The Social World

Tag: Bibi Netanyahu

  • Did Bibi miscalculate?

    In her new memoirs, 107 Days, Kamala Harris recounts that in July 2024 she had an important meeting about Israel and the Gaza Strip. Harris, who was running for the presidency, hoped to show that she could pressure Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu into reaching a ceasefire with Hamas. “Netanyahu’s hooded gaze and disengaged demeanors,” she writes, “made it clear to me that he was running out the clock.” His only goal was a temporary ceasefire and to undermine the Biden administration. “He wanted Trump in the seat opposite him,” Harris recalls. “Not Joe, not me. Netanyahu wanted the guy who would acquiesce to his every extreme proposal for the future of Gaza’s inhabitants and add his own plan for a land grab by his developer cronies.”

    But did Bibi miscalculate? Right now, Trump is pressuring him to stop bombing Gaza and to reach an accommodation with Hamas as the two sides negotiate in Egypt. On Truth Social, Trump declared, “I am told that the first phase should be completed this week, and I am asking everyone to move fast.” Trump was right. Speed is of the essence. The longer the negotiations last, the greater the chance of a hiccup.

    But for Netanyahu and his chums, Trump’s pressure could not be more unwelcome. The dream of expelling the Palestinians from the Gaza strip and even annexing the West Bank remains just that. For Netanyahu’s truculent coalition partners it is a cold dose of reality administered by an American president prepared to strong-arm his Israeli counterpart.

    Trump’s sudden embrace of a peace plan shouldn’t come as a big surprise. It is further testament to his unencumbered approach to foreign affairs, whether it’s Ukraine, NATO or the Middle East. “The heart wants what it wants,” Woody Allen once remarked. Something similar could be said about Trump. He wants what he wants. And he often gets it.

    Netanyahu should have been more perceptive. The Middle East was Trump’s proving ground in his first term, the region where he struck the Abraham Accords. Now Trump wants to build on them in the hopes, however evanescent, of securing a Nobel Peace Prize. To accomplish that goal, he has no compunctions about chastening Netanyahu and insisting upon an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

    How successful he will be remains an open question. Hamas is apparently demanding the release of some of its most sinister figures – terror chiefs Marwan Barghouti, Ahmad Saadat and Abdullah Barghouti.

    Will Hamas actually surrender its remaining hostages, not to mention its weaponry? Will it accede to an international board running Gaza? Its sanguinary record provides ample reason for doubts about its intentions, no matter what Trump and his vice president J.D. Vance may aver about the prospects for an agreement.

    Meanwhile, Israel is about to release further members of the Global Sumud Flotilla. Led by the activist Greta Thunberg, the flotilla had hoped to break the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. The convoy of 42 boats was intercepted by Israel and the prisoners are alleging inhuman conditions. They will be able to amplify their claims to a receptive western press when they are deported to Greece today.

    Their self-appointed mission, however, is likely to be overshadowed by the ongoing negotiations in Egypt. Even Iran has welcomed the termination of the conflict, though it was careful to stipulate that any agreement “does not negate the responsibility of governments and competent international institutions to pursue legal and judicial action against the crimes of the Zionist regime.” Zionist regime? Some things never change in the Middle East.

  • Trump has boxed in Netanyahu and Hamas

    Trump has boxed in Netanyahu and Hamas

    Hamas did not wait long to accede to Donald Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan – or at least accept it with conditions. It didn’t really have a choice. The same can be said for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu who was forced to accept a deal that he never wanted in the first place. Give credit where it’s due: Trump boxed in both Netanyahu and Hamas. For Trump, the pending agreement is a big accomplishment. It may not win him a Nobel but the aim is noble.

    With his usual flair for the dramatic, Trump responded to Hamas’ offer to release the remaining hostages by declaring, “I believe they are ready for a lasting PEACE.” He stated that “the bombing of Gaza must stop immediately.” He added that the details are being worked out, but breathed optimism about the outcome.

    Netanyahu, who presides over a fractious right-wing coalition, has been intent on prolonging the war. The crafty prime minister may have preferred to continue pounding Hamas, but his very audacious moves have created the context for Trump’s peace plan. He neutered Hezbollah in Lebanon. He attacked Iran. Add in the ouster of the Assad regime in Syria and you have a far more propitious moment for an actual Middle East peace deal.

    The blunt fact is that with the horrific October 7, 2023 attack, Hamas ended up isolating itself. The terrorist organization believed that it could topple Israel. The reverse occurred. Hamas was forced to accept the Gaza agreement because the Arab world has largely united against it. In particular Egypt and Qatar have pushed for a resolution to the conflict, one that will preclude Israel going on from Gaza to annex the West Bank (something that Trump himself has vowed he will not allow to occur).

