JERUSALEM — US President Donald Trump landed in Israel on Monday morning minutes after the first of 20 hostages were released by Hamas, and spent the day basking in the applause of a country that credits him, more than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for joyous family reunions and a ceasefire after two years of war.
Mr Trump seized on the moment to tell the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, that this is “not only the end of a war, this is the end of the age of terror and death.” Using a line that other presidents have reached for — and often been disappointed — he added: “This is the historic dawn of a new Middle East.”
He then travelled to Egypt, where dozens of world leaders awaited his arrival for a “peace summit” that offered the pomp and circumstance Trump is known to enjoy. Banners adorned with his face were dotted along the streets of a Red Sea resort.
“From the city of Sharm el-Sheikh, the will of the people meets the resolve of world leaders to end the war in Gaza,” said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi. “They all carry a single message to mankind: Enough war. Welcome to peace.”
But at the Egypt summit, neither Israel nor Hamas were participants. And although the White House released what appeared to be a document signed by the countries that did attend, it did not commit the signatories to any specific action.
Rarely has an American president, particularly one as divisive at home as Mr Trump is, been met with such adulation abroad. In Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, Israel, tens of thousands yelled, “Trump, Trump,” and in the Knesset some members wore red MAGA-style hats.
Mr Netanyahu, whose name was booed in the same square on Saturday night, declared the US President was “the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House.” There was more talk of nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize and the Israel Prize.
And Mr Trump surprised Israeli lawmakers when he twice made an offer to Iran — a country that Israel and the United States bombed only four months ago — to enter talks that could end decades of enmity and isolation.
“You know what would be great, if we could make a peace deal with them,” he said. “Would you be happy with that?” He added, “I think they’re tired,” but the offer did not elicit an enthusiastic response.
There was more enthusiastic applause when Mr Trump described Israel’s assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists during the 12-day bombing of the country, or when he detailed the number of B-2 bombers, refuelers and support aircraft that dropped bunker-busters on Fordo, Natanz and Esfahan, the major Iranian nuclear enrichment sites.
And just beneath the surface, there were obvious differences over the future of the Gaza Strip, and even over whether the ceasefire that is finally allowing food and medicine to flow into the territory would necessarily lead to a lasting peace. “The war is over,” Mr Trump told reporters, both on Air Force One and in the hallways of the Knesset.
Mr Netanyahu was far more cautious, welcoming the release of the hostages, and the fact that no living Israelis were being held in Gaza for the first time in years, while refusing to discuss whether Israel would resume hostilities if Hamas does not disarm or leave the territory. Hamas never agreed to that part of Trump’s 20-point plan, and its militias were already moving into neighbourhoods from which Israel had withdrawn in recent days.
And even while Mr Trump was in Jerusalem, Israel’s Defence Minister, Israel Katz, declared that Hamas had released the remains of only four of 28 hostages who had died in captivity. “Each delay or intentional avoidance will be considered a blunt violation of the agreement and will be answered accordingly,” he posted on the social platform X.
Mr Trump chose to ignore the possible roadblocks ahead. In his speech, he wandered off text to assess Mr Netanyahu’s personality: “He’s not the easiest guy to deal with, but that’s what makes him great.” He talked at length about the hours of conversation his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, held earlier this year with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Mr Witkoff, a real estate investor from New York, was described by Mr Trump as “Henry Kissinger who doesn’t leak.” Mr Kissinger, the national security adviser and then secretary of state under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, was a master of the self-serving Washington leak.
Except for brief references, Mr Trump did not talk about what it would take to rebuild Gaza, or the future of the Palestinian people, or the trade-offs between creating a Palestinian state and its alternatives.
In fact, there was almost no public discussion of the implementation of his 20-point plan at all, save for the fact that he was meeting wealthy Arab states and European governments to form an international stabilisation force or fund the rebuilding of the devastated territory.
In that regard, elements of Mr Trump’s speech gave another glimpse of his foreign policy. He praised countries for their military strength, especially Israel, which he said emerged “stronger, more respected” than before.
Two years of conflict with Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran certainly did prove that Israel was the strongest power in the region. But Mr Trump did not discuss its diplomatic isolation, as European powers embraced the idea of a separate Palestinian state partly because of the huge civilian casualties caused by Israeli attacks.
As usual, Mr Trump argued that countries would make decisions based on their economic interests — that joining the Abraham Accords, for example, would enhance trade. But the Middle East is filled with nations, religious groups and terror organisations that have gone to war even when it risks all economic progress. Russia did the same in invading Ukraine.
There were departures from the norm. Mr Trump is not known for nurturing alliances, but he expressed gratitude “for all of the nations of the Arab and Muslim world that came together to press Hamas.”
Yet he said little about how to build on the momentum of that new cooperation.
In Sharm el-Sheikh, Trump marvelled at just how quickly the hastily planned summit came together, and how many people had come: Leaders from more than 20 nations flocked to join him on a stage adorned with the words PEACE 2025. “These people all came in like 20 minutes’ notice,” Mr Trump said.
Most of the summit consisted of Trump effusively praising the other world leaders in attendance. Trump signed a document at a table alongside the leaders of the three other mediating countries — Egypt, Qatar and Turkey.
Before signing the paper, Mr Trump said it was “going to spell out a lot of rules and regulations and lots of other things,” he said. “It’s very comprehensive.”
But the version of the document released by the White House did not include substantive details, instead alluding largely to vague principles instead.
“We hereby commit to the resolution of future disputes through diplomatic engagement and negotiation rather than through force or protracted conflict,” the document said in part.
There were scattered protests in Israel against Trump’s visit, and two left-wing lawmakers belonging to a joint Palestinian-Israeli political party were escorted out of the Knesset for displaying signs that said “Recognise Palestine!” They were quickly seized, and Mr Trump pursed his lips before saying: “That was very efficient.”
Ayman Odeh, one of the two lawmakers, wrote on social media that the speeches in the Knesset would not absolve Mr Netanyahu “of the crimes against humanity committed in Gaza.” He later added: “There are two peoples here, and neither one of them is leaving.”
Mr Trump made the argument that if he had not destroyed Iran’s three major nuclear sites, the agreement to get the hostages out of Gaza would not have been possible. Arab states would not have taken the risk of pressuring Hamas, an Iranian proxy.
“We took a big cloud off of the Middle East and off of Israel,” he said, rejecting predictions that Iran would try to restart its nuclear program. “The last thing they want to do is start digging holes again in mountains that just got blown up. They are not doing that. They want to survive.”
There were signs of stumbling blocks ahead. Arab leaders have been particularly wary about the commitment of Netanyahu, who told Israelis this week that the military campaign in Gaza is “not over.”
Mr Netanyahu underscored their anxieties with a last-minute plan to attend the peace summit. Egypt’s presidency quickly announced what would have been a major symbolic moment for the event. But it was then forced to backtrack shortly after, when Mr Netanyahu cancelled his plans, citing a Jewish holiday.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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