Donald Trump and peace in
the Mideast
This Gaza peace plan may actually hold. The president’s unorthodox deal-making style deserves credit.
Late Wednesday, both sides publicly agreed to implement the first phase of Trump’s 20-point peace proposal. That should bring an immediate halt to the fighting that went on for too long and cost too many lives on both sides. The initial phase calls for a partial pullback of Israeli troops, a rush of desperately needed humanitarian aid into the enclave, and, crucially, the release of all the remaining living and dead Israeli hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
The history of the Mideast is littered with the scraps of discarded peace agreements, and it’s wise to be cautious. Hamas in particular has a history of agreeing to deals publicly, only to reject them over technicalities later. But one reason for optimism is the terrorist group’s willingness to cede its only real leverage in these negotiations.
Agreeing to free all hostages at once in the first 72 hours of the deal — not in phases, and without the degrading release spectacles of the past — shows that the leaders of Hamas recognize that they have reached the end of the line. Hamas started this war with its horrific terror attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, that left 1,200 Israelis dead. But two years of war have left Hamas a largely spent force. Call this deal what it is: a total Hamas surrender.
Details on the other phases of Trump’s peace plan will likely require days and weeks of tedious negotiations. The outstanding issues include the total disarming of Hamas and the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops to a “buffer zone” on the Gaza border. The United States, Qatar, Egypt and Turkey have signed on as guarantors of the pact. The Arab and Muslim countries were needed to convince Hamas that it had no choice but to sign.
Trump, meanwhile, pressured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to end the fighting short of his stated goal of the total annihilation of Hamas. Credit Trump for pushing Netanyahu after Israel’s bombing of Hamas targets inside Qatar nearly derailed the sensitive negotiations. No other American president has managed the relationship with that difficult partner more intuitively.
The announcement of the deal’s first phase has sparked hope among Israelis and Palestinians that their longest, deadliest war may finally be nearing its endgame. But that hope comes with a realization that both sides have heralded past agreement only to see the other side renege, or add new last-minute conditions.
What seems different this time is Trump’s personal involvement. He brought an unorthodox negotiating style and relied on a few trusted advisers, his gut instinct and an abiding belief in the power of personal relationships. That combination has brought other successes — like the Abraham Accords of his first term and the commitment of Europeans to spend more on their own defense.
If this peace deal opens the path to a broader Middle East peace — perhaps even extending the Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia — then Trump will have a generational accomplishment that eluded successive American presidents for decades. That is still a long way off, but the massive progress over the past day is worth celebrating.
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