Soooo ... you're saying there's no chance?

Let me know if you've seen this movie before:

A three-stage deal to release the hostages held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza has been reached, and parties are awaiting Hamas’s response, a source told The Jerusalem Post on Monday morning.

This deal was reached after a midnight "breakthrough" in talks attended by envoys of both Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

The official said the text for a ceasefire and release of hostages was presented by Qatar to both sides at talks in Doha, which included the chiefs of Israel's Mossad and Shin Bet spy agencies and Qatar's prime minister. ...

“It seems to be going in a positive direction, but [we] must be careful. We know this from past experiences,” the source told the Post Monday morning.

"Past" experience? How about every negotiation since November 2023? For the past 14 months, negotiators in Qatar and Cairo have been forced to do the Hamas Hokey Pokey. The terrorist government in Gaza puts a concession in, they put a concession out, they put it back in and then shake it all about for their useful idiots in Academia and the Western media. Israel's allies then pressure Benjamin Netanyahu to offer more concessions to get Hamas to "negotiate" further.

That ain't the past -- it's the present. And until Hamas actually produces the hostages, the working assumption should be that everyone at the table is getting played. 

Especially given the man on whom the negotiators depend for that "final" agreement:

Israel’s Channel 12 reported on Monday afternoon, however, that the draft was received by Israel overnight and that it was broadly acceptable to Israel. It said the draft had been approved by Hamas leaders abroad, and “everything” now depended on the agreement of Hamas’s Muhammad Sinwar in Gaza.

A person familiar with the talks told the Associated Press that Qatari mediators had put pressure on Hamas to accept the agreement, while Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff had done the same in parallel talks with the Israeli team. ...

Another told Channel 13 that “if Hamas responds soon, all the details can be finalized within days.” The official added that “Israel has come a long way” in its efforts to accommodate Hamas in the negotiations.

I'll bet it has. And that would be exactly what Muhammed Sinwar wants, because Yahya's younger brother has big plans for Hamas in Gaza, the West Bank, and eventually Israel proper when he can restart the war. As the Wall Street Journal reports this morning, that's exactly what Sinwar plans once he can force Israel into ending the war while Hamas retains the capacity to regenerate:

Months of efforts to reach a cease-fire that would free many of the hostages still being held in Gaza have been fruitless, amid deep-seated disagreements over issues including Israel’s demand that it be able to continue the fight after a pause. 

Mohammed Sinwar has proved as stubborn as his older sibling in pushing for a permanent cease-fire that ensures Hamas’s survival, according to Arab officials mediating the talks. 

“Hamas is in a very strong position to dictate its terms,” Mohammed Sinwar wrote late last year in one message to mediators that was shared with The Wall Street Journal. He wrote in another message: “If it is not a comprehensive deal that ends the sufferings of all Gazans and justifies their blood and sacrifices, Hamas will continue its fight.” ...

Mohammed Sinwar is at the center of Hamas’s revival effort. When Israeli soldiers killed his brother in October, the movement’s officials, based in the Qatari capital, Doha, decided to form a collective leadership council rather than appoint a new chief. 

But Hamas militants in Gaza didn’t go along and now operate autonomously under the younger Sinwar, according to Arab mediators involved in cease-fire talks with Israel.

Any deal that freezes the conflict again between Hamas and Israel is doomed to failure. It would be the tenth major cease-fire agreement between the two in the last 19 years, and it will end exactly how the other nine did -- with Hamas launching another war of annihilation against Israel. The only way to end this war is to really end it, against Iran as well as against Hamas' billionaire clique in Doha. Hamas will never recognize Israel nor act as a governing entity except only in the purest martial/military sense, as the last 19 years have proven over and over again.

If the Gazans want peace, they need to put an end to their Hamas problem. If they keep putting Hamas in charge, then they will have to pay the price for that choice. 

However, the odds of this agreement ever taking force are somewhere between slim and none. It's the same old Hamas Hokey Pokey, and when Hamas reneges again, Netanyahu will at least have the political cover to keep military pressure on Gaza until they cough up Hamas, or cough up their last chance to live as a political entity at all.