Forget Trump — agreeing to a ceasefire was Netanyahu’s own calculation
Israelis call for the release of hostages in Gaza outside the Defense Ministry HQ in Tel Aviv, 7 September 2024.
Meron Rapaport writes in +972 on 17 January 2025:
Almost immediately after the announcement that Israel and Hamas had agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza, a consensus emerged in the international and Israeli media: pressure and threats from President-elect Donald Trump is what led Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to finally agree to a deal that had been on the table since May 2024. The story about Steven Witkoff, Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, who arrived in Jerusalem on Saturday morning and informed Netanyahu that he had no intention of waiting until the end of Shabbat to speak with him, is fast becoming folklore.
“There would be no deal had the great and mighty Donald Trump not taken Netanyahu’s hand, bent it behind his back, then bent it a little more, then a little more, then pushed his head onto the table, then whispered in his ear that in a moment he will kick him in the balls,” Haaretz journalist Chaim Levinson tweeted on Wednesday, summarizing the general sentiment. “It’s a shame Biden didn’t realize this a long time ago.”
We don’t know exactly what was said during the conversation between Witkoff and Netanyahu. It is possible that Trump did threaten Netanyahu and that the Israeli prime minister feared the president-elect’s wrath. But a closer look reveals that there are different dynamics at play. In reality, the decision to accept the ceasefire deal appears to have less to do with Trump than with the shifting perception of the war inside Israel.
Let’s rewind: right after returning from his first visit to Israel after the Hamas attack of October 7, President Biden warned Israel not to reoccupy Gaza. He also said he was convinced that “Israel will do everything in its power to avoid killing innocent civilians,” and that he was confident Gaza’s population would have access to medicine, food, and water. Biden additionally warned Israel not to repeat the mistakes the United States made after 9/11 and not to let the desire to “deliver justice” take over. Netanyahu listened to all of this, then did the opposite.
Throughout the war, Israel summarily ignored American warnings, even when they were accompanied by explicit threats to halt weapons shipments — such as before Israel invaded Rafah last May, and as it starved northern Gaza in recent months. And while it is possible that Trump scares Netanyahu more than Biden, we must ask: if Netanyahu had refused to agree to the deal now, would Trump have stopped arms shipments to Israel or lifted the U.S. veto on anti-Israel resolutions at the UN?
Trump’s pick for U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, supports the territorial maximalism of the Israeli far right and doesn’t believe in the word “occupation.” Would Trump’s administration really do something no American administration has ever done before? So, while Trump’s pressure is undoubtedly significant, we should look at what is happening within Israel.
As I predicted less than two months ago, shortly before the ceasefire in Lebanon: “Ending the war in the north will inevitably bring the Israeli public’s attention back to the war in Gaza, and questions about the viability of it continuing will resurface. Even if Trump gives the green light to continue the ethnic cleansing in Gaza, it’s not certain that this will be enough to convince the Israeli public. Whether or not Israel intends it to, ending the war in Lebanon may hasten the end of the war in Gaza.” That, in my reading, is exactly what has transpired.