Netanyahu backs Trump’s Gaza peace plan – as Hamas issues first response

By Adam Parsons, Middle East correspondent

When Benjamin Netanyahu lands back in Israel, he will be hit by a wall of opinions. 

Some people are full of praise for the deal he has helped to construct, others hate it. 

Nobody is indifferent.

Among those who are spitting fury are members of his own cabinet. 

Netanyahu will attend a cabinet meeting on Tuesday evening, and he will be faced by the anger of his two most outspoken ministers – Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. 

Both come from the uncompromising political far right; both think that compromise is a sign of weakness; both were utterly outraged at the idea of the prime minister apologising to Qatar for the attack on Doha.

Ben-Gvir said that, far from being a source of shame, it had been “an important, just and supremely moral attack… Qatar is a state that supports terrorism, funds terrorism and incites terrorism”.

Smotrich, as if ever worried at being outdone, compared Netanyahu with Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of the Nazis, saying his “grovelling apology” was a “disgrace”.

Can either of these men really keep serving in a cabinet with Netanyahu? And if not, how long before the government collapses?

That wouldn’t imperil the peace plan – if it survives – because it will have the support of enough opposition parties to be passed into law. 

But it would hasten a new general election, where Netanyahu would try to portray himself as the statesman who brought back the hostages (if he does) while his rivals would paint him as the man who let 7 October happen on his watch.

But in the short term, Netanyahu’s plan has plenty of fans in Israel. 

President Isaac Herzog applauded it and so did the forum representing the families of the hostages. 

Leaders from Arab countries have all said they welcome it, albeit they have, unanimously, given the credit to Donald Trump, rather than the Israeli prime minister.

But then the applause dwindles. 

From Hamas, the initial reaction was telling – the plan hadn’t even been sent to them before it was announced to the world.

Which this, pointedly, doesn’t. 

Watch Parsons’ latest dispatch live from Jerusalem here…

As for the governance of Gaza – there is precious little support among Palestinians for a Trump/Blair leadership team. 

“Tony Blair is a war criminal who should be in The Hague, not Gaza,” said Mustafa Barghouti, the veteran politician who has been on the Palestinian Legislative Council for nearly two decades. And that’s an opinion I’ve heard echoed more than once. 

There are more negotiations to come. 

“I’ll believe it when it happens,” one military figure said to me, wearily. 

“I’m more confident than before,” said another source, “but before I wasn’t confident at all”. 

Nobody is getting too excited, too early, and there are hurdles to overcome and concessions to be made. 

But there is a chance that things might happen, and if they do, they might happen fast.