Biden’s Playing Politics for NATO Harris Dooms Ceasefire/Hostage Deal

Sept. 9—It has been known from the start of the arduous task of cobbling together a ceasefire/hostage release deal, that it would require strong action from the White House to force the Butcher of Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister “Bibi” Netanyahu to play ball. Sources report that despite the best efforts of America’s most able diplomat, CIA Director William Burns, who has for these several months, steered the negotiations between Israel, Hamas, and his two fellow mediators, Egypt and Qatar, he has failed to get the needed support from President “Sleepy Joe” Biden, who has failed to wield the hammer against Bibi—the threat of a total aid cutoff, if Bibi failed to sign—thanks to Vice President Kamala Harris' intervention of NATO, Vice President Kamala Harris, the anointed Democrat Presidential nominee, who is concerned that an aggressive stance against Bibi, will sour her efforts to woo Jewish voters.

“Burns has a new draft worked out with his fellow Israeli negotiators David Barnea, Director of the Mossad, and Ronan Bar, Director of Shin Bet, that secures the so-called Philadelphi corridor, on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, without an Israeli military presence, with the U.S. and Egypt guaranteeing Israel’s security by preventing Hamas from reinforcing its forces with men and supplies through area’s tunnels. But the language of this plan, worked out three weeks ago for presentation to Israel and Hamas, was removed from the previous text, after Harris prevailed on the pathetic Biden to not make an issue of Israel during and immediately after her coronation at the Democrat Party’s convention in Chicago Aug. 19-22.

But last week, with much the country in the streets protesting Bibi’s sabotage of the deal and following the execution by Hamas of six hostages (after Bibi deliberately provoked that response by sending in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to search for hostages, despite warnings from Hamas, that doing so would endanger their lives). Netanyahu held a press conference doubling down on his screed that Israel must be in control of the Philadelphi Corridor forever. Netanyahu insisted that he would not give in on this issue, no matter how much pressure was put on him. He further complained of “voices in the cabinet, ministers in the government” who urged leaving the Philadelphi Corridor “even though we had already decided not to leave”—a thinly veiled allusion to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who alone in the cabinet, had said just that. For that reason, he said, “I had to formally bring it to the cabinet” for a vote, in order “to entrench,” that Israel would not leave the border even in the context of a deal, “to make clear there are things on which we do not compromise.”

A source in Netanyahu’s coalition told Haaretz that Bibi “decided some weeks ago that he does not want a deal, and when it became possible [that a deal would be worked out by the Burns-led mediators], he got nervous and did all he could to torpedo it. He figured out that by using the Philadelphi Corridor, he could also draw the 'sane' right to his side. The media fell for this spin, consuming itself all day long with the question of yes or no to the Philadelphi Corridor, when the real question is really the fate of the hostages versus the fate of [his] coalition.”

In talks with Hamas, Mossad Director Barnea told mediators Sept. 1 that Israel was prepared to withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor in the second stage of a hostage release deal, mere hours before Netanyahu publicly declared he would refuse to do so, foreign sources familiar with the negotiations told Haaretz. Barnea, who had traveled to Qatar in a hurry, said that Israel stood behind its agreement to pull all its forces from the area in line with the Biden administration’s plan, as long as its operational demands were met.

“Netanyahu seeks to present his political base with a shocking populist equation: either a deal to release the hostages and end the war—or the personal security of all the rest of Israel’s citizens. As prime minister he must take the high road: To sacrifice the hostages for the imaginary greater good. But this is a completely false equation…. The man who has built, inflated and promoted the ‘Mr. Security’ brand his entire political life, with exemplary consistency, has actually achieved the complete opposite,” wrote Noa Landau in Haaretz Sept. 3.

“If we continue fighting in Gaza by raiding and re-raiding the same targets, not only won’t we bring Hamas to collapse, but we’ll collapse ourselves. Not too long from now we will also be unable to carry out these repeated raids, because with every passing day the Israel Defense Forces grows weaker and the number of dead and wounded in action among our soldiers rises. Hamas, in contrast, has already replenished its ranks with 17- and 18-year-olds, Maj. Gen (res.) Yitzhak Brik, reported Sept. 2.

“Netanyahu has had three objectives since entering politics: to stay in power as long as possible; to replace the Israeli elite; and to crush the Palestinian national movement. He may zigzag, lie and present contradictory positions with equal conviction, but he will always return to the unholy trinity: the prime ministership, incitement against the “left,” and perpetuating the occupation of the territories. His declaring that the Philadelphi Route is to remain under Israeli control, implying a freeze on the negotiations with Hamas for a cease-fire and return of the hostages, was intended to advance all these objectives together,” commentator Aluf Benn wrote in Haaretz Sept. 3.

Such commentaries, focusing on Bibi’s self-serving ambitions and his desire to stay in power at all costs, fail to take into consideration his insane messianic complex, under which he sees himself as Israel’s Saviour, who will save the Jewish people and their state from annihilation by the forces of evil and their weak-kneed allies who pose as Israel’s friends. For Netanyahu, the war has never been about Hamas or their Oct. 7, 2023 massacring attack. That was merely an excuse for this Hitler-like figure to launch his war against his “race enemy”: the Palestinian people. While claiming they want to destroy the Jewish state, Bibi believes he must kill as many of them as possible, because their increasing numbers—both in the region and worldwide-- means that they must eventually overwhelm the Jewish state and kill all the Jews. Netanyahu will never allow the creation of a Palestinian state, and his campaign in Gaza, which he wants to extend to the West Bank, is intended to drown the two-state solution in Palestinian blood. And if he can succeed in forcing a wider conflict with Iran, the blood purge would continue, in killing even more non-Jews.

