Maariv: Trump’s Gaza Bombshell No More Than Trial Balloon

As the hours passed after the White House bombshell in which President Donald Trump announced American control over Gaza and in which he said “it will be ours,” and reiterated that all Gazans would have to be removed and transferred to a “better” place; since then, the stock exchange of names of countries that could receive the Palestinians has been growing and flourishing.

In addition to Jordan and Egypt, which Trump mentioned, the names of countries such as Albania, Puntland, and Somaliland stand out. Why not? If you asked the Gazans themselves, some of them would laugh in Trump’s face, or say: “Come on, if it’s a resettlement, why not in Sweden, England, or Canada?”

In Israel, despite the harsh sound of the word transfer, no one opposes the idea of ​​getting Gaza out of our lives once and for all, especially after 7 October. The Israelis believe the Palestinians will have to pay a heavy price, and they want the Palestinians of the West Bank to disappear as well.

https://twitter.com/blakandblack/status/1888759084238909628

But it seems that the big balloon Trump launched into the air is nothing more than a trial balloon; a big threat balloon in an attempt to end the resistance in Gaza without a fight. There is no real intention of a mass exodus of nearly two million people.

Trump has set a heavy price in the hope that Hamas will voluntarily leave Gaza, and it can be assumed that this is just a preliminary proposal, an introductory step, from the statements of the president’s advisers as well, and if the Arab countries do not like it, these countries are invited to present their solution to disarm Gaza.

For Israel, the intention to prevent Hamas from continuing to control Gaza is desirable, especially after Netanyahu failed in this mission, and Hamas remained in power at the end of 15 months of fighting. It seems that there are those who have to swallow the “absolute victory”.

It is to be wondered: What was actually reached in the meeting between Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu and what are its implications? In short, in the end, Trump imposed on Netanyahu not to renew the war, and to continue with the deal to release the kidnapped soldiers. On the sidelines, it is unreasonable for an American president to insist on an Israeli prime minister in order to release Israeli kidnapped soldiers.

Messianic Vision

Trump has categorically ruled out the establishment of Israeli settlements in Gaza based on the messianic vision of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, hinted at his desire to move quickly on the Saudi issue, and made it clear that he still prefers a diplomatic solution with Iran over the use of force.

On the surface, this may seem disappointing to Netanyahu, but don’t worry; Trump has worked to create a welcoming atmosphere for the prime minister, and provided him with a far-reaching virtual achievement in order to preserve his coalition, which is a placebo for a government afflicted with the delusions of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir.

By resettling the Gazans, Netanyahu can sell the idea to his partners on the extreme right. These are dreams in the air, and the coalition is what is meant. And with the help of the grand plan of American control over Gaza and the transfer of all the residents of the Strip from there, a plan that has little chance of being realized, to say the least, Netanyahu can buy more time.

A person who cares only about his position, and whose top priority is his political survival, can strengthen the coalition, and in the meantime, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir will quickly accept the spoiled goods; the first will remain in the government, the second will return to its bosom, and the three will cling to this lie and pass it on to the base until the next crisis.

On top of all this political filth, there is the issue of releasing the hostages; Yesterday, we saw the horrific and horrific scenes of the return of Ohad Ben-Ami, Eli Sharaby and Or Levy as walking skeletons, which emphasized the importance of returning everyone as soon as possible. These people, who were abandoned twice, must be returned: once on 7 October, and then in the rigging of the deal to free them.

The outrageous images of Hamas controlling Gaza once again confirm, unfortunately, Netanyahu’s complete failure in managing the war, and now we hope that Trump and White House officials will force him to continue releasing the prisoners, and then the IDF will ensure that the “monsters” of Hamas are finally eliminated, down to the last one.

This column was written by By Yossi Hadar for the Israeli daily, Maariv and translated from Arabic and appeared in Jo24.

CrossFireArabia

CrossFireArabia

Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

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Trump’s Twist With The Houthis

By Dr Khairi Janbek

During his meeting with the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, US President Trump interrupted the proceedings and declared that the American bombing campaign against the Houthis has stopped. He said, they don’t want to fight us so we respect that.

