With Middle East deal, Trump on brink of major diplomatic achievement

It could also change the politics of the region.

With the war still raging and 48 hostages remaining in captivity, 28 of whom are believed to be dead, Mr. Netanyahu finds himself at the political pinnacle. He told his supporters and detractors alike that he had kept his promise to destroy the Hamas leadership. He used explosive pagers and walkie-talkies to kill and maim senior Hezbollah leaders, helped weaken the Assad government in Syria to the point of its collapse, and killed a generation of Iranian nuclear scientists and military leaders during a 12-day war that ended with a U.S. attack on Iran’s major nuclear sites.

But Mr. Netanyahu also went too far, and Mr. Trump and his aides saw an opportunity to rein him in. The scale of the destruction in Gaza has repulsed the world community. His decision to bomb Hamas negotiators in Qatar shocked the Trump White House. Mr. Trump, who never apologizes, forced Mr. Netanyahu to do just that to Qatar’s leaders, even releasing photos of the call. And along the way, he maneuvered Mr. Netanyahu into agreeing to a 20-step plan, one that the Israeli leader was banking on to reject Hamas.

To the surprise of many, he agreed to the first steps. He had little choice. The scale of the damage, human and physical, has undermined waning support for Hamas among Gaza survivors. Arab states and Turkey belatedly insisted that she give up.

Mr. Trump will now declare that this chapter is over, and with any luck, he may be right.

If the peace plan moves forward, Mr. Trump could have a claim to the Nobel Prize as legitimate as the four U.S. presidents who have won the peace prize in the past, but with less emphasis and lobbying. (These include Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter, who received this award a decade after leaving the White House.)

But it is far from certain that the conflict is really about to end. Mr. Trump’s statements and those of Mr. Netanyahu referred only to the first stage, namely the exchanges of hostages for prisoners and the withdrawal of Israeli troops on a line that has not yet been described. Taking the next step, where Hamas would have to give up its weapons and, even more difficult, its claim to rule Gaza, could prove even more difficult than bringing home the living and dead hostages. Hamas may balk at the next steps, as will Mr Netanyahu, who says the job won’t be done until all Hamas fighters in the October 7 attacks are tracked down. Any one of them could end the fragile ceasefire.