Pretty sure that second coming is more likely than Bibi been tried for anything in Hague
iirc prior to oct 7 those voices that were too much against signing agreement with israel were spanked. or maybe it was in ae. don't remember exactly
He doesn't really deserve it, but honestly, the Peace Prize has such a checkered history that "deserve" really isn't relevant. It's the "obvious" compromise, one they should have reached years ago, and he's the main thing that changed in that time. So let's chalk the win up to him.
I doubt he'll get it. The committee really hates being pestered this way. They can't give it this year, and a year from now this is going to be largely forgotten. The Peace Prize is intended to be for lasting accomplishments, not for a ceasefire.
But I want to give credit where it's due. Both sides hate this compromise -- Israelis are livid about releasing 2,000 prisoners, at least some of whom are mass murderers, in exchange for 20 innocent people who should never have been involved. That was a hard thing to achieve.
So, to demonstrate that I'm willing to say something nice about somebody who will never, ever say anything nice about me: sure, give the man a prize.
Regarding the hostages, Hamas wasn’t gaining anything by keeping them, the best they could hope for was a prisoner swap, since Israel was more then happy to continue the genocide even if that would cost the lives of hostages. So releasing them will not cost Hamas any leverage, really.
But regrettably we don‘t live in a just world, and the best we can hope for is that this ceasefire will last long enough for the international community to step up their game and actually assert pressure on Israel to not only not break the ceasefire, but also to implement their obligations to international law and give Palestinians a) civil rights b) a political means of resistance, and c) self determination.
I don't believe anything past the prisoner swap will be executed. If we're lucky, the ceasefire will last until next year, at which point Israeli elections will alter the calculus. That's so fundamental that everything after that is utterly opaque.
I really hope we are wrong here and this will be a lasting ceasefire, but If we are not, Europe has really paid all nearly all the political capital they have to spare for Israel complicity. I think Europe will get some political capital back from this ceasefire, but it will not be enough to cover for Israel breaking it the second time. And my hope (in case this ceasefire fails) that Europe will be forced to assert pressure. It would be better if Europe would assert pressure to Israel to keep the current ceasefire, but regrettably, that is highly unlikely.
Ceasefire with hezbollah/lebnon has part that says that in case hezbollah doesn't get disarmed Israel has right to casually bomb whenever it identifies danger to itself. Lebanese are very aware of this part of agreement.
With regards to hamas ceasefire (given that you ignore at least or cheer at most how hamas violated it on oct 7th or hezbollah on oct 8th), it was ceasefire for negotiations. hamas didn't negotiate. ceasefire ended.
However unlike Israel, the international community asserts pressure onto both Hamas and Hezbollah. Both are considered terrorist groups by several governments, and both are under sever international sanctions as a result. The international community is doing what they can to put pressure on Hamas and Hezbollah (with questionable results), but they are doing very little to put pressure on Israel, which is the reason I talk specifically about Israel’s track record here.
So Trump promised F-35s to Qatar and Turkey and they managed to strong arm hamas into releasing the hostages. But the rest of agreement will not happen. Basically no one in Israel believes in that, NO ONE. For Hamas it's too sweet of a deal to trap Israel again into bombing campaigns since its power comes from deaths of its own people ( specially on the international stage) and also the coming elections in Israel, Netanyahu will need to show that Hamas is going to be eradicated (and with hostages back, the "left" will not have any problems with that).
Hamas is an exception because it believes in martyr death and would drag the whole population in Gaza with them. That is new and unprecedented.
Most likely scenario is similar to Hizbollah in Lebanon. They didn't disarm as per agreement, hence no international aid flowing to Lebanon. Israel still controls South Lebanon and kills a couple of hizbollocks fighters on a daily basis.
The reality is that Israel always extended a hand which Palestinians or their representatives more or less cut off immediately.
We'll see how things go, both sides have made their fair share of mistakes thus far.
“Immediately after the hostages return home, the state of Israel will continue to strive with all its might for the true eradication of Hamas and the genuine disarmament of Gaza, so that it no longer poses a threat to Israel,”
[1] - https://aje.io/kfptet?update=4020328 [2] - https://x.com/DropSiteNews/status/1972844833094983790 https://xcancel.com/DropSiteNews/status/1972844833094983790
lschueller•4mo ago
igravious•4mo ago