Er … what? Whatever happened to “we don’t negotiate with terrorists”?
Check that — we’ve been negotiating with terrorists since the early 1980s in Lebanon. But this doesn’t make a lot of sense even apart from that, if Axios’ Barak Ravid has it correct, and he’s usually reliable. At the same time that Donald Trump argues to flatten Gaza and eject every resident within it, he has also authorized direct talks with Hamas to end the war and return the hostages — at least nominally cutting Israel out of the process:
The Trump administration has been holding direct talks with Hamas over the release of U.S. hostages held in Gaza and the possibility of a broader deal to end the war, two sources with direct knowledge of the discussions tell Axios.
Why it matters: The talks — held by U.S. presidential envoy for hostage affairs Adam Boehler — are unprecedented….
