[wat0n]

According Indian media Hamas has just offered a peace treaty on the base of 1967 line

I read the reports, but it does not even mention anything about e.g. creating an unified Palestinian army. Best case scenario, they'd turn Palestine into a second Lebanon, with Hamas bring Hezbollah.

[Skynet]

I read the reports, but it does not even mention anything about e.g. creating an unified Palestinian army. Best case scenario, they'd turn Palestine into a second Lebanon, with Hamas bring Hezbollah.

I think a Palestinian state has to be demilitarized or Israel will never agree. But this has to be result of negotiations

[wat0n]

I think a Palestinian state has to be demilitarized or Israel will never agree. But this has to be result of negotiations

Only at the beginning, with an international peacekeeping force acting as the military. This can't work long term because an army is necessary to deal with any future insurrections, just like it's happened in Lebanon.

Even in Israel itself, in 1948, the IDF had to quell an attempt by Irgun and Lehi to create a state within a state. Irgun did not want to truly integrate into the IDF, and dissolve its armed wing and it instead wanted to be "an army within the army" by having units formed solely by Irgun fighters. This was unacceptable to Ben Gurion, and he made it clear by sinking a ship carrying weapons for the Irgun in June 1948 (the Altalena).

Doing this obviously requires having an army and not a demilitarized state forever. If not, then sooner or later some irredentist group will take over the Palestinian state and try to resume fighting.

An international peacekeeping force could be deployed to act as an army, provide guarantees for everyone and eventually be replaced by a proper Palestinian army once Israelis and Palestinians trust each other enough to believe the other won't try to resume war. This doesn't even require both to be "friends", just the basic commitment not to resume war.

[Skynet]

@wat0n This could work.

[KurtFF8]

I think a Palestinian state has to be demilitarized or Israel will never agree. But this has to be result of negotiations

Why should Israel have any say over what the nature of a Palestinian state would look like?

[Deutschmania]

I wasn't sure where else I should post this , so I'll post it here. I just saw an informative , and inspirational talk , that was hosted by Mishkan , Chicago , on the topic of the situation in Israel/Palestine . It featured one speaker who's a Palestinian Arab , and another who's an Israeli Jew , talking about their respective experiences .

[Deutschmania]

It now appears that Pres. Biden wasn't simply bluffing after all . Here are the latest developments .

On Monday, the Israeli military ordered Palestinians in the city of Rafah to evacuate ahead of airstrikes, which unleashed fears that Israel was starting a ground invasion of Gaza’s southernmost city, where 1.4 million Palestinians have taken shelter. Hours later, Hamas announced that it had agreed to a ceasefire proposal outlined by Egypt and Qatar. But the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, rejected the deal and doubled down on his plan to invade Rafah and achieve “total victory” against Hamas.

It was a dizzying day in Israel’s brutal seven-month war on Gaza. But one thing was clear: Netanyahu does not want to end the war – and he’s doing all he can to undermine negotiations for a ceasefire and an agreement to release the remaining hostages held by Hamas since its 7 October attack on Israel. Netanyahu and his extremist allies fear that once the war ends, they will face early parliamentary elections and multiple investigations into the government’s intelligence failures leading up to the Hamas attacks.

Netanyahu and his Likud party are likely to lose any upcoming elections, and once he’s out of power, Netanyahu faces a long-delayed corruption trial on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust for acts he allegedly committed during earlier stints as prime minister. Netanyahu is a political survivor who has put his personal interests above all else. He is the longest-serving premier in Israel’s history, having served for more than 16 years over multiple terms since 1996.

It’s clear why Netanyahu would want to prolong a ruthless war to cling to power and avoid accountability. It’s less clear why Joe Biden would risk his own political future on unconditional support for Netanyahu and his extremist government.

After 7 October, the US president announced his absolute support for Israel and embraced Netanyahu in a bear hug during a visit to Tel Aviv. Since then, the prime minister has consistently embarrassed and broken his promises to Israel’s most important ally without paying a price. For months, Biden and his top aides complained about Netanyahu and the horrific number of Palestinian casualties, but they continued to provide diplomatic cover and US weapons that allow Israel to sustain its war machine.

