The first Trump administration brokered the normalization of diplomatic ties between Israel and three Arab countries. Israelis are now eyeing the prospect of a grander bargain leading to formal ties with Saudi Arabia in Mr. Trump’s next term, an arrangement that would strengthen the regional axis against Israel’s archenemy, Iran.
Mr. Klughaft, the strategist, said he believed there was “more chance that Mr. Netanyahu will choose Saudi Arabia and elections over Smotrich and continuing the war.”
Mr. Ben-Gvir and Mr. Smotrich want the war in Gaza to go on until Hamas is eliminated. Their hope is for the Israeli military to rule in the Palestinian enclave to eventually pave the way for Jewish settlements there.
Mr. Ben-Gvir has described the deal as an Israeli “surrender” to Hamas and called in a video statement for Mr. Smotrich to help him make up the numbers to thwart it by resigning together from the government. Neither has the power to bring down the government alone.
Mr. Ben-Gvir had already proved to be an unreliable and troublesome coalition partner. Demanding wage hikes for the police, he refused to support the government in passing a crucial piece of legislation last month, forcing Mr. Netanyahu to leave his hospital bed as he was recovering from prostate surgery and vote in the assembly to make sure the law passed.
Mr. Netanyahu has held frequent and lengthy meetings with Mr. Smotrich in recent days to persuade him to remain in the coalition. After three hours of talks between Mr. Smotrich and his party’s lawmakers on Thursday, the party issued an ultimatum demanding a promise from Mr. Netanyahu that he would resume the war against Hamas immediately after the first six-week cease-fire as a condition for Mr. Smotrich’s staying in government.
Mr. Netanyahu, meanwhile, held off convening the cabinet for a vote to ratify the deal, citing last-minute disputes with Hamas over the details.
Mr. Netanyahu is battling corruption charges in a lengthy trial and risks facing a public reckoning once the war ends for the military and policy failures in the run-up to Hamas’s 2023 attack. Given the circumstances, some analysts believe that he will opt to scupper the second phase of the deal, if Hamas doesn’t do so first, to keep his coalition intact.
“Netanyahu wants to stay in power,” said Gayil Talshir, a political scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “It doesn’t make any sense for him to go to elections that he might not win. He wants another two years leading the government.”
Mr. Netanyahu could yet reach understandings with Mr. Smotrich. Even if the finance minister joins Mr. Ben-Gvir in leaving the coalition, Mr. Netanyahu could, at least for a while, hang on as head a minority government. Opposition party leaders say they will provide Mr. Netanyahu with a political safety net for the sake of peace.
In any event, the government is likely to survive until the end of the first phase of the deal, said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, a nonpartisan research group in Jerusalem.
But Mr. Netanyahu may have to decide between his parliamentary majority and his relationship with the incoming administration in Washington, with Mr. Trump and Saudi Arabia perhaps offering him the opportunity to burnish his legacy.
“I think his mind is already in the next big move,” Mr. Plesner said of Mr. Netanyahu, adding, “If he has to choose between an intimate relationship with the Trump administration and Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, he’ll opt for Trump.”
American and Israeli officials have said that the deal reached this week is very similar to the proposal that President Biden outlined last May.
Critics of Mr. Netanyahu’s government, including many of the families of 98 hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza, have long accused the prime minister of sabotaging past efforts to reach a deal in order to preserve his coalition.
Mr. Ben-Gvir seemingly confirmed those suspicions in his video statement this week, asserting that he and Mr. Smotrich had used their political leverage to thwart a similar deal “time after time” over the past year.
Mr. Netanyahu and his loyalists have blamed Hamas for past failures to reach a deal.
Many Israelis and hostage families say they support a deal that will bring all the hostages home. They include Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin, the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a dual American-Israeli citizen whose name appeared in the original list of hostages to be freed in the first phase of a deal last year, but who was killed along with five other hostages last August by their captors in a tunnel in Gaza.
“It is imperative that this process is completed, and all 98 hostages are returned to their families,” they wrote in a statement welcoming the deal on Thursday. “It is also time for the innocent civilians of Gaza to be relieved of the suffering they have endured.”