    The pressure is now on for Israel and Hamas to reach a lasting agreement. Hamas stated that it supports the release of “all Israeli prisoners, both living and dead, according to the exchange formula contained in President Trump’s proposal, provided the field conditions for the exchange are met. In this context, the movement affirms its readiness to immediately enter into negotiations through the mediators to discuss the details of this.” The key questions are how far Israel will withdraw from the Gaza strip and what role, if any, Hamas would play in a future government.

    Then there is the issue of who gets to run Gaza in the interim. Trump has tapped former British prime minister Tony Blair, who has his own injudicious record in the region, to serve as the head of a board of peace. Not surprisingly, Hamas is balking at the prospect of an interim governing body, but it is more than likely to have to surrender on this point.

    Might Blair work to transform the Gaza strip into a new Trump Riviera? Rumors of a manufacturing zone named after Elon Musk are percolating in Washington. This past February, Trump released an AI-generated video of him and Musk cavorting on a beach called “TRUMP GAZA.” Perhaps the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change will prove more influential than anyone had hitherto contemplated.

  • Trump pitches Gaza peace plan

    Trump pitches Gaza peace plan

    Donald Trump is perhaps one of the world’s most gifted salesman. But as he was speaking at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today, even he had trouble selling his 20-point peace plan to end the war in Gaza.

    This wasn’t for a lack of trying. “Today is an historic day for peace,” Trump told the assembled press corps. Calling today “a beautiful day, potentially one of the great days ever in civilization,” Trump went on to outline in broad strokes his diplomatic initiative, which aimed to thread the needle between Netanyahu’s vocal objections to a Palestinian state and the Arab world’s demand that any plan put forth provide the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank with an opportunity to take control of their own future. Trump earned Netanyahu’s support and received buy-in from the Arab states, but the positions of those two actors will eventually clash. And that even assumes Hamas, which wasn’t given a copy of the White House’s draft agreement and is now only digesting the material, agrees to play along.

    There is some good in Trump’s 20-point plan. For instance, it stresses that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) will pull out of Gaza in a staged fashion as Palestinian police officers and their international supporters, presumably led by the Arab states, stabilize the enclave. Hamas will demilitarize and hand over its weapons, and those who renounce violence will be allowed to leave Gaza for a third-country. The hostages still in Hamas’s grasp will be released 72 hours after the accord comes into force, and humanitarian supplies will surge into the territory. Gaza, meanwhile, won’t be annexed by Israel; instead, it will be ruled by a consortium of Palestinian technocrats and international figures, where they will preside over a reconstruction and rehabilitation process until a reformed Palestinian Authority is up to the task.

    But even if Hamas agrees to such a scheme – and given the plan’s call for what is in effect Hamas’s complete and total surrender, it’s hard to picture the militant group doing so – the implementation problems will be gargantuan. The plan is loose on timelines and execution mechanisms. Although the so-called International Stabilization Force will cooperate with vetted Palestinian police officers to dismantle the tunnels and terrorist infrastructure that still exist in the enclave, the criteria for what is considered adequate demilitarization – and which party determines whether demilitarization has succeeded or failed – is a big red flag. If Netanyahu holds veto power over this decision, then the phased troop withdrawals the Israeli military signed onto will be delayed for as long as possible. We can say this with a reasonable degree of certainty because Netanyahu was very reticent to pull the Israeli military back during the January truce. The reticence has thinned out with age.

    Trump doesn’t want Israel to annex Gaza, and he made that position clear in his plan. Commentators will refer to this item as a big deal. In reality it’s the definition of low-hanging fruit. First, rejecting Israeli annexation is simply a reiteration of decades of bipartisan U.S. foreign policy on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Second, Trump has a personal interest in kicking the annexation can down the road because whatever hopes he may have of expanding the 2020 Abraham Accords will be extinguished the moment Israel goes down that path. He can kiss an Israeli-Saudi normalization agreement goodbye in such a scenario, and you can bet that somebody in the president’s orbit – perhaps his son-in-law Jared Kushner – brought this to Trump’s attention.

    Netanyahu, however, isn’t following Trump’s schedule. As important as retaining Trump’s support is, it’s not the be-all, end-all in the Israeli premier’s calculations. The people who hold this honor continue to be the hardliners, nationalists and extremists in the Israeli cabinet, including Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich and Israel Katz, who could destroy Netanyahu’s career by imploding his government. The first two men continue to harbor the dream of kicking out all of Gaza’s more than two million Palestinians, formally annexing it into the State of Israel and rebuilding – and expanding – the very Jewish settlements that were torn down back in 2005. Yes, Netanyahu accepted Trump’s plan and everything in it, but he’s a canny political operator and knows how to throw wrenches into a diplomatic process. It’s likely Netanyahu will play a similar game, as he’s done repeatedly when other Gaza peace negotiations were nearing the finish line.

