THREAD: After absorbing the unwelcome news Wednesday morning that their American idol, Donald Trump, is negotiating directly with Hamas, Israel flunkies became positively ecstatic when the US president later that day issued an apocalyptic and indeed genocidal threat against “the People of Gaza”: If Hamas does not immediately, and presumably unconditionally, release all the remaining captives in the Gaza Strip along with the corpses it holds, “you are DEAD”. What are we to make of these very contradictory developments?
To its credit, the Trump administration has ventured where its Democratic predecessor never contemplated going: negotiating with not only its Israeli proxy but also its Palestinian adversary in order to achieve an agreement.
Speaking to all parties involved in a dispute is of course standard diplomatic practice, particularly where resolution of a crisis that has consumed tens of thousands of lives is concerned. Palestine has been one of the rare exceptions to this template. Washington for decades refused to negotiate with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) until it jumped through a succession of increasingly narrow hoops, and in fact recognized the PLO only after Israel did so in 1993.
With Hamas the situation is even more complicated. Not only Israel but the US government have for decades denounced, censored, and condemned anyone proposing direct negotiations with the Palestinian movement. Since October 2023, the Hasbara Symphony Orchestra under its longstanding conductor, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, has demonized anyone advocating what in any other context would be considered common sense as the devil incarnate.
Given that such voices are also to be found within the Trump administration – the ornament serving as Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and others – the decision to engage with Hamas in order to secure US interests in the Middle East was not an instinctive one for this White House. It would therefore be foolish not to give credit where it is due. It appears that the US preferred to conduct these discussions below the radar, but that they were leaked by Israel in the hope of scuttling them. It may have been aided and abetted in this respect by flunkies within the administration.
The substance of these negotiations are not entirely clear. We can however be reasonably confident that they concern US guarantees for a durable ceasefire and end of Israel’s genocidal military campaign in exchange for a full resolution of the captives file. The trigger for engagement appears to have been the unambiguous collective Arab rejection of the Trump Gaza Riviera proposal, and a recognition in Washington that Israel’s preferred course of action amounted to another forever war, a prolonged hostage crisis, and potentially war with Iran. Personal considerations, such as a determination by US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to achieve success and ensure the release of captives holding US citizenship, rather than going down in history as the diplomat who sealed their fate, most likely also played a role. At this point it remains unclear if broader political issues are also up for discussion. I suspect not, or at least not yet.
What then to make of Trump’s blood-curdling threats, issued, as so much else from this administration, via social media? The obvious question is whether one attaches more weight to what the administration or, given the irreconcilable contradictions, to what it is saying. Secondly, this is hardly the first time Trump has made such threats, so there is some justification to viewing his words as camouflage for his action. The captives get out, and the Trump cult can point to his threats of Armageddon as the reason. In the words of Laleh Khalili, “Given that the US is directly negotiating with Hamas, this is just for his bloodthirsty telly/online audiences”.
It is also the case that Trump’s public positions are known to often reflect what he was told during his most recent meeting, and in this case he had just held one with a group of released Israeli captives.
Taking into consideration that Washington’s Caligula is erratic and impulsive in equal measure, no definitive conclusions can or should be drawn. Having said that, the ecstatic celebrations of Trump’s genocidal threats by Israel and its flunkies may well prove premature. END
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
