More Pressure From the White House: Trump Forces Netanyahu to Pick New Hostage Negotiator
Some observers say Netanyahu isn't satisfied with Mossad chief David Barnea's work in the talks with Hamas, but in fact President Trump wants an Israeli authorized to make decisions – and he won't let Netanyahu slow-walk the process
Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly decided that Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, a close confidant of the prime minister, will now lead the hostage talks and the related contacts with Washington.
Most Israeli media organizations are saying that Netanyahu
has taken this tack because he isn't satisfied with the work of Mossad chief David Barnea, who has led the talks with the help of
Shin Bet security service head Ronen Bar and the army's chief negotiator, Maj. Gen. (res.) Nitzan Alon.
Some pundits believe that Dermer's substitution for Barnea is another ploy by
the prime minister to scuttle the negotiations, an eventuality that would let him resume the war in Gaza against Hamas. Under this scenario, Israel wouldn't agree to the second stage of
the hostage deal and a permanent cease-fire, a stage that could lead to the collapse of Netanyahu's government and an early election.
But the truth is actually the opposite. The decision to appoint Dermer was forced on Netanyahu by new U.S. President Donald Trump and his special Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff.
The Trump administration wants to speed up the talks and have someone close to the prime minister – someone with the authority to make decisions – negotiate for the Israelis. Already between the November 5 election and the January 20 inauguration, Witkoff, a shrewd businessman, realized that Israel was slow-walking the process.
Netanyahu weakened the position of Barnea, Bar and Alon by refusing to grant them the authority to make decisions. Every step and proposal of theirs with
the Qatari, Egyptian and American mediators was contingent on approval from Netanyahu, both beforehand and after the fact.
That was obvious already at the end of the first deal in November 2023, when Netanyahu and the security cabinet used the pretext that Hamas had violated the agreement and halted the process of releasing hostages. Barnea, Bar and Alon should have realized they were pawns and had no power.
Former senior defense officials with experience in sensitive contacts, especially contacts in hostage and prisoner deals, repeatedly advised Barnea to leave his role as main negotiator and not enter the trap being set for him by Netanyahu.
"Quite a while ago he was told that the hostage talks were assuming a clearly political character and turning him, Bar and Nitzan into irrelevant players," a former senior defense official told me.
Actually, the three men quickly realized that Netanyahu's considerations were personal and political; he wanted to keep his governing coalition intact, avoid an early election and remain in power, even at the price of abandoning the hostages.
But the three also believed that to minimize the damage being caused by the prime minister, the responsibility of their positions in government was paramount. They had to continue with the talks.
The only one who occasionally expressed dissatisfaction with Netanyahu was Alon, who sometimes refused to attend rounds of talks in Cairo and Doha, the Qatari capital, when he realized there was no point. Bar, Alon and Barnea should have realized they were better suited for the operational and intelligence aspects of a hostage/prisoner-exchange deal, not policy and diplomatic issues with the Americans.
And so, with Netanyahu's trip to Washington this week, the prime minister found himself forced by Trump's team to appoint Dermer for the hostage talks and the broader contacts for sealing a long-term cease-fire, rebuilding Gaza, finding a governing alternative to Hamas and ushering in an agreement for the whole region, above all with Saudi Arabia.
The Miami-born Dermer, Netanyahu's right-hand man, is also considered close to the Trump administration and the Republican Party. Barnea will continue to conduct the contacts with Qatar, and together with Bar, with Egypt. But Dermer will be face-to-face with Witkoff – and Trump if his intervention is needed.
This step is very logical. The locus of the negotiations has been transferred from Qatar and Egypt to the United States. During the presidential election campaign, the Biden administration was afraid to pressure Netanyahu to force him not to slow down or even sabotage a comprehensive hostage deal.
The unpredictable Trump has no such inhibitions. The deal that was drawn up about two weeks ago – leading to the resignation of Itamar Ben-Gvir's party from the governing coalition – is entirely the product of Trump's pressure on Netanyahu.
In the new division of labor, Netanyahu has lost the linchpin of his cynical approach, especially regarding the hostage talks. It was convenient for him to let Barnea, Bar and Alon continue in their negotiating roles so that he could blame them if they failed. At a certain stage, it was leaked to the media that the prime minister had accused them of being amateurs in the art of the deal. Now, with Dermer and Netanyahu at the helm, the prime minister can't blame someone else.
That has been his modus vivendi throughout the war, whose failures he has attributed to the military and its chief of staff, while he has taken credit for the successes.