Peloni: This surrender deal looks worse and worse should reports prove to be accurate.
A moral and strategic abomination that sells out America and Israel.
Daniel Greenfield | Jan 14, 2025
After a Pearl Harbor or an Oct 7, the only ‘deal’ that could be considered with the perpetrators is their absolute surrender. Hamas however took hostages to force an Israeli retreat.
That’s what a ‘ceasefire’ always was.
And the proposed Hamas surrender deal is just that. While reports about the details are still coming in, the deal appears to be another variation of the Biden Hamas surrender deal, but with pressure being applied by Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff who praised Hamas’ Qatari state sponsors.
The headlines tell one part of the story.
Trump’s Mideast Envoy Forced Netanyahu to Accept a Gaza Plan He Repeatedly Rejected – Haaretz
Hostage talks advanced after ‘tense’ meet between Netanyahu and Trump envoy – The Times of Israel
How Trump’s ‘salty’ envoy may have forced Israel’s hand on hostage deal – The Telegraph
The media can tell all sorts of stories, but the Biden team clearly feels Witkoff is on the same page as they are.
“I think Steve Witkoff has been a terrific partner in this, and also President-elect Trump in making clear that he wants to see this deal go forward, and go forward before January 20th,” Blinken says in an interview with MSNBC.
I can’t think of a worse recommendation than this.
Any deal with Hamas is unacceptable. It destroys the moral and strategic credibility of Israel and America. And the only conceivable deal to be entertained would have been the deportation of terrorists in exchange for the release of hostages. Instead, this deal follows the Hamas demands of an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the border with Egypt and the release of thousands of Hamas terrorists in exchange for the release of some Israeli hostages.
It’s a moral and strategic abomination and anyone on the Trump team who had anything to do with it has demonstrated that they are incapable of standing up to terrorists and protecting America’s interests.
America doesn’t need a “terrific partner” with Tony Blinken or Qatar. That’s not America First. It’s Terrorists First.
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
Wait & See!
Reshet 14 – Efi Eitam, said, “Smotrich told him that Bibi promised him the war would continue after the hostages are released”.
Reshet 11 – Arab Israeli reporter reading the Arabic of the Agreement and translating to Hebrew audience said, Israel after day 50 would completely withdraw from the Philadelphia corridor. This contradicts what Bibi and his office have been saying.
This agreement allows Hamas to survive and be the defacto rulers of Gaza if all is implemented and phase 2 and 3 of the Agreement occur. So unless Hamas fails to release hostages they will survive the war. Battered, and killed in the 10s of 1000s but survive and not completely eliminated or to translate literally from Hebrew they will not have been eaten, as has been the governments promise.
Gaza is in ruins but this is the outcome and Israel does withdraw from Gaza as the agreement at least in Arabic says, Hamas will survive to fight Israel another day in the future.
We need a revolution in leadership
The key issue is the role of the Egyptian ruler el Sisi. We cannot say exactly but he must have supervised the tunnel construction and the rocketry that plagued for decades the Jews near Gaza, as in Sderot. Supported by America.
El Sisi was the basic moment of truth but it was flunked by Israeli leadership.
It was an internal issue. Israel was struck helpless and down by a treacherous “Fifth Column” led by the Judges. Which treachery even fed into the army leaders and privileged air force. And this is an extension of all those involved in Oslo Accords.
That had to be the starting point in answer to the diehards of Islam
Then Jewish leaders who betray the Jews and their endless progression of betrayal. Without end. Ben Gurion, Begin, those involved in that horrific pulling out of Gaza in 2005, the most critical was the leadership of the Settlers to furtively sell out the Youth – largely the youth
The critical issue was to expose what October 7 really meant for the Jews. Only I as a Trotsky inspired person said it…it was as if Jews were finding themselves in the massive pogroms in Ukraine in the totally critical 1918 to 1921 Pogroms, and also in new creative form extension of the victory of the workers led by Lenin and Trotsky in 1917. When Jews looked at October 7 they were so dismayed because it seemed time had stood still. And all those questions were ghost like hanging in the air.
It only then took the empty bluster of Bennett and Netanyahu who neither could lead their way out of a wet paper bag to present themselves as THE leaders. They then made all the wrong moves. Unable to lead.
Ending in tragedy after tragedy for the Jews. Inevitable really.
Steve Witkoff (the “pushy” envoy) is Trump’s old friend.
Anyway, it’s not Trump, or Biden, or Shmiden – it is the policy of the US, EU, etc., etc. to keep Israel in a state of siege and, ideally (for them), to destroy it and then start another Holocaust (a BIG OOPS! after signing the TSFS agreement) with their Arab/Muslim proxies.
