How Donald Trump Achieved a Gaza Breakthrough Which Eluded Joe Biden

At first, the Israeli air strike on the Hamas delegation in Doha appeared like yet another intensification that pushed the hope of peace further away.

This strike on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an US partner and risked expanding the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

However, it turned out to be a key moment that has led in a agreement, declared by President Donald Trump, to release all captives still held.

That represents a goal that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had sought for nearly two years.

It is just the first step towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

Yet if this agreement stands, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his second term - one that eluded Biden and his diplomatic team.

Trump's unique style and key alliances with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have played a role in this success.

But, as with most diplomatic achievements, there were also elements at play beyond the influence of both leaders.

A Close Relationship Which Eluded Biden

In public, Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president likes to say that Israel has no greater ally, and Netanyahu has described Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by deeds.

During his first presidential term, Trump moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and abandoned a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the view under international law.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump directed 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 pressure on the Israeli government in private. According to reports, Trump's envoy, his representative, browbeat Netanyahu in late 2024 into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the release of some hostages.

After Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, including bombing a place of worship, Trump pressured Netanyahu to change course.

The leader exhibited a degree of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is virtually unprecedented, says an analyst of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli leader that you're going to have to comply or else."

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

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

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his political base over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took endangered dividing his own political backing, while his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

Ultimately, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Several months into Trump's second term, with the Islamic Republic chastened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Business History Assisted Gain Support from Arab States

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a local national but no Hamas officials, led Trump to issue an final demand to Netanyahu. The war had to stop.

Trump had allowed the Israeli military a significant latitude in Gaza. The president provided American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. However an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, moving him towards the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several administration figures have told the press that this was a decisive moment which galvanised the president to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's strong connections with the Arab monarchies are well documented. He has commercial interests with the emirate and the UAE. The president began each of his administrations with official trips to Saudi Arabia. This year, Trump also stopped in Qatar and the UAE capital.

His normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and several Muslim states, including the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits he spent in the capitals of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped change his thinking, according to an expert of the Council on Foreign Relations. The US president did not travel to the country on this regional tour but visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the leader heard repeated calls to bring an end to the war.

Within weeks after that Israeli strike on the city, Trump sat nearby as Netanyahu himself phoned Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on the president's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that also had the backing of key Muslim nations in the area.

Assuming Trump's alliance with Netanyahu gave him the room to influence the government to reach an agreement, his past with Muslim leaders may have secured their backing, and helped them persuade the group to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that President Trump gained leverage with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. The capacity to do this on his timing, and not succumb to the desires of the warring sides has been a problem that many previous presidents have struggled with, and Trump seems to do relatively successfully."

The reality that the president is far better liked in the nation than the prime minister personally was leverage that Trump employed to his benefit, he adds.

Currently Israel has committed to freeing over a thousand detainees imprisoned in its jails and has consented to a limited pullback from the strip.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, living and dead, taken in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

An end to the war, which has led to the devastation of Gaza and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal