Gaza: Back to FAFO, Inevitably

For the last eighteen months since the October 7 massacres, one point has remained painfully clear. Hamas has no intention of ever living in peace with Israel. Given that, the situation in Gaza had clearly become intolerable for Israel. All of the hostage-prisoner swaps and phased ‘pause’ negotiations never addressed Hamas’ mission to annihilate Israel at its convenience.

Late yesterday, the contradictions dictated the obvious outcome. Hamas and Gazans insist on FA, and so now we’re back to FO:

The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas collapsed early Tuesday morning after roughly two months, as the Israel Defense Forces launched dozens of strikes throughout Gaza under orders from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who cited the terror group’s “repeated refusal” to release Israeli hostages.

At least 404 Palestinians were killed, including children, according to unverified figures from the Hamas-run health ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants. It said another 562 were wounded.

Netanyahu’s office said the decision to resume strikes shortly after midnight “followed Hamas’s repeated refusal to release our hostages, as well as its rejection of all of the proposals it has received from US special envoy to the Mideast Envoy Steve Witkoff and from the mediators.”

This answers a question that emerged on Friday. Hamas attempted to split the US and Israel by offering to release American hostage Edan Alexander, and their negotiators then played more of the Hamas Hokey Pokey around it. That raised the prospect that Donald Trump would cut a separate deal from Israel, leaving Benjamin Netanyahu to deal with the political fallout and handcuffed to whatever concessions the US had made for the release. It’s not difficult to imagine the previous administration accepting such a deal, although we must note that Joe Biden’s team didn’t try it.

Now we know for sure that Trump and his team refused to play along. Witkoff went back with a properly coordinated proposal between the US and Israel, and Hamas refused it. Trump and the US had warned repeatedly that it had tired of hostaging as a tactic and that Hamas would reach a point of no return unless they released all remaining hostages. Hamas apparently thought the Americans were bluffing.

FAFO, again. 

So now we’re back to the war that Hamas wants, only on Israel’s terms rather than Joe Biden’s. However, the American media is back to reporting the war on Hamas’ terms, as CNN proves yet again:

The death toll from Israel’s renewed strikes in Gaza has reached 404, the health ministry in the enclave said, adding that several people remain trapped under the rubble.

Another 562 people have been injured, the health ministry said.

Gaza Civil Defense spokesman, Mahmoud Basal, told CNN that “more than 130 children and many women” have been killed, including entire families.

Repeat after me: Gaza’s official source are all Hamas. The ‘health ministry’? Hamas. The ‘civil defense’ ministry? Hamas. These figures are every bit as reliable as the Hamas claim that Israel had destroyed the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City. It took the New York Times eight days to semi-retract that claim, even though the first sunrise showed that the hospital was still intact except for its windows, which had been blown out by an errant Gazan rocket aimed at Israel. “Health ministry” spokesmen claimed that 833 people had been killed by the supposed Israeli bombing, only to find out that the dud had hit a parking lot and the number of dead couldn’t have even been a tenth of that number.

Some things truly never change. 

Except when they do, that is. One condition that has changed is that Donald Trump has returned to the White House, and the progressive clique running foreign policy and intel has gotten the boot. Hamas has been pretty careful to make sure that the progressive clique controls Washington when it launches major operations against Israel, such as in 2014, 2021, and 2023. They counted on US desire to disengage in the Middle East as leverage on Israel for suicidal hostage swaps and concessions. 

Not only is Trump less inclined to hold back Israel, he’s actively engaged in destroying the Houthis at the moment. Is that a coincidence? Almost certainly not; it now appears that Trump wanted to make sure the Houthis were too busy scrambling to survive to interfere again with the Israelis in defeating Hamas. The one-two punch sends a clear message to Iran as well, which is that FAFO can apply anywhere and at any time of our choosing. 

The war was never over in the first place, and now it’s back on. This is what the Gazans bought when they elected Hamas to run their enclave, and then celebrated every disgusting atrocity Hamas committed. If they want an end to the war, then they need to do what every other aggressor whose war of annihilation backfired on them had to do: beg for mercy, deliver the hostages unconditionally, and surrender their leadership to the victors. Gazans should read up on the final days of the Nazis in Germany and the bushido cult in Japan. They’re risking a similarly historical FO.