    The biggest error in Trump’s scheme, however, was something that wasn’t even written into the plan. In essence, Netanyahu was gifted an escape clause. Trump stressed that Israel would have Washington’s full support for continuing the war if Hamas rejected the agreement.

    Many won’t find this comment objectionable. Yet for a guy who is supposedly a master negotiator and understands the power of leverage, Trump effectively killed whatever leverage he held over Netanyahu by giving the Israeli premier an incentive to do anything in his power to push Hamas into saying “no.” Even if Hamas accepts the deal with reservations, Netanyahu can now claim to Trump that the terrorist group is an intransigent party that can’t be reasoned with. The only alternative, the logic goes, is a resumption of the war.

    Sharing a stage with Trump in Washington, DC, Netanyahu laid it on thick and claimed that peace was just around the corner. But mark these words: once he lands back in Israel, Netanyahu will tell his coalition allies that the deal he agreed to is merely a general framework whose details are still to be negotiated. Trump will then have a decision to make: tether the United States even closer to Israel’s war in Gaza, try diplomacy again or wash his hands of the conflict.

  • Doha attack was a blast from the past

    Doha attack was a blast from the past

    Israel’s audacious strike against the leaders of the Hamas terrorist organization in Qatar exemplifies the Jewish state’s new security doctrine – one of boldness and risk-readiness. The Hamas massacre on October 7, 2023, was a watershed moment that reset security calculations in Israel in a significant way. The results are Iran’s proxy network defanged, and a Tehran shaken after its own 12-Day War with Israel. Many observers believe that Israel’s strikes in Qatar risk unraveling the Abraham Accords and undermining U.S. interests. But as past episodes have demonstrated, there is likely to be immediate outrage followed by a reversion to the status quo.

    On September 9, Israel shocked the world by launching a military operation to kill senior Hamas leaders who were gathering for a meeting at their longtime refuge in Qatar. Preliminary reports suggested that among the targets were senior officials Khalil al-Hayya, Zaher Jabarin, Muhammad Darwish, and Khaled Mashal. The strike took place on the territory of Qatar, which has long played both sides of the fence. It has created the impression it is a key U.S. partner in hosting an American airbase despite providing funding for Hamas, a U.S.-sanctioned terrorist organization with the blood of U.S. citizens on its hands and providing financial resources to media networks which incite hatred against Israel, putting Jewish Americans at risk.

    Public reporting indicates the strike was not successful in eliminating the top rung of Hamas leadership. There has also been handwringing that Israel’s daring attack – while tactically sensible – is nevertheless strategically unwise as it risks alienating the very Arab partners that Israel has been courting as a part of the Abraham Accords to counter the shared threat from Iran. Yet Israeli officials have been reframing it as achieving one objective in signaling that Qatar will no longer be immune from consequences in harboring terrorists.

    But history counsels that the initial alarmist reactions from Israel’s Qatar strike should be treated warily. This episode was reminiscent of two botched targeted killings in Israel’s history: in 1997 against then Hamas Political Leader Khaled Mashal in Jordan and in 2010 against Mahmoud Mabhouh in Dubai. In 1997, Netanyahu was prime minister as he is today. In that year, he ordered the assassination of Mashal in Amman. The timing of this decision came only three years after the Israel-Jordan peace treaty of 1994 – which is similar to the state of play in the current context with the Abraham Accords in force, even though Qatar is not a member.

    News accounts at the time reported that Israel’s prime minister authorized the operation against Mashal after a Hamas suicide bombing in Jerusalem. Fast-forward to today, Netanyahu similarly greenlit the strike on Hamas in Qatar following a shooting on Jerusalem’s Ramot Junction that killed six civilians and wounded 12 others.

    Then, as now, there was also sensitive diplomacy under way as Israel mounted a daring counterterrorism operation. In 1997, Jordan reportedly sent to Israel an offer for it to mediate a suspension of suicide bombings from Hamas. In 2025, Hamas was considering a U.S. proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages.

    Nevertheless, there were some differences. In 1997, Israel acted through the Mossad in fomenting a covert assassination plot. Today, the Mossad reportedly opposed the strike in Qatar, and it was instead done through the Israel Defense Forces, which resulted in it being a military attack.

