Netanyahu returns to White House holding all the cards in Gaza talks
Netanyahu and Trump have a complex personal relationship – and Trump openly vented frustration at him last month during efforts to negotiate a truce with Iran – but the two have appeared in lockstep since the US launched a bombing run against Iran's nuclear programme, fulfilling a key goal for Israeli war planners.
Netanyahu arrives in Washington in a strong political position, observers have said, potentially giving him the diplomatic cover he would need to end the war in Gaza without facing a revolt from his rightwing supporters that could lead to the collapse of his government.
Hamas this week responded 'positively' to a 60-day Israeli ceasefire proposal. But its negotiators have sought for Israel to guarantee a permanent end to the war and to manage the distribution of aid in Gaza through the UN, rather than the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has had a tumultuous rollout marred by near-daily incidents of Israeli soldiers opening fire on civilians gathering near its distribution sites, killing hundreds of people.
Israel has said the proposed changes to a ceasefire proposal are unacceptable, but Netanyahu has said he will nonetheless send negotiators to Qatar for indirect talks with Hamas. Before boarding his flight to the US on Sunday, Netanyahu said Israel had an opportunity 'to expand the circle of peace far beyond what we could have imagined'.
Netanyahu also said Israeli negotiators heading to ceasefire talks in Qatar had clear instructions to achieve a ceasefire agreement under conditions Israel had accepted, Reuters reported, and added that Trump could help achieve those goals.
'We have already transformed the Middle East beyond recognition, and we now have a chance to bring a great future to the people of Israel and the Middle East,' he said.
Those will be the first talks in six weeks and Trump has told reporters he is very optimistic about the potential for a ceasefire. 'There could be a Gaza deal next week,' Trump told reporters onboard Air Force One on Friday.
Before the meetings, Netanyahu's top strategic adviser, Ron Dermer, huddled with the US vice-president, JD Vance, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and the US envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, for consultations in Washington. During those meetings, the Guardian has been told, the two sides discussed postwar conditions that would allow Israel to banish Hamas from the Gaza Strip and task the international community with responsibility for its rebuilding.
'We have no interest to stay in Gaza,' Israel's ambassador to the UN, Danny Damon, said in response to a question from the Guardian. 'I think we will make sure that in terms of security, we have the ability to act in Gaza, very similar to what's happening today in Judea and Samaria,' territories known internationally as the occupied West Bank.
Hamas has pushed for guarantees from the US that Israel will end the war permanently. Damon, however, said an initial 60-day ceasefire was 'not a commitment for ending the war', and that further discussions on a permanent ceasefire would take place in that period.
'We're going to have to think about the mechanism which will allow Israel to declare that the war is over, will allow international organisations and other players to step in and we make sure that Hamas is not there,' he said.
US and Israeli officials have said they believe the military campaign in Gaza – which has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians – has allowed Netanyahu to effectively dictate terms to Hamas and that the group has very little leverage in negotiations.
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The latest version of the deal would have Hamas release 28 Israeli hostages – 10 alive and 18 bodies – over the course of the 60-day ceasefire. The UN and Palestine Red Crescent Society would be given additional licence to expand aid operations in Gaza. The Israeli army would withdraw first from parts of northern Gaza, and one week later would pull out from parts of the south.
The deal would leave approximately 22 hostages, 10 of them alive, still held in Gaza.
Netanyahu has boasted that his expected meetings in Washington with Trump and other senior officials, including Vance, the secretary of defence, Pete Hegseth, and Rubio, were in part achieved by Israel's readiness to confront Iran.
'These come in the wake of the great victory that we achieved,' Netanyahu said in remarks to the Israeli government. 'Taking advantage of the success is no less an important part of achieving the success.'
A key question is whether Trump's patience with Netanyahu will last. He has at times been frustrated with the slow pace of negotiations over the Gaza ceasefire. 'MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA. GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!! DJT,' he wrote on social media a week ago.
And as he sought to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Iran last week, he had what looked like a minor meltdown as he complained on the White House lawn: '[Iran] violated [the ceasefire] but Israel violated it, too ... I'm not happy with Israel,' he said. 'We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing.'
As Netanyahu comes to Washington on Monday for the third time since Trump's inauguration, he appears to know exactly what he is doing. And while Trump has touted his bona fides as a dealmaker, the decision for when and how a ceasefire is implemented in Gaza appears ultimately out of his hands.
