Thinking aid: Trump’s warning to Hamas is about hostages, not a ceasefire; UPDATE

Listen with your ears.

J.E. Dyer, a retired Naval Intelligence officer, blogs as The Optimistic Conservative | Jan 14, 2025

See UPDATE at the bottom. – J.E.

There’s been perturbation from many in the last couple of days, as news media retail a narrative that Trump – and Netanyahu’s delegation to hostage talks – are agreeing to a comprehensive “deal,” nominally to get hostages released, by Trump’s inauguration day, 20 January 2025.

Within the last hour, as this goes to post, AP has reported that a draft agreement has been OK’ed by Hamas – previously a hold-out – and final details are being concluded.  The terms are not advantageous for Israel, in the draft AP has been given.  A key point is that even in full execution, they would not meet Trump’s demand.  Only 33 of 50 hostages believed to still be held would be released.

Of equal importance, the initial actions are to unfold over a period of 42 days – which means none of them must happen before Trump assumes office, even if an agreement is reached before 20 January.

Screen cap by author: AP report of proposed ceasefire for hostages deal Jan 2025. Link in text.

If nothing is set in motion before 20 January, Trump’s demand for release of the hostages won’t be satisfied anyway.  But to fortify our minds for the media information assault, we need to finish this discussion.

We can only wait to see what happens, to be certain what’s really going on.  But the legacy media have spent the last 15 months push-casting anonymously-sourced “leaks” from government officials along such lines.  The consistent pattern of this push-casting, which before Trump’s electoral victory centered on what Israel was supposedly agreeing to, is that it never pans out. What is alleged to be in progress, purportedly by administration officials in the U.S. and Israel, doesn’t turn into what actually occurs.

There’s also a pattern at work in which the media, and the supposed government “leakers,” invariably link hostage release to a ceasefire deal and the formation of a plan for the future of Gaza.  The U.S. officials – anonymous speakers for the Biden administration – always link that plan to a two-state solution (2SS).

Even in the current situation, which is connected in the public mind to Trump’s warning to Hamas, outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken is using Biden’s last week in office to lay out a plan for the future governance of Gaza by the Palestinian Authority.

Over and over again, we‘ve seen that that’s not what the Netanyahu government was negotiating for.  That isn’t and hasn’t been its vision for getting the hostages back.  In fact, we can deduce accurately, from Netanyahu’s current actions, that that still isn’t his government’s vision or intent.

What I’m here for today is to point out that Trump has never said, not once, that that’s his intent for the hostage-release problem either.

Here are some Trump warnings to Hamas, from July to December 2024.

 

 

 

 

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On 7 January, Trump spoke alongside his incoming envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, and said “all hell will break out in the Middle East” if the hostages are not released by the time he takes office.  Witkoff is participating along with Biden officials in discussions in Qatar that relate to the hostage release.

These discussions are being characterized as ceasefire talks.  It’s natural for a Trump representative to be there during the presidential transition, but participating doesn’t mean agreeing to the Biden definition of the talks, which is that they’re about connecting a ceasefire to the release of hostages.

Trump has never done that.  And when he was implicitly offered the chance by media questioning on 7 January, he declined once again to link hostage release to a ceasefire.

Fox News reports as follows:  “Trump again refused to detail what this [i.e., “hell will break out” – J.E.] would mean for Hamas, and the Trump transition team has not detailed for Fox News Digital what sort of action the president-elect might take.”

Fox continued:  “In response to a reporter who pressed him on his meaning, Trump said, ‘Do I have to define it for you?’”

“‘I don’t have to say any more, but that’s what it is,’ he added.”

For what it’s worth – and we can assume it’s worth something – JD Vance had a bit more to say in an interview with Fox News on Sunday 12 January.

From the Jerusalem Post:  “Vice president-elect J.D. Vance revealed the true meaning behind President-elect Donald Trump’s threat that ‘all hell will break loose’ if the hostages are not released by Inauguration Day on January 20, in an interview with FOX News on Sunday.”

As quoted by the Post:  “‘It means enabling the Israelis to knock out the final couple of battalions of Hamas and their leadership,’ Vance told FOX News.”

