U.S. allies see Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rejection of Washington’s 15-point plan for Gaza as undermining confidence in the Board of Peace — and in the Trump administration’s ability to influence the Middle East more broadly.

It increasingly appears that the U.S. either doesn’t have — or isn’t willing to exercise — the leverage needed to deliver on Gaza, a number of diplomats and others familiar with U.S. strategy in the region told POLITICO. And that has them concerned about U.S. efforts at negotiations across the region.

“Netanyahu’s rejection of the peace plan carries significant implications for long-term regional stability and Israeli security,” said an Arab diplomat familiar with U.S. policy in the Middle East. “President Trump is the only one to have the potential to influence this situation, as he could seek to reassert his political relevance by pressuring Netanyahu to reconsider his position.”

Netanyahu’s defiance adds to the growing list of woes Washington faces as it struggles to reshape the Middle East, from ending the Iran war to winding down the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The Arab diplomat warned: “Arab and regional leaders may find themselves in a complex position, needing to balance their interests amid these evolving dynamics.”

Netanyahu disavowed the White House-backed peace plan for Gaza on Sunday, declaring that Israel requires Hamas to have “genuinely disarmed” before it withdraws its troops from the territory. That hard line could further threaten the viability of Trump’s Board of Peace, a 27-country initiative formed as part of Trump’s deal last year to end the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

“The Board of Peace has a distinct limp to its gait at the moment,” said Robert Jordan, who served as U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the George W. Bush administration.

“It never appeared to be a broadly based, highly viable substitute for the United Nations,” he added, referring to Trump’s assertions in January that the board could be used as an alternative to the world body. “That’s compounded by the political situation in Israel at the moment.”

The Board of Peace declined to comment, but an official with the organization insisted that work is continuing apace, with Israel’s buy-in. The official pointed to a logistical support area under construction that is meant to serve hundreds of troops expected to deploy to Gaza as part of the international stabilization force envisioned by the board.

“The roadmap is between the Board of Peace and Hamas,” said the board official. “Separate discussions with Israel are continuing. Israel is not being asked to rely on trust or to make irreversible moves before verified steps are taken on the ground.”

The official, like others, was granted anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiation process.

A Western diplomat familiar with Middle East policy argued Netanyahu’s action is a sign that U.S. strategy toward Israel is misguided.

“This latest rejection once again shows that appeasing Israel only leads to more maximalist demands,” the diplomat said. “I don’t think it kills the [Board of Peace] but what it does do is once again show that Israel remains one of the obstacles to a viable two-state solution.”

Trump has avoided clashing publicly with Netanyahu over the roadmap, telling reporters Monday that he had a “good relationship” with the Israeli prime minister even though Netanyahu rejected the U.S. proposal. The White House declined to comment further on Israel’s rejection of the deal.

A Trump administration official, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue publicly, said the White House doesn’t see Netanyahu’s action as derailing the peace process at all.

“Broadly speaking, we see this as election-posturing by Bibi for a domestic audience,” the official said. “The [Board of Peace] has actually been getting good cooperation on the ground as of late. So that’s what’s important.”

Netanyahu’s rejection of the road map comes as his popularity has been eroding in Israel ahead of an October parliamentary vote that could lead to his unseating.

In Europe, some governments are still holding out hope that the Board of Peace can rescue the Gaza peace process.

“I extremely appreciate the work of chief negotiator [Nickolay] Mladenov on behalf of the Board of Peace, his achievements in the 15-point plan are absolutely substantial,” said Hildegard Bentele, a center-right German lawmaker in the European Parliament. He said he was confident the U.S.-led effort would make progress “if re-submitted after Israeli elections and targeting the core point of full weapons’ decommissioning.”

Others with experience in the region said that Netanyahu appeared to be successfully pushing the Board of Peace in a direction more favorable to Israel.

Netanyahu’s actions are “testing the tolerance of the American or Board of Peace team,” said Nimrod Novik, who served as senior diplomatic adviser to former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and is now a fellow at the New York-based Israel Policy Forum.

“It’s really a Trump personal enterprise,” said Zaha Hassan, who advised the Palestinian negotiating team during its bid for U.N. membership from 2010 to 2012 and is now a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “So if it can’t get Israel to stand down in Gaza, to withdraw, to allow the Board of Peace to do its work, how can any other regional actor believe that the U.S. can restrain Israel in their neighborhood?”

