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Strategies & Market Trends : World Outlook -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Les H who wrote (45232)	3/9/2025 9:15:54 AM
From: Les H	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 49050

Gaza ceasefire hits the brick wall of Netanyahu's agenda The cease-fire agreement on the Gaza Strip is on the verge of dissolving, for reasons that were predictable when the agreement was reached in January. To follow an initial six-week phase, which has just concluded, the agreement envisioned second and third phases that would see the additional release of hostages by both sides, Israeli military withdrawals from the Strip, and a reconstruction plan. But those parts of the agreement were mere outlines or statements of objectives, with further negotiations needed to resolve all the details. As addressed in Responsible Statecraft when the agreement was announced, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has strong personal and political reasons to keep Israel at war, including his need to maintain a coalition with extreme right-wingers in his government whose policy on Gaza is to eliminate all Palestinians from the Strip. Netanyahu thus has had incentives to sabotage the cease-fire agreement before its implementation could proceed to a permanent cessation of hostilities. Such sabotage is well under way. Israel has frequently violated the cease-fire throughout phase one with air and ground attacks that have inflicted casualties. With Hamas not taking the bait of responding with full-scale hostilities, Netanyahu is now trying to junk the entire second and third phases of the agreement and replace it with something more to Israel’s liking. Instead of negotiating the details of phase two, as required by the agreement, Netanyahu is pushing a formula that includes a 50-day cease-fire, by the end of which all the Israeli hostages would be released. With no provision in Netanyahu’s proposal for either an Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza or a permanent cessation of hostilities, the formula is an obvious non-starter for Hamas. It would be giving up its remaining bargaining chips for nothing in return. Hamas described Netanyahu’s proposal as “a blatant attempt to renege on the agreement and evade negotiations for its second phase.” Responsible Statecraft