Netanyahu peace plan veto prolongs Gaza’s misery

Those who were surprised by Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to reject outright US President Donald Trump’s 15-point plan for Gaza should ask themselves why. Even the fact that it took the Israeli prime minister a week and a half to respond fits the pattern of his behavior — self-serving procrastination. With just over two months before the general election, his only calculation appears to be how to consolidate his electoral base and protect his personal interests. The interests of the country and its people do not even come second.
It is not only the rejection of the second phase of Trump’s peace plan that should worry anyone who cares about the future of this conflict and the people affected by it. In his statement to the Israeli Cabinet at its weekly meeting, Netanyahu prefaced his rejection of the plan by vowing that “as long as I am prime minister, no Palestinian state will arise.” To add some more inflammatory flavor to his statement — his bread and butter at the best of times, and on steroids during election campaigns — he added: “Neither ‘Fatahstan’ nor ‘Hamastan’ (will be established).”
By rejecting a two-state solution and ruling out the creation of a Palestinian state, Netanyahu has defied not only the second phase of Trump’s 20-point peace plan from September last year, but the plan in its entirety. Although the Trump proposal contained no cast-iron commitment to a Palestinian state, it clearly indicated conditions leading toward “a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognize as the aspiration of the Palestinian people.” Netanyahu has now said that this will not happen on his watch. Worse, by using inflammatory language and referring to Palestinian political movements as terrorist groups, he leaves little room for negotiating any peaceful political settlement with the Palestinians as long as he remains at the helm.
What he is promising Israeli voters, and, by extension, the Palestinian people, is that they are doomed to endure a never-ending war and conflict. At least Israelis can change this through the ballot box; Palestinians outside the Green Line do not enjoy even that opportunity.
Netanyahu’s position cannot be sugar-coated for Washington. His total rejection of the Trump plan is an affront to the US president, as well as to the other mediators who have worked tirelessly to reach this deal. Imperfect as such agreements inevitably are, by avoiding calculated risks, Israel will remain entrenched in Gaza with predictable consequences. Netanyahu’s decision to keep the explosive situation in the enclave as it is — at a time when Hamas is strengthening its position by consolidating control over the population and rearming, and while the Israeli military and the militant group remain in close physical proximity — is a recipe for hostilities to resume sooner rather than later.
The Israeli demand that Hamas, or any other organization, must not be able to threaten Israel’s security or inflict anything resembling the Oct. 7 attacks requires little explanation or justification. Nevertheless, the difference between insisting on such security guarantees and snubbing the entire deal out of hand, principally as an election stunt, is enormous.
For now, it seems that Washington, including Trump, has received this act of utter defiance with a degree of restraint, almost stoicism, not to mention a hint of acceptance, or even acquiescence. The unofficial explanation is that it is election campaign season, probably the toughest in Netanyahu’s long and destructive political career, and that the Israeli prime minister is doing this to improve his electoral prospects and perform better than opinion polls suggest.
This is hardly convincing, and even less remotely justified, when such a stance prolongs the suffering of millions of people in Gaza and risks escalating the volatile situation there. None of this serves anyone’s interests apart from those who believe that it will help them perform better in the Israeli election.

Netanyahu’s total rejection of the Trump plan is an affront to the US president.

Yossi Mekelberg

But this leaves an important question: For what purpose would the US administration want to help a failed government that has also led, or misled, its country into the Iranian adventure, causing enormous damage to American interests and those of its allies? It also leaves the US looking weak at a time when the Tehran regime is testing American resolve and determination.
Netanyahu could have chosen a different route. He could have insisted on tighter international guarantees for the disarmament of Hamas in return for a gradual Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. He could have discussed with Hamas, through the mediators, the type and quantity of weapons to be handed over or “brought beyond use.” He could also have raised concerns about the robustness of the mechanism for overseeing disarmament in both the short and long term, or about the mandate of the International Stabilization Force.
The Israeli leader could have expressed his reservations to the mediators behind closed doors or to his Cabinet in a private meeting. Instead, what we witnessed was little more than a pitiful performance by someone desperately trying to hold on to power, regardless of the price for his own people and country, let alone for others.
This was yet another unmistakable example of Netanyahu’s abuse of power: using a weekly Cabinet meeting in the middle of international and domestic turmoil as a platform for electioneering. Leaving this rejection of the plan unchallenged, whether by opposition parties seeking to replace him or by the international community, sends the wrong message. It suggests a lack of urgency about ensuring that the Trump peace plan proceeds and makes progress, while the Israeli military is enlarging the area of Gaza under Israeli control in violation of last year’s agreement, and while the Palestinian National Committee for the Administration of Gaza is being prevented from entering the enclave and governing it, and all of this without Hamas handing over a single weapon.
The immediate consequence will be to prolong the misery there. Eventually, and with much dependent on the outcome of the Israeli election, it risks normalizing the idea that the future of the conflict can be determined by the whims or political needs of one politician or another.
One may argue that it would not be a major setback if progress toward this phase of the peace plan were delayed by two or three months until after the election: It has waited this long; it can wait a little longer. To begin with, however, this assumes a clear election result leading to a very different government makeup — and that is far from guaranteed. In the best-case scenario, it could take weeks, if not months, for a new government to be formed.
That is why the situation requires a strong response and firm assurances that both sides adhere to the principles and implementation of the plan. Politicians may have the luxury of time and delay, but the people on the ground do not.

• Yossi Mekelberg is a professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. X: @YMekelberg