Does Netanyahu really want Trump's peace plan for Gaza?

Benjamin Netanyahu shook Donald Trump's hand and smiled as the president announced his new 20-point peace plan for Gaza. So, everything was looking good! But no, not really. Netanyahu had to agree to the deal but he knows that it will never get past his most extreme conservative cabinet members who want Gaza to become an extension to the West Bank for Jewish settlers. Nor will Hamas leap at it because they will demand that all Israeli troops are withdrawn from Gaza and Netanyahu is never gong to agree to that. So, lots of optimistic welcome from around the world to the Trump deal but are they all really fooling themselves? This latest deal is an agglomeration of all the previous deals and since every one failed to bring the war to an end, it is pretty short odds that this 20-pointer will also go the same way. Or if it does work, eventually, it will be a long way off. Netanyahu is against a two-state solution, ie an indpendent state for Palestinians, but the Trump proposal hints at it, in order to keep the Arab nations happy. But there is nothing in the package that says it will definitely happen or how it will happen. One thing that does seem to have been dropped is Trump's idea of turning Gaza into a Middle East Riviera, with all the Palestinians told to leave and live somewhere else. That means the Palestinian inhabitants of what's left of Gaza will be allowed to stay, as the massive reconstruction programme gets underway. If this deal goes ahead, Netanyahu will not survive as Israeli leader.

Why is Trump so optimistic about a Gaza deal?

Everyone is talking about a peace settlement for Gaza but on the ground there is absolutely no evidence that either Israel or Hamas are ready to sign anything. Trump tells us that a lot of talking is going on behind the scenes between Israel, the US, Arab countries and Hamas to find the formula that has so far failed to materialise in nearly two years of war. JD Vance has joined those suggesting a deal might be in the offing but he wisely admits something could always go wrong at the last minute. Like Hamas saying no or Israel deciding to carry on until every single member of Hamas has been killed. No one for sure knows how many Hamas fighters have been killed but it must be close to 18,000 or perhaps even more. But that still means they have another 5,000-10,000 holding on to the remaining hostages and launching sporadic raids on Israel Defence Forces troops. Will Benjamin Netanyahu ever be satisfied if that number of combatants are still free to attack Israel? I very much doubt it. So whatever deal is currently being discussed, the chances of it working out are slim at best. As for post-war Gaza, there are now so many ideas, none of which will inspire the Palestinians who want their own government and their own independence. One of the proposals is for Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, to run a temporary administration when the war finally stops. Blair is a class act and has been involved in Middle East peacemaking efforts for a long time. But I cannot imagine the Palestinian people in Gaza will settle for a Brit to run their lives. So, I fear the war is still a long way from ending.

Hundreds of generals and admirals ordered to attend Pentagon show

At this moment about 800 generals and admirals in the US military are preparing to leave their commands around the world and fly to Washington to attend a non-voluntary meeting on Tuesday with Donald Trump, their commander-in-chief, and the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, for what appears to be a planned rebranding tour-de-force. The cost of getting all these top-flight commanders to leave their posts and come to Washington has not been quantified but it will run into tens of thousands of dollars and probably hundreds of thousands of dollars. And for what? So that Hegseth and Trump can urge them all to plan more directly for war in the future and to get them to warn all their soldiers, marines, airmen/women and sailors to see themselves as warriors. It's not a new concept but clearly Hegseth, a former Fox News presenter, feels the military needs a kick up the backside to prepare themselves for whatever wars may turn up in the futue, whether it be against China, Russia, Iran or Venezuela. In between the lecturing from Trump and Hegseth at the gathering at Quantico in Virginia, it's going to be a helluva gossip occasion for all the three- and four-star men and women who will no doubt seize the opportunity to chat about what Trump really wants and what it might mean for their careers. There must be a degree of trepidation within the top ranks.

Will the small-boat arrivals ever stop?

