A ceasefire is finally in place in Gaza. Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire and hostage release deal. Donald Trump has made the first comments. The US president-elect, who will officially take office next Monday, described the outcome of the Middle East deal as “epic” on his social media platform ‘Truth’, going so far as to note that the agreement “could only have happened as a result of our historic victory in November.” Alessandro Politi, Director of the NATO Defence College Foundation (NDCF), commented on the agreement and outlined its possible implications. “For Benjamin Netanyahu, this victory is politically unproductive, to say the least,” he notes. “After more than a year of war, the Israeli Prime Minister has failed to contain the most radical factions of his electorate, while his country is in the grip of a financial crisis. “Time will tell what the huge costs of the war will lead to”, said Politi, “while the economy is stagnating.”
Director, what’s between the lines of the positive news of the ceasefire agreement?
The victims left by this war speak for themselves: 200,000 in Gaza from direct and indirect causes – although this is a conservative estimate based on calculations made by The Lancet, given that the figures circulating are either propaganda or figures from organisations unable to count them properly – on the Israeli side 1,200 civilians, 131soldiers and more than 300 hostages.
From a human and humanitarian point of view, the fact that the hostages can now return home is certainly a positive event, as is the release of the approximately one thousand Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.
Against this background, the rest of the Middle East is faced with the unresolved issue of Lebanon, which has weakened Hezbollah but not to the point of its disappearance, even with the new president, Joseph Khalil Aoun, a Maronite Christian and former commander-in-chief of the armed forces. From the point of view of the media, one could say that the Shiite crescent is weakened for the time being – but we better be under no illusion. Similarly, in Syria, the fall of the regime is due to weakened military morale. In the case of Israel, the ceasefire is not a success for Benjamin Netanyahu, at least politically for now.
Is this a victory for Hamas?
If the Israelis continue to refer to what is a full-blown revolutionary war as terrorism, they are bound to continue to lose on the political front. The Israelis have been engaged in warfare, but astonishingly the ruling elite has not come up with a political solution in the meantime, while the country is facing a serious economic crisis. Time will tell what the huge costs of the war will lead to, while the economy is stagnating with a significant number of voters holding views that run counter to humanitarian regulations.
So are Trump and his delegation, which participated in crafting the deal, the winners?
What Trump probably did was to put pressure on the Israeli side as well. He was concerned about the fate of the American hostages. Netanyahu probably found Trump’s pressure convenient because it temporarily distracted him from the extremist faction that sought to evacuate and colonise Gaza. Trump dispatched his envoy, Steve Witkoff, who worked smoothly with Biden’s envoys. Both sides carefully considered that the Israelis were collapsing the House of Cards.
The US made its complaints anonymously some time ago. Trump no longer shies away from threatening to use force, that’s what’s new. With the addition of the use of force, Trump 2 is like Trump 1 plus Musk. Whether the use of force will be financial or military remains to be seen at a later point in time.
Qatar plays an important role in this picture, but the Gulf states don’t dislike the return of Trump, who ushered in the Abrahamic Accords. If this dynamic, which primarily involves Saudi Arabia, were to continue, the ceasefire with Hamas could gradually remove one of the obstacles standing between Riyadh and Tel Aviv for the normalisation of relations, as well as for NATO, which operates through the partnership that brings together the Gulf states, with the exception of Oman, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The ceasefire with Hamas not only helps pull some of Netanyahu’s ‘political chestnuts’ out of the fire, it also removes the first obstacle to the normalisation of relations in the region.
Will Israel-US relations change after the Gaza deal?
Relations are evolving, but there is an underlying rift that has been brewing since the Bush Jr. era and has yet to be resolved. A change of direction by Tel Aviv, which has lost credibility on the international stage, would be advisable. This is a severe blow for Israel, one that weighs heavily and has undermined a number of collective beliefs.
On Wednesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar announced that Italy would not arrest Netanyahu if he came to Rome, despite the warrant issued by the International Criminal Court.
The more the democratic governments disregard the treaties they have signed, the more they facilitate the actions of those who flout international law. The autocrats are grateful.
