ISRAELI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reached the end of his latest trip to the United States and appears to have gained what he wants from President Donald Trump.
Trump hailed Netanyahu after their meeting on Monday, calling him a “hero” and saying Israel and by extension its prime minister had “lived up to the plan 100 percent” in reference to the US president’s signature Gaza ceasefire.
That is despite reports emerging last week that US officials were growing frustrated over Netanyahu’s apparent “slow walking” of the 20-point ceasefire plan imposed by the US administration in October – suspecting that the Israeli prime minister might be hoping to keep the door open to resuming hostilities against the Palestinian group Hamas at a time of his choosing.
Under the terms of that agreement after the exchange of all captives held in Gaza, living and dead, aid deliveries into the enclave and the freezing of all front lines – Gaza would move towards phase two, which includes negotiations on establishing a technocratic “board of peace” to administer the enclave and the deployment of an international security force to safeguard it.
So far, Netanyahu has not allowed in all of the required aid that Gaza desperately needs and is also maintaining that phase two cannot be entered into until Hamas returns the body of the last remaining captive. He has also demanded that Hamas disarms before Israel withdraws its forces, a suggestion fully endorsed by Trump after Monday’s meeting.
Hamas has repeatedly rejected disarmament being forced upon it by Israel, and officials have said that the question of arms was an internal Palestinian matter to be discussed between Palestinian factions.
So is Netanyahu deliberately trying to avoid entering the second phase of the agreement, and why would that be the case?
Here are four reasons why Netanyahu might be happy with things just as they are:
Netanyahu’s ruling coalition is, by any metric, the most right wing in the country’s history. Throughout the war on Gaza, the support of Israel’s hardliners has proven vital in shepherding the prime minister’s coalition through periods of intense domestic protest and international criticism.
Now, many on the right, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, oppose the ceasefire, protesting against the release of Palestinian prisoners and insisting that Gaza be occupied.
Netanyahu’s defence minister, Israel Katz, has also shown little enthusiasm for honouring the deal his country committed to in October. Speaking at a ceremony to mark the expansion of the latest of Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, Katz claimed that Israel’s forces would remain in Gaza, eventually clearing the way for further settlements.
Katz later walked his comments back, reportedly after coming under pressure from the US.
Allowing an international force to deploy to Gaza would limit Israel’s operational freedom, constraining its military’s ability to re-enter Gaza, conduct targeted strikes or pursue Hamas remnants within the enclave.
So far, despite the ceasefire, Israeli forces have killed more than 400 people in the enclave since agreeing to halt fighting on October 10.
Politically, agreeing to an international stabilisation force, particularly one drawn from neighbouring states, would broaden what Israel has often seen as a domestic war into an international conflict with many of the strategic, diplomatic and political decisions over that conflict being made by actors outside of its control.