Analysis: Trump Delivers in Gaza What Biden Couldn’t for 15 Months
After 15 months of the Biden administration failing to broker peace in Gaza, it took a fresh negotiator and a president-elect’s ultimatum to get the job done in less than a week.
A bombshell Wall Street Journal report reveals the inside story of how Donald Trump’s team outmaneuvered both the bumbling Biden administration and obstinate Middle East leaders to secure what could be a historic cease-fire deal.
Biden’s failure to handle the crisis started to unravel after a brief November 2023 cease-fire collapsed almost immediately. Subsequent months of playing good cop bad cop towards Israel by threatening arms shipments to America’s closest ally only fueled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s desire to completely destroy Hamas.
At a tense Watergate Hotel meeting with families of hostages, Netanyahu pounded the table warning, ‘If we give up on victory over Hamas, we are all in danger from every front,’ according to a recording obtained by the Journal.
Meanwhile, the media kept turning on Israel’s defensive war in Gaza. The widespread sympathy for Israel after October 7 quickly dissipated, instead becoming a springboard for the global rise of antisemitism we see today.
But the game changed when Israeli forces eliminated Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in October. With Hamas leadership in disarray and Trump’s election victory looming, the stage was set for a long-awaited deal.
Trump’s Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff joined Biden officials in Doha last week and delivered his boss’s message to Arab negotiators of ‘ALL HELL TO PAY’ if hostages weren’t returned. He also confronted Netanyahu to deliver a message.
‘The president has been a great friend of Israel,’ Witkoff told the prime minister, ‘Now it’s time to be a friend back.’
The ultimatum worked.
When Hamas tried weaseling out of the terms on Tuesday, Trump’s team didn’t blink. The president-elect himself stepped in by telling conservative podcast host Dan Bongino on Thursday: ‘Frankly, it better be done before I take the oath of office.’
Even Biden’s own U.S. ambassador to Israel had to admit Trump’s anticipated return to the White House changed everything.
‘Well, obviously there is, there’s a different political situation with the U.S. in the transition,’ U.S. ambassador Jack Lew told the Journal. ‘There is always an element of uncertainty in a transition, and I think that that element of uncertainty had a positive impact.’
By Friday, both sides had caved to Trump’s pressure. Israel will finally see 33 hostages returned home. All reports suggest it’s essentially the same framework Israel proposed in May that gathered dust on Biden’s watch. Trump has also assured Israel they’ll have full U.S. backing to resume military operations if Hamas steps out of line.
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