A Pause on the Gaza Peace Plan?

From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch. Israel rejects next steps in the Trump administration's plan for peace in Gaza, as Iran insists it will charge tolls in the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin is testing the United States in Europe with a spate of drone incursions into NATO territory. Welcome to Potomac Watch and happy Monday to our listeners. We're going to do a quick spin around the globe today with my colleagues, Elliot Kaufman and Jillian Melcher, both members of the editorial board with Jillian calling in from London. Elliot, thanks for stopping by today to catch us up. We're going to start off here talking about the deal in Gaza and what BB's rejection of these next steps really means. My own view is that any time we see evidence that Hamas has agreed to disarm itself, we should treat such promises with extreme skepticism. And it looks as though to the extent this peace process currently unfolding has promise, it's because of... Israeli military pressure and progress in Gaza. And so I think it would be helpful for you to just walk us through. What is Hamas promised to do so far? Have they followed through on it? And why is Beebe pumping the brakes now on Monday? So maybe I will start with the Trump peace plan, which ended the war in Gaza in the first place in October. 2025. That was a 20-point plan. One of the key points, of course, was that Hamas would disarm. Well, we are 10 months later, and not a single Hamas weapon has been handed over. And so that's where we're working from. More recently, the Board of Peace created by President Trump, has published a roadmap that talks once again about a committee of Palestinian technocrats taking over Gaza. It talks about Hamas disarming and then about Israeli troops withdrawing from the 60 to 70 percent of Gaza, which they are now in. Now, one... subtle distinction about this new roadmap. It's often been cast as in agreement between... all parties, and therefore Israel can accept it or rejected. But in fact, it's a, as far as we know, unsigned agreement between the mediators, that is Qatar, Turkey, and Egypt on one side, with Hamas on the other side. Israel actually isn't even a party of it. So when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under some substantial...

political pressure comes out and says, we don't accept it. It's not entirely clear what that means because Israel wasn't asked to accept it in the first place. Well, I want to get into that political pressure in a minute, but even at a basic level, when we talk about Hamas disarming, what do we mean? To me, it looks like the contours of the deal are putting the weapons in storage, retaining some access to the weapons. It doesn't look like disarmament to me. And second, it seems as though there's some discussion about when will those Israeli military pullbacks take place? It looks like they want the Israelis to pull back closer to half of Gaza versus that 70% that you are describing. Does that happen after Hamas disarms? These sound like technical questions, but I think there are ways of trying to understand, is Hamas actually making concessions here? Or are they offering feints here to look reasonable and drag out the process longer? I think the bigger picture is that Hamas would like some sort of political process. to get moving because it is under major pressure right now, economic pressure and a sort of creeping Israeli military pressure without major political prospects going forward. And so Hamas would like to get something else moving that it can take over and then hope that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel will lose the subsequent election, at which point all bets are off, all agreements. are probably off. But on the specific points, disarmament first, the Trump peace plan of October 2025 spoke of demilitarizing all of Gaza, meaning no weapons, no tunnels. The much newer roadmap for Gaza doesn't quite say that. Instead, like you said, it has weapons being decommissioned, handed to another Palestinian faction, and then stored within Gaza. Now, if you wanted to disarm Hamas, probably you wouldn't hand its weapons to other Palestinians and then leave them somewhere where Hamas can reach them. So the Board of Peace has various answers for why this won't go that way, why it won't go horribly wrong. But I think Israelis are looking on paper and seeing a plan that, well, you can understand why Hamas might say, sure, we will play along with that because they think they can take advantage of it. The plan also has a provision that would allow Gazans to keep... personal weapons. The Board of Peace says that doesn't mean military weapons, but as that gets administered practically, does that mean Hamas fighters get to keep their AK-47s? Israelis wonder. On the question of withdrawals, here it gets slightly more complicated. Israel right now is controlling up to 70% of Gaza. But its troops are actually only stationed in about 53% of the territory. So they might not need to withdraw to start.

