The ceasefire initiative that US President Joe Biden unveiled on 31 May threw the ball into the Israeli court, all the more so since the following day Hamas signalled it could be prepared to accept the plan.
As the world anxiously waits to see what will become of the plan, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extreme-right-wing government are coming under immense pressure at home and abroad.
Combined with the repercussions of the situation on the ground in Gaza where Israel’s genocidal war has now entered its eighth month, this shows that the end of the war is linked to Netanyahu’s fate, because keeping it going is the only thing saving him from criminal proceedings and political collapse.
Biden’s proposal to end the war consists of three phases. The first, which would last six weeks, calls for “a full and complete ceasefire,” the withdrawal of Israeli forces from all populated areas of Gaza, and the release of a number of hostages including women, the elderly, and the wounded in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons.
Palestinian civilians would return to their homes and neighbourhoods in all areas of Gaza, including in the north, and “humanitarian assistance would surge, with 600 trucks carrying aid into Gaza every single day.”
At the same time, Israel and Hamas would negotiate the arrangements for phase two of the plan, which would be a “permanent end to hostilities.” Biden said that “if the negotiations take longer than six weeks for phase one, the ceasefire will still continue as long as the negotiations continue.”
In the second phase, the remaining living hostages, including male soldiers, would be returned, and “as long as Hamas lives up to its commitments,” the temporary ceasefire would become a “cessation of hostilities permanently.”
The third phase would usher in a major reconstruction plan for Gaza.
Noting that Qatar had sent the proposal to Hamas, Biden urged all the parties to focus on what it takes to achieve the ceasefire and an end to the conflict.
“Let me say this as someone who’s had a lifelong commitment to Israel: as the only American president who’s ever gone to Israel in a time of war, as someone who just sent US forces to directly defend Israel when it was attacked by Iran, I ask you to take a step back and think. What will happen if this moment is lost,” he asked of the Israeli public when presenting the plan.
“We can’t lose this moment. Indefinite war in pursuit of an undefined notion of total victory will not bring Israel what it wants. It will only bog down Israel in Gaza, draining economic, military, and human resources and furthering Israel’s isolation in the world.”
Stressing that the proposal offered a real opportunity to end the conflict and achieve stability in the Middle East, Biden urged Hamas to accept the plan.
“It’s time for this war to end, for the day after to begin,” he said.
Hamas welcomed Biden’s ceasefire initiative, describing it as “positive” but adding that it would have to see the original draft before giving a definitive response. In a statement released the day after Biden’s speech, Hamas said that it was “ready to interact positively with any proposal that offers a permanent ceasefire, complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, the return of displaced Palestinians to their places of residence, and a serious exchange of hostages and [Palestinian] prisoners.”
According to commentator Nader Safad, Hamas handled its initial response to the Biden proposal cleverly. It is consistent with conditions it has reiterated since Israel launched its war against Gaza, so Hamas was able to welcome it without delving into details on the substance.
“In the opinion of many observers, Hamas was being careful not to fall into Biden’s trap, since much of what appears in the media conflicts with what is happening behind closed doors,” Safad said.
“Hamas’ response was an attempt to put the US in an awkward position in front of the world and toss a hot potato in the direction of Netanyahu.”
Soon after Biden announced what he claimed to be a new US-Israeli proposal, Netanyahu’s office released a statement indicating that its conditions for ending the war had not changed and that Israel would not agree to a permanent ceasefire before they were met.
The conditions include the return of all the hostages, the elimination of Hamas’ military and governmental capabilities, and guaranteeing that Gaza will never present a threat to Israel.
The families of the Israeli hostages have called on Netanyahu to support Biden’s initiative, saying that this is an opportunity that should not be missed.
Israel’s Channel 12 TV station cited a senior Israeli official as saying that Biden’s speech changed the rules of the game, as he had made it clear that if Israel rejects the proposal, it will bear the consequences, regardless of Hamas’ response.
Meanwhile, Israel has put its Rafah battle plan on hold, and instead of sending two combat divisions further into the city it has decided to focus on the border zone between Gaza and Egypt. The change follows a reportedly tense discussion between Washington and Tel Aviv and signals the latter’s stepping back from crossing a “red line” set by Biden and further damaging relations between the two countries.
According to reports, the White House feared that the Israeli plan to send two divisions into the southern Gaza city would escalate the conflict and dramatically increase the death toll. It told Israel that if it abandoned the plan, it could avert possible US sanctions, including a ban on the use of US weapons.
Observers predict that the Democratic and Republican primaries in the US, in which Biden and former president Donald Trump will be the leading candidates, and the British general elections will be major determinants of political and diplomatic developments related to Gaza in June.
The US nominees and the UK election candidates will be acutely aware that they will find it difficult to win votes, especially the youth vote, if they support policies that run counter to the anti-war principles and Palestinian solidarity campaign championed by students on US university campuses and supported by large swathes of public opinion.
