What might prompt Trump to be patient with Gaza diplomacy?
By now, the world has become accustomed to an American president who deals enthusiastically and coldly with the international conflicts facing him, and his interest in addressing these conflicts has become less and less as the possibilities of reaching a quick solution recede.
An example is Russia’s war in Ukraine — once the daily focus of President Donald Trump this year, and which now appears to have largely fallen off his radar screen.
But the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza appears to be firmly dominating the volatile president’s attention.
Why did we write this?
Negotiating the thorny obstacles to President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan may take some time. But with so much going for ending the war, not least the chance to succeed where others have failed and perhaps even a Nobel Prize, patience is likely to emerge.
As negotiators for Israel and Hamas sit in Egypt for indirect talks that many say represent the best chance yet to end the two-year-old war, Mr. Trump is showing focus on the conflict and offering evidence daily about why this conflict is different for him.
On the one hand, the president who considers himself the world’s greatest dealmaker is obsessed with the challenge of achieving not just a ceasefire and the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, some diplomats and foreign policy experts say.
Even greater is Mr. Trump’s ambition – based on the 20-point plan that bears his name – to bring peace to a conflict that American presidents have tried and failed to resolve for three-quarters of a century.
“It appears that peace can be achieved in the Middle East for the first time in 3,000 years,” Mr. Trump declared to reporters on the White House lawn on Saturday. He added: “We will have more than Gaza. We will have Gaza in addition to peace.” “I’m very honored to be a part of that.”
Eye on Nobel
Moreover, the war in Gaza offers the perfect mix of opportunities that would attract the attention of businessman Donald Trump, some analysts say.
“President Trump sees this as the right moment to achieve a ceasefire, ensure the return of the hostages, and achieve what he calls a lasting peace where others have failed,” says Rajan Menon, a senior research fellow at the Saltzman Institute for War and Peace Studies at Columbia University.
He adds: “But beyond that, he believes that this decisive moment increases his chances of winning the Nobel Peace Prize and paves the way for the huge economic development plan he has in mind for Gaza.” “This plan will be launched at a time when he and his family have significantly expanded their business dealings in the Middle East.”
President Trump has been nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, which is set to be announced on Friday. On Tuesday, he published a letter he wrote to a group of families of Israeli hostages Thankful for their support For nomination.
However, even with all the extraordinary factors supporting Trump’s interest in Gaza, negotiating the major sticking points that stand in the way of a final agreement is sure to test the president’s patience, analysts say.
On Monday, Mr. Trump was urging negotiators to “act quickly” — even before his team, headed by special adviser Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, traveled to Cairo for the talks. He met with the two men on Tuesday morning at the White House.
“It’s all connected” to Gaza
“We are certainly closer to reaching an agreement on Gaza than ever before, and that is what allowed the president to achieve victory while the parties meet in Egypt to work things out,” says David Schenker, a former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs during the first Trump administration.
“But the 20-point plan is so ambitious,” adds Mr. Schenker, now a senior fellow for Arab politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, “that it actually includes a long list of very complex issues that we should not expect to be resolved in a matter of days.” “I agree that this is the moment to seize the momentum, but there is also a real risk of falling down the rabbit hole.”
Schenker adds that President Trump will likely have more patience to conclude a peace plan in Gaza, because much depends on ending the war: from making further progress in the Abraham Accords to normalizing relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors, to the long-awaited redeployment of US forces from the region.
“It’s all linked to the Gaza peace plan, and everyone understands that,” says Mr. Schenker.
The White House appeared to acknowledge on Monday that the full peace plan was unlikely to be reached within a few days, as Mr. Trump suggested over the weekend. Instead, the thinking seems to be that a quick agreement on the release of hostages and a ceasefire could provide the “impetus” to resolve other issues.
“It’s very important … that we get this done quickly so that we can get some momentum and get the hostages out and then move on to the next part of this, which really ensures that we can achieve lasting and lasting peace in Gaza and make sure that Gaza is no longer a place that threatens the security of Israel or the United States,” White House press secretary Carolyn Leavitt said at a news conference.
A range of complex issues
The big question here is whether Hamas would agree to release the hostages without other guarantees – for example, that Israel would not simply resume the war once the hostages were gone.
Part of the “yes,” “yes, but” for Trump’s plan is their very real concern that without some specific, binding guarantees, [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] “Netanyahu will win the release of the hostages and continue the war,” says Dr. Menon.
Agreeing on a plan to release the hostages will be difficult enough. Trump’s plan calls for all hostages to be released within 72 hours of reaching an agreement. But some experts warn that locating and securing them all – including the bodies of the dead hostages – could take weeks.
But as complex as the hostage release may be, it may pale in comparison to the complexity of the other outstanding cases. These include: the disarmament of Hamas, Israel’s withdrawal, and future governance in Gaza.
Some experts say that solving any of these problems may take several days or even weeks.
Such timelines appear to conflict with calls by Mr. Trump to “act quickly” and conclude a deal “within days.”
Dr. Menon says he doesn’t expect the president to lose interest, given all that is at stake. But Dr. Menon adds that if the talks falter due to complications, Trump may lose patience.
The question now is who will lose patience first, Hamas or Israel? says Dr. Menon.
Experts say Mr. Netanyahu almost certainly has the ability to avoid the full wrath of Mr. Trump.
But Mr. Schenker recalls how the Israeli missile attack on Hamas negotiators in Qatar in September was a “defining moment” for Mr. Trump, along with the White House’s recent leak to the media that the president’s exasperation with Mr. Netanyahu was “always like that.” [bleeping] Negative.” He says both should serve as a warning to the Israeli leader that he cannot overdo it.
However, the key to Mr. Trump’s patience with the complex peace process will be his sense that things are moving forward toward the ultimate prize.
“Whether it takes 48 hours or it starts to stretch out into days, if there is a sense that there is progress, I think even for President Trump, the amount of time it takes is less important,” Schenker says.