Ambassador Ross, let's go to you now.
I mean, what is your reaction to Prime Minister Netanyahu
canceling the Israeli delegation visit to Washington?
I mean, was Netanyahu viewing this meeting with honest intent,
or was he always looking for a way out?
No, I don't think he was looking for a way
out.
But I think he felt he was going to respond
to our abstaining,
which allowed the Security Council resolution to be adopted.
I think he, given his politics,
felt the need to demonstrate that he wouldn't simply acquiesce
in something like that.
When I say given his politics,
the right wing of his coalition was bound to react
if he sent the team anyway.
So this was his political response to that.
Now, in the end, the irony is,
is you were just reporting,
you have the defense minister here.
The defense minister has a number of of his key
assistants with him.
Obviously the defense minister, he meets the the National security
advisor.
He's meeting the Secretary of State,
he's meeting the Secretary of Defense.
It is inconceivable that he won't have a discussion with
them on how they're thinking about how Israel's thinking about
Rafa.
It's inconceivable that he wouldn't say,
well, let's, let's hear what are the ideas you have.
You know, I I think there's also an impulse on
his part to explain that
the plans the Israelis are developing are not an overall
onslaught,
and they do involve the evacuation of Palestinians and they
do involve,
I think, a a more targeted approach.
So it may be that the actual gap between the
two sides and what happens in Rafah is not as
great as everybody thinks.
At least you'll have an opportunity with Gulan here
to have that kind of a discussion.
The end of the day,
sending an Israeli team here is not a favor the
Israelis are doing to us.
It is profoundly in Israel's interest,
profoundly in Prime Minister Netanyahu's interest in the end
to ensure that if you're going to militarily defeat the
the four Hamas battalions in Rafa,
you need to do that in a way that is
in agreement with the United States and I would say
secondarily in agreement with Egypt as well.
We know though that President Biden and and Prime Minister
Netanyahu have have a complicated relationship.
But to put it gently,
does this put even more strain on that relationship?
I do think probably it's added to the problems in
the relationship.
I don't think it fundamentally changes the the way President
Biden approaches Israel,
but I think it it clearly raises more issues and
questions in terms of how he views it.
Prime Minister Netanyahu. But there's no doubt that Prime Minister
Netanyahu is operating in a circumstance where he feels a
lot of pressure from parts of his government.
One of the members of that government today withdrew,
Gideon SAR, has left the government today
there. He's caught in the middle of a
a need to come up with new legislation on the
whole question of whether the ultra orthodox,
ultra religious orthodox will be drafted into the military or
not.
That has to be done before the end of this
week.
So he's got a lot of different balls.
He's juggling and a lot of different political pressures right
now.
And I suspect that his decision to withdraw the delegation
is driven as much by the
the politics of his of his government right now and
his need to to show that he didn't.
He simply wasn't in acquiescing in an American decision to
allow a Security Council resolution to be adopted.
It is interesting. I might just add
the language in this resolution
was tied to a ceasefire for Ramadan,
not an open-ended one. And the language in the resolution
was also very explicitly tied as well to the unconditional
release
of the hostages. So that I'm not surprised that the
that the administration was a little perplexed by the
Prime Minister's response. But I have to say I'm also
not surprised given the way the UN is seen generally
in Israel.
You can get any resolution in the UN that is
anti Israeli adopted very easily And so there's a kind
of neuralgic view of the UN.
I'm not surprised that there was also this response there
expand on that a little bit because Israeli officials had
said before the chances of a ceasefire were around 5050.
Is there a chance that the UN kind of pushing
this could backfire and force Netanyahu to take a stronger
stance.
It is ironic. I mean it's
I in the end he is dealing with the members
of his war cabinet who are anxious to to get
such a deal for a lot of different reasons,
starting with getting 40 hostages,
not all of them, but getting 40 out is an
imperative.
I don't think the UN was in any way going
to help.
But it's clear that the fact that this this has
been adopted,
it's it certainly creates a different political frame in which
Prime Minister Netanyahu was operating.
If in fact the negotiations bear fruit,
that's not going to stop this from happening.
If, if, if the if Hamas were to respond to
the compromise proposal that the US made and the Israelis
accepted,
you're going to have a deal.
My own guess, knowing and understanding the way Hamas operates,
I don't think they will
simply accept the compromise. They'll try to negotiate further.
They'll try to get more numbers.
But the the idea there's a 5050 prospect suggests that
you're in a negotiation now where there's a give and
take and that's certainly better than the alternative.
OK, Dennis Ross, excellent analysis.
As always, Sir, thank you so much for joining us.
We appreciate it.