Image Credit: Jordan News Agency (Petra)
With each failed round of negotiations, it is becoming clearer to a global audience where the obstacle to a ceasefire in Gaza lies: in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s brain.
It’s even clearer to Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defence minister, and David Barnea, the director of Mossad, who heads the Israeli negotiating team.
A ceasefire deal on the lines of US President Joe Biden’s statement and the ensuing UN resolution, close to the one Hamas has already approved, would do two things: bring down Netanyahu’s government and deprive him of the power to wage a permanent intermittent war.
Even if, on paper, a ceasefire could allow him to resume the war at the end of the first phase of hostage and prisoner release, if Israel were to sabotage negotiations, in reality, such an opportunity would diminish after six weeks of peace.
It is now emerging that the only way for Netanyahu to continue in power, and in freedom, is to keep Israel on the warpath, in a permanent low-level state of conflict on all of its borders.
A state of war is his Iron Dome, his get-out-of-jail card from the reckoning he has yet to face for 7 October and an 11-month operation in Gaza that has patently failed to bring Hamas to its knees.
War is his protection from losing the crown to the young pretender, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, and from a possible prison sentence on multiple charges of corruption.
With the incumbent, or indeed any future US president unable and unwilling to use real levers to curb Israel, such as cutting off its arms supply - the US has just approved another $20bn of arms - Netanyahu is being consistent.
The only direction of travel is to the next front line, and already, the Gaza operation is being wound down as units are redeployed to the next war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. All other routes lead to perdition for Netanyahu.
But allowing this man to continue a conflict on five fronts indefinitely comes at a high price.
The clearest and quickest way of counting the costs of allowing Netanyahu to continue in power can be seen in Jordan, a buffer zone that has soaked up refugees from decades of war in the region.
