With the president about to visit the Middle East, Netanyahu’s Gaza plan is testing his instincts to just get things over with already
Whether Israel embarks on a new occupation of Gaza, as per a plan approved this week, will depend on the pleasure of one man: not Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but United States President Donald Trump. Odd, I know; but also not so odd.
Israel’s security cabinet voted unanimously on Sunday in favor of a new war that officials described as the “occupation” of the territory. While many on the Israeli far right have agitated for the reoccupation of the strip, Israel until recently had shied away from using such overt language in describing its goals in its 18-month-long war against Hamas. Now, “we will stop being afraid of the word ‘occupation,’” Bezalel Smotrich, Netanyahu’s ultranationalist finance minister, told Israel’s Channel 12 TV. “Once the new offensive in Gaza begins, there will be no retreat from the territories we have conquered, not even in exchange for hostages.”
This runs totally counter to the Israeli public’s preference to ending the war – as Israel agreed to do in the January ceasefire that it unilaterally walked away from about a month ago.
Amid this insanely complex situation, Trump — a man of simple inclinations, like self-dealing — will be crucial in determining whether Israel actually pursues a new occupation of Gaza, 20 years after its first one ended in a unilateral pullout of all soldiers and settlers in 2005. The time for it is during next week’s trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Most Israelis know an occupation of Gaza would be an ugly affair in which the soldiers will be sitting ducks for militants embedded within a population of two million. Economists have warned that the costs of administering the territory and provided services to its population will be staggering.
The government has proven indifferent to all this, because Netanyahu’s primary calculation appears to be keeping his coalition intact – whereas Smotrich and his fellow ultranationalists had credibly threatened to bring him down should he end the war.
But whereas Netanyahu can ignore the public, since elections are not scheduled until the end of 2026, he cannot ignore Trump. Without American weapons and spare parts, or Washington’s diplomatic umbrella at the United Nations and with countries who might otherwise implement the international arrest warrant against Netanyahu, the war cannot continue.
Trump has already shaped the course of events in Gaza twice.
The first time was when he compelled Netanyahu in January – in the days before he even took office – to agree to the cease-fire deal which would have, over several stages, ended the war in exchange for all the remaining hostages (at this point there are 59, of which perhaps 24 are thought to be alive).
The second was in February, when he gave Netanyahu the green light to resume the war. That was when he also floated the idea of relocating Palestinians en masse and transforming Gaza into a gleaming real estate development — “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
Interestingly, Trump’s notions that the U.S. would “buy” and “own” Gaza, ridiculous though they were, had a positive effect. Arab states panicked, and the result was a hastily organized summit in Cairo, where the Arab League endorsed an Egyptian-led plan to rebuild Gaza under Palestinian Authority governance – but with very active Arab League involvement, possibly even on the security side – and massive reconstruction funds from the Gulf.
Hamas tentatively accepted the plan in principle, which is not surprising since there was no mention of the group disarming – only, implicitly, stepping back from actual governance of a territory that is at present a ruin. And it was met with immediate rejection by Israel, which said it was “rooted in outdated perspectives” – which was a reference to the Palestinian Authority which has since the 1990s governed the autonomy zones of the West Bank (and which Hamas expelled from Gaza in a 2007 coup).
Still, the Egyptian plan is the only viable non-military framework on the table.
Trump may have other fish to fry on his trip – various economic deals, and possibly a strategic agreement with Saudi Arabia. But his track record, for all his bluster and bellicosity, suggests he is also not a fan of forever wars – indeed of any wars. Witness his rejection of Israel’s prodding (and mine!) to threaten war against Iran; he seems to be headed for a rather accommodating deal on de-weaponizing Tehran’s nuclear program instead.
As I told Al Jazeera today, if Trump wanted to also quash what is looking like the expansion of Gaza into a permanent war, he could devote much of the trip to compelling the Arabs to improve their deal. This would mean seriously pressing Hamas to lay down its arms and incorporate some units into the PA forces, possible exile for its leadership, and a complete shutdown of all shadow financing to the group. A serious sweetener would be the revival of plan for peace for Israel wih Saudi Arabia – a plan that Oct. 7 derailed.
