Mitchell Plitnick
Mondoweiss / January 15, 2025
A ceasefire deal to finally stop the genocide in Gaza and bring about an exchange of captives appears to be at hand, but many questions remain. Among them is the role the incoming Trump administration played and what this says for his policy in the region.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump warned last week that if the Israeli hostages in Gaza are not released, “It will not be good for Hamas and it will not be good, frankly, for anyone. All hell will break out. I don’t have to say anymore, but that’s what it is.”
That statement is taking on much greater proportions as a ceasefire deal to finally end the genocide in Gaza and bring about an exchange of hostages held by each side (the term “hostages” is appropriate for the Palestinian prisoners Israel holds, though it is rarely used) might be at hand.
At the moment, there are more questions than answers about the potential ceasefire. First and foremost, will the Israeli Prime Minister accept it? What have the reactions in Israel been? Did Donald Trump actually tilt the balance to finally bring the ceasefire about? What are the prospects for the ceasefire to be permanent?
There are serious long-term implications in these questions, and some of them even provide some measure of hope.
Will Netanyahu finally say yes ?
The basic contours of the proposed ceasefire deal are essentially the ones that outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden put forth last May, when he falsely claimed it was an Israeli plan. Hamas accepted it then, and Netanyahu said no.
This time, it seems Netanyahu is considering it more strongly. Hamas has already given its consent to the deal again by approving the draft proposal without comments, meaning they asked for no changes. They are waiting for details of Israel’s withdrawal plan before giving their final approval.
Netanyahu has already met with far-right ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. Both have ranted publicly about how awful the deal is, but, crucially, Ben Gvir has stated that he would not bring down the government if the deal goes through. In Israeli political terms, this means he would quit the coalition but continue to support it in key votes, such as no-confidence votes, from outside the coalition.
Smotrich was slow to declare that he would leave the government, prompting Ben Gvir to call on him to do so.
Netanyahu now knows his government will survive a ceasefire agreement. That shift has combined with Trump’s pressure to end the genocide before he takes office to make Netanyahu more agreeable to the deal.
Until he actually says yes, however, it is not a guarantee. Netanyahu remains concerned with his legal troubles and so the need to remain in office under crisis conditions is still there for him. He would also be weaker politically without the far right in his coalition if he continues to pursue his “judicial reforms,” which is underway again these days. Centrist parties will support him over the ceasefire, but other initiatives, including the ongoing controversy over drafting ultra-Orthodox Israelis into the military and the attack on the Israeli courts will continue to threaten his government.
The calculus for Netanyahu has changed to one more favourable toward ending the genocide. But there are still incentives for him to reject the deal.
Did Trump really make the difference, and what does his involvement mean ?
Trump’s “unleash hell” statement was a surprisingly clever ploy. He made it sound as if he was threatening Hamas, when he was actually pressing Netanyahu.
The threat is meaningless to Hamas in the context of the horrific genocide that Gaza has been experiencing. Given the massive devastation and death that Israel, with full American backing, has wreaked upon Gaza, what more could Trump possibly do?
In reality, Trump’s claim exposed the hollowness of the pro-Israel, pro-genocide crowd that has repeatedly called for “more pressure” on Hamas rather than on Israel. From the day Israel’s onslaught began, Hamas has been under maximum pressure, as they have suffered massive losses in personnel, equipment, and support among Palestinians. Even if one believes that Hamas is indifferent to the civilian suffering in Gaza, that is as much pressure as could possibly be brought to bear. That’s why Hamas has been ready to agree to this deal since at least the first ceasefire in November 2023.
Trump, or some on his team, may have recognized that they had no leverage over Hamas, nor was any necessary. The leverage they had was over Netanyahu, a man who, despite his support for Trump, is not very warmly regarded by the incoming president.
Trump held Netanyahu at least partly to blame for the October 7 attack by Hamas, and famously accused Netanyahu of disloyalty, even saying “Fuck him” back in December 2021.
While feelings seem to have warmed in recent months with Netanyahu’s obvious support for Trump over Joe Biden, Trump is particularly sensitive to the widespread belief that he can be manipulated by others, with Netanyahu being a prime example. It is not a coincidence that Trump shared a video on his Truth Social account last week that was sharply critical of Netanyahu and painted a conspiratorial picture of how the United States is manipulated into wars by Israel.
Trump sharing that video sent a clear message to Netanyahu and to the American public that he intends to make the decisions about U.S. foreign policy.
With all of this behind him, Trump’s Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, had a lot of leverage in his meetings with Netanyahu. Given that Israel’s position on the ceasefire talks seemed to soften rapidly after those talks, it would seem Witkoff used it well.
Without knowing what was said in those meetings, it is impossible to say whether there were promises made if Netanyahu agreed to Trump’s wishes, threats issued, or, most likely, some combination of both.
