Netanyahu’s Predictable Strategy

When UNSC 2803 established the Gaza Board of Peace, I assessed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would not openly reject the resolution outright, but would instead seek to constrain, delay, or hollow out its implementation while avoiding direct confrontation with Washington. That assessment now appears increasingly consistent with the observable trajectory of events surrounding both the Board of Peace and the International Stabilization Force (ISF).

The Board of Peace framework was not merely a humanitarian mechanism or diplomatic exercise. It represented the first internationally backed structure with the potential to transition Gaza away from indefinite Israeli military control and toward some form of internationally supervised political stabilization. Even though the framework was vague, fragile, and dependent on difficult regional compromises, it carried an implication Netanyahu had resisted for years: that Israel’s postwar freedom of action inside Gaza might eventually become constrained by an internationally legitimized governance and security structure.

Netanyahu’s resistance to key elements of the framework was visible from the beginning. He opposed the inclusion of Turkey and Qatar in the executive structure of the Board of Peace and reiterated immediately before passage of UNSC 2803 that Israel’s opposition to Palestinian statehood “on any territory” remained unchanged. That statement was not incidental. The possibility of a future Palestinian political pathway was central to how Muslim-majority governments justified participation in the stabilization effort to their domestic audiences.

Although Netanyahu ultimately joined the Board of Peace after pressure from President Trump, subsequent Israeli behavior suggested tactical accommodation rather than substantive support. Israel reportedly insisted that any stabilization force operate in close coordination with Israeli military structures rather than as an independent mechanism capable of exercising meaningful political autonomy inside Gaza. Reporting from 972 Magazine citing a senior Arab official further alleged that Israel pressured Azerbaijan to withdraw from the ISF effort altogether. Even if some individual reports remain difficult to independently verify, the broader pattern is difficult to ignore: Israel repeatedly constrained the political conditions necessary for the stabilization architecture to become operational.

At the same time, Netanyahu had spent decades advocating confrontation with Iran. Long before the current war, Iran’s nuclear and missile programs had become the defining strategic focus of his regional worldview. The February 28 strikes did not emerge from a sudden crisis alone, but from years of sustained Israeli pressure on Washington to adopt a more confrontational posture toward........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)