A European diplomat said the disillusionment with Trump’s sway in the Middle East was already evident in his failure to wrap up the war in Iran quickly.

“The solution is not as close as anticipated or as Trump told us at some point. I think Trump is losing credibility,” said the diplomat, granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the issue publicly. “Everything seems to be in limbo and in a high degree of uncertainty that affects us all.”

Jerry Wu, Megan Messerly, Myah Ward and Nicholas Vinocur contributed to this report.

FASANO, Italy — President Joe Biden’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza has caused him no shortage of political troubles back home. And the rest of the world is noticing.

Diplomats and world leaders — many of whom are gathering for the G7 summit here this week — have begun to worry that Biden’s reluctance to more fully break with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could cost him the election in November.

Their concerns, which were relayed by five foreign policy experts and former U.S. government officials in touch with foreign officials, have been conveyed largely behind closed doors, out of consideration not to wade too far into U.S. domestic politics. But the thrust is often the same: The war has furthered the perception that the world is peppered with a variety of out-of-control hot spots and, in turn, made Biden look weak among voters back home.

They fear that it may usher in former President Donald Trump and rupture the broader diplomatic harmony Biden has worked to establish.

“The level of concern is something between panic and terror,” said Jeremy Shapiro, a former Obama State Department official in touch with European diplomats. “The alliance is too important for these countries right now.”

The war in Gaza is not expected to be the main topic of conversation during the conference here in Italy. But it will, to a degree, cloud the proceedings. That’s because while the world leaders are fairly aligned on some of the other major issues of the day — the need to back Ukraine, confront Russia and level-set with China — there are small but important fissures in the approach to Israel.

Biden and his aides have largely defended the Israeli offensive against Hamas militants in Gaza. And though the president has grown more critical of Netanyahu over time and tried to draw red lines around a potential invasion of the Gazan city of Rafah, his team has also at times blocked efforts within the United Nations to call for a quick end to the war. In Europe, meanwhile, support for Israel has fractured, with some nations going as far as to anger Israel by recognizing a Palestinian state.

Biden aides have tried to downplay his isolation on the matter by noting, among other things, his current efforts to push forward a peace framework to bring an end to the conflict. And, indeed, much of Europe has publicly backed the U.S.’s efforts to negotiate a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, viewing it as critical to helping stabilize the region.

In the run-up to the G7, the U.S. scored an early win in convincing the group’s leaders to sign onto a statement endorsing a proposal that would halt the fighting and eventually lead to the release of the hostages held by Hamas. The group's support came after Biden opted to go public with a cease-fire offer submitted by Israel, in an effort to demonstrate there remained a realistic path toward halting the fighting.

“All the G7 leaders that we have been consulting with in the run-up to Italy are focused on one thing overall: getting a cease-fire in place and getting the hostages home,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Wednesday. “That is what is going to end the suffering.”

A senior administration official cast the process of getting the G7 on board with the cease-fire proposal as fairly painless. European officials, meanwhile, say they’re more vexed that Netanyahu hasn’t publicly supported the proposal, even though the U.S. says he privately agreed to it.

"We're not frustrated with the Americans,” one Western European official said. “We're more frustrated with Netanyahu's government. We are supportive of the U.S. efforts in pushing for the truce."

But for all the global bonhomie, Biden remains well apart from his peers in how deeply he's entangled himself in the war. Some of those peers are beginning to fret that it could cost him his job, as Heather Conley, a former State Department official, put it.

Conley added that the current European concerns and frustrations over Biden’s incremental approach in pressuring Israel to wind down the war must be placed in a larger context that includes Ukraine. It is the absence of more assertive action, she argued, that is causing the political problems.

“Some are starting now to question whether the United States is willing to take some decisive leadership,” said Conley, now president of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Biden has for months resisted pressure to distance himself from Israel’s leadership, calculating that staying close to Netanyahu gives the U.S. its best shot at shaping the war and securing a cease-fire. The president also harbors his own personal belief in the special relationship between Israel and America, close allies said, a principle that underpins his commitment to the war even amid a deepening irritation with Netanyahu himself.

Still, Biden’s pursuit of a cease-fire deal has so far come up empty, damaging his domestic support in the process with voters who are increasingly turned off by the images coming out of Gaza.

