How Trump's Gaza ceasefire imploded
Less than two weeks ago, Tucker Carlson, the conservative podcaster with a strong read on US President Donald Trump, sat down for an interview with Qatar’s prime minister, where the two raved about Trump’s iron-fisted ability to broker a Gaza ceasefire.
“Trump gets elected in November, inaugurated in January and immediately there is a ceasefire,” Carlson said.
Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, responded in kind: “What’s really making me feel sad [is] the agreement that we have achieved on the 15th of January of this year is almost 95 percent the one…agreed in December and March.”
“With the previous [Biden] administration we were working very closely…but at the end of the day…President Trump of course… they know if there is no deal happening before the inauguration it might have a consequence,” Thani said.
On Tuesday, Israel made clear there was no consequence to ripping up a deal on which the US, Egypt, and Qatar staked their reputations.
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Israel unleashed a devastating barrage on the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, killing more than 400 Palestinians, according to health officials in Gaza.
The Trump administration had already given a green light to Israel to resume attacking Gaza. On Tuesday, its acting ambassador to the UN said that responsibility for the resumption of war in Gaza rested "solely" with Hamas.
'No one respects Trump's word now'
The resumption of wide scale Israeli attacks means Trump has surrendered the narrative that the United States can control its ally, Israel, analysts and Arab diplomats say.
“Trump came into power and said he is the new sheriff in town. Netanyahu walked all over him. No one respects Trump’s word now. He needs to regain the upper hand,” Marwa Maziad, an Israel expert at the University of Maryland, told Middle East Eye.
Trump’s strongman aura regarding the Gaza Strip was fashioned after Israeli media revealed that his envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured Netanyahu into agreeing to the Gaza ceasefire before Trump had even taken office.
In the following months, Trump sparked panic among the US’s Arab allies, when he endorsed a plan for the US to "take over" the Gaza Strip and forcibly displace its Palestinian inhabitants to Jordan and Egypt.
Even senior US officials, let alone Arab leaders, were left guessing whether Trump was serious or flexing his negotiating skills to prompt the oil-rich Gulf states to offer a counter plan to reconstruct the Gaza Strip.
Trump’s inner circle seemed split.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Trump's closest allies, said the US had no interest in displacing Palestinians and conquering Gaza.
But Trump's idea appeared to echo those put forward by his son-in-law and former advisor Jared Kushner. They were almost word for word those of an obsure Israeli professor who claimed he shared a plan with Kushner to turn the war-ravaged enclave into the "Gaza riviera" and displace the Palestinians into Egypt.
Post-war Gaza plan
Jordan’s King Abdullah II took the lead in convincing Trump to drop his idea. During a February visit to the White House, he publicly praised Trump in the Oval Office but privately warned him the plan would fuel “Islamic extremism”, MEE revealed.
After the visit, Arab states came together to draft a plan for post-war Gaza.
'Trump could have been persuaded to maintain the pressure on Netanyahu...The question is why did the Arab states not do it'
- Marwa Maziad, University of Maryland
Egypt led the way, diplomats tell MEE, because it has deep experience in the reconstruction of Gaza from previous conflicts.
Egyptian intelligence services also maintain ties to Hamas leaders, including members of the Qassam brigades, who would have to lay down their arms in order for the oil-rich Gulf to rebuild Gaza.
Earlier this month, Egypt released a $53bn plan to reconstruct the Gaza Strip. It was light on details like who would foot the bill, but it called for the Palestinian Authority to govern the enclave and floated a new security force for the area trained by Jordan and Egypt.
Critics of the plan in Israel and the US said it was not hard enough on Hamas. The plan also called for a new port and airport to be constructed in the Gaza Strip and left open the door to a deployment of UN Peacekeepers to the enclave and the occupied West Bank. Those are the type of big-ticket, international prjects that Israel would be loath to support in Gaza, officials and analysts in the US and Middle East say.
Israel rejected the plan outright. The Trump administration was more ambivalent.
The US National Security Council spokesman rejected the plan, but Arab officials watched the language coming from Trump a confident Witkoff, who said the plan was the “basis for the reconstruction efforts".
Trump himself publicly stated that no Palestinians would be expelled from the Gaza Strip after the plan was announced.
At the beginning of March, Israel began choking supplies to the Gaza Strip during Ramadan, and then it cut electricity to the enclave. Strikes resumed shortly after.
US-Hamas talks and backtracking
Israel's decision to unilaterally resume hostilities in the Gaza Strip is the natural progression of the grey-zone status that has clouded it's future.
The first phase of the January ceasefire ended weeks ago, but Israel dragged its feet moving towards phase II.
Witkoff was able to convince a grudging Netanyahu to agree to the widely popular decision to free captives in Gaza in exchange for Israeli prisoners, but his power of persuasion seems to have stopped there.
The US attempted to address the stalemate over the Gaza ceasefire with a plan for Hamas to release the 27 living captives left in the enclave in exchange for an extension of a temporary truce. Israel welcomed the proposal but Hamas insisted on moving to phase II.
But that is not all. Behind the scenes, analysts and diplomats are speculating that Trump appeared ready to heap pressure on Netanyahu, only to pivot after Israeli blowback.
Trump publicly struck a hard line on Hamas.
He warned earlier this month that Palestinians would be “dead” if Hamas did not release the remaining hostages. “RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW, OR THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY LATER!” he said, threatening any Palestinian that holds hostages.
At the same time, Trump, the consummate dealmaker, appeared to be sniffing around for a compromise with Hamas.
He agreed to let his nominee for hostage affairs, Adam Boehler, meet directly with the group in Doha, Qatar. Hamas is listed as a US terror group. The meeting was leaked by Israeli media and sparked fury among Israel's right-wing supporters in the US.
The White House said Boehler met with Hamas to negotiate the release of one remaining American captive, but the envoy said publicly he discussed a five-year to ten-year truce with Hamas that would have seen the group disavow politics, and the US and its Arab allies ensure the demilitarisation of Gaza. Boehler suggested the talks were productive.
On Friday, Boehler was withdrawn as the nominee for hostage affairs.
Lack of Arab political will
With the Arab League plan for post-war Gaza rudderless and the Trump administration burned from talking directly with Hamas, Israel has now returned to war, analysts say.
Netanyahu has even received a political uspwing from bombing Gaza.
On Tuesday, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Netanyahu's extremist former national security minister, announced he would rejoin the government after resigning in protest over the January ceasefire.
Maziad said that Israel’s attacks reflect “a failure of the Arab states, mainly Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia to convince Trump that Netanyahu is an impediment to his goals”.
“Trump could have been persuaded to maintain the pressure on Netanyahu,” she told MEE. “The question is why did the Arab states not do it. I really think it is a lack of will. Do the Arab states want Netanyahu to win and rule?” she said.
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