I am tired of pointing out that American presidents are NOT absolute monarchs, and even absolute monarchs are dependent on their courtiers for their decisions.
What I am afraid of the most is that the same JuRt will push through the TSFS under the guise of “peace in our time”.
Israel has been helping its enemies for decades by supporting their false narrative through adopting their fake “Palestinian people” terminology instead of declaring this terminology illegal and telling the truth about the purposefully created Arab-Israeli conflict.
@Tanna
BIDEN AND TRUMP ARE WORKING TOGETHER TO HURT ISRAEL WHILE SHEDDING CROCODILE TEARS
The continuation of betrayal by amateurish Jewish leadership
But to all you lying flunkies on Israpundit for one time in your nasty becoming nastier lives, as the crisis of leadership deepens look at your own role…the deal agreed is the Trump deal who has ridden in to salvage Biden and the Palestinians. Just as Trumps’ forbearers rescued these Nazis from Beirut and later took them from Tunis to Oslo. This may be the end of our world because Russia is not the stupid and weak Netanyahu and Trump can bluster but this shows he has no principle. He is not to be trusted no more than Biden is the harsh lesson. Jews have lined up in the wrong camp here that’s obvious. Jews have been thoroughly stitched up once again but I am very afraid Trump will provoke nuclear war because he is a total reactionary. All of you on israpundit have joined in the lies of the likes of the will of the wisp Megyn Kelly on the deep water crisis and global warming crisis in California, you on Israpundit and I mean all without a single exception, have reached the point that you cannot find the truth much less express it clearly to the world. A guide to the world…Give me a break. You are disgracing the 2000 years of Jewish suffering.
Joe Biden always said he was a friend to Israel. He got the peace deal of the century. Trump should have waited till after he was sworn in. History will record this for Biden first and Trump second….. God Help us!….. “Envoys for both President Joe Biden and Trump have been present at the latest rounds of negotiations. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the proposed deal was based on a framework that the Biden administration put forward in May.” I betting Bibi is on his way out!.
https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/2025/01/14/thinking-aid-trumps-warning-to-hamas-is-about-hostages-not-a-ceasefire/
“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.
“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.
“We want our hostages back. And they better be back before I assume office, or you will be paying a very big price.” pic.twitter.com/gk6oaXNS68
“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.”
“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.
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.
Trump demands the release of the hostages from Hamas’ captivity.
“We want our hostages back. And they better be back before I assume office, or you will be paying a very big price.” pic.twitter.com/gk6oaXNS68
— Hananya Naftali (@HananyaNaftali) July 19, 2024
Thank you and bless you Mr. President-elect @realDonaldTrump.
We all pray for the moment we see our sisters and brothers back home! pic.twitter.com/Vm2WwtMNYZ
— ???? ????? Isaac Herzog (@Isaac_Herzog) December 2, 2024
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
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.”
This ‘ceasefire’ proposal is nothing less than death on the instalment plan.
Perhaps we should remember Churchill’s comment:
You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.
What could Trump be thinking??? The proposed Hamas surrender deal is yet another return to the status quo of never ending Islamic terror attacks against the State of Israel. Unconditional surrender is the only viable option to stop Israel’s enemies from attacking Israel again the moment they are resupplied. Why? BECAUSE KILLING JEWS AND DESTROYING ISRAEL IS ISLAMIC DOCTRINE! Muslims are doctrinally required and religiously rewarded for killing Jews. Truman ended WWII by bombing Japan for the same reasons that Netanyahu must never be pressured to accept a deal with terrorists who are doctrinally required to ignore the deal, and resume their attacks on Israel and the Jewish people. When you want to end a war, you do not accept anything short of UNCONDITIONAL surrender––period. Truman knew the Japanese would never stop attacking, and Netanyahu knows Hamas will never stop attacking. What about Trump? NO DEAL! NEVER AGAIN!
Ceasefire, why not unconditional Hamas surrender???
A Pollywood picture of a Palestinian woman and her spawn in a field of rubble currently defines the tragedy in the media. Where are the pictures of the burned Israeli babies???? That is what should fill the media.
And the swap deal should be all the Israeli hostages, vs the firebombing of a refugee camp (certainly the LA Fire Dept DEI staff can arrange that) and then a spray down of pigs blood for good measure.
No Hamas prisoners released – but perhaps fed, high calorie non-halal meals. Or…promise to bulldoze 500 LIVE Hamas captives into a shallow, pigs blood soaked trench for each dead hostage returned.
Play to their primitive fears to the max.
If we accept this deal we are using Israelis as human shields. We are trading present deaths for future deaths..