The Israeli public is outraged that Netanyahu has left Israel without completing the cease-fire deal that would ensure the release of Israeli captives.
Ben-Gvir said in a cabinet meeting recently, "Making a reckless deal now would not only endanger Israel, but would be a slap in the face of Trump, and a win for Biden."
Netanyahu angered Trump when he congratulated Biden for winning in 2020 at a time when Trump was trying to overturn the election. Later, Trump would say in an interview referring to Netanyahu, "F**k him".
In 2018, Netanyahu hit the jack-pot when Trump pulled out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. In his last speech to Congress in 2015, Netanyahu infuriated Obama by urging that the nuclear deal be scuttled. Israel's longest-serving premier has virtually made his career in Israeli politics by billing himself as the only one who can manipulate the US.
Biden had insisted that opening up negotiations toward a two-state solution is necessary. Netanyahu and his administration refuse to consider a peace plan, and voted overwhelmingly on July 18 to oppose a Palestinian state.
Netanyahu and his coalition allies who are Jewish extremists have a powerful allied segment of the American society: the Republican Evangelical Christians. When Netanyahu came to office, one of his two main goals was to increase Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and finally to annex the whole Occupied Palestinian territory. Both Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are settlers.
Many of the Jewish settlers in the illegal settlements in the Occupied West Bank are American citizens who migrated to Israel. The have many organizations promoting solidarity between Evangelical Christians in the US, who are overwhelmingly Republicans and Trump supporters, and the settlers. These groups host Republican politicians on trips to the West Bank settlements, including US House Speaker Mike Johnson, who visited prior to becoming Speaker.
On Friday, the top UN court ruled the settlements were illegal, and it has been US policy to regard them as illegal, and an obstacle to a two-state solution.
Israeli Jews and American Evangelical Christians, who both hold extreme right-wing political views, have formed grassroots alliances while working to convince Trump and the Republican Party to drop longstanding US support for a Palestinian state, arguing it rewarded the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
A May poll in Israel revealed that just 33% of Israelis support a two-state solution and 32% of Israelis favor Israel annexing the Occupied West Bank.
The settlers are betting on Trump and his right-wing Evangelical Christian supporters to annex their homes into Israel, thus displacing permanently the 3 million Palestinians who live there, and permanently depriving the Palestinians their freedom and human rights. Netanyahu is betting on Trump to keep him out of jail.
Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist
This article is originally published at Strategic culture foundation
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