Afrasianet - Oraib Al Rantawi - With a little risk, it can be said that the two-hour meeting between US envoy Jared Kushner, accompanied by Tony Blair and Nikolai Mladenov, and a Hamas delegation headed by Khalil al-Hayya, and in the presence of a high-level trio of mediators: Cairo, Doha and Ankara, introduces a qualitative new development, the features and elements of which will become clear successively in the coming days and months.
First: The American goal of the meeting, which was described as "rare", was not to pave the way for the completion of the combined agenda for the first and second phases in accordance with the recently reached roadmap, based on the Twenty-Point Initiative and Resolution 2803, despite the noise of the media statements that preceded and accompanied the current tour of Kushner and the World Peace Council team.
Washington is aware that Israel is in an exceptional electoral moment, and that attempts to record a breakthrough on this track will hit the wall of personal electoral calculations of Netanyahu, his Likud party, his government and its more extreme coalition.
Kushner is aware that Netanyahu's path to the ballot box passes through emptying the "American" ammunition boxes into the chests and heads of the Palestinians, and that his willingness to listen to Washington's advice and obey its dictates is at its lowest.
Second: The most important goal of the tour of the US envoy and his companions, which came directly commissioned by President Donald Trump, and after heavy intervention by the trio of mediators, is to "prevent a collapse" and avoid a scenario of a major confrontation in the Gaza Strip, especially after the Israeli aggressions in the Gaza Strip have increased significantly in recent days, both occupied and under fire and siege.
This was manifested in the increase in assassinations, the expansion of the scope of strikes and raids, the continuation of the policy of demolishing homes and civilian objects, and the increase in the number of civilian casualties, amid Israeli cries for more Palestinian bloodshed, and demanding the killing of between 30 and 40 Palestinians daily, as reported by Itamar Ben-Gvir. Palestinian blood has become an electoral card in Israel, and whoever hates it the most, his chances will increase.
This prompted many observers and analysts to say that it is a meeting in Israel's lost electoral time, and that it aims to contain the deterioration, rather than paving a path that leads to recording breakthroughs on the path of the final solution, a translation of the road map and the Trump initiative.
"Hamas, through its delegation, reiterated its intention to get out of the Gaza rule, and to complete what it started when its "government" was dissolved, waiting for the National Authority to take over the reins of administration and follow-up, renewing its commitment not to obstruct the work of the Commission, and demanding that it facilitate its entry into the Gaza Strip, and to lift the Israeli barriers on its way"
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Third: The meeting reveals the conflict of priorities and their differences between the Palestinian and American sides. Kushner believes that Hamas should take the first step and start disarming itself and Gaza, as an entry point and a precondition for demanding that Israel fulfill its corresponding commitments, specifically to begin implementing gradual withdrawals from the Strip.
"The ball is in Hamas' court," this is how the approach of the Kushner-Blair-Mladenov trio can be summed up, in line with the positions issued by Trump before and the "High Representative" for Gaza from afar, which made disarmament the first priority and the starting point for activating the diplomatic track, without real concern for the gradual equation and step by step, which was stipulated in the road map, in a blatant departure from the text, in favor of an Israeli reading of it.
Fourth: On the other hand, Hamas reaffirmed its commitment to the Trump initiative and the understandings, protocols and road map that resulted from it, but from a perspective that reconsiders these terms of reference as a "single package" that must be implemented without selectivity, according to a hierarchy of priorities agreed upon in the road map with Washington and the Peace Council, and with the testimony of mediators, and according to the gradual equation and "step for step."
The movement, through its high-level delegation, also reaffirmed its intention to get out of the Gaza Strip and complete what it started when its "government" was dissolved, waiting for the National Authority to take over the reins of administration and follow-up, renewing its commitment not to obstruct the work of the Commission, and demanding that it facilitate its entry into the Gaza Strip and remove the Israeli checkpoints installed on its way.
Fifth, in order to show greater seriousness in adhering to the Trump Initiative and its detailed annexes, Kushner, in his name as the president's son-in-law, will pledge to commit to this path once again, and to push for the implementation of the 20 items of the initiative.
Here, there is a new affirmation of Washington's opposition to the projects of displacement of Gazans, and its commitment to opening a political horizon to resolve the Palestinian issue, a commitment that is shrouded in ambiguity, so that we do not say that it may imply something else, and may fall within the context of the sale of illusions, disinformation, anesthesia, and deception that successive US administrations have been famous for every time they have engaged in the Palestinian affairs.