In recent polls, most voters say they disapprove of Biden’s handling of the war. Democrats also worry the conflict is denting the president’s support among younger voters and minorities — critical parts of the base he needs to turn out in November.

Biden allies in the U.S., as well as diplomats abroad, now increasingly see a cease-fire in the Middle East as necessary to paving a way toward a permanent end to the war and to helping stave off a Trump win that threatens to upend relations with allies worldwide.

“We really want it to succeed,” one senior European official said of the U.S.’s push for a deal.

The situation is one that G7 leaders are closely tracking even as they juggle a raft of other issues in Italy. Biden earlier this week dispatched Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the Middle East, in what many officials hoped was a sign of intensifying cease-fire talks.

And as the president readied to leave Washington, his administration said Hamas had responded to Israel’s proposal with a counteroffer of its own. The White House is evaluating that response, Sullivan said, though he cautioned that some of Hamas’ terms differ significantly from what Israel requested.

Still, it means that Biden is sure to be pressed on the evolving talks by leaders at the G7, at the same time he is trying to navigate a delicate stage of negotiations that could bring peace to the Middle East — or turn into the latest setback for his ambitions in the region.

“They’re hoping and praying for a cease-fire deal,” Charles Kupchan, a former Obama-era senior National Security Council official, said of both the U.S. and its allies. “But outside powers only have so much influence over Israel and Hamas, as we’ve learned the last few months.”

Cancryn reported from Fasano. Nahal Toosi reported from Washington.

Ever since the Israel-Hamas war erupted, and even during the most hopeless stretches, smart people have been complaining that there’s no plan for Gaza once we reach the “day after” — that still-TBD moment when the fighting ends and the future begins. And there needs to be such a plan to bring hope and stability, they warn, or the conflict could reignite.

You might be surprised, then, to hear that there are many “day after” plans.

From think tankers to McKinsey types to Washington bureaucrats, plenty of people are offering proposals. Some focus on the immediate security and governance needs of shell-shocked Palestinians left in Gaza, using terms like “contact group” and “mandate.” Some dream of Gaza soccer stadiums decades from now. The Biden administration, I’m told by U.S. and Arab officials, is coalescing around plans for an interim “Palestinian Council” to govern Gaza and a security coalition in which the U.S. military will play a major role. Even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — a man accused of deliberately avoiding having a plan, including by a politician who just abandoned his coalition — has, technically, proposed a plan.

I’ve tracked down or spoken to people involved with a dozen such blueprints, some more sophisticated than others. And if current cease-fire talks produce some calm — a big if — more plans may be released.

And yet … I still feel like there’s no plan.

It’s tempting to reach for famous quotes about God laughing or Mike Tyson throwing a punch. But the cold truth about a region as vexed as the Middle East is that for a plan to become The Plan, someone with credibility and broad backing needs to openly take charge of the process, giving it momentum.

Instead, political fighting — within governments and between them — as well as the calculations of Hamas, are stifling any momentum.

That means while the details of the plans are interesting — and I’ll go into them — it’s worth looking first at why they’re likely to fall short.

In Israel, Netanyahu’s governing coalition is fractured over what to do with Gaza. Some of Netanyahu’s far-right partners wish to expel the Palestinians from Gaza and build Israeli settlements there. Others want Netanyahu to promise that Israel will not occupy Gaza.

There’s not much unity or momentum elsewhere in the region, either. Many Arab officials wonder why they’re on the hook at all — why should they pay for post-war reconstruction, as some plans anticipate, when they didn’t cause the destruction?

With no real plan, or power player, to guide them, people on the ground — from terrified Gazans to Israeli soldiers — may have to improvise. They are likely to find themselves in a “day after” that’s still chaotic, even if the bombing has stopped and Hamas is dismantled.

Dangers abound in this scenario, said Jonathan Lord, a former Defense Department official who has offered his own “day-after” plan.

“They include Hamas succeeding in reconstituting itself and Israel getting swallowed into a conflict it did not plan for nor is able to afford based on all of its other competing threats,” said Lord, now with the Center for a New American Security. “It also is untenable for Palestinian civilians in Gaza.”

Washington takes the lead?

As I evaluated various plans, one thing that became clear is that many analysts and officials want Washington to take charge of the immediate post-war scenario.

Some are subtle about this. Others are blunt.

