The Way Trump Achieved a Gaza Strip Breakthrough Which Eluded Biden

At first, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha seemed like another escalation that pushed the prospect of peace further away.

This strike on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an American ally and risked expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Negotiations appeared to be in ruins.

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

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

It is just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of disarming Hamas, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

Yet if this agreement holds, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that eluded Biden and his administration.

Trump's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this success.

However, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also factors at play beyond the influence of both leaders.

A Close Relationship That Eluded Biden

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called him as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these positive statements have been matched by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, the president relocated 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 occupied territories are illegal, the position under international law.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader ordered US bombers to target the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

These visible shows of support may have given the president the leeway to apply more influence on Israel behind the scenes. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into accepting a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of some hostages.

After Israel attacked against Syrian forces in July, including hitting a Christian church, Trump urged his counterpart to alter tactics.

Trump displayed a degree of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an American president directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

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

His administration's "close embrace strategy" held that the United States had to support the nation openly in order to allow it to moderate the nation's war conduct behind closed doors.

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

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Eight months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic weakened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, prompted Trump to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

Trump had given the Israeli military a relatively free hand in the territory. He provided US armed support to Israel's campaign in Iran. However an strike on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, moving him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

A number of Trump officials have told the press that this was a decisive moment which motivated the president to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

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

His normalization agreements, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months helped change his thinking, says Ed Husain of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not visit Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader heard consistent appeals to bring an end to the war.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump sat nearby as the prime minister personally called the Qatari leadership to express regret. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of key Muslim nations in the region.

If Trump's relationship with Netanyahu gave him the room to influence the government to reach an agreement, his history with Arab rulers may have secured their support, and helped them convince Hamas to agree to the deal.

"A key factor that clearly happened was that the US leader developed influence with the Israeli government, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to do this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and he appears to do relatively successfully."

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

Now Israel has committed to releasing more than 1,000 Palestinians held in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from Gaza.

The group will release all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, taken in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which resulted in the death of more than 1,200 Israelis.

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