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The Israel-Hamas Conflict Is a Zero-Sum Game

(Times of Israel) David Horovitz - President Joe Biden's speech Friday, laying out a proposal for a hostage-ceasefire deal with Hamas, urged Hamas "to take the deal." But it's not so simple. Hamas will only take the deal if it thinks it can survive and rebuild and resume its efforts to destroy Israel. The proposal requires Hamas to consent to its own effective demise. Why, one must ask, would it agree to do that? Biden's detailed exposition of the Israeli proposal did not include specific reference to Hamas's demands for the release of all security prisoners recaptured since the 2011 Shalit prisoner exchange, or to Hamas's insistence that it will choose which life-term murderous terrorists go free early in the deal in exchange for female hostage Israeli soldiers, or to Hamas's rejection of Israel's demand for a veto on major terrorists being released into the West Bank - a combination of Hamas demands that are plainly calculated to spark escalated terrorism against Israeli targets in and from the West Bank. The Israel-Hamas conflict is a zero-sum game: Israel wants to destroy Hamas; Hamas wants to survive and get back to destroying Israel. Neither side will agree to terms that definitively thwart its core goals. The writer, former editor of the Jerusalem Post, is the founding editor of the Times of Israel.
2024-06-04 00:00:00
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