J.E. Dyer
The Optimistic Conservative, Jan. 14, 2025
“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.”
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.
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. ….SOURCE