    In the immediate aftermath of the Mashal poisoning, there were angry recriminations. King Hussein conditioned the release of two Israeli agents who were captured on Israel identifying the drug it used on Mashal so that his life could be saved. King Hussein had threatened to close the Israeli embassy in Jordan and hold a public trial for imprisoned Israeli operatives if Mashal died. There were fears about the future of Israeli-Jordan relations, damage it could do to the 1994 peace treaty, part of then-President Clinton’s legacy, as well as intelligence ties between Israel and Jordan.

    Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan observed in 1997, “I think it is an act of gross stupidity. We are always reminded that Israel is the only democratic state in the region… and yet you find the only democratic state in the region being associated with an act of terror.” Similarly, Qatar’s foreign minister in 2025 labeled the Israeli military strike on the Hamas compound “state terrorism.” Multiple news reports citing anonymous Arab diplomats have been warning that Israel’s attack against Hamas in Qatar risks making the Jewish state a pariah in the region, as opposed to Iran, and undercuts the spirit of the Abraham Accords, which is President Trump’s legacy as well as U.S. security guarantees.

    In the end, despite all the predictions of doom, the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty survived despite a temporary strain in relations.

    A similar dynamic played out in 2010 when Israel, with Netanyahu as prime minister again, killed Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, a co-founder of Hamas’s military wing, in a Dubai hotel. The local police then published CCTV footage which revealed embarrassing details about Israeli tradecraft and caused a rift in its relations with a few countries after non-Israeli passports were used in the operation. The killing took place just as the United Arab Emirates and Israel were engaged in sensitive and covert diplomacy to improve relations. Despite the warnings of rupturing relations, an Israeli cabinet minister visited Dubai in 2014 and the United Arab Emirates joined the Abraham Accords a decade later.

    It is true that the current geopolitical context is different from the previous episodes of Israeli targeted killings – especially with Israel increasingly isolated internationally over Gaza. However, this history of absorbable diplomatic fallout from Israeli targeted killings likely motivated Israeli decision-makers to take a gamble in the strike on Hamas in Qatar. While there are loud denunciations of Israel, skepticism should prevail over dramatic, substantive fallout. The Middle East has seen a version of this movie before.



  • Trump treads a fine line on Qatar and Israel

    Oops. The White House is claiming that President Trump directed the ubiquitous Steve Witkoff to warn Qatar that Israel was going to strike Hamas headquarters in Doha. But Qatari officials denied that they received any such warning.

    “What happened today is state terrorism and an attempt to destabilize regional security and stability, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is leading the region to an irreversible level,” Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani stated in a televised address. “These missiles were used to attack the negotiating delegation of the other party. By what moral standards is this acceptable?”

    Trump himself has been a study in inconsistency on the Israeli effort to target the Hamas leadership. On the one hand, he declared on social media that “unilaterally bombing inside Qatar, a Sovereign Nation and close Ally of the United States, that is working very hard and bravely taking risks with us to broker Peace, does not advance Israel or America’s goals.” On the other, he averred that “eliminating Hamas, who have profited off the misery of those living in Gaza, is a worthy goal.”

    The reason Trump is trying to spit the difference is, of course, that he wants to placate an aggrieved Qatar without openly denouncing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump’s caution may also be ascribed to the fact that there is no evidence that the attack was successful. Hamas is claiming that none of its senior leaders were killed. If so, the move was worse than a crime, to borrow Talleyrand’s famous phrase. It was a blunder.

    Trump has indicated to Al Thani that there will be no second strike, thereby ensuring that Hamas can operate with impunity. White House spokesman Karoline Leavitt says that Trump told Al Thani, “such a thing will not happen again on their soil.” Meanwhile, the fate of the hostages held by Hamas looks even more tenuous.

    Writing in the Washington Post, David Ignatius pointed out that “By undermining diplomatic options for ending the conflict, Israel has narrowed its path forward. Its only choice now might be military reoccupation of most of Gaza – something that Israeli officials say they badly want to avoid.” Some members of Netanyahu’s cabinet may be jonesing to occupy Gaza and extrude its inhabitants into Egypt. But whether Netanyahu himself wants to pursue that path is an open question. He may have reckoned that he could score a big success by blasting the leadership of Hamas into oblivion, then claim a grand victory over the terrorists who have been menacing Israel.

    Instead, he has created a chorus of international obloquy, as France, Germany and Great Britain, among others, denounce the Israeli move. In Trump’s own MAGA base dissatisfaction with Israel is mounting. At the recent National Conservatism conference in Washington, for example, American Conservative editor Curt Mills created something of a furor with his criticisms of the close ties between Israel and America. Mills asked, “Why are these our wars? Why are Israel’s endless problems America’s liabilities? Why are we in the national conservative bloc, broadly speaking, why do we laugh out of the room this argument when it’s advanced by Volodymyr Zelenskyy but are slavish hypocrites for Benjamin Netanyahu? Why should we accept America First – asterisk Israel? And the answer is, we shouldn’t.”

