Who deserves credit for the Gaza ceasefire?

Since the Gaza ceasefire was announced last week, two distinct narratives have emerged. The first gives President Donald Trump the lion’s share of credit. The second, mostly pushed by former Biden officials, is trying to share the glory. Both are wrong and for the same reason: they give the United States unrealistic credit and ignore the obvious fact that it is the belligerents who decide the fate of a war. More than any world leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu deserves credit.

After the return of the living hostages, Biden-administration Secretary of State Antony Blinken posted on X to explain the ceasefire’s emergence: “It’s good that President Trump adopted and built on the plan the Biden Administration developed after months of discussion with Arab partners, Israel and the Palestinian Authority.”

Blinken is correct that Biden and Trump plans are similar, but there’s a big difference between devising and implementing a plan. The Biden administration had an uneasy relationship with Israel. This led to Israeli distrust of any American proposal on the one hand and Hamas’s hopes that, by exploiting the tensions, it could get more favorable terms or even a unilateral Israeli withdrawal.

More important is the fact that the Biden plan contained clauses that doomed it to failure. The initial stages of that plan saw Hamas agree to release the living hostages drip by drip. Israel was wary of this as it would have potentially allowed the terrorist group to leverage hostages even after a ceasefire had been reached. The only plan Israel could expect – given Hamas’s habit of “playing games” with hostages – was one that saw a simultaneous liberation. By March, it became clear that the drip-feed Biden framework would not secure an ending to the war, and Israel resumed fighting. As the Persian proverb goes, if the mason lays the first stone crooked, the wall will be crooked all the way up to the stars.

The Trump plan made sure to plant the first stone straight: it ensured the initial stages were acceptable to Israel. It made Hamas responsible for starting the ceasefire by releasing all the living hostages at once and then returning the dead bodies.

Even so, Trump can’t really take credit for this. As the Israeli journalist Amit Segal wrote, “Every Trump plan [for] the Middle East is a plan written by Ron Dermer (senior adviser to Netanyahu) and just wrapped in this shining bright gift package to President Trump.” Avi Shavit further reports that Dermer, former U.K. prime minister Tony Blair, and Emirati president Mohamed bin Zayed had been working on this plan since December 2023. This proved mutually beneficial for Israel and Trump. Any plan that seemed to come obviously from Israel would have been rejected by Hamas and Arab states, so by allowing Trump to take credit for a framework, the Israelis increased the likelihood of its acceptance. And by putting his name on it, of course, Trump got to be the peacemaker. The genius of the so-called Trump plan is that it was conceived in Jerusalem then slapped with a “Made in America” label.

Many of the talking heads who Trump deserves most of the credit for ending the war argue – without evidence – that he did so by exerting pressure on Netanyahu to wrap things up. There is no evidence that he did so. In fact, all evidence points to the opposite. The attitude of the Trump administration toward Israel behind closed doors has been to ask, “What do you need from us?” This was a reversal of Biden-administration policy, which berated Israel and frequently withheld arms deliveries.

In other words, the Trump administration applied pressure not to Israel, but to Hamas. And they did so primarily by getting out of Israel’s way. After the President chose not to resist Israel’s invasion of Gaza City, Hamas’s last stronghold, the terrorist group realized it could not drive a wedge between the US and the IDF.

What this means is that the majority of the credit must go not to Trump – and certainly not to Biden – but to Benjamin Netanyahu and the strength of Israeli soldiers. This is not a criticism of Trump, who did everything right, but a simple fact that the belligerents are the primary drivers of change.

Non-belligerents can only do so much to end a conflict. This war only ended when the US decided to get out of Israel’s way. As our nation’s policymakers again turn their full attention to Russia and Ukraine, they would be wise to remember this fact.