Hamas Surrenders as Trump Backs Israel's Threat to Annihilate Palestinians
Trumpâs election made it inevitable but this week saw Hamasâ final capitulation, agreeing to release all hostages - with Israeli forces allowed to remain in parts of Gaza until all hostages are released.
With 46,000 Palestinians dead and Gaza devastated, Hamas will come out of the deal wtih nothing to show for its murderous actions on October 7th - and Gaza will apparently remain the open air prison it has been for decades, with no agreement for self-determination or other concessions from Israel.
Leading up to the deal, Donald Trump made clear he would back Israelâs plan for the starvation of Gaza Palestinians as a weapon of war. This was the headline in the Times of Israel days ago:
While Trump didnât elaborate on his threat, his VP J.D. Vance did. As the Jerusalem Post reported:
Vice President-elect JD Vance explained on Sunday: âAllowing Israel to dismantle Hamasâs last battalions is what Trump means by âall hellâ [will break loose].
With mass starvation and the ethnic cleansing of Gaza to begin on January 20th, Hamasâ capitulated to Israelâs demands was obvious - with no path to a two-state solution or any of the guarantees of Palestinian self-determination that Biden had been pushing for in any long-term agreement. While Israel is supposed to withdraw all troops from Gaza upon the release of the last of the hostages, that is also the point when Hamas will lose any leverage to protest if Israel finds a pretext to remain.
While those who support Israelâs Occupation will be right to credit Trumpâs election as delivering the end of any hope for Palestinian self-determination, what is bizarre is that some quarters of the âleftâ are celebrating Trump. Jeremy Schahill at DropSite is celebrating Trump for the deal, arguing this reflects Bidenâs refusal to âuse his full powers as Presidentâ to get a ceasefire
This is truly bizarres since as I argued in Biden Has Saved More Palestinian Lives than Any Other Person, Biden has been using the power he had to block Israelâs preferred strategy of starving out and ethnicly cleansing the Palestinians since October of 2023. If Biden had backed Netanyahu in shutting down food supplies to Gaza - as itâs obvious Trump has promised - this deal could have been negotiated in November 2023, with most Palestinians fleeing to permanent exile in Egypt as food supplies disappeared in Gaza.
Netanyahu had won and Palestinian self-determination has lost, probably permanently, and Trump does deserves almost all the credit.
But save a little credit for the end of the Palestinian cause for the toxic left actors like Scahill and the sectarian activists who saw the Palestinian cause as a tool for political score-making against Biden, rather than as an imperative to build public support for actually changing public opinion and winning political power to help the Palestinians.
And who knows what crazy, chaotic horrid Trump might do. Is it conceivable that, say, Saudi blandishments lead him toward more pro-Palestinian policies? Perhaps unlikely, but he does have a stake in the Abraham accords, and revisiting those might lead to improvements.
Perhaps your bleak assessment is correct, but I hope not.
Was the two state solution alive before 10/7? If so, I donât think it was after that day, which I think may have been one of the reasons Hamas launched an attack that they knew would cause vicious retaliation.
I suspect the death of a two state solution was a goal of both Netanyahu and Hamas, in which case both won a victory in this war.
As bleak as the prospects are for Palestinian self-determination, stopping the current violence is a good thing. Slower and awful violence will surely follow, I know, but at least the fast violence of the war may ease.