E. Rowell: Of all the multiple possibilities about this article’s meaning, it appears more likely to be an expression of what the US administration desires, and what the US administration wants the world to think should be happening. The US government appears to want the Netanyahu government to fall. If the Israeli government/military chooses the path set out here, it probably would fall. The final comment about the ICC is a disgusting swipe at the Netanyahu government.
The IDF won’t engage in a full-scale assault on the last Hamas stronghold in southern Gaza.
JNS 21 May 2024
IDF soldiers during operational activity in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza on May 20, 2024. Credit: IDF.
Israel will not engage in a full-scale military offensive in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah. Instead, it will continue its limited operation in the last Hamas bastion, with the blessing of the Biden administration, according to Washington Post analyst David Ignatius.
In an opinion piece published on Monday citing sources familiar with the matter, the newspaper’s senior commentator wrote that the framework for eventually ending the Gaza war became more clear after a just-wrapped trip to Saudi Arabia and Israel by U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Brett McGurk, the U.S. National Security Council’s coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa.
“Israeli leaders have reached a consensus about a final assault on Hamas’s four remaining battalions in Rafah. Instead of the heavy attack with two divisions that Israel contemplated several weeks ago, government and military leaders foresee a more limited assault that U.S. officials think will result in fewer civilian casualties and, for that reason, Biden won’t oppose,” said Ignatius.
“At least 800,000 of the roughly 1.5 million Palestinians who had gathered in Rafah have left, U.S. officials believe,” he added.
Ignatius also wrote that Israeli defense officials have agreed on a strategy for “the day after” Hamas is defeated, with Ramallah playing a role. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is against Palestinian Authority involvement in governing Gaza given its support for terrorism, a stance Ignatius acknowledges.
The post-Hamas Gaza “will include a Palestinian security force drawn in part from the Palestinian Authority’s administrative payroll in Gaza. This Palestinian force will be overseen by a governing council of Palestinian notables, backed by moderate Arab states such as Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia,” he said.
Ignatius also highlighted the potential diplomatic breakthrough with the Saudis during Sullivan’s early Sunday meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in which Riyadh said that a draft security agreement with Washington is nearly finalized, and the two sides are working on “the Palestinian issue” to “find a credible path” forward. This agreement would include normalization with Israel.
Netanyahu’s right-wing and religious coalition remains opposed to many of the proposed ideas for ending the war, Ignatius acknowledged, writing that “the final dealmaking might fall to a future Israeli government.”
Another potential obstacle to the war winding down is Monday’s decision by the International Criminal Court prosecutor to seek arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas terror leaders. U.S. President Joe Biden called it “outrageous” to draw a moral comparison between Israel and Hamas.
An Israeli source told Ignatius that the ICC “changes everything, in a way we are yet to understand.”
https://jewishinsider.com/2024/05/new-york-city-mayor-eric-adams-accuses-wapo-of-antisemitism-over-jewish-donor-influence-story/
@Sebastien.
Thanks for the WaPo opiunion piece. Bottom l;ine is there is no deal just wishful thinking.
I am very interested in this article because it brings back the image of Milosevic being brought to the border on way to the Hague.
The CIA had won
And that’s their mindset… EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE
Times of Israel is reporting it, too but the source named is “unidentified officials” and they are just quoting from the same Washington Post article whose source is this same David Ignatius who is described as a political analyst.
” Melvin A. Goodman, a 42-year CIA veteran, Johns Hopkins professor, and senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, has called Ignatius “the mainstream media’s apologist for the Central Intelligence Agency,”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ignatius
This is how the Washington Post opinion piece this article links to ends:
“The elements of an agreement that would bring an eventual end to the war are there — on paper. Because Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition balks at many of the details, the final dealmaking might fall to a future Israeli government. But you can see, in the distance, the contours of a possible exit ramp.”
And in the body of the article: ” Israel defense officials have agreed on a strategy for “the day after” Who, Ganz, Gallant and the Concepzia generals.?
” Some Israeli officials — but not Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — accept that this governing entity would have ties with the PA in Ramallah.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/05/20/gaza-war-endgame-us-saudi-arabia-hamas-israel-iran/
Sounds like wishful thinking to me. They are trying to make it happen by reporting it in such a way as to make it seem it is happening, like what they do with hypothetical election statistics through their local U.S. imperialist running dogs ( 😀 ) with Channel 14 standing alone..
Nobody else is reporting on this.
I dunno. Fake news? also this from today:
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/390273
News reports about war are often false sometimes slightly and sometimes in major ways. This might be one of those.
This is shocking. I don’t believe it.
“Ignatius also wrote that Israeli defense officials have agreed on a strategy for “the day after” Hamas is defeated, with Ramallah playing a role. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is against Palestinian Authority involvement in governing Gaza given its support for terrorism, a stance Ignatius acknowledges.”
“Israeli Defense Officials” – Woke, Leftist Generals who will not allow Israeli Jews to defend themselves by owning a gun and a few bullets. You really have to hate and fear your own Jews if act like your enemies towards them.
I mean if you are Iran you have to be laughing at these clowns in the IDF.