Now, what does that translate to, is not really very clear. Does it mean that the Houthis will not attack US ships only, or will they cease their actions which threaten maritime movement in the Red Sea including Israeli ships? And will the fighting, for instance, end British bombardment and/or Israeli bombardment. I suppose it remains to be seen.

It is said by observers that the Trump decision was a surprise to the international community and even to some in his administration, though one would argue there are no more surprises with president Trump since his definition of the “America First” policy has come to mean either extracting himself out of the problems he makes as if nothing happened or alternatively stick his nose in already existing mess here and there, then extracting himself out of it without having either solved or achieved anything.

What went on and still goes on in the Red Sea area seems to be closely tied to the big red apple or the big prize, and that is the nuclear negotiations with Iran. Otherwise what would make the Houthis stop fighting, they have been bombed for such a long time without any tangible results?

On the one hand, one would assume that Iran is sending positive signals to the Americans by clearly restraining their proxies in Yemen, while at the same time the Saudis are urging both the Americans and the Iranians to reach an agreement over the issue, while in the mean time, in the background, Israel is lurking behind the scenes being restrained in the name of a successful nuclear agreement.

Indeed, the success of the nuclear agreement will mean that Iran can have a civilian nuclear program subject to periodic inspection, and that by itself, should bolden Saudi Arabia to have its own civilian nuclear program and enrich uranium on its own territory independent of the usual American demand that Saudia should sign first a peace agreement with Israel.

I suppose someone must give in, after all President Trump will be returning back from his coming trip to the Gulf with almost $3 trillion, and calling the Persian Gulf, the Arab Gulf in America; which would be just as meaningless as calling the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America.

As for Israel, well the Houthis declare clearly that their soul stand with Gaza will not refrain from bombing the Zionist state?

Now, to what extent can Mr Netanyahu, the prime minister, whom till now has managed to disguise his political survival in the garment of a regional strategy, will be allowed to upset the American plans, especially, first of all, in counter bombing the Houthis, or even emboldened enough to bomb Iran as the sponsors of the Houthis.

If Israel is to be kept out of the Gulf currently, it will work on exacting a price somewhere else.

Dr Khairi Janbek is a Jordanian writer based in Paris, France.

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The Gaza Death Trap

While everyone waits for the full-blast war on Gaza which Israel promises to continue, Tel Aviv must know this will not be an easy matter not least of all by the Benjamin Netanyahu government whose ministers are split over allowing the army to resume its “fighting” position in Gaza.

Not everyone holds the view of extremist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. He wants to resume, or continue, a large scale offensive on Gaza and reoccupy the enclave forever! For these opposing ministers as well as a large number of army soldiers and officers are not in favor of going back to fighting in Gaza because (a) of the bloody situation and danger soldiers were subjected to since 7 October, 2023, and because they want the rest of the remaining hostages – 59 and about 24 still thought to be alive – to be returned.

They fear – and reflecting major sections of society who have been demonstrating daily in Tel Aviv and other major Israeli cities under the of banner “bring them home,” – that increasing the wheels of war on Gaza would be signing the death warrants of the remaining hostages, originally marked at 250 and over 40 of them killed by indiscriminate Israeli bombing of the different areas of enclave over the past 17 months or so of fighting.

In the eyes of Smotrich, and he doesn’t mince his words, the return of the hostages is now secondary and what is crucial is to destroy Hamas and end its presence in the Gaza Strip.

But this is not happening. Since the resumption of the Israeli war on Gaza on 19 March, 2025 the resistance led by the Islamic organization and the other Palestinian factions have also resumed their fighting. While it is true, Hamas was slow in getting back to the war, preferring to give the ceasefire and peace talks a chance, and which led many to say the resistance are finished, this was far further from the truth.

Fighting again

Exactly one month later after 19 March, the Palestinian resistance led by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, re-started their fight against the Israeli army and the targeting of its soldiers; the Zionist army had maintained an active presence in the different areas of the Gaza Strip since the ceasefire took effect on 19 January, 2025 when the newly-elected US president was installed in the White House.