right now. But going forward, the board of peace would like a sector by sector withdrawal. So Hamas, weapons, and other military installations are cleared from one sector, and then Israeli troops would leave that sector. Israel's concern, of course, with that is that Hamas will move its weapons out of that sector and then move them right back in as soon as Israel leaves. It doesn't want to withdraw from anything. until Hamas is fully disarmed. And to your point, the stories about BB here immediately invoke the politics and the upcoming elections in Israel and suggest that BB's right flank won't tolerate this deal and he's somewhat boxed in from accepting it. Now, unpack that a little bit for us. Do you think BB's operating under true political constraints here or is there a larger strategic calculus? Obviously, there's both. But what's what? What is really being driven by Israeli politics and his... decision to, to your point, he wasn't asked to accept it, but to put some cold water on this process for now. It's both, I think. And while people understand that Benjamin Netanyahu's right flank doesn't like this deal, what I don't think is sufficiently appreciated is that Israel's centrist, liberal, and left-wing opposition also don't like this deal. And all of these parties are now playing sort of more hawkish than thou and are hammering Benjamin Netanyahu saying, you're going to always do what the Americans say. We won't. We will, you know, stand up for Israel's true security interests. And so if he wants to turn out his own base, the prime minister, at the very least, he can't appear to be more dovish than the doves to his left. So he is sort of boxed in on the politics here. And I think what he is doing right now, from my understanding and reporting, is that he's actually playing along with this deal. while speaking very publicly against the deal. And what I mean by that is that for the past week, ever since Benjamin Netanyahu met with the chairman of the Board of Peace, Nikolai Mladenov, Israel has not struck Gaza. It hasn't killed any Hamas fighters. It actually has provided the quiet which the Board of Peace asked. And that's really the only thing the Board of Peace is asking. of Israel right now for the time being. And so, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been complying with that, at least for now, while saying he won't comply with the larger plan. And so I don't think he is actually the real barrier here going forward. What I would say is, for seven days, Israel has not attacked Gaza, and for seven days,

Hamas hasn't handed over a single weapon, just as it hasn't for the previous 10 months. So I would say the ball is in Hamas's court right here, hand over weapons, and then this plan can move forward. Hang tight. We'll be back with more Potomac Watch. I'm Matthew Hennessy, the editor of Free Expression, the new daily newsletter from the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal. Free expression is a little different than what you get in the print paper's opinion section. We've expanded things out a little bit. We have a great mix of columnists, including Matt Continetti, Louise Perry, and Kyle Smith. You also get frequent sharp contributions from my editorial colleagues. And we publish outside contributors, too, from rock star economists like Tom Sol to real rock stars like John Androsic and David Drayman. You can sign up for free expression by going to the journal's homepage and looking for the free expression tab. We're also on substack, Twitter, Instagram, threads, and TikTok, if that's your sort of thing. Sign up for free expression today, and we'll see you in your inbox tomorrow. Welcome back to Potomac Watch. What is your early reporting and insight on how the Trump administration is reacting to this news about BB? I mean, BB and Trump is one of the most dynamic and interesting bilateral relationships in the world. And the Board of Peace that we're talking about that is administering this process really is Trump's idea and really is how he wants to run this process. And he seems like he does want to get a deal here. So how is the Trump administration reading what BB is doing? How will it affect the U.S.-Israel relationship going forward? President Trump does want. a deal. I think he also wants the deal that he made in 2025. And when he speaks about this, he always says, complete disarmament of Hamas. And so Israelis are very comfortable telling him, we agree with that, and let's do something right now that accomplishes it. U.S. officials have been notably taking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's comments in stride. They've said something to the effect of, well, we understand he has his own political interest here that he has to handle. We are glad to see him working with us, and we expect that he will continue to do so. So that front is, I think, okay for now. The question is, what happens when Israeli troops perceive an imminent threat? Hamas fighters... approaching them or perpetrators of the Hamas October 7th massacre suddenly coming into view. Does Israel take that shot and then does that provide Hamas in excuse to say, we can't do anything? Israel is still attacking us and then what happens between the U.S. and Israel? Well, let's zoom out very briefly before we wrap up here. I mean, I think there's a temptation to put

