Israel will only respond to ‘sticks’, not ‘carrots’, in ceasefire talks: Analyst
Israel never had “the intention to reach this ceasefire agreement, because they have other plans”, Luciano Zaccara, a Middle East political analyst, has told Al Jazeera.
He said Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s comments on Wednesday “made it very clear that the intention of Israel is to annex more territories, including [the occupied] West Bank and Gaza“.
“So what is the point in allowing the creation of an entity, either with Hamas or without … that can represent Palestinians when the plan is already set that these territories will belong to Israel sooner or later?” he asked.
“There is no way that Israel would agree to something with Hamas allowing them to survive politically, and allowing the Palestinian entity to be created,” he added.
He said that despite the best efforts of mediators, “[for Israel] there are no more carrots in this conversation, it is only sticks.
“Because the [Israeli] objective is not to negotiate anything, not to give priority to the release of the hostages … but to vacate the whole Gaza Strip in order to implement what they wanted to do, which is [to seize it as] Israeli territory”.
Netanyahu ‘seems to relish’ international criticism of Israel, analyst says
Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli diplomat, said the Israeli government does not grasp the “severity” of the long-term diplomatic isolation it is facing from its war on Gaza, but the international pressure is not really affecting the government at the moment.
He said that the US could end the war “in 24 hours” but chooses not to.
“All it takes is a phone call from President Trump to Netanyahu saying ‘enough is enough, end this war – you have 24 hours to do so,'” Pinkas said, speaking from Tel Aviv.
“Unless the US does that, this international pressure seems not to affect the government at all. In fact, they seem to relish this because, for Netanyahu, politically it’s an ideal situation, although tragic for everyone else involved.
“[Netanyahu says], ‘It’s me against the world, I’m the only one standing up to the world, the world is anti-Semitic, the world is hypocritical’, and so on and so forth.”
And that's how Kim Jong Un stays in power, Israel is heading to become the next North Korea. Backed by the US instead of Russia.
