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🔤🔤🔤🔤2️⃣ Reuven Hazan, a political science professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said that Netanyahu clearly wanted to give voters time to be distracted by other pressing matters. “And hopefully for him, the people of Israel are stupid enough and short enough of memory that they won’t remember all of this,” Hazan said. Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, said he believed Netanyahu wanted time for the Israeli public to vent its rage over a new ultra-Orthodox draft exemption but then also to get over it, and for the discussion to shift to other topics. “It’s difficult,” Plesner said. “But if Netanyahu decides that the coalition needs to pass it, it will probably pass.” Netanyahu went along with the Trump peace plan for Gaza, but he has never sounded like a big believer in it, telling Israelis that he is giving it time to play out but that Hamas will have to have its arms forcibly seized if it does not lay them down voluntarily. The Israeli public is generally with him on that, polls show. A majority of Israelis expect that war with Hamas will resume within a year. Exhausted as Israelis are, the freeing of their hostages — whose captivity fueled protests demanding an end to the war out of fear for their survival — could reduce opposition to an eventual return to war, analysts say. But Israel’s continued strikes in Gaza since the cease-fire appear to have angered the Trump administration, which wants to extend and build on the truce, not jeopardize it. Similarly, Israel’s military actions in Lebanon and Syria appear at odds with the Trump administration’s efforts to stabilize governments in both countries. Trump has repeatedly shown impatience with Netanyahu. And he could use their meeting on Monday to squeeze the Israeli leader on some or all of these fronts. Netanyahu is expected to urge Trump to back him in continuing to apply pressure to Iran, which Israeli officials say is rebuilding its missile arsenal. It is Gaza that poses the most intriguing set of choices. Netanyahu’s refusal so far to allow a role in Gaza for the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the occupied West Bank and is a bitter rival of Hamas, is making it difficult for the Trump administration to assemble many of the components of his plan. Those include an International Stabilization Force, a technocratic committee of Palestinians to run Gaza and a supervising Board of Peace. Arab and European countries whose participation the Trump administration is seeking want the Palestinian Authority involved. Netanyahu’s oft-stated determination to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state is deterring countries that want assurances that their assistance in disarming Hamas and rebuilding Gaza will lead to a renewed effort to establish a state, not just to a renewed cycle of violence a few years down the road. While the Saudis have indicated that they are nowhere near ready to establish diplomatic ties with Israel, if Trump seeks to enlist Netanyahu in winning them over, the Israeli leader could face a legacy-defining choice. #netanyahu#trump#israel#gaza#syria#palestine 📱American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