Why don't Hamas/Palestine surrender (and release hostages) in a losing conflict?

[sweetroastedpeanut]

Please preach me.

I greatly sympathize with the Palestinians and the innocent people attacked by Hamas. The sadness is imminent. Numerous lives lost and homes destroyed. The retaliation is getting out of proportion and bombing should stop right now.

However, I cannot make sense of why there's no one asking Hamas / Palestine to surrender to facilitate an immediate cease fire.

Why doesn't Hamas got chased away from Palestine for peace, who initiate the conflict themselves on 7 Oct (And ironically the heads of Hamas are not in Palestine taking the blow).

And why doesn't Palestine's allies (e.g. Lebanon, Iran) provides humanitarian aids and give a big welcome and provide shelter for Palestinians but fanning the flames instead?

I know many will talk about the long history of conflict and how Palestine has been suffering but I think that's not really helping in achieving an immediate cease fire here. If ceasefire is the priority, and the lives of civilians matter, then Hamas should surrender now. And Palestinians should turn the trouble makers in.

I cannot help but thinking Hamas leaders are cowards who cannot take responsibility for the mess they have created, while ducking under the bodies of civilians who die for Hamas foolishness.

@OneHurtSpaggettio I hope I'm right too! But like you, I suppose I'm sceptical. I'm sure I read something a while back that claimed the younger Israeli generation is actually moving more to the right, which is worrying, but I think this was some years back.

Yeah it’s just classic divisive politics to create a common enemy. The usual gross stuff.

I'm curious why your suggestion was to ethnically cleanse Palestinians rather than Israelis then? If it's Israel that can't play nice why is the suggestion not that they should move? It's just as valid surely?

Personally I don't think anyone but the Israeli settlers in the West Bank should be forced to move but I don't know why people keep suggesting that Palestinians should just be shuffled along elsewhere like they don't have feelings and ties to the land too. It's like some people automatically see Israelis as more deserving and more human.

@stormy4319trevor
@OneHurtSpaggettio

"It's not very 'grown up' of you to not know about this and to dismiss it as irrelevant? Insulting people doesn't make facts go away, or enhance discussion at all really."

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The gas field off Gaza had been known about for years but has been undeveloped for political reasons mainly Israeli interference on trying to control how the gas revenues are spent and ensuring that revenues are not used to finance Hamas terrorist activities. All this was more than enough to make Shell drop like a hot potato

Also the question is what would you do with the gas? Israel could use it for power generation but to be blunt it would be easier to just expand their own gas fields. Egypt could use it for their LNG facilities but again it would be easier to expand their own existing fields as well as explore for new ones. Gaza can't use it because it doesn't have the gas infrastructure. Gazprom showed an interest in it for a while and was probably its best chance.

However now no one is really investing that much in to new oil and gas especially a relatively small field in a politically charged part of the world. There are far more promising and politically safer gas exploration and production opportunities in Brazils d Malaysia. So whilst it is a fact that there are gas reserves 22 miles off the cost of Gaza, in the grand scheme of global gas E&P activities the Gaza Marine gas field is pretty much irrelevant.

The problem with the ill informed left oconspiracy theory types is that they think they are being insightful and ever so clever by claiming "it's all about oil" as if they have figured out something no one else can see.

Whereas the reality is that if the oil companies really had the level of governmental influence that the conspiracy theorists claim they have then the simplest and cheapest solution would be to persuade Western Governments to throw Ukraine under a bus, cut a deal that with Russia and buy their very plentiful and cheap gas.

@Parkingt111

@1dayatatime
what we were discussing previously
Guardian just put up this update

The armed wing of Hamas says it discussed with Qatari mediators the release up to 70 women and children hostages in Gaza in exchange for a five-day Israeli ceasefire, Reuters reports.
Israel has rejected any possibility of a ceasefire until the release of all 240 of the hostages.
Abu Ubaida, spokesperson for al-Qassam brigades, said Hamas also wanted the release of 200 Palestinian children and 75 women it says have been “detained by the enemy”.

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My apologies for the delay in responding to your sensible posts but I got sidelined trying in vain to talk some conspiracy nutters back to the world of reality from Planet Zog.

Anyway you raised a a good example of the circular problem making a peaceful solution that much harder to obtain.

So you have Israel saying "release all the hostages and we will agree to a ceasefire ". And Hamas saying "give us a ceasefire and then we will release some of the hostages". No side trusts the other and in the meantime more and my civilians get killed and hatred grows.

What is needed to break this circle is for one side to unilaterally make the first move to create a glimmer of trust / hope. This first move could be Isreal releasing 12 to 17 year olds being held without trial or Hamas releasing hostages under 17. Or ideally both.

@1dayatatime Well. I suppose something has shifted, because Israel gave licences for drilling to BP and other companies on 30th Oct 23, according to Reuters.

@1dayatatime it could be argued that Hamas did break the circle by releasing the first two hostages on a humanitarian basis.
It wasn't part of any negotiations with Israel. It was a release, not an exchange. I know that two is very very little compared to how many hostages they have. But in return Israel have released none and have also turned down all negotiations

@stormy4319trevor

1dayatatime Well. I suppose something has shifted, because Israel gave licences for drilling to BP and other companies on 30th Oct 23, according to Reuters.

