Well, here’s something you don’t see every day. Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and Middle East envoy, sat down in Egypt on Sunday with the new Hamas chief, Khalil al-Hayya, to push along a 15-point peace plan that the Trump administration cobbled together last month. Turkey, Egypt, and Qatar were all at the table. Tony Blair showed up too, bless his heart, still chasing a legacy I suppose.
And here’s the part that ought to make you scratch your head. Hamas, the group our own government calls a terrorist organization, said yes. They said they’ll disarm. They’ll hand over their weapons. They’ll give up running Gaza and let something called the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza take over. Now, do I trust that? Not one inch. I’ve been around long enough to know that a leopard doesn’t change its spots because a diplomat handed it a nicely formatted document. But the plan exists, the mediators are in the room, and for the first time in a long while, somebody in Washington is actually trying to end this thing instead of just sending more bombs and more money and more thoughts and prayers.
So who’s the holdup? I’ll give you one guess.
Benjamin Netanyahu. That’s who.
Last week, the Israeli prime minister looked at the 15-point plan, the one his closest ally in the world spent months putting together, and said, “No thank you.” Not in those words, of course. He said the IDF won’t withdraw “until Hamas is genuinely disarmed,” and he wants every weapon gone, heavy and light, before Israel lifts a finger. “Genuine disarmament, not a fictitious one,” he said. Which sounds reasonable until you realize it’s also a neat little way to never have to do anything yourself.
Here’s what I can see with my own eyes. President Trump announced a “historic agreement” in late July. The Board of Peace, which he leads, got Hamas to commit to laying down arms. Eight Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, and the UAE, put out a joint statement on Sunday calling Israel’s rejection a “direct assault” on the peace process. And Netanyahu’s response? His Likud party put out a statement claiming “Arab states want to topple” him. Because apparently in Bibi’s world, everybody who disagrees with him is part of a conspiracy.
Now, I’m a woman who believes in standing by your friends. Israel has been a friend to this country, and I’m not about to pretend otherwise. But friendship is a two-way street, and you don’t slap the hand of the man trying to pull you out of the fire. President Trump has stuck his neck out on this. He sent his own family member to sit across from people the State Department wouldn’t let in the building two years ago. That takes guts. And what does he get for it? A public lecture from a prime minister who’s got an election on October 27 and apparently thinks looking tough on Gaza is worth torpedoing the only real shot at peace this region has seen in a decade.
Let me ask you something. If Hamas, Hamas, is willing to sit at the table and say yes to a plan, and Israel is the one saying no, whose phone is ringing off the hook right now? Because from where I’m sitting, the people who keep telling us Israel can do no wrong might want to take a long look at what “no” actually costs. It costs the lives of two million people crammed into rubble. It costs whatever shred of credibility the peace process has left. And it costs the patience of a president who doesn’t like being told his work isn’t good enough.
Kushner meets Netanyahu on Monday. I have a feeling that conversation is going to be a little different from the one in Egypt.
Eight countries lined up to back this plan. The mediators did their job. Hamas, against all odds, said yes. The ball is in Israel’s court now, and Netanyahu keeps bouncing it off the wall. Somebody needs to look him in the eye and say what the rest of us are already thinking: the deal is on the table. Take it, or explain to the world why you’d rather have war.