Hamas’s ‘naivety’ amid Netanyahu’s ‘extraordinary’ demands and Trump’s ‘bombs’

By: Hassan Asfour

Amid the United States’ open campaign against the global recognition movement for a State of Palestine, the upcoming international conference on the “two-state solution” this September, and a ban on granting visas to President Abbas and his (expanded) delegation to attend the UN General Assembly, President Trump revealed that a delegation from his administration is negotiating with Hamas.

Talk of negotiations between a US delegation and Hamas leadership is not a “technical” surprise — it has happened before near Al Udeid base — but its political timing is the surprise, coming after the publication of the “Great Gaza Plan” of displacement, destruction and separation, and amid the broadest political campaign led by his administration against Palestinian national representation. It even openly supports plans for Judaization and annexation in the West Bank, works to strip the official leadership of legitimacy, and has imposed sanctions on three civil human-rights organizations simply because they submitted reports to the International Criminal Court about war crimes and genocide, while the occupying state demands that the task of destroying the remnants of the Strip be completed as quickly as possible.

The new “Al Udeid meeting” between a US delegation and Hamas leadership coincided with Israel’s announcement of a newly introduced phase to complete the plan to destroy Gaza City in order to impose a reality of internal displacement as a prelude to implementing the Trump–Netanyahu plan for “forced displacement.”

Amid the Hamas–US negotiation movement, Netanyahu repeated his five conditions for “ending the war,” four of them long-standing and the fifth modified to require a civilian administration that does not constitute a threat to Israel — in other words, one that is neither affiliated with Abbas nor with Hamas. That is in fact more dangerous than before, since the notion of “threat” cannot be clearly defined or incorporated into any legal or political formula, even an Israeli one.

Hamas’ negotiations with the Trump administration — fully aware of Netanyahu’s conditions before and after the amendment — raise the question: what are the components of those talks regarding “ending the war”? Can they diverge from Netanyahu’s conditions or differ on some points? In other words, does Hamas believe that anyone will accept its continued existence alongside a ceasefire — a condition that has become global rather than merely Israeli — and therefore leave it disarmed at the end of its rule, which began with U.S.–Israeli support in January 2006 and then the split in June 2007, setting its end in late 2025?

With an international precondition — before an Israeli one — for the end of Hamas’ presence in the Gaza Strip, is the movement negotiating a special “deal” with the Trump administration concerning its future outside Gaza, after the occupying state and its security apparatus revoked the “special immunity” that had been granted for its presence in Qatar, and after the assassination message from Ben-Gvir that emerged from the “shelves of accusations” as a prelude to what might happen in Turkey as an example?

With Netanyahu announcing the end of the era of the “partial deal” and stipulating the end of the war according to the unambiguous points he has set out, what is the political value of Hamas negotiating with the Trump administration at a time when he is waging an unprecedented campaign to strip the legitimacy of national representation? Does Hamas think it can “recycle” and reproduce itself as it did in 1988, when it was used as a “parallel substitute” for the PLO and carried out every destructive task assigned to it during the great intifada, and then after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority provided “special gifts” to Netanyahu’s team — the “enemies of the Oslo Accords”?

Hamas’ negotiations near Al Udeid base in Qatar are nothing more than an American maneuver used to intimidate and break the Palestinian official position into abandoning the push for the “two-state solution” conference, and to halt the pursuit of the occupying state in the International Criminal Court and international justice.

Hamas’ leadership reveals day after day that Palestinian nationalism is not theirs and that all they seek is a future for their own existence — and that is the great illusion.

Note: The American agency Associated Press’s report on the bombing of the Nasser Medical Complex and the killing of 22 people, including five journalists, is alone sufficient to serve as documentary evidence before international courts that it was a premeditated war crime. The report has glossed over some of the silence regarding the fascism of Sara’s husband’s government — nonetheless, credit to it.

Special note: One of the paradoxes of this war of extermination is that the Palestinian now has the right to choose death — not only by bombing, starvation and displacement, but also the right to choose where to die. Thus we now have something new called “humane death,” like the “euthanasia” we know. Oh Gazan, choose how you die — the right of choice is guaranteed..!