The levels of mistrust and violence between the two adversaries are such that the United States, as the weapons supplier to the IDF, second only to Germany and England, cannot possibly be viewed as an honest broker.

To see the hostages as anything but pawns to both sides would involve cognitive dissonance.

Netanyahu does not want peace...that may come after January 20, 2025, when the new US President is inaugurated...and Netanyahu wants Trump.

And as Ms. Harris will not speak out against Israel's depredations during this pre-election season, Netanyahu continues to stall and kill more Palestinians and take more land.

It explains the wanton destruction taking place in the West Bank. The more land Israel steals before then, the better chances of holding on to said avaricious gains if the wrong President is elected.

Back to the main, whatever the outcome, it must be a peace process with all three phases agreed upon and a UN peace force deployed.

To agree to anything less would be to naively trust Israel.

After the peace treaty is signed, Israel and the Palestinians must go through a Truth and Reconciliation process.

And that won't be pretty.

Then Gaza and the West Bank can finally be unified, as promised in 1948, and the settlers removed from the West Bank, especially Samaria and Judea...talk about a blatant declaration of malicious intent.

This is imperative if Israel wishes to be seen as a nation willing to abide by the very UN charter it signed.

Most everything else at this time is a smoke screen.