The Way Trump Achieved a Gaza Major Step Which Escaped Joe Biden

At first, Israel's aerial attack on the Hamas militant delegation in Qatar appeared like yet another escalation that drove the prospect of a ceasefire out of reach.

This strike on September 9 breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and threatened expanding the conflict into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

Instead, it proved to be a pivotal event that culminated in a deal, declared by President Donald Trump, to free all captives still held.

That represents a goal that he, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for almost 24 months.

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, administering Gaza and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.

Yet if this deal stands, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that eluded Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's distinct approach and key alliances with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this breakthrough.

But, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also elements involved beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

Trump likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has described him as the country's "most supportive friend in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

During his first presidential term, Trump relocated the US embassy in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and discarded a traditional American stance that Jewish communities in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under global norms.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump directed American aircraft to target the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of backing may have given Trump the leeway to apply more influence on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, Trump's negotiator, his representative, pressured the prime minister in late 2024 into agreeing to a halt in fighting in exchange for the release of some hostages.

After Israel launched strikes against Syrian forces in July, even hitting a place of worship, the US president pressured Netanyahu to alter tactics.

The leader exhibited a degree of will and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's relationship with the Israeli administration was always more strained.

His administration's "bear hug strategy" argued that the United States had to embrace Israel openly in order to enable it to influence the country's military actions in private.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of backing for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move Biden took endangered dividing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, the Israeli government was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, every one of its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to issue an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to end.

The US leader had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. The president provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an strike on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to end the war.

A number of administration figures have informed the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to exert full force to get a peace deal done.

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are widely known. Trump has business dealings with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. This year, Trump also visited in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his initial presidency.

The time devoted in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. Trump did not travel to the country on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, the kingdom and the state where the leader heard repeated calls to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, Trump was present nearby as Netanyahu himself called Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming the president's alliance with his counterpart gave him the room to influence Israel to reach an agreement, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and helped them convince Hamas to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that the US leader gained leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with the militants," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. The capacity to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that many earlier administrations have faced, and Trump seems to handle with some success."

The reality that Trump is much more popular in Israel than the prime minister himself was leverage that Trump used to his benefit, he adds.

Currently the Israeli government has agreed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians held in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from Gaza.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, living and dead, taken during the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the conflict, which has led to the destruction of Gaza and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal