Will Donald Trump Follow Through on His Plan For Gaza?
It was a Middle East tour to celebrate ending what Donald Trump called “3,000 years” of conflict and it lasted less than 12 hours.
Leaders lined up to flatter the US president, the Israeli parliament gave him a hero’s welcome, hostage families chanted his name and Arab leaders gathered for a “peace summit” in Egypt, posing for photos as the self-proclaimed peacemaker cajoled them into giving a thumbs-up to the cameras.
Even Trump’s critics conceded that he had achieved a significant breakthrough, securing a ceasefire to the two-year war in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages with his unique, pugnacious brand of diplomacy.
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Michael Makovsky, president of the pro-Israel Jewish Institute for National Security of America in Washington, predicted that Israel could restart its war in Gaza once Trump’s “misplaced” optimism over the likelihood of Hamas’s disarmament wears off.
“If they resume this offensive that they’ve paused for this deal, they’re going to go in much harder, because they don’t have the hostages to worry about,” Makovsky said.
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Read the full piece in the Financial Times.