Despite Equal Bargaining Power, Trump's Chaos Is Proving More Effective Than Biden's Careful Diplomacy

Throughout the war with Hamas, the Biden administration repeatedly asked to visit the Gaza Strip to assess the damage the Israeli military was wreaking there and the difficulties in supplying humanitarian aid. The destruction in Gaza, Israeli security sources say, is among the worst – if not the worst in impact and extent – carried out in the wars across the globe in recent decades.

The military, under government direction, tended to ignore and delay when it received such diplomatic requests. Finally, left with no choice, it took U.S. officials in armored, windowless vehicles to show them as little of the destruction as possible.

Late last month, after Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, invited himself on a similar tour, the orders were totally different. Officers took him to areas where destruction was near total. When Trump says, somewhat justifiably, that Gaza in its current condition is uninhabitable, Israeli messages helped drive him to this conclusion.

The gap between the visits during the two presidential terms reflects part of the paradox of U.S. foreign policy. The previous administration offered several ideas it deemed reasonable and potentially beneficial. But its ability to force them on both sides was meager. Former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said last spring that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was playing for time, delaying every significant diplomatic move while waiting for Trump.

Returned to the White House, the current president does seem to have more bargaining power than his predecessor. The issue, though, is that aside from his admirable success in pushing through the hostage deal, Trump’s ideas are mainly extremist and potentially dangerous.

Trump’s press conference with Netanyahu on Tuesday was unusual, even by the host’s standards. He dropped a series of bombshells, primarily his proposal to permanently relocate Gazans and that “the U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip.” He created a huge buzz in the media, while the Israeli government and right-wing parties received his ideas with childlike joy. Netanyahu himself looked surprised by some of Trump’s declarations.

But in practice, the president’s show was more a threat than a plan. Trump, in returning to the White House, is doing what he’s always done, just bigger: throwing an explosive charge into a crowded room and seeing what happens. His press secretary admitted later that “the plan was written in the president’s remarks last night as he revealed it to the world.” Who knows, maybe someone in the West Wing was playing with ChatGPT?

From the moment he made his proposal – radical, hard to implement and likely unacceptable to the Arab world – he has hoped to force the Palestinians and Arab countries to go out of their way to make an offer he finds acceptable.

In practice, the discussion could very well return to the original ideas debated in the Biden era: reconstruction while most residents remain in Gaza, significant financing by the Gulf States and settling on a political solution that lets Trump and Netanyahu say that Hamas was no longer at the wheel in the Strip.

The host of mainly enthusiastic reactions in Israel made almost no mention of moral dimension: expelling 2 million people whose ancestors lived there, not in some East African protectorate. The idea of Palestinians suddenly vanishing from the Gazan landscape thrilled the right. The Israeli center, or what’s left of it, wasn’t far behind.

It’s hard to distinguish between Netanyahu’s reaction to Trump’s proposal and that of National Unity Party chairman MK Benny Gantz. It’s partly the shock that the October 7 atrocities caused, but the responses also reflect the growing numbness in Israeli public opinion to sweeping measures seeking to forcibly change the lives of millions.

The president, using real estate logic, knows that just clearing the rubble will probably take at least a decade, not to mention neutralizing hundreds (if not thousands) of unexploded Israeli munitions. Gaza’s remaining infrastructure doesn’t permit normal life. Gazans waited with bated breath for the Israeli withdrawal from the Netzarim Corridor so hundreds of thousands could return from the south to the north and their ruined homes. But after it reopened, many returned south after a few days when they realized the north didn’t even have a reasonable supply of drinking water.

Nonetheless, the claim by Netanyahu and Trump that an alternate solution lies in Africa isn’t the least bit logical. The Palestinians would be a foreign element there, even if they share the Islamic religion with residents of Somaliland, an unrecognized country that no one has heard of.

Trump’s desired partner, Saudi Arabia, quickly announced its objection to this fantasy of immigration and insisted on the need to establish a Palestinian state. Officials in Jordan and Egypt, which were initially mentioned as possible destinations to absorb the relocated Gazans, are horrified. As it is, the regime in Amman is teetering and the government in Egypt is struggling to feed more than 100 million hungry mouths.

Defense Minister Israel Katz on Wednesday ordered the military to prepare a plan for evacuating Gazans. Katz also preemptively blamed countries like Spain, Ireland and Norway, which have criticized Israel’s conduct during the war, of hypocrisy if they wouldn’t accept Palestinian refugees. And still, the chances of implementing Trump’s new idea seem negligible in the extreme. The move’s main significance for now is likely to play out in Israel.

It’s not for nothing that Witkoff was sent to meet for hours with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. The Americans want to stabilize Netanyahu’s coalition ahead of the coming moves. The important, urgent matters for them are precisely the ones that the Israeli far-right opposes: completing the first stage of the hostage deal (in which 12 more living hostages and the bodies of eight dead hostages will be returned), and moving on to the second stage. That’s when another 59 hostages, fewer than half of them alive, are supposed to return.

The fantasy of expulsion is too tempting for Smotrich to abandon now. Meanwhile, Itamar Ben-Gvir is seeking to return to government. Trump may also have blathered about possibly annexing the West Bank (he’s bothered by Israel’s modest size, which he compares to the size of “this wonderful pen” relative to his desk, which he likens to the Middle East).

