Two things can be true at the same time – an adage so apt for the past day.
This was the Trump show. There’s no question about that. It was a show called by him, pulled off for him, attended by leaders who had no other choice and all because he craves the ego boost.
Gaza deal signed – as it happened
But the day was also an unquestionable and game-changing geopolitical achievement.
Trump stopped the war, he stopped the killing, he forced Hamas to release all the hostages, he demanded Israel to free prisoners held without any judicial process, he enabled aid to be delivered to Gaza, and he committed everyone to a roadmap, of sorts, ahead.
He did all that and more.
He also made the Israel-Palestine conflict, which the world has ignored for decades, a cause that European and Middle Eastern nations are now committed to invest in. No one, it seems, can ignore Trump.
Love him or loathe him, those are remarkable achievements.
‘Focus of a goldfish’
The key question now is – will he stay the course?
One person central to the negotiations which have led us to this point said to me last week that Trump has the “focus of a goldfish”.
It’s true that he tends to have a short attention span. If things are not going his way, and it looks likely that he won’t turn out to be the winner, he quickly moves on and blames someone else.
So, is there a danger of that with this? Let’s check in on it all six months from now (I am willing to be proved wrong – the Trump-show is truly hard to chart), but my judgement right now is that he will stay the course with this one for several reasons.
First, precisely because of the show he has created around this. Surely, he won’t want it all to fall apart now?
He has invested so much personal reputation in all this, I’d argue that even he wouldn’t want to drop it, even when the going gets tough – which it will.
Second, the Abraham Accords. They represented his signature foreign policy achievement in his first term – the normalisation of relations between Israel and the Muslim world.
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Back in his first presidency, he tried to push the accords through without solving the Palestinian question. It didn’t work.
This time, he’s grasped the nettle. Now he wants to bring it all together in a grand bargain. He’s doing it for peace but also, of course, for the business opportunities – to help “make America great again”.
Peace – and prosperity – in the Middle East is good for America. It’s also good for Trump Inc. He and his family are going to get even richer from a prosperous Middle East.
Read more:
Trump hails ‘peace in the Middle East’
His team ripped up golden rule to pull off peace plan
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Then there is the Nobel Peace Prize. He didn’t win it this year. He was never going to – nominations had to be in by January.
But next year he really could win – especially if he solves the Ukraine challenge too.
If he could bring his coexistence and unity vibe to his own country – rather than stoking the division – he may stand an even greater chance of winning.
