{"id":114991,"date":"2024-08-15T17:05:55","date_gmt":"2024-08-15T15:05:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=114991"},"modified":"2024-08-15T12:06:01","modified_gmt":"2024-08-15T10:06:01","slug":"16-05-100","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=114991","title":{"rendered":"Sinwar using hostages to \u2018drive a wedge through Israeli society\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Sinwar using hostages to \u2018drive a wedge through Israeli society\u2019<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Israel Kasnett<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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The Hamas chief does not want to allow hostages who are alive out of his reach \u201csince it is the one guarantee for his survival,” expert tells JNS.<\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/div>\n

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\nIsraelis protest outside the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv, demanding the release of the hostages held in the Gaza Strip, Aug. 13, 2024. Photo by Avshalom Sassoni\/Flash90.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved on Wednesday the departure of a delegation to Doha, Qatar, on Thursday, as well as the mandate for conducting negotiations in an effort to bring Israel\u2019s hostages home.<\/span><\/p>\n

But it is possible that such a deal will never happen as Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar seems to prefer the negotiations as a cruel mechanism to torture Israeli society, as one expert told JNS.<\/span><\/p>\n

Eran Lerman, vice president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, said he is \u201cnot quite sure that Sinwar really wants a deal to work.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He said Sinwar does not want to allow hostages who are alive out of his reach \u201csince it is the one guarantee for his survival.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe is basically using it to drive a wedge through Israeli society,\u201d Lerman said.<\/span><\/p>\n

As Israel\u2019s negotiators head to Doha, it has been nearly two weeks since the killings of Hamas\u2019s previous political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, and Hezbollah\u2019s top military commander Fuad Shukr, and both Iran and Hezbollah have yet to act on their threats to retaliate.<\/span><\/p>\n

Israel is still bracing for an expected attack by Iran and its network of proxies. With Hamas refusing to join negotiations for a possible hostage deal on Thursday and an Iranian\/Hezbollah attack looming, the last two weeks have been fraught with uncertainty and heightened tensions over the rapidly changing security environment in the region.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some officials hope that although Hamas has announced it would not participate in this latest round of negotiations, a hostage deal might discourage Iran and Hezbollah from attacking. But the other question is how Haniyeh\u2019s assassination in Tehran has changed the equation, if at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sinwar was always the decider<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Enia Krivine, senior director for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies\u2019 Israel Programs and National Security Network, told JNS that Sinwar\u2019s replacing Haniyeh does \u201cnot substantively\u201d change anything with regard to the talks.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSinwar was always the decider in the negotiations; he held all the bargaining power with the hostages under his lock and key,\u201d she said. \u201cThe other players outside of Gaza were Sinwar\u2019s messengers. Sinwar replacing Haniyeh simply lifts the veil and demonstrates that this was always Sinwar\u2019s game.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Lerman seemed to agree.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTo my knowledge it was always his game,\u201d he said. \u201cHe never took orders from anyone.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Haniyeh\u2019s assassination \u201cdoesn\u2019t change anything,\u201d Lerman said. \u201cIt puts more of a burden on his shoulders in terms of his situation and of his people in Gaza, which is pretty desperate, but as far as he is concerned, he wants a commitment by Israel to end the war with a Hamas victory.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s security echelon, as well as much of the international community, seem to believe Israel can afford to release many terrorists and end the war as part of a hostage deal since Hamas, in their view, has been sufficiently weakened.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lerman told JNS he sees why, \u201ceven if we can get some people out,\u201d many in the defense establishment believe \u201cthere can be enough commonalities to make this work,\u201d given that \u201cthe nature of the war has changed\u201d and that Israel \u201ccan go for a deal without really changing the dynamics.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Krivine acknowledged the dilemma as well, saying, \u201cEveryone understands that releasing Palestinian prisoners is a bad idea.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She pointed to an incident last week when an Israeli man was shot to death late last year by a Palestinian prisoner who had been released in one of the hostage deals. She also noted that Sinwar himself was released in the 2011 deal that saw IDF soldier Gilad Shalit freed in exchange for 1,027 terrorists.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat said,\u201d Krivine continued, \u201cas long as there are alive hostages in Hamas\u2019s hands, the government has a moral obligation to try to get the hostages back.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just a moral or a political imperative, it\u2019s a strategic imperative,\u201d she added. \u201cAs long as the hostages remain in Gaza, Sinwar and the Iranian axis have the ability to psychologically terrorize Israelis. It is of utmost strategic importance to get the hostages back and take away the powerful leverage that Hamas holds over Israelis.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Dealbreaker<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

There are confusing reports about what the hostage deal on the table actually entails and whether or not Israel and Hamas have changed stipulations and demands since the draft endorsed by President Joe Biden.<\/span><\/p>\n

Krivine said she is unaware of what is on paper, \u201cbut now that the U.S. is trying to use a Gaza ceasefire to appease Iran and prevent an Iranian attack on Israel, I am assuming there is a lot of dealing under the table between Washington and Tehran, and that worries me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Lerman questioned \u201cthe modalities of making sure those who return to northern Gaza are not armed men and all that this entails.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIsrael wants to be sure that it will not once again face a catastrophic reality in the immediate vicinity of the Gaza envelope,\u201d he said. \u201cIf Hamas wants access for its armed people to go back to northern Gaza, that is a dealbreaker.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He said Israel could leave the Philadelphi Corridor along Gaza\u2019s border with Sinai \u201cif we have a very clear, complicated monitoring system that we can feel comfortable with and if the Egyptians understand that the kind of games they\u2019ve been playing are no longer tolerable.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

However, Lerman said he believes control of the Netzarim Corridor dividing the northern and southern Gaza Strip \u201cis in many ways more significant.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the main debates in Israel and abroad since Oct. 7 has been that since rescuing all the hostages and defeating Hamas are two opposing ideas that cannot be simultaneously achieved, Israel has no substantive options to fully achieve them both. It\u2019s either one or the other.<\/span><\/p>\n

Krivine said Israel must \u201ccontinue to apply maximum military pressure on Sinwar, while also pursuing hostage negotiations, in the hope that Sinwar will either be killed or that he will finally agree to a deal when he feels that he has nowhere left to hide.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe hope was that the IDF would get to Sinwar sooner, but it is only a matter of time before the IDF corners the architect of 10\/7,\u201d she said. \u201cIn the meantime, there is no indication that Sinwar will accept a deal and give up the incredibly valuable leverage he holds as long as the hostages remain in Gaza.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For this reason, the hostage negotiations taking place in Doha are extremely important. Sinwar is watching carefully because if the talks fail and Iran uses it as an excuse to attack Israel directly and through proxies in Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen, he will have gotten his wish of seeing Israel attacked again from all sides.<\/span><\/p>\n

With this in mind, Krivine told JNS that if Hamas \u201cis unwilling to conclude a deal this week that brings the hostages home, there is a strong case for Israel going on the offensive against its regional adversaries.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She said Sinwar \u201cfeels emboldened while his allies in Beirut and Tehran threaten Israel.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf Israel goes on the offensive and deals a bold and decisive blow to Hezbollah and the Iranian regime, it will weaken Sinwar\u2019s position considerably,\u201d Krivine said.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Sinwar using hostages to \u2018drive a wedge through Israeli society\u2019 Israel Kasnett The Hamas chief does not want to allow hostages who are alive out of his reach \u201csince it is the one guarantee for his survival,” expert tells JNS. . Israelis protest outside the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv, demanding the release of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114991"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=114991"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115007,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114991\/revisions\/115007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=114991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=114991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=114991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}