In the theater of Israeli politics, the script is agonizingly familiar. While Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu offers tedious declarations of “total victory,” American officials, speaking to Ynet, detail a completely different plan. The U.S. is actively “pressing” Netanyahu on his “day after” plan, a plan Washington has already drafted: a “revitalized” Palestinian Authority must take control of Gaza.

The American “frustration,” as the report terms it, is not that Netanyahu is fighting them on this. It is that he is “avoiding discussions” entirely. U.S. officials say they worry Israel is “sleepwalking” into an “untenable occupation.”

But as our previous analysis, Was Binyamin Netanyahu ‘Born Pregnant’? established, this behavior is not “sleepwalking.” It is the classic signature of an “irreversibly committed” leader. It is the Wye River Memorandum playbook. Netanyahu is not defying the U.S. plan; he is enabling it by “avoiding” a confrontation. He is stalling until the moment of capitulation arrives, at which point he will face the Israeli public, shrug, and deploy his infamous justification: “We had no choice.”

The Washington Script

This U.S. plan for a “revitalized PA” is not an isolated idea. It is the non-negotiable next phase of a U.S. regional architecture that was deceptively pushed during the Trump administration. As previously detailed, the Abraham Accords were never an organic, Israeli-led peace. They were a glossy “cookbook” designed to lock Israel into a U.S-led Sunni alliance to confront Iran.

That project—America’s project—is incomplete. To solidify that alliance, Washington demands a “solution” to the Palestinian issue. That solution, as they are now making clear, is the “revitalized PA.” Netanyahu’s “red lines” of today—”total victory,” “no PA”—are the “no release of terrorists with blood on their hands” of 1998. They are a public-facing negotiating position intended to placate the base, but they are not the script.

The Betrayal of Judea and Samaria

The true cost of this inevitable capitulation is not just in Gaza; it is a direct and calculated reduction of security in Israel’s heartland. A “revitalized” Palestinian Authority is not a new entity. It is the same organization that the Ariel Center for Policy Research (ACPR) warned about in the 1990s—an entity that, under Netanyahu’s watch, was allowed to swell to 40,000 armed men in preparation for a “first-strike.”

To empower this “revitalized” PA is to actively install a hostile armed force in Judea and Samaria, funded by Washington and endorsed by the Sunni states. It is the Hebron Accords playbook on a terrifying new scale. Netanyahu’s “avoidance” is not just a political maneuver; it is a “studied policy of acquiescence” to the re-arming of the very entity that has sworn to Israel’s destruction.

The Nationalist Sideshow

Against this backdrop of strategic capitulation, the “red lines” from nationalist ministers sound increasingly hollow. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently declared, “The ‘day after’ in Gaza will be under full Israeli control… There will be no ‘revitalized’ Palestinian Authority.”

It is a powerful, sovereign-minded position. It is also, in context, a tragic performance. As Arutz Sheva reported, both Smotrich and Minister Ben-Gvir were sidelined from the true center of power before the war began, having been removed from the relevant security cabinet. They are not in the War Cabinet that matters.

Their presence in the government serves a single, crucial purpose for the Prime Minister: they are the “nationalist” cover. They are unwitting actors, providing the illusion of a right-wing anchor, which allows Netanyahu to pretend he is being pulled to the right, even as the American-led process quietly pulls him toward its pre-determined center. Smotrich’s role is to issue sovereign threats from a ministry that has no control over the war’s outcome, distracting the public while the real decisions are “avoided” in the Prime Minister’s office.

The current situation, therefore, is not a genuine struggle between Israeli sovereignty and American pressure. It is a performance. We are watching the familiar chasm between the public-facing rhetoric and the quiet, steady progress of the American script.

Smotrich’s defiance is noise. Netanyahu’s “avoidance” is the signal. It is the sound of a leader, long ago rendered “pregnant,” waiting for the inevitable moment to acquiesce.