The ceasefire in Lebanon is all part of Netanyahu’s plan to keep Trump on side

The Israeli prime minster knows the incoming US president won’t be happy if the Gaza war drags on, Chris Stevenson writes, so he is turning his attention to Iran to buy himself some time

Benjamin Netanyahu with Donald Trump during the then president’s first term in Washington (Getty)

With Joe Biden set to leave the White House in less than 60 days, he seems determined to try to make a difference in the Middle East before Donald Trump takes office in January.

Of the major conflicts in the region, including those in Gaza and Lebanon as well as Israel’s broader clash with Iran, it is Lebanon that proved the easiest in which to achieve a ceasefire, if such a term can ever be applied in the presence of such overlapping and entrenched feuds. Biden’s push for peace in Lebanon has lined up with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s need to show both his domestic audience and Trump that he can halt a conflict once he has got involved in one.

For Trump is now the focus of Netanyahu’s gaze, with the president-elect making the debatable claim that there were “no wars” during his first term in the White House a key part of his election pitch. Trump made repeated boasts that he would end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine within 24 hours of his inauguration, while also saying that he wants the conflict in Gaza to be over.

The US has been Israel’s staunchest ally – and Trump has shown that he cares little for the diplomatic norms in the Middle East to which others carefully adhere – so Netanyahu knows he will have more latitude than ever before. But he has to be careful to balance that against Trump’s intense dislike of any complicated issues, or anything he can’t easily claim as a win for himself.

Showing movement on Lebanon buys Netanyahu some time with both the Biden White House and Trump’s incoming administration, with some of Trump’s acolytes already seeking to claim credit for the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire. It also prevents the domestic pressure from climbing any higher, with Trump prone to cutting loose allies he sees as failing to keep their standing within their own nations sufficiently high.

Successes, such as the degrading of Hezbollah’s leadership in Lebanon, are important to Netanyahu’s domestic poll ratings, which have been low during much of the war in Gaza. Netanyahu will know that his political career will likely be over once the wars Israel is conducting have come to an end, as he was under severe pressure even before Hamas’s act of terror on 7 October 2023.

So the question for Netanyahu now is how to keep Trump engaged enough to enable the Israeli leader to bring the war in Gaza to an end on his own terms, without having Trump force his hand. And Netanyahu appears to be clear about the way to make that happen: Iran.

Trump’s political career has shown that binary opposition is the way to get him to act. Going up against China in an economic war is one example. The logic is simple – China trying to limit US economic power: bad; Trump fighting for American businesses: good. The complicated issues that spring from that are someone else’s problem to deal with (the US Treasury, America’s diplomatic corps). The same can be said of Iran. Trump knows of the longstanding enmity between Washington and Tehran; it is an enemy that Trump will have no issue labelling evil, boasting about how he will knock the Iranians down a peg or two.

Part of Netanyahu’s stated rationale for the ceasefire with Hezbollah was that it meant Israel could turn its attention fully towards Iran, whose proxies include Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen and other groups in Syria and Iraq. That framing will also be aimed at Trump. The president-elect may not care about the morass that the war in Gaza has become, or its horrific death toll, but he will find dealing with Iran easily digestible.

Netanyahu has previously said that he and Trump are on the same page when it comes to Iran. The Israeli PM will be hoping it stays that way – and that he can keep the 45th and 47th US president from turning up the political heat over Gaza.