Few thoughts on why Biden / Reagan comparisons for withholding weapons don't hold up. 🧵 1) As Michael Singh pointed out in The Wall Street Journal, stakes are much higher for Israel today. Also, PLO in Lebanon posed a security risk but not comparable to Hamas's genocidal ideology and Oct 7th. /

I'd add that the times pressure on Israel did work and was conducive like - War of Attrition, disengagement agreements with Egypt - the US gave considerable security assurances along with it. Doesn't apply today, where Hamas would remain intact and reconstitute itself.

Morocco was one of the first countries to eventually acknowledge and embrace Egypt's peace agreement with Israel, while others were busy kicking Egypt out of the Arab League and Organization of Islamic Cooperation. Unsurprising that Rabat followed suit with UAE & Abraham Accords.

Cole Bunzel’s Wahhabism: The History of Militant Islamic Movement is outstanding!

Israel: Here are the terms of our proposed ceasefire.
Hamas: No. We will fire rockets at your soldiers at a humanitarian aid entry.
Israel: Okay, we're going into Rafah.
Hamas: We accept a ceasefire we negotiated with ourselves.
Media: Hamas accepts ceasefire! They want peace!

This was more true for Revisionist Zionists. Mainstream Zionists like Ben-Gurion at times did hint at 'wanting more' but they were willing to forego this - their main priority was to secure statehood, protect the Yishuv, & stabilize relations with the Arab world / intl community.

Briahna accidentally makes the case for Zionism.

Sadat shows the importance of reaching out to the Israeli people and assuaging their security concerns to make genuine peace & secure territorial concessions.

Israel was also close to ceding the Golan Heights to Syria in the 1990s but Hafez al-Assad wasn't nearly as forthcoming.

Israeli Channel 12 got screenshots of Boston University Students for Justice in Palestine’s groupchat in October 7th.

The little bastards were hoping Hamas reached Tel Aviv.

Compare this with expulsion of PLO from Lebanon in 1982 (Sharon's antics / postwar mismanagement notwithstanding). The PLO was significantly weakened, failed to pose a security threat to Israel anymore, and was forced to come to negotiating table / moderate (on paper at least)