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If an Israeli leader is seen as too compromising or left-leaning, the public won’t tolerate a more conciliatory approach from Israel to other Arab countries.
By ATAR PORAT FEBRUARY 7, 2025 14:03 Updated: FEBRUARY 7, 2025 14:08
US President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, US. February 4, 2025.
(photo credit: REUTERS/ELIZABETH FRANTZ)
Historically, many of the most hawkish and militant Israeli leaders were the ones who managed to sign peace deals with Israel’s enemies. The reason is simple: in order for Israel to make concessions and be able to sell it to the Israeli public, the Israeli public must see that it comes from the person considered “tough on Arabs.”
If an Israeli leader is seen as too compromising or left-leaning, the public won’t tolerate a more conciliatory approach from Israel to other Arab countries.
This was true when Begin made the concession of agreeing to a vague Palestinian autonomy in the future when he signed the Peace Agreement with Egypt or when Rabin, the militant ex-general, signed the Peace Agreement with Jordan.
The recent remarks Trump made regarding the possible removal of Gazans from Gaza for some temporary or even permanent time while Gaza is being rebuilt sent shockwaves within the international community and in Israel. The idea of removing Palestinians from Gaza has been one of the most glaring taboos in the diplomatic lingo about the conflict. These kinds of ideas were only entertained publicly by the fringes of the Israeli Right. With Trump’s remarks, the Israeli right has been sent into a frenzy of admiration and celebration.
However, with Trump, many people tend to have a short memory of his modus operandi. Trump applies the same logic in international politics and diplomacy to the logic he used when he was a businessman in New York- threaten, confuse, obfuscate, and then renegotiate favorable terms with your rival in order to get a better deal and praise his counterparty.
Trump 2.0 started his second term by threatening to levy a 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico as a punitive measure if they do not enforce the security in the shared border with the US from which fentanyl smuggling gangs operate.
After this bellicose threat and very demeaning language Trump used, he renegotiated favorable terms with President Sheinbaum of Mexico and Prime Minister Trudeau. They agreed to change their border policies in exchange for a temporary delay in the implementation of the Trump Tariffs. We have yet to see whether a real change in their enforcement policies will take place, but the speed at which they changed their rhetoric and took Trump’s demands seriously has been unprecedented.
The same pattern has also taken place with Trump’s dealing with the Colombian President, who refused to allow planes with illegal aliens to return back to Colombia. After Trump’s threats, he caved, and they had a “nice” conversation over the phone.
Trump’s plans for Gaza and the Middle East are no different in their implementation. Trump uses negotiation techniques he has honed during his decades as a New York builder to confront the leaders of the Middle East.
The way I read his strategy is as follows: He would ingratiate himself with the Israelis by making amazing promises so that the Israeli public would trust him.
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This is meant to purchase goodwill that would later levy a deal in which Israel would have to give something up that would be very costly. This deal would have to include bitter pills to swallow, pills that only a Begin could administer while the patient would have to accept. Trump is creating gestures that Israel’s hard Right would celebrate to also help Netanyahu maintain his fragile coalition that could easily disperse once the bitter pills are administered.
Trump’s idea to resettle Gaza’s people to neighboring Arab countries also has another purpose - he created a threat out of thin air, which would allow him more maneuvering room to reach a comprehensive deal.
This deal would likely include the end of the Gaza war and Saudi-Israeli normalization. In order to fulfill his dream, which he stated multiple times, to be a peacemaker and win the Nobel Peace Prize, Trump is using new crude sticks to scare America’s Arab allies into acquiescing to future demands by showing them the huge stick that Trump would be willing to use if they do not cooperate - this is the classic line he said about Egypt and Jordan taking Gazans, “We do a lot for them, and they’re gonna do it.” This is a suggestion that Trump might cut the American aid Egypt and Jordan receive in to survive.
Trump also made sure to frame his program not as forced displacement, which is seen in the public’s mind as “ethnic cleansing” or a war crime, but rather as a gesture motivated by humanitarian motives to help the Palestinians. He has framed the argument that no one could possibly live in the conditions that Gaza is in right now, and he wants to make sure that Gazans live with dignity and prosperity.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on the other hand, said before his flight to the US that he hoped to expand the peace circle. This statement, among others, is used to buy public credit for a future peace agreement with Saudi Arabia, which would necessarily include some concessions to the Palestinians.
Netanyahu has repeated multiple times that Israel is committed to defeating Hamas as part of Israel’s war aims, which means that Israel would have to go back into fighting in Gaza. Trump’s team understands this reality, and Trump’s Gaza Plan could be a story that is spun to distract and confuse the media while a strategy for resuming the war is formulated.
Right now, the US administration has been meeting with prominent Palestinian Authority leaders, including the head of the security services, Hussein al-Sheikh, and others. The Palestinian Authority is lobbying the US to allow it to take control of Gaza in the post-war era.
These messages have not fallen on deaf ears as the Palestinian Authority has been running the Rafah Crossing over the past weeks, and the PA is conducting other counter-terrorism operations in Judea and Samaria to try to prove to the new Administration that it could take over Gaza.
The Abraham Accords
The Abraham Accords were born from Israel’s threat to annex the Jordan Valley, which was then rolled back in order to have the UAE normalize relations with Israel. I believe that in the current meeting between Netanyahu and Trump, a similar arrangement would emerge - Trump has put in an excessive demand (what we call in Hebrew a “goat”) as part of the negotiations that would be later conceded in exchange for a more reasonable “ask.”
Trump knows that when negotiating with countries, you negotiate your demands down, and by making brash requests like resettling Gazans, Trump shifts the Overton Window of world opinion on the matter.
The final arrangement would probably include Israel agreeing to give up annexing Judea and Samaria and relocating the Gazans from Gaza, and even allowing for a formal declaration of vague principles about a pathway to a two-state solution in exchange for a Peace deal with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia would be able to sell to Arab world opinion, like the UAE before it, that it was the bastion that protected Israel and the US from taking over Gaza and being the defenders of the Palestinian cause.
Netanyahu would be able to sell to Israel that he brought the most important peace deal in Israel’s history while playing down his tacit agreement for a Palestinian State, and Trump could claim his spot in the Hall of Fame of Peacemakers.
The writer is a research analyst at the Israel Defense and Security Forum-Habithonistim, specializing in the fields of delegitimization, US-Israeli relations, and Hezbollah. Currently pursuing a Masters in Data Science at the Hebrew University.
English (US) ·