[Salon] Ceasefire scenarios

[Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>]

Ceasefire scenarios

Summary: Gazans woke up on Monday to the sounds of silence as the long anticipated ceasefire took force; as hundreds of thousands trek back to their destroyed neighbourhoods they will be praying that the ceasefire holds and that they can begin the painful work of rebuilding shattered lives.

What to make of the early days of the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas? For most Israelis the release of three female hostages – one of whom is the British-Israeli Emily Damari -was the beginning of a healing process that the country urgently needs. Not so of course for the extremists, including the now former National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. He resigned from Netanyahu’s coalition taking two other ministers from his far-right Otzma Yehudit party with him. Ben-Gvir who had earlier boasted about blocking a hostage release for more than a year called the deal “a victory for terrorism.” Another, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has stayed on apparently because Benjamin Netanyahu has told him he will resume the war when the six week deadline of phase one is reached.

In accordance with the terms, following the freeing of the three women 90 Palestinians were released from an Israeli high security jail. In Gaza and elsewhere in Palestine celebrations broke out with Hamas fighters firing guns into the air and more muted but equally impactful joy being expressed outside the prison by the families of those released. Shatha Jarabaa was arrested for social media criticism of the IDF campaign in Gaza. Her father said she was detained “simply for expressing her ideas” adding “the thing that bothers me the most is that people think that the Israelis have only behaved this way towards us since 7 October, but the truth is that it has always been like this.”

Still just a few days into a three stage process set to last three months the initial signs are positive. Over the next six weeks a total of 33 hostages will be freed and over 1000 Palestinians liberated from Israeli jails. In Israel hope is in the air that phase two will enable the release of all the remaining hostages. For Palestinians the hope is that the releases build enough momentum that phase two which involves the complete withdrawal of the IDF will be engaged and thus enable the beginnings of reconstruction. At that point phase three kicks in. It is estimated that the rebuild of Gaza will take more than a decade and cost at a conservative estimate US$40 billion.

About 90 Palestinian prisoners have been released in exchange for three Israeli hostages handed over by Hamas to Israel, as part of the ceasefire deal aimed at ending 15 months of war.

The expectation in Washington is that the Gulf petro-states will come up with the money but as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman together with the Emiratis and the Qataris have made abundantly clear the only way they will fund reconstruction is if Israel commits to a firm pathway to Palestinian statehood. Why, say these countries, would we commit the money if the conditions that have caused 75 years of on again off again war – that is the denial of Palestinian statehood – remain unresolved with the potential that a rebuilt Gaza will be smashed to smithereens once again?

As we noted in our 17 January newsletter President Trump’s Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff made it abundantly clear in a meeting with the Israeli PM that the president wants the war to stop. Even so Netanyahu has gone out of his way to state and re-state that both Trump and the former president Joe Biden have given him the green light should Hamas violate the terms of the ceasefire. And then there is the deal to keep his finance minister Smotrich in government by saying regardless of what Hamas does or does not do the war will resume at the end of phase one.

As ever Netanyahu is playing for time and attempting to play off various factions both within and outside his government. But he may finally be running out of road. Writing in Haaretz yesterday Amos Harel noted:

The many promises Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made to Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to ensure that the Religious Zionism party stays in the government for the duration of the first phase are destined to clash with Trump's demands. If the American president insists that the war in Gaza must end, Netanyahu will have a hard time defying him.

Trump’s quest for a Nobel Peace Prize is intimately tied into Saudi Arabia normalising relations with Israel. That won’t happen without an Israeli commitment to Palestinian statehood something Benjamin Netanyahu has spent his entire political career resisting. But as Trump 2.0 proceeds at warp speed Netanyahu is faced with a political reality he has never before encountered: an American president telling him the game is up.

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