"[The deal] took months of very difficult negotiations."

"What happens next maters even more. Implementation and verification have to be real."

"Withdrawal must move in lockstep with decommissioning."

Nikolay Mladenov, Board of Peace high representative for Gaza

 

"[The movement -- Gaza -- was making] concessions for the sake of our people in the Gaza Strip."

"Israel will not intervene in the issue of disarmament. The National Committee [National Committee for Administration of Gaza (NCAG)] is the body that will undertake this task." 

Ghazi Hamad, member Hamas negotiating team 

 

"The only good news in recent days is the announcement by the U.S. president of an agreement for Hamas to relinquish their weapons and for Israel to withdraw its forces from Gaza."

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres 

Palestinian Hamas terrorists keep guard on the day Hamas hands over deceased hostages, identified at the time by Palestinian militant groups as Oded Lifschitz, Shiri Bibas and her two children Kfir and Ariel Bibas, seized during the deadly October 7, 2023 attack, to the Red Cross, as part of a ceasefire and hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip February 20, 2025. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo

 

Western news media have published the story that Gaza's terrorist-governing Hamas -- an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood whose radical Islamist program of enduring jihad by polished 'public relations' that appeal to the Western press, and liberal-minded Western governments have given them entre to Democratic-liberal countries failing to recognition the stealth infiltration-by-diplomacy and the threat it ultimately poses to their foundational cultures and values and systems of justice, also by extension give credence to Palestinian terrorism as a 'liberating' force from 'occupation' -- is prepared to surrender its arms. 

 

Hamas is the other face of the Muslim Brotherhood, the one dedicated to a different type of jihad, through violent force necessitated by the intent to produce mass murder.

 

That mass murder took place once again on a scale significant enough to persuade Israel that this time around there would be no negotiations with the terrorist entity for a break in hostilities. Each of those breaks between mass assaults on Jews in Israel had Israel breathe a sigh of relief in the belief that the fury of hate would be healed by the passage of time, while Hamas took those breaks as a traditional Islamist 'hudna', an opportunity to recruit, retrain, rearm, and return to the attack. 

 

That would be repeated time and again, between assaults-and-defence. The reality that the Hamas reason for existence is the elimination of Israel is one that human decency, where it exists, fails to fully grasp.

 

The Conversation

 

The Hamas charter is a pledge to eliminate Israel from its ancestral geographical heritage, as Judeans indigenous to only part of the land that the renewed state of Israel sits upon. In a fit of generosity, the UN General Assembly reached a consensus in 1947 to offer its Partition Plan, giving Jews the opportunity to establish their state on a tiny portion of its original territory -- and Palestinian Arabs a like opportunity on another portion of Judean heritage land, while Jordan occupied a major portion. While Israel reestablished its ancient presence in 1948, the Palestinians refused the offer. 

 

They have refused to recognize Israel's right of existence ever since. Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority have never resulted in that recognition, nor in the Palestinians accepting concessions from Israel for an agreement that would satisfy the aspirations of both in enabling the establishment of a Palestinian state next door to Israel's. Palestinians have been taught over the decades closing in on 80 years that the entire region belongs to them and that Israel's reestablishment is that of a colonial enterprise. That Israel must be destroyed, leaving Palestinians to claim 'their' geographical entitlement 'from the river to the sea'.

 

When Ghazi Hamad, negotiating for Hamas, speaks of "concessions for the sake of our people in the Gaza Strip", it is meant to appeal to the gullibility of a Western audience, the very liberal-left Westerners who ascribe an empathetic motivation for Palestinian violence against Jews, as a victimized people -- a designation cultivated by Palestinians to gather empathy for their 'cause' -- fighting back against their oppressors. The oppressors being in reality Jews who fight back to ensure their existential security against neighbours dedicated to their extermination.  

 

Two Palestinian youth react to the news of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas from Khan Younis. Ramadan Abed/Reuters

 

Hamas doesn't care one whit for the well-being and safety of Palestinians in Gaza, proven time and again their use as living shields, the outcome of which is Palestinian civilians dying, directly caused by Hamas deadly provocations against Israel; the greater the number of dead, the more emphatic those numbers become in seeking the sympathy of the international community, attributing those deaths solely to Israeli intentionality, not Hamas contrivance.

