Buckling to pressure, Israel’s leader agrees to a truce he will regret
Benjamin Netanyahu will be not the last US ally humiliated by self-centred presidential demands. The deal releases many hundreds of hardened Islamist criminals, now free to return to their murderous ways.
The ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas announced on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT) has implications nearly as momentous as the October 7, 2023, massacre that precipitated it.
The deal comes after 15 months of protracted indecision by the government of Israel, during which Jerusalem followed two contradictory policies towards Hamas: destroy the organisation; make a deal with it.
The first policy, victory over Hamas, clearly appealed more to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. By my informal count, he mentioned “victory” 216 times in 76 discreet statements, from the immediate aftermath of October 7 to lighting the Hanukkah candles three weeks ago.
At times, as in a statement on French television, his sentences amounted to a barrage of victory talk: “Our victory is your victory,” he said. “Our victory is the victory of Israel against anti-Semitism. It is the victory of Judaeo-Christian civilisation against barbarism. It is the victory of France.”
Nor did Netanyahu seek just plain victory. He spoke variously of “absolute victory”, “clear victory”, “complete victory”, “decisive victory”, “full victory” and “total victory”. Of these formulations, “total victory” led the pack, mentioned 81 times and showcased via a “Total Victory” baseball cap during a visit with former president Donald Trump.
Internal Israeli debates confirmed Netanyahu’s preference for victory. For example, Netanyahu banged on the table and told off his national security team, according to Israel’s Channel 12: “You are weak. You don’t know how to run a tough negotiation.” An informed source concluded: “He has given up on the hostages.”
But, simultaneously, Netanyahu came under enormous pressure to negotiate with Hamas for the release of Israeli hostages and thereby implicitly to permit the jihadi organisation to survive. In agreeing to haggle with Hamas, Netanyahu heeded two powerful lobbies, one foreign, one domestic.
Internationally, governments keenly sought a hostage deal because they sympathised with Hamas or they feared a conflagration across the Middle East. Institutions such as the UN and the International Criminal Court manifested the wide hostility towards Israel. Even friendly governments worried that fighting already encompassing Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, the West Bank, Gaza, Saudi Arabia, the Red Sea, and Yemen would further expand, perhaps dragging in their own forces, with ominous consequences.
Meanwhile, a domestic lobby pressured the government to make the return of hostages the paramount goal. Lobby members emoted, marched and engaged in political theatre, winning public opinion in the process. Polls consistently showed a huge majority prioritising hostages over victory.
One poll in October found 77 per cent of Israelis saying the “main goal” of the war in Gaza should be to bring the hostages home and 12 per cent saying it must be to topple Hamas.
One month later, another poll reported 69 per cent deeming a hostage deal “more important” and 20 per cent calling to continue the war until victory.
Politicians jumped on the bandwagon, Israeli President Isaac Herzog declaring: “There is no greater moral, human, Jewish or Israeli obligation than to bring our sons and daughters back to us.” Military leaders legitimised this sentiment. Major General (res) Noam Tibon announced: “The release of all hostages is the supreme mission of the war, before any other mission. And at the top of our priorities.” Major General (res) Amos Gilad went further: “No victory is possible over Hamas if it later turns out that not everything possible was done to retrieve them. An exchange is a matter of national security.”
Former Israel Defence Forces chief of staff Benny Gantz stated: “The hostages must be returned, even at a very heavy price.” IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari added: “We will do everything, everything, to bring all the hostages home” and “We remain committed to one central war objective – the return of the 109 hostages”.
Torn between his preference and these dual pressures, Netanyahu prevaricated for more than 15 months between victory and hostages. He ordered a military assault on Gaza that much reduced Hamas’s capabilities even as he signed a partial ceasefire deal with it. He ordered the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran while insisting that hostages remained his top concern.
Not reaching a decision allowed Netanyahu to postpone fraught choices and prevarication staved off a governing coalition collapse. In the end, however, he spurned his preference for victory in favour of the hostages and a decisive ceasefire. The complex, three-phase agreement includes many moving parts and extremely detailed provisions, such as how many and what kind of Palestinians are to be exchanged for what kind of hostage.
In outline, it calls for the release of 33 hostages in exchange for the release of more than 1000 Palestinians, including murderers, now in Israeli prisons; the withdrawal of Israeli troops from parts of Gaza; an increase in aid to Gaza; the return of Gazans in most of Gaza; and the opening of a border crossing to Egypt. Further, it requires that negotiations resume within 16 days of signing to work on the release of all remaining 65 or so hostages in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners released, the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, and a permanent end of hostilities.
In brief, as Israel Hayom’s senior diplomatic and White House correspondent Ariel Kahana puts it, “Israel is, with its own hands, helping its enemy to prepare to wage war.” Netanyahu obviously knows this, if only because prior exchanges have led to disaster, so why did he agree to an agreement that his own coalition partner Itamar Ben-Gvir called “horrific”?
Because he fears Trump. The president-elect stated on January 7 that “all hell will break out” in the Middle East if Hamas did not release the captives it held. That seemed to mean, as vice-president-elect JD Vance interpreted it, pressure on Hamas: “It’s very clear that President Trump threatening Hamas and making it clear that there is going to be hell to pay.”
But no. Trump dispatched private citizen but future presidential envoy Steve Witcoff to read Netanyahu the riot act. A report in Ha’aretz tells how Witcoff compelled Netanyahu to break the Sabbath for a meeting in which he was forced “to accept a plan that (he) had repeatedly rejected over the past half year”.
This new, aggressive approach, Ran Porat of Monash University says, obliged Netanyahu “to recalculate his positions, seeking to appease Trump”.
In an unexpected irony, Sanam Vakil of Chatham House notes “the Biden administration proved unwilling to exert adequate pressure over Israel’s leadership” but Trump did. Netanyahu stood up to timid President Joe Biden but acquiesced to cowboy Trump. Why did Trump push so hard for a deal? One can only speculate but I believe he was inspired by the events of January 20, 1981, when an aeroplane carrying all American hostages took off from Tehran moments after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president, leading to an ebullient and triumphal inauguration. Trump demanded a done deal before taking office on Monday to win a like glory for himself. Predictably, he lavishly praised on the “EPIC ceasefire agreement”, describing himself as “thrilled American and Israeli hostages will be returning home”.
He ignored, of course, the grievous future costs of his momentary success. The deal releases many hundreds of hardened Islamist criminals, now free to return to their murderous ways. It nearly assures continued Hamas rule in Gaza. It boosts Islamist morale worldwide. It humiliates the West’s foremost Middle Eastern ally. It also confirms Trump’s inconstant, unreliable and ego-driven foreign policy.
Netanyahu will be not the last US ally humiliated by self-centred presidential demands.
Putting this error in the context of George W. Bush’s over-ambition (“Mission accomplished”), Barack Obama’s shallow defeatism (“leading from behind”) and Biden’s geriatric passivity (the Afghanistan rout) clarifies the shambles of US foreign policy over the past quarter-century.
This leads to an inescapable conclusion: allies such as Australia must reduce their dependence on Washington. This may well be a good thing. Decreased reliance on American leadership concentrates the mind, exercises unused talents and encourages a seriousness of purpose. Thus does an incompetent US, as symbolised by the “horrific” Hamas-Israel ceasefire, push free countries more actively to determine their own futures.
Daniel Pipes (DanielPipes.org, @DanielPipes) is president of the Middle East Forum and author of the recently published Israel Victory: How Zionists Win Acceptance and Palestinians Get Liberated (Wicked Son).
