Follow us on social

Trump Netanyahu

Gaza ceasefire hits the brick wall of Netanyahu's agenda

As predicted, the Israeli prime minister has a lot to gain from keeping the war going

Analysis | Middle East

The cease-fire agreement on the Gaza Strip is on the verge of dissolving, for reasons that were predictable when the agreement was reached in January.

To follow an initial six-week phase, which has just concluded, the agreement envisioned second and third phases that would see the additional release of hostages by both sides, Israeli military withdrawals from the Strip, and a reconstruction plan. But those parts of the agreement were mere outlines or statements of objectives, with further negotiations needed to resolve all the details.

As addressed in Responsible Statecraft when the agreement was announced, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has strong personal and political reasons to keep Israel at war, including his need to maintain a coalition with extreme right-wingers in his government whose policy on Gaza is to eliminate all Palestinians from the Strip.

Netanyahu thus has had incentives to sabotage the cease-fire agreement before its implementation could proceed to a permanent cessation of hostilities.

Such sabotage is well under way. Israel has frequently violated the cease-fire throughout phase one with air and ground attacks that have inflicted casualties. With Hamas not taking the bait of responding with full-scale hostilities, Netanyahu is now trying to junk the entire second and third phases of the agreement and replace it with something more to Israel’s liking. Instead of negotiating the details of phase two, as required by the agreement, Netanyahu is pushing a formula that includes a 50-day cease-fire, by the end of which all the Israeli hostages would be released.

With no provision in Netanyahu’s proposal for either an Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza or a permanent cessation of hostilities, the formula is an obvious non-starter for Hamas. It would be giving up its remaining bargaining chips for nothing in return. Hamas described Netanyahu’s proposal as “a blatant attempt to renege on the agreement and evade negotiations for its second phase.”

Meanwhile, other Israeli violations of the January agreement continue. Last week Israel indicated that it will not withdraw its forces, as stipulated in the agreement, from the Philadelphi corridor, an area along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. This week Israel began blocking all humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip.

The incentives for Netanyahu to resume Israel’s assault on Gaza rather than see an agreement through to lasting peace are at least as strong now as they were in mid-January. The biggest factor in this equation is the Trump administration’s deference to Israeli preferences, as reflected in Netanyahu’s smiling face after hearing that President Trump is just as much in favor of complete ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip as the extremists in Netanyahu’s government are.

And those extremists are as gung-ho as ever about resuming the devastating assault on the residents of the Gaza Strip after first starving them and cutting off their supplies of water and electricity.

The most likely near-term scenario for the Gaza Strip is thus a resumption of the Israeli military assault. Such a resumption will have no more chance of achieving the declared Israeli objective of “destroying Hamas” than the earlier 15 months of devastation did.

As for the suffering civilian population of Gaza, notwithstanding any resentment against Hamas for its decision to launch the October 2023 attack on Israel, those civilians have been given no attractive alternative to continued resistance. Whoever might someday enjoy Trump’s vision of a “Riviera of the Middle East” in Gaza, it will not be the Palestinians who currently live there. They would instead face squalor in exile, and even then would not be safe from more Israeli attacks.

The original January agreement, notwithstanding all its weaknesses, represented the best that international diplomacy could produce at the time for immediate management of the Gaza tragedy. The fact that the accord was reached only after many weeks of mediation and negotiation shows that it was the most that could be squeezed from the parties — including from Hamas, despite the battering it had taken during more than a year of war.

The United States has the leverage, especially given its voluminous military aid to Israel, to create incentives for the agreement to remain in force and for serious negotiations on phases two and three to occur. Clearly the Trump administration is not using that leverage. In fact, Netanyahu says that his alternative formula for a temporary cease-fire with no permanent end of hostilities and no Israeli withdrawal was a framework proposed by Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witcoff — the same Steve Witcoff who had been given credit for brokering the original January agreement.

