Time for haggling to stop, Blinken says of Hamas’ response
“It’s time for the haggling to stop and a ceasefire to start,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Doha, Qatar, on June 12.
After studying it overnight and consulting with the Qataris and Egyptians, American officials expressed some exasperation with Hamas’ response to a three-phase ceasefire proposal sent to it late last month, and that was endorsed earlier this week by a United Nations Security Council resolution.
“Hamas has proposed numerous changes to the proposal that was on the table,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a joint press availability with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Doha today (June 12).
“Some of the changes are workable; some are not,” Blinken said.
Blinken suggested that in addition to taking 12 days to respond to an Israeli offer transmitted to Hamas by mediators on May 30 and that President Biden laid out publicly on May 31, Hamas had added some new demands to terms that it had previously accepted.
“I don’t want to characterize it further, but at some point in a negotiation…you get to a point where if one side continues to change its demands, including making demands and insisting on changes for things that it already accepted, you have to question whether they’re proceeding in good faith or not,” he said.
He said that while he believed that the gaps between the two sides was “bridgeable,” that “doesn’t mean they will be bridged,” he said. “It ultimately depends on people saying yes.”
“Hamas had this for 12 days and…people were suffering throughout those 12 days,” Blinken said.
“It’s time for the haggling to stop and a ceasefire to start,” he said. “It’s as simple as that.”
Qatar’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Al Thani also seemed to express frustration with the amount of time it was taking to negotiate a ceasefire, while saying it is normal in a negotiation that there would be back and forth.
“Now we are studying the response, and of course there will be give and take…in order to bridge the gap,” he said. “So we wish that this time of negotiation will be the shortest. We wanted to have more momentum and movement. However, unfortunately, we have faced so many challenges.”
“It has been a very long process,” he said. “It’s frustrating a lot of times, and we have seen…the behavior from both parties…in different occasions being counterproductive to the efforts.”
Arab mediators cited by the Wall Street Journal said that Hamas had added demands including that Israel withdraw its forces “from the strip of land between Gaza and Egypt called the Philadelphi Corridor and the Rafah crossing into Egypt’s Sinai Desert,” the paper reported. The mediators said that the group had hardened its demands following an Israeli operation that freed four hostages last weekend but that reportedly killed some 200 Palestinians.
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that while some of Hamas’ proposed changes to what he called the May 27 Israeli proposal were minor, others “differ more substantively from what was outlined.”
“The United States will now work with the mediators, specifically Egypt and Qatar, to bridge final gaps,” Sullivan told reporters traveling on Air Force One with Biden today to the G7 summit in Apulia, Italy.
“Our aim is to bring this process to a conclusion,” Sullivan said. Echoing Blinken, he added: “Our view is that the time for haggling is over. It's time for a ceasefire to begin and for the hostages to come home.”
Gershon Baskin, a former Israeli non-governmental back channel negotiator with Hamas, said that the fundamental problem remains that Hamas won’t agree to a deal that doesn’t permanently end the war, while Israel won’t commit to a deal that commits it to end the war.
“The main problem is the huge gap between the parties,” Baskin wrote on Twitter today. “Hamas is not ready for a deal without ending the war, and the Netanyahu government is not ready for a deal that ends the war.”
Baskin proposed that Israel try to set up a secret, direct channel with Hamas, though he acknowledged that the gaps between their respective positions are not primarily the result of indirect communications via mediators, but that substantive divide.
“In my opinion…Israel should conduct a secret direct channel with Hamas in order to reach a deal and minimize dangers and risks as much as possible,” he wrote. “I know that about a month ago Hamas was ready for a secret direct channel but Israel was not ready.”
“Dealing with Hamas can wait, the hostages cannot wait,” he added.
The Forum of the Families of the over 120 hostages held by Hamas also pressed all the parties to continue to urgently seek a deal to secure the release of their family members. Representatives of the families met with Blinken in Israel on Tuesday, during his eighth trip to the region since the Hamas’ massacre of over 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, and Israel’s subsequent war against Hamas in Gaza, that has reportedly killed more than 37,000 people.
“All sides need to immediately continue negotiations in an intense way to bridge the remaining gaps,” the Forum said in a press release today. “The Families Forum demands Israel send its negotiating team to find any possibility to move forward.”
**