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The two licenses were awarded to two consortias one led by BP and the other by ENI. The licenses are adjacent to the existing operational large Leviathan gas field in Israeli waters. As I explained it is a lot easier and cheaper for Israel to expand its existing discoveries rather to start a war in order to somehow "steal" gas reserves off the Gaza coast with no easy way to land the gas.

@Parkingt111

Fair point though I would counter argue that was more to do with the Qataris influence than any magnanimous gesture from Hamas.

But yes it was a start but it needs to be followed by something bigger, perhaps it's Israel turn to go next.

But I now see things getting worse not better.

@1dayatatime yes Qatar did have a part to play but regardless they still did release two hostages that was not done as an exchange.
I think Biden is trying really hard to get Netanyahu to agree to some sort of deal but it hasn't panned out.

I know things are getting worse but we can still hope
How much influence does Biden actually have? At the start of the war I thought it was alot. But over time it's becoming more apparent that its actually not so

Hamas does not surrender nor divert the gas and supplies they are using to civilians in need because they do not care about their own people and they never have.

So the arms trade is a conspiracy theory and talking about children held illegally is whataboutery unless they are Israelis. Ok

1dayatatime wrote
Boring as it is the arms firms have no secret influence to either start, continue or influence this war.

They might not have a "secret influence" but I don't think the arms industry are too disappointed by conflict.
Below are the share prices for arms manufacturers, the first value is Feb 11 2022, just prior to Ukraine invasion, the second value is today's price.
BAE, 601p / 1106p
Rolls Royce 120p / 237p
Qiniteq 268p / 344p
Thales €84/ €141

to name just a few.

It costs the Israelis about $80,000 to shoot down a single $800 Qasam rocket of which there have been hundreds fired over the past decade. War has always been good for business.

Palestinian gas fields are being integrated into Israeli waters. This has been the case since at least Operation Cast Lead. Many thanks for getting me reading about this. I had no idea how far back the war to appropriate all Palestinian gas reserves went. It's late now, but I will certainly read more about this. It's very fascinating.

You have spectacularly missed the point to such a degree that it is plain that you didn’t bother to read the articles that I posted (again).

This is not a simple case of “grab & go” for Israel, this is part of the framework of oppression and suppression of the Palestinians in Gaza; it’s a stranglehold on their economy, their right to self-determination and their right to sovereignty.

There have been no significant movement on peace talks for a 2-state solution since the BG Group found gas in Gaza in 1999. It is not in Israel’s economic interests to let Gaza have access to their own gas. It would be bad for business. If there was peace and Gaza was a sovereign state, it would hit Israel in the pocket.

This is true now more than ever since Israel has made major moves in gas exports. Israel already has control of Gaza’s gas fields, Palestinians in Gaza can’t even fish properly off their own coast, and proliferation of this mass ethnic cleansing guarantees Gaza will be weak, unapproachable and, importantly, occupied by Israel to an even more severe degree.

Here are more conspiracy theories from those well-known “nutters”, UN experts for UNCTAD:

https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/gdsapp2019d1_en.pdf

The mess wasn’t created by Hamas as you claim, it was created by Israel who have stolen Palestinian land and controlled the Palestine people in their own country. Hamas is an uprising of the suppressed and abused. An horrific uprising.

This mess we are in now, the last month, is absolutely 100% deliberately planned and created by Hamas. They knew Israel would strike back hard and pictures Palestinian children dying under Israeli bombs would be beamed around the world, Israel would look like blood thirsty monsters. The horror of what Hamas did was quickly wiped off the worlds front pages and replaced by the horror that Israel is doing.
I can't believe Israel fell so easily into their trap.
Ceasefire now!

Are there not any/very few rules with wars?
I can imagine gas lighting, lying and controlling behaviour being at the centre of this. Sound bloody confusing.
I don't have a fucking clue about it though.

'Uprising of the suppressed and abused'
That's a charming way to describe rapists, murderers and hostage takers.
I wholeheartedly blame the terrorists Hamas (whose hierarchy generally live in Qatar) for using the Palestinians as human shields, for glamorising terror and making it a job opportunity and hiding within the infrastructure of the people they are supposed to represent.
Please see Hamas quotes today where they took hostages to al shifa.

And it is not about Hamas. Gaza is sitting on massive oil and gas reserves. Gaza is also inconveniently sitting right where Israel want to build the Ben gurion canal. As currently the only canal linking exports to the region is the Suez Canal.

Palestine is due a slice of the $bn profits that the resources are worth. Israel doesn’t want Palestine to have an independent economy.

Through the arms trade ! France has an extremely lucrative experimental weapons deal (drones, robots etc) with Israel called "Scorpion": And guess where that new technology is getting tested ? In Gaza

And how, pray tell, has a French robotic dog manufacturer taken control of the Israeli war cabinet?

Maybe Hamas won't surrender because they hate Israelis more then they care for their own people 🤔

Wouldn't it be nice if they considered their own people and released hostages, put arms down and ceasefire. If Israel continued to attack after they did that then the world might step in