When then-US President-elect Donald Trump warned last December that there would be “ALL HELL TO PAY” if the Israeli hostages held by Hamas weren’t released by Inauguration Day, the words appeared to be directed at the militant group. But now that the ceasefire and hostage deal is signed and put into motion, it’s Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is feeling the heat.
The agreement has been lauded around the world, celebrated in Gaza, and favoured by a majority of Israelis. But it threatens to bring down Netanyahu’s government, which has been held together by an open-ended war in Gaza and the promise of “total victory.”
A day after the Israeli cabinet approved the deal, Itamar Ben-Gvir, national security minister and head of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, quit the government. The six Knesset seats his party controls cut the coalition’s majority in the 120-member parliament to just 61 or possibly 62. The other far-right leader, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, was more coy: He said he would stay on, but only if Israel resumed its Gaza onslaught in another six weeks after the first part of the three-phase deal. If Smotrich does eventually leave with his seven Knesset seats, the coalition will have lost its majority.
If it were purely a matter of domestic political calculations, Netanyahu would never have agreed to the ceasefire at all, in all likelihood. Over the last year, he rejected proposals made by then-US President Joe Biden that were not very different from the one he recently agreed to. Netanyahu did so out of fear that an agreement would cause Smotrich and Ben-Gvir to bolt.
The difference this time is that Trump has entered the picture and will be in it for the next four years. Netanyahu fears offending Trump, who is famously vengeful. No less important, he wants the US president on board for his bigger agenda, namely a showdown with Iran over its nuclear ambitions and a historic move to establish diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia.
The question is whether domestic political considerations will return to the fore and Netanyahu backtracks on the ceasefire commitment he made to Trump. Netanyahu has signalled as much in the few public statements he has made on the deal, calling the first phase a “temporary ceasefire” and vowing that Israel would not rest until “all of its war goals are completed."
Trump told Netanyahu that the ceasefire is only TEMPORARY
"If we must return to fighting we will do that in new, forceful ways [...] President Trump and President Biden have given full backing to Israel's right to return to combat if Israel concludes that negotiations on Phase B... pic.twitter.com/ULCtfZ9PK9
— In Context (@incontextmedia) January 19, 2025
The latter includes the elimination of Hamas, which honouring the ceasefire naturally precludes. He has reportedly told Smotrich he will have no reason to step down at the end of the first phase.
No one knows for sure if Netanyahu aims to wiggle out of the agreement; in fact, the prime minister himself may not know. When his back is against the wall, as it was in the days leading up to the ceasefire deal, Netanyahu traditionally plays for time and tells everyone involved what they want to hear with little regard for truth or consistency.
That the prime minister has found himself between the pincers of Trump and the far right is largely his own fault. Throughout the war, he assured the Israeli public that he would fight until “total victory,” which, among other things, meant the elimination of Hamas and rescuing the hostages through military force rather than a deal. Most Israelis stopped believing the message long ago, but the prime minister’s core constituency on the right and far right bought it. Whether Smotrich and Ben-Gvir also believed Netanyahu wasn’t relevant—the threat they would leave the coalition was enough to keep the prime minister in line.
Why is continuing the war so important for them? The far right shares Netanyahu’s fear that the government will be called to account when the war ends through a state commission of inquiry to probe the failures that allowed Hamas to attack Israel on October 7, 2023, and/or by calls for early elections it is likely to lose. But the far right has special reasons of its own. Many Ben-Gvir supporters have revelled in the violence of war, revenge, and victory. For a broad segment of the extreme right, the war is the means to realise the dream of reversing Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza and resettling the enclave.
