Thursday, 29 May 2025

 

Europe is trying to put pressure on Israel to stop the Gaza slaughter. Will Trump let them?

Netanyahu is facing increasing pressure from European states, including the threat of sanctions. The unanswered question is whether Trump will actually let Europe take action, or will he once again shield Israel from any accountability.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signs a vistor's log as he is welcomed to the White House by US President Donald Trump (Photo: Avi Ohayon/Israeli Government Press Office)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signs a vistor’s log as he is welcomed to the White House by US President Donald Trump (Photo: Avi Ohayon/Israeli Government Press Office)

Evidence of strain in Western support for Israel’s genocide and regional aggression continues to mount, yet also continues to fall frustratingly short of the sort of material pressure that would get Israel to stop its constant, wholesale slaughter of Palestinians.

As is so often the case, President Donald Trump’s administration sent out mixed messages over the Memorial Day holiday. Initial reports told us that the United States had reached an agreement with Hamas on a temporary ceasefire deal. Israeli spokespeople then rushed to the media to deny that any deal had been reached, apparently fearing that Trump would pressure Israel to accept it.

With Israel having framed any potential push for a deal as “Hamas and the U.S. vs. Israel,” Trump’s lead negotiator, Steve Witkoff, quickly backtracked, stating that there was a deal on the table that Hamas had yet to accept, the precise opposite of what had been reported previously. 

On Wednesday, Witkoff announced that he had presented a new “term sheet” that Trump was reviewing and that he hoped to send out the same day. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Strategic Affairs Advisor, Ron Dermer, had reviewed this sheet. 

Yet that by no means guarantees that Israel would accept it. Dermer may have given Witkoff a nod, but it will be Netanyahu who decides what to do, and the needs of the moment will dictate his decision. Having already seen that Witkoff and Trump will avoid the appearance of siding with Hamas over Israel, he will have ways to reject it without seeming to defy Trump. The question would then be how angry that makes the fickle U.S. President. 

Why Netanyahu may accept a new temporary truce

Ultimately, Netanyahu’s goal is to destroy Gaza and drive as many of its surviving population out as possible. He wants a Gaza Strip that Israel can permanently control with as few Palestinians as possible — and with those who might remain permanently discouraged from resistance. 

Netanyahu also has no problem with taking a great deal of time to get there. When the genocide (referred to in Israel as “the war”) ends, he will face a reckoning for his own corruption, for his government’s catastrophic failures on October 7, 2023, for his assaults on Israel’s judiciary, and for his divisive leadership. The longer he keeps Israel in a state of “war” — whether in Gaza or with Iran — the more chance he has of finding ways to evade that accounting, in both the short and long term.

Netanyahu thus walks a fine line. Each ceasefire declaration runs the risk of ending the conflict permanently, as Israel’s allies have grown impatient with the effects of the genocide, even if they don’t place much value on Palestinian lives. Israel violates ceasefires as a matter of course, but, as we see in Lebanon, that is felt in Israeli society as business as usual, and, as long as the violence is kept below a certain level, doesn’t bother most of the world. Israel routinely struck Gaza, Lebanon, the refugee camps in the West Bank, and Syria before they were in a “war.” So that activity doesn’t help Netanyahu maintain the state of war he needs.

When Netanyahu agrees to those “sort-of ceasefires,” he intends to return to the full-scale genocide. If history is a guide in this horror, he intends to make it worse than it was before. 

But he is facing the possibility of pressures now that he has not had to worry about before. Those are coming primarily from Europe. While the mantra that the United States is the only body that can really press Israel, the European market is one Netanyahu cannot afford to ignore for too long.

Germany’s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz has even found a voice, saying, “The massive military strikes by the Israelis in the Gaza Strip no longer reveal any logic to me…But it seemed and seems to me that the time has come when I must say publicly that what is currently happening is no longer comprehensible. The civilian population is being affected to an excessive degree.”

If a normal German citizen had said this, they might have been arrested, given how Germany has completely turned antisemitism’s definition into anti-Zionism and nothing more. Now the chancellor himself is saying it. That’s a huge sea change, and it doesn’t stand alone.

I reported last week on Europe’s review of its trade agreement with Israel. In addition, there are rumblings that the UK, France, and other key European states might recognize the state of Palestine at a conference the United Nations calls the “High-level International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution,” to be held June 2-4 in New York. 

Israel was spooked enough by the prospect of more European states recognizing Palestine that they threatened to annex Area C of the West Bank if the UK and France recognized a Palestinian state. Given that Israel’s recent decision to take all land registration procedures away from the Palestinian Authority is tantamount to de facto annexation in any case, some might not see the threat as carrying much weight.

