🌊 Is Israel Pursuing The “Trump Plan”?

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By Max Frost

This week, we’re running a three-part series on the current state of the war in Gaza. On Tuesday, we released part one: Back to War. Yesterday, we published part two: The Siege of Gaza. Today, we run our last installment, part three: The “Trump Plan.” 

On May 18, Israel launched its renewed ground invasion of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said of the assault: “We are going to take over all the areas of the Strip.” 

Others in his government went even further: “We are conquering, cleansing, and remaining in Gaza until Hamas is destroyed,” said Israel’s firebrand finance minister Bezalel Smotrich. “Gaza will be entirely destroyed, civilians will be sent to…the south to a humanitarian zone without Hamas or terrorism, and from there they will start to leave in great numbers to third countries.”

Then, on May 22, Netanyahu said that Israel was “ready to end the war” – if the following conditions were met: “All the hostages come home, Hamas lays down its arms, steps down from power, its leadership is exiled from the Strip…Gaza is totally disarmed; and we carry out the Trump plan. A plan that is so correct and so revolutionary.”

“We want to ensure that Trump’s plan” comes to fruition, Netanyahu added. “It’s a brilliant plan…[that] can change the face of the Middle East. Change once and for all what we have been through from Gaza for decades.”

But will Trump’s patience last long enough for that plan to come to fruition?

Netanyahu has called Trump the “best friend” Israel has ever had; Trump has said much the same. However, the two right-wing leaders haven’t always gotten along. 

In December 2021, around a year after his term ended, Trump complained to Axios’ Israel correspondent, Barak Ravid: "The first person that congratulated [Biden] was Bibi Netanyahu, the man that I did more for than any other person I dealt with…Bibi could have stayed quiet. He has made a terrible mistake."

“I liked Bibi. I still like Bibi. But I also like loyalty,” Trump added. “The first person to congratulate Biden was Bibi. And not only did he congratulate him, he did it on tape."

"I haven’t spoken to him since…F**k him."

Yet any hostility Trump harbored against Netanyahu appeared to evaporate upon beginning his second term. Within weeks, Trump approved billions in arms sales and unfroze shipments of 2,000-pound bombs. 

“Donald Trump is the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House,” Netanyahu said in response. “He’s shown it by sending us all the munitions that were being held up. This way he is giving Israel the tools we need to finish the job against Iran’s terror axis.”

Trump then went one step further, declaring that “the Gaza thing has never worked” and calling for the relocation of the Strip’s 2M people to elsewhere in the Middle East. Netanyahu beamed as Trump said it. 

Four months later, though, Trump’s patience seems to be running thin.

Editor’s Note

Thank you for reading, and welcome to all our new readers. We hope you enjoyed this three-part deep-dive, and we’re curious to hear your thoughts. Should we do more multi-day installments like this one? Let us know what you think by replying to this email. Tomorrow, we’ll be back with our usual reporting. 

If you missed parts one and two, or if you’d like to read our other recent stories, here are the latest:

• The Gaza War: Part Two

• The Gaza War: Part One

• The Red Line in Iran Negotiations

• Roca Exclusive: America's Lone Pro-Tariff Economist

• Why No One Trusts Institutions Pt. 37

That’s all. See you back here tomorrow.

–Max and Max