Donald Trump wants to short tie Benjamin Netanyahu to prevent the ceasefire agreement in Gaza from blowing up at the first opportunity. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time this has happened.
For now, the tenant of the White House imposed his framework to achieve “lasting peace” in the region. He also managed to sneak into the meeting of the Israeli Cabinet that ratified the agreement with Hamas this Thursday to his special envoy, Steve Witkoffand his son-in-law, Jared Kushnerwho played an essential role in bringing the negotiations in Sharm el-Sheikh to a successful conclusion.
Trump is also scheduled to give a speech in the Knesset this Sunday at the invitation of Netanyahu himself. From the rostrum of the Israeli Parliament, he will defend the content of a fragile agreement that, however, managed to silence the sound of weapons in Gaza two years later.
From the outset, Bibi closed ranks with Trump’s plan. Not so much out of personal conviction, since he has rejected similar agreements in recent months, but out of environmental pressure.
Not only Hamas doubts Netanyahu’s true interest in fulfilling the agreement. Arab countries also maintain their reservations towards the Likud leader, focused on maintaining power at all costs to avoid his problems with Justice for as long as possible.
For this reason, as announced this Friday by the digital AxiosTrump personally assured Arab leaders that he would not allow Israel to violate the agreement.
The White House wants to dispel mistrust and, above all, take care of its relationship with Qatar, whose capital suffered an Israeli air attack in early September that had the objective of eliminating the entire Hamas delegation. Without regard.
Trump’s interest is such that last week he signed an executive order that considered any threat to the national security of the Emirate as a threat to the national security of the United States itself, a sort of NATO Article 5 a la carte.
This Friday, in addition, the newly renamed War Department, with Pete Hegseth At the head, announced having reached an agreement with Qatar that allows its air force to build facilities at the US air base in Mountain Home, Idaho.
Political calculation
Netanyahu now yes considered it profitable in political terms to seal a pact that guarantees the return of the 48 hostages, of whom only 20 are still alive, in the first 72 hours from the signing of the agreement. The kidnapped people will return, on paper, next Monday.
The price to pay is relatively low for the Israeli prime minister. It will have to partially withdraw its troops, which will go from occupying around 75 percent of Gaza to controlling just over half of the Palestinian territory, according to the agreed lines.
The Israeli authorities are also required to release from their prisons 250 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences, as well as another 1,700 Palestinians detained during the war in Gaza, when Hamas releases them.
But in the list released by the Israeli Ministry of Justice, despite pressure from Hamas, the name of Marwan Barghoutihistoric leader of Fatah, a figure on whom it would be possible to build a unified Palestinian leadership for the post-war period.
In addition to placing this and other obstacles to the establishment of the Palestinian State in the future, Netanyahu reiterated this Friday that Israel was “tightening the siege on Hamas from all fronts,” that the Islamist militia would be disarmed and that the Strip would be demilitarized.
“Hamas will be disarmed and Gaza will be demilitarized… If this is achieved the right way, much better. And if not, it will be achieved the hard way,” the Israeli prime minister insisted in a speech recorded from his Jerusalem office. A challenging message, in a campaign tone, that tried to recover its image as guarantor of the security of the State of Israel.
The Likud leader continues trying to erase the stain of October 7, which is why this Friday he recovered his commitment to “break the Iranian axis, of which Hamas is a central component” and defended his management of the war.
“Anyone who says that this hostage deal was always on the table is simply not telling the truth. Hamas never agreed to release all the hostages as long as our forces remained inside the Strip,” he said. “He only agreed when the sword was around his neck, and that sword is still there.”
But the Hamas leadership maintains its refusal to hand over its weapons unless Israeli troops leave Gaza. That issue, perhaps the most delicate of the peace process, will be the subject of debate in the coming weeks.
Real threats
Netanyahu’s media speakers tend to speak more clearly. “There is no phase two. That is clear to everyone, right? Maybe there will be a phase two one day, but it has nothing to do with what was just signed. The current agreement is a hostage release pact. It does not imply anything about the future,” the journalist wrote. What Segalin the prime minister’s orbit, the day Trump announced the agreement between Israel and Hamas.
Your strategy works. According to a recent survey by the polling firm Lazar Research, published in the pages of the newspaper Maarivhis party would once again be the most voted in the next elections, scheduled for October 2026.
It would obtain 27 of the 120 seats in the Knesset. Far from the majority, yes. But the opposition bloc would not reach the magic number of 61 deputies either.
“Bibi has had to accept that this is the end of the war, even if he doesn’t say it in those words… Now he will try to make the most of the situation. Everything is good for Bibi,” he summarizes. Anshel PfefferNetanyahu biographer and correspondent for The Economist.