But the open declaration of both annexation and recognition by Israel’s closest European allies of a Palestinian state—despite the lack of feasibility of such a state—would each dramatically shift the diplomatic playing field, albeit in different ways. 

Israel’s reasons for opposing recognition of Palestine are self-evident. But even they would prefer not to have to formally announce annexation of the West Bank, as this could have serious implications for trade deals with Europe and some Arab states, as well as political ramifications throughout the world. Even some in the U.S., particularly Democrats who cling to fictions like the two-state solution as hard as they can, might not be able to sustain their absolute support for Israel if it annexes the West Bank.

Trump’s ambiguous position

The Trump administration has been conspicuous in its silence about all of this. But the cracks in the relationship between Trump and Netanyahu continue to manifest. 

Netanyahu has been rattling his saber over Iran, while Trump has been trying to negotiate a deal with the Islamic Republic. On Wednesday, Trump relayed to reporters that he told Netanyahu when they spoke the previous week that striking Iran “would be inappropriate to do right now because we’re very close to a solution.”

While that sounds calm enough, an earlier report described the phone call as “heated,” and implied that reports of the two being on the same page regarding Iran were intended to cover up the fact that, in reality, the two had deep disagreements on the matter. This was bolstered when Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem described her own meeting with Netanyahu as “very candid,” which is often diplo-speak for disagreement.

A report on Wednesday indicated that both Ron Dermer and the head of the Mossad, David Barnea, were headed to Washington to tell Trump’s aides that Israel would not consider itself bound by any deal Trump strikes with Iran if it bypassed Israel. That was also Israel’s position on Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. 

But while Netanyahu may strike a defiant tone, the fact remains that Israel can’t attack Iran without American help, and if it tries, Trump is very likely to turn on Netanyahu in a way he never has before. It is certain that Trump will not tolerate Netanyahu intentionally disrupting his plans for the region and, worse, embarrassing him by causing a massive spike in oil prices, which would surely result from a major attack on Iran. 

And, while Trump does not want to seem like he is siding with Hamas against Israel, he has also continued to have Witkoff push forward with ceasefire efforts in Gaza. This is, undoubtedly, the result of the efforts of Trump’s Arab allies in the Gulf pushing for an end to the genocide.

Israel’s escalation of regional tensions stands against the efforts of the Gulf Arab states to expand their economies and raise the profile of their region on the international stage. Israeli actions risk increased instability over Yemen and Iran, complicating Saudi and other efforts to turn the temperature down between themselves and Iran. They also risk igniting increased domestic instability throughout the Arab world.

None of that is in the interest of either the Gulf Arab leaders or Trump, who has strong personal economic ties to them. 

Trump clearly would prefer to push Netanyahu toward a ceasefire in a way that pleases both the Israeli right and his own domestic base. But that requires a deal that essentially gives Israel permanent control over Gaza and sees the forcible transfer of the bulk of the population out of Palestine.

Thus, at the moment, Trump is caught between two compelling forces: the far-right Zionists — both Jewish and Christian, and both Israeli and American — who form his political base, and the Gulf Arab partners with whom he is in business. 

Trump has not objected to Israel’s plans to force the people remaining in Gaza into tiny enclaves within the Strip, effectively moving them from one open-air prison to several open-air concentration camps.But he also wants the steady stream of appalling images of starving or burning toddlers to stop. 

So, Trump is pursuing the temporary ceasefire but is also refraining from countering European pressures on Israel, at least for the moment. While there is no indication and realistically, no chance that the U.S. would join in the recognition of a Palestinian state, if Trump’s team doesn’t actively work to not just oppose the idea in New York next week, but to scuttle any effort at recognition of Palestine, that will reveal much about how it views Israel’s concerns. 

It is also quite possible that Witkoff’s effort to broker a temporary ceasefire is intended to thwart the plans in Europe for both recognition and potential trade sanctions against Israel. If he secures such a deal, it is a distinct possibility that this will be enough for Europe to hit the pause button on the activity that is already so insufficient and late. 

Next week will answer some of these questions. Trump, who is likely embarrassed by the public failure of the doomed plan to allow a trickle of aid to be distributed by American mercenaries in Gaza, does not prioritize Gaza. As such, it is possible that he may let Europe act, especially if he believes that Netanyahu needs to be shown who’s boss.

No comments:

Post a Comment

  A Terrorist Suicide Bombing in a Damascus Church Triggers a Wider Takfiri Purge of Syrian Minorities On 22 June at approximately 6:30pm du...