It’s too soon to tell whether the ongoing negotiations with Hamas will yield an agreement, or rather an "arrangement," between Israel and the organization that features prominently on the West’s list of terrorist groups. For now, the Israel-Hamas (indirect) contacts have resulted in a rare agreement between the radical Israeli right headed by Naftali Bennett, the leader of HaBayit HaYehudi, and the head of the center-left opposition, Knesset member Tzipi Livni. Bennett warned, “The terrorists will learn that terror pays, and Israel’s deterrence will be harmed.” Livni said the one thing Israel must not do is send a message to Hamas indicating that “we pay those using violence against us and shooting at us.”

Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas political bureau, bolstered the criticism by these polar opposites in a sermon he delivered Aug. 21 in the Gaza Strip. “This is the result of your determined stand and your struggle,” the Palestinian leader told the Palestinians regarding the emerging deal. He then pledged, “The Palestinian resistance organizations will maintain their status as the shield and defenders of the Palestinian people.” Haniyeh insisted that his organization was not paying a political price for the deal that would bring humanitarian aid to Gaza, and declared that the “ultimate deal” US President Donald Trump promised to make between Israel and the Palestinians was “clinically dead.”

He was probably referring to Trump’s speech that same day in West Virginia, where Trump said that by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel he had taken the explosive issue off the negotiating table with the Palestinians and upped the price that Israel would have to pay as part of the “ultimate deal.” His envoy Jason Greenblatt tweeted in the same vein last week — in Hebrew, Arabic and English — “No one will be fully pleased with our proposal, but that is the way it must be if real peace is to be achieved. Peace can only succeed if it is based on realities."

Sadly, reality is such that true peace requires difficult ideological and political concessions, which neither the Palestinian resistance organizations nor the Israeli government are willing to make. To thwart a permanent, two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Muslim zealots (Hamas) are willing to forego a cease-fire with Israel, and even to accept partial reconciliation with their sworn rival Fatah. With that same goal in mind, the Netanyahu government invited its sworn enemies to the negotiating table in order to reach a short-term cease-fire.