Netanyahu is refusing to obey the order of the Trump administration to withdraw out of Gaza and allow an international military force to manage Gaza, as we read in the Wall Street Journal:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected President Trump’s plan to establish permanent peace in Gaza, a rare public break with the U.S. leader, who just weeks ago hailed “a historic agreement” to disarm Hamas.
The plan calls for the militant group to lay down arms in tandem with the gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops from the enclave, which the Israeli leader said Sunday couldn’t happen until Hamas was fully disarmed.
Netanyahu’s decision, spelled out in a government meeting and video statement, risks angering Trump, with whom he has had fractious relations behind the scenes for months. The collapse of the peace process in Gaza would rob Trump of what his administration has described as a major foreign-policy achievement of his second term at the same time as the president is embroiled in the Iran war.
Netanyahu, who has come under pressure from the Trump administration to agree to the deal to disarm Hamas, also faces uphill elections in the fall and his hard-right coalition partners have vociferously objected to the terms of the agreement.
As well as the decommissioning of Hamas’ weapons in exchange for a phased Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the plan includes the entry of an international stabilization force into the enclave and a Palestinian technocratic committee to assume governance of Gaza.
“Israel rejects the 15-point document. The IDF will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is disarmed. And when I say the disarmament of Hamas, I mean heavy weapons, less heavy weapons, light weapons, all the weapons,” Netanyahu said at the opening of an Israeli cabinet meeting, using an abbreviation for the Israeli military.
Israel is not going to back out of Gaza easily. They want the land to make it Jewish as part of its “Greater Israel” project. Netanyahu himself told the Israeli interview Sharon that he “Very much” agrees with the vision of Greater Israel. Secondly, Israel does not want foreign troops in Gaza. The Gaza Board of Peace wants to deploy troops from Kosovo, Albania an Kazakhstan, and these are all allies to Turkey. If these troops are in Gaza, it will be a foothold into that region for the Turks. Turkey has also pledged to deploy troops into Gaza, and Israel most definitely does not want this, as it would mean an encirclement of Israel by Turkey (Turkish troops are already in Cyprus to Israel’s West; in Syria to the East, and in Lebanon to the north. Turkish troops in Gaza would mean the full encirclement of Israel). Moreover, Israel wants to be able to bomb Gaza without killing foreign troops and possibly sparking a diplomatic war with another country. Eventually, Israel will be facing a powerful Turkey and Iran and will meet its demise: