DANIEL ESTRIN, HOST:
Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is coming to Mar-a-Lago to meet President Trump tomorrow at a crucial moment for the Middle East and especially for the ceasefire in Gaza. Trump is trying to move the ceasefire deal forward. Netanyahu is not on the same page. That's what Nimrod Novik argues. He served as an adviser to the late Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, and he joins us now from Israel. Welcome.
NIMROD NOVIK: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
ESTRIN: Why is the meeting tomorrow between Trump and Netanyahu so important?
NOVIK: I think on more than one front, things are stuck. After a fairly healthy beginning of stabilizing the Israel-Lebanon front, Israel-Syrian front, as well as the main flashpoint, which is Gaza, President Trump's 20 points divided into two phases - phase 1, all but completed. Phase 2 seems stuck.
ESTRIN: Well, let's talk about Gaza. The ceasefire was declared more than two months ago, and not only is the ceasefire stuck. The Palestinian death toll continues to rise from Israeli attacks. What do you expect Trump to ask of Netanyahu?
NOVIK: I don't know what to expect. I know what I wish he does. I think that there are primarily two issues. One is the veto of the Israeli government over the involvement of the Palestinian Authority in phase 2 of the plan. And the catch here is that where Israel objects, and no Arab or non-Arab Muslim country is willing to contribute troops to the stabilization force as prescribed by the Trump 20-point plan, no one is willing to contribute troops if those troops are perceived both at home in the country that sends them, as well as in Gaza, as occupiers.
And the second issue is Hamas disarmament. It is quite regrettable that the Trump plan created unrealistic expectations that disarmament can be a single act. Disarmament of militants is a process. If you take Good Friday in Northern Ireland or in Bosnia or in Colombia, disarming the militant groups took between seven and eight years. Now, it might happen faster here, but not overnight.
ESTRIN: What are you worried about at this moment?
NOVIK: Quite frankly, I worry of another iteration of a long tradition where Netanyahu is so astute at playing an American president. The most common game is by either changing the agenda - if Trump wants to talk Gaza, Netanyahu will try to steer him to talk Iran - or the other gimmick that he has used very effectively with previous administrations was to bog the most senior layers of the administration in such minute details that they lose the broader picture.
ESTRIN: So the next phase of the ceasefire in Gaza, as President Trump laid out and as you mentioned, is for Hamas to lay down its weapons, for an international force, for troops to come to Gaza and for Israeli troops to leave Gaza. Is what you're saying that you're concerned that Netanyahu is uninterested in moving forward on any of those things?
NOVIK: Yeah. I think the mood in the prime minister's office is cynical about the statement coming from Washington that phase 2 is imminent. What I hear from Jerusalem from those circles is it's not happening. And the bottom line is, quote, if we don't disarm Hamas, no one will, which is code word for, we are ready to resume fighting.
ESTRIN: Can I ask you about some other areas outside of Gaza? The other Palestinian territory, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, seems to really be boiling - new Jewish settlements announced there on land that Palestinians claim, a whole rash of Jewish settler attacks on Palestinians. Is President Trump aware of this, and is he going to ask Netanyahu to do anything about it?
NOVIK: I'm not sure to the - to what extent the president is aware of how the West Bank is bubbling, but the situation is ripe for a major conflagration. And if you will, this is another manifestation of how Netanyahu and his coalition partners - the most extreme elements in Israeli society, whom he chose to govern with - how they are playing the president. Here was President Trump announcing no annexation of the West Bank, but they are doing it de facto. And as you noted, every week, we hear of more settlements being built, which is annexation in all but name.
ESTRIN: Looking into the new year, 2026, how do you expect Netanyahu to act?
NOVIK: Well, there is one common denominator to it all, and that is that we are in an election year. And Netanyahu, whom I've known since the early '80s and whom I respected as a patriot, even though I disagreed with him on virtually everything - but that's legitimate. That's the essence of democracy, is to disagree on national strategy. But over the last three years, it's not the same Netanyahu since he formed this coalition with people who should have never set foot in our cabinet. So I'm afraid that what we are watching and what we will watch tomorrow in the meeting is a tug-of-war where Netanyahu is the rope and President Trump pulls one way, and the lunatics in our coalition pull Netanyahu the other.
ESTRIN: Well, thank you, Nimrod, for speaking with me.
NOVIK: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE RUGGED NUGGETS' "RUGGED WALK") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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