Netanyahu calculates upsetting Trump is his least-bad option

 

Polls suggest Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing a difficult upcoming general election.

Ilia Yefimovich/AFP/Getty Images

On tricky issues, Netanyahu’s preference is to kick the can down the road. If he must take a position, he likes to include a twist of ambiguity, some wiggle room, just in case things get hairy later. Not this time, though, on the subject of US President Donald Trump’s roadmap for progressing the Gaza ceasefire agreement.

“I wish to be precise: Israel does not accept the 15-point document,” Netanyahu said during opening remarks at Sunday’s weekly Israeli Cabinet meeting.

In fact, he went on to say it twice.

“I have heard people saying: ‘You didn’t say it.’ So here I am saying it again: Israel does not accept the 15-point document.”

The US president – more desperate than ever for a win, as his Iran folly looks increasingly like handing him an L – reinvested in Gaza 10 days ago, declaring that his Board of Peace had reached a “historic agreement” with Hamas for its complete disarmament. The board’s top envoy, Nickolay Mladenov, went on to explain carefully on X that decommissioning would need to take place “in lockstep” with Israeli troop withdrawal, suggesting a phased process by which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) would pull back in stages from positions inside Gaza, as Hamas turned in its arms.