Donald Trump provided the X factor by putting heat on Binyamin Netanyahu, who insists the war isn’t over yet.
After more than 15 months of war and just five days before Donald Trump is inaugurated as America’s 47th president on January 20th, a ceasefire in Gaza was at last announced. The deal, struck on January 15th, is essentially the same proposal Joe Biden extracted from Israel in May.
It took eight months of tortuous mediation and the efforts of both old and new American administrations, Egypt and Qatar, to get Israel and Hamas, Gaza’s Islamists, to accept it. On January 16th Israel said that Hamas was reneging on some aspects but it has not yet been abandoned.
Mr Trump seems to have been the X factor. He made it clear to the Israelis he has no desire to enter the White House having to manage yet more war in the Middle East. That seems to have helped secure a deal in Lebanon, and now one in Gaza.
During the first phase of the truce, meant to last six weeks, Hamas will free 33 of the 98 Israeli hostages still in Gaza, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Further talks will be held to finalise the next stage of Israel’s withdrawal and the release of the remaining hostages.
It is too soon to say the war is over. Each stage is fraught with risk. It is unclear how many hostages are still alive (Israeli intelligence believes around half of them). Nor is it certain that Hamas can deliver them all, since some were captured by other Palestinian groups.
Israel, which currently occupies about a third of Gaza’s territory, is demanding security guarantees in future phases, which Hamas will be loth to accept. And Israel’s government still insists it is fighting for “total victory”, refusing to accept officially that the war could soon end.
Meanwhile Hamas is divided between its leaders outside Gaza, who have proved more flexible in the talks, and its surviving commanders in the enclave, led by Muhammad Sinwar, a younger brother of Yahya, the mastermind of the October 7th attack who was killed by Israel last October.
The younger Mr Sinwar now controls the fate of the Israeli hostages. He is eager to prove to Palestinians and the rest of Hamas that he can drive a tougher bargain in return for freeing the captives. He insisted on being the last to give his assent to the ceasefire and may yet scupper it.
In Israel, too, Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, still has to bring the accord to his cabinet, where his more radical ministers remain opposed to ending the war. He will almost certainly win that vote, but his government may collapse as a result. Still, now that he has promised Mr Trump a deal, it will be difficult for him to wriggle out of it, as he has done so often before.
Mr Trump’s approach is yielding results in part because his team has little truck with the diplomatic niceties of the outgoing bunch. When Mr Trump’s new envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, a New York real-estate mogul, arrived in Israel for talks on January 11th, he brusquely informed the Israelis he would not wait for the Sabbath to end to meet Mr Netanyahu.
But it is not just manners. Despite his five decades of support for the Jewish state, Mr Biden is less popular in Israel than Mr Trump. Mr Netanyahu could at least tell his supporters that by refusing Mr Biden’s demands he was standing up for Israel’s interests. His argument is less convincing when the Israeli right sees Mr Trump as friendlier than his predecessor.
If the ceasefire holds, what next? For over a year Mr Biden and his representatives have dangled the possibility of a grand bargain, which would include an official alliance between Israel and the Saudis, as an incentive for ending the war in Gaza and relaunching a diplomatic process that would lead eventually to a Palestinian state. Mr Netanyahu demurred. The deal with Hamas is a sign that he may finally be shifting in that direction, and not only because Mr Trump is more insistent.
In the past year Israel has gone to war with Hizbullah, the Iranian-backed Shia movement in Lebanon, destroying much of its military capabilities and eliminating its senior leadership. It has done the same to Hamas in Gaza. Mr Netanyahu claims to have “changed the face of the Middle East”. He has taken credit for the fall of the regime in Syria. Now he may be ready to secure what he believes would be his legacy as Israel’s long-serving leader: a deal with the Saudis which he hopes would weaken Iran and curb its regional ambitions.
To do so would probably mean losing his majority in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. His far-right allies have threatened to abandon him if Israel ends the war in Gaza. Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, called the deal with Hamas “terrible” and said it “squanders the achievements of the war so far in Gaza, which cost much blood of our fighters”.
Mr Netanyahu is trying to keep his radical partners on side by promising them that the war is not yet over. But those close to the prime minister acknowledge that unless Hamas throws a spanner in the works, he is now prepared to go the full course, even if it means losing his majority. Some opposition parties have committed to supporting the government to ensure the Israeli hostages are released, and once the deal is done, he believes he will be in a better position to face an early election.
Israel’s successes, against Hizbullah in particular, have revived Mr Netanyahu’s flagging popularity, at least somewhat. And a clear majority of Israelis now support a deal to end the war. In talks with the far right the prime minister has emphasised that the second stage of the deal leading to a full Israeli withdrawal and permanent ceasefire is far from inevitable. This is true, but Mr Netanyahu knows that a return to full warfare in Gaza would mean incurring the wrath of Mr Trump, a president whom, unlike the outgoing one, the prime minister fears crossing. ■
For this article in pdf, please click here:
Sign up to the Middle East Dispatch, a weekly newsletter that keeps you in the loop on a fascinating, complex and consequential part of the world.

Commentaires