The defining image of this decade for Britain will be the arrival across the English Channel of dozens of people packed into a small boat, hoping to come and live in this country. It happens every week, and in some weeks happens every day, and nothing, NOTHING the government says or does makes any difference. The boats still keep coming, sometimes, safely, if that's the right word, and sometimes disastrously with some of the boat passengers falling into the sea and drowning, often women and children. Everything the previous Conservative government and the present Labour government have tried to do to stop this nightmare has totally, utterly failed. Some of the so-called policies have been gimmicks, others have been morally repugnant. But still the boats come. Donald Trump said the British government should use the military. But no government is going to do that, first because it would look terrible around the world and secondly, the Royal Navy just isn't bigh enough to spend its time patrolling the English Channel. The current one-out and one-in idea, in which one illegal, undocumented migrant is flown out and one approved, documented migrant is allowed in, might work over time but it will take decades for it to make any difference. So, the idea is pretty crass. The "send 'em all to Rwanda" scheme proposed by the previous government was morally unpleasant and an unbelievable waste of taxpayers' money because no one actually went to Rwanda, and then Labour scrapped it anyway. Is there anyone anywhere who has a practical idea for stopping the small boats. If so, come forward, because the Labour government certainly doesn't.

Trump's revenge against his personal enemies

James Comey, former FBI director, is the first but certainly not the last. Donald Trump always said he would take revenge against the people he believed inspired against him during his four years in office and now he has started. James Comey didn't stand a chance because he was the one who was in charge of the investigation into whether Trump was secretly aligned with Moscow to get elected in 2016, and then wrote a book attacking Trump. The evidence against him, in terms of a real criminal offence, would appear to be flimsy at best. The grand jury returned an indictment against Comey after a lawyer appointed by Trump only days ealier was part of the prosecution team and then turned out to be the one voice supporting the indictment. The other prosecutors said there wasn't enough evidence to convict. It's all a bit disturbing. Comey's mistake was to make a point of digging himself in vis a vis Trump by publicly criticising him. Had he been a bit wiser he would have gone into retirement quietly. But I guess he thought there was no chance of Trump being reelected, seeing as how he was facing so many criminal charges himself. But, then, he didn't predict Joe Biden deteriorating in health and resigning three months before election day. Kamala Harris was on a hiding to nothing and when Trump won easily, Comey was on a countdown to an indictment.

Are we closer to war with Russia?

The friendly relationship between President Trump and President Putin now seems finally to be over. It has been eight months of drama, disappointment and frustration. Last week, Trump gave his authority for Nato to shoot down Russian drones and fighter jets if they flew into alliance members’ air space which provoked an angry response from Moscow. The Russian ambassador to France, Alexey Meshkov, told a press conference that if a Russian aircraft was shot down it would lead to war.The warning came after Russian drones and fighter jets crossed into Poland, Romania and Estonia. Multiple drones also entered Danish airspace and the government of Copenhagen said it suspected they were Russian. These alarming developments underlined how relations have deteriorated between Washington and Moscow. The second Trump administration had begun with a real sense of optimism that the president would be able to use his influence to persuade Putin to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine and to stop violating Nato airspace and launching cyber attacks on the US and Europe. The meeting between Trump and Putin at a military base outside Anchorage in Alaska was supposed to kick-start a new era, with productive relations between Washington and Moscow. The opposite has happened., culminating with the war warning from the Russian ambassador to France. How could it all have gone so wrong? Trump now says that Putin has let him down. But it seems clear that the Russian leader was never going to negotiate peace in Ukraine, unless it was strictly on his own terms, none of which was going to be acceptable to Kyiv. Following Trump’s dramatic change of mind about Ukraine last week, declaring that, given the right support, the Ukrainian military could seize back all the territory occupied by Russian troops, there would seem to be no prospect of a negotiated settlement to end the war. Trump effectively advised Ukraine to fight on and not seek peace. It may, of course, have been a cunning plan by the president to goad Putin into seeking a diplomatic settlement. But the Russian president has shown no sign of considering any sort of compromise. Moreover, after the deliberate incursions by Russian drones and fighter aircraft across Nato borders, Putin seems more determined than ever to provoke the alliance. Can Trump revive his friendship with Putin before the situation becomes even more dangerous, or is it now inevitable, as some military commentators have suggested, that Nato and Russia will become involved in direct conflict? This is such an alarming prospect that Trump is probably the only leader in the world who can contact Putin directly and bring him to his senses. So far, all of the president’s efforts have failed to change Putin’s aggressive tactics. But if something is not done soon to stop the bellicose rhetoric, there could be a serious miscalculation that might lead to a dangerous confrontation between Russia and the West. It is time for another summit between Trump and Putin before it’s all too late.

