The Way Donald Trump Secured a Gaza Major Step Which Escaped Joe Biden

Initially, Israel's air strike on the Hamas militant delegation in Doha seemed like yet another intensification that pushed the prospect of peace further away.

The attack on September 9 violated the sovereignty of an American ally and risked widening the hostilities into a broader regional conflict.

Diplomacy seemed to be in ruins.

However, it proved to be a key moment that culminated in a agreement, announced by President Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

This is a goal that he, and Joe Biden before him, had sought for nearly two years.

It is just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the specifics of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and full Israeli withdrawal are still to be negotiated.

Yet if this agreement stands, it could be Donald Trump's signature achievement of his return to office - one that eluded Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's distinct approach and key alliances with Israel and the Arab world appear to have played a role in this success.

However, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also elements involved beyond the influence of either man.

A Close Relationship Which Biden Never Had

In public, Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are consistently friendly.

The president often states that Israel has no better friend, and the Israeli leader has called Trump as the country's "greatest ever ally in the White House". And these positive statements have been backed up by deeds.

During his first presidential term, Trump relocated the American diplomatic mission in the country from Tel Aviv to the contested capital and abandoned a traditional American stance that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, the position under global norms.

When the Israeli military began its air strikes against the Islamic Republic in June, the US leader ordered US bombers to strike the nation's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of backing may have given Trump the leeway to exert more pressure on the Israeli government behind the scenes. According to reports, the president's envoy, his representative, pressured the prime minister in the latter part of the year into agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in return for the freeing of some hostages.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syrian forces in the summer, including bombing a Christian church, the US president pressured his counterpart to change course.

Trump exhibited a level of will and pressure on an Israeli prime minister that is rarely seen, according to Aaron David Miller of the a think tank. "It's unheard of of an US leader directly instructing an Israeli prime minister that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's connection with Netanyahu's government was always more tenuous.

The Biden team's "close embrace approach" held that the US had to support the nation openly in order to allow it to moderate the country's military actions behind closed doors.

Underneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of support for Israel, as well as sharp divisions within his Democratic coalition over the Gaza War. Each move the leader took risked dividing his own domestic support, while his successor's solid Republican base provided him more flexibility to manoeuvre.

In the end, domestic politics or individual ties may have had little impact than the simple fact that, throughout his term, the Israeli government was not ready to make peace.

Several months into his new administration, with Iran chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and the coastal strip in ruins, all its key military goals had been achieved.

Business History Assisted Secure Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which resulted in the death of a local national but not the intended targets, led the president to deliver an ultimatum to the prime minister. The war had to stop.

The US leader had allowed Israel a relatively free hand in the territory. The president provided American military might to Israeli operations in Iran. However an attack on Qatari territory was a different matter entirely, moving him towards the stance of Arab nations on how best to conclude the conflict.

Several Trump officials have told media outlets that this was a turning point which motivated the leader to exert full force to finalize an agreement.

This US president's close ties with the Arab monarchies are widely known. Trump has commercial interests with the emirate and the United Arab Emirates. The president began both his presidential terms with state visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, he also visited in Doha and the UAE capital.

The president's Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and several Muslim states, including the Emirates, was the biggest foreign policy success of his first term.

The time he spent in the cities of the Arabian Peninsula in recent months helped shift his perspective, according to Ed Husain of the a policy institute. Trump did not visit the country on this regional tour but visited the UAE, the kingdom and the state where he received repeated calls to bring an end to the conflict.

Less than a month after that attack on Doha, Trump was present nearby as the prime minister himself called Qatar to apologise. Subsequently, the prime minister signed off on the president's 20-point peace plan for the territory - one that also had the support of key Muslim nations in the area.

If the president's alliance with his counterpart provided him the ability to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his past with Arab rulers may have secured their backing, and assisted them convince the group to agree to the arrangement.

"One of the things that clearly happened was that the US leader gained influence with the Israelis, and indirectly with Hamas," notes Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That made a difference. His ability to do this on his own schedule, and not succumb to the desires of the combatants has been a challenge that lot of earlier administrations have struggled with, and he appears to do with some success."

The reality that Trump is far better liked in Israel than Netanyahu himself was leverage that Trump employed to his benefit, the expert continues.

Currently Israel has agreed to freeing more than 1,000 detainees held in its jails and has agreed to a limited pullback from the strip.

The group will free all the remaining hostages, both alive and deceased, captured in the initial October 7 Hamas attack, which caused the death of over 1,200 Israelis.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has resulted in the destruction of the territory and the fatalities of more than 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal