While Donald Trump insists that his plan for Gaza will be accepted, Binyamin Netanyahu is highly unlikely to agree to any such deal this side of the Israeli general election in October. His immediate response has been clear enough: there will be no Israeli military withdrawal whatsoever until Hamas is completely disarmed.
It follows that the longer-term prospect for the two million Palestinians crowded into barely a third of the original Gaza land area depends largely on whether the Israeli prime minister retains power. But even if he loses, the opposition in the Knesset is so divided that there is no guarantee that an incoming government will seek a just settlement with the Palestinians.
While diminishing support for Israel in the United States is certainly a major concern for Netanyahu, Israeli domestic opinion is, for now, far more important. In the next two months, he will seek to focus Israeli voting intentions on national security, persistently casting minds back to the impact of the Hamas attacks of 7 October three years ago.
In particular, Netanyahu will emphasise the need for Israelis to have full control over Gaza. Israeli air raids on the territory will continue and likely be extended, probably provoking reactions from Hamas. He may well also look to increase tensions in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, whose security he will hope to make another key area of concern for voters.
Government-backed incursions by Jewish religious extremists are already increasing in the West Bank, encouraged by national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who heads up a powerful faction in Israel’s ruling coalition. Two weeks ago, Ben Gvir led more than 2,000 Israelis in forcing their way into the compound surrounding al-Aqsa mosque – widely regarded as one of Islam’s most holy places – in what Jordanian officials said was the worst violation in modern history.
Elsewhere, Netanyahu will also be hoping to focus attention on the continuing tensions with the hard-line regime in Iran, as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Islamist paramilitaries in Syria and Iraq.
Critics may argue that many of these problems stem from the failures of the Netanyahu coalition itself, but this cuts surprisingly little ice in Israel at present. Even the argument that public support for Israel in the US is ebbing away can be turned on its head; after all, Trump has proved himself to be so notoriously unpredictable that Israel must always be prepared to go it alone.
Regardless, the longer-term danger to future Israeli governments may stem not from local or regional factors but from the international community – particularly Israel’s traditional allies in the West.
Global support for Palestinians has grown amid Israel’s near-total destruction of Gaza since October 2023, which has left close to 100,000 people dead or missing, and those who survive trapped in an open prison. This support is only likely to increase as more evidence emerges of Israeli horrors.
In the UK, for example, two new books publish first-hand accounts of the treatment of Palestinians. One is journalist Peter Oborne’s Complicit: Britain’s Role in the Destruction of Gaza, a closely referenced report on the UK’s support for Israel, and the other is The Gaza Tribunal: Britain’s Complicity in Genocide, which details the findings of an inquiry by former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and human rights lawyers Neve Gordon and Shahd Hammouri. The tribunal, which Corbyn instigated after Parliament declined to investigate, sat in London and heard evidence, often in grim detail, from international health professionals who have worked in Gaza’s hospitals.
Over the past 80 years, successive Israeli governments have deemed it necessary to put considerable resources into maintaining numerous friendships with influential politicians and other government figures across the world. In the early decades of the State of Israel, this was hardly surprising, given the memories of the terrors of the Holocaust.
Some of these friendships have cooled in recent years. This is currently viewed as a minor problem by Netanyahu and others in his government, but may well become a greater one in years to come – not least since the appalling treatment of Palestinians scarcely registers with the majority of Israeli Jews.
Some Israeli politicians are already becoming concerned by European states’ singling out of individual products exported from illegal West Bank settlements. They fear further international economic constraints, such as boycotts, disinvestment and sanctions.
The marker for this may turn out to be what happens in the UK. Successive recent governments have shared a commitment to controlling public dissent over the Israeli treatment of Palestinians, including novel legal interpretations of terrorism that have seen thousands of protesters arrested. Expect Andy Burnham’s new government to meet strong opposition if it takes the same approach. But if it changes course, then whoever wins the forthcoming Israeli election should take note.
