If Donald Trump wants to take the measure of Iran’s military junta as a negotiating partner, he needs only look to Gaza. Trump managed to stop the war in the enclave just short of Hamas’ complete destruction with a ceasefire agreement predicated on Hamas’ disarmament. Phase 1 of the agreement succeeded in ending most combat operations and restoring humanitarian aid, but the acid-test point comes in Phase 2, where Hamas gives up its arms.
That test arrived six months ago, and … Hamas remains fully armed. Trump has declared victory and launched the Board of Peace to manage Gaza, with the promise that a multi-national police force would replace Hamas once it disarmed. The plan did have a short delay while the remains of the last hostage were found and returned, but that was nearly four months ago. The Iranian/IRGC proxy has not lifted a finger yet to comply with the Gaza accord.
The Board of Peace has finally run out of patience. The Times of Israel acquired a communiqué from the US-led commission to Hamas demanding immediate compliance, or else:
While the Board of Peace’s High Representative for Gaza Nickolay Mladenov has warned that refusal from Hamas to disarm could lead to the resumption of the war, he goes much further in the document, saying that Israel will not be expected to halt attacks in Gaza or ensure humanitarian aid enters the Strip.
“Failure by Hamas to accept the framework within a reasonable timeframe, as determined by the Board of Peace and after consultation with the parties, shall render such commitments null and void,” Mladenov writes in the document — a letter that he and senior US official Aryeh Lightstone sent to the head of the Palestinian technocratic government that is meant to replace Hamas in Gaza.
The Board of Peace has been engaged in negotiations with Hamas for several months, conditioning major reconstruction projects for the war-flattened Gaza on the decommissioning of the group’s weapons.
This is another bout of radical-Islamist bargaining techniques. Make an agreement, claim a grievance, and demand concessions to return to the original agreement. During the war, I called this the Hamas Hokey Pokey, but it’s the same strategy Ahmad Vahidi is using now with Trump. The IRGC keeps demanding that Trump buy the same carpet repeatedly with new concessions.
Hamas complained to the Board of Peace that Israel has not fully complied with Phase 1. The IDF is still conducting operations in Gaza, which is true, but that’s because Hamas has not yet disarmed, and their terrorists keep testing the IDF’s lines. Trump’s 20-point plan required Hamas to disarm immediately after the exchange of all hostages and remains (Step 6), and only after disarmament would humanitarian aid begin (Steps 7 and 8). Under some pressure from Trump, Israel began transmitting aid immediately and has continued it, even without Hamas’ disarmament.
Nevertheless, the Board of Peace went back to Israel first to demand closer compliance with aid requirements and restraint on military operations. Having secured those, the board informed Hamas on April 3 that the time had come to comply with its obligations, or risk a return to full IDF operations and a resumption of war.
Hamas’ reply reveals the bad faith and taqiyya strategy in the earlier ceasefire negotiations:
Writing to National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) chief commissioner Ali Shaath on the week of April 5, the pair informed him that the mediators had submitted to Hamas a “framework for weapons decommissioning and IDF withdrawal” on April 3. …
Hamas on Saturday finally submitted its response to the disarmament framework it received roughly one month earlier, but largely bucked demands to give up all of its weapons, according to two Arab diplomats familiar with the matter.
The terror group’s counteroffer instead argued that the handover of its weapons can only be done as part of a framework culminating in the establishment of a Palestinian state, the diplomats said.
Negotiating with radical Islamists – particularly those in the IRGC and its proxies – is a fool’s errand. Vahidi pulled the same nonsense over the past three weeks with the Strait of Hormuz. The US has tried to respond with “restraint” to these violations, but “restraint” gets read very differently by radical Islamists. They read it as weakness and opportunity, not as a collegial approach to find a collaborative solution to conflict. Nor is this lesson new; the Hamas Hokey Pokey has been a staple of every negotiation over Gaza, and Hezbollah has used it even longer in Lebanon. The Iranians have used it for over 20 years when it comes to their nuclear-weapons program.
Unfortunately for everyone, talk is useless with terrorists. The only way to end terrorism is to end terrorists and their command and financing structures. The US and Trump have that opportunity in Iran now. We need to finally and fully learn this lesson when we still have the means to deal with the problem.
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