The Face-Saving Deal: Netanyahu’s Retreat Disguised as Triumph

Why Trump and Netanyahu are rebranding inevitable concessions as victories—and what it reveals about authoritarian weakness.

At the risk of overloading my readers with too much in one day, I feel like I must come to the table with a second rushed essay to respond to the emerging peace deal being announced between Israel and Hamas. It’s actually directly relevant to my piece on Ukraine, which I began writing last night, and finished after I woke up. Upon reading the 20-point plan, I felt I should opine here, too.

The democratic opposition and those outside the MAGA media bubble should not interpret this as evidence of Donald Trump’s negotiating prowess. They should see this as an attempt to save face in a world where the centers of power and influence are shifting, and one where global and domestic public opinion is moving against them fast.

Look carefully at what Netanyahu is actually agreeing to in this plan, and you’ll see a series of concessions that would have been absolutely unthinkable just months ago. Point 15 establishes an “International Stabilization Force” that explicitly includes Arab militaries operating inside Gaza—effectively internationalizing security in a territory that Israel has treated as its exclusive sphere of control. Point 16 commits Israel to complete withdrawal from Gaza with no annexation, abandoning the territorial expansion that has been a core Zionist project for decades. Most tellingly, Point 19 acknowledges “a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood” as “the aspiration of the Palestinian people”—language that represents a fundamental rhetorical capitulation to the two-state solution framework that Netanyahu’s government has spent years systematically undermining.

These aren’t the terms that a confident leader securing victory would propose. They’re the accommodations that a leader under pressure makes when continuing the previous approach becomes politically impossible. The plan reads like a face-saving mechanism designed to make inevitable concessions appear voluntary while positioning Trump and Netanyahu as the architects of peace rather than the obstacles who finally got forced aside.

The timing of this announcement isn’t coincidental—it’s directly responsive to mounting international pressure that both leaders can no longer ignore. In recent months, Norway, Ireland, and Spain have recognized Palestinian statehood, with France and the UK signaling similar moves. Even more threatening to Trump’s domestic political position, polling shows American support for Palestinian statehood reaching historic highs, particularly among younger voters who represent the future of both parties. Progressive Democrats in Congress are finding the political space to openly call for Palestinian recognition, creating exactly the kind of domestic pressure that could make blank-check support for Israeli policy a liability rather than an asset.

The plan’s language about “peaceful co-existence” and “interfaith dialogue” (Point 18) represents direct response to international criticism of Israeli conduct, while the commitment to massive reconstruction aid acknowledges the humanitarian catastrophe that has turned global opinion against continued military action. When you’re apologizing to Qatar and accepting Arab military presence in territories you’ve been bombing, you’re not negotiating from strength—you’re managing retreat while trying to maintain the appearance of control.

The parallel to my Ukraine analysis this morning is impossible to ignore. Both situations reveal the same fundamental pattern: authoritarian movements that projected inevitability running into limits imposed by democratic resilience and international opinion. Ukraine’s drone revolution forced Trump to abandon his accommodation of Putin and start talking tough about Russian “reality.” International pressure on Palestinian rights is now forcing him to abandon blank-check support for Netanyahu’s expansion and start talking about statehood pathways. In both cases, Trump built his political identity on the promise that he could impose American will through superior negotiating, that enemies would capitulate to his toughness, that deals would happen on his terms because other leaders feared and respected his power. But when reality forces policy changes that contradict your entire brand, the performance of strength becomes obviously hollow.

This represents an authoritarian optics crisis of the highest order. The MAGA media bubble can spin these retreats as victories, but anyone outside that bubble can see exactly what’s happening: leaders who claimed to be reshaping global order are instead being forced to accommodate developments they cannot control, then frantically rebranding those accommodations as strategic victories. Trump and Netanyahu built their political identities on rejecting the very frameworks they’re now being forced to accept—international oversight, Palestinian statehood pathways, European alliance priorities, technological partnerships with smaller democratic allies.

The moral reality that both leaders desperately want to obscure is that these concessions only happen when blood and political capital have been spent to the point of exhaustion. The “credible pathway to Palestinian statehood” didn’t emerge from Trump’s negotiating genius—it emerged from months of international horror at civilian casualties, sustained diplomatic pressure from allies, and growing domestic recognition that the previous approach had become politically toxic. The Arab militaries being invited into Gaza aren’t evidence of Israeli security confidence—they’re evidence that Israel can no longer maintain control through unilateral force. Ukrainian drone capabilities forcing American strategic accommodation weren’t the result of Trump’s military wisdom—they developed despite American wavering and through European partnerships that Trump had spent years trying to undermine.

Trump and Netanyahu are trying to harvest credit for accommodations they fought against until resistance became impossible, presenting inevitable concessions as visionary leadership. But the pattern is becoming undeniable across multiple conflicts: when you conduct foreign policy primarily through performance rather than principle, you’re constantly vulnerable to being overtaken by actual developments that make your performance unsustainable.

The deeper implication is that both the Ukraine and Gaza situations expose the fragility of authoritarian positioning when it confronts genuine power shifts rather than performative opposition. Zelenskyy’s technological innovation and international coalition-building, Palestinian international recognition and shifting American opinion—these represent the kind of sustained, principled resistance that authoritarian dominance theater cannot simply overwhelm through bluster and intimidation.

When you’re inviting Arab militaries into Gaza and pledging a credible path to Palestinian statehood, you’re not dictating terms—you’re bowing to them. When you’re praising Ukrainian capabilities you previously dismissed and courting leaders you previously humiliated, you’re not demonstrating strength—you’re revealing how hollow that strength always was. Trump and Netanyahu aren’t writing the future; they’re trying desperately to rebrand retreat as victory before the retreat becomes so obvious that even their supporters can’t deny it.

The centers of power and influence are indeed shifting, but not in the direction that authoritarian movements promised. Democratic resilience, technological innovation, international coalition-building, and sustained moral pressure are proving more durable than dominance performance. And authoritarian leaders who bet everything on the performance are discovering that reality has a way of calling their bluff, forcing them to accept the very frameworks they spent years claiming were dead.