For Netanyahu, avoiding the peace agreement may be worse than the agreement

He promised a complete victory over Israel, but standing next to Donald Trump at the White House on Monday, and Benjamin Netanyahu was the one who looked defeated.

The Israeli Prime Minister used to say all the right things about the peace agreement that he just agreed, but he seemed arrogant, his voice was shy and faint, as Trump praised him as “the greatest friend of Israel in the White House.”

It is a friendship that his government can cost.

Netanyahu’s extremist allies threatened to leave-and he may collapse-his government if he made a lot of concessions in ending the war. Coalition partners such as bezalel Smotrich and ITamar Ben-Gvir have hidden only their desire to annex Gaza, expel the Palestinians and re-establish the Jewish settlements there.

They opposed – and Netanyahu – any role for the Palestinian Authority in Gaza, and any path to a Palestinian state. Netanyahu’s deal now agreed to define both lines alike, despite heavy warnings.

Trump knows that by pushing the Israeli Prime Minister to this deal, he is asking him to risk his government. On the other hand, it hangs from the possibility of a historical heritage – a new and more peaceful future for the region, and new ties between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

There were signs, even before Netanyahu left Washington, that he knows this option is coming.

Isaac Herzog, President of Israel, told an Israeli radio station that he was considering pardoning Netanyahu on corruption cases he is currently facing in court. These trials are one of the reasons, as his critics claim, that he is hesitant to leave his position and confront judges without the shield of his national duties, power and personal file.

But the political exit that is presented to him at this moment – a regional heritage in exchange for abandoning his government, and perhaps his political profession – does not seem to have totally won it.

His first response to his citizens today was to publicly emphasize that he did not agree, in fact, to a Palestinian state.

In response to a question about the camera, he said: “Certainly no. He was not written even in the agreement,” said in response to a question about the camera. “But we said one thing – that we will resist by force a Palestinian state.”

Reports in the Israeli media this morning also indicate that the government of Israel will not get voting on the full conditions of the deal – but only in the exchange of Israeli hostages to Palestinian prisoners.

The question is what these measures indicate about his political account: whether Netanyahu is trying to bring his government long enough to work for his political charm on the polls, which currently expect to lose the elections, or whether he screams on Hamas rejects this deal – or his inability to control its leaders on the ground in Gaza – and that the war will not stop at all.

The potential continuation of the war was something that confirmed in this uncomfortable press conference in Washington, which confirms – with Trump’s support – that Israel will obtain a “end of the job” if Hamas fails to connect it alongside the deal. In this light, this uncomfortable moment can be the price of US support for his war.

Netanyahu is known as the master of political maneuvers, as it connects a road between political road barriers to buy time. The situation has turned through rounds of previous negotiations, and it ran through previous ceasefire deals, only to retreat when it is a permanent end of the war for discussion.

Many believe that he never wanted to negotiate the end of this war, but forcing Hamas to surrender to the conditions of Israel. But it is difficult to maintain that unbearable image of “complete victory” when you have publicly waived the same things that you spent preventing them, and when you wait for your enemy response.

For the first time since the war began, the consequences of avoiding this deal were worse than the consequences of agreeing on it. And if Trump truly forced him to choose between his ally in Washington and his allies at home, then why did Joe Biden not do the same when it was a similar deal on the table nine months ago – and about 30,000 Ghazan are still alive?