After much waiting and the gradual realization that Israel was no longer interested in the ceasefire nor in ongoing talks in Doha and Cairo, Hamas and Islamic Jihad reignited their war tactics on the Gaza battlefield. They realized Netanyahu, as prime minister of an extreme right-wing government, was no longer interested in maintaining a ceasefire.

Analysts maintained that Netanyahu was encouraged by Trump’s conflicting and dangerous stance on Gaza on top of which was the dramatic and subsequently abhorred idea of expelling the 2.1 million population of Gaza to build the Strip as the newly-plushed Middle East Riviera.

Although he quickly backed down due to Palestinian, Arab and even world pressure, Netanyahu interpreted this hugely-wrongful idea as greenlight to continue to hammer Gaza from the air and reimpose the starvation policy of its population.

Although the people got the backend of the Israeli willful mad firepower while shutting down the curtain on aid entering the 364-kilometer enclave, Hamas and the other Palestinian groups begun to regroup and re-started its military operations against the Israeli army in Biet Hanoon in the northern Gaza Strip to Gaza City in the center, Shujaiyia to the west, Khan Younis lower down and Refah, further south on the border with Egypt.

Like before, since 7 October, 2023, the resistance has now embarked on the increasing use of ambushes and booby-trap operations of luring Israeli soldiers and targeting Israeli tanks, armored vehicles and bulldozers while firing at them through locally-made, cheap but effective and deadly missiles that resulted in many of these soldiers being killed and badly-injured – numbers in the thousands – while many of the tanks and bulldozers either blown up and/or put out of action.

Towards the end of April onwards, this strategy was reactivated at full length and on different days sniping Israeli soldiers and targeting armoury would rise in multiple and different operations through the Gaza Strip. What is today of major worry to the Israeli army is that these geographical areas which were supposed to be “cleaned up” from Palestinian operatives are becoming active once again which means that for the Israeli army its back to square one.

The Israeli army had literally destroyed many of the major cities, towns, neighborhoods, villages of Gaza not once but many times. They entered places like Khan Younis, Jabalia, Shujaiyia, Nuseirat, Rafah and many more multiple times and declared them free from Palestinian resistance groups but these fighters just continue to emerge as seen recently and to the chagrin and frustration of the Israeli army.

Such frustration has led Israeli politicians like Netanyhu, and arch anti-Palestinian politicians like Itamar Ben-Gvir, Minister of National Security and hated by some Israelis for his extreme rightwing views to call for the re-occupation of Gaza, something that Netanyahu is actively contemplating. The prevailing view that once the army gets into Gaza once again, and on a mass scale, they can never leave! There are many in the army who have long rejected such an idea because they know of the “bloody situation” their soldiers would face.

However, the Israeli government and its army continues to operate under a set of illusions it is refusing to budge away from simply because Hamas and the Palestinian resistance presence is still operating in Gaza and in a robust mode to fight and kill Israeli soldiers and destroy their tanks and military hardware.

This is in addition to the fact the Israel and its army is getting nowhere near to freeing the rest of the hostages and who are likely to die if Israel embarks on a bigger war on Gaza and which Netanyahu and his extremist government are determined to do despite the warnings of the Israeli army which admits the rest of the hostages could die in any bigger military offensive.

Trump in region

Throughout this war there was always one external factor that played a permanent role in fuelling the Israeli genocide of Gaza and that was the United States through its provision of military support to Tel Aviv first under the Joe Biden administration and now under Trump.

If he could be persuaded to stop the supply of weapons to Israel, Netanyahu will finally stop the war on Gaza. Trump is on record, especially when he was running for the White House he would stop the war in Ukraine and Gaza. But will he? First of all, the Israeli lobby is entrenched in the US government.

However, there is one important factor that can pressure the Trump administration and that is the Arab countries. Trump is soon visiting Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries including Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. If enough pressure can be applied from these quarters then surely the US president can move on the Gaza issue and halt any plans that Netanyahu is concocting for the enclave.

The Trump visit is being made in mid-May and its already played as a “bilateral” tour between the United States and these states whilest focusing on investment. And this is where their influence can be made with investment, economics and politics moving on one pedestal.

So the ball at the present time is in the hands of the Arab Gulf countries!

This comment is written by Dr Marwan Asmar, chief editor of the crossfirearabia.com website. 

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