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Trump now sees Netanyahu as ‘a loser’
Israel has become a liability, not just to its “traditional enemies and critics, but to its great friends”, including Trump and the US, says Ori Goldberg, an Israeli political analyst.
“Nobody will come out and say this, but Trump’s abrupt decision to read Hamas’s reply as willingness for peace, I think, suggests that when he looks at Netanyahu, when he looks at Israel, he sees a liability. He sees, in the well-known Trump parlance, a loser,” Goldberg told Al Jazeera, speaking from Tel Aviv.
Israel just did not expect this, because it had gotten used to its “never-ending cycle of genocidal and ethnic cleansing activities” that it could not acknowledge there were other elements beyond the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, he added.
“Look at the difference between the first flotilla to try to sail to Gaza and the Sumud flotilla, and the responses to Israel’s actions to this [second] flotilla around the world. Nothing is what it was, and Israel this morning is as alone as it has been, I think, for the last two years,” said Goldberg.
But Netanyahu has an incentive to follow through with Trump’s plan, he argued.
“If a snap election is called in Israel, it would behove him to be both the prime minister who fought the inevitable difficult war but was also able to sign the inevitable difficult deal,” said Goldberg.
Netanyahu must be prevented from sabotaging deal: Israeli activist
Maoz Inon, an Israeli activist whose parents were killed in Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel, says he has always wanted his parents “to be a sacrifice for peace and not victims of war”.
“And today I think we are getting closer to it, and I hope that the Arab world and the Islamic world will put all their pressure on President Trump to make sure Netanyahu is not sabotaging the agreement once again,” Inon told Al Jazeera.
Inon said Israeli politicians have proven time and time again that they are only motivated by political goals – and are willing to “sacrifice their own people” to advance those goals.
As we’ve been reporting, the families of Israeli captives held in Gaza have been taking to the streets for months, accusing Netanyahu of blocking efforts to reach a lasting Gaza ceasefire in order to ensure his political survival.
“It’s very clear that the Israeli government [doesn’t] care about its own citizens,” said Inon, urging Trump “to act and bring this war and bloodshed to an end”.
