Trump's "Dead Cat Diplomacy": How Public Blame Games Are Pushing Israel and Hamas Toward a Ceasefire

US President Donald Trump

When Donald Trump phoned Benjamin Netanyahu on October 4 to inform him that Hamas had accepted portions of his 20-point ceasefire proposal, the Israeli prime minister responded ambivalently, stating he saw "nothing to celebrate, and that it doesn't mean anything." Reports indicate the US president retorted: "I don't know why you're always so fucking negative. This is a win. Take it."

The significance of Trump's emotional response lies not in the words themselves, but in how quickly they became public knowledge after this private exchange. Unlike Joe Biden's well-documented but privately kept criticisms of Netanyahu, Trump's rebuke was deliberately leaked to publicly portray the Israeli leader as obstructionist should peace talks falter. Trump's unrefined "dead cat diplomacy" has emerged as his most powerful tool in bringing both Israel and Hamas to agreement.

This diplomatic approach was first formalized by former US Secretary of State James Baker (1989-1992) during his persistent efforts to bring Syrian, Israeli and Palestinian representatives to the landmark 1991 Madrid peace conference. After eight regional visits in eight months and utilizing his entire diplomatic arsenal, Baker remained frustrated by each party's reluctance to participate.

With traditional options exhausted, Baker determined his remaining leverage was to publicly assign blame for failed negotiations (the metaphorical "dead cat") to whichever party proved most intransigent.

Palestinian negotiator Hanan Ashrawi recalled Baker's favorite expression: "Don't let the dead cat die on your doorstep!" After telling Palestinian representatives, "I am sick and tired of this. With you people, the souk [market] never closes. I've had it. Have a nice life," they promptly dropped their demands.

This tactic proved equally effective with Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa. Baker exclaimed to Ashrawi over the phone, "You just tell Mr Sharaa that the whole thing is off. I'm going home. I'm taking the plane this evening and he can go back to Syria. As far as I'm concerned, it's finished!" before abruptly hanging up. Ashrawi conveyed this threat to her Arab colleagues.

In her 1995 memoir, "This Side of Peace," Ashrawi noted that "everyone was convinced that Baker was serious, and we urged the Syrians to accept an Arab compromise."

Despite the special US-Israel relationship, Baker didn't hesitate to similarly pressure Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, telling him: "I'm working my ass off, and I'm getting no cooperation from you. I'm finished... I've got to say I'm basically disinclined to come here again." En route to the airport, Baker informed aide Dennis Ross: "I'm going to leave this dead cat on his doorstep."

The collective impact of Baker's dead cat diplomacy was that no party wanted to be publicly perceived as opposing peace. As his aide Aaron David Miller recounted: "No one wanted to be in that position."

For dead cat diplomacy to succeed, three conditions must exist: it must be perceived as a genuine last-chance threat, it must be viewed as a credible move by the mediating party, and internal factors must limit the resistant party's ability to ignore the threat.

Despite stark differences in diplomatic finesse between Baker and Trump, the latter's application of dead cat diplomacy in negotiating an end to the Israel-Hamas war has been perceived by both sides as presenting credible last-chance threats, while exploiting their increasingly precarious domestic positions.

Trump's characterization of Netanyahu as "always fucking negative" is merely the latest dead cat placed at the Israeli leader's doorstep. Days earlier, Trump publicly humiliated Netanyahu by forcing him to apologize to Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani for Israel's failed assassination attempt against Hamas negotiators in Doha on September 9.

As one Israeli pollster observed: "For the first time Netanyahu cannot disregard the wishes of an American president, because of the way Trump operates. Trump is unpredictable and will not fall in line with the Israeli position."

This dynamic was perfectly illustrated when Netanyahu read his apology from a script while Trump casually rested the phone on his lap in the Oval Office—a public rebuke clearly communicating: you alone are responsible for this situation, and you'd better apologize, or else.

Days later, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform an image of Tel Aviv protests demanding an end to the war and opposing Netanyahu, featuring a large banner reading: "It's now or never."

Such public amplification of Netanyahu's domestic critics left no ambiguity about whom Trump blamed for the impasse. "He was fine with it," Trump reported after his Saturday conversation with Netanyahu. "He's got to be fine with it. He has no choice. With me, you got to be fine."

Trump has been equally direct in assigning blame to Hamas. First by developing his peace plan with Israel while excluding Hamas from the process, then by using his Truth Social platform to identify Hamas as the remaining obstacle to peace following his joint Oval Office press conference with Netanyahu.

Intentionally or not, this Trumpian approach embodies all the essential elements of dead cat diplomacy. It emphasizes a last-chance opportunity with credible threats, the US President having already demonstrated support for Israeli military operations in Gaza. It also exploits Hamas's increasingly isolated position, highlighting it as the sole party rejecting the plan and noting that the release of hostages held by Hamas stands between peace and continued conflict in the Middle East.

While Trump's implementation of dead cat diplomacy lacks Baker's sophistication and strategic patience, its raw, theatrical force has nonetheless transformed the negotiating landscape. By publicly blaming both Netanyahu and Hamas, diplomatically isolating them, and making clear that one will be remembered as the obstacle to peace, Trump has created precisely the last-chance, credibility-laden pressure that dead cat diplomacy requires to be effective.

Whether this will produce lasting peace remains uncertain. What is clear, however, is that Trump's willingness to weaponize public humiliation and blame has, for now, pushed two entrenched adversaries closer to compromise than years of cautious mediation. Dead cat diplomacy may yet secure Trump his coveted Nobel Peace Prize.

Asaf Siniver, Professor of International Security, University of Birmingham

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.