“Only the United States has the capacity and resources, civilian and military, to start this up fast enough and to get other key countries to participate — and, other than Israel, only the United States has the political will to assure that Israel’s security stays as one of the paramount objectives in postwar Gaza,” states one plan from a group of former officials and scholars.

Several plans, such as ones from scholars with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the Israel Policy Forum, want some sort of multinational force to handle security inside Gaza once the big battles end.

In general, such plans expect most of the security forces to come from Arab countries, and that the need for such forces will be temporary until Palestinians themselves can take over. One plan, promoted by The Vandenberg Coalition and the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, suggests using private security contractors if necessary.

But several such plans want the United States to lead or take a major role in organizing and running the force.

That doesn’t mean U.S. troops will openly patrol in Gaza, but they might be just outside. Or they might be inside the territory performing functions that don’t require Gazans to see them. (Some Arab countries have told the U.S. that they won’t play a role if the U.S. doesn’t.)

The Biden administration is building its current post-war plans around the idea that the U.S. will play a major role in a multi-national force largely made up of Arab forces, according to four U.S. officials familiar with Middle East policy and an Arab official familiar with the issue. But President Joe Biden is unlikely to allow any U.S. troops inside Gaza itself.

As far as the Palestinians …

Another idea the U.S. is pursuing (and a theme in several plans) is creating a Palestinian body to temporarily run Gaza’s civilian affairs.

Netanyahu has ruled out bringing in the Palestinian Authority for this undertaking; he says the West Bank-based body is no better than Hamas. The U.S. idea for a “Palestinian Council” would have PA representatives sit on the body but not lead it.

Other plans want a more central PA role and even the Biden administration has said that in the long run the PA should take charge of Gaza. But there’s a broad sense that the current PA needs to undergo serious reforms before it could lead, and that could take years. (It’s startling, but not surprising, how many plans have little or no input from actual Gazans.)

All that said, the Biden administration hesitates to say it has an official plan or will run the post-war show. Remember, this administration was trying to reduce the American focus on the Middle East.

Netanyahu and his games

Netanyahu’s plan, according to reports from February, lets Israel retain the right to militarily operate in all of Gaza for the foreseeable future. Civilian governance would be handled by unspecified local officials.

Critics say Netanyahu’s plan is thin and amounts to Israeli occupation, something many Israelis do not want.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, has urged him to “declare that Israel will not establish civilian control over the Gaza Strip, that Israel will not establish military governance in the Gaza Strip, and that a governing alternative to Hamas in the Gaza Strip will be raised immediately.” Israeli politician Benny Gantz just quit Netanyahu’s coalition in part because the prime minister hadn’t come up with a better post-conflict plan.

The plans scholars, business leaders and others have set forth are often unable to account for the role Israel’s military will play in Gaza over time. The plans also often sidestep the question of whether a Palestinian state should ultimately be created, something the Biden administration says has to be the long-term goal but which Netanyahu rejects.

But the plans contained other ideas that ranged from creative to intriguing, if unspecific. For instance: that the United States should convene an international conference to launch the post-war effort; that Gazans should undergo major “de-radicalization” programs; or that an international “trust” should be created to oversee relief and reconstruction in Gaza.

The likely story

Making a prediction for the Middle East is probably as foolish as making a plan, but I’ll make one anyway:

In two years, Gaza will be a rubble-ridden set of tent camps policed by the Israeli military. In other words, Israel will occupy the Gaza Strip, even if it refuses to admit it. Israel also will still be battling militants, be they from Hamas or some other group, because its approach to the war has enraged so many Palestinians that the odds of them radicalizing are higher than the odds of any “de-radicalization” effort.

That doesn’t mean day-after planning now isn’t worth it, but leadership matters as does speed. With no hope to offer the people shattered by the war, a peaceful “day after” may never arrive.

Biden administration officials looking at the far-right wins in the EU parliamentary elections are stressing one thing: It could have been worse.

Yes, key U.S. ally France now will have snap legislative elections as part of the fallout. But the advances by parties that hold hostile views on migration and the EU as a bloc were not as big as they could have been, and parties with centrist approaches retained power.

One U.S. official, granted anonymity to describe internal dynamics, said Biden was relieved that EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, with whom he is personally and perhaps ideologically closest, looks likely to secure another parliamentary majority and a second term.

