The Negotiation Game: Netanyahu's Means to Manage the War in Gaza, Not End It

The phrase "a new round of negotiations" has been frequently repeated by politicians of countries concerned with stopping the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, which has been ongoing for about 11 months, and has claimed the lives of all the residents of the Strip (about 2.5 million people) between martyrs, wounded, displaced and missing under tons of rubble from bombed homes.

The scenario did not change in each round, as “the United States announced that Hamas rejected the terms of the agreement that Israel agreed to.” But what happened - and is still ongoing - can be called the “game of negotiations” through which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to manage and continue the war, not end it.

What is happening in the current round is no exception to all its predecessors. After the Palestinian resistance agreed to the vision presented by US President Joe Biden himself last May, and the Security Council resolution on June 11, 2024, Netanyahu enters each round of negotiations with new conditions, which the US administration adopts and asks Hamas to agree to, otherwise it will become the “obstinate one.”

"Netanyahu's Game"

Netanyahu said Tuesday that Israel would not accept a proposal that included ending the war, and he doubted the possibility of completing a prisoner exchange deal.

He said - during a meeting with the families of the Israeli prisoners held in Gaza who refuse to complete the deal - that Israel will not withdraw from the Netzarim and Philadelphi axes in any way, stressing that the two sites constitute strategic importance militarily and politically.

With this mentality, Israel enters the negotiations, and does not even give space to the negotiating team that it sends in each round “for the sake of honorable representation” and nothing more. For this reason, the Israeli Broadcasting Authority quoted officials in the Israeli negotiating team as saying that “Netanyahu seeks to blow up the negotiations through his statements yesterday.”

The American position

Netanyahu's position is quickly adopted by American policy and becomes the mouthpiece for his new demands, imposing this on the mediators in every round, according to what Palestinian political researcher Saeed Al-Hajj said, as he believes that Washington has become part of the war and has abandoned the status of an honest mediator, and is giving Netanyahu more time to achieve his goals in the Gaza Strip.

Al-Hajj added - in an interview with Al Jazeera Net - that the United States gives the war government in Israel political cover, and deludes the international community that it is serious about stopping the massacres in Gaza, but it provides all the support to Israel in the form of weapons, equipment, and deals worth billions of dollars, and the only difference between them is in the details of the objectives.

Hamas response

Hamas, in turn, said on Tuesday that the statements of the US President and his Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, regarding the movement’s withdrawal from the ceasefire agreement “are misleading claims, and do not reflect the true position of the movement, which is keen to reach a cessation of aggression.”

In a statement issued yesterday, the movement’s political bureau member, Basem Naim, said, “Hamas welcomed Biden’s announcement and the Security Council’s decision, and affirmed its readiness for immediate implementation, and submitted its response approving the mediators’ proposal on July 2.”

The statement then clarified Netanyahu's position on this approval, saying that he "responded to all these projects and proposals with more massacres and killing...and set new conditions for negotiations."

Therefore, the writer and political researcher Abdullah Aqrabawi - in an interview with Al Jazeera - believes that Hamas did not participate in the last round of negotiations at all, and what happened was merely an internal negotiation process and discussion between the Biden administration and Netanyahu on previous proposals by the US administration that allowed him to impose new conditions on them, and then this administration asked Hamas to agree to a discussion in which it was not a party.

American mediation

After about 11 months of aggression on the Gaza Strip, is it possible to evaluate the American role in mediating between the Palestinian resistance and the Israeli government, and after all these rounds of negotiations have been held?

In an interview with Al Jazeera Net, the director of the Jerusalem Center for Studies, Imad Abu Awad, answers this question by saying, “Blinken leaves the United States as its Secretary of State, but when he arrives in Israel, he turns into a Jew.” Therefore, his direct accusations against Hamas aim at a number of things:

Exonerating Israel from the failure of all rounds of negotiations.

Presenting an image of Israel that serves America's interests in the upcoming elections.

Pressure on Iran and Hezbollah so that there is no response to the assassination of Hamas Political Bureau Chief Ismail Haniyeh, and if there is, it will be in a context that Israel can tolerate.

Not reaching the stage of escalation that could lead to a regional war.

Saeed Al-Hajj believes that American mediation aligns with and adopts the Israeli position, and that if the United States wanted to stop the war, it could do so through the funding and armament it provides to Israel, and through the political support it has in international institutions that could put real pressure on Israel.

Aqrabawi sums up the scene by saying that the US Secretary of State “ignores that there is another party fighting on the ground, or that there is another people present in Gaza, or that there is a national or nationalist ambition for the Palestinians, and deals as if there is a vacuum in the Palestinian situation. If Blinken and Netanyahu are able to impose this agreement - which they agreed upon - on the resistance and on our people in Gaza, they must impose it on the ground, not behind the screens.”