The media are trotting out ‘experts’ to tell us that there is no military solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict,, Who are they trying to convince? Obviously not Hamas. Remember, Hamas was the one that started all this with a military operation that killed 1,200 people. So the target must be Israel. The US wants to convince Israel to make concessions in order to reach a hostage deal. The US is also the party that is using every means at its disposal to dissuade Israel from engaging in ground operations in Rafah. What for? in order to get a cease-fire and a ‘negotiated settlement’. Oh yes, and to protect the lives of innocent Palestinian civilians. That all sounds almost reasonable until you examine it closely.
First, there is nothing that addresses the hostage problem. That means those ~133 people who were kidnapped and are still being held in open violation of international law. The humanitarian law is quite clear. Non-belligerents and non-combatants are to be released immediately (not held for ransom). If Hamas is willing to openly violate both humanitarian law regarding hostages and to intentionally shoot rockets at civilian targets in addition to conducting the intentional, planned, massacre of October 7th, what makes the US (or anyone else) think they will agree to a negotiated settlement? The Hamas charter negates the possibility of negotiating with Israel and they have consistently (including now) refused to conduct face to face talks with Israel. Even if they did, why should anyone expect them to abide by the terms of an agreement? They have a history of not doing so since they took control of Gaza in 2008.
Does America have any way of influencing them? President Biden made his (in)famous warning to other countries: “Don’t”. Did that keep Hezbollah from firing thousands of rockets into Israel? Did it keep the Houthis in Yemen from disrupting worldwide seaborne trade (with nothing that connected the ships to Israel) and ignoring US requests (and even military actions) aimed at altering their behavior ?
I’ve pointed out before that the US does not understand the Middle East. Their current diplomatic (and not so diplomatic) maneuvers show that nothing has changed. America is broken reed. Military pressure brought Hamas to the first round of hostage talks. It needs to be applied again to either make them release the remaining hostages or be destroyed (or both).
Wetherhorn 