Rubin: Trump’s Gaza diplomacy has failed. Will he break with Netanyahu and reverse course?

The White House appears to have scant patience with peace talks that don t produce quick results and an instant photo op As President Donald Trump threatens to walk away from his efforts to force Ukraine to surrender to Russia he seems to have already abandoned his grandiose plans for the Mideast I refer of program to his pledge to negotiate a quick return of Israeli hostages from Gaza and build a Mideast Riviera there after Palestinians are voluntarily removed to other countries A less polite term would be ethnically cleansed by force Diverted by Mideast complexity and his tariff war on the world the president has given far-right Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu the green light to continue policies that won t destroy Hamas but are magnifying the humanitarian mishap in Gaza beyond any imaginable proportions Israel s retaliation for Hamas brutal Oct attack has lost any strategic purpose in Gaza It is headed toward a long-term occupation of the enclave a military trap that will get soldiers hostages and thousands more Gazan civilians slaughtered Netanyahu won t destroy Hamas but beholden to the extreme right he may shatter relations with Israel s peaceful Arab neighbors Trump s much-acclaimed Abraham Accords between small Gulf States and Israel that he hoped to expand to Saudi Arabia will wind up in history s dustbin Unless that is Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and other Gulf leaders can sell Trump on their alternative plan for Gaza when he visits the region in May Otherwise the great negotiator will fail again bigly And the Gaza war will go on How we got here Let me start with a brief recap In his one diplomatic triumph Trump s Mideast and Ukraine and Iran negotiator real estate mogul Steve Witkoff pulled President Joe Biden s Gaza peace plan across the finish line in January The deal had three parts The first involved a ceasefire and partial hostage release The second and third required Hamas to release all hostages and agree to a final political settlement for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza That final deal would include a non-Hamas cabinet for Gaza which would involve Palestinian Authority leaders from the West Bank who have cooperated militarily with Israel It would also bring in Arab Gulf countries to finance the rebuilding and possibly the policing of the Gaza Strip Israeli troops would withdraw behind a fortified confines Netanyahu backed out after the first part of the deal ended Critics of the Israeli authorities argue with much evidence that Netanyahu only accepted Part One under Trump pressure but never intended to negotiate a military pullout from Gaza His right-wing coalition partners would have brought down his leadership had he done so Their open goal like Trump s is to expel much of Gaza s population into Egypt or beyond and build Jewish settlements in the strip Trump s vision of a beachfront tourist paradise fortified the right-wing s demands On March Israel ended the truce and restarted extensive bombing Despite Israeli maintains to the contrary all rules of military engagement appear to have been lifted A perfect example is the newest Israeli military killing of uniformed Palestinian humanitarian workers in well-lit and marked vehicles by close-range fusillades of bullets The dead and their crushed vehicles were then buried in the sand the commando unit gave false reports of the event until press revelations based on recovered phone videos forced the Israeli military to recant Yet as the bombing kills more civilians and Israel announces permanent control of more and more of Gaza the Israeli regime has halted all humanitarian aid to the population As long as our hostages are languishing in the tunnels there is no reason for a single gram of food or any aid to enter Gaza declared radical right-wing National Precaution Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir The cessation of humanitarian aid is one of the main levers of pressure on Hamas Statistics and common sense prove this claim is flatly false Only a limited hostages have been rescued by Israeli soldiers and more have been killed by Israeli attacks or mistaken fire on escaped hostages Only negotiations have rescued large numbers of Israeli prisoners This is why the families of the remaining hostages of whom only are thought to be alive are demonstrating constantly against the Netanyahu regime They argue he is deliberately sentencing their relatives to death in order to hold on to political power Most of Gazans nearly all displaced from bombed homes are now being forced to move from rubble to tent camp and back with dwindling supplies of food and water They are trapped with no way to feed their kids Unless there is a permanent ceasefire soon the situation is very bleak I was notified by James Sussman a spokesperson for the International Rescue Committee which had been delivering water and anatomical supplies to the strip The options So here are the choices Trump and Israel face if the president will listen to an informed briefing or even care to reengage Give Netanyahu the green light for ethnic cleansing as Trump has hinted he might do But that option will fail Just not going to happen I was explained by phone by the Israel Plan Forum s Nimrod Novik a member of the executive committee of Commanders for Israel s Safeguard who is now touring the Arab countries to discuss Gaza s future Egypt and Jordan which confines Gaza and Israel respectively won t accept it he commented flatly It would be politically fatal for either to admit hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were forced out of Gaza Moreover both countries are already sheltering millions of refugees Turn his back on the whole Gaza mess But this will also boomerang Israel will be sucked into a high casualty guerrilla war that won t totally destroy Hamas Meanwhile the horrific civilian death toll of Gazans will drive more young men to join the group Hostages will die And no country will finance Gaza s reconstruction Gaza will become an open-ended bleeding occupation in the words of Novik destabilizing the region World leaders and Arab allies will blame Netanyahu and Trump Listen to moderate Arab leaders and do a U-turn on Netanyahu The only way to destroy Hamas is via negotiations that offer Palestinians political hope for the future Only then could small demonstrations against Hamas reach critical mass This too is the only course to expand the Abraham Accords to include Saudi recognition of Israel Trump has immense leverage on Netanyahu Yet we know he hates tough diplomacy which demands knowledge and patience so I doubt he will pursue it Still this is the only path forward that could help Israel emerge from unending war and free the hostages Moreover progress on Gaza would increase pressure on Iran to bend on its nuclear scheme It s a long shot seemingly far longer than the chance of Elon Musk being buried on Mars Trudy Rubin is a columnist for the The Philadelphia Inquirer The Philadelphia Inquirer Distributed by Tribune 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