When the stars align, U.S. and Western leverage can halt wars. The past two years show the Middle East cannot be left to its own devices.
If the Gaza war is winding down, there will be two clear lessons to be remembered. First, United States pressure and leverage are vitally useful; second, the Israelis and Palestinians cannot be left to their own devices without risking catastrophe, so U.S. engagement will be vital going forward.
The deal announced by Trump Wednesday night is a first-phase agreement in which Hamas consents to release the 47 remaining Oct. 7 hostages — of which 20 are believed alive — and to continue talking about the remainder of Trump’s proposed peace plan. Few expected Hamas to agree to that release, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, without a full deal to end the war. The assumption, supported by leaks, is that the group has received U.S. guarantees that fighting will indeed not resume.
The expectation, instead, is that in one form or another Hamas will agree to lay down its arms, at least in the Gaza Strip, handing power to a complex governing edifice that will include local Palestinian technocrats, the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, a multinational Arab force and an international oversight committee chaired by the U.S. If that occurs, it will only have happened because Hamas was under extraordinary pressure from external patrons.
Why did all this happen now? The timing reflects a convergence of domestic, regional, and global incentives, aligning in the following manner:
- In Israel, Netanyahu’s political calculus has shifted. The coalition faces looming crises: budget conflicts, ultra-Orthodox demands for formal military exemptions, and elections scheduled for 2026. The exhausted public has been demanding a resolution, prioritizing the return of hostages. Where prolonging the war once served Netanyahu by delaying political reckoning and forestalling an inquiry into his failures of October 7, the approach of elections now incentivizes a quick end. Moreover, Netanyahu cannot refuse Trump, who is lionized in Israel. He’ll flip the narrative away from the war’s cost to focus on its successes – an ultimate return of the hostages, the weakening of Iran and its militias, the freeing of Gaza from Hamas.
- Across the Arab world, the pressure was building too. Outrage over Gaza’s devastation made passivity politically dangerous. Egypt faced massive economic damage from the Yemeni Houthis’ Gaza-related disruptions of Red Sea shipping, which emptied Suez Canal revenues. Moreover, Israel’s thrashing of the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, the resulting fall of Hezbollah-backed Bashar Assad in Syria, and the weakening of Iran in the June war in Israel, all emboldened Arab leaders to turn against the militias – like Hamas – that Iran funded around the region. In July, a historic turning point occurred when key Arab governments, including Qatar, publicly called on Hamas to disarm — a Rubicon in regional politics.
- Potentially decisive was the addition of Turkey to the array of Muslim countries pressuring Hamas. Other than Qatar, Turkey had been a chief backer of Hamas, allowing funding channels and occasionally hosting its exiled leaders. With his economy reeling, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is seeking defense markets and access to American F-35s, and in Trump he has a U.S. leader indifferent to his authoritarian ways. It was an opportunity to help shove aside a huge distraction.
- Washington used this landscape to orchestrate overwhelming regional pressure on Hamas, with carrots and sticks incentivizing every relevant Muslim actor. The most clear-cut case was Qatar receiving last week a NATO-style security agreement from the U.S., clearly a down payment to get it to bring Hamas to heel. With the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner again involved in the talks, it should surprise no one to see Israeli-Saudi normalization, and similar U.S. security guarantees to Riyadh, soon reentering the discourse.
- Trump’s political and personal motivations are, as always, a factor, with public opinion in the United States turning against Israel. Just as the war created politically damaging splits in the Democratic Party headed into the 2024 election, it is creating fissures in the MAGA movement, with the isolationist branch abandoning Israel and bashing Trump over his alliance with Netanyahu. Resolving the Gaza crisis allows him to demonstrate effectiveness on the international stage, burnish credibility, and even, who knows, be in the running for Friday’s Nobel Peace Prize.
- In Europe the war was also becoming a massive political problem – riling up large Muslim minorities in the UK, France, Germany, Holland, Sweden and elsewhere. Britain was shaken just last week by the murder of two Jews by a Syrian-descended man in Manchester. Center-left governments like those of Keir Starmer and Emanuel Macron have watched the backlash strengthen the anti-migrant populist right. This is driven by popular anger at the inflow of Muslim migrants that resulted from the Syrian civil war, and fears that something similar could result now, stemming from the Gaza disaster. Thus incentivized, Europe can be expected to do what it must, diplomatically and financially, to pacify the Middle East.
And there will be much to be done, especially financially. Rebuilding Gaza will require tens of billions of dollars. Mainly, however, Israelis and Palestinians will need close supervision. With all due respect to local agency and principles of sovereignty, the two sides’ failure in managing their century-old conflict is too monumental, and too globally disruptive, to be ignored.
The Palestinians have produced weak, corrupt governance in the Palestinian Authority on one hand, and on the other a truly diabolical array of jihadist groups headlined by Hamas. And Israel has saddled itself with a right-wing government that seems to not understand the imperative of separating the Zionist enterprise from the masses of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
What should happen going forward is politically difficult but clear. Israel must be prevented by the U.S. from expanding its settlements in the West Bank, which undermine any credible path toward Palestinian statehood. Palestinians must be pressured to reform their governance: ending payments to the families of terrorists, banning all militias, reforming their education system to preach peace, and accepting realistic parameters for eventual statehood.
In the wider region, Arab states must not tolerate militias. Hezbollah must be disarmed in Lebanon. Iranian-backed Shia militias in Iraq must be neutralized or integrated under state authority. The Houthis must be decisively defeated to restore security to the Red Sea.
To follow through on all of this, US involvement remains critical. U.S. pressure cannot always work — for example, it lacks the leverage on Moscow to end the Ukraine war — but in the Middle East, the stars are aligning. Conditional financial support, diplomatic backing, and military guarantees must accompany every step.
The final step, which would be truly worthy of a Nobel Prize, should be the two-state solution ending a century of conflict in the Holy Land.