“There is no basis now to continue negotiations,” said a source. “Burns’ strategy was not merely to get a ceasefire-hostage deal, but by forcing Bibi to sign, to bust up the Nazi coalition that now rules Israel, and force Bibi out. There can be no peace in the region and no durable basis for cooperation between Israel and its neighbors as long as Netanyahu is in power. The other side of this equation is the Hamas leadership. The fact is that Bibi effectively created them, put them in power, and paid their leaders handsomely for their service. He did so because they were a roadblock to a Palestinian state since they did not support the two-state solution.

The most rabid of its mad-dog leadership is Yahya Sinwar, their boss in Gaza, who has famously said that he would accept a million Palestinian martyrs, as he calls them, if this would lead to the defeat of the Jewish state. The is Bibi’s co-evil twin and Bibi put this bastard in charge of Hamas by assassinating his faction’s opponent, Ismail Haniyah last July 31 in Tehran. Haniyeh, Hamas’ chief negotiator in the ceasefire talks, was steering Hamas to lay down its arms and accept a political solution and a Palestinian state. But he is now gone, liquidated on Bibi’s orders, so that Sinwar could be placed in charge, as a further problem to securing a deal, as neither he nor Bibi want one.

“But the real problem is that any solution will require the full power of the American Presidency to bring it across the finish line,” the source continued. “And we have a pathetically weak President, who has no real command or power, and who has that nasty bitch Harris saying that he should avoid an open split with Bibi for her political safety, as the Democrat Party nominee. The only way to get a deal is to club Bibi over the head with the threat to withdraw American aid if he does not sign. But there is no one in the White House who will deliver this blow. Burns thought he had gotten Biden to swing the hammer, but Harris got Biden to stand down.

“Burns is going to keep trying, for at least one more cycle,” the source reported. “He has the draft of a take-it-or-leave-it proposal that supposedly deals with the Philadelphi Corridor, but he won’t present it until he thinks that it has a chance of going through. There’s a lot at stake here. If there is a deal, and the government collapses and the Nazi-like racist Ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich are forced out, even if Bibi stays for a bit, there is still a possibility of a peace deal for the West Bank, or at least negotiations toward that effect.

And it’s possible then, that Iran might find a way to avoid a retaliatory strike to avenge the Haniyeh assassination, which happened on its soil. Burns, with help of Russian President Vladmir Putin, has placed that retaliation on an extended hold. If the peace talks fail and the process collapses, then all bets are off, and literally millions could die in what would come next. It is hard to say whether Sleepy Joe understands this, or really anything. Not a hopeful situation, but things can change. The anger and frustration with Netanyahu grows each day among Israelis, some of whom are finally zeroing in on him, seeing him for the bloodthirsty lunatic that he is, and holding him accountable for the still captive and dead hostages. Not many are willing to look at his genocidal rampage in Gaza. Maybe they will finally act against him, but who will lead them? So far no one has shown themselves up to the task. So Bibi remains free to murder on.”

Opposition leader Yair Lapid attacked Netanyahu’s press conference which called for the nation to back him in protecting Israel’s security. “Not one professional buys this spin. Not the security personnel, not the international system, not the fighters who are actually in Gaza and know the reality there. I don’t have a presentation with pictures, but there are facts,” he said, as reported by the Times of Israel. “Israel evacuated the Philadelphi Corridor 19 years ago, and Netanyahu voted in favor. Both in the government and in the Knesset. Netanyahu was prime minister for 15 years. It did not occur to him to recapture the Philadelphi Corridor.

“The issue of the corridor is not Netanyahu’s concern, but instead the Ben-Gvir-Smotrich Corridor,” he continued, referring to the fanatical ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir (National Security) and Bezalel Smotrich (Finance), without whom Netanyahu’s government would collapse. “At least Netanyahu said one truth: that he does not want to end the war,” Lapid continued. “He said it three times, that he doesn’t want to end the war, which means he doesn’t want to make a hostage deal, he wants war forever. His words tonight had one terrible meaning: he will not make a deal.”

“This is his new trick to prevent the disintegration of his coalition. It is about politics, and only politics. Netanyahu spoke today as if Oct. 7 did not happen on his watch. As if he is not responsible and guilty of the most terrible disaster and massacre in the country’s history,” Lapid asserted, calling Netanyahu, “Mr. Failure” and “Mr. Disaster.”

“Ending the war is in Israel’s interest—a security, economic, and political interest,” Lapid stated, “As long as this government exists, the war will continue…. This government prefers war because it frees it from having to deal with the challenges. It’s time to change the government and end the war.”

Those are brave words, Lapid and other sane Israelis, including Defense Minister Gallant, who has clashed with Bibi over the deal, but who stays in the government, face a difficult task, especially without the support of any major American political leader, including GOP Presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump. “Burns can only do so much,” said the source. “And meanwhile Bibi keeps murdering people, and the chance of a wider war grows.”