the deal in Gaza that we're talking about kind of in a separate category from the Iran war. And I think the administration sometimes even succumbs to that by saying we're working the Gaza peace process over here, we're working our Iran negotiations over here. But, I mean, Hamas is a terror proxy extension of Iran's regional agenda. And so I think... It's helpful here to connect those dots and talk about how this fits into the larger goings-on of the Iran War. So I wanted to ask, you know, basically, as Iran is still threatening tolls in the Strait of Hormuz and saying maybe no U.S. ships will be allowed to transit the Strait at all, it looks like Iran is just continuing to dictate events in the Middle East. And so I wanted to get your impression. Do you think Trump is losing patience for this yet? What is your on Monday here midday? Do you have any sense that the president is going to change up his strategy in the Iran war and maybe re-engage because there's just so much intransigence on the Iranians part and they seem to think they can run the table in the street? Yeah, I mean, Iran has launched some 22 separate strikes in the past two weeks, probably on the wager, that it wouldn't pay a real military price for it. And if so, That's been correct. I don't see President Trump dramatically changing tack here. He's had every opportunity to, he has threatened to many times, and each time he has backed off of that. The latest that we hear from President... Trump is that Iran is under blockade and suffering and let the regime suffer there, see how long it can hold out. And President Trump can say that because the U.S. has been getting some 8 million barrels per day out of the straight very quietly, plus more coming out from various pipelines avoiding. the straight, and that has kept oil prices in the $80 range, not where President Trump wants it for, say, midterm elections, but not at crisis levels. The question is, does President Trump have the patience to sustain? a strategy like that, which might, after all, be preferable to a deal that lifts all sanctions and surrenders the strait to Iranian ownership and tolling. And just lastly, linking this back to Gaza and Hamas, I mean, Iran's latest is saying, as part of A deal, we want no strikes on any of our proxies, which includes Hamas in Gaza. They are trying to link these theaters in order to win immunity for their terror proxies. And I think for the U.S. and Israel, the task right now is not to be fighting each other.

over Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, what President Trump sometimes calls the minor leagues. Instead, they need to be united focusing on the big leagues. Iran itself. The war is still going. And if they want to win it or even escape it with their pride intact, I think they need to be united on these questions. Elliot, thanks so much for stopping by to give us that update. Hang tight. We'll be back with more Potomac Watch. Don't forget, you can reach the latest episode of Potomac Watch anytime. Just ask your smart speaker, play the Opinion Potomac Watch podcast. From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch. Welcome back to Potomac Watch. I'm going to turn now to chatting with my colleague Jillian Melcher from London. Jillian, so we had last week a series of drone scares, but one particularly at a German airport, where a drone flew close to what appears to be a

he get away with down cruise missile here a drones into romania it seems to be one not an isolated incident but give us a delay of the land in this particular incident in germany and what it pertains so i actually think this is a story that did not get the attention that it deserved last week because the details here are like shocking So basically what happened is that you had this bus driver who was taking this bus out. This is an airport that's important for civilian traffic. It's an important transport and cargo hub for Europe. But it's also a passenger airport, and it's also used by NATO forces. So this bus driver is going out. He sees something that's kind of weird near this Antonov Ukrainian cargo plane goes over and actually like, kicks it, and it turns out that it is a drone. And not only is it a drone, it is a drone laden with military-grade explosives. You know, there are conflicting German news reports about this, but there's been some speculation that the only reason that it didn't detonate... is not because Germany's defenses were good and it was intercepted, it's because potentially the detonator failed. There are also conflicting reports about what was on board that Ukrainian plane, but I've seen reports saying that it was potentially laden with ammunition. This is an airport that's been used for military transportation to help support Ukraine. And that's a really big deal. A sign that Europe's critical infrastructure is not sufficiently protected against a real threat. This is something that had it detonated, could have been very dangerous to civilians. And I think it's just a huge warning sign. And it's coming in the context of repeated drone incursions that are suspicious. You had German authorities in this instance saying that they're looking into whether a foreign power was behind this. I haven't specified the foreign power, but I think the underlying implication is whether Russia is behind this. And then it's disturbing too, seeing that just a couple of days after this incident at the airport, another German military base to suspicious drones were spotted. And this is a military base that's involved in components for patriots. So I think Europe's got a problem. I think the West and NATO have a problem. And this is one sign of it. Yes, one problem you're describing is the military technology problem. That Western militaries are not well prepared to intercept cheap drones that can threaten very soft targets. But I think, too, there is a larger issue here because... Yes, we need to fortify some of these sites to be better projected against the drone threat. You know, there's been, and even in the United States, there's been reports of drone swarms at Barksdale Air Base where we host all of our strategic bombers. That is an example of a site that needs to be prepared to take down drones on a daily basis. But.

