Why is Trump pressuring Israel to end its war on Gaza?

Ali Abunimah Power Suits 15 January 2025

As of Wednesday morning in Palestine, hopes remained high that a deal to end the Israeli genocide in Gaza and free Palestinian and Israeli captives was imminent.

Negotiators in Doha were reportedly ironing out the final details on an agreement that would bring a reprieve to a population that has endured more than 15 months of relentless Israeli bombing and starvation amid unspeakable atrocities, killing at least tens of thousands and upending the lives of millions.

If agreed and implemented, the deal will also represent a major strategic defeat for Israel.

The outlines of the deal – as reported in the media – are for a three-phase process based on the framework laid out by US President Joe Biden in May and accepted by Hamas.

It would see an immediate ceasefire, a massive inflow of humanitarian aid and a staged Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, accompanied by prisoner exchanges over the course of multiple weeks.

A key question I discussed with journalist Rania Khalek on her BreakThrough News program Dispatches on Tuesday is why the same deal that went nowhere last year is now apparently on the brink of being sealed.

In a wide-ranging discussion we also talked about the downfall of Syria’s government, the future of the Axis of Resistance and much more. You can watch the whole discussion in the video above.

The resistance is still strong

As I told Khalek, the two key factors are the strength of the resistance and Donald Trump, who returns to the White House as US president in less than a week.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, Trump has been putting extraordinary pressure on Israel of a kind that is shocking Tel Aviv and that the Biden administration has absolutely refused to apply.

After 15 months, Palestinian resistance fighters are still attacking Israeli occupation forces in every part of Gaza where they are present, including in the far northern areas that Israel entered and supposedly gained control of in the earliest weeks of its invasion.

The heavy losses and constant attrition have for months been sapping the ability and morale of the Israeli army to carry on a futile effort to defeat a resistance that moves through an extensive tunnel system that remains largely intact.

In light of this, a clear majority of Israelis now support a comprehensive deal to end the war, not merely a temporary pause until whatever captives have survived Israel’s indiscriminate bombing come home. That’s a sea-change in an Israeli public whose lust for revenge against Palestinians in Gaza for the 7 October 2023 resistance operation had seemed insatiable.

Where the power really lies

The other key factor is Trump’s intervention. Last week, the president-elect sent his Middle East envoy to read Israel the riot act.

In a symbolic playing out of the real power relations between Israel and the United States, Steve Witkoff informed the office of Benjamin Netanyahu last Friday that he’d be arriving in Israel the next day and wanted to meet him.

Netanyahu’s aides “politely explained that was in the middle of the Sabbath but that the prime minister would gladly meet him Saturday night,” according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

“Witkoff’s blunt reaction took them by surprise,” Haaretz added. “He explained to them in salty English that Shabbat was of no interest to him. His message was loud and clear.”

Netanyahu obeyed orders from Trump’s envoy and showed up at his office as commanded “for an official meeting with Witkoff, who then returned to Qatar to seal the deal.”

The result of that meeting, according to Haaretz, is that “Witkoff has forced Israel to accept a plan that Netanyahu had repeatedly rejected over the past half year,” making serious concessions to a Hamas that has not budged from its position that the release of Israeli captives must be conditioned on the release of Palestinian prisoners, an end to the war and a complete – albeit phased – Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

This one act could shatter the myth that the Israel lobby holds decisive sway over the US government.

A strategic defeat

How would this represent a strategic defeat for Israel and in effect a victory for the Palestinian resistance in the face of the horrific and still not fully known toll of Israel’s ongoing genocide?

Simply put, Israel will have utterly failed to achieve the “total victory” Netanyahu repeatedly vowed.

“The war in Gaza could end tomorrow if Hamas surrenders, disarms and returns all the hostages,” Netanyahu told the US Congress in June. “But if they don’t, Israel will fight until we destroy Hamas’ military capabilities and its rule in Gaza and bring all our hostages home.”

