“We”? What do you mean “we,” kemo sabe?
Presumably, Donald Trump used the term in the royal sense. “We” likely means “I,” as in I will let Bibi finish the job. Trump won’t dispatch American troops to Gaza, and he doesn’t need to do so to make Hamas pay for perfidy, especially with the IDF strategically and tactically positioned to do the job. However, even Netanyahu may have another option.
Trump made it clear yesterday that he won’t bend reality to maintain an illusion of compliance for Hamas:
🔥🔥🔥
Q: “How long will it take Hamas to disarm?”
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “Well, they’re going to disarm because they said they were going to disarm, and if they don’t disarm, we will disarm them…They know that I am not playing games.” pic.twitter.com/vyRVqPm36D
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 14, 2025
Hamas just found out — again — that Trump recognizes the music for the Hamas Hokey Pokey, and has no intention of getting on the dance floor. Hamas has begun balking at points to which they agreed in Trump’s deal, mainly because they saw the praise and support Trump received for it as leverage they could exploit. They figured that they could manipulate Trump, who has an interest in maintaining those bragging rights for political purposes, and force him into concessions — especially about the requirement to disarm.
“They know I’m not playing games,” Trump declared. But did they? Hamas and Fatah have both played games with previous American administrations, and they have a long track record of success in manipulating other Western governments. Iran found out the hard way in June that Trump doesn’t play those games, but Hamas may not quite have internalized that reality yet. It might take another demonstration of “the hard way” to let in fully sink in.
The Israelis are delivering a lesson on that in the diplomatic sense. Hamas wants to push into the second phase of the Trump agreement immediately after the return of the living hostages, as that phase will involve further retreat by the IDF, including the reopening of the Rafah crossing into Egypt. That is not just a major aid crossing, but also a source of resupply for Hamas that has been lost for almost a year. The Israelis contradicted a WSJ report today that Phase 2 talks had begun:
A senior Israeli official denies a report in The Wall Street Journal that Israel and Hamas have begun negotiating the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal.
“We are still in the first phase,” says the official. “We will talk about the second phase when we complete the first one.”
This is why Hamas had refused to release the living hostages up front in earlier proposals. They have no leverage now over the Israelis. Hamas had counted on Trump pushing Netanyahu for ad-hoc concessions along the way anyway to keep his historic achievement in place, but Trump is far more interested in the ends than the means in this situation. The ends that Trump seeks are the end of Hamas as an armed force at a minimum, their removal from power, and a plan in place for a Gaza that seeks peaceful co-existence with Israel in the long term. Trump’s not interested in waving a piece of paper around in a Neville Chamberlain-esque fashion; he wants real peace as a legacy.
The next step could see Israel relaunch their conquest of Gaza City. That would get brutal quickly, and the IDF would risk further hostaging scenarios that would bring the situation back to Square One. However, Richard Pollock wonders whether Netanyahu might have a better option, thanks in large part to a paroxysm of brutal suppression that may finally have the Palestinians themselves ready to do the job for them:
There now are warning signs that the Gaza Strip may be on the verge of a full-blown civil war.
Mayhem is reported to be occurring throughout the Strip as Hamas has begun to launch vicious assaults against its own Palestinian citizens. And local Palestinian clans are fighting back.
If an outright civil war does emerge, Palestinian citizens could dramatically alter their history of oppression at the hands of Hamas. And it appears that in various parts of the Gaza Strip, many Palestinians are seeking genuine liberation.
But the fight is going to be ugly and murderous for those who have the courage to stand up to the terror group. Could we see a bloodbath by Hamas as it tries to suppress the open rebellion?
The US media has been slow to cover this, in large part out of Protection Racket Media sympathy to Hamas, but Pollock gets this information on an uprising by the clans from Saudi, British, and Israeli sources. The BBC confirms Hamas atrocities are now targeting Gazans rather than Israelis as they attempt to keep control of the territory. Pollock gives many examples of clan leaders decrying the “massacres” committed by Hamas and their determination to fight back. He also suggests that the death of “Mr. FAFO” (Salah al-Ja‘farawi) took place in these internecine fights, an easy target for reprisals against Hamas.
Perhaps the Israelis can accomplish their overarching mission of destroying Hamas by not firing a shot. All they have to do is refuse to budge and protect their own positions, while waiting to see if the Gazans will take out their own trash. “We” fits pretty snugly into that strategy, too.
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