With Apparent Exception of Hamas, Thursday’s Summit Is Seen as Key to Mideast Peace

Thursday is emerging as a fateful day for the Mideast, as America, Arab countries, and European allies — and now Iran — are highlighting the benefits of a Doha summit to end the Gaza war. Then again, the party that, with Iran, launched the longest Mideast war of the century, Hamas, seems uninterested. The summit is aimed at implementing a May proposal for an incremental hostage release in return for phased steps toward a total cease-fire. It was initially proposed by Egypt and Qatar, and President Biden eagerly accepted their call for a meeting that would finalize the details of the May deal. As the Iranian Islamic Republic ratchets up the rhetoric threatening a “painful,” multi-pronged attack against Israel, the Thursday summit is now emerging as an opportunity to lower regional tensions. Even Tehran is jumping on the bandwagon. “Only a cease-fire deal in Gaza stemming from hoped-for talks this week would hold Iran back from direct retaliation against Israel for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on its soil,” three unidentified Islamic Republic officials told Reuters Tuesday.The Iranians might even dispatch representatives to the Doha summit in order to “maintain a line of diplomatic communication” with America, according to the newswire.“The Iranians want to gain something without conceding anything,” a Tehran-born Iran researcher at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, Beni Sabti, tells the Sun. “They’re pretending to be the responsible party, preventing a regional war and promoting a peace deal, but they have no realistic deal to offer.” America, meanwhile, seems to be urging Jerusalem to soften its negotiating stance with Hamas in order to prevent a potentially catastrophic Iranian attack. The New York Times is reporting, based on leaked Israeli documents, that Prime Minister Netanyahu has “added new conditions” to his original American-backed May 27 cease-fire deal. Mr. Netanyahu denies making changes and he is sending a high-ranking delegation to participate in the Thursday talks. Yet, Hamas is so far reluctant to attend unless the terms of the May 27 deal are changed fundamentally. “If Israel is serious about negotiations and wants Hamas to participate, then it must stop its military operations in Gaza first,” the terrorist group’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, told Arab mediators, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. To deter an Iranian attack, the Pentagon is dispatching two air carrier groups to the region, along with a nuclear submarine that is capable of carrying high-accuracy ballistic missiles, and even America’s most advanced F-22 fighter jets. At the same time, Secretary Blinken is traveling to the Mideast to promote the Thursday summit that Washington hopes will prevent an all-out Mideast war. Also traveling are the top White House advisers on the Mideast, Brent McGurk, who is flying to Cairo and Doha, and Amos Hochstein, who is at Beirut to talk Hezbollah out of attacking Israel. “Imagine the time, money, and lives saved if this admin’s red lines had any credibility,” a former chess champion, Gary Kasparov, now a pro-democracy activist, writes on X. “A two-paragraph memo outlining the consequences for any Iranian attack would be enough. Instead, it’s more faux diplomacy that only elevates terrorists & dictators.”Beyond preventing an attack from Iran and Hezbollah, America’s goal in hyping diplomacy is to pressure Israel to end the Gaza war even at the cost of Hamas’s survival. Yet, “why should Sinwar make a deal, now that almost all stars are aligned in his favor,” a former head of the Mossad’s prisoners and missing persons division, Rami Igra, told Kan news Tuesday.While some in America are urging an arms embargo; the Iran-backed proxy armies are finally threatening what Sinwar had long hoped for, a coordinated regional war; and global pressure on Israel is growing, Mr. Igra says. “The Thursday summit will make no difference, because what Sinwar wants is to maintain his control over Gaza,” which Israel cannot accept.According to a July 27 letter the Times cites, Mr. Netanyahu wrote that Israel will remain in control of the Gaza border with Egypt. Known as the Philadelphi corridor, that tract of land has served as the main pipeline for Hamas arms deliveries. This “new” Israeli demand, the newspaper notes, contradicts the May 27 call for withdrawal of Israel “from densely populated areas along the borders in all areas of the Gaza Strip.” Judging from the photo of the Philadelphi corridor that accompanies the Times article, though, it is far from “densely populated.”Also, conditions on the ground have changed since the May proposal was made public by Mr. Biden. Shortly afterward, Washington accused Hamas of undermining the deal. Since that time the IDF captured the strategic Philadelphi corridor, and killed key Hamas operators.“Israel now has more leverage than it had” in May, a vice president at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Jonathan Schanzer, tells the Sun. America, he says, should now align with its ally, rather than with mediators like Egypt and Qatar.

With Apparent Exception of Hamas, Thursday’s Summit Is Seen as Key to Mideast Peace

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