Hamas has learned how to play the Israeli political arena. To scatter messages as if the answer is positive — that a deal is just around the corner, that they have shown flexibility. They have realized, it turns out, how much they help Benjamin Netanyahu by saying “no.” The Prime Minister, for his part, is so politically pressured that he issues statements on Saturday in the name of a “political source” just to prevent his government from collapsing.
All of this is nothing more than a cynical and cruel game with people’s lives. The truth is that Hamas is saying “no” to the proposal on the table. They tried to disguise the “no” with a “yes, but,” but it’s still a “no.” And it’s also not true that Netanyahu doesn’t want a deal. He very much wants one — but the original deal on the table, the one that allows him to resume fighting in six weeks and perhaps in the process reap normalization with Saudi Arabia and a political arrangement in the north.
For Netanyahu, in this case, the operational code is brutally simple: never exit the state of war. The moment the war ends, his ouster begins. From his perspective, the return of hostages without the war ending is excellent. When the heads of the security establishment presented a united front two weeks ago Thursday, he allowed the presentation of a newer, more flexible stance in the negotiations. For him, if Hamas says “no,” that’s great — it proves that even flexibility didn’t help and there is no partner. And if Hamas says “yes,” that’s also great — Ben Gvir and Smotrich will be angry, but it’s unlikely they’ll topple the coalition over a six-week ceasefire.
Netanyahu is not blameless in the failure of the deal. He played a major role in why it hasn’t happened yet. When Hamas was ready about two and a half months ago for a deal that didn’t include a permanent ceasefire, Netanyahu clung to the corridor from the south of the Strip to the north as if it were the Temple Mount. He stalled and delayed, and only agreed once it was clear Hamas had hardened its position. He bears heavy responsibility here. The whole idea of this deal was ambiguity: Hamas would say it’s a permanent ceasefire, the mediators would say negotiations on ceasefire terms would follow, and Israel could adopt some vague formula — that if Hamas no longer ruled Gaza, there would be no need for continued military operations. That’s what the mediators kept trying to sell to Hamas. But instead of leaning on Shimon Peres-style ambiguities, Netanyahu insists twice a day on saying that Israel will soon enter Rafah and will never stop fighting. Either he is too weak and feels he must keep feeding messages to his base, or he truly wants to make sure Hamas doesn’t take the deal. The result is the same.
But all this analysis is history. The real question is what Israel’s stance should be, given Hamas’s position and the slim chances of changing it. You don’t need to be a “Sinwarologist” to understand that once Hamas was told that if it says “yes” to the current deal, Saudi Arabia would sign normalization with Israel, it was obvious Hamas would say “no.” That is Hamas’s biggest nightmare — a strong Arab–Israeli–American axis opposed to the Iranian–Hamas axis.
The not-so-painful truth is that Israel should agree to “end the war.” Six months ago, that would have been a major concession. Today, it’s clear that continuing the war doesn’t necessarily mean eliminating Hamas. It will be branded as “ending the war and a full withdrawal,” but in fact it just means the end of the current round. We stop, we bring back the hostages, we stabilize the situation in the north, we sign a deal with Saudi Arabia — and then, six months later, we can always return to fighting Hamas.
Of course, this option has one element that makes it unfeasible: in such a case, Netanyahu would no longer be prime minister.