The videos of the returning hostages on Monday’s news feed were heartening and moving. It felt like a pivot, a green shoot in frustratingly barren ground. How we got here has been surprising to everyone, perhaps even to the deal’s architects – Trump, Witkoff, Kushner, and Rubio.
The footage of the US president taking a well-deserved victory lap in front of the Knesset (and the world) was remarkable. Not so much for his trumpeting of the unlikely and welcome deal that was cobbled together from incompatible pieces (and which may just hold), but for the inescapable fact that it needed someone like Trump to do it. Nobody, not even my most fervent left-wing Trump-hating friends, imagine that this could have been pulled off by Biden. Or any other Democratic president. Or even any other Republican president, for that matter.
Trump once said on another matter – “I alone can do it”. The scale of this arrogant bluster left me open-mouthed. But on this most intractable of global conflicts, it looks as if he may have been right.
Critics may argue that there is still a long row to hoe. That the concrete steps to the establishment of a Palestinian state have been sacrificed to vague intent. That all that has been achieved is a brief humanitarian respite whilst belligerents regroup. That the 20-step peace plan is a flimsy skeleton with no muscle. That Arab public opinion will never accept international governance of Gaza. Perhaps, but even so, what happened on Monday was unimaginable, just a few months ago.
Because the machinations that led to this deal are opaque – what was said, what was promised, who nudged and winked, who flinched and who blinked – we can only surmise what pressure was applied, and to whom.
So let’s start here, because I believe that this is the spark that made it all possible: the successful (and unprecedented) US bombardment of the Fordow nuclear facility in Iran. That decision was certainly not taken on a whim, nor was it ‘forced’ by Israel (as some would like to think). The message was very clear – Trump was saying “we’re big and strong and rich and armed with big bombs and we will beat the crap out of you if you cross us”. That single one-day action by the US Air Force completely changed the scenario in the Middle East. This was not Obama threatening Syria about what would happen if they crossed “the red line” of chemical weapons deployment, and then wimping out when Syria did just that.
With that action in Iran, the US was suddenly feared in a way that it had not been before. To put it more plainly, in that rough neighbourhood, negotiations play second fiddle to big sticks.
So how did it go down? Let’s guess.
Trump says to Netanyahu –
“Listen, Bibi. Everyone hates Israel. You can’t even field an international sports team. Everyone hates you personally. Jews are being attacked on the streets of Western cities because of this, even in the US. Traditional Republican support for Israel is cratering. You cannot kill every Hamas operative, forget it, they are joining up too fast. And yes, they hate Israel and will be back, so what else is new? So here’s the deal. You’re going to wrestle the foaming zealots and extremists in your government to the ground. You’re going to come to the party on this deal, even though you are not getting everything you want. And in return you are going to get cover from us for a long time. Diplomatic cover. Financial cover. Moral cover. I will help you get rehabilitated. So you are coming to the party, or else you are on your own, for good. If you say no, I will blame you publicly and cancel all support for your country and then you are really f**ked. Got it? You’ve got a week to decide”.
And to the Saudis, Jordanians, Egypt, Qatar and others he would have said –
“You come to the party, and I will ensure that you stay in power forever, and I will ensure that Iran never threatens the region again, and I will make you stupidly rich by helping us to develop Gaza and I will do business deals with you that you cannot imagine. The biggest deals in the history of the world. I also want you to normalise relations with Israel and never talk to anyone from that medieval death cult Hamas again and I promise I will look away when you crush your own internal dissent. And if one of you decides not to come to the party, I am taking the goodies that I was going to give you, and I will give it to the other guys and badmouth you every day on social media to the entire US population. So go and tell Hamas that you will crush them if they don’t release the hostages and tell your Israel-hating citizens to be quiet and you come to the party. If you don’t, I will help Israel properly finish what they started. You’ve got a week to decide. Got it?”
Too crass? Too up-in-your-face? I don’t think so. I think that is pretty much exactly what he did. This is Trump, remember. He knows crass. He is from crime mob boss central casting. Which was exasperating and dispiriting and contemptible until it worked.
It is tempting to say that Trump’s successful transaction-and-bludgeon approach in this conflict is a one-off and only worked because he could successfully threaten all parties equally. It will not work elsewhere; he does not have that sort of leverage in, say, the Ukraine/Russia conflict. Or with China.
Hmm. Maybe, but now I really do wonder.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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