In addition to implications for the suffering people of Gaza, this turn by the administration has implications for U.S. credibility. For the United States to help destroy an agreement that the same U.S. administration — and even the same U.S. envoy — had helped to negotiate will amplify foreign doubts, already present because of the administration’s similar reversals regarding international trade, about the ability and willingness of the United States to abide by its commitments.

If alternatives to the January agreement on Gaza are to be considered, certainly one should look at what the Arab states are doing. The Arabs have had some challenges getting their collective act together, mainly because of different attitudes toward Hamas and political Islamism generally, but at a just-concluded summit meeting in Cairo they endorsed an Egyptian plan that addresses reconstruction and temporary administration of the Gaza Strip.

Egypt’s proposal calls for a technocratic, nonpartisan Palestinian committee to administer the Strip during a six-month transition. Hamas welcomed the proposal, a posture consistent with earlier indications that the group is not anxious to keep administering Gaza itself, even if it will continue to resist unilateral disarmament of its military capability. Israel rejected the proposal, consistent with its opposition to anything that hints at a path toward Palestinian self-governance.

The Trump administration brushed aside the Egyptian proposal and reiterated its support for Trump’s Riviera-in-Gaza idea. The White House spokesman also repeated the administration’s bizarre line that because “Gaza is currently uninhabitable,” this somehow is a reason to support the policies of the state that made Gaza uninhabitable.

The White House confirmed this week that the administration has held secret talks with Hamas, in a contact that evidently focused on release of hostages and especially American hostages. The fact that the U.S. official involved was the special representative for hostage affairs rather than Witcoff implies such an agenda. There is no indication that the broader administration position changed, with President Trump issuing a bellicose statement threatening Hamas and saying that he is “sending Israel everything it needs to finish the job” in Gaza.

Although the Egyptian proposal deserves attention for dealing with the immediate situation, calls for the Arabs to come up with their own ideas are somewhat strange given that the Arab League produced more than two decades ago a peace proposal that offers peace and full recognition of Israel by all Arab states if Israel ends its occupation of Palestinian territories and accepts a Palestinian state.

That proposal is still on the table.


Top image credit: noamgalai / Shutterstock.com
Analysis | Middle East
POGO The Bunker
Top image credit: Project on Government Oversight

Bombers astray! Washington's priorities go off course

Military Industrial Complex

The Bunker appears originally at the Project on Government Oversight and is republished here with permission.


keep readingShow less
Trump Zelensky
Top photo credit: Joshua Sukoff / Shutterstock.com

Blob exploiting Trump's anger with Putin, risking return to Biden's war

Europe

Donald Trump’s recent outburst against Vladimir Putin — accusing the Russian leader of "throwing a pile of bullsh*t at us" and threatening devastating new sanctions — might be just another Trumpian tantrum.

The president is known for abrupt reversals. Or it could be a bargaining tactic ahead of potential Ukraine peace talks. But there’s a third, more troubling possibility: establishment Republican hawks and neoconservatives, who have been maneuvering to hijack Trump’s “America First” agenda since his return to office, may be exploiting his frustration with Putin to push for a prolonged confrontation with Russia.

Trump’s irritation is understandable. Ukraine has accepted his proposed ceasefire, but Putin has refused, making him, in Trump’s eyes, the main obstacle to ending the war.

Putin’s calculus is clear. As Ted Snider notes in the American Conservative, Russia is winning on the battlefield. In June, it captured more Ukrainian territory and now threatens critical Kyiv’s supply lines. Moscow also seized a key lithium deposit critical to securing Trump’s support for Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russian missile and drone strikes have intensified.

Putin seems convinced his key demands — Ukraine’s neutrality, territorial concessions in the Donbas and Crimea, and a downsized Ukrainian military — are more achievable through war than diplomacy.

Yet his strategy empowers the transatlantic “forever war” faction: leaders in Britain, France, Germany, and the EU, along with hawks in both main U.S. parties. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz claims that diplomacy with Russia is “exhausted.” Europe’s war party, convinced a Russian victory would inevitably lead to an attack on NATO (a suicidal prospect for Moscow), is willing to fight “to the last Ukrainian.” Meanwhile, U.S. hawks, including liberal interventionist Democrats, stoke Trump’s ego, framing failure to stand up to Putin’s defiance as a sign of weakness or appeasement.

