With the genocide in Gaza temporarily paused and some hostages freed by each side, Donald Trump and Joe Biden played tug o’ war over which deserved “credit” for the deal finally being struck.
Never mind if the deal was a good or bad one, or about the tens of thousands of Palestinian lives snuffed out, or even the hundreds of Israeli ones fifteen months ago. Credit must be given to someone for the ostensible “win.”
The truth is, neither deserves credit. Certainly, Biden deserves none. The “plan” he put forth last May was on the table for six months before he dishonestly presented it as an Israeli plan, only to later claim it for himself. In fact, it was neither; it was the only way to negotiate a ceasefire that both sides could be made to accept, and was negotiated for that reason.
Biden preferred month after month of genocide. That his team was part of the discussions wherein Israel finally agreed to what is likely to amount to a brief pause in the genocide akin to what we saw in November 2023 should earn Biden nothing.
Was it Trump then? In comparison to Biden, Trump did do something here. As I’ve described it, “Trump could and did use his leverage over Netanyahu to push him toward the agreement.” But some are now discussing a “Trump effect,” that will see the United States play a different role in Palestine and Israel than it did under Biden. That is a vast overstatement.
Not a Trump effect, a POTUS effect
As Ha’aretz U.S. reporter Ben Samuels put it, “the vast majority of observers have credited what is now known as ‘The Trump Effect’ for the cease-fire.” Samuels himself doesn’t seem to put a lot of stock in it, though, and he’s right not to.
All Trump did was make it clear to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he wanted a ceasefire. He cared neither about Palestinian life nor freedom, nor about Netanyahu’s political concerns. Trump made clear what he wanted, and it was up to Netanyahu to make it work and then address his own political problems as he saw fit.
As is always the case when an Israeli Prime Minister is confronted with a clear demand from an American President (or president-elect, in this case), Netanyahu knew he had to comply. This was not a “Trump effect;” it was a “POTUS effect.” Trump did nothing that Biden could not have done at any time if only he had the will to do it.
Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff demanded Netanyahu meet him, on Witkoff’s schedule. He laid out his list of incentives and consequences for refusal, along with his simple demand: Trump wants to enter office with a ceasefire in effect.
What might have been threatened or offered to Netanyahu to entice him to do as he was told remains undisclosed. Some have conjectured that West Bank annexation is the carrot Trump dangled, but this seems unlikely. Mega-donor Miriam Adelson donated $100 million to Trump’s SuperPAC, and certainly did so with the expectation that annexation would happen within the next four years. Trump isn’t going to play games with that commitment or, more importantly, with Adelson’s ongoing financial support.
The price may not have been all that high, in any case. While Netanyahu and his far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich have been forthright in saying they have no intention of seeing this ceasefire last beyond the first phase, it is equally clear that if Israel goes back to the genocide, U.S. weapons will continue to flow as freely as ever.
The ceasefire was inconvenient for Netanyahu, and, as such, he had no reason to agree to it. Biden could have given him reason to do so many months ago. Biden simply didn’t want to, reflecting just how blatantly he and his Secretary of State Antony Blinken had lied about pursuing one at all. Trump, for his own reasons, wanted a ceasefire as he entered office.
But Trump has no interest in spending the political capital and energy that would be required to see it through all three phases, and never intended to do so. He quickly clarified that point by stating that he did not have much confidence that the ceasefire would last and that it is “not our war.” The message that he expects Israel to restart the onslaught, and is comfortable with that, couldn’t be clearer.
Setting the stage for a restart
It is no coincidence that, virtually simultaneously with the beginning of the ceasefire, Israel launched a massive assault on Jenin in the West Bank. This could likely be part of a quid pro quo that Netanyahu gave to Smotrich to keep him from bolting the government and to convince him to wait until Phase I of the ceasefire had run its course.
There isn’t even the pretense of a provocation for Israel’s actions. Smotrich himself made that clear when he said, “It’s no longer about foiling [attacks], it’s no longer routine ongoing security maintenance…” The aim is to begin a large-scale, long-term attack on the West Bank to crush the spirit of the Palestinian people under the guise of “fighting terrorism.” There can be little doubt that this will also serve to reignite the killing in Gaza.
This plan is evidenced by the fact that the attack comes after weeks of a sustained assault by Palestinian Authority forces against the Jenin camp. After weeks of clashes, the PA forces broke their agreement to withdraw from the camp, surrounding it instead and only leaving when Israeli forces began their own, new assault.
