Why did the US break with tradition and hold talks with Hamas?

Israeli negotiators on Tuesday are set to resume talks on the Gaza ceasefire in the Qatari capital of Doha, along with the US envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff.

The first phase of the deal expired on 1 March, and Israel has since resumed sporadic air strikes on Gaza, killing dozens of Palestinians. It is refusing to move on to the second phase of the agreement, which includes a complete withdrawal from the enclave. 

But that’s likely not what makes this particular round of discussions all the more pressing. 

Hanging over the meetings is the fact that the US now comes to the table having had direct talks with Hamas, which has been designated a terrorist organisation in the US since 1997. 

Washington – as it has always publicly maintained – does not negotiate with terrorists.

“I think it was a very helpful meeting. It was very helpful to hear some back and forth,” Adam Boehler, President Donald Trump’s hostage affairs envoy, told CNN. He said he had to seize the opportunity because there is a living captive held in Gaza who is an American citizen, as well as four bodies of Americans.

“But I think Israel knows walking out of that, you know, it’s not like Hamas got the world because I thought there were a bunch of nice guys.”

The Israelis were reportedly furious about the meeting – and Boehler, while “sympathetic”, he said, seemed to double down with a remarkable statement that hasn’t been heard from a US administration in decades. 

“We’re not an agent of Israel,” Boehler said in that CNN interview.

“We have specific interests at play, and we did communicate back and forth. We had very specific parameters by which we fell. And the reality is, what I wanted to do is jumpstart some negotiations that were in a very fragile place. And I wanted to say to Hamas, ‘What is the end game that you want here?’”

Later speaking to Israeli media, Boehler said Hamas introduced fresh elements toward the ceasefire negotiations: a five to ten year truce instead of a demand for a permanent ceasefire, the offer to lay down its arms, and even have its vast tunnel network demolished. 

Mixed messages

On Monday, facing backlash from Israeli hardliners and their supporters, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that Boehler’s meeting with Hamas officials was a “one-off situation” and as of now “hasn’t borne fruit”.

“[He had] an opportunity to talk directly to someone who has control over these people and was given permission and encouraged to do so. He did so,” Rubio said. Boehler wasn’t “wrong to try”, he continued, “but our primary vehicle for negotiations on this front will continue to be Mr Witkoff and the work he’s doing through Qatar.”

Witkoff, however, made his position clear earlier in the day when he told Fox News that Hamas must leave Gaza entirely for a permanent negotiated solution to take hold. 

“There’s no logical or rational choice for them other than to leave. If they leave, then I think all things are on the table for a negotiated peace deal, and that’s what they’re going to need to do,” Witkoff said.

So is the US employing a good cop, bad cop routine?

“They are disorganised,” Nizar Farzakh, a former advisor to Palestinian leadership in negotiations with Israel, told Middle East Eye. 

“Also, each one has their lane: Witkoff is more focusing on the ceasefire, whereas Boehler is focusing on the hostages, and in the end, neither of them is going to do something other than what Trump instructs them to,” he said. 

Trump, he added, “never misses an opportunity to do something that is completely different and not in sync with previous administrations, precisely to say that he was right [and] that everything was wrong”.

There’s also Hamas’s shifting position to consider. Why make further concessions now, and does that mean the Israeli blockade on all aid into the Gaza Strip is squeezing the group?

“The concession is worth it, because they get actually recognised by the Americans,” Farzakh told MEE.

“So they make an actual deal where they don’t need to be in power, they just continue to exist, and they get some sort of immunity from assassinations,” he explained. “And they’re more than happy not to rule Gaza in the sense that they have somebody else rule it and deal with that trouble.” 

As to the question of laying down its arms – something Hamas has long indicated would be its red line – that could just be its indication it no longer wants to fight this particular war.  

“That might not mean necessarily disarming,” Zaha Hassan, a human rights lawyer and a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, told MEE. 

The path forward

A Hamas spokesman, Abdul Latif al-Qanou, said on Monday that his group “softened our demands at the request of the mediators and Trump’s envoy, and we await the results of the negotiations”. 

“Israel’s duty is to agree to move to the second stage,” he said, adding that “the talks are based on ending the war, withdrawing, and rebuilding the Gaza Strip. We agree to the Egyptian proposal to establish a committee responsible for managing the Gaza Strip and its reconstruction.”

That Egyptian proposal – a move effectively forced by Trump after his repeated threat to turn Gaza into a US-owned beach resort – was finalised last week and adopted by all Arab states at a meeting in Cairo. 

The $53bn, 91-page, five-year scheme makes no mention of Hamas but instead largely focuses on what the architecture in Gaza would look like after Arab and Muslim states make heavy investments toward rebuilding the enclave.

It does, however, state that the Palestinian Authority will oversee the management of the reconstruction through a “Gaza Administration Committee” for the first six months. The committee will be composed of technocrats and non-partisan members, the proposal said. 

“In creating a situation in which you can bring Hamas under a PLO umbrella, so that the PLO can then take charge over this file in one with one voice, [that] would be supportive of getting to a political solution and moderating Hamas. So it makes sense [for the US] to have conversations with Hamas,” Hassan told media.

But the PLO, the umbrella organisation tasked since its creation in 1964 with leading the struggle against Israel for Palestinian statehood, has faced growing questions over its relevance in recent years and criticism for failing to hold regular elections to fill leadership roles.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas remains its chairman.

Abbas himself has fledgling legitimacy among Palestinians in both the occupied West Bank – where he governs – as well as Gaza. Many see the PA as an enforcer of the Israeli occupation. Its forces are US-trained and funded. 

“I think what’s important is the internal Palestinian conversation. Where is Abu Mazen in all of this?” Farzakh told MEE, referring to Abbas’ colloquial name among Palestinians. 

“It’s likely that Gaza is going to be its own thing. Everybody’s going to pay lip service to the West Bank and Gaza Strip being one territory, but in reality, we’re going to have a different entity there, just like East Jerusalem is separate from the West Bank.”

Ultimately, the Arab proposal for post-war Gaza would not have happened without Trump “showing leadership” on the issue regardless of his positions in other areas, Farzakh said.

“When Trump says Egypt needs to take a million Gazans, and suddenly all the Arabs are unified now, and they meet within a few seconds and they have time to come and visit, I mean, it’s proof – [Trump is] making the point that the US has much more leverage there.” 

And breaking with the established rules is necessary for change, Hassan said. 

“We’re in a moment where we need to try new policy,” she told MEE. “And it’s beyond a doubt that if you want to see a stable situation in Gaza, if you want to get to a permanent political solution, where Palestinians and Israelis can live in security, you’re going to have to deal with the players on the ground.”