What is abundantly clear, however, is that Joe Biden and Antony Blinken’s repeated claims that “they can’t tell Israel what to do” were just as bogus as their detractors have repeatedly claimed all along. Clearly, Trump could and did use his leverage over Netanyahu to push him toward the agreement. True, we have still to see whether that push was enough to actually get Netanyahu to an agreement, but the combination of the changed regional environment, the growing support in Israel for an end to what they call a war, and pressure being applied on Netanyahu for the first time since this all began have had a very significant effect.
Even if Netanyahu agrees, will the ceasefire last ?
If Netanyahu does agree to the ceasefire, he has every reason to see it through at least until the first stage of the hostage exchange is complete. All the same incentives that would lead him to agree in the first place will remain until that is done.
Those factors cover the first phase of the agreement, which will take six weeks to complete. After that, the far-right flank has warned they will become more active in their opposition to the rest of the deal.
Still, if Netanyahu does not complete the full hostage exchange, he will have to be very convincing in telling the Israeli public that it is Hamas that is breaching the deal. It won’t be an easy sell, as Hamas seems prepared to do whatever is necessary to uphold a ceasefire. But because details of that second phase are supposed to be worked out during Phase I, there will be plenty of opportunities to sink the deal.
It is the third stage of the ceasefire agreement, which offers no further gains to Israel but is focused on rebuilding Gaza and reconstituting some sort of governing authority there, that Netanyahu and the far-right would most like to thwart. If the hostages are freed and fighting resumes at that point, attention from both Washington and the Israeli public will be significantly diminished.
Whether he torpedoes the deal or not will depend on what, if anything, Israel and the Trump administration envision for Gaza going forward. Is Trump willing to allow Netanyahu to appease his far-right flank and build new Jewish-only settlements in Gaza? Does Trump still cling to being able to use Gaza to build a seaside resort, as his son-in-law, Jared Kushner once suggested? Are they willing to allow a Palestinian leadership, or even elections, in Gaza?
This part is too far down the road for easy predictions now, but these questions may be answered by a renewed effort by Trump to broker a normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia, something Biden tried very hard and utterly failed to do. That will be very tempting for Trump, and the conditions the Saudi leadership, starting with Crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS)—with whom Trump has a smoother relationship than he does with Netanyahu—will have to include a commitment to a Palestinian state and a Palestinian leadership in Gaza.
That vision was emphasized by outgoing U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in his speech on Tuesday. “ Israel will have to accept reuniting Gaza and the West Bank under the leadership of a reformed PA. And all must embrace a time-bound, conditions-based path toward forming an independent Palestinian state. These principles are mutually reinforcing,” Blinken told the Atlantic Council.
Netanyahu has enjoyed demonizing the quisling Palestinian Authority, but they are currently strengthening their case for having a significant role in Gaza by performing their accustomed role as enforcers of Israel’s occupation in Jenin. The PA’s crackdown on militant groups in the West Bank city and surrounding areas is, in part, meant to convince the Trump administration and Arab leaders that they can “control” the remaining people in Gaza.
The talks about Gaza’s future will have to include the PA, and Netanyahu’s reaction to that will tell us much about the prospects of governance in Gaza, where no option that could realistically lead to Palestinian freedom is likely to be pursued. Beyond that, the need for real representation, as chosen by the people of Palestine, continues to be beyond the consideration of any of the state parties involved, western or Middle Eastern.
Above all, Trump wants to see the Middle East region return to its relatively quiescent state, and there is reason to believe he’ll get his wish. Iran, Hezbollah, Iraq, and Syria all have their own internal matters to deal with. Israel has effectively countered any possibility of significant attacks against it from any of those countries, and, if any such actions are to be launched in the future, it will be after enough time has passed for regrouping, rearming, and developing a better strategy than the ones Israel so brutally defeated in 2024.
That suits Trump well. He doesn’t want to have to spend time and energy on complicated foreign affairs, especially in the early days of his administration. His focus, he hopes, will be on pressing his domestic agenda, reorganizing government to give the President more control and freedom and stifling avenues for dissent.
Netanyahu seems to have a sense of this as well. Clearly, Witkoff was able to press Netanyahu with incentives, whether positive or negative ones, and the Israeli leader knows very well that Trump has neither the zealous ideological devotion to Israel nor the political pressures that Joe Biden did.
But if Netanyahu is going to be convinced to see the ceasefire through, whatever carrots and sticks Witkoff used will have to come to bear even more convincingly and forcefully. Whether Trump is willing to go that far, and potentially risk angering his considerable base of Christian Zionist supporters, as well as other major Republican donors such as Miriam Adelson, remains to be seen. It is especially concerning since, by six weeks from now, Trump may have much less interest in this ceasefire.
Netanyahu does not want to anger Trump, especially at the beginning of his term, but he likely expects that, if he appeases Trump now, there will be opportunities for Israel to assert its will in the region down the road. In that, he is probably correct.
Mitchell Plitnick is the president of ReThinking Foreign Policy; he is the co-author, with Marc Lamont Hill, of Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics
