Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Gaza Peace Hopes Too High on Attack Anniversary
Today marks the anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel, October 7, 2023. On a day that will live in infamy, Hamas killed roughly 1,200 people in Israel and took 251 hostages. Tens of thousands of deaths later, there seeems to be some optimism in diplomatic circles that the current talks could lead to an end to hostilities and the return of the abducted. President Trump can already taste his Nobel Peace Prize, but the truth is this thing is going to fall apart because the two sides still want mutually exclusive things. There are points on which there will not be compromise because they would cause fundamental damage to the parties.
Trading hostages is the easy part. The Israelis have Palestinian prisoners in their custody, and Hamas has Israelis in theirs. Working out who gets released when and under what circumstances is not all that difficult once the will to do so exists. An exchange that gets all the Israelis home in exchange for a great many more Palestinians is quite possible, perhaps even likely. But the deal can go no futher.
First and foremost, there is the matter of Hamas disarmament. While the Israelis demand that the weapons have to go, Hamas has no other leverage once the hostages are released. Hamas then has only bullets and bombs to stay relevant. Were it to surrender those, it becomes a non-entity.
Second, there is the position of Prime Minister Netanyahu. If peace were to break out, he would face demands for an election, and he could lose it. If so, the fraud cases in criminal court against him could come back to life. Losing office is bad enough for a politician. Losing one's freedom is vastly worse. Mr. Netanyahu has no personal reason to end this conflict.
Third, the two sides hate one another more than they did two years and one day ago. The Israelis view the October 7, 2023, attack as another chapter in the Holocaust, and given the numbers, it is hard to say they are wrong. Many of them no longer want peace with the Palestinians. They believe there is too much hatred from the other side to make peace possible.
For their part, the Palestinians have lost about 67,000 people and the cities of the Gaza strip are piles of rubble. "They make a desert and call it peace," springs to mind. No one who has lived in Gaza throughout this awfulness is in a particularly forgiving mood. Neither side has a faction arguing to let bygones be bygones. If anything, the hatred on both sides burns hot and bright.
What is most worrisome is the result of the failure that is coming. There might be an exchange of people, or not. Yet whatever joy and hope may spring from that will be extinguished when the violence continues, as is inevitable.
What is interesting, on both sides, is that the hatred also consumes how people feel about their own side, including the former hostages. Liri Albag was released during a ceasefire from Hamas custody, and she said about Mr. Netanyahu, "Because of you, I went through the worst thing a human being can ever go through. You are to blame, and you need to fix what you did." Pro-Netanyahu commentators called her a "trash girl" who "should be returned to Gaza." Kan, the national broadcaster, has taken down her interview.
Meanwhile, news from Palestinian areas is hard to secure as there are no foreign reporters allowed there, but last spring, there were anti-Hamas protests that went on for days. When the collapse of the negotiations happens, that fire will have more fuel as well.
Everyone is getting their hopes up, and they will find themselves disappointed soon. There can be no peace until and unless the two governing entities, Hamas and Likud, are removed from the equation. And this journal genuinely hopes this analysis is wrong.
© Copyright 2025 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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