Trump could yet deliver a ceasefire in the Middle East

Independent

a day ago

It is given to few to peer inside the minds of the Hamas leadership, so their precise motives for rejecting the latest ceasefire offer cannot be easily discerned.
However, there are some consequences of their policy which are not difficult to determine. Many more innocent Palestinian people will starve to death, or be injured and die, more children will be orphaned, the remaining Israeli hostages will continue to be kept in tortuous conditions, the war will continue, and neither the state of Israel nor the Palestinian occupied territories will enjoy the kind of security taken for granted in most nations on earth. The slide into the abyss, in other words, will continue.
The tragedy of the Palestinian people has many facets and many cruel ironies attached to it.
An overriding one that has come into sharp focus since Hamas committed its terrorist atrocities on 7 October 2023 is that which condemns the people of Gaza and the occupied West Bank to continued suffering. The paradox is that those who have the power to help the Palestinians – the Israeli authorities, Hamas and the Trump administration – do not really wish to do so; and those who want to help the Palestinians – European and other nations, the UN agencies, bodies of opinion in Israel and America too – lack the power to do so.
The fundamental, inconvenient and obscene fact of political life in the region is that it suits the Netanyahu administration and the Hamas leadership equally well to prolong this war. That is why so many ceasefire initiatives have failed, and the few uneasy periods of peace have soon enough collapsed into renewed bloodshed and misery.
Indeed, the last such ceasefire and its failure, in March, arguably made matters even worse because the Israelis then decided to impose a blockade on humanitarian aid reaching the civilian population, who are, in any case, continually displaced and left under bombardment of one kind or another. Every so often, there is some diplomatic breakthrough and a ceasefire is proposed by one side, brokered by the US and maybe some regional partner such as Qatar or Egypt… which is then rejected by the other.
Often this happens even where the two sides are surprisingly – but also suspiciously – close to agreement. It is very much as though these leaders do not yearn for peace.
In the latest failing case, Hamas won't accept the terms because they wouldn't necessarily mean a permanent end to the war. But the fact that the Israelis won't offer such an outcome unconditionally is only to be expected – and a 60-day ceasefire could lead to an extension and an eventual end to the war, and especially if those remaining hostages were to be released. Obviously, there's nothing to stop the Israelis resuming the violence, but that will always be the case, just as Hamas is unlikely to renounce violence forever, as Israel demands. The point of a ceasefire is that it opens up possibilities.
These possibilities include the survival of more blameless civilians, and a chance for some sort of progress towards at least a temporary settlement, and to avoid the bizarre Trump plan to turn a depopulated Gaza into an American-administered beach resort. The Israelis must have come under some pressure from the Trump administration and its envoy, Steve Witkoff, to assent to a ceasefire of any kind, because Mr Netanyahu depends so much for his domestic political survival on prosecuting an unceasing, disproportionate and inhumane war.
But rejection of the ceasefire also suits Hamas, who have shown definitively that they care little for the people of Gaza. They are, in fact, using their intolerable suffering to move opinion among Israel's Arab neighbours, the Muslim world and among Israel's traditional friends and allies in the West militantly against Israel.
That may not have been a concrete, conscious plan when they contemplated the 7 October attacks – but Israel's unprecedented and increasing international isolation, exacerbated by extreme elements calling for the expulsion of Palestinians from their land, is nonetheless extremely welcome to Hamas and its friends in Tehran.
The principal hope for something like a respite in the fighting and averting a mass famine is that President Trump can now add to the pressure on both sides to accept his ceasefire.
Events in recent weeks point to the president becoming impatient with his Israeli counterpart, and more willing to make him change course and at least to permit aid to get through. Mr Trump has his own business and geopolitical agenda in the Middle East, as witnessed in his recent tour of the Gulf States, the acceptance of a luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the Qatari government, and the series of direct talks with the Iranians in Rome. It is through these channels that the White House can also push Hamas towards accommodating Israeli wishes and securing the ceasefire.
The gap between Hamas and Mr Netanyahu could be easily bridged and, with his keenness on improving relations with Iran and his frustration with Mr Netanyahu, Mr Trump is well placed and well incentivised to build that bridge – if others will let him.