There is a larger issue where at a certain point, we can't protect every single thing in Western territory. And so at some point, there is a larger deterrence failure going on here that Vladimir Putin thinks he can probe and get away with it and that there won't be a response. At some point, the U.S. does rely on deterrence to prevent him from doing some of these drone-style incursions. And so one thing I wanted to ask your view on, is how you think some of this is fed by the larger U.S. posture. The United States right now is undertaking a large force posture review in Europe. It's saying, It has suggested it will pull combat brigades out of Romania, didn't replace a combat brigade in Romania. It has suggested and then wobbled on whether it might take troops out of Poland or add more troops in Poland. But the Pentagon's been pretty unmistakably clear that it's reviewing its European footprint and it wants Europe to deal with more of its own conventional defense problems. And so I'm wondering if you read some of these drone tests as kind of a logical next step with Vladimir Putin sees the United States is really saying out loud, defense of Europe, that's going to be Europe's problem, even if Europe isn't ready to take that over and doesn't have yet the militaries that are capable of doing that. I don't want to blame this on the U.S. It's not the U.S. is false that Russia is behaving in an aggressive way. But I think what that... The dilemma here is that the U.S. is signaling that its commitment to Europe, its interest in what happens in Europe, that this is less of a priority than other things. And I think what we know about Russia and what we know about Vladimir Putin is that when he senses weakness, he exploits it and he tests what the limits of it are. And so we're talking about these drone incursions over, you know, airports and sensitive military sites. I just want to put this in context for the last year because I think it's important to look at this. in terms of a pattern. So you had Institute for International and Strategic Studies looking at this report last month. 144 suspicious drone incidents in Europe. This is drones flying over military bases, including ones with U.S. nuclear forward posture. Some of them are over airports. Some of them are over, you know, critical infrastructure and energy sites, just very sensitive things, 144 of them. And this report was saying that this pattern suggests that this is not the work of hobbyists or amateurs. it's more likely explained by Russia. And you have factors like the Russian shadow fleet nearby operating in the proximity when some of these drones were launched. Okay, so you've got the drone problem. Let's talk about what's happening on land. So I'm looking at the Netherlands International Center for Counterterrorism. They're doing a pretty modest count on this. They're only looking at incidents where you can make a very direct link.