“That’s what total victory means, and we will settle for nothing less,” the prime minister added.

If this deal goes ahead, Israel will have achieved none of those goals: Hamas will not have been destroyed or disarmed. It will still remain in de facto control inside Gaza – whatever post-war arrangements are put in place – and Israel will have failed to impose its will on a tiny besieged territory after almost 500 days of genocidal extermination and unprecedented mass destruction.

Israel’s barely hidden desires to ethnically cleanse the population of Gaza and resettle it with Jewish colonists will have been defeated.

Israel, moreover, will not return to the place it once held in the world. More than ever it will be a despised pariah whose leaders and soldiers are fugitive war criminals unable to freely travel the globe.

Unexpected pressure

“The pressure Trump is exerting right now is not the kind that Israel expected from him. The pressure is the essence of the matter,” one Netanyahu surrogate said recently.

Everyone, especially Israeli leaders, appear surprised that Trump – who was as staunchly pro-Israel as could be in his first term – would be putting any pressure at all on Netanyahu.

During the US election campaign, Trump had talked of letting Israel “finish the job” in Gaza – red meat for his base and for Israel’s government.

As this writer noted, an intriguing indication that something else was afoot was Trump’s posting on social media earlier this month of a video highly critical of Netanyahu.

In the video, Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs accuses Netanyahu of dragging the United States into the war in Iraq, trying to instigate a US war with Iran and calling the Israeli leader a “deep, dark son of a bitch.”

It was a sign that – unlike Biden’s – Trump’s unconditional support could not be taken for granted.

But there were earlier signs: In July, even before the US election, Trump told Netanyahu that he wanted the war in Gaza to end before Trump would return to office.

Witkoff, Trump’s envoy, has reportedly been firm and consistent about that deadline.

And in the closing stages of the campaign, Trump courted traditionally predominantly Democratic voters disgusted by the Biden-Harris administration’s implacable support for the genocide.

“The Muslim and Arab voters in Michigan and across the country want a stop to the endless wars and a return to peace in the Middle East. That’s all they want,” Trump told a rally in Michigan, which he ended up winning along with every other swing state.

What are Trump’s motivations?

As Khalek and this writer discussed, it is not necessary to view Trump as having any sort of sympathy with the Palestinian struggle to understand what might be behind his surprising willingness to pressure Israel now.

While Trump is often unpredictable and mercurial, a consistent aspect of his worldview is that he does not view America’s traditional “allies” as anything more than client states who are taking advantage of American largesse.

He appears to have no sentimental attachment to them, nor does he see them as vital to his “America First” agenda.

This was his view of NATO in his first term, when he accused Germany, supposedly the bedrock of the transatlantic security alliance, of “making a fortune” off US troops stationed in the country.

Demanding billions from ostensible allies and partners, he thundered, “Why should we defend countries and not be reimbursed?”

He has now doubled down on that position.

He’s even turned on Canada, the largest US trading partner, saying the US is being exploited and does not need Canada’s goods.

He’s even called for the US to absorb Canada as its 51st state.

Given Trump’s disdain for countries that have long been revered as – albeit subordinate – partners by the transatlantic ruling classes, the question is why would he treat Israel any differently?

This is especially the case when Israel has long been the biggest recipient of American largesse.

At the very least, Trump seems likely to take the approach that with America paying Israel’s bills, America will give the orders.

While the Gaza deal is not yet done, the progress made in a few days with Trump’s intervention underscores that Washington giving the orders is and has always been the true nature of the US-Israel relationship.

These developments expose without a shadow of a doubt that the Biden administration’s failure to achieve a ceasefire was always wilful, and that the Democratic Party government positively chose to arm and support the genocide.

There will have to be accountability for that.

What Trump’s bigger plans are for the region remain to be seen.

As has been widely noted, one of his most generous campaign donors is fanatically pro-Israel billionaire Miriam Adelson.

