Things seem to have moved after the Cabinet meeting this morning, but there are some pretty big caveats:
[The announcement] will stipulate the need for the release of all the hostages still held by Hamas and be based on a guarantee the terror group no longer rules Gaza, sources say.
Also made me wonder how Starmer’s conversation with Trump went yesterday. Not good?
Okay, but, not to be excessively pedantic here, the question was not ‘Are they both kidnappers?’ (which, if a state can be said to kidnap people, then yes, I agree, they are), but ‘Are all the captives hostages?’ which, as I keep saying, is not at all clear.
But this isn’t even a comparison which makes the Israelis look good! With hostages there’s an implied intent to eventually release them (in exchange for whatever you want to extort). One of the reasons the Palestinians held by the Israelis aren’t hostages is that Israel clearly has no intention of releasing them.