Still, far-right forces are increasingly coordinating and feeding off each other globally, while pushing politics rightward in some countries. Given the far right’s support for GOP presidential contender Donald Trump, and the boost he gave them by winning the U.S. presidency in 2016, the Biden team and Democrats are balancing their optimistic take with the recognition that the results could still be a disturbing sign for leftists globally.

“Trump and congressional Republicans are now harbingers for what’s happening in Europe, which is normalizing the far-right,” said Ian Russell, a Democratic consultant who works in the U.S. and Europe, who added that “the parties of the center-left continue to face pressure” in Europe and, by extension, in the U.S.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s party was beaten by that of far-right rival Marine Le Pen in the EU race. So Macron took a gamble: He called for snap elections later this month, essentially daring French voters to say whether they actually want the far right running France’s parliament. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, another critical G7 partner, also performed poorly in the EU race compared with the German far right.

Scholz and Macron are critical partners for Biden, especially when it comes to defending Ukraine. Political weakness for either could undermine their cooperation with the U.S. and EU countries on various fronts, although the general consensus is that European support for Ukraine will continue to hold for now.

Biden has said nothing about the EU elections and Macron’s stunning move, which came just hours after Biden left Paris on Sunday. Biden’s reticence stands in contrast to his full-throated calls in France last week to rally the West around the cause of democracy. It’s unlikely he will say much more now, given the tradition that presidents avoid weighing in on other countries’ domestic politics, and that he’s heading to Italy on Wednesday.

But Biden national security aides are trying to view the EU election results in their entirety, and pointing to reasons not to panic.

The same U.S. official who applauded von der Leyen’s showing pointed to results from Poland, Sweden, Finland, Slovakia and Greece, where far-right populists underperformed, as a sign that it may be premature to sound the alarm that a Euro-skeptic wave was overtaking the continent.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Tuesday that the U.S. is ready to collaborate across the European Union.

“We’re going to continue to work with the E.U. and we look forward to continuing our great relationship with President von der Leyen,” he told reporters.

Few Biden allies thought the European elections would resonate among U.S. voters. They also noted that Democrats, as well as many independents, were already panicking about the rise of the American right, unlike in 2016 when many dismissed the possibility that Trump would win.

“In 2016, people were taken by surprise with Trump’s win,” said Jesse Ferguson, a longtime Democratic strategist. “In 2024, people are scared by what it would mean if he won again.”

Biden allies also noted that Brexit, which presaged Trump’s victory in 2016, is now broadly unpopular in the United Kingdom. Recent polling has found a majority of Brits now disapprove of the decision to leave the EU. And the Labour Party, a center-left party, is expected to prevail in the July 4 elections.

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers and staffers, too, are in wait-and-see mode. But there was a sense that the EU parliamentary results overall are a win for continued European support for Ukraine as it battles Russia. That’s because, at the end of the day, the forces at the center will retain power.

“The results show clear frustration by voters with incumbent governments, and though growing support for far-right governments is a concerning trend, it’s notable to see the center hold at the EU level, where the U.S. must continue working productively with its leadership,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in a statement.

European diplomats in Washington, granted anonymity to speak freely about private conversations, said U.S. officials, even behind closed doors, are remaining calm about the brouhaha in Brussels. American officials, one European diplomat in Washington said, have asked “technical questions” about the next steps in Europe, including the upcoming French snap election, but have largely refrained from voicing concerns or fears.

“Having news of this kind of nature is not something that anyone prefers, but there’s still a lot to be seen,” a southern European diplomat said. “What will specifically happen? What sort of coalition will take place when it comes to the European institutions? Who will be elected?”

Some diplomats said they hope the EU results will show American officials that they cannot fully defer questions of transatlantic security to their European counterparts.

“It reminds the U.S. that it requires involvement from the U.S., even in those areas where there is not that much appetite to be involved,” the southern European diplomat said.

The results could add tensions to the U.S.-European bilateral relationship over time as European leaders face pressure to respond to the concerns of disaffected voters, said Kristine Berzina, who leads the German Marshall Fund of the United States’ GMF Geostrategy North program.

“It makes a conversation about Europe’s future slightly more challenging, but not yet catastrophic,” she said. “It’s the kickoff. It’s the beginning of what is going to be the reorganization of Brussels for the next five years.”