On Oct. 7, 2023, I was serving as the U.S. State Department’s lead official working to expand the Abraham Accords—a set of normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab countries. As the magnitude of the Hamas’s attack on Israel that day became clear, it was obvious that work would have to be paused.
In the early days of the Israel-Hamas war, I was asked by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf to help lead a task force working on day-after planning. I quickly concluded that unless Hamas was truly defeated and removed from power, there would be no day after.
I understood that in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack, no Israeli leader—not Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, nor any other—would have the legitimacy to tell their public that the current war in Gaza would end as all the previous ones had: with Hamas battered and bruised but still clinging to power and preparing for the next round. And that meant giving the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) time to conduct its campaign, which we hoped would be as targeted as possible, eliminating Hamas leaders and assets while minimizing harm to the civilians among whom they embedded.
But the truth is that wars in the Middle East tend to end messily, with no clear victory and surrender. Exhaustion sets in, and both sides walk away having achieved only some of their aims. Historically, most Israeli wars end with the United States imposing terms that are less than Israel wants but meet its basic needs. Doing so also enables Israeli prime ministers to tell holdouts in their government and political base that they had no choice because the United States insisted. Netanyahu has long used this tactic. Having tied himself fully to U.S. President Donald Trump, he has little choice in this case.
As talks get underway in Egypt to try and finalize Trump’s Gaza deal, several striking things are clear. Hamas did not provide the unqualified “yes” that Trump demanded to the plan he presented with Netanyahu at the White House on Sept. 29. Qatar and other players with influence on Hamas did not deliver that. Hamas’s answer is so full of caveats that it represents little movement from its previous positions. The group continues to oppose disarmament, international forces, and an interim governing body, and it demands nothing less than full withdrawal of the IDF and a permanent end to the war.
But Trump’s method—hear the “yes” but not the “but” in Hamas’s reply, announce a deal that neither side has seen or fully accepted, try to squeeze both sides as each tries to avoid the blame, and worry about other details later—might work in the crucial first stage. That includes the release of all hostages, an end to the fighting, and a surge of humanitarian aid.
That would be a significant achievement. It would bring badly needed relief to many Israelis and Palestinians. Trump deserves enormous credit if that happens.
His improvisational style of diplomacy is well suited for the task. Describe the plan to Arab leaders at the United Nations one way and then rewrite it to meet Netanyahu’s needs? Sure. Accept Hamas’s ambivalent answer to the take-it-or-leave-it offer as a clear yes? Why not? Simultaneously threaten to unleash the IDF’s operation in Gaza City and tell Netanyahu he must shut it down? Whatever works. Trump is unconventional, brutal, and unconcerned about details. He understands leverage, and unlike any predecessor, he bears no domestic political cost, or even criticism, for using it on an Israeli leader. It seems to work—desperate families of hostages and beleaguered Palestinian civilians have been singing his praises.
But the next phases will not come easily. Trump pressured Netanyahu to enter a cease-fire without any guarantee of Hamas’s disarmament—a core Israeli goal—causing tension between the two. Trump’s overly credulous tone about Hamas (“ready for a lasting PEACE”), which is really a way of touting his own achievements, does not inspire confidence that he is seriously looking beyond the first phase. No serious scholar of the region believes that Hamas has changed its view of Israel in any respect. The plan presented at the White House would not have been Netanyahu’s “total victory,” but it would have been a defeat for Hamas—appropriately so for the perpetrators of Oct. 7. The deal that appears to be shaping up now is much murkier.
My concern from those early days remains: Without a real defeat of Hamas, we may not get into any meaningful post-conflict reality. But the hard lesson of these last two years is that such an outcome may have proven to be beyond the IDF’s ability at any acceptable cost—in the lives of hostages, Palestinian civilians, and Israeli soldiers; in Israel’s societal exhaustion; in the likelihood of Israel getting stuck in a permanent reoccupation; and in Israel’s international isolation.
So, if Trump’s deal stalls after the first stage, then the conflict will not be over. It will be in suspended animation. Negotiations will drag on over Hamas’s disarmament and departure, the proposed interim governing body to be led by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the role of the Palestinian Authority, and the presence of international forces. Hamas will have lost the leverage of the hostages, but Israel will have lost the leverage of ongoing military pressure, which Trump will be loath to see resume. Arab states that came around to support Trump’s plan may be willing to settle for partial solutions to maintain the quiet. Israeli counterterrorism operations will likely continue—probably with U.S. support, like in Lebanon. And the specter of a renewed conflict will hover constantly.
If the first phase is completed, the months ahead will require intense and focused diplomacy by the Trump administration to achieve the legitimate and necessary goals of ending Hamas control, disarming the group, reconstructing Gaza, assembling better governance, and ensuring that the territory poses no threat to Israel. It will also require a lot of Trump’s personal attention, which waxes and wanes. Indeed, as chairman of the proposed “board of peace,” he will be asked to decide on the smallest of matters.
If that project can get on the road, it would open significant opportunities to resume the agenda of regional integration that Trump wants to pursue and would make for a healthier and more stable region: expanding the Abraham Accords, striking a Saudi normalization deal, and identifying a Palestinian state as a goal to work toward in conversations with Palestinians, Arabs, and Israelis. It would also undermine the Iran-aligned axis, already weakened by Israeli and U.S. military power over the last two years.
But this effort will take place against the backdrop of an Israeli election campaign that Netanyahu will try to center on the question of who can prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state—a key Arab condition for progress. If Gaza gets stuck after a limited first phase, then most of those opportunities will remain out of reach.
The post Trump’s Approach Just Might End the War in Gaza but the Next Stage Is Harder appeared first on Foreign Policy.
