Israel, US timetables out of sync, but relationship is strong, Likud MK Danon says

The Israeli and US timetables of Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza are out of sync, and while Israel must talk to the US, it cannot afford to give up on an invasion of Rafah, Likud MK Danny Danon said.

According to Danon, who spoke to The Jerusalem Post in an interview on Wednesday (March 20), US President Joe Biden is in an election year and does not want to continue losing support from his party's pro-Palestinian voters due to the war in Gaza.

On the other hand, though Israel's war effort has taken time, it must invade Rafah at some point in order to destroy the four Hamas battalions that remain there, Danon said.

"It is like cancer; if you treat 75% of the disease but leave 25% in a certain spot in the body, it will very quickly spread," Danon said.

The out-of-sync timetables have created tension between Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but the relationship between the US and Israel was still strong, Danon argued.

This was true despite US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's unprecedented speech last week, in which he accused Netanyahu for being an "obstacle to peace" and called for an election in Israel. The arguments need to be held within the "rules of the game," Danon argued, and Schumer broke them, Danon said.  

Invading Rafah

Regarding an invasion of Rafah, Danon said that one of the things Israel was discussing with the US was the evacuation of over one million people who are sheltering there. The winter is over, and there are areas in the Gaza Strip where NGOs can set up new shelters, Danon argued.

He said that there was another option, although unlikely, which was that the Hamas battalions in Rafah surrendered of their own accord.

United Right chairman MK Gideon Sa'ar took this idea one step further on Thursday, arguing in a post on X that Israel should entertain the idea of attempting to force a "surrender and exile."

The operation in Rafah should have begun a long time ago, but now that the "entire world" opposed an Israeli invasion of Rafah, the idea of exiling Hamas leaders, similar to Israel's exiling of leaders of the PLO from Lebanon in 1982, could become realistic in "certain scenarios," Sa'ar said. Such a move would include the return of all of the Israeli hostages, Sa'ar said.

"The international community that is worried about the prolonged war and Palestinian civilian losses in general and in Rafah, in particular, would be presented with an organized idea to end the war and shorten the human suffering it entailed," Sa'ar said.