Hamas doesn’t really want peace

OPINION:

Hamas and Israel may have agreed to a peace deal, one that was forged in large part by President Donald Trump who successfully created the collaborative conditions that brought the two sides to the table at all.

But this peace deal could turn into simply a pause. Hamas, after all this time, after two years of bloody war its own terrorist members started — Hamas still does not want peace with the Jewish people.

A longstanding goal of Hamas — and by logical extension of the Palestinian people who elected the terror group two decades ago to lead the Gaza government — has been to destroy Israel. That’s why Hamas stormed an Israeli music festival field on October 7, 2023, and murdered, raped, tortured, maimed, and abducted thousands. That’s why terrorists simultaneously invaded the kibbutzes on the border with Gaza and, using intelligence collected by the Palestinians who for years had been welcomed into these communities to farm and work side-by-side in supposed, pretend friendship with their Jewish employers and colleagues — that’s why Hamas terrorists were able to quickly and efficiently locate the Israeli security personnel of these communities, attack them, and exploit weaknesses at the gates. That’s why Hamas has continued for two years since October 7 to play at wanting peace — to play at desiring a two-state solution — all the while manipulating the foreign press and governments of the globe that it’s Israel, all Israel, all Israel’s atrocities that have left the poor, innocent civilian population of Gaza in dire straits; that Israel is guilty of genocide; that Israel was strategically and purposely starving the Palestinian civilians.

The narrative was working.

The propaganda was having its effect.

Not only were U.N. member states calling for the creation of a Palestinian state, and demanding Israel lay down its arms. But even in America, 6-in-19 adults in a recent Pew Research Center survey said they believed Israel was going too far in its war against Hamas.

But now there’s a peace deal — peace, peace, at last!

Or is it?

The terms of the deal call for Hamas and Israel to cease fire, and the IDF to withdraw to buffer zones — but not entirely out of Gaza. Meanwhile, the United States is sending up to 200 troops to Israel with a mission to support and monitor the peace deal — whatever that means. If Hamas shoots at an American soldier, can the American soldier return fire? Peacekeeping missions are rarely 100 percent peaceful.

Meanwhile, too, a hostage-for-prisoners’ exchange is due to proceed. Hamas has agreed to return all 48 hostages, 20 of whom are believed to be alive, the remaining — well, remains only; remains that might be found beneath the rubble of Gaza only. For those hostages and remains of hostages, Israel will be releasing into Hamas hands about 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, some of whom have been found guilty of murder and terrorism. Hamas in particular wants Israel to release Marwan Barghouti, the suspected mastermind of the October 7, 2023, terror assault against the Jewish state who is currently serving five life sentences for killing five civilians during the Second Palestinian Intifada. A spokeswoman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Barghouti is not included in the list of prisoners to be released — not at this time, at least.

That could change.

A lot could change, in fact.

This peace deal is a multi-phase process that is expected to span days, weeks, even months. At any point in the timeline, Hamas could accuse Israel of breaking a condition of the deal, and use that accusation to justify attacks on Israeli troops — or American troops. 

Hamas has already balked at the demand to relinquish all weapons and all further attempts to govern in Gaza.

That seems a major sticking point.

Once the hostage-for-prisoners exchange goes forth, what’s to stop Hamas from taking up its arms once again and pursuing its goals of destroying the Jewish people and eradicating Israel from the face of the earth? Two hundred American troops who may or may not be authorized to return fire if they’re attacked?

It’s a shaky peace deal when the aggressors of the war won’t admit defeat, and won’t acknowledge wrongdoing; it’s a shaky peace agreement when the terrorists who attacked Israel, and the funders and supporters who enabled Hamas to continue to war against Israel for two years, have not renounced their wicked ways and wicked plots to destroy Israel. It’s almost as if they’re biding time for the next attack.

And this is why cautious optimism is the only warranted response to this multi-phase peace deal. In the end, Hamas doesn’t really want peace so much as another opportunity to kill Jews. Pretending otherwise only imperils the Jewish people, and in the end, America and all of civil societies that are the would-be targets of radical Islamists.