The Preface:
Recently, the situation in the Middle East has undergone another major disturbance. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu suddenly made a loud speech, directing the U.S. military to a red line.
Gaza can send international troops, but Israel has the final say on which countries can come and which cannot.
This not only puts aside the face of the United States, but also adds more intriguing variables to the already complicated situation in Gaza.
You know, when US President Trump just proposed a plan to end the war in Gaza, he mentioned the deployment of international troops to help stabilize the situation.
But no one could have imagined that Netanyahu would be “hard in the eye” of this shell, publicly stressing that Israel has absolute autonomy over its own security affairs.
Has Netanyahu changed?
Netanyahu made it very clear at the cabinet meeting that the composition of international forces must be screened by Israel, and that any force that is unacceptable to Israel will never enter Gaza.
More importantly, he also revealed that the United States has accepted this position. Whether this is a compromise between the United States and Israel or a reflection of Israel's confidence is really curious.
Looking at the personnel composition of this force, the information disclosed so far shows that Egypt, Indonesia and some Gulf Arab countries are all under consideration.
The participation of these countries actually hides a lot of gates.
Egypt and Gaza are geographically adjacent and have always had a certain voice in the Middle East affairs, and it seems logical to have troops involved.
As an Asian country, Indonesia itself has considerable influence in the Islamic world, and its participation may make this force more acceptable to the Middle East.
The involvement of the Gulf Arab nations could result in double financial and personnel support, after all, the Trump administration has always hoped the Arab nations can do more on this.
However, if some countries are "favored", some countries are "rejected". Last week, Netanyahu hinted that the Turkish security forces did not want to play any role in Gaza.
There is a reason for this. Turkish-Israel relations were quite close before, but since the escalation of the situation in Gaza, relations between the two countries have taken a sharp turn.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly publicly criticized Israel’s military actions, with increasing contradictions between the two sides, and Israel’s reluctance to involve Turkish troops is also an unexpected thing.
The move from the U.S. side is also remarkable, as Secretary of State Rubio is visiting Israel with the main purpose of consolidating the current less stable ceasefire.
He also publicly stated that the international force must be composed of "countries acceptable to Israel", but when asked whether Turkey could participate, he did not give a specific answer.
American positioning is embarrassing
This vague attitude, in fact, also reflects the difficulty of the United States in this matter, both wanting to promote the smooth deployment of international forces, not wanting to blame Israel, not wanting to push Turkey completely to the opposite side.
Moreover, Rubio also revealed that the United States is communicating with all parties and wants to promote a United Nations resolution or international agreement to provide authorization for multinational forces to enter Gaza. On October 26, it also plans to discuss relevant issues in Qatar.
But the problem is that even if the agreement can be negotiated and troops can be dispatched smoothly, the Gaza problem will not be so easy to solve. The biggest problem is that Hamas has so far not committed to disarmament, which is the key to the sustainability of the ceasefire agreement.
After the ceasefire agreement was reached two weeks ago, although all parties are suppressing the test of the agreement, as long as Hamas does not lay down its arms, peace in Gaza will always seem to be hanging in the air and may be broken at any time.
In addition to armed issues, the matter of hostage bodies has also been a matter of people's hearts.
There are currently 13 hostage bodies left in Gaza. Israel believes that Hamas must know the specific locations of these bodies. After all, Hamas had previously released 20 surviving hostages held in the attack in October last year. There is no reason why it should not know where the bodies are.
However, Hamas argued that Gaza has been severely damaged due to the war and it is very difficult to find the remains.
Now Israel has approved the Egyptian technical team to cooperate with the Red Cross to carry out the search. According to the Trump plan, the search and rescue will use construction machinery and transport vehicles in areas beyond the "Yellow Line" in Gaza, which Israeli troops had previously moved from. The line retreated.
I just don't know whether this search and rescue will have results or whether it can give an explanation to the hostages 'families.
Looking back at the whole incident, Netanyahu’s tough attitude, in fact, also releases a signal to the outside that Israel is an independent country and will not let the United States manipulate its security policy.
Trump's efforts may be in vain
He deliberately rejected the assertion that “the United States controls Israel’s security policy” and stressed that it is a “partnership” between the United States and Israel, which sounds like defending Israel’s sovereignty and can also be seen behind the game between the United States and Israel.
After all, Trump had spent a lot of effort before getting Netanyahu to accept his proposed peace framework, and even prompted Netanyahu to apologize to Qatar leaders after the attempted bombing of Hamas negotiators in Qatar.
You must know that Netanyahu has been resisting the pressure of the international community on a ceasefire in Gaza before, and Trump's promotion contributed a lot to making concessions this time.
Trump also persuaded Arab countries to urge Hamas to release all Israeli hostages.
To know that in the previous conflict, the hostage issue was an important negotiation code for Hamas, and now the Arab countries are willing to appear, It undoubtedly put a lot of pressure on Hamas and gave Israel a little more initiative in this matter.
But even so, the future of the situation in Gaza is still uncertain.When will international forces be able to build up and deploy smoothly?Will it really play a role in stabilizing the situation after deployment?Will Hamas really disarm?
Can the remains of the hostages be found successfully? There are no answers to these questions. Moreover, will Israel's "expulsion order" to the US military this time affect the "partnership" between the United States and Israel?
Will the U.S. strategic layout in the Middle East be adjusted as a result?
Conclusion:
Now the Middle East is like a complex chessboard where each country is playing for its own interests.
Netanyahu's toughness, the United States 'mediation, the participation of Arab countries, and Hamas's attitude, every factor may change the direction of the situation.
The road to peace in Gaza obviously still has a long way to go, and every trend behind this deserves our continued attention.