According to Palestinian political analyst Nidal Khadra, further pressure will come from the growing wave of legal actions in the international courts, such as the International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and the latest provisional orders pronounced against Israel by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
CHALLENGES: Growing popular sympathy for the people of Gaza and outrage against Israel’s conduct there have also inspired a train of new recognitions of Palestinian statehood and lent impetus to the Chinese and Egyptian-led Arab position.
However, the hardest challenge facing Israel now is probably the attrition the Palestinian resistance has been inflicting on the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), Khadra said.
Morale among the Israeli soldiers has declined sharply, firstly because the operations in Gaza have failed to achieve their stated goals of eliminating Hamas and freeing the hostages, and secondly because of the high human and material losses sustained by the IOF, which is now mired in a guerilla war.
Against the background of the mass destruction the IOF have created in Gaza, Israel’s vaunted Merkava tanks, Caterpillar military bulldozers, and Namer personnel carriers, along with their personnel, are prize targets for the resistance fighters.
“Netanyahu is facing serious political challenges, such as the alliance that [Israeli politicians] Yair Lapid, Avigdor Lieberman, and Gideon Sa’ar formed in order to try to oust the Netanyahu government, the approaching 8 June deadline of the ultimatum that War Cabinet member Benny Gantz has given Netanyahu to come up with a plan for the ‘day after’ in Gaza, and the increasingly heated controversy over the bill to lift the exemption from compulsory military service granted to ultraorthodox Jews,” Khadra said.
“The latter could bring down the government regardless of whether it passes or not.”
Political analyst Tamara Haddad sees Biden’s announcement of the three-phase proposal to promote a lasting ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in the context of US electoral politics.
“His statement was directed to the American public,” she said in an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly. “It was a message addressed specifically to undecided voters in key swing states and to the progressive left in the Democratic Party who have criticised his policy for managing the war on Gaza.”
“Biden’s statement was aimed at scoring personal points if the proposal is implemented and at strengthening his electoral assets.”
Haddad said that the Biden initiative was a response to intensive Egyptian pressure. “Egypt is determined to push the proposal and end the bloodshed and destruction of Gaza in what is basically a campaign of forced and ‘voluntary’ expulsion to enable Israel to annex the land without its people,” she said.
“The US wants to stop the war before it expands further, driving up global, European, and Chinese support for the Palestinian cause.”
She said that Biden had directed another message to Netanyahu and that the plan was the product of Egyptian, Qatari, and US mediation, though it was also essentially the same as the Egyptian proposal that has been on the table for some time modified to accommodate some Israeli points through negotiations with the Israeli delegation led by the heads of the security agencies Shin Bet and Mossad.
“So, what Biden described as an Israeli proposal was actually the Egyptian proposal advanced thanks to Egyptian pressure. By publicising it in this way, Biden has forced Netanyahu into a corner, telling him that the time has come to end the war because prolonging it will not yield positive results for Israel and Israeli security in the long run.”
However, Biden’s announcement was also calculated to pull the rug out from under those European countries that have recently recognised the Palestinian state.
“These countries are encouraging others to come on board a peace conference to promote the two-state solution in the framework of an EU proposal. Moreover, during the recent Arab-Chinese Forum, Beijing sought to build up momentum for an international Palestinian-Israeli peace conference,” Haddad said.
“So, there is some concrete action towards the implementation of the two-state solution and recognition of the Palestinian State. That’s why the US came up with the proposal at this juncture. It wants to stop these international movements because it has no intention to implement the two-state solution to which it only pays lip service.”
Netanyahu, feeling trapped, might try a counter-stratagem by opening the front with southern Lebanon after the diplomatic negotiating option breaks down, she said. Israel’s operations on this front have already forcibly displaced large numbers of Lebanese northwards beyond the Litani River, and Israel could be keen to use the military option if negotiations fail to convince Hizbullah to withdraw its forces northward and away from the border.
Haddad also believes that the threats by Netanyahu’s far right coalition partners Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich to withdraw from the government if Netanyahu pursues the Biden initiative increase the likelihood of scenarios that would work against the Biden administration’s calculations.
“If Netanyahu yields to the Ben-Gvir and Smotrich ultimatum, this will precipitate a crisis of confidence between Biden and Netanyahu and embarrass Biden in front of the US public because of his inability to implement the proposal. Biden would be perceived as weak, which would serve Netanyahu’s purpose of advancing the shift in US voter support towards Trump who, despite the criminal proceedings against him, still has a shot at being elected in November,” she said.
“There is nothing in the US Constitution to prevent Trump from running for office even from behind bars. This is why Netanyahu hopes to prolong the war. Firstly, it serves to strengthen support for Trump in the US. Secondly, he wants to continue to pursue his aim of destroying Hamas and eliminating the security threat for years to come in Gaza by disarming the Palestinian resistance.”
* A version of this article appears in print in the 6 June, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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