The relational side of the Gaza cease-fire deal

No one forced their military or political foe to do anything against their will. Rather, the trigger that made the end of the war possible was Netanyahu trampling on the Trump-Qatari relationship

The cease-fire that has taken hold in Gaza this weekend certainly feels different from the previous two, in November 2024 and this past January. While I was sure those two cease-fires would collapse and lead to thousands of more deaths, this time I am cautiously optimistic that it will lead to the end of the Gaza war.

Even though this one also has phases, it looks like Hamas will release the remaining living hostages and that Israel will not renew the war. There are still significant outstanding issues, namely whether Hamas will completely disarm, yet it doesn’t seem that Israel will reinvade the areas it has withdrawn from if it doesn’t get all its demands met.

A lot of ink has already been spilled about why this time the war really will end. Some observers look at Israeli military pressure or its protest movement. To me, the best explanation involves the strike in Qatar on Hamas negotiators last month as the trigger leading to the current cease-fire. Call it confirmation bias, but this version of events makes sense because it looks at the conflict through a relational lens. No one forced their military or political foe to bend to their will, rather individuals changed their positions to honor their relationships.

The main factors that determined the timing of this deal are Trump’s relationship with the Qataris, his relationship with Netanyahu and Netanyahu’s trampling on the Trump-Qatari relationship by trying to assassinate Hamas negotiators in Doha, on Qatari soil. In January, Netanyahu delivered Trump the cease-fire to rebrand his image as a peacemaking president. Trump reciprocated by backing Netanyahu’s renewal of the war in March.

Trump’s support of Netanyahu fed a positive feedback loop, through which Israel’s power grew as it pounded its enemies. However, positive feedback loops are ultimately unsustainable. In the case of Netanyahu, his successes against Hezbollah, Iran and even Syria lured him into thinking that he could kill Hamas negotiators in Qatar. After all, considering that Israel had used such massive force against Hezbollah and Iran, how much fallout could a tiny little strike on a building in Doha cause?

But as the waiter in “Monty Python’s Meaning of Life” found out when he gave a “wafer-thin mint” to his massively obese client after a ginormous meal, a “tiny little” strike can have massive, unexpected implications if it upsets a very important relationship. Sometimes, you can get away with the big things in relationships and then think you can get away with the little things, too, but those can be the ones that trip you up.

In this case, Trump is indeed very close to the Qataris, who have massively enriched his family. Qatar and the United Arab Emirate sunk $1.5 billion into his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s investment firm. Trump has a brand-new $5.5 billion golf course in Qatar. The Qataris also gave $2 billion to World Liberty Financial, the cryptocurrency company owned by the Trump family and his special envoy Steve Witkoff. So, Netanyahu likely could have gotten away with this strike with not only a Democrat in office but any other Republican, too. Instead, he crossed a relational red line. In that regard, this cease-fire isn’t about the U.S. national interest or Israel’s national interests so much as Trump’s relationship with the Qataris, which he prioritizes over his relationship with Netanyahu. Consequently, he humiliated Netanyahu by making him apologize over the phone to the Qataris, a first in Israel’s diplomatic relations, and then forced Israel to take a deal without obtaining that final victory shot of the last Hamas terrorist surrendering. Since chiding him, Trump has gone back to publicly praising Netanyahu, but the die has been cast.

The editor of my paper, Aluf Benn, cogently pointed out in an analysis that the United States has been forcing Israel to accept cease-fires since 1948. While this observation is true in a limited number of cases, the United States has failed on many more occasions to rein in Israel, most notably the Biden administration.

If the cease-fire were about the United States protecting its national interests, you’d think that Washington would have stepped in after Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed or after Hezbollah was defeated or Israel was starving the Gazans or even when it defeated Iran. But none of those events changed Israel’s trajectory in Gaza either because of the nature of Netanyahu’s relationship with the occupant of the White House.

In that light, Trump’s balance of relations with his Arab partners and with Israel are such that he is more likely to keep this cease-fire process alive than the one in January. The emerging cease-fire has yet again changed the system and created new adjacent possibles for the future that were not conceivable eight months ago when Trump was talking about his Gaza Riviera plan. May this cease-fire lead to something better than the status quo that existed before October 7, which will allow both Israelis and Palestinians to live with dignity.

Edited by Rivka Klein-de Graaf.

An image of the Israeli strike in Doha last month. Credit: Jacqueline Penney/AFP