Trump is about to be truly tested by Netanyahu – and Maga is watching

Trump supporters are getting tired of the blank cheques to the Israeli Government

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The success or failure of Donald Trump’s peace plan for Gaza will be decided in the coming days and weeks by how far the US is willing to put sustained pressure on Israel to achieve a permanent stop to its military action.

Trump called on Israel to halt its bombing of Gaza after Hamas agreed to free 48 Israeli hostages alive and dead in return for the freeing of 250 Palestinians serving life sentences and 1,700 others in prison. Gazans remain fearful that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will unilaterally terminate any ceasefire after a hostage release, as he did before in March. Indirect talks between Hamas and Israel about the next stages of the plan are expected to begin in Egypt on Monday.

The Gaza war is within a couple of days of its second anniversary and has gone on for such a long time primarily because the US gave Israel unprecedented near unconditional military, political and diplomatic support. This makes the present conflict different from past Israeli wars, which Washington ultimately ended by using its decisive leverage over Israeli decision making.

It may be over-optimistic to assume that Trump is now returning to the traditional American policy of supporting, but restraining Israel. Any thought-through change of course by Trump would be out of keeping with his track record of pursuing a mercurial and chaotic course on any issue.

He changes his mind frequently, often because his lack of knowledge about the issues in dispute makes it easy for others to manipulate him. In keeping with this amateurism, he has relied on the real estate magnate, Steve Witkoff, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to draw up the 20-point plan.

It is a measure of its vagueness and fluidity that nobody knows how many points are currently being addressed. Among the crucial questions unsettled are when and where will the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) withdraw and when and how will Hamas disarm itself? A vital question is how much desperately needed food and medical aid, if any, will the IDF allowed into Gaza? Will Palestinians, who have been driven out of the ruins of their homes by Israeli air strikes and ground offensives, be allowed to return or will they remain living in tents in over-crowded enclaves?

Many warn that “the devil being in the details” of the plan, but this understates the problem, which is that all-important features of it remain undecided. Though Netanyahu and Hamas have, in theory, both accepted the Trump plan, they are, for a large part, motivated by a wish to avoid being blamed by him for sabotaging it. So far, it remains a skeleton framework to which all parties can agree because it is open to interpretation and negotiation about what they are agreeing to.

In the past, Trump – as with Joe Biden before him – has not punished Netanyahu with any negative consequences when he has crossed American red lines by independent actions, such as the bombing of close US ally, Qatar, on 9 September, in a failed bid to kill Hamas peace negotiators. Despite the Israeli tail visibly wagging the American dog on numerous occasions, neither Trump nor Biden did much about this, possibly because the pro-Israel lobby in the US, favouring Netanyahu and his Government, has such a tight grip on the Republican and Democratic Parties.

Yet this grip is not quite as firm as it once was and Trump is sensitive to the charge from angry Maga Republicans that the slogan “America First” has in practice become “Israel First”. Polls show a radical shift in US pubic opinion: in the aftermath of the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on 7 October, 2023, American voters sympathised with Israel over the Palestinians by 47 per cent to 20 percent. But in the latest New York Times/Siena University poll, some 34 per cent sided with Israel and 35 per cent with the Palestinians. A majority of American voters now oppose sending more economic and military aid to Israel. Six out of ten voters say that Israel should end its war, even if Israeli hostages are not released or Hamas is not eliminated.

Trump and Vice President JD Vance have shown signs of wariness over continuing to hand Netanyahu blank cheques for Israel to do what it wants in Gaza and the Middle East. Trump appears genuinely to want the war to end, but he will now be coming under intense domestic pressure from pro-Israel lobbyists and politicians not to insist on an end to Israeli military action and to put the blame on Hamas for any failure to implement the peace plan.

The bizarre later phases of the Trump plan involving a Board of Peace for Gaza, chaired by Trump himself, and with Sir Tony Blair on board in some vice regal capacity, remain over the horizon and may never happen.

Yet despite powerful forces undermining the Trump peace plan, today there is a stronger momentum internationally for a permanent end to the Gaza war than ever before, though that does not mean a permanent peace is going to happen.

Meanwhile, the killing goes on with three Israeli air strikes on Gaza City after Trump had demanded an end to bombardment and with a further 66 Palestinians killed by Israel since Hamas announced its acceptance of the peace plan. According to the Gazan Health Ministry, this brings the total number of fatalities to 67,074 since the war began.