The Risks to Trump in the Cease-fire Deal

By Noah Rothman

Wednesday, January 15, 2025

 

As of this writing, and “contrary to reports,” according to a statement from Benjamin Netanyahu’s office reported by Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov, “Hamas terrorist organization has yet to give its response to the deal.” That could change swiftly, depending both on the deal’s terms and the degree to which the remnants of Hamas can accurately convey the organization’s will to their negotiating proxies in Doha. But seasoned observers of the conflict that erupted with the October 7 massacre seem to believe that an agreement that will produce a temporary cease-fire in Gaza in exchange for the phased release of hostages is imminent.

 

Commentary’s Seth Mandel published a useful and even-handed analysis of the deal’s terms as Western analysts understand them. He concludes that, from the perspective of Israel’s supporters, there are good and bad aspects to the tentative arrangement. The bottom line is, however, unavoidable: “Hamas was the reason for the devastation in Gaza, and Hamas is being left in power,” Mandel wrote, “which means any reprieve is temporary.”

 

Sooner or later, that is going to produce problems for the incoming Trump administration, particularly given the likelihood that its members will be inclined to celebrate the deal as the inevitable consequence of Donald Trump’s tough talk. The president-elect has repeatedly warned Hamas — and, by proxy, the terrorist organization’s sponsors in Iran — that there would be “hell to pay” if the U.S. citizens in their control were not freed prior to inauguration day.

 

Hamas was unlikely to put much stock in that threat. It’s unclear what Trump could have unleashed that the Israel Defense Forces were somehow withholding. Only Tehran might have been swayed by such threats, but not before Trump took office. Trump neutered his own threat by establishing a timeline in which everything had to culminate before Republicans took power.

 

Indeed, according to Politico’s reporting, the cease-fire negotiations are very much a bipartisan enterprise. Trump’s Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, is reportedly working closely with his Biden administration counterpart, Brett McGurk, to secure an agreement. Israeli officials indicate that Witkoff pressured the Netanyahu government into acquiescing. Maybe that’s because the Trump team genuinely believes these are the best terms they could get. Or maybe its members know they have a date-certain deadline to meet, and they’re going to meet it come what may.

 

Nevertheless, we may soon see the Americans imprisoned by Hamas released, along with dozens of other hostages over several tranches, in exchange for the release of at least 1,000 (likely more in coming weeks) Palestinian security threats in Israeli custody. It’s hard to imagine Trump describing this as anything other than a “bad deal” — unless he becomes convinced that its terms are valuable only insofar as a confirmation of the efficacy of his own muscular rhetoric.

 

And yet, if the deal leaves Hamas in place — diminished, but still the foremost political and military force on the Strip — it would run counter to the Trump administration’s stated preferences. “We’ve been clear that Gaza has to be fully demilitarized, Hamas has to be destroyed to the point that it cannot reconstitute,” said incoming national security adviser Mike Waltz in an interview with Dan Senor. “Hamas cannot have a role. ISIS doesn’t have a role. Al-Qaeda doesn’t have a role.” During confirmation hearings on Tuesday, defense secretary–designate Pete Hegseth affirmed his “support” for “Israel killing every last member of Hamas.” Future secretary of state Marco Rubio agrees. “How can any nation-state on the planet coexist side by side with a group of savages like Hamas?” he asked during confirmation hearings on Wednesday.

 

How, indeed? If that is an undesirable outcome, the chance to achieve a better one is present today. Hamas in Gaza has never been weaker. The same might be said of their benefactors in Tehran. The terrorist group’s permanent diplomatic presence in Qatar is hanging by a thread. When — not if — the terrorist organization resumes attacks on Israel if it is allowed to reconstitute itself, the Trump administration will find itself having to account for its support for this deal, the Hamas prisoners it released back onto the Middle East’s battlefields, and the renewed conflict its terms rendered inevitable.

 

There is a lot we don’t yet know about the terms of the deal, to say nothing about the Israeli government’s internal deliberations over it. But from what we do know, it seems likely that the accord will be short-lived, destined to dissolve into familiar violence. If I were the Trump administration, I wouldn’t want my fingerprints on that.