Today, Netanyahu seems ready to defy all of Biden’s supposed red lines: by launching a major ground invasion of Rafah, despite months of warnings from the US, and sabotaging a ceasefire deal. Netanyahu and his allies are trying to sell the Israeli public – and the world – on the myth that they can win a complete victory in Gaza if the Israeli military can destroy four Hamas battalions that it claims are holed up in Rafah. “We will enter Rafah and we will eliminate the Hamas battalions there – whether or not there is a deal – in order to achieve total victory,” Netanyahu said last week.

But Biden doesn’t have to buy into Netanyahu’s reckless and inhumane policy, which ignores the fate of 1.4 million Palestinians driven out of their homes in other parts of Gaza by the Israeli military, using US-supplied weapons. Washington has provided tens of thousands of bombs and other munitions that enabled Israel to carry out one of the most destructive bombing campaigns in modern history, which has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, a majority of them women and children, and unleashed famine in northern Gaza.

After seven months of supporting such wanton death and destruction, Biden is finally showing a willingness to use the most effective leverage he has over Israel: the president can stop US shipments of weapons and force Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire. Despite Netanyahu defying and humiliating him at every turn, Biden had resisted changing US policy since October – even as he continued to lose support among Black and Arab American voters, along with young progressives, who are dismayed by his backing of Israel’s slaughter.

Instead of taking action – which could have significantly lessened Palestinian suffering and starvation over the past few months – the Biden administration decided to leak a stream of stories indicating that its patience was running out and Biden was close to a “breach” with Netanyahu over Gaza. In one leak to NBC News, anonymous Biden aides claimed that the president called Netanyahu an “asshole” at least three times.

While Biden was busy telling the world how fed up he was with Netanyahu, the prime minister used these empty threats to enhance his position and argue that he’s the only Israeli leader capable of standing up to the US.

Last week, Biden finally delayed a weapons shipment to Israel, withholding several thousand bombs which the US administration fears could be dropped on Rafah by the Israeli military during a large-scale invasion. It’s a small step toward restraining Netanyahu, although the administration recently approved other arms shipments to Israel worth $827m.

On Wednesday, Biden said he would also block the delivery of artillery shells and other weapons that could be used to bomb densely populated areas of Rafah. It was the first time that Biden blocked some arms shipments to Israel, although he made clear that he won’t limit shipments for the Iron Dome missile defense system and other weapons that ensure Israel is able to “respond to attacks.”

Biden and his top aides have another opportunity this week to change course and end US complicity in Israel’s war. A new national security memo that Biden issued in February, under pressure from some Democrats in Congress critical of his unconditional support for Israel, requires the administration to certify to Congress that recipients of US weapons are abiding by international law and allowing the transport of humanitarian aid during active conflicts. The administration can suspend or cancel arms shipments to countries that fail to meet the requirements set out in its memo, which reinforces existing US laws.

In late March, the state department confirmed that Israel had submitted written assurances that it was not using US weapons to violate international law. After receiving those statements from Israeli officials, the Biden administration announced that Israel had not violated international law or prevented humanitarian aid from reaching starving Palestinians – even as the world could see Israel blocking aid shipments from entering Gaza in real time.

But the administration is required to submit an annual report to Congress, which is due this week, explaining whether Israel’s statements are valid and how US officials evaluated these claims. Last month, Reuters reported that several senior officials have told the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, in an internal memo that Israel’s assurances are “neither credible nor reliable”. The officials from four different state department bureaus raised questions about potential Israeli violations of international law during the Gaza war.

The fact that US officials decided to leak this classified document shows the level of concern about American complicity in potential Israeli war crimes – and the lack of faith that Biden and his top aides will stop weapons shipments to Israel even when there’s evidence that it is violating international and US laws.

For months, human rights and international relief groups have documented that Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war – a violation of international law – and obstructing the delivery of food and other aid into Gaza. In January, the international court of justice ordered Israel to prevent acts of genocide by its troops, and to provide basic services and allow more humanitarian assistance into Gaza. But Israel has continued to defy the court’s rulings, most recently on 5 May, when it closed a key crossing point for aid into Gaza after a Hamas rocket attack.

Washington provides $3.8bn in military aid to Israel a year – and Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of US foreign aid in the world, having received about $300bn since the state was founded in 1948. Last month, Congress approved $26bn in additional support to Israel, which includes $14bn in unconditional military aid and some humanitarian assistance for civilians in Gaza.

