Filip Jacobson: Backing away from several red lines * Trump’s accession tongue in cheek
“Is it a joke?” Joe Biden’s answer to the question, to whose credit it is that a truce settlement is now in place, has already traveled around the world and back. But then a half-truth also has time to go quite far before the truth has time to put on its shoes.
Because most analysts are pretty much in agreement: Qatar’s prime minister would not have been able to announce the ceasefire and hostage exchange on Wednesday evening if it weren’t for the pressure US President-elect Donald Trump put on both Hamas and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump’s pressure decisive
The settlement may be based on the Biden administration’s proposal from last spring, but the tongue in cheek is probably spelled Donald Trump. Ever since the election victory, his goal has been clear: a ceasefire and the release of the hostages.
But it is not only Netanyahu who has tasted Trump’s pressure. A week ago, Trump promised that all hell would break loose if a deal wasn’t in place by January 20. “It’s not going to be good for Hamas, it’s frankly not going to be good for anybody,” he said during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago.
For Netanyahu and his most hard-line supporters, it is a particularly stark awakening. In Trump, they had counted on an ally who would give them a free hand. But as Haaretz defense analyst Amos Harel writes: “Trump is no admirer of Israel or Netanyahu. He acts based on a network of interests, focusing on America’s role in the world as well as personal status and prestige.”
With the deal, the Israeli prime minister backs down on several points that were previously called impossible to negotiate on. It is about the control of the Philadelphia Corridor between Gaza and Egypt; as well as the control of the Netzarim corridor that runs through central Gaza. Labeled as a terrorist, Hamas is indeed a shadow of what the group was on October 6, 2023, but it is not wiped out as Netanyahu promised.
Long way to go
So regardless of what Joe Biden says, Donald Trump and his administration will take credit for the truce that looks set to go into effect Sunday, a day before Trump is sworn in.
But let’s not fool ourselves. The agreement, drawn up over thousands of hours of negotiations in Qatar, Tel Aviv and Washington, does not mean a happy ending. All the thousands of civilian casualties in Gaza will not return. Those killed in the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023 remain dead. Countless lives have been destroyed. And at the same time, many questions still lack an answer. There is still no plan for Gaza once the war is truly over; who will control the strip of land, who will pay for the reconstruction? Will possible war crimes be investigated?
So no, the end is not yet good. But maybe, I say maybe, this is a step on the way. And hopefully it means, at least temporarily, a slightly less brutal existence for Gaza’s hard-pressed civilian population, as well as a start to the healing of Israeli wounds.
The question that hangs most heavily in the Tel Aviv air during Thursday morning is what condition the hostages who are released will be in. I see how the promenade fills up with Israelis exercising in the morning. Perhaps this is exactly what they are thinking about – or, when the hostages who are not included in the first phase of the settlement may be released. And at the same time, the news flashes keep coming. The death toll rises after overnight Israeli attacks in Gaza. This is far from over.