The Biden administration is, as usual, making “hostage negotiation” about a ceasefire and a future plan for Gaza.  It’s important to note that negotiating on that basis cedes the question of hostage release to Hamas, on Hamas’s terms.  Negotiating for a ceasefire as a means of getting hostages back is, precisely, negotiating on Hamas’s terms.

That’s why Netanyahu has so rarely found any basis for the exchange.  It is not in Israel’s interest, as a general matter, to commit to a ceasefire that would be against Israel’s security requirements, and would leave the basic extortion situation unchanged.

Occasionally Netanyahu’s government may see some advantage from what will inevitably be a temporary ceasefire – because Hamas is demonstrably faithless and will not observe any ceasefire with integrity, as long as it retains the capability to break one.  But Israel’s security walks on the edge of an abyss, and cannot be sold into a fall over the cliff’s edge for uncertain considerations from a faithless Hamas.

Trump has never suggested Israel should conclude such a transaction.  When he says there will be hell to pay if Hamas doesn’t release the hostages, Trump doesn’t mean that Israel must pay it.  Trump has never had that meaning in a statement involving Israel’s security.

The “ceasefire for hostages” premise is entirely about Israel paying the hell to get the hostages back.  Hamas has no intention of ceasing to bring the hell and trying to make Israel pay it.  But Trump’s record of not touting ceasefires or connecting them to the release of hostages is a clean one.  He wants to end the war with a stable end-state, but he doesn’t define that as the Biden administration does.

Don’t box Trump in.  I’m pretty sure he’s not boxed in mentally, as 20 January nears.  It’s a vain attempt to tie his hands with a last-minute deal.  There is no one in the Middle East, other than Iran and its clients (and henchmen in Qatar), who would actually want to see Trump’s hands tied.

In fact, I would be fine with seeing Trump simply ignore whatever disadvantageous deal the Biden negotiators may put together in the next six days, and force Hamas to release the hostages – all the hostages – or be summarily annihilated without any pretense of a “plan of action and milestones” for a ceasefire or Gaza’s future.  I could be wrong — it happens — but I think Trump would be fine with it too.

*UPDATE*:  I’m listening to President Biden take a victory lap as I prepare to post this.  The update is a few informal comments made in a separate venue.  We’ll see what happens.  It’s not impossible that the “Trump effect” will actually produce an outcome this deal couldn’t otherwise have.  I’m not counting on that.  It obviously seems unlikely in the extreme that Hamas would make good on all its obligations and refrain from attacking Israel again in the coming weeks.

Quote:

Well, it certainly looks bad for my earlier analysis, and I want to be straight up about that.

I knew about Witkoff and the hotel sale to the Qataris, incidentally.  Was aware of that.

We’ll see where this goes.  Trump’s stated measure of compliance – all hostages released by 20 Jan – won’t be met by this deal.  I’m hearing that there could be a small hostage release this weekend, though apparently that’s a “detail” not yet finalized.

Trump’s social media post sounds like he thinks it’s great.  He referred to the Abraham Accords as being back on track (i.e., for expansion), which would seem to be his priority.  Reading the larger picture, assuming he intends to press ahead with this, I think he wants to establish that his credibility can make this a different deal from what it would have been with Biden.  Key indicators would immediately be whether rockets keep coming from Gaza, and whether missiles keep coming from Yemen.

Quite a number of things that obviously don’t look like a good idea.  They haven’t been before.  I don’t think “ending the war” is a higher priority than entirely eliminating Hamas from Gaza. I don’t think Bibi has changed his mind on that, which is a big reason I can’t join the chorus of pessimism.  He seems to think he can get the cabinet/parliamentary endorsement he needs.

So we’ll see. As it looks now, this would have to temper enthusiasm for Trump’s entry into office.  I fully understand the instant pessimism about it.

End quote

Feature image:  President-elect Trump shouts “Fight!” after an assassination attempt at his campaign rally event in Butler, PA 13 July 2024.  Trump campaign video, X/Twitter.

January 16, 2025 | Comments »

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