This level of support gives Biden and his administration tremendous leverage over Netanyahu and the Israeli government. But until this week, Biden has decided not to use that power – or to abandon a foreign leader who’s willing to prolong a brutal war to save himself. The Guardian

As Israel prepared last week to launch a major operation in Rafah over the concerns of the White House, the Biden administration made rare use of a pressure tactic and held up the delivery of 3,500 large bombs.

“We are currently reviewing some near-term security assistance equipment in the context of unfolding events in Rafah.” As we have assessed the situation, we paused one shipment of high payload munitions,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said during Senate testimony on Wednesday, confirming unofficial reports from within the administration.

Austin’s comments came less than two days after Israel announced that it had begun its invasion of Rafah, a southern Gaza city packed with refugees that the Biden administration has urged Israel not to invade.

On Wednesday night, President Joe Biden said the consequences could grow steeper for Israel. “If they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities,” he said during an appearance on CNN. He said he did not consider Israel’s operation so far in Rafah to cross the line but said it was “right on the border” because of its proximity to dense “population centers.”

Biden said the United States would continue to aid Israel with its defensive needs, including the Iron Dome missile defense system.

“We’re not walking away from Israel’s security,” Biden said. “We’re walking away from Israel’s ability to wage war in those areas.”

Biden’s comments and the U.S. pause in aid to Israel — the first in four decades — mark a dramatic shift in the Biden administration’s posture toward the war. In the seven months since Hamas attacked Israel, Biden has supported Israel — including in a speech at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday — and had previously resisted ending or conditioning American military aid.

But Biden has been under pressure from some progressives within and outside of his party to suspend assistance to Israel as Palestinian casualties have mounted, now topping 34,000, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry. Austin was reminded of those pressures during his testimony when protesters shouting “Free Palestine!” were removed from the gallery.

Biden has previously said Israel’s bombing of Gaza, which has reduced large parts of the enclave to rubble, has been “indiscriminate.” Israel says the bombs are necessary to reach an enemy that has built a massive militarized infrastructure in an underground network of tunnels.

The announcement of the pause set off alarms among pro-Israel organizations.

“Delaying this arms transfer is a dangerous and counterproductive message,” the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC said Wednesday on X, formerly Twitter. “It emboldens Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah, and undermines America’s commitments to all our allies. Congress must demand the Biden Admin reverse this delay and ensure Israel has what it needs to win this war.”

The holdup last week came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was indicating that the military would invade Rafah, which Israel says is the final redoubt of Hamas. The invasion commenced on Monday after another attempt at a ceasefire agreement fell through.

Biden and other world leaders have opposed the invasion because more than 1 million displaced Palestinians have sought refuge there.

“The U.S. position has been that Israel should not launch a major ground operation in Rafah, where more than a million people are sheltering with nowhere else to go,” a senior White House official told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “We have been engaging in a dialogue with Israel in our Strategic Consultative Group format on how they will meet the humanitarian needs of civilians in Rafah, and how to operate differently against Hamas there than they have elsewhere in Gaza.”

In his Senate testimony, Austin said the safety of the civilians was paramount. “I think we’ve also been very clear about the steps that we’d like to see Israel take to account for and take care of those civilians before major combat takes place,” he said.

The statements by Austin and the official appeared to confirm reports that the meetings have not gone well, because, in the administration’s view, Israel has not adequately explained how it plans to safely evacuate and house the displaced Palestinians.

“Those discussions are ongoing and have not fully addressed our concerns,” the official told JTA.

The confirmation of the pause came a day after the president, in a Holocaust Remembrance Day speech, reaffirmed what he called his “ironclad” commitment to Israel. And the White House official emphasized that the $26 billion Congress allocated last month in emergency and humanitarian assistance to Israel and Gaza remains untouched.

“We are committed to ensuring Israel gets every dollar appropriated in the supplemental,” the official said.

Now, Biden administration officials are watching the Rafah operation unfold and expressing cautious optimism that Israel appears to be limiting its attacks to minimize civilian casualties.

“We’re going to be watching it closely, but how they [Israeli officials] have described this is not of a size, scale, duration and scope that one could equate to a major ground operation,” John Kirby, the National Security Council spokesman, said Tuesday in a call with reporters.