With this new front opened by Israel, there will be ongoing conflict, even beyond the ongoing, scattered incidents of Israeli violence against Palestinians in Gaza. After fifteen months of the worst genocide of the 21st century, Israel is, according to an American assessment, still facing nearly the same number of Hamas fighters it did at the beginning of the genocide. Rage, despair, and hopelessness are doubtless driving more young Palestinians to take up arms, choosing to die fighting rather than wait for Israel to bomb, shoot, torture, or starve them to death.
Israel is thus far from its stated war aim of wiping out Hamas. Indeed, Hamas remains a defiant and powerful force in Gaza, and, while they may be willing to cede governance of the Strip to other Palestinian groups, they will still be in position to veto any new regime, by force or merely by defiance. After well over 50,000 deaths, the destruction of virtually all of Gaza, and tens of billions of dollars’ worth of some of the most sophisticated weaponry in the world, the might of the regional military hegemon backed by the power of the world’s sole superpower proved unable to defeat a poorly armed militia even after Hamas’ own, much more limited lines of external support were cut off.
It is beyond the realm of possibility that Israel is prepared to let that outcome stand. That truth extends well beyond Bezalel Smotrich, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and even Benjamin Netanyahu and all of his personal reasons for wanting this war to continue. A permanent ceasefire now would cripple Israel’s attempts at deterrence and would turn even the horror of the genocide in Gaza into a tale of Palestinian inspiration that would demonstrate the people’s strength and resilience for decades to come.
This is why, above all else, Trump and Netanyahu agree that this ceasefire isn’t going to last.
The differences and similarities between Biden and Trump
Trump has gotten most of what he wanted. He was able to come into office on the back of the ceasefire, and, despite the claims of Biden and his apologists, the credit for the U.S.’ role went almost exclusively to Trump.
All Trump wants now is for the agreement to last long enough for some significant number of hostages to be exchanged, but he has no stake in pressing Israel to get serious about negotiations for the second phase of the agreement, let alone the third one, which would see a new governing body in Gaza, a final Israeli withdrawal, and the beginning of the long years of rebuilding.
But there was no “Trump effect” at work here. Trump simply used the tools of the presidency to force Netanyahu into a ceasefire deal. Netanyahu, like a proper junior partner who has his own interests, complied but found ways to continue pursuing his agenda while still satisfying the wishes of the boss.
Where Joe Biden spun fantasies about ending the “war” in Gaza with a two-state solution, Trump’s fantasies are a little more bizarre and equally unrealistic.
Steve Witkoff floated the idea of shipping the people of Gaza, or at least some of them, off to Indonesia, for example. Jakarta was understandably surprised to hear about that from the media.
Trump hinted wistfully at his son-in-law, Jared Kushner’s musing of last March about the potential of the “waterfront property” of Gaza. And he still believes he can achieve a normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia despite the hopelessness of the Saudis’ one overriding condition—a path to a Palestinian state.
Trump cares nothing for Palestinian lives, although he has not shown the same level of antipathy toward them that has characterized Biden’s entire career, a blind hatred that, as recent polling shows, went a long way toward costing his vice president the 2024 election. Trump has no need to slaughter Palestinians, as Biden does. For him, it’s all transactional.
But the end result is the same. Trump had a reason to use the tools Biden refused to. But that reason is now fulfilled, and his personal interests drive him right back to full support for Israel. His base supports Israel, his senior staff are zealous backers of some of Israel’s most extreme forces, policies, and actions. And, above all, the enormous profits that Israel’s military generates for American corporations are what Trump will seek to enhance at every opportunity.
Netanyahu knows all of this, and in Jenin—which is almost certainly only the beginning—he’s setting the stage for ending the ceasefire in six weeks or less. No one in Trump’s Republican party, much less his senior staff, will be a voice of reason or make any effort to restrain the full-throated support for Israeli genocide that will reassert itself when the ceasefire ends.
At some point, there will be a retaliation for Israel’s rampage through the West Bank, and this will be used to demonstrate that it was Hamas that broke the ceasefire. A credulous American public, which will not have heard much about the Israeli onslaught in the West Bank or the ongoing incidents of attacks on Palestinian civilians in Gaza, will be easily convinced once again. And, with Trump in the White House, those of us who know better will have even less impact and will likely face greatly escalated attacks for speaking out.
This post was originally published on here
