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Ultimately, the hostage deal will remain a fragile balancing act. Its continuation depends on Netanyahu’s ability to manage not just his coalition but also his relationship with Trump.
By YAAKOV KATZ JANUARY 31, 2025 10:56 Updated: JANUARY 31, 2025 10:59
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the Israeli Parliament in Jerusalem, on December 23, 2024.
(photo credit: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
Just barely, the hostage deal continues, hanging by a thread. For now, Israel celebrates the return of the living hostages. All remaining female hostages have been released – except for Shiri Bibas, whose fate is uncertain – and 80-year-old Gadi Moses is back with his family.
On the Gaza side, the ceasefire has so far been effective. Israel has temporarily suspended its military operations, pulled back to defensive positions, and opened the Netzarim Corridor, allowing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to return to their homes, or what remains of them.
Hamas has played this moment strategically. In exchange for this temporary truce, it advanced the release of hostages to achieve a symbolic victory: the return of Palestinians to northern Gaza.
For Hamas, this is more than a simple gesture; it believes that by resettling so many people, Israel will find it difficult to resume the war and displace them once again, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised his coalition partner, Bezalel Smotrich.
To some degree, Hamas is right. The opening of this corridor has made the war’s resumption harder, a scenario Netanyahu knows all too well.
For now, Israel is willing to accept this reality and the images that accompany it. But the situation will quickly shift when some of the 33 hostages, promised in the first stage of the deal, return either in coffins or not at all. The mood in Israel will turn, and calls to resume the war will grow louder.
Netanyahu is already facing calls to abandon the deal. He’s promised Smotrich that the war will continue, and based on how he handled Itamar Ben-Gvir’s resignation – depositing the Otzma Yehudit ministerial portfolios temporarily in the hands of loyalist Haim Katz – he is signaling that the party and the war might be coming back.
This complexity is something President Donald Trump must understand ahead of his meeting with Netanyahu next week in Washington. There is little doubt Trump wants the deal to continue, but Netanyahu’s cooperation is essential.
Netanyahu knows this and wants to stay on Trump’s good side while focusing on broader issues – curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions and advancing normalization with Saudi Arabia – and if the hostage-ceasefire deal serves as the means to these ends, Netanyahu will continue to support them.
However, the situation is far from straightforward. A commitment to a second stage of the deal could mean the collapse of Netanyahu’s government.
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On the other hand, Netanyahu knows that if he challenges Trump and refuses to agree to the deal’s continuation, there is a political cost, as we saw this week with Colombia’s president.
The perfect world
In a perfect world, Netanyahu could thread the needle – ensuring hostages continue to return while preserving his coalition.
Trump could potentially help by offering Netanyahu a concession, such as promising annexation of the West Bank once the hostage deal is concluded. This could provide Smotrich with a win, allowing him to explain away his compromise to his supporters.
But Trump is not offering this yet. What he has been talking, about, though is the transfer of Gaza’s residents to Jordan or Egypt.
This might be a genuine plan, even if hard to imagine, but it is something that Netanyahu could use in his efforts to placate Smotrich, arguing that an election and rise of a “leftist” government would lack the backbone to follow through on these demands.
Smotrich is genuinely torn. He recognizes the potential of working with the new administration, and polls anyhow indicate that his party will struggle to cross the threshold in the event of a new election.
Nevertheless, the continued ceasefire and public Hamas and Islamic Jihad rallies make it increasingly difficult for him to remain in a government that does not address the reconstitution of the terrorist groups in Gaza.
That is why, for the deal to continue, Trump must apply pressure on Netanyahu. Without the president’s involvement a few weeks ago, it is unlikely that there would have been a deal to begin with.
The president’s leverage is significant – Netanyahu wants to show Israelis that he is indispensable and that he is needed to secure strategic wins for the country from Trump.
Netanyahu’s success in leveraging Trump’s support for Jerusalem and the Golan Heights in the past has reinforced this image, and any tension with the president over the hostage deal could damage the prime minister’s standing.
Trump also has his own reasons to keep the deal intact. The hostage-ceasefire deal provides a pathway to advancing Israel-Saudi Arabia normalization, a goal central to his administration’s strategy.
Trump sees this as an opportunity not only to reshape the Middle East but also to finally receive the Nobel Peace Prize, which he feels was unjustly denied to him after brokering the Abraham Accords.
The central question remains: What will Netanyahu do? If he cannot keep Smotrich on board but understands the risks of defying Trump, he may be forced to take the political gamble of moving forward with the deal – even if it means early elections.
With the coalition’s future already in doubt over the IDF draft bill, Netanyahu might decide the risk of government collapse is worth it, especially since losing the coalition over continuing the hostage release is far more popular than losing the government after trying to appease haredim.
Ultimately, the hostage deal will remain a fragile balancing act. Its continuation depends on Netanyahu’s ability to manage not just his coalition but also his relationship with Trump. Netanyahu will soon have to decide what comes next.
The writer is a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute and a former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post.
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