Joe Biden’s cease-fire proposal presents Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a dilemma: Say yes to a truce deal with Hamas or preserve his governing majority and stay in power?

As he faces that choice, Netanyahu is also looking for a way to avoid the decision, CNN reports.

In this context, for months, Netanyahu has managed to balance between the two options, refusing to even consider a permanent ceasefire, blaming Hamas and its “delusional demands” for the collapse of previous rounds of negotiations.

Netanyahu’s imprisonment

After US President Joe Biden publicly presented Israel’s latest cease-fire proposal on Friday, one that could lead to a permanent truce and which Hamas may accept, Netanyahu is now on edge.

“I think Bibi is in the corner now,” said Aviv Bushinsky, a former adviser to Netanyahu, using the prime minister’s nickname. Biden “forces Bibi to take off his mask and say, ‘OK, now’s the time. Are you in favor of an agreement?”, he says.

As Israel awaits Hamas’s response to the latest proposal, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and other far-right members of Netanyahu’s coalition are threatening to pull out of the government and cause it to collapse if the prime minister agrees to the Biden proposal.

Amid threats from his right, Netanyahu is trying to reshape the latest ceasefire proposal, telling Ben Gvir and others that the terms of the deal are not as Biden laid them out. While Biden clearly presented the proposal as the way to end the war, Netanyahu insists that Israel will not end the war until Hamas is eliminated.

His efforts to persuade far-right ministers to avoid choosing between a ceasefire deal and the survival of his government have so far failed. Ben-Gvir appeared on Monday convinced that Netanyahu has something to hide, as he said the Israeli prime minister’s office refused to honor its commitment to show him the draft proposal.

If Ben Gvir or Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich do not back down on their threats to quit the government, Netanyahu will be faced with the dilemma he has been avoiding.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid has offered to provide a “safety net” to keep the government in power in order to reach a ceasefire deal, but doing so would also give Lapid the keys to calling early elections once the deal is implemented.

Just as has been the case for the past eight months, Netanyahu’s political survival can be achieved by continuing the war and his elusive pursuit of total victory over Hamas, CNN reports.

The timing

Meanwhile, Netanyahu is being forced to choose between the survival of his government and the hostage exchange deal at a time when his ratings are starting to improve. For the first time this year, Netanyahu surpassed his main political rival Benny Gantz in Israelis’ preference for prime minister, 36 percent to 30 percent, according to a Channel 12 poll last week.

At the same time, other recent opinion polls show that Gantz’s National Unity party is faltering, while Netanyahu’s Likud scores modestly. In the event of an election, National Unity would still win several seats in the Knesset, but the party’s 19-seat advantage over Likud in December has dropped to four seats in last week’s Channel 12 poll.

The improvement in Netanyahu’s political standing coincided with increased international condemnation of Israel’s military operations in Gaza and the decision by the International Criminal Court prosecutor to seek an arrest warrant for Netanyahu. Both cases have put Netanyahu in an advantageous position at home, whose role is emerging as that of Israel’s defender. Instead, Gantz’s threat to quit the war cabinet over Netanyahu’s lack of a long-term strategy in Gaza appears to be the cause of his ratings drop.

A poll by Israel’s Channel 11 on Monday showed that 40% of Israelis support the ceasefire agreement with 27% opposed and 33% saying they are “not sure”.

Even if Netanyahu believes that within his government the decision to continue the war outweighs the decision to reach a cease-fire agreement, Biden’s speech last week forced him to overcome the objections and move beyond any internal objections.

“I know there are some in Israel who will not agree with this plan and will call for the war to continue indefinitely. Some are even in the governing coalition,” Biden said. “So I urged the leadership in Israel to stand behind this deal, regardless of whatever pressures arise.”

But one key question remains: Will Hamas force Netanyahu to make the choice he is being asked to make now? Or will Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, offer Netanyahu an escape route?

Hamas said it viewed Biden’s proposal “positively,” but has yet to issue an official response.

While the latest proposal includes significant concessions to narrow the gap with Hamas’ demands, including providing a clear path to a permanent cease-fire, it still does not meet all demands.

It allows for an extension of an initial six-week truce period for as long as the parties must negotiate a permanent truce that includes the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza in a second phase of the deal. But it does not require Israel to commit to a permanent ceasefire in advance.

Hamas’s refusal to compromise on this point and sign this deal could let Netanyahu off the hook and plunge Gaza into months of war.