Hamas urged US President Donald Trump on Friday to meet Palestinians released by Israel as part of the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip after he met with Israeli captives held in the Strip and released by the movement.
Basem Naim, a member of the Hamas political bureau, in an open letter addressed to the US president, urged Trump, who spoke of the “unbearable suffering” of the Israeli captives, to: “Show the same level of respect for Palestinian political prisoners and dedicate time to meet them and listen to their stories.”
Naim pointed out that the number of Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons stands at 9,500.
Maybe I’m being too optimistic, but does anyone else think it’s a good sign that he decided to negotiate directly with Hamas?
Maybe. With Trump you have to ignore everything he says and only look at his actions. Maybe he thinks he can strong arm Hamas like he did for Zelensky.
I think an important difference is that Hamas has been prevailing against Israel and they haven’t done anything directly against Trump as far as I can recall. Ukraine is not doing well against Russia and Zelensky had supported the Biden and Harris during the election. Trump has a distain for disloyal losers, and Netanyahu’s loyalty is hardly a sure thing.
When Trump told Zelensky ‘you did not say thanks’ he meant ‘where is my bribe’.
In case of Palestine, Saudi and the other Gulf state know Trumps Bitcoin address.
Loyalty comes in different forms. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
What about anything Trump has done leads you to think it’s a good sign? Was it his meeting with Zelenskyy? Meeting directly with the Ukrainian government did not work out for Ukraine.
There was never any long-standing taboo against meeting and negotiating with governments of allied countries. It’s always been “we do not negotiate with terrorists”, with Hamas being among the worst, but here we are, finally.