Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put forward 3 points because of which he said his government would reject any deal to exchange prisoners with the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), which were not surprising to analysts and experts who spoke during the analytical pause on Manhattan Tribune in the program “Gaza… What Next?” “.
The first point – according to Israeli media – relates to the fact that the Netanyahu government cannot allow a ceasefire and an end to the war, while the second and third points are that it refuses to release thousands of Palestinian prisoners, and that it will not allow the army to leave the Gaza Strip.
Professor of Political Science at An-Najah National University, Dr. Hassan Ayoub, was not surprised by the conditions set by Netanyahu because his positions do not differ from the positions of the extremist ministers in his government, especially the Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, and the Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, as for them the issue is not related to the release of prisoners. Palestinians, but rather by permanently turning the Gaza Strip into an unviable area and not allowing the return of Palestinian refugees, who represent 70% of the Strip’s population.
Any prisoner exchange deal would delay the achievement of Netanyahu’s current goal of reaching Rafah and displacing the residents, either out of the Gaza Strip or their return to Khan Yunis and the north of the Gaza Strip.
The academic and expert on Israeli affairs, Dr. Muhammad Halsa, went in the same vein, saying that Netanyahu does not need to be pressured by the right-wing ministers in his government, indicating that their positions intersect with his position that the war on Gaza must continue.
Regarding the United States’ handling of Netanyahu’s conditions, Phyllis Pence, director of the New Globalization Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, said that the administration of US President Joe Biden refuses to do what would lead to “stopping the slaughter of the Palestinian people and putting a final end to the genocide they are subjected to,” which is the call to A comprehensive ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, considering that talk about a two-state solution and disarmament of the Palestinian state is “old language and the language of Oslo,” and is not linked to the necessary ceasefire.
The US administration, Pence added, must impose conditions on Israel regarding military aid and the issue of impunity. She said that the Biden administration is still not ready to put pressure on Netanyahu to reach a ceasefire, and that what is currently taking place is talk of a temporary truce.
Punishing the settlers
In her comment on the executive order issued by the US President aimed at punishing Jewish settlers who attack Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, the American spokeswoman described this decision as a formal and symbolic measure, as it affects 4 people who do not have any property or accounts in the United States that are subject to sanctions, It revealed that a large percentage of settlers are immune from this type of punishment.
For his part, the professor of political science at An-Najah National University confirmed that the executive order issued by Biden contains fallacies and is a very dangerous matter regarding Israeli settlement in the West Bank, as it does not address the issue that this settlement is a war crime according to international humanitarian law and the Fourth Geneva Convention, and the other – The spokesman adds that the executive order includes Palestinians who could pose a threat to American interests.
In the same context, the academic and expert on Israeli affairs saw that the Palestinians’ problem is not with a few settlers, but rather in the policies adopted by Netanyahu and his government, which today, through Smotrich and Ben Gvir, raise the issue of a return to settlement inside the Gaza Strip.
