The Lebanon Option: How Qatar Could End the War by Evacuating HamasJoel B. Pollak 29 Nov 2023
CIA chief William Burns has been in Doha, Qatar, for talks with the emirate, which represents the Hamas terrorist organization in international diplomacy. David Barnea, head of Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad, has been there with him for talks this week.
There is little chance that these high-level spy chiefs would be in Qatar simply to negotiate about hostages, though that may be part of the talks. Rather, it is likely that Burns is looking for a longer-term solution that would end the war without losing the war.
A simple ceasefire is out of the question. Ending the fighting now — or prolonging it with endless promises of hostage releases by Hamas — would allow the terror group to survive, continuing a threat to Israel from Gaza and giving Hamas a massive victory.
But there is another option: a ceasefire that involves Hamas’s complete departure from Gaza. That is the solution that helped to end the First Lebanon War in 1982, when the entire Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) left Lebanon for Tunisia.
That war began in similar circumstances to the current one. For years, PLO guerillas had launched raids into Israel, and had shelled Israeli communities with Soviet-made Katyusha rockets. There was no Iron Dome then; civilians were in constant danger.
Israel invaded Lebanon in June 1982, rapidly moving into Beirut (and becoming bogged down in the pre-existing rivalries between factions in Lebanon that had already been fighting for many years).
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https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2023/11/29/the-lebanon-option-how-qatar-could-end-the-war-by-evacuating-hamas/
