|
Trending Topics
|
Source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/with-hostage-deal-netanyahu-is-going-all-in-on-trump/
Israel's Strategy in Signing the Ceasefire Deal
(Times of Israel) Haviv Rettig Gur - Speaking to Fox News on Wednesday, incoming U.S. National Security Adviser Mike Waltz said the U.S. will back Israel if it needs to reenter Gaza. "We've made it very clear to the Israelis, and I want the people of Israel to hear me on this: If they need to go back in, we're with them. If Hamas doesn't live up to the terms of this agreement, we are with them." The deal now on the table is not, despite Biden's claims, the same deal offered in May. Key Israeli demands that Hamas refused in the spring have now been met. Hamas had never actually agreed to any previous version of this deal. It acquiesced to Israeli demands it has long rejected out of hand, such as leaving Israeli forces in Philadelphi during phase 1, where they will be able to prevent its rearming through the border tunnels to Egypt. Hamas desperately needs a deal. It lost its chief backers, Hizbullah and Iran. Israeli airstrikes on its Houthi allies in Yemen have all but eliminated the Houthi capacity to export oil and gas. And Israelis are convinced they will have a freer hand against their enemies in the region after January 20 with Trump taking office. So this deal marks a softening of Hamas's demands. Trump has repeatedly criticized the Israeli war effort for being slow and indecisive. Israel can do what it takes to win, but Trump, it appears, wants it to show it is willing to try a ceasefire, publicly and clearly. When Hamas inevitably tries to rearm or launch a rocket, Israel will have its excuse to return to fighting, perhaps better prepared and with better intelligence penetration of Hamas. Meantime, Israel will have handed Trump his political win in the form of a ceasefire, and won his backing for a more intensive fight against Hamas. Hamas's bar for "victory" is extremely low. It doesn't need to win. It only needs to be able to claim it survived, even if what survived is a bare fragment of the original organization, now reduced to sending teenagers to fight. Hamas will declare victory and parade through the streets of Gaza. In the meantime, Israel will work to build out the kind of intelligence infiltration in Gaza that it possessed in Lebanon. It will spend the ceasefire preparing the next offensive.