Ben Rhodes

Now is the time to grab while the grabbing is good, you know?

Exactly.

And, you know, you mentioned some of these responses.

I mean, Trump says, I'm against annexation.

We have enough things to think about now.

I mean, that's not exactly coming down hard.

That's not like, you know, conditioning assistance to Israel or using real leverage, right?

Do you not know as the President of the United States that he has to have many portfolios?

Yeah, including one where you presumably have a lot of leverage on Israel.

The UN Secretary General condemned the decision, but...

i mean the the israelis just flattened the un facility in east jerusalem for unruh literally people should look at this online it's completely destroyed the un headquarters there that tells you how much sway the un has there the arab states released a statement um you know saying israel's accelerating attempts at illegal annexation and the displacement the palestinian people but okay that's another set of words so

It does feel like there's not really any pushback to these.

The Israelis are pushing and testing.

Now, presumably, the body that would take up this kind of challenge is the UN.

But Trump, meanwhile, is seeking to replace that with the Board of Peace, which is having its inaugural meeting on Thursday, right in time for Ramadan.

I want to bring in Gaza here too, because in Gaza, we've seen just, I'd say violations of the ceasefire from Israel repeatedly, but it's not even really a ceasefire if you're just allowed to periodically bomb Gaza and kill hundreds of people now.

Hamas has also said that they're not going to disarm in these circumstances.

Netanyahu said over the weekend that Israel would

refused to move to the next phase of the ceasefire without that disarmament.

Netanyahu's cabinet secretary has said on Monday that the Trump administration has asked for a 60-day grace period for Hamas to disarm.