Trump long resisted this pressure. Pragmatism told him Ukraine couldn’t win, and calling it “Biden’s war” was his way of distancing himself, seeking a quick exit to refocus on China, which he has depicted as Washington’s greater foreign threat. At least as important, U.S. involvement in the war in Ukraine has been unpopular with his MAGA base.

But his June strikes on Iran may signal a hawkish shift. By touting them as a decisive blow to Iran’s nuclear program (despite Tehran’s refusal so far to abandon uranium enrichment), Trump may be embracing a new approach to dealing with recalcitrant foreign powers: offer a deal, set a deadline, then unleash overwhelming force if rejected. The optics of “success” could tempt him to try something similar with Russia.

This pivot coincides with a media campaign against restraint advocates within the administration like Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon policy chief who has prioritized China over Ukraine and also provoked the opposition of pro-Israel neoconservatives by warning against war with Iran. POLITICO quoted unnamed officials attacking Colby for wanting the U.S. to “do less in the world.” Meanwhile, the conventional Republican hawk Marco Rubio’s influence grows as he combines the jobs of both secretary of state and national security adviser.

What Can Trump Actually Do to Russia?
 

Nuclear deterrence rules out direct military action — even Biden, far more invested in Ukraine than Trump, avoided that risk. Instead, Trump ally Sen.Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), another establishment Republican hawk, is pushing a 500% tariff on nations buying Russian hydrocarbons, aiming to sever Moscow from the global economy. Trump seems supportive, although the move’s feasibility and impact are doubtful.

China and India are key buyers of Russian oil. China alone imports 12.5 million barrels daily. Russia exports seven million barrels daily. China could absorb Russia’s entire output. Beijing has bluntly stated it “cannot afford” a Russian defeat, ensuring Moscow’s economic lifeline remains open.

The U.S., meanwhile, is ill-prepared for a tariff war with China. When Trump imposed 145% tariffs, Beijing retaliated by cutting off rare earth metals exports, vital to U.S. industry and defense. Trump backed down.

At the G-7 summit in Canada last month, the EU proposed lowering price caps on Russian oil from $60 a barrel to $45 a barrel as part of its 18th sanctions package against Russia. Trump rejected the proposal at the time but may be tempted to reconsider, given his suggestion that more sanctions may be needed. Even if Washington backs the measure now, however, it is unlikely to cripple Russia’s war machine.

Another strategy may involve isolating Russia by peeling away Moscow’s traditionally friendly neighbors. Here, Western mediation between Armenia and Azerbaijan isn’t about peace — if it were, pressure would target Baku, which has stalled agreements and threatened renewed war against Armenia. The real goal is to eject Russia from the South Caucasus and create a NATO-aligned energy corridor linking Turkey to Central Asia, bypassing both Russia and Iran to their detriment.

Central Asia itself is itself emerging as a new battleground. In May 2025, the EU has celebrated its first summit with Central Asian nations in Uzbekistan, with a heavy focus on developing the Middle Corridor, a route for transportation of energy and critical raw materials that would bypass Russia. In that context, the EU has committed €10 billion in support of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route.

keep readingShow less
Syria sanctions
Top image credit: People line up to buy bread, after Syria's Bashar al-Assad was ousted, in Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria December 23, 2024. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

Lifting sanctions on Syria exposes their cruel intent

Middle East

On June 30, President Trump signed an executive order terminating the majority of U.S. sanctions on Syria. The move, which would have been unthinkable mere months ago, fulfilled a promise he made at an investment forum in Riyadh in May.“The sanctions were brutal and crippling,” he had declared to an audience of primarily Saudi businessmen. Lifting them, he said, will “give Syria a chance at greatness.”

The significance of this statement lies not solely in the relief that it will bring to the Syrian people. His remarks revealed an implicit but rarely admitted truth: sanctions — often presented as a peaceful alternative to war — have been harming the Syrian people all along.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.