{"id":64383,"date":"2024-06-02T18:12:02","date_gmt":"2024-06-02T18:12:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/02\/netanyahu-may-be-forced-to-choose-between-a-cease-fire-and-his-governments-survival\/"},"modified":"2024-06-02T18:12:02","modified_gmt":"2024-06-02T18:12:02","slug":"netanyahu-may-be-forced-to-choose-between-a-cease-fire-and-his-governments-survival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/02\/netanyahu-may-be-forced-to-choose-between-a-cease-fire-and-his-governments-survival\/","title":{"rendered":"Netanyahu may be forced to choose between a cease-fire and his government\u2019s survival."},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"630\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/newsgraphics\/images\/icons\/defaultPromoCrop.png?resize=1200,630&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Netanyahu may be forced to choose between a cease-fire and his government\u2019s survival.\" title=\"Netanyahu may be forced to choose between a cease-fire and his government\u2019s survival.\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For months, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has refused to offer a timeline for ending the war against Hamas in Gaza, a reticence that his critics see as a political tactic. But he has been put on the spot this weekend by President Biden\u2019s announcement <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/31\/us\/politics\/biden-israel-remarks-speech.html?searchResultPosition=1\" title=\"\">outlining a proposal for a truce<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Netanyahu, a conservative, has long juggled competing personal, political and national interests. He now appears to be facing a stark choice between the survival of his hard-line, hawkish government and bringing home hostages held in Gaza while setting himself and Israel on a new course away from growing international <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/24\/world\/middleeast\/icj-israel-rafah-isolation.html?searchResultPosition=1\" title=\"\">isolation<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Critics of the prime minister have portrayed him as indecisive and say there are two Netanyahus: one who functions pragmatically in the small war cabinet he formed with some centrist rivals, boosting its public legitimacy; and another who is effectively being held hostage himself by the far-right members of his governing coalition, who oppose any concession to Hamas and who ensure his political survival.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Biden on Friday outlined broad terms that he said were presented by Israel to the American, Qatari and Egyptian mediators who have been pushing for a deal to pause the fighting and free hostages held in Gaza. Israeli officials confirmed that the terms matched a cease-fire proposal that had been greenlit by Israel\u2019s war cabinet but not yet presented to the Israeli public.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Now, analysts say, it is crunchtime for Mr. Netanyahu, or Bibi, as he is popularly known.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Biden \u201cbooted Netanyahu out of the closet of ambiguity and presented Netanyahu\u2019s proposal himself,\u201d Ben Caspit, a biographer and longtime critic of Mr. Netanyahu, wrote in Sunday\u2019s Maariv, a Hebrew daily. \u201cThen he asked a simple question: Does Bibi support Netanyahu\u2019s proposal? Yes or no. No nonsense and hot air.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The leaders of two far-right parties in the coalition \u2014 Bezalel Smotrich, Israel\u2019s minister of finance, and Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister \u2014 have explicitly threatened to bring Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s government down if the prime minister goes along with the deal outlined by Mr. Biden before Hamas is fully destroyed. Some hard-line members of Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s own Likud party have said they will join them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">At the same time, Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, two former military chiefs who joined the emergency government for the duration of the war, have threatened to withdraw the support of their centrist National Unity party by June 8 if Mr. Netanyahu fails to come up with a clear path forward. And opposition parties have <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.timesofisrael.com\/liveblog_entry\/lapid-saar-liberman-meet-in-effort-to-bring-down-government-urging-gantz-to-join\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">begun organizing<\/a> to try to topple the government.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The cease-fire proposal <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/06\/01\/world\/middleeast\/biden-israel-gaza-cease-fire.html\" title=\"\">involves three phases<\/a>. They would see tranches of hostages released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails; a temporary cease-fire would turn into a permanent cessation of hostilities, with the third phase involving an internationally backed effort to rehabilitate Gaza.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">More than 100 hostages were released under a more limited deal last November. An estimated 125 hostages, living and dead, are still held by Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ophir Falk, the chief foreign policy adviser to Mr. Netanyahu, said in an interview with Britain\u2019s Sunday Times that Mr. Biden\u2019s proposal was \u201ca deal we agreed to.\u201d Adding that many details still had to be worked out, Mr. Falk said, \u201cIt\u2019s not a good deal but we dearly want the hostages released, all of them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Israelis were left to parse the two statements following Mr. Biden\u2019s speech that Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s office put out, unusually, during the Sabbath. The statements neither forcefully endorsed the proposal nor denied that it had been presented to the mediators. Instead, they were conditional and open to interpretation \u2014 seemingly designed to leave Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s options open.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The first statement said that Mr. Netanyahu had authorized Israel\u2019s negotiating team to present a proposal that would see the release of the hostages and also \u201cenable Israel to continue the war until all its objectives are achieved, including the destruction of Hamas\u2019s military and governing capabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The second reiterated those conditions for ending the war and added, \u201cThe notion that Israel will agree to a permanent cease-fire before these conditions are fulfilled is a non-starter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Notably absent, though, was Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s oft-stated goal of \u201ctotal victory\u201d over Hamas in Gaza \u2014 a slogan that Mr. Biden on Friday dismissed as a vague objective that would mean indefinite war.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/06\/02\/world\/middleeast\/netanyahu-may-be-forced-to-choose-between-a-cease-fire-and-political-survival.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For months, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has refused to offer a timeline for ending the war against Hamas in Gaza, a reticence that his critics see as a political tactic. But he has been put on the spot this weekend by President Biden\u2019s announcement outlining a proposal for a truce. Mr. Netanyahu, a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/newsgraphics\/images\/icons\/defaultPromoCrop.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7275,17329,3445,12097,4758,24162],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64383"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64383"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64385,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64383\/revisions\/64385"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}