Palestinians wait for a meal at a charity kitchen at the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on May 4. Photo by Eyad Baba / AFP / Getty Images
Columnist
Dan Perry
May 5, 2025
Whether Israel embarks on a new occupation of Gaza will depend on the pleasure of one man: not Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but United States President Donald Trump.
The news that Israel’s security cabinet voted unanimously on Sunday in favor of a new war plan that an official described as involving “the occupation of territory” raised eyebrows around the world. While many on the Israeli far right have agitated for the reoccupation of the strip, Israel until recently had shied away from using such overt language in describing its goals in its 18-month-long war against Hamas. Now, “we will stop being afraid of the word ‘occupation,’” Bezalel Smotrich, Netanyahu’s ultranationalist finance minister, told Israel’s Channel 12 TV. “Once the new offensive in Gaza begins, there will be no retreat from the territories we have conquered, not even in exchange for hostages.”
And Trump will be crucial in determining whether Israel actually pursues a new occupation of Gaza, 20 years after its first one ended in a unilateral pullout of all soldiers and settlers in 2005.
According to Israeli officials and reports, the plan is to wait until the end of Trump’s May 13-16 trip to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar before launching what they describe as a total war to defeat Hamas. (And, some remember to add, an effort to recover the remaining Israeli hostages.) This delay is neither a diplomatic nicety nor a coincidence based on operational necessity. It is an admission that Trump holds the power to green-light or halt what may otherwise be a permanent, open-ended occupation.
Only a few months ago, it seemed like Trump’s effect on the conflict might be a pacifist one: His intervention was largely credited with the successful enacting of a January ceasefire, which Israel broke in March.
But in February, he gave Netanyahu the green light to resume the war. That’s when he also floated the idea of relocating Palestinians en masse and remaking Gaza into a gleaming, U.S.-owned real estate development — “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
That ludicrous suggestion had a positive effect. Arab states panicked, yielding a summit in Cairo in which the Arab League endorsed an Egyptian-led plan for Gaza after Hamas. They envisioned rebuilding Gaza under Palestinian Authority governance, with active involvement by the Arab League, and massive reconstruction funds from the Gulf.
Hamas tentatively accepted the plan in principle, which is not surprising, since it included no mention of the group disarming; they care more about being able to continue operating in any capacity than about maintaining governance of Gaza. But the plan was met with immediate rejection by Israel, which said it was “rooted in outdated perspectives” — a reference to the PA, which has since the 1990s governed the autonomy zones of the West Bank, and which Hamas expelled from Gaza in a 2007 coup.
What this really meant: Israel, which under Netanyahu’s leadership has long sought to disempower the PA in order to ease the way for its expanding occupation of the West Bank, refuses to engage in a plan that gives the PA more power. That’s exactly what the Arab League plan would do, imperiling long-term initiatives favored by Netanyahu’s far-right partners.
How to avoid that outcome? By more fully embracing the prospect of a forever war — which is one the vast majority of Israelis revile.
A poll released Monday found that a majority — 53% versus 35% — feels Netanyahu’s decision to prolong the war is political, motivated by his obsession with remaining in power. Previous polls showed about 70% of the public wants to prioritize returning the hostages over eliminating Hamas. A similar majority wants a national inquiry commission into the war led by a judge, as has been de rigueur throughout Israel’s history — and which the government voted against creating on Monday. And thousands of reservists, whom the new plan would see called up in huge numbers, have openly objected to the resumption of the war.
Most Israelis know that an occupation of Gaza would be an ugly affair in which soldiers would be sitting ducks for militants embedded within a population of 2 million. Economists have warned that the costs of administering the territory and providing services to its population will be staggering. And few believe that Israel can crush Hamas without leading to the deaths of the remaining hostages — as was clear to many from the start.
The government has proven indifferent to all this, because Netanyahu’s primary interest is in keeping his coalition intact. Smotrich and his allies have credibly threatened to bring him down should he end the war. And Netanyahu can ignore the public for now, since elections are not scheduled until the end of 2026.
But he cannot ignore Trump.
Without U.S. weapons and spare parts — or Washington’s diplomatic umbrella at the United Nations — the war cannot continue.
Trump will have other focuses on his Middle Eastern tour, including economic deals over his controversial tariffs and, possibly, a strategic agreement with Saudi Arabia. But his track record, for all his bluster and bellicosity, suggests he is also not a fan of forever wars — or of war at all.
One proof is in his approach to Iran. Rather than joining Israel in pursuing direct attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities, he seems to be headed for a rather accommodating deal on de-weaponizing Tehran’s nuclear program (although he has promised military action if negotiations fail).
So will he be able to see what is so plainly true to so many: that the Egyptian plan is the only viable framework for Gaza’s future?
Israel’s government is clearly hoping to persuade him otherwise. The declared objectives of the new plan include expelling civilians from combat zones; instituting long-term control in newly conquered areas; and implementing a screening system to separate civilians from militants. It will also place a renewed emphasis on encouraging Gazans to emigrate — a policy to which Trump is clearly positively inclined.
Under this plan, humanitarian aid to the strip will be controlled by Israel, which has blockaded the entry of any such aid since March.
They’ll have an uphill battle to convince Trump to fund this effort. His brand is dominance and success, not quagmires and hostage nightmares. Turbocharging the Arab plan and then rebranding it as his own would be the least bad outcome.
If Trump wants to take that approach — as he should — he could devote much of the trip to compelling the Arabs to improve their plan. This would mean seriously pressing Hamas to lay down its arms, arranging exile for its leadership in Gaza, and a complete shutdown of all shadow financing to the group.
The worst outcome is the one in which he buys what Netanyahu is selling. A new Israeli occupation of Gaza would mean misery for everyone — Palestinians and Israelis alike.
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