Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, has remained silent over the timeline of putting an end to the war against Hamas in Gaza for many months, which his critics see as political maneuvering. However, this weekend US President Biden announced a proposal for a truce which put him on a hot spot.
A conservative by nature, Netanyahu has always managed personal and national interests at odds with one another. Now he is left with one thing only; either ensuring that his hardliner-hawkish government survives while managing to get hostages out of Gaza or charting a new course for himself and Israel away from growing global isolation.
According to critics of the PM there are essentially two Netanyahus: one pragmatic player who functions within the war cabinet he formed involving some centrist rivals thus boosting its public legitimacy; and another who is being held hostage by far right-leaning members of his coalition who will not allow him any concessions with Hamas while surviving politically.
Heads of Israeli team have verified sort of terms presented by their country to American, Qatari and Egyptian negotiators seeking break from fighting. The problem here is that these are exactly similar terms that had been approved through Israel’s war cabinet but not yet made known to its citizens. And this is crunch time for Netanyahu or “Bibi,” as he is widely known as analysts now say. “The moment Biden booted Netanyahu out of the closet of ambiguity and presented Netanyahu’s proposal himself” a Hebrew daily quoted Ben Caspit, an age-long critic of PM.
Members from two extreme right parties in the coalition – Bezalel Smotrich (Israel’s finance minister) and Itamar Ben-Gvir (the national security minister) – have openly threatened to pull down Netanyahu’s govt if both terms outlined by Biden remain before full elimination of Hamas so far. Some hardliners among Likud party faithfuls led by Netanyahu have vowed to join them.
On another hand, Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, who are both former military chiefs and that joined the emergency govt for the duration of this war have said that if Netanyahu does not come up with a clear path forward by June 8th, they will withdraw support from their centrist ‘National Unity’ party. And opposition parties are already organizing themselves to overthrow the government.
The ceasefire proposal has three steps: hostages would be released as groups for hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli jails; temporary cessation would lead to permanent hostilities stoppage with the third phase being about Gaza’s rehabilitation with backing from foreign countries. In total there remain approximately 125 hostages some dead others alive still held in Gaza.
Ophir Falk, the chief foreign policy adviser to Netanyahu, told Sunday Times UK that “It’s a deal we agreed to” referring to Biden’s proposal. “It is not a good deal but we want them all out,” he added, while noting that a lot remained on table regarding its content. Israelis were left mulling over two statements made by Netanyahu’s office: They were neither an endorsement nor denial of the proposal put forth by mediators. Instead they contained conditions- thus appearing tailored to leave room for options by Netanyahu.
