deal. Osama Hamdan, Hamas’s representative in Lebanon, accused the top U.S. diplomat of seeing “things through an Israel lens.”

              The cease-fire proposal would halt the fighting in Gaza immediately, and, after the release of some Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, begin talks that could lead to a much longer or even permanent cease-fire and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Qatar and Egypt have acted as intermediaries between Israel and Hamas, which do not communicate directly with each other.

              Basem Naim, a Hamas spokesman, said on Wednesday that Hamas’s position remains that the deal must include guarantees of a permanent cease-fire and a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, among other demands.

              “This new offer includes no changes to our previous response to the offer submitted last May,” he said.

    • blahsay@lemmy.world
      41·
      15 days ago

      They literally told us the other day. Palestinian deaths help hamas. The leader was all for it

    • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.caEnglish
      57·
      15 days ago

      Always ask yourself, “Where’s the money coming from.”

      Hamas is not being funded by Palestinians. Palestinians are broke as fuck.

      Hamas is being funded by neighboring countries, who want to eliminate Israel. The same reason those countries invaded Israel the day after the British protectorate ended.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
        74·
        15 days ago

        Hamas is being funded by neighboring countries

        Cough

        For years, the Qatari government had been sending millions of dollars a month into the Gaza Strip — money that helped prop up the Hamas government there. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel not only tolerated those payments, he had encouraged them.

        During his meetings in September with the Qatari officials, according to several people familiar with the secret discussions, the Mossad chief, David Barnea, was asked a question that had not been on the agenda: Did Israel want the payments to continue?

        Mr. Netanyahu’s government had recently decided to continue the policy, so Mr. Barnea said yes. The Israeli government still welcomed the money from Doha.

        Allowing the payments — billions of dollars over roughly a decade — was a gamble by Mr. Netanyahu that a steady flow of money would maintain peace in Gaza, the eventual launching point of the Oct. 7 attacks, and keep Hamas focused on governing, not fighting.

        https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-qatar-money-prop-up-hamas.html

        Cough cough

        Mr Levy - who was head of economic warfare in the Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, until 2016 - says he told Mr Netanyahu many times that Israel had the means to crush Hamas, which controls Gaza, “by using only financial tools”.

        Mr Levy says he never got a response to his proposal from Mr Netanyahu. When asked if he considered there was a connection between Mr Netanyahu’s alleged reluctance to deal with Hamas’s finances and the 7 October attack, Mr Levy is unequivocal.

        “Yes, of course,” he says. “There is a very good chance that… we would [have] prevent[ed] a lot of the money” that had gone into Gaza, and that “the monster that Hamas built probably [wouldn’t be] like the same monster that we faced on October 7th.”

        https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68318856

        • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.caEnglish
          3·
          15 days ago

          That’s still “funded by neighboring countries”

          The weapons Hamas is using were also smuggled in from neighboring countries as well. It’s not like they bought them from the US or Israel.

          • bartolomeo@suppo.fi
            11·
            14 days ago

            Thanks for the link, it’s important info. It seems like voting was interfered with, though. If you’re wondering why the implementation looks nothing like the partition plan, it’s because

            Zionist leaders, in particular David Ben-Gurion, viewed the acceptance of the plan as a tactical step and a stepping stone to future territorial expansion over all of Palestine.

            To be precise, Israel declared independence a day before the British Mandate was over (under a portrait of Theodor Herzl), then proceeded to expel the Palestinians en masse. They also used chemical and biological warfare in their pogroms against Palestinians to steal their land.

            What you believe is a fairy tale. You need to wake up because that fairy tale negates historical fact, human rights, and the rule of international law.

          • bartolomeo@suppo.fi
            11·
            14 days ago

            To be precise, Israel declared independence a day before the British Mandate was over (under a portrait of Theodor Herzl), then proceeded to expel the Palestinians en masse. They also used chemical and biological warfare in their pogroms against Palestinians to steal their land.

            Zionist leaders, in particular David Ben-Gurion, viewed the acceptance of the [U.N. Partition plan for Mandatory Palestine] as a tactical step and a stepping stone to future territorial expansion over all of Palestine.

            What you believe is a fairy tale. You need to wake up because that fairy tale negates historical fact, human rights, and the rule of international law.

    • Cleverdawny@lemm.ee
      38·
      15 days ago

      The answer is that the more death and suffering they can cause to civilian Palestinians, the more they can drive a cultural wedge between Israel and the Arab nations. Their end goal here is to get a friendly government in, say, Egypt and then win a war to conquer Israel with that foreign support.

      • girlfreddy@lemmy.ca
        72·
        15 days ago

        Riiight. I think your hat is on way too tight.

        Might want to crawl up from that nationalist hole and take a breath of fresh air.

        • bartolomeo@suppo.fi
          61·
          15 days ago

          I think your hat is on way too tight.

          Thank you, I have been looking for this phrasing for a long time. As someone who rejects violence it’s very difficult to find the words to tell someone that the reason they incorrectly think something is a certain way is because they are stupid. Just mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging, shit-slinging dolts.

          It seems to me there has recently been an influx of users who have their hats on way too tight.

        • Cleverdawny@lemm.ee
          25·
          15 days ago

          Dude that’s what they’ve said their goal is. Take your head out of your ass

            • Cleverdawny@lemm.ee
              25·
              15 days ago

              Okie dokie I guess

              That’s still what Hamas says their goals are lol

              It’s why they started this war. They wanted to head off Saudi normalization of relations with Israel

      • Anas@lemmy.world
        11·
        15 days ago

        The wedge is already there, has been since the start. Our leaders are puppets, however, so it doesn’t matter.

        • Cleverdawny@lemm.ee
          2·
          15 days ago

          Arab leaders are smart enough to know that attacking Israel would either lead to defeat or nuclear annihilation, and so, seek peace. Regardless of the wishes of the populace.