When asked on September 2 what made him believe a deal to end the war in Gaza would be successful, President Joe Biden answered in a way that revealed just how desperate the U.S.-led mediation effort has become: “Hope springs eternal.”
How Biden can find even a morsel of hope at this point is difficult to grasp. CIA Director Bill Burns was far more level-headed about the endgame in Gaza, stressing that Israel and Hamas will need to come to difficult political compromises if talks are to work out. So far that hasn’t happened. Even the efforts of the most dedicated mediators can fall flat if the main protagonists have no intention of moving from their core positions.
The United States is learning in real time what it should have known already: What the mediators want is largely irrelevant if the combatants are content with staring each other down and waiting for the other to blink.
To some, this observation will sound a bit premature. Technically, the negotiations aren’t dead yet. Neither Israel nor Hamas has officially pulled out of the discussions, if only because neither side wants to be blamed for sabotaging a diplomatic initiative the U.S. and its partners in Qatar and Egypt have spent so much capital on. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, meanwhile, spent part of this week in Egypt, his tenth trip to the Middle East since the war started. And at least rhetorically, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar are stressing that a deal remains possible.
But in reality, the two are yelling past one another. Israel and Hamas’ core positions haven’t moved one inch. The respective leadership on both sides view the nearly year-long war as existential, a situation that doesn’t bode well for mutually acceptable compromises. More to the point, Netanyahu and Sinwar have completely incompatible visions of what the endgame looks like.
Netanyahu, whose political career is at the mercy of an ultra-right coalition whose idea of total victory is to pummel the Palestinians into submission, began the invasion of the coastal Palestinian enclave with two main objectives: save the 250 or so hostages stuck in Hamas’ subterranean tunnel network and wipe Hamas from the face of the Earth. In theory, both objectives were laudable. Who could argue with the notion that Hamas, which slaughtered approximately 1,200 people in their homes and kibbutzim, deserves to be eliminated? And who in their right mind would oppose the argument that civilians and soldiers ripped from their families deserve to be sprung from captivity?
A woman walks with an infant past the rubble of a collapsed building in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on September 16, 2024, amid the ongoing war in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas.
Bashar TALEB / AFP/Getty Images
In an ideal world, both could be accomplished with a minimal level of violence. But we live in the real world. In truth, Israel’s two objectives are contradictory. The likelihood Netanyahu can achieve both goals at once is at best low. For Hamas, the hostages are its biggest bargaining chip, a point of leverage to force the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) into ending the war and pulling out of Gaza. The closer Israeli troops come to vanquishing Hamas, the more at risk those hostages are. Regrettably, this hypothesis was proven correct earlier this month, when six hostages, including Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, were brutally executed by Hamas at short range two or three days before they were discovered.
Netanyahu can have one or the other—save the remaining hostages or destroy Hamas, which the IDF’s own spokesman acknowledged isn’t possible—but not both. To date, Netanyahu continues to believe he can have it all.
Hamas, meanwhile, has one objective above all others: survival. Its military wing has taken a beating over the last 11 months, with thousands of footsoldiers lost, much of its tunnel network neutralized, its two top military commanders killed, and its image sullied in the minds of many Palestinians due to the extensive damage that has followed its October 7 assault. Even so, the group is adamant it’s winning the war by bogging Israeli forces down into attritional warfare. Hamas is in effect presenting Israel with a choice: either end the war and withdraw from the enclave or continue to fight and risk the lives of the remaining hostages. Thus far Netanyahu is at best hesitant to choose the first option because it would leave Hamas intact as the ultimate authority in Gaza.
This is what Washington continues to confront: two parties whose positions can’t be reconciled. Hamas wants Israel to cease hostilities over the long term; Israel wants to preserve the option of continuing the war to meet its perceived security goals. Hamas will stand for nothing short of a total Israeli withdrawal from Gaza; Israel, under Netanyahu’s insistence, seeks to maintain control over key arteries like the Philadelphi and Netzarim corridors to stop weapon smuggling and prevent the movement of armed militants. Hamas demands as few restrictions as possible on Israel’s release of Palestinian prisoners; Israel is hoping to veto the release of the more notorious prisoners. The U.S. “bridging proposal” submitted in mid-August has done little to close the gaps.
U.S. officials are working at the problem to the best of their ability. Another U.S.-drafted proposal is reportedly in the works. But at some point, Washington needs to come to the overdue realization that perhaps there aren’t any solutions to be had. If there is anything U.S. officials should have learned by now, it’s that the mediators can’t want a deal more than the combatants themselves.
Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
