'Trump has got the peace train rolling' in Gaza

A tent camp for displaced Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Credit: AP

So it seems that the guns have fallen silent, Israel’s warplanes have been grounded and its tanks ordered to halt their advance.

On Friday, our windows in Tel Aviv rattled several times as heavy bombs were dropped on Gaza City, just an hour down the road.

What a difference a “yes, but” can make.

Having given the impression that his 20-point peace plan was non-negotiable and again threatened “hell” in the event of the rejection of it, Donald Trump has welcomed Hamas’ pledge to release the remaining hostages and give up power in Gaza.

No matter its lack of commitment to disarm, Hamas has gone just far enough for the President of the United States to order Israel to cease fire.

And having put all his eggs in the Trump basket, Benjamin Netanyahu couldn’t say no.

When the Israeli Prime Minister broke the two-month ceasefire back in March and resumed the war, he pledged that any future negotiations for the release of the hostages would only take place “under fire.”

Well, he has now been forced to go back on that, ordering the IDF to cease all offensive operations.

Presumably he will soon be dispatching a negotiating team to Doha to work out the details of the release of the hostages, the release of Palestinian prisoners and the extent of the initial pull back by Israeli forces in Gaza.

What makes Trump’s peace plan different and plausible is the support it has from the Arab states and Turkey.

Sworn enemies Erdogan and Netanyahu back the same peace proposal.

But it’s the Qataris who are at the heart of this. Netanyahu over-reached badly when he authorised the failed air strike on the Hamas negotiating team in Doha on September 9.

Having publicly stated several times that the attack was entirely justified, Netanyahu was forced to make a grovelling apology to the Qatari leader soon after President Trump welcomed him to the White House on Monday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meeting US President Donald Trump at the White House. Credit: AP

And then Trump followed that up by announcing that he was making Qatar a sort of American protectorate.

If anyone, including Israel, attacks Doha again, they may face the wrath of the US military.

This was a big reward for the Qataris, a carrot that will have added pressure on them to persuade Hamas to accept Trump’s peace terms.

Perhaps they pointed out to the Hamas leadership that while Qatar is now a guaranteed safe haven, nowhere else is, and that if they rejected the plan they’d be thrown out of the country.

In the Middle East, conventional diplomacy has failed more often than not. Donald Trump does it differently.

Incredibly he’s got the peace train rolling.

We should all wish him well.

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