    With his attack on Doha, Netanyahu has ensured that the debate over Israel and America will only intensify. Quo vadis, Donald Trump?

  • What would an Israeli occupation of Gaza look like?

    In a decision of historic weight, the Israeli government has formally approved a plan to expand its military operation and establish full control over the Gaza Strip. This has come despite the opposition of Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, who raised pointed warnings during a meeting that began at 6:00 pm Israeli time last night and stretched late into the night. 

    Tensions between Zamir and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu surfaced throughout the protracted session, with several ministers directly challenging the chief of staff over his stance. Eventually, the Political-Security Cabinet voted by an “overwhelming” majority to endorse Netanyahu’s proposal to defeat Hamas through a combination of military occupation, strategic disarmament, and post-conflict governance.

    The new plan confirms what had been building for weeks: Israel is preparing to enter Gaza City and take direct control over what remains of Hamas’s operational stronghold. It is the most decisive phase of the war yet, and it carries with it a magnitude of risk, cost, and complexity that has few historical parallels in modern Israeli warfare.

    According to the statement released by the Prime Minister’s Office, the cabinet adopted five foundational principles to conclude the war. Firstly, the disarmament of Hamas, followed by the return of all hostages, living and deceased. Thirdly, the full demilitarisation of the Gaza Strip and permanent Israeli security control over Gaza. And finally, the establishment of an alternative civilian government – one that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority.

    These are not abstract aims. They reflect the growing consensus in Jerusalem that the status quo is unsustainable, and that partial solutions – international pressure, containment, diplomacy – have all run their course.

    Israel already controls a large percentage of the Gaza Strip. Through successive operations, including the recent “Gideon’s Chariot” campaign, the IDF has cleared and now holds areas such as Rafah, Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia, and large sections of Khan Yunis and Jabalia. But the northern corridor, including Gaza City, remains contested, and that is where the war will now focus.

    Who will take responsibility for civil life in Gaza once the guns fall silent?

    The cabinet’s decision follows months of strategic stalemate. Despite substantial battlefield success, Hamas remains operational. Crucially, the hostages taken during the 7 October 2023 attacks, while mostly returned (some alive and many not), have become pawns in a gruesome psychological campaign. Palestinian terrorist groups have refused further negotiations, releasing sickening propaganda videos of emaciated captives, including footage of one digging what he was forced to declare was his own grave. The videos are not just acts of cruelty but calculated provocations aimed at breaking Israeli will.

    That effort has failed. The government has now resolved to act, believing that the only way to secure Israel’s future and to rescue the remaining hostages is to dismantle Hamas physically, structurally, and politically.

    As part of this next phase, the IDF will initiate what is expected to be the largest civilian evacuation of the war, directing nearly one million Gazans from the north into central zones. There, humanitarian corridors and aid operations are being scaled up to accommodate a population already displaced multiple times. Israel insists that civilians will be kept outside combat zones, and aid will be delivered systematically under military supervision.

    Yet the challenges remain immense. Militarily, the IDF will be entering terrain that Hamas knows intimately, where tunnels, traps, and guerrilla tactics are expected. Politically, the idea of long-term Israeli ‘security control’ over Gaza without actual annexation or direct governance presents an unsolved riddle: who will take responsibility for civil life once the guns fall silent?

    Netanyahu has said Israel does not seek to govern Gaza. But the cabinet also rejected the Palestinian Authority as a viable alternative, owing to its corruption and unwillingness to properly abandon support for terrorism. The prospect of bringing in external Arab forces remains vague and possibly unworkable without significant international coordination and legitimacy.

    Still, for Israel, the calculus has shifted. The events of 7 October were not simply an outrage, they were a turning point. The goal now is not merely deterrence, but dismantlement. Not another ceasefire, but an end-state.

    Twenty years ago, Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza. Within a month, the rockets resumed. Within two years, Hamas ruled the enclave. The promise of that disengagement, peace through distance, collapsed under the weight of ideology and violence. What is being attempted now is, in essence, a reversal of that failure. To re-enter Gaza not to reoccupy it in perpetuity, but to crush the architecture of terror and replace it with something not yet defined but necessarily different.

    This may not be clean. It may not be swift. It may not even succeed. But for a government that sees no other viable path, and a public that, though divided, largely refuses to live under the threat of another 7 October, Netanyahu and his cabinet see it as the only course left to pursue.