The weapons holdup is the first confirmed, on-the-record pause in U.S. defense assistance to Israel since 1983, when President Ronald Reagan delayed the delivery of combat aircraft to Israel to pressure Israel into withdrawing from Lebanon. Another oft-cited pause — in the delivery of Hellfire missiles during the last major war in Gaza in 2014 — was later said to be a technical issue, not one of policy.

The shipment that has been paused, the senior administration official said, included 1,800 bombs weighing 2,000 pounds each, and 1,700 bombs weighing 500 pounds each. The official said the White House began reviewing weapons shipments last month and said the delivery of devices that add guidance to bombs is also under review.

“We are especially focused on the end-use of the 2,000-lb bombs and the impact they could have in dense urban settings as we have seen in other parts of Gaza,” the official said.

The American Jewish Committee, like AIPAC, called for ending the pause while also thanking Biden for supporting Israel since Oct. 7.

“AJC is grateful for the unprecedented security assistance the U.S. administration has surged to Israel as it defends itself against Hamas terrorists, and for the ongoing, close collaboration between U.S. and Israeli officials,” the group said in a tweet.

“This support must continue without any additional conditions or delays, so Israel can defend itself from the multiple threats it faces and prevent Hamas’ stated goal of continued, repeated attacks,” it said. “We expect the Administration to swiftly ensure all necessary assistance is delivered.” Jewish Telegraphic Agency

John Kirby, the National Security Council spokesman who has become the face of the Biden administration’s affection for Israel, had something to get off his chest: Joe Biden is not anti-Israel.

“The arguments that somehow we’re walking away from Israel fly in the face of the facts,” Kirby said Thursday in a briefing call with reporters, his voice rising with passion.

Kirby was speaking a day after the president confirmed that he had suspended the delivery of some large bombs to Israel as it prepared to enter Rafah, the city on the Gaza-Egypt border believed to be the last redoubt of a major Hamas force. Biden’s decision led to dismay across a wide swath of pro-Israel leaders, and was seized on by Republicans eager to court the Jewish vote.

Biden stands at risk of losing a pro-Israel reputation that he has, for decades, nurtured as a matter of personal pride, and that he hoped to rely on in an election year. “Delaying arms transfers to Israel is dangerous,” the American Israel Public Affairs Committee said in an action alert to its members. In its messaging since Oct. 7, when Hamas launched its war against Israel, the pro-Israel lobby has repeatedly cited Biden’s pro-Israel record. “America must continue to stand firmly with our ally Israel as it works to defeat Hamas and defend its citizens.”

Abe Foxman, the retired national director of the Anti-Defamation League, who broke with decades of nonpartisanship in 2020 and campaigned for Biden, said Biden faced electoral peril, at least among Jewish voters, who have long favored Democrats.

“I hope that the response to what happened yesterday will send a message to him, that it’s not only Republicans that are criticizing you, but also Democrats,” Foxman said in an interview. “Arms sales during a war is a red line for most American Jews right now, center, even left. The only way to fix it is to turn it around.”

Haim Saban, the Israeli-American entertainment mogul who is a major donor to Democrats, emailed the campaign with an implied warning: “Let’s not forget that there are more Jewish donors who care about Israel than Muslim voters who care about Hamas,” he said in a note that circulated widely on social media. “Bad…bad…bad… decision on all levels.”

But he got support from at least one prominent Jewish official with a long record of supporting Israel: Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Jewish New York Democrat and Senate majority leader, told The Hill that “I believe that Israel and America have an ironclad relationship, and I have faith in what the Biden administration is doing.”

Biden spoke to CNN a day after he marked Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Capitol, pledging to keep remembrance of Oct. 7 alive and to maintain his “ironclad” support for Israel.

“Yesterday, I commended [Biden] for his speech,” Nathan Diament, the Orthodox Union’s Washington director, said on X. “Today’s threat to withhold arms from Israel betrays this truth.”

Biden fiercely defended Israel in the days and months after Oct. 7, when Hamas terrorists launched the war, massacring some 1,200 people in Israel and taking approximately 250 hostage. But he has also watched with increasing concern as Israel launched massive counterstrikes, leading to the deaths of more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to local officials, leveling large parts of Gaza and leaving its population in a humanitarian crisis.

Biden throughout his career has made his attachment to Israel central to his political identity. He calls himself a Zionist, and says he has been since he was a child, when his Roman Catholic father thrilled to the establishment of Israel as a miracle.

