We’ve seen this movie before. The United States, in close coordination with Israel, and Qatar and Egypt, offers up a plan to halt the fighting in Gaza and free some of the hostages held by Hamas.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, of course, accepts the plan. Hamas demurs, saying it also accepts the plan but countering with revisions. Those changes are not palatable to Israel, which justifiably rejects them. And the proposed ceasefire falls by the wayside, like the attempts before it.
The difference is that this time Netanyahu is about to meet with US President Donald Trump, who wants this ceasefire more than a birthday parade. What takes place in the next 24 hours can determine if this trajectory can be reversed.
A major impediment is the ceasefire plan itself that was unveiled last week. Nobody in Israel seems to be happy with it. It would return only eight hostages at the beginning of the road, and another two on the 50th of its 60-day life.
The other presumably alive 10 hostages would remain in captivity, with the only hope of their release being the continuation of the ceasefire toward a complete end to the war.
A sizable percentage of Israelis want the war to end. In this conflict of diminished returns, we’ve seen an inability to really pummel Hamas over fears of harming hostages, and an alarming increase in IDF soldier fatalities.
Instead of a 60-day ceasefire, and a piecemeal release of hostages, end the war and leave Gaza in return for the release of all of them.
Is there an end in sight?
The dilemma is: what about Hamas? With no apparatus in place, there’s no reason to think that Hamas won’t retain military and political control of Gaza, as ravaged as it is, and claim a victory. It’s irrelevant, of course, what they claim, but it’s very relevant how quickly the terror organization can rebuild, and once again pose a real-time threat to Israelis in the South.
Some security ‘hawks’ like Gadi Eisenkot are willing to take that chance. Without addressing the fate of Hamas, Eisenkot last week called for the war to end
“At this time, there is an urgent need to end the fighting in Gaza from a position of strength - and return the kidnapped as soon as possible,” he said. “The conditions were created many months ago, and the time has come for a necessary and binding decision to return them as soon as possible.”
On the other end are the also sizable percentage of Israelis who, like Netanyahu and his government, are demanding the total vanquishing of Hamas, even if it means leaving hostages in captivity for months - or longer – to come.
Why did we even launch the war after the October 7 massacre, they say, if we’re going to leave in conditions that would enable another mega-attack in the future? Their mantra is only forcing Hamas to surrender unconditionally will we be able to redeem the hostages.
Although Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, would be unlikely to bolt over the ceasefire deal on the table, they would certainly leave if Netanyahu, under Trump’s pressure, decided to end the war and withdraw from Gaza.
The Opposition, led by Yair Lapid, has already said it will provide a safety net to the government in that eventuality. So, as we approach the 640-day mark of the hostages being in captivity, the Netanyahu-Trump meeting takes on additional significance.
It’s imperative that it not just turn into a victory lap for the stunning 12-day campaign against Iran last month. There needs to be courageous decisions made, based on that fundamental change in the regional power structure and how it can help budge the stalled situation in Gaza.
A failed ceasefire attempt, stymied by Hamas’s changes, will not look good at the White House on Monday. An overall decision to end the Gaza war, withdraw the IDF from Gaza in return for the release of all the remaining hostages, and announce a plan for governance in Gaza that bypasses Hamas, would be the crowning achievement for, not only for Trump and Netanyahu, but for all of Israel and for the Gazan people.
That would be a movie worth seeing.