She has denied reports that she conditioned her $100 million gift on Trump’s support for Israeli annexation of the occupied West Bank.

But there’s no doubt that she and other elements of Trump’s base will be pushing for and using their positions near and within the administration to implement extreme anti-Palestinian measures, including even more domestic repression of the Palestine solidarity movement, something Trump himself has promised.

And no one should be surprised if and when Trump delivers.

But Trump is returning as president of a United States that is significantly weaker in relative terms than when he first took office, given the continued rise of China, Russia and new multipolar formations such as BRICS.

The United States may no longer be able to unilaterally impose its will on the whole world, but it can impose its will on Israel, its tiny genocidal dependency in Southwest Asia.

For the sake of the Palestinian people in Gaza, let’s hope the pressure from Trump brings an end to the horrific bloodshed as quickly as possible.

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Comments

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Ewan Patrick Cummins replied on

Trump was unclear about the genocide, and he had been as staunchly pro-Zionist in his first term as Biden was in his term. I couldn't bring myself to vote for him this time around. I just stayed home. I will be overjoyed if it turns out I misjudged the man. Multiple reports are coming out, to the effect he twisted Netanyahu's arm. Good! I don't imagine that the US is suddenly going to adopt a moral and sensible policy toward Palestine, but for a US President to threaten real consequences and by doing so obtain compliance from the PM of the Zionist State is a big deal. The tail has been wagging the dog for far too long.

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Fach replied on

According to Pepe Escobar and Kevork Almassian, the peace deal has been struck so the US can go ahead with establishment of relations between Saudi Arabia and the genocidal entity. If true, then the whole exercise of the Al Aqsa flood would have been futile.

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M smail ould replied on

Not a shed of mention of the Israeli lobby namely AIPAC's impact on this ceasefire dealin this article!!!!!!!
Could anyone shed a bit of light on that? Thanks.

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Booh Radley replied on

Ali could you please comment: what "pressure" could Trump have used on Netanyahu? Both Trump's & Biden's desired outcomes in Gaza are identical with Israel's. Today's news provide the answer: "Israel retains the right to resume war in Gaza and that it has US backing to do so should the second phase of the agreement collapse" "Smotrich said his party would stay on because he had been given guarantees of a “gradual takeover” of Gaza.'" "Netanyahu has warned he reserves the right to restart the war in Gaza with the backing of the United States if he is not satisfied with Hamas’ handling of the ceasefire deal." conclusion: Netanyahu was finally told the obvious, to accept the May 27 agreement and in return he could go back to war & genocide one second after midnight after phase 1. the establishment news agencies would, even without any press release, automatically & forever blame the resumption on Hamas. to paraphrase Harold Pinter: even as it [Hamas is to blame] never happened it always happened. thank you Ali

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Fakhrul Ferdous replied on

Hope this ceasefire last long.
And,bring an end of "War on Gaza" for ever.
ISRA-HELL should realise that the Patriot Palestinians are not afraid of sacrificing their lives 😉 for the sake of their motherland.
May Allah bless all the Palestinians on earth 🌎.
ISRA-HELL IS THE ENEMY OF MANKIND AND CIVILIZATION.

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Fakhrul Ferdous replied on

Hope this ceasefire last long.
And,bring an end of "War on Gaza" for ever.
ISRA-HELL should realise that the Patriot Palestinians are not afraid of sacrificing their lives 😉 for the sake of their motherland.
May Allah bless all the Palestinians on earth 🌎.
ISRA-HELL IS THE ENEMY OF MANKIND AND CIVILIZATION.

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Jacobin replied on

Let's not forget Arab nations have invested billions (or is it given billions?) to Trump's son-in-law, etc. It seems MBS and Trump have a good relationship as well. Democrats lost because they deserved it for a multitude of reasons.

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Ali Abunimah

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books.

Also wrote One Country: A Bold-Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Opinions are mine alone.