between an incident that has happened that's disturbing in Europe and Russia. And I'm talking about things like assassinations or assassination attempts, violence, bombings, arson, attempted sabotage, public disturbances. Since 2022, they've been able to identify 151 of these incidents. You've got, you know, you referenced the cruise missile incursion into Poland a couple weeks ago. That, I mean, I think Europe got really lucky. But, you know, in September, you had about two dozen, roughly, Russian drones deliberately transgressing into Polish airspace. You've had an incident earlier this past fall where there was a bomb planted on the Polish railways. You've had in the Baltic Sea, repeated incidents where Russian shadow fleet vessels have dropped an anchor, dragged it over critical infrastructure under sea data cables or pipelines. And I think when we're looking at this in the context of a broader path, pattern, the threat environment's pretty extreme here. And I think that has to question, calling to question how the U.S. is perceiving it because of we're pulling back. We're a lot more reliant for deterrence on our nuclear posture than more traditional responses. But it is an indication that Vladimir Putin sees an opportunity and that he's ramping up the threat. And it's really like when you lay out those different things, it looks like a pretty dangerous situation. My only earlier point was really that Vladimir Putin calibrates what he does based on his perceptions of US political will, which I think is in question as the U.S. undertakes this kind of larger review. I think, too, there is something to underscore here about kind of the nature of way Vladimir Putin thinks about his own imperial project reconstituting the Soviet Union. I mean, I think one argument has been, okay, Vladimir Putin is so bogged down in Ukraine right now. He's struggling to make progress there. He's paying a massive toll in human life to make any progress there, something that will... influenced the demography of Russia for a long time. And so these facts, I think, have led some of the United States to say, well, Vladimir Putin is really in no position to be an acute threat to the United States. He has a nuclear arsenal, but we can deal with that separately. And that he's really, you know, not in a position to make it, you know, the defense strategy, the national defense strategy says this, that. Russia is a persistent problem, but not in a position to be a larger threat. And I think this is an example of the way in which that's not true, that one, Vladimir Putin does retain much more than an enormous nuclear arsenal to threaten us. He can also create... complicated dilemmas for us where it's not easy for the United States to respond here without escalating. And also that he just subscribes to a different risk assessment and a different worldview than the United States. I mean, he's willing to take massive risks, big gambles and miscalculations. I mean, I think that those are two things that that underscores me. Do you agree with that at a high level? Yeah, I definitely agree with that. I think that the U.S. response has been in some ways a failure of deterrence. And I think also just Europe's response to this.

That report that I mentioned from International Institute for Strategic Studies, looking at the drone incursions, one of the things that it noted is that Vladimir Putin has done this campaign with impunity. And if you look at everything from what the response has been, European countries have been very reluctant to name Russia as the responsible actor in cases where there's good evidence. They've been very hesitant to impose consequences for these incidents. And I think when you have that, you have a real failure of deterrence that creates dangerous situations like the ones that we're seeing. we just wrap up here real briefly, Jillian, on Ukraine. I mean, Ukraine is really the center of this competition between Vladimir Putin and the West right now and where the West has the most ability to make a difference in the outcome. And so, you know, last week we wrote a piece about a missile attack on Kiev, where Kiev was unable to intercept incoming missiles and they simply hit their targets. I think one of the big questions of the next few months has been whether... Trump is going to resupply Ukraine with air defense? Are we just going to let a U.S. friend on the front lines run out of air defense? There's been discussion, of course, about licensing patriots, which would be a helpful move to increase supply, but is a longer-term play, doesn't help Ukraine defend its cities tonight. And so I'm curious, what are you hearing lately about the possibilities of Ukraine getting an air defense refill from the United States? There has been some European assistance, but I think... It's going to be very hard to step in for what the United States can offer Ukraine. Yeah, you're right on this. I mean, the only way to counter a ballistic missile reliably is with a patriot. And that's something that they've known that they're more reliant on the U.S. for Europe has some stockpiles of this that it can provide and has been providing. But it's gotten to a pretty acute point on Ukraine. And I think that's a dangerous situation. I mean, Ukraine does try to disperse things. It's been thinking more looking into the winter on it. energy thing about for its defense industrial base, how you spread this out. So if one thing is hit, it's less of a consequence. But it is acute. I mean, they need these in the short term. They need them now. They needed them yesterday. And they don't have them. On the licensing issue, I want to say that this is really in the U.S. interest to allow them to do for a couple of reasons. I mean, if you look at just Russia, it's ballistic missile production, it has outpaced what the U.S. is producing in Patriots right now. And that's not even counting other adversaries. So we need a bigger global supply on this. What Ukraine's been really good at is learning Western technology quickly and figuring out ways to improve on it and to produce it quickly and at a larger scale. So this is a mass made in heaven. I think we should be rushing forward with it. Thanks, Jillian, for the update. We'll be back tomorrow with more Potomac Watch.