The Way Donald Trump Achieved a Gaza Breakthrough Which Escaped Joe Biden

Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant negotiating team in Doha seemed like another intensification that drove the hope of a ceasefire further away.

This strike on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an US partner and threatened widening the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

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

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

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

Yet if this deal holds, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that escaped Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's distinct approach and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this success.

But, as with most foreign policy wins, there were also factors at play beyond the control of either man.

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

Publicly, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has called Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". And these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

Throughout his initial time in office, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the view under global norms.

When Israel began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader ordered US bombers to strike the nation's nuclear enrichment facilities with its most powerful conventional bombs.

Those public demonstrations of backing may have given Trump the leeway to exert more influence on Israel in private. As per sources, Trump's envoy, his representative, browbeat the prime minister in late 2024 into accepting a halt in fighting in exchange for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israel attacked against Syria's military in the summer, even hitting a place of worship, Trump pressured his counterpart to change course.

The leader exhibited a level of determination and insistence on an Israeli prime minister that is virtually unprecedented, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an American president literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was consistently more tenuous.

The Biden team's "bear hug strategy" argued that the United States had to support the nation publicly in order to enable it to moderate the nation's military actions in private.

Underneath this was the president's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took risked fracturing his own domestic support, whereas Trump's solid Republican base gave him more room to act.

In the end, domestic politics or personal relationships may have had little impact than the simple fact that, during Biden's presidency, Israel was not ready to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north significantly reduced and the coastal strip devastated, every one of its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, led Trump to deliver an final demand to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. The president lent US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an attack on Qatar soil was a different matter entirely, pushing him closer to the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several Trump officials have told the press that this was a turning point which galvanised the leader to apply full force to get a peace deal done.

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

His Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between the Jewish state and several Muslim states, such as the Emirates, was the most significant diplomatic achievement of his first term.

His visits he spent in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months helped shift his perspective, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not visit the country on this regional tour but went to the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader heard repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, the president was present close as Netanyahu himself phoned Qatar to apologise. And later that day, the prime minister signed off on Trump's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the region.

If Trump's relationship with Netanyahu provided him the ability to influence Israel to strike a deal, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and assisted them convince the group to agree to the arrangement.

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

"That made a difference. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that many previous presidents have faced, and Trump seems to handle relatively successfully."

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

Now Israel has committed to freeing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

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

An end to the war, which has resulted in the destruction of the territory and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal