Time Running Out for Deal, As Bibi Seeks His ‘Final Solution’ for Gaza

May 9—Time is running out for a deal between Israel and Hamas that would free hostages held by the terrorist Hamas in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, and would halt the army of Israel’s insane tyrant, Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu at the gates of Rafah, the last standing city in Gaza.

Sources reported yesterday that negotiators for both Israel and Hamas remain in Cairo, locked in talks, after Hamas had earlier in the week accepted language for the agreement that had been worked out by Arab mediators from Qatar and Egypt, with the help of American diplomat, CIA Director William Burns, only to have the Israelis reject the agreement and begin military operations in the Rafah area. But, these sources say, the talks are going nowhere fast, as Bibi has given instructions to what is described as a “low level” negotiating team to offer no compromises, causing Hamas to say that they too, will go no further than what they have already agreed to.

“Bibi wants to go into Rafah, in force, which will kill any deal, and create hell and slaughter for innocent civilians,” said a source familiar with the talks. “He says he wants to do this to degrade the last battalions of what he calls ‘Hamas fighters,’ which are reputed to be inside Rafah, along with more than 1 million civilians, the majority of whom are women and children. This attack, he has claimed as recently as today, will ‘eliminate Hamas’—something his own intelligence people as well as the American CIA say is an impossibility, no matter how many Israeli soldiers are deployed and killed, no matter and how many Gazan civilians are maimed or killed in the ‘collateral damage.’

“So, if this Rafah operation, which has yet to fully begin, has no real chance of victory, it loses all military purpose,” said the source.

“What, then, is its purpose?” the source asked. “What I believe, as many other intelligence people think, and even Bill Burns may now believe, is that, in Bibi’s deranged mind, this war has never really been about Hamas at all. Instead, he is seeking some kind of ‘Final Solution’ to the ‘Palestinian problem,’ that would render Gaza, and perhaps later, the West Bank, uninhabitable rubble heaps for decades, making a Palestinian state unviable, now and for any foreseeable future. Drown it in blood and rubble. Hamas is just a pretext, as are Hezbollah and even Fatah.

“This crazy murderer, Netanyahu, is no different than Adolf Hitler. He says ‘exterminate Hamas,’ but he means ‘exterminate as many Palestinians that he can get away with killing, and exterminate the possibility of a Palestinian state.’ The religious wackos in his government like [Minister of National Security Itamar] Ben-Gvir, and [Finance Minister Bezaelel] Smotrich say as much. But Bibi believes it as well.

“People say that he keeps the war going to stay in power and out of jail from pending corruption cases. That’s true, in part. But I think he is driven by a messianic complex. He sees himself as Israel’s savior, and knows that he will eventually pay for what he is doing politically. But he thinks he will have saved Israel. You can’t reason with a beastman like Bibi. He only understands threat and force.” 

This and other sources say that Burns wanted to apply the hammer to this guy much earlier: to tell him that if he refused to accept an end to the war, a return of the hostages, beginning with a full stop at the gates of Rafah, then the U.S. would pull back from Israel—no weapons, no support, and instead would support the international call for Palestinian membership in the United Nations, and even support an International Criminal Court arrest warrant against him for crimes against humanity. But the dithering President, Sleepy Joe Biden, who personally despises Bibi, nonetheless temporized and accepted advice from the State Department to offer him the carrot of full relations with Saudi Arabia.

When Netanyahu foamed at the Hamas acceptance of terms whose details could clearly be worked out, Biden started talking tough and has held up some weapons and munitions shipments—not a small threat, since, as has been reported, the U.S. has supplied about half weapons and munitions used in this Gaza blitz. But this may have come too late.

“Burns is not giving up,” the source said. When it became obvious that the Cairo talks were going nowhere, he flew to Israel to meet with Bibi. He proposed a deal that would freeze all Rafah operations, in exchange for a release of hostages. This would enable discussion of a new (or perhaps the old) deal without a threat of further genocide against the already devastated Palestinian population. It is not clear if Hamas will accept such a deal, but Burns would not likely propose it at this crucial junction if he did not believe it might fly.

It is not yet clear what Netanyahu’s response was—or what other threats Burns may have made to try to move the process forward.

Sources in Israel say that this round of talks is the last chance to stop the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at the gates of Rafah and avert a total genocidal disaster. Even at Israel’s urging, only a small number of civilians have left Rafah. Most of Rafah’s 1 million plus inhabitants remain in place.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz editorialized May 8 for Israel to halt its attack on Gaza and instead make a priority of any deal to be worked out returning those hostages who are still alive. Many have died in captivity, with the majority, in fact, killed by Israeli air strikes. A Hamas official, speaking to the media, told the Israeli families of hostages that the only hope of seeing their loved ones returned alive depends of the success of the Cairo talks.