Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff clearly noticed the skeptical looks around them in the Prime Minister’s Office—looks that said: how naïve are you if you think Hamas will dismantle itself without the IDF laying a hand on it.
“I was born at night,” Kushner told them, “but not last night.”
The Americans made it clear they had not forgotten who Hamas is, or who the Gazans are. We remember very well, they said, that not a single person called the hotline the IDF opened for turning in hostages. Even in Nazi Germany there were Righteous Among the Nations—and that was without the promise of five million dollars.
The gaps between the U.S. and Israel regarding Gaza are larger than they were—but smaller than reported. The main dispute concerns reconstruction. The White House clarified that Gaza’s reconstruction will not begin until a process of demilitarization starts—meaning that construction materials would be allowed in once demilitarization begins, long before it is completed. Israel is unwilling to accept this, having learned the bitter lesson that cement and iron go first to the tunnels.
The issue of Israeli withdrawal has also not been resolved: will it be gradual, tied to progress in demilitarization, or will there be no withdrawal at all until demilitarization is complete? Netanyahu opposes moving the border as long as weapons remain in the Strip—or, as it’s said in Hebrew: forever.
“Still, the most likely outcome is that Hamas’s destruction will ultimately be carried out by IDF soldiers,” an American official said. “But what’s the harm if we begin demilitarization peacefully? Clearly Hamas will drag its feet, and clearly it will want to keep weapons—but what if only 10,000 Kalashnikovs are handed over and only fifty tunnels are destroyed without a fight? How does that hurt? Neither we nor you are in a rush. It would simply save the IDF some work.”
There will not be a war like the one that reached its symbolic end this week, the Americans believe—both because the world will not allow it, and because the time will be used to build temporary housing on the Israeli side, to which a significant population will relocate, so fighting will not take place in dense concentrations. It would be faster fighting, free of hostage constraints, and with minimal harm to noncombatants where possible.
“The world is not on your side,” the Kushner–Witkoff duo told Netanyahu, “but it is definitely against Hamas. Use that.”
This is an excerpt from my weekly column in Israel Hayom.
