Forward columnist Dan Perry explains why, time and time again, “Every time talks on a deal to return the remaining hostages from Gaza in exchange for a ceasefire seem to be nearing a breakthrough, they fall apart.”
The reason for this cycle is depressingly simple and cynical: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refuses to end the war in exchange for the hostages, because he expects that if he does, his coalition will collapse, since the ultranationalist flank on which it depends wants the war to go on.
And Hamas, in turn, refuses to bend, because its leaders have correctly noticed that the war is terrible for Israel — an outcome that nicely aligns with its goal of eradicating the Jewish state. (The war is much more terrible for the people of Gaza, a fact that bothers Hamas not at all.)