Will Israel's Government Ratify the Gaza Ceasefire Deal?
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A ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas bringing an end to 15 months of war in Gaza was announced Wednesday. For details of the deal, you can listen to yesterday's episode.

But even a day later, there were questions about whether the agreement would survive. Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, threatened to delay a cabinet vote on the deal, saying Hamas had backtracked on key demands. Netanyahu later relented, and the vote is currently scheduled for Friday. But a far-right minister in Israel says he may try to collapse the government to block the deal.

For analysis of the ceasefire agreement and to understand the U.S. role in implementing it, NPR's Leila Fadl spoke to Aaron David Miller. He's senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former peace negotiator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Leila started by asking him about the mixed messages coming out of the Israeli government. It does reflect, I think, the reason it took so long to actually...

negotiate this deal. You know, Henry Kissinger once quipped that Israel has no foreign policy, only domestic politics.

And the reality is, even though there are no rewind buttons on history, this deal could have been concluded four months ago. The basic framework is the same. The reason it wasn't, primarily, I think, is because the organizing principle of Benjamin Netanyahu's world is to stay in power. And he prioritized, quote-unquote, total victory over Hamas, which he has not succeeded in attaining yet.

rather than returning the hostages. And he's got these two ministers threatening to collapse the government. There's no question about it. One of them, Itamar Ben-Gavir, basically bragged that he was the reason that the deal hadn't been included until now. So the same basic logic, Laila, is at work here. I suspect the cabinet will approve it, but too many uncertainties abound, and we haven't even started implementation. Well, let's talk about the actual...

It's a phased approach. As I understand it, this is just a pause at this point, the first phase, and the other phases will still be negotiated. Can this deal lead to an actual end to the war? It could if, in fact, you had leaders on both sides and an American administration willing to spend the time and effort to help the parties win.

But the second phase is going to be very tough because it requires Hamas to basically free all the remaining hostages, roughly 40 to 50 living and dead Israeli soldiers in exchange for a permanent end to the war and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. No Israeli government is going to withdraw from Gaza without guarantees of some follow-on security force.

The first phase, 42 days, I think we need to focus, frankly, on whether or not that can be implemented. And I think it's certainly possible, but it's going to take a lot of will and skill. And again, from the incoming administration, Donald Trump now owns this.

And he's going to have to spend the time on it. Otherwise, it's going to create a. Now, this is if it happens at all. And we heard we've heard from lots of people that they felt the deal might happen Sunday because President-elect Trump is coming into office and has threatened that hell would be paid if a deal wasn't done. Is that the reason?

I think that's a factor. Hamas is weakened because of what the Israelis have done to Hezbollah. Even the Iranians can't put much stock or faith in their so-called axis of resistance. So that's clearly a factor. But there's no doubt that the incoming administration, which has the power, and the outgoing administration doesn't, again, in Benjamin Netanyahu's calculations, it's much harder for him to say no to Donald Trump, given his interests, than it was to Joe Biden. So, yeah,

I think the Trump factor played a role here. What is the U.S. role going forward? I mean, at this point, it's unclear if this is going to happen by Sunday. But if it does go into effect, what will the U.S. role, as you said, President-elect Trump will own this? Well, you've got a set of detailed requirements on each side that need to be implemented. The U.S. doesn't have relations with Hamas, clearly. That's going to fall to the Egyptians and the Qataris.

So working with the Israelis, using incentives and perhaps disincentives. But if the Israelis aren't committed to the first phase, no amount of pressure from the Trump administration is going to see this through. We have to just hope that Israeli politics here will play out.

play in favor of supporting the deal because the vast majority of the Israelis want the hostages home, even though this isn't a partial deal. So again, nobody ever lost money betting against Israeli-Palestinian peace. But I'm thinking this has a reasonable chance to move forward. And then we'll see about whether or not you can actually end the war in Gaza.

If, as you describe, the prime minister is in a situation where it's not in his political interest to have this deal, then does it happen? I mean, if it goes through, there could be elections. There is an arrest warrant out for Benjamin Netanyahu by the International Criminal Court for the war in Gaza. Israel also faces a case of genocide at the International Court of Justice. I mean—

Is there a true interest in getting to this deal? I think there is an interest in moving through phase one. I don't think even Benjamin Netanyahu focuses on his own political survival, could not have entered into this particular agreement. And then, of course, you have Hamas's equities in this. I mean, does Hamas know where all the hostages are? Are they being truthful with respect to those that are living or dead? So you've got...

You've got two combatants here who fundamentally don't trust one another and who are actually dedicated in one another's destruction, trying to implement a very complicated deal, which requires an enormous amount of discretion and trust. I worry about the fact that there's no monitoring. There doesn't appear to be an implementation mechanism here, and that could prove very difficult. But again, if the Israeli cabinet approves this,

I think there's a reasonable chance you'll get through phase one. The problem is going to be after the first six weeks and whether Hamas and Israel will agree basically to end the war, free all the hostages. That's the real challenge. Aaron David Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former Mideast peace negotiator. Aaron, thank you for your time. Thanks for having me, Lila. That's the State of the World from NPR.

We'll keep covering developments in the ceasefire deal, so make sure you come back to this feed. You can also find all of NPR's reporting on this conflict at npr.org slash Mideast updates. Thank you for listening.

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