Subject: Re: Fabulous news...
Keep in mind, the prisoner/hostage exchange, and Israeli ground troop pullback, is only "phase 1". Once "Bibi" declares himself a hero for getting all the hostages back, they can declare "phase 2" at an impasse, and, with the ground troops out of the way, finish the job of leveling Gaza. Does anyone think his nibs would hold to his position of no Israeli annexation of Gaza or the West Bank, after not receiving a Nobel?

Certainly a scenario. But if the war breaks out again - especially if it breaks out soon after the release of the hostages - then Trump isn't going to get a Nobel, and he certainly won't deserve one for having failed to engineer a peace that lasts more than a few short days or weeks.

But I think this understates the effect that successful implementation of Phase 1, and Trump's recent bullying of Netanyahu, will have on Israel's policy going forward. The holding of the hostages gave Netanyahu a powerful casus belli to keep the country engaged in active fighting in Gaza for two years, and strengthened his domestic situation. Netanyahu then unsurprisingly built his domestic and foreign policy around that war. But in so doing, he went "all in" on President Trump - Israel has lost many (most?) of their other allies abroad, and much of their non-MAGA support in the U.S. Which was fine, as long as Netanyahu kept Trump entirely in his corner. He was able to placate his domestic coalition by pointing to the rock-solid support from Trump as sufficient to make up for all the other lost support. However, now that Trump is all that Netanyahu has, Trump has a lot of power over Netanyahu. Netanyahu probably can't survive domestically if Trump were to attack him personally and completely suspend U.S. military support for Israel (which Trump could do, even where no Democrat could). Netanyahu might be aiming for some autarkic independence, but Israel isn't there yet, which means Trump can crush him if he wanted to.

Which is why Trump was able to force Netanyahu to apologize to Qatar, and force him to agree to the Trump Plan in the first place - even though it has things that Netanyahu absolutely did not want to publicly agree to, even if he has no intention of living up to those agreements. Netanyahu could ignore Biden, knowing that Biden politically couldn't take any real reprisals against him. He will have much more difficulty ignoring Trump.

Anything is possible. But if the hostages are returned, Netanyahu is in a much weaker position to fight against what Trump wants.