The Gaza Cease-Fire That Wasn’t

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As the Israel-Hamas war continues, breathless headlines sometimes conceal more than they reveal.

But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.

Waiting for Details

In March, CNN reported that “the Israelis have ‘basically accepted’ a six-week ceasefire proposal in Gaza,” per a U.S. official. Yesterday, the Associated Press reported that Hamas said it had “accepted an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal.” Each of these claims quickly spread across the internet, fueling arguments among partisans around the world and raising hopes among both Palestinians and Israelis. Of course, as anyone following the conflict in Gaza knows, the fighting has not ended. These pseudo-cease-fires are far from the only instance of such whiplash between the headlines and reality in recent months—just recall the breathless news coverage surrounding Iran’s strike on Israel and the Israeli response, both of which were cast as a prelude to regional and possibly world war before fizzling into nothing of the kind.

Confused? Trying to figure out how to tell what’s true and what’s not? You’re not alone. I struggle with the challenge too. Here are four points about the cease-fire talks that guide my own reporting, and help me untangle where things stand.

1. As they negotiate, both parties are attempting to shape international media coverage—and their statements should be read with this in mind. In professional sports leagues, before consequential trades or player signings, there are often a flurry of leaks to media outlets about potential contract terms or trade packages. Most of these turn out to be false. This is how Aaron Judge, the superstar captain of the New York Yankees, was momentarily reported to have signed with the San Francisco Giants in 2022. Why are so many of these reports wrong? Sometimes, they reflect genuine offers from the midst of a fluid negotiation; other times they are an attempt by one side to increase their leverage.

International reporting is not sports reporting, but it is subject to similar dynamics. In the case of Israel and Hamas, both sides are selectively sharing information in order to shape press coverage, attempting to present themselves as reasonable and their opponent as recalcitrant. In some cases, this can lead to certain media outlets getting ahead of the story or being spun by those advancing an agenda. That appears to be what happened yesterday, when Hamas unilaterally announced that it had “agreed to” a cease-fire, and several outlets repeated the claim without sufficient scrutiny as to what the group had actually agreed to. As The New York Times reported, it later turned out that “Hamas did not ‘accept’ a cease-fire deal so much as make a counteroffer to the proposal on the table previously blessed by the United States and Israel.” Moreover, Hamas refused to commit to releasing only living Israeli hostages, as opposed to dead ones, in the first stage of a proposed multiphase deal. Here, as elsewhere, when confronted with a sensational headline, it pays to wait for more details before assuming the initial report provides the full picture.

2. Israel and Hamas aren’t the only ones negotiating—and this makes things very complicated. Israel and Hamas did not have formal relations even before they went to war in October. As a result, they have long communicated through intermediaries. Right now, cease-fire negotiations are being conducted in Cairo with the assistance of multiple outside mediators, including the United States, Egypt (which borders both Israel and Gaza), and Qatar (which hosts the Hamas political leadership). Each of these actors is providing their own proposals and compromise suggestions, which can help the parties progress but also allow them to posture by accepting a friendlier proposal from one of the external mediators than they would get from the other side. Understanding this dynamic can help you decode the headlines: There will be a deal when the story is not “Israel accepts U.S. cease-fire proposal” or “Hamas accepts Egyptian-Qatari proposal” but rather “Israel and Hamas agree to mutual cease-fire proposal.”

3. Several core sticking points still need to be resolved. To know whether the parties are actually close to a deal, it helps to know why they haven’t gotten to one yet. In addition to Hamas’s caginess about releasing living hostages—it has yet to provide a list of those Israelis it currently holds, and appears to want to use the live ones as bargaining chips for later stages—both parties have a fundamental disagreement about whether a deal would officially end the war. Hamas insists that it must, while Israel wants to reserve the right to return to Gaza and continue pursuing Hamas’s leadership, even after a long lull in hostilities.

This split over a “permanent cease-fire” might seem largely symbolic: Israel and Hamas have been at war with each other on and off for more than a decade, and that won’t change based on what a piece of paper says. But symbolism matters. Both parties—and in particular, their political leadership—want to be able to declare victory when a deal is signed. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in thrall to far-right coalition partners and dead in the polls, doesn’t want to look like he conceded to Hamas. Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, desperately wants to appear to have achieved something after all the devastation that Hamas and its October 7 massacre brought upon the people of Gaza. Being able to emerge from hiding and declare that he’d outlasted the vaunted Israeli military would accomplish that.

More substantively, Israelis are divided over whether the overriding goal of the current war should be destroying Hamas (in which case Israel cannot disengage until the group’s final battalions are defeated) or returning the hostages (in which case Israel could end this war now and fight Hamas another day). Israel’s leadership has so far refused to choose between these two goals, but the moment of decision seems to be arriving.

4. There is no agreement, but there are negotiations and they are at a pivotal point. Yesterday, Hamas made a negotiating counteroffer, then accepted its own counteroffer. That is obviously not how a bilateral agreement works, but it is evidence that negotiations are advancing. In response, Israel announced yesterday that it would send a new delegation to Cairo to continue talks. CIA director William Burns is reportedly personally on site to help facilitate a deal. At the same time, Israel has begun an operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where it says Hamas’s leadership is hiding among more than 1 million sheltering Palestinians.

President Joe Biden has warned the Israelis against a full-scale operation in Rafah, which is partly why the current one is limited in scope—it began with an evacuation order for 100,000 civilians, leaving the rest in place while Israel maneuvers in a smaller geographic area. This move undoubtedly puts further pressure on Hamas, but it also hastens the moment when Israel will have to decide whether to press forward into the rest of Rafah, potentially breaking with the Biden administration. This prospect in turn increases the pressure on Israel itself to reach some sort of agreement. Although the outcome of these precipitous events is uncertain, an inflection point is fast approaching—and the time may come once again to practice patience as the incomplete headlines roll in.

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Today’s News

Evening Read

Enough With Saving the Honeybees

By Ellen Cushing

In 2022, at least 18 states enacted bee-related legislation. Last year, a cryptocurrency launched with the intention of raising “awareness and support for bee conservation.” If you search Etsy right now for “save the bees,” you’ll be rewarded with thousands of things to buy. Bees and Thank You, a food truck in suburban Boston, funds bee sanctuaries and gives out a packet of wildflower seeds—good for the bees!—with every grilled cheese sandwich it sells. A company in the United Kingdom offers a key ring containing a little bottle of chemicals that can purportedly “revive” an “exhausted bee” should you encounter one, “so it can continue its mission pollinating planet Earth.”

All of the above is surprising for maybe a few different reasons, but here’s a good place to start: Though their numbers have fluctuated, honeybees are not in trouble. Other bees are. But the movement’s poster child, biggest star, and attention hound is not at risk of imminent extinction, and never has been.

Read the full article.

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Stephanie Bai contributed to this newsletter.

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