The war was declared over, according to those who wanted it ended, if only in defeat, a short time after it began. Those same circles, the "formerly" and opposition leaders, now cry in one breath about the failure to achieve an absolute victory, which indeed has not yet been achieved, and in the next breath complain that Israel is nothing but a vassal of the US. They believe that President Donald Trump forced Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war without having the war's goals realized.
These are the circles that begged, in protests and behind the scenes, first President Joe Biden and then President Trump to save us from a protracted war. Therefore their claim that the war is over is not an objective assessment but a wish dressed up as an analysis, background noise that blurs judgment and that reveals a mood partly despairing and defeatist and partly moralizing and lost.
President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu genuinely want to end the war in a coordinated fashion, but with Hamas defeated and not Israel, so as to fulfill their shared geostrategic plans. Yet there is no responsible answer to whether they have managed to find a path to end the war in victory. We do not know whether Trump, together with Israel and his Arab and non-Arab Muslim allies, will succeed in neutralizing militarily and politically the terrorist army in Gaza and dismantling the underground infrastructure it built there.
The clear way to do that is the military route, which has been postponed or thwarted. The Israel Defense Forces control half the Strip and fully encircle the other half, while about 70 percent of buildings across the Strip are uninhabitable and a similar share of its population is homeless.
From a military standpoint it is therefore possible to move to occupy the remaining half and impose a temporary military administration there, tasked with sealing tunnels and eliminating Hamas militarily and politically. But for now the Trump plan, which led to the release of hostages, thwarts that route and outlines an alternative political path to de-Hamas-ization in Gaza.
The problem is that Israel and the US are in danger of falling victim to deception along this path, not only to deception by Hamas but also to deception by the states now sheltering it. These are US allies and states that are deeply hostile to Israel: Egypt, Turkey and Qatar. All three are signatories to the Trump plan, but would it surprise anyone if they backtrack and dilute its military requirements?
For Israel, uprooting Hamas is an existential interest, not merely an advantage as it is for Americans. Therefore Israel could find itself forced to accept the survival of Hamas in one guise or another, combined with the resurgence of a hostile actor such as the Palestinian Authority.
Instead of uprooting Hamas and opening migration gates from Gaza, we could end up in a nightmare in which Egypt, Turkey and Qatar entrench themselves in the Strip in one form or another. Under their patronage threats from Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad will grow, and above all the UN Security Council, perhaps with the support of our supposed friends France and Britain, could impose constraints that hinder our ability to defend ourselves or to preempt threats. This nightmare is not an unavoidable reality. The ceasefire conditions in the Trump plan allow us to thwart it.
We will allow unlimited humanitarian aid, but our control over half the Strip along the "yellow line" and the IDF's encirclement of the part we do not control enable us to prevent the Strip's rehabilitation until three elementary demands are met: the military and governmental uprooting of the Hamas terrorist organization, including neutralizing the tunnels; opening migration gates for those in Gaza who wish to emigrate; and preventing the entry of forces from hostile states or hostile actors, including the UN and the Palestinian Authority.
Israel is not a vassal of the US, as demonstrated during the Biden administration and also on the eve of the attack on Iran. Even at the cost of friction with the Trump administration, we have the strength to insist on our vital interests in the Strip.
