The Way Trump Secured a Gaza Breakthrough Which Eluded Joe Biden

At first, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha appeared like yet another intensification that drove the hope of peace further away.

The attack on September 9 breached the sovereignty of an US partner and threatened expanding the conflict into a region-wide war.

Negotiations seemed to be collapsing.

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

That represents a objective that Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had sought for almost 24 months.

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal remain to be worked out.

But if this agreement holds, it could be Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that eluded Joe Biden and his administration.

Trump's distinct approach and crucial relationships with Israel and the Middle Eastern nations seem to have contributed in this breakthrough.

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

Strong Ties Which Eluded Biden

In public, Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are all smiles.

The president often states that the nation has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as Israel's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these positive statements have been backed up by actions.

Throughout his first presidential term, Trump relocated the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and discarded a long-held US position that Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank are illegal, the view under global norms.

After the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump ordered US bombers to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

Those visible shows of backing may have allowed the president the leeway to exert more pressure on the Israeli government in private. As per sources, Trump's negotiator, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

After Israel attacked against Syria's military in the summer, including hitting a place of worship, Trump urged his counterpart to change course.

The leader exhibited a level of determination and insistence on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "It's unheard of of an US leader literally telling an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

Biden's relationship with the Israeli administration was always more strained.

His administration's "close embrace approach" 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 Biden's nearly half-century of support for the state, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took risked fracturing his own domestic support, whereas his successor's loyal conservative voters gave him more flexibility to act.

In the end, internal considerations or personal relationships may have had less importance than the reality that, throughout his term, Israel was unwilling to reach an agreement.

Several months into Trump's second term, with Iran chastened, the militant group to its northern border significantly reduced and Gaza in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been achieved.

Business History Helped Secure Gulf's Backing

An Israeli strike in the Qatari capital, which resulted in the death of a Qatari citizen but no Hamas officials, prompted the president to issue an ultimatum to Netanyahu. Hostilities had to stop.

The US leader had given Israel a relatively free hand in Gaza. He lent US armed support to Israeli operations in the neighboring country. However an strike on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several Trump officials have informed media outlets that this was a decisive moment which motivated the leader to exert maximum pressure to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Arab monarchies are widely known. He has commercial interests with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He began both his presidential terms with state visits to the kingdom. Recently, Trump also visited in Qatar and the UAE capital.

The president's normalization agreements, which normalised relations between Israel and a number of Arab nations, including the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his initial presidency.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Gulf region earlier this year contributed to change his thinking, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to the country on this regional tour but visited the UAE, the kingdom and Qatar where the leader heard repeated calls to put a stop to the war.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, Trump sat nearby as Netanyahu personally called Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader signed off on Trump's comprehensive proposal for Gaza - one that additionally had the support of influential Arab states in the region.

Assuming the president's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the ability to pressure the government to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have ensured their backing, and assisted them convince the group to agree to the deal.

"One of the things that evidently occurred was that President Trump gained influence with the Israeli government, and indirectly with the militants," notes an analyst of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his own schedule, and avoid yielding to the demands of the combatants has been a problem that lot of previous presidents have faced, and he appears to do with some success."

The fact that the president is much more popular in Israel than Netanyahu personally was leverage that Trump employed to his advantage, he adds.

Now Israel has committed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians held in its jails and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

Hamas will free all the captives still held, both alive and deceased, captured during the original 7 October assault, which caused the loss of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens.

A conclusion to the war, which has resulted in the devastation of the territory and the fatalities of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal