JERUSALEM – For months, the prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu Israel has refused to offer a timetable for ending the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, a reticence that its critics see as a political tactic. But he was thrown into doubt this weekend by President Joe Biden’s announcement outlining a proposed truce.
Netanyahu, a conservative, has long juggled competing personal, political and national interests. He now appears to be facing a difficult choice between the survival of his hard-line and aggressive government and bringing home the hostages held in Gaza, while also setting himself and Israel on a new course, away from increasing international isolation.
The prime minister’s critics have portrayed him as indecisive and say there are two Netanyahus: one who functions pragmatically in the small war cabinet he formed with some centrist rivals, increasing his public legitimacy; and another that is effectively being held hostage by far-right members of its government coalition, who oppose any concessions to Hamas and who guarantee its political survival.
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Biden on Friday outlined broad terms that he said were presented by Israel to American, Qatari and Egyptian mediators who have been pushing for a deal to stop the fighting and release hostages held in Gaza. Israeli authorities confirmed that the terms corresponded to a ceasefire proposal that had received the green light from the Israeli War Cabinet but had not yet been presented to the Israeli public.
Now, analysts say, is a defining moment for Netanyahu, or Bibi, as he is popularly known.
Biden “brought Netanyahu out of the closet of ambiguity and presented Netanyahu’s proposal himself,” wrote Ben Caspit, Netanyahu’s longtime biographer and critic, in Sunday’s Maariv, a Hebrew daily. “Then he asked a simple question: does Bibi support Netanyahu’s proposal? Yes or no. No nonsense and hot air.
The leaders of two far-right parties in the coalition – Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister, and Itamar Ben-Gvir, national security minister – have explicitly threatened to overthrow Netanyahu’s government if the prime minister agrees to the deal outlined by Biden before Hamas is completely destroyed. Some hard-line members of Netanyahu’s Likud party have said they will join them.
At the same time, Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, two former military chiefs who joined the emergency government during the war, threatened to withdraw support for their centrist National Unity party by June 8 if Netanyahu fails to come up with a solution. clear path forward. And opposition parties began to organize themselves to try to overthrow the government.
The ceasefire proposal involves three phases. They would see batches of hostages released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons; a temporary ceasefire would turn into a permanent cessation of hostilities, with the third phase involving an internationally supported effort to rehabilitate Gaza.
More than 100 hostages were released under a more limited agreement in November. An estimated 125 hostages, living and dead, are still being held by Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza.
Ophir Falk, Netanyahu’s top foreign policy adviser, said in an interview with Britain’s Sunday Times that Biden’s proposal was “a deal we agree to.” Adding that many details still need to be worked out, Falk said: “It’s not a good deal, but we really want the hostages to be released, all of them.”
Israelis had to analyze the two statements following Biden’s speech that Netanyahu’s office released, unusually, during Saturday. The statements did not strongly endorse the proposal nor did they deny that it had been presented to the mediators. Instead, they were conditional and open to interpretation – seemingly designed to leave Netanyahu’s options open.
The first statement said that Netanyahu authorized Israel’s negotiating team to present a proposal that would allow the release of the hostages and would also “allow Israel to continue the war until all of its objectives are achieved, including the destruction of Israel’s military and governmental capabilities.” Hamas. ”
The second reiterated these conditions for ending the war and added: “The notion that Israel will agree to a permanent ceasefire before these conditions are met is a failure.”
Notably absent, however, was Netanyahu’s oft-stated goal of “total victory” over Hamas in Gaza — a slogan Biden rejected on Friday as a vague goal that would mean an indefinite war.
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