Hopes soar for peace in Gaza. This is a problem for Netanyahu

Jerusalem: This did not go the way Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted.

On Monday, the Israeli leader won a peace plan from President Donald Trump that promised him total victory, in the form of a take-it-or-leave-it message to Hamas. The militant group would have to release all the Israeli hostages remaining in the Gaza Strip within 72 hours, lay down its arms and surrender any role in the territory’s future — or Israel would be given a free hand to pursue the group’s destruction.

Protesters in Tel Aviv on Saturday (Israel time) call for an end to the war and the release of all remaining Israeli hostages.Credit: Getty Images

On Friday, responding to a new ultimatum from Trump, Hamas announced that it was ready to release all the hostages. But it said nothing about how soon it would do so, demurred on laying down its arms and said it wanted to “discuss the details” of Trump’s plan.

To Senator Lindsey Graham, a close ally of Netanyahu’s, this was “in essence, a rejection by Hamas” of the president’s proposal, he wrote on social media.

To Michael Herzog, Netanyahu’s former ambassador to the United States, it was “a ‘no’ cloaked as a ‘yes,’” he said in an interview.

Yet Trump embraced the Hamas statement as an unqualified “yes.”

“Based on the Statement just issued by Hamas, I believe they are ready for a lasting PEACE,” he wrote on social media. “Israel must immediately stop the bombing of Gaza, so that we can get the Hostages out safely and quickly!”

Netanyahu’s office waited several hours before responding, after 3am Israel time Saturday, that the country was ready for the “immediate release of all hostages.” It made no mention of Hamas’ conditions. Instead, it referred back to Trump’s peace plan, saying Israel would cooperate with the White House “to end the war in accordance with the principles set forth by Israel that are consistent with President Trump’s vision.”

The prospect of a return of the hostages and an end to the war buoyed hopes in Israel and Gaza on Saturday after nearly two years of brutal conflict and devastation.

But Netanyahu now finds himself squeezed by domestic political concerns and by geopolitical pressure from Trump and from Muslim and Arab nations across the Middle East. Countries far and wide greeted Friday night’s developments as if peace had already broken out.

“He will find himself with the entire world clapping, and he needs to explain why he’s against it,” said Eran Etzion, a former deputy national security adviser under three other Israeli prime ministers, and a senior foreign affairs official earlier in Netanyahu’s tenure.

A demonstrator in Madrid, Spain holds the Palestinian flag and a poster of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing him of terrorism and genocide.Credit: AP

In a nationally televised address Saturday night, Netanyahu did not reject the Hamas bid for negotiations. Rather, he made clear his desire to limit those talks to just a few days, and his intent to retain the option to revert to military action in the event that Hamas balks at laying down its arms.

Still, Trump’s call for the Israeli military to stand down immediately — with negotiations to follow between Israel and Hamas — could not have been welcomed by the prime minister, Etzion said. “These negotiations will be conducted under the conditions of a ceasefire, which is contrary to Netanyahu’s design,” he said. “Netanyahu wanted this all to take place under Israeli military pressure.”

The turn of events Friday night was also likely to threaten Netanyahu’s governing coalition. His right-wing partners had already been informed, through Trump’s Monday proposal, that they would have to abandon their dreams of forcing Palestinians to leave Gaza for good, allowing Israelis to settle and annex the coastal enclave. Now they were effectively being told that Hamas would not be going away after all, and might not even agree to disarm.

“I don’t see how his coalition partners can live with that,” said Shira Efron, an analyst on Israeli policy at Rand Corp, a think tank.

US President Donald Trump has treated the Hamas response to the 20-point plan as endorsement.Credit: AP

“If Netanyahu wants to market it as an achievement, he can,” she said, by noting the Trump plan would end the war, return the hostages, replace Hamas with some other entity to govern Gaza, and bring Arab and Muslim nations in to help with the stabilisation and reconstruction of the enclave.

“But his partners were hoping for a different story,” Efron said. “An unrealistic story.”

What is realistic, of course, is far from certain. As hopeful as the initial statements from Hamas and Israel may have sounded to those desperate for an end to the war, many potential obstacles stand in the way, analysts said, including delaying tactics and outbreaks of violence.

“It’s not over yet,” said Eyal Hulata, who was Israel’s national security adviser under Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and now is a fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, a think tank.

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What worried Hulata most, he said, was the possibility that Hamas and Netanyahu were merely playacting — tailoring their statements “to appease President Trump’s demands” but with “no intention of doing what it takes.”

Still, some were daring to hope — and not just for an end to the Gaza war.

Etzion argued that Netanyahu had become so isolated on the world stage that it was possible now to envision a post-Netanyahu Israel and even a rebirth of a broader peace process with the Palestinians.

He said there was “the regional and international climate, even potentially the internal Palestinian climate,” for a renewed political process. “Nothing is easy, but it’s possible, if we have a ceasefire.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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