Trump’s role in Gaza ceasefire was decisive, but not a roadmap to peace

Donald Trump’s whirlwind trip to Israel and Egypt was the victory lap he wanted.

Anyone who follows the speeches he gave in Jerusalem and Sharm El-Sheikh can see a man reveling in his power – enjoying the applause in the Israeli parliament, and in Egypt, enjoying the presence of many heads of state and government.

One veteran diplomat in the room said it was as if Trump saw the role of world leaders there as extras on the set of his movie.

In fact, Trump’s message assembled in Sharm El-Sheikh was that he had created a historic turning point.

“All I’ve done my whole life is deals,” he said. “The greatest deals kind of happen…that’s what happened here. This will probably be the greatest deal of all time.”

Observers may also have had the impression from the speeches that the mission had been accomplished. not so.

Without a doubt, Trump can claim credit for the ceasefire and hostage exchange agreement. Qatar, Turkey, and Egypt used their influence with Hamas to force it to accept.

This made it a joint effort, but Trump’s role was crucial.

Had he not sought to ask Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to the conditions he had previously rejected, the deal would not have been signed.

It helps you recognize what a deal is – and what it isn’t.

The agreement was to cease fire and exchange hostages for prisoners. It is not a peace agreement, or even the beginning of a peace process.

The next stage of Trump’s 20-point plan It requires an agreement that fills the gaps in the framework that declares that the Gaza Strip will be demilitarized, secure, and governed by a committee that includes Palestinians.

It will report to the Peace Council chaired by President Trump. Considerable work needs to be done on the details needed to achieve this.

The Gaza agreement does not constitute a road map for peace in the Middle East, a final destination that cannot yet be reached.

Equally important, there is no evidence of the political will needed to reach a real peace agreement. Most wars end with the exhausted warring parties reaching some sort of agreement. The war in Gaza has become one of those wars, if indeed it is over, as Trump declared.

The other way to end a war is to achieve complete victory that allows the winners to dictate the path ahead. The best example of this is the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945.

Before September 9, when Netanyahu ordered a missile strike on Qatar He appears still determined to comprehensively crush Israel’s enemy, so that Israel will be able to dictate Gaza’s future.

The strike angered Trump.

Qatar is one of the United States’ main allies in the region, and is the location of the largest American military base in the Middle East. It is also a place where his sons engage in lucrative businesses. Trump rejected Netanyahu’s justification that the target, which he missed, was the leadership of Hamas, not Qatar.

For Trump, America’s interests come before Israel’s interests. He is not like Joe Biden, who was willing to accept damage to America’s standing in the region as a necessary price for supporting Israel.

Trump returned to Washington, D.C. Diplomats say that the Americans realize that resolving these details is vital and will not happen quickly. The problem is that they may not have enough time.

Ceasefires are always violated in their early stages. Survival strategies tend to rely on strict agreements, made by warring parties who have decided that their best option is to make it work.

The danger is that the ceasefire in Gaza lacks these foundations. Just 24 hours after Israelis and Palestinians, for very different reasons, shared the joy and relief that hostages, prisoners and detainees had returned to their homes, cracks began to appear in the ceasefire.

Hamas has so far returned only four bodies of the 28 hostages who were killed during their detention. Her explanation is that it is very difficult to find their graves in the sea of ​​rubble that Israel has created in Gaza.

Israel’s patience has run out.

The fate of the hostages’ bodies will become a bigger and bigger issue in Israel if their remains are not returned to their homeland.

On Tuesday evening, it was reported that Israel would not reopen the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt on Wednesday and would reduce the flow of aid into the Strip until Hamas found the bodies and brought them home.

The IDF still occupies 55% of the Gaza Strip. This morning, its soldiers killed Palestinians who said they were approaching its forces. The Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza told the BBC that seven people were killed in two incidents.

It is likely that the IDF is still adhering to the rules of engagement it used before the ceasefire. They order the troops to observe two imaginary lines around their positions. If one is crossed, they fire warning shots. If the Palestinians continue to approach their positions and cross the second imaginary line, IDF forces can shoot to kill.

The big problem with the system is that the Palestinians do not know where the lines are. It’s crowd control with live ammunition.

As for Hamas, it is reaffirming its strength.

Its armed and masked men have returned to the streets. It has attacked rival armed clans, some of which enjoy the protection of the IDF. Video clips spread of Hamas killing men blindfolded and kneeling, whom it accused of collaborating with the Israelis.

Horrific videos showing extrajudicial executions in the streets send a message to any Palestinian who wants to challenge them that they should not dare – and to the outside world that Hamas has survived Israel’s brutal onslaught.

Point 15 of Trump’s Gaza plan states that the United States “will work with Arab and international partners to establish an interim international stabilization force to deploy immediately in Gaza.” Assembling and deploying that force will be impossible if the ceasefire does not hold. Potential contributors will not send their forces to use force to disarm Hamas.

Hamas has indicated that it may give up some heavy weapons, but will not disarm them. It embraces the ideology of Islamic resistance to Israel, and knows that without weapons its Palestinian enemies will come for revenge. Netanyahu has threatened that if no one else does it, Israel will finish the job. He said that Hamas’ weapons must go “the easy way or the hard way.”

Trump announced that his Gaza agreement, in its current form, would end generations of conflict between Arabs and Jews over the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. He also insists that it will lead to broader peace throughout the Middle East.

If he truly believes that the mission of peacemaking has been accomplished, he is deceiving himself. Even trying requires sustained focus, hard diplomatic work, and a decision by both sides in the battle that the time has come to make sacrifices and painful compromises. To achieve peace, other dreams must be eliminated.

Previous American presidents also believed that they could achieve peace in the Middle East. Trump will discover that peace does not happen simply because a president, no matter how powerful, decides it will happen.