Trump tells Ukraine to fight on!

Donald Trump’s about-turn on Ukraine is so spectacular his personal social media platform, Truth Social, should be renamed Home Truths. It appears the US president has been doing some homework on the state of the Russian economy and how more than three years of war have impacted on the country’s financial stability and future growth potential, or lack of it. Much has been written about Russia’s war economy, painting the picture that the military/industrial infrastructure is in such a booming state that tanks are coming off the production line like vodka in a bottling factory. The truth, as Trump is discovering, is that the war in Ukraine has driven holes in Russia’s finances; and made vulnerable any prospect of a straightforward return to a civilian economy once the war is over. Putin is in deep trouble. He can keep the war going for another few years, but then what? If he still fails to defeat Ukraine or force Kyiv to surrender on his terms, Russia will not just be a “paper tiger”, as Trump wrote in his Truth Social post, but will be an empire without clothes. It has taken Trump a long time to come round to the view repeated endlessly by European leaders, that provided military and economic support for Kyiv is maintained, Putin at some stage will be forced to call it quits, and that if that backing is not guaranteed, the Russian president will continue to believe that aggression pays. The recent launching of Russian drones into Poland, Romania and over Copenhagen airport (suspected), and the flight of three MiG-31 fighter jets into Estonian airspace have shown that right now Putin thinks he’s a winner and can get away with pretty much anything. Trump has seen the light here, too, by confirming that Nato should shoot them down. Trump’s lengthy Truth Social post on Ukraine came after a meeting in New York with Volodymyr Zelensky who expressed surprise at the change in tone and message. However, even for Zelensky, Trump’s prediction that Ukraine could not only defeat the Russian invasion troops but also regain all the territory it has lost may have seemed over-optimistic.This is what Trump wrote: “After getting to know and fully understand the Ukraine/Russia Military and Economic situation and, after seeing the Economic trouble it is causing Russia, I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form.” Later on in the post, he wrote:“Ukraine would be able to take back their Country in its original form and, who knows, maybe even go further than that! Putin and Russia are in BIG Economic trouble, and this is the time for Ukraine to act.” Quite what he meant by going further than just recovering Ukraine’s sovereign territory is unclear, but perhaps he was thinking of Crimea which was annexed by Putin without a fight in 2014.Trump relies on advice not just from his appointed officials but also from people he trusts outside government. His apparent U-turn may have materialised after consulting with experts in his private contacts list. Certainly, his revised view doesn’t gel with the opinion of Marco Rubio, his secretary of state and acting national security adviser, who made it clear that the war in Ukraine would end with a diplomatic, not a military solution. This view is largely held by the top military commanders in the US. Three years of war have demonstrated a number of truths: Russia has failed to prove it has the military capability to crush its neighbour despite massive superiority (thus, Trump’s paper tiger analogy), and Ukraine has demonstrated a fighting spirit and an ingenious exploitation of home-grown technology to thwart Russian forces and save the country from Moscow’s subjugation. Western support with advanced weaponry has also, of course, been crucial in the earlier stages of the war. But modern western tanks, for example, many of which have been destroyed in battle, play less of a role now that drones have taken over as the weapon of choice to keep the Russians back. Trump appears to have accepted these realities and has now, effectively, given his backing for Kyiv to fight on but only in the context of Europe taking the brunt of the financial responsibility for aiding Zelensky and his military commanders. This follows Trump’s decision to sell American weapons to Europe which then passes them onto Ukraine, a clever business arrangement if ever there was one. So, it’s Europe from now on , but with Trump waving the Ukrainian flag in the background. How Putin reacts to this remarkable change in Trump’s position will be illuminating. All the indications up to this moment were that Putin was prepared to continue the conflict ad infinitum, relying on his war economy to try and seize more Ukrainian territory – so far, around 19 per cent, including Crimea. However, military expenditure is now absorbing up to eight per cent of Russia’s GDP. That cannot be sustained without having an increasingly damaging impact on the rest of the economy. With the likelihood of even more savage sanctions imposed on Moscow in the future, Putin could be forced to reassess his war prospects in Ukraine to save Russia from economic disaster. That’s Trump’s Home Truths message.