The Trump administration’s Middle East envoy held rare talks with Hamas leaders in Egypt. Now he is sitting across from Benjamin Netanyahu, trying to save a 15-point peace plan that the Israeli prime minister already publicly threw out.
Brokering peace usually means talking to the people willing to listen. The harder part is walking into a room with the politicians who want to tear your blueprint apart.
Jared Kushner arrived in Israel on Sunday. Over the weekend, he sat down in Egypt with Khalil al-Hayya, the new leader of Hamas. It was the highest-level meeting between the two sides since a fragile ceasefire started last October.
They were hashing out the details of a 15-point roadmap pushed by Washington. The plan calls for Hamas to hand over its weapons, Israeli troops to pull back, and a new civilian group to start rebuilding Gaza.
But the reception in Jerusalem is freezing cold.
Netanyahu already drew a hard line in the sand last week. “Israel rejects the Board of Peace’s 15-point document on Gaza,” he said. “The IDF will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is genuinely disarmed.”
The prime minister is also fighting a war inside his own cabinet. He faces a tough election in October, and his coalition relies on far-right ministers who think the peace plan is a joke.
SEE ALSO: Netanyahu just rejected Trump’s Gaza peace plan, but nobody really believes him
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir did not hold back during a recent podcast interview. He openly admitted he disagrees with Netanyahu and called for “taking down 30 to 40 every night.”
“There are people there who are not worthy of life,” Ben Gvir said. “They shouldn’t live. They’re not even people.”
Meanwhile, the reality on the ground is grim. The ceasefire is technically in place, but airstrikes still happen almost every day. The local health ministry says more than 1,200 people have been killed since the truce began.
Kushner has the full weight of the White House behind him. But in a government held together by hardliners, a piece of paper from Washington only goes so far.