When he promised to discuss annexation within a month, the timing wasn’t coincidental. It dovetails with the transition to the second stage of the hostage deal. Billionaire donor Miriam Adelson continues to pressure Trump to get every hostage home. It’s also known that Witkoff, at least, is totally committed, morally and emotionally.

It seems the larger obstacle now is, once again, Hamas. If Trump declares that Hamas won’t control Gaza and proposes mass relocation from there – what incentive does Hamas have left to go through with a deal, even completing the first stage? For now, Hamas is still committed to the deal and is even considering showing a certain flexibility about releasing more hostages at a time. But it’s doubtful whether Trump’s announcement encourages Hamas to go further than that.

The timetable set for the hostage deal makes it even harder on the government, regardless of Trump’s dreams. A little more than three weeks remain until the end of the first stage. Afterward, even without an agreement, the sides are supposed to continue discussing a long-term solution during the cease-fire.

Netanyahu’s associates have already leaked that he would aim to extend the first stage with adding additional, smaller hostage-prisoner exchanges. By doing so he would avoid starting the second stage, which requires a massive release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the remaining hostages, evacuating the Philadelphi Corridor and effectively withdrawing from Gaza.

These obstacles are tough for the coalition, which will still have to deal with the lesser problem of Lebanon. The cease-fire there was extended through February 18, but Israel will soon be required to withdraw completely, without being sure that the border calm has stabilized enough for Israeli residents to return to their nearby homes.

Netanyahu tells the army brass, who implore him to advance to the deal’s second stage, that he can bring back nearly 80 percent of the hostages by the end of the first stage, which he considers no small feat. The prime minister is also counting the previous deal in November 2023.

So far, 172 of the 251 Israelis and foreign residents who were kidnapped have been returned, dead or alive. But Netanyahu certainly sees that from the moment the hostages began returning, public sentiment trended entirely toward completing the deal.

Blowing up the negotiations under pressure from Ben-Gvir and Smotrich could provoke a critical response in public opinion. Not everyone in the government gets that. The stunning statement by cabinet minister Orit Strock to a hostage who returned from captivity indicates as much. Strock reminded her that she wouldn’t have returned without the minister’s vote. Not a week goes by without the coalition breaking the record for sickening behavior set the previous week.

In contrast to Trump’s diplomatic notions, the close security coordination with Israel since he entered office is fairly straightforward. Last spring the Biden administration held up the delivery of 1,800 one-ton bombs for Israel’s air force. The reason was the former administration’s objections to the Israeli army’s entry into Rafah and the fear of the destruction Israel would sow there. Israel requested another 15,000 bombs, mostly of the 2,000-pound variety. The state department held up these requests and never sent them to Congress for approval.

At the same time, Israel was also preparing for war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, where the fighting had escalated in September. Such a war requires, according to the IDF, using heavier aerial bombs. The Defense Ministry’s director general, Gen. (Res.) Eyal Zamir (who has since been appointed the next IDF chief of staff), sent a proposal to the Pentagon.

He suggested that the Pentagon transfer the required heavy bombs to its emergency warehouses in Israel and make them available in case of need, according to preset conditions, to the IAF. Zamir also pledged that they would only be used in Lebanon. The Americans agreed to move half the requested amount to the emergency warehouses.

In a Wall Street Journal oped in November, Michael Makovsky and Blaise Misztal of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America wrote that the Biden administration had held up the delivery of many more munitions than reported.

They wrote that these delays included 1,000-pound and 500-pound bombs, thousands of Hellfire missiles, tank shells and artillery shells. When Israel asked to speed up delivery of Apache helicopters because of the war, the Pentagon didn’t respond.

Makovsky and Misztal wrote that some of the reasons for the delay were legitimate, stemming from shortages that also affected U.S. forces, but that part of the delay was deliberate. They argued that the delay was an alternative to a declared embargo, yet it still degraded the Israeli army’s ability to conduct the war.

They claimed that Biden had extended much aid to Israel, such as in defense against Iranian missiles last October. However, the administration also delayed delivering systems that made it harder for Israel to win, they maintained.

With Trump’s entry, it appears that all limits have been removed. The new administration shipped the 1,800 bombs and will deliver the bombs kept in the emergency warehouses straight to the Israeli air force bases. Delays were also lifted on delivering spare parts for weapons systems and munitions manufactured in Israel, including artillery shells.

The new administration also agreed to supply Israel with 132 Caterpillar D9 bulldozers. Issue has employed these bulldozers intensively in Gaza and in Lebanon, and they are responsible for much of the destruction in both countries.

The bulldozers are armored by local industry against gunfire, but many have been damaged by anti-tank missiles and roadside bombs. Israel needs to replace others due to wear and tear. Seventy have been manufactured in the U.S. but their delivery was held up due to disagreements.

IDF officials asserted that stopping the use of bulldozers risked soldiers’ lives, because they are operated in advance of the forces and help dismantle boobytrapped buildings and explosives sites. During the dispute, the Biden administration sought a report on the nature of the use of the bulldozers in the fighting. Israel refused. The new administration won’t ask for any clarifications.

Originally published in Ha’aretz.

Despite Equal Bargaining Power, Trump’s Chaos Is Proving More Effective Than Biden’s Careful Diplomacy