“I mean, this is a president who visited Israel within days of the October 7 attacks, this is a president who rushed additional military articles to Israel and frankly, provided expertise from our own military to go over there to help them as they thought through their planning and their operation of these structures,” said Kirby (who himself has worn dog tags reading “Bring them home now” to call attention to Israeli hostages still in captivity).

Biden is caught in an electoral bind between a Democratic base that is increasingly turning against Israel and the anxieties of a Jewish community that has for decades reliably aligned itself with the party and remains mostly supportive of Israel.

“There’s just no question in my mind that it is hurting him with the larger pro-Israel community,” said a senior pro-Israel Democrat, who asked not to be named to speak frankly. “And I see that in my inbox, I see it in people on Twitter that are talking about changing their positions. I’m still going to vote for him. A number of people aren’t.”

Republicans seized it as an opportunity to make gains in a community that steadfastly votes in large majorities for Democrats.

Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee this year, once again chastised American Jews for favoring Biden.

“If any Jewish person voted for Joe Biden they should be ashamed of themselves,” he said outside the courtroom in New York where he is standing trial for falsifying business records. “He’s totally abandoned Israel.”

The GOP leaders in both chambers, House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana and the Senate minority leader, Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, wrote a letter to Biden on the issue. “We believe that security assistance to Israel is an urgent priority that must not be delayed,” they said.

Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican, spearheaded a letter from Senate Republicans demanding answers. “You promised your commitment to Israel was ironclad,” the letter said. “Pausing much-needed military support to our closest Middle Eastern ally signals otherwise.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose relationship with Biden has become more parlous in recent weeks, used a message marking Israel’s Independence Day, which falls next Tuesday, to recall how Israel stood against world opinion in 1948.

“There was an arms embargo on Israel, but with great strength of spirit, heroism and unity among us — we were victorious,” Netanyahu said in Hebrew.

The notion that Biden is embargoing Israel infuriated Kirby, who emphasized repeatedly that the suspension was confined to a limited class of weapons and that American arms otherwise continue to flow to Israel.

Biden “also said yesterday that he will continue to ensure that Israel has all the military gains it needs to defend itself against all of its enemies, including Hamas,” he said. “He’s going to continue to provide Israel with the capabilities that it needs.”

Still, no president has withheld weapons from Israel as a means of pressure for more than 40 years, and some of the most consistently pro-Biden voices in the pro-Israel community were upset.

“We are disheartened by the partial withholding of U.S. military support from Israel while the threats from Hamas and other actors hostile to Israel are acute, and when the U.S.-Israel partnership should be at its strongest,” said the Israel Policy Forum, a group that dedicates itself to advancing a two-state outcome to the conflict and has a board replete with donors to Democrats.

Michael Koplow, the IPF’s chief policy officer, said Biden’s messaging team was flatfooted, allowing his rivals to seize the narrative by coming out first with news of the suspension of aid and only then explaining that it was limited to certain weapons.

“There are too many people who are talking about this as if there’s now a U.S. arms embargo on Israel or even as if the U.S. has cut off all offensive weapons to Israel, which is not even not even close to being true.”

The Democratic Majority for Israel, which runs a political action committee that has made Biden’s support for Israel central to its advocacy, said it was “deeply concerned.”

“A strong U.S.-Israel alliance like the one President Biden has created, plays a central role in preventing more war and making the path to eventual peace possible,” it said in a statement. “Calling the strength of that alliance into question is dangerous.”

The office of New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader in the House, did not return multiple requests for comment.

Joel Rubin, a Jewish Democrat and former senior State Department staffer who has advised a number of campaigns, said Biden had considered an American electorate that since the Iraq war debacle 20 years ago has been wary of open-ended conflict.

“What Biden is trying to force the Israelis to do is to say, ‘Tell me how this ends’,” he said. “The American people overall will reward him at the polls for having a vision that gets us to an endpoint that leads to stability and calm. That’s the constituency he’s aiming for overall.” Jewish Telegraphic Agency

[wat0n]

Biden is right in demanding an evacuation plan for Rafah, and he's also right in demanding a day-after plan.

Yet let's not cheat ourselves, this also plays in Netanyahu's hands. Netanyahu doesn't want to win, or lose, this war and Biden simply acting on his word plays into his hands here.