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And you know what happens to traitors. Traitors get shot.' But Pamela Hemphill, 68, from Boise, Idaho, refused Trump's pardon and expressed remorse, describing the police as 'heroes' and the rioters as 'very dangerous people'. Buehler reflects: 'I could see patterns. It's very tribal. Trump was successful in almost stealing red, white and blue as their symbol. They all call themselves patriots on this wall. They all bought into the big lie that the election was stolen. 'Their social media posts and messages that were part of the record when they were indicted show that they believed a lot of the other lies like Pizzagate – we've got to stop the pedophiles taking over. They're in a media bubble. They believe it and they're in it together and they did see themselves as patriots.' The project aims to foster solidarity and courage among those who oppose authoritarianism. Buehler recounts how the defacement of the Wall of Lies by the far-right group Proud Boys galvanised the community, leading them to cut out the Proud Boys graffiti and spraypainted hearts all over it and raise money for a bigger mural. 'How are we going to survive the next four years? This runs through your head. Then what can I do? Community gives you courage. Marching in those parades gives you courage to fight against this. We're using this symbolic art piece to rally around a different flag.' The Wall of Shame – installed at the same location as the Wall of Lies – was provoked by Trump's decision on his first day back in office to grant clemency to about 1,500 individuals charged or convicted in connection with the January 6 insurrection, including people found guilty of assaulting police officers. Democrats called the move an affront to justice and democracy. Yet the controversy has been almost forgotten in the fast-paced news cycle, overwhelmed by a deluge of Trump drama from Elon Musk to Signalgate to tariffs to protests in Los Angeles to military strikes on Iran. But Buehler insists: 'We look at that as the first of his steps in his march toward authoritarianism. 'OK, let's pardon all the people that rioted.' 'It's interesting what we've seen since. He sent thousands of national guard and marines to LA for mostly peaceful protests. I don't know if it's ironic or telling that, during the January 6 riots, he watched them on television on the other side of DC and didn't do anything and then pardoned them. A hundred and forty cops got hurt and now this year [FBI director] Kash Patel is saying, 'Touch a cop, go to jail.' I guess the unsaid part is, 'Touch a cop, go to jail unless it's for Trump and what Trump wants.'' The artist adds: 'He's since followed it up with some illegal deportations. He disobeys the courts constantly. He's turned the White House into a car dealership showroom with Tesla. And now he's starting a war [against Iran] without the authorisation of Congress. I guess we're trying to highlight that was the first thing. Don't forget that one: the pardon of the rioters. That was his first act of trying to emulate Putin and become an authoritarian leader.' Trump has been waging war on reality for a decade, conjuring a mirror world in which up is down and black is white. He has described the January 6 rioters as patriots and martyrs while dismissing those who protested against immigration enforcement raids in LA as 'insurrectionists'. When he faced criminal investigations he blamed the 'weaponisation' of the justice department, while any negative media coverage is routinely branded 'fake news'. Rob Prichard of Radio Free Brooklyn, who initially suggested that Buehler tackle the January 6 pardons, finds something Orwellian in Trump's attempts to rewrite history and dominate the cultural space. The president has seized control of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and ordered the removal of so-called 'improper, divisive or anti-American ideology' from Smithsonian Institution museums, forcing the resignation of the director of its National Portrait Gallery. Speaking from Park Slope, Brooklyn, Prichard, 69, says via Zoom: 'As a nation we are as close to autocracy as we've ever been. It seems like fascism is basically a war on consensus reality and we need to put a pin in those points where it's so obvious that it's not true. 'Trump's entire political career is predicated on a demonstrable lie, saying Barack Obama was born in Kenya, and because we never called him out on it properly in the first place, it just continues. If you can get away with it you play the hand again. Steve Bannon [a rightwing podcast and former Trump adviser] is flooding the zone. We need to flood the zone too but with the truth.' The colour-coding of the mural is intentional, designed to reclaim a national symbol from what the creators perceive as its co-option by Trump supporters. Prichard adds: 'We're not ceding the red, white and blue. We claim it and we claim the true meaning of representative democracy. 'I have hope because for one thing, autocracy and fascism is predicated on violence and the threat of violence. Both violence and the threat of violence are untenable. They can't be. You just can't maintain them forever and it has to break. The fever has to break eventually and either there's complete submission or we liberate ourselves. I don't see complete submission. That's part of our DNA.' Prichard does not use words such as fascist lightly. His 91-year-old mother is German and was forced to join Hitler's youth movement when she was seven years old. 'She remembers it. She is deathly afraid of Trump. If she were 10 years younger, she would probably move to Germany permanently.'
