The Way Donald Trump Secured a Gaza Major Step Which Escaped Biden

At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar seemed like yet another escalation that pushed the hope of peace further away.

The attack on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened expanding the conflict into a broader regional conflict.

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

Instead, it turned out to be a pivotal event that has led in a agreement, announced by President Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

That represents a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had sought for nearly two years.

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.

Yet if this deal holds, it could be Trump's defining accomplishment of his second term - one that eluded Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's unique style and key alliances with Israel and the Arab world seem to have played a role in this success.

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also factors at play beyond the control of either man.

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

In public, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump often states that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". And these warm words have been backed up by actions.

During his initial time in office, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under international law.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader directed American aircraft to target the Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These public demonstrations of support may have allowed Trump the room to apply more influence on the Israeli government behind the scenes. As per sources, the president's envoy, Steve Witkoff, browbeat Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israeli forces launched strikes against Syrian forces in the summer, including hitting a place of worship, the US president urged Netanyahu to change course.

The leader exhibited a degree of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's connection with the Israeli administration was consistently more strained.

His administration's "close embrace strategy" argued that the US had to support Israel publicly in order to enable it to moderate the country's war conduct behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took risked dividing his own domestic support, while Trump's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had less importance than the reality that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to reach an agreement.

Several months into his new administration, with Iran weakened, the militant group to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza devastated, every one of its key military goals had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which killed a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, led Trump to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to end.

The US leader had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. The president provided US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. But an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, pushing him towards the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of administration figures have informed media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

The leader's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the UAE. He began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. This year, he also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, such as the UAE, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

The time he spent in the capitals of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to the country on this regional tour but went to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader received repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, the president sat nearby as Netanyahu himself phoned the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

If Trump's alliance with his counterpart provided him the ability to influence the government to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and helped them convince the group to commit to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader developed influence with the Israelis, and indirectly with the militants," says an analyst of the a research center.

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have faced, and he appears to handle with some success."

The reality that the president is far better liked in Israel than the prime minister personally was leverage that Trump used to his advantage, the expert continues.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to releasing more than 1,000 detainees held in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will release all the remaining hostages, living and dead, captured in the initial October 7 assault, which resulted in the death of over 1,200 Israeli citizens.

An end to the conflict, which has resulted in the devastation of Gaza and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal