What Trump Does—and Doesn’t—Get Credit for in Gaza

Bobby Ghosh

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It isn't easy to praise someone who habitually, preemptively, and lavishly praises himself. But there is no gainsaying the fact that President Donald Trump—and President Donald Trump alone—deserves credit for the scenes of joy and relief we've seen in Israel and Gaza, respectively, over the past four days.

Had it been left to the druthers of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the leadership of Hamas, there is every likelihood that the devastation of Gaza would have continued into a third year. It is also certain that more of the Israeli hostages would have died in their miserable confinement, whether murdered by their terrorist captors or accidentally killed by the munitions of their own country.

Instead, the guns in Gaza have quieted. And it isn't because of the nudgings of real estate developers Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the promptings of Qatar and Egypt, the pleadings of Europe, the finger-wagging of human-rights organizations, or the hand-wringing of the United Nations alone.

The ceasefire is the gift of Donald Trump.

A delayed gift

Now for the caveats. As gifts go, this one comes much belated—and with a high risk of disintegrating even as it is being unwrapped.

Trump could have brought us to this place much sooner if he had been quicker to apply the pressure that finally forced Netanyahu to accept the peace deal. If the president had not wasted time floating perverse ideas about real-estate opportunities in Gaza, thousands of Palestinian lives might have been saved, and more of the Israeli hostages would be in the bosom of their families. (These numbers would have been higher still if President Joe Biden had not restricted himself to pious posturing.)

What finally snapped Trump into action was Netanyahu's decision to bomb Qatar in a failed attempt to eliminate Hamas's exiled political leadership in Doha. This was an attack on a key U.S. ally, one that hosts 10,000 American troops at a strategic air base and has committed to hundreds of billions of dollars in investments in the U.S.—and moreover, one that has promised Trump an upgraded Air Force One.