From everything I can ascertain, it is clear to me that Prime Minister Netanyahu is the main obstacle preventing a deal that will return all the hostages, because there is no possible deal that would not end the war in Gaza and a full Israeli withdrawal from there.
It is very difficult to negotiate with Hamas, that is known, and it is not entirely clear that Hamas’s negotiators who are outside Gaza can commit that a deal with them will be fully implemented in Gaza, so it will be necessary to include performance tests in any deal before the full implementation of commitments.
At the same time, it is clear to me that on the Israeli side, the negotiators have not yet received a full mandate from the Prime Minister to complete the task (“bring them home” has not yet been said to them). The negotiators are also avoiding the option that was tried and succeeded in the negotiations for the release of Gilad Shalit – a channel of direct contact with Hamas leaders. There is no certainty that such a direct contact can bring different results than the contact through intermediaries, but, really – what is there to lose???
I don’t know if under the current conditions I can get a better deal, or a deal at all, what I do know is that I have access to no less than eight senior Hamas officials who would be willing to communicate with me if I were given permission and authority to negotiate (of course under full supervision and instructions from the negotiators), but it is clear from my experience in May when I was activated for only two weeks, I was shut down from one hour to the next, apparently after the Prime Minister learned that I had been activated.
Today, despite all my attempts to return to active negotiations, the negotiators apparently prefer not to challenge Netanyahu in any way.
