SETH J. FRANTZMAN
There is a scene in the American classic The Godfather when Don Corleone reveals to his family – and to the audience – that the man behind the war against his family is actually rival mafia family head Don Barzini. The film previously featured Barzini as a mediator between several warring families. Corleone says, “I wasn’t sure until this day… It was Barzini all along.” This scene might teach us something about the current war in Gaza.
On May 6, Hamas claimed to have agreed to a hostage and ceasefire deal with Israel. Hamas had been rejecting deals for months, so it came as a surprise. Israel launched an operation in Rafah on May 6 after asking residents to evacuate eastern Rafah. Was it the operation’s pressure that led Hamas to accept a deal?
It turns out the “deal” was different than the one to which Israel had been privy. Instead, according to a report in Axios, there was a kind of bait and switch in which Hamas held talks with the US, Qatar, and Egypt and agreed to a different deal that was much worse for Israel than the previous ones to which Israel had agreed. Axios reported that Israeli officials felt they had been “played” by the US and the mediators in Doha and Cairo.
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