"It seems that the meeting between Kushner and the serpent is not the result of a broader American approach, which is to negotiate directly with those who have power and influence on the ground, who have the weapons and not those who negotiate for them"
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Sixth, however, Kushner, who has taken the trouble to meet with the leaders of a faction classified as a terrorist faction by the US administration, has sent messages of reassurance to Hamas: Your political role is acceptable and preserved, after the disarmament, dismantling of its infrastructure, and the stripping of the entire Gaza Strip.
Kushner apparently does not mind Hamas's involvement in the Palestinian political system after that, but Gaza will not remain under its rule, at least in the foreseeable term and throughout the transitional period, as if the man is presenting a more crystallized American equation for the movement: your political survival versus your military disappearance. Is there anything qualitative new in Washington's position on the movement, or is it a game of luring into the trap of adaptation and its endless paths?
Seventh: On the other hand, in this new context between the movement and the Trump administration, Hamas responded to the "American salute with its likeness," praising the efforts of the American president, his team and the Peace Council to stabilize security and stability in Gaza and the region, and a commitment to continue on this path and not to leave it, and a call to intensify the American effort, in particular, to save the initiative and its implementations, and full readiness to facilitate the mission in accordance with what was agreed.
Eighth: It was clear, as on previous occasions, that the PA, the organization, and the presidency in Ramallah were not a direct or indirect party to these talks, nor in the various arrangements that preceded and will follow them, as if they were an "irrelevant" entity, so much so that Washington did not bother to send a "consul" on its behalf to put it in the picture of what it was thinking and planning, and what were the results of the tour of its delegates and their efforts.
Ninth: Kushner was unusually honest when he said: Do not bet on the Israeli elections, and do not place high hopes on their results, and in explaining this warning, he said: Israel is united in its position on Gaza and its complex files, if Netanyahu stays or Eisenkot comes, the situation will not be fundamentally different, and I think that such a reading of the Israeli scene on the eve of the elections and the next day, will shock some Arabs and Palestinians, who are eagerly waiting for the moment of Netanyahu's departure from the Israeli political scene, as if his successor will come with promises of peace and prosperity.
However, what is lacking in this reading is that Israel is also united in its position towards Lebanon, Iran and the region in general, after the fascist right in Israel has come to dominate the authority and the opposition, mainly because of its dominance over Israeli society, which has witnessed cumulative shifts towards religious and nationalist extremism in the last quarter century.
"The priority of stopping the massacre and genocide in Gaza is no higher than any other, and the war that broke out in the Gaza Strip reverberates in the cities of the West Bank, its villages, camps, Jerusalem and its holy sites, and that the resistance to the "liquidation project" that is rearing its ugly head requires the adoption of new approaches"
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Tenth: It seems that the meeting between Kushner and Haya is not the result of a broader American approach, which is to negotiate directly with those who have power and influence on the ground, who have weapons and not those who negotiate for them: Trump proposed to Joseph Aoun at their recent summit, which is also rare, to open an American channel for direct negotiations with Hezbollah.
I don't think that the master of the White House was asking for permission, and Barzani's channel is active between Washington and the IRGC commander directly, as reports and leaks say, after Trump got tired of arguing with politicians and diplomats who would eventually return to get permission from the IRGC leadership.
Today, Washington is openly continuing what it started timidly in Doha and Sharm el-Sheikh, opening a channel for direct negotiations with Hamas, without mediation, without intermediaries, and without waiting for permission from either the Israelis or the Palestinian Authority.
Finally:
We do not know what the channel of direct high-level negotiations between Hamas and Washington will end, nor do we know where Hamas will end up in its journey of "adapting" to the conditions of the Trump initiative and its subsequent annexes, nor how it will be as it actively engages in Palestinian elections, which have been "engineered" on the scale of the PA and according to the conditions of the presidency.
What we are sure of is that the priority of stopping the massacre and genocide in Gaza is no higher than another, and that the war that broke out in the Gaza Strip reverberates in the cities of the West Bank, its villages, camps, Jerusalem and its holy sites, and that the resistance to the "liquidation project", which is rearing its ugly head, requires the adoption of new, comprehensive approaches, not dealing with the Palestinian issue in a fragmented and fragmented system, and a national responsibility that is not shouldered by one party alone.
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