I want to bring in Shira Rubin,
former reporter for The Washington Post,
who is based in Tel Aviv.
Thanks so much for being with us.
The headline of your story over the weekend was how
Biden ceasefire plan tightens the political squeeze for Netanyahu.
Of course, for a long time,
he's been under pressure from the hostage families.
He's been under pressure from various factions of his government.
He's been under pressure from Joe Biden and the White
House.
But is this different? How tight is the squeeze right
now?
Benjamin Netanyahu.
Hey, Chris. Yeah, it's a very loaded question.
It is what seems to be a turning point.
You know, according to essentially everyone who hopes that it
will work.
There are moderates even within his own party who say
it's enough,
it's time, it's time to move on and to go
to the day after.
There are others outside the government who are saying they
will support the government even if,
as Ralph mentioned before, even if the far right members.
Leave and leave Netanyahu without the necessary majority that he
would need to rule.
So there are all kinds of contingency plans in place
that have been trying to promote this deal going through.
And I mean, as of now,
we still don't really know.
Our reporting shows that Netanyahu has been very cagey about
committing to really anything having to do with the longer
term plans or even the medium term plans.
So it's it's still very much a question even as
all of this pressure is mounting.
And if Hamas says unequivocally they accept the proposal.
They have said that they view it positively.
They have given also kind of vague responses.
The thing is that it's not a proposal that's finalized
in its totality.
So both sides are kind of trying to keep it
as big as they possibly can in order to get
back to the negotiating table and use whatever leverage they
can to to get the deal that they would like.
But at the end of the day,
you know, as much pressure as Netanyahu has on him,
as much pressure that Hamas,
that Yehesenwar, the the military chief of Hamas,
has on him, it's up to those two individuals to
decide,
you know, to make that.
That decision themselves. So we we really are left in
the dark even today.
Shira Rubin, thank you so much for your reporting and
for coming on the program.
Appreciate it.