 

Hamas has no intention of surrendering its weapons, precious to them as the instruments enabling them to carry out their charter obligations in destroying Israel. Hamas demands the complete withdrawal of all Israeli troops before it will agree to finalize the surrender of its weapons. Without those weapons there would be no Hamas, completely emasculated of actionable intent. In that portion of Gaza where Hamas maintains its monopoly of complete control, it has reestablished itself as the sole authority, having overcome the resistance of Hamas tribal groups that had attempted to dislodge it from its primacy.

 

An Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza at this juncture would ultimately reward Hamas for its October 7 mass slaughter of Israeli civilians, with the assistance of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Fatah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and ordinary Palestinian civilians for their ravaging of southern Israel kibbutsim, the mass rapes of Israeli girls and women at the Noma Music Festival for Peace, and the hostage-taking of Jewish children, the elderly and infirm, entire families, women and men of the Israeli military and foreign farm workers.  

 

The October 7 War    International Affairs

 

  

"The DSA and others are saddling the Democratic party with nominees whose wildly unpopular positions will protect Republicans from having to pay the price of Donald Trump's corruption and economic incompetence."

"In November, a continued focus on defunding, decriminalizing and decolonizing will highlight cultural issues that alienate many Democrats, not to mention a huge swath of independents [who make up a record-high 45 percent of the electorate] and disenchanted Republicans." 

Rahm Emanuel 

 

"Socialism has become increasingly popular among Democrats, but it is a much tougher sell in the rest of the electorate."

"There is a reason why Republicans nationwide are licking their chops, and why there are at leas some Democrats who are a little bit worried."

"Because what is true in New York City in a Democratic primary ain't necessarily true nationwide with the general electorate."

Harry Enten, Senior Data Reporter, CNN  

 

"The Democratic Socialists of America [DSA] is drawing new scrutiny after more than 35 DSA-backed candidates won primaries heading into the November mid-terms, forcing what analysts call an identity crisis inside the Democratic Party."

"[The DSA calls for government expropriation of  private corporations, state-owned housing, racial reparations], universal health care at no cost to individuals, [abolution of the Senate, and] a free Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital [following the end of] all military and economic aid to Israel."

NewsNation  

According to The New York Times, these are plans requiring government officials to seize a much larger portion of Americans' wealth, so they can enforce policies and target enemies. With their "influence on the rise", DSA candidates "are eager to tax the rich and enact anti-Israel policies". 

 

Radical candidates have tapped into an ideological shift among Democratic voters, and this accounts for their wins. A June YouGov/Economist poll showed that 58 percent of Democrats have a favourable opinion of socialism, and 62 percent would vote for a "Democratic Socialist" candidate. Senator Eugene McCarthy must be twisting in agony in his grave. 

 

In AP-NORC polling, 58 percent of Democrats feel the U.S. is "too supportive" of Israel and among them 52 percent feel that Israel committed genocide in its  defensive war against Hamas. "An ascendant faction of the left ... sees opposition to Israel as a Democratic litmus test", according to CNN. Also according to CNN, many Jewish Democrats grapple with loyalty to the extent they have crossed the line toward explicit antisemitism: "They point to references to Jewish or Israeli interests nefariously controlling politics with money or suggesting that Jews aren't fully loyal to America or to Democratic values." 

 

AP-NORC further found that "Republicans have shifted in the opposite direction, with a majority now claiming U.S. support for Israel is about right". Among GOP voters just 13 percent, and 31 percent of Americans overall accept the charge that Israel has engaged in genocide. For their part, mainstream moderates among Democrats view an opportunity slipping away while their party slithers toward hate and economic authoritarianism. 

 

Demonstrators hold a "Democratic Socialists of America" banner ahead of a vote by the Rent Guidelines Board at el Musseo de Barrio in New York, July 25, 2006. Adam Grey, Bloomberg/Getty 

 

Democratic-aligned Americans who identify as democratic socialists:

• Tend to be younger (59% are younger than 45, compared to 46% of non-democratic socialists aligned with the Democratic Party) and are more likely to be White (57% to 49%)
• Are less likely to have a college degree (66% to 54%) and more likely to earn less than $100,000 a year (76% to 65%)
• Are more likely to say they are extremely motivated to vote this year (66% of those who are registered voters say so, compared to 57% for non-democratic socialists), though both groups overwhelmingly support Democratic congressional candidates (99% of democratic socialists and 94% of non-democratic socialists)
• Are more positive toward the Democratic Party. They are more likely to hold favorable views of the Democratic Party (68% to 60%) and its congressional leaders, and more likely to have negative views of the Republican Party and its congressional leaders 

CNN Poll