Richard Haass: Hamas Has Reason to Want a Ceasefire, We’re Not Talking About Long Term Peace

RUSH EXCERPT:
HAASS: "Look, on. One hand, there is something of a groundhog day quality to Middle East peacemaking. We’ve seen it all many times. But I do think there’s slightly better prospects right now. One is, as you suggest, prime minister Netanyahu has a bit more political space in the aftermath of Iran. Second of all, president. Trump has. An awful lot of leverage. And the Israelis understand. That there’s no end run around President Trump here. It’s not as though they can go to the leaders of the Democratic Party and exact leverage. So ultimately, they’ve got to work with. President Trump. And then Hamas has reason to want to have a cease fire. The relentless Israeli attacks on the on Gaza, upwards of 50 or 60,000 people have been killed. Probably 15, 20,000 of them were members of Hamas. So they’ve also got reason. To calm things down. We’re not. Talking about long-term peace, but some type of a two month cease fire. I would think the odds are better than even that we can get it, even though there’s still some details about, for example, Israeli withdrawal from from parts of Gaza and some of the details of the hostage for prisoner exchange still have to be ironed out."