🔗 Share this article

Initially, the Israeli aerial attack on the Hamas delegation in Doha seemed like another escalation that pushed the hope of a ceasefire further away.

The attack on 9 September breached the territorial integrity of an American ally and threatened widening the hostilities into a region-wide war.

Diplomacy seemed to be collapsing.

Instead, it turned out to be a key moment that culminated in a deal, declared by Donald Trump, to free all remaining hostages.

This is a objective that he, and President Joe Biden previously, had sought for nearly two years.

This marks just the initial phase towards a more durable peace, and the details of Hamas disarmament, Gaza governance and complete Israeli pullout are still to be worked out.

Yet if this deal stands, it could be Donald Trump's defining accomplishment of his return to office - one that eluded Joe Biden and his diplomatic team.

The president's unique style and crucial relationships with the Israeli government and the Middle Eastern nations appear to have contributed in this success.

However, as with many foreign policy wins, there were also factors involved beyond the control of both leaders.

A Close Relationship That Biden Never Had

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

The president likes to say that Israel has no better friend, and Netanyahu has called him as the country's "greatest ever ally in the US presidency". Moreover these positive statements have been matched by actions.

During his first presidential term, the president moved the American diplomatic mission in Israel from its former location to the contested capital and discarded a long-held US position that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank are against international law, the position under international law.

When the Israeli military began its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic in June, Trump directed American aircraft to strike the Iran's atomic sites with its largest non-nuclear weapons.

These visible shows of backing may have given the president the room to exert more pressure on Israel in private. According to reports, Trump's envoy, his representative, pressured Netanyahu in the latter part of the year into accepting a halt in fighting in return for the freeing of a number of captives.

When Israeli forces attacked against Syria's military in July, including hitting a Christian church, the US president pressured his counterpart to change course.

The leader displayed a level of will and pressure on an Israel's leader that is rarely seen, says Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There is no example of an American president directly instructing an Israeli leader that they must agree or else."

Joe Biden's connection with the Israeli administration was always more tenuous.

The Biden team's "bear hug strategy" argued that the US had to embrace the nation publicly in order to enable it to influence the country's military actions behind closed doors.

Beneath this was Biden's nearly half-century of backing for the state, as well as deep disagreements within his Democratic coalition over the conflict in Gaza. Every step Biden took endangered dividing his own domestic support, while Trump's loyal conservative voters gave him more room to manoeuvre.

In the end, internal considerations or individual ties may have had little impact than the reality that, throughout Biden's presidency, Israel was unwilling to make peace.

Several months into his new administration, with the Islamic Republic chastened, Hezbollah to its immediate north greatly diminished and Gaza in ruins, all its major strategy objectives had been accomplished.

Business History Assisted Gain Gulf's Backing

The Israeli missile attack in Doha, which killed a local national but not the intended targets, led the president to issue an final demand to the prime minister. Hostilities had to stop.

Trump had allowed Israel a significant latitude in Gaza. The president lent American military might to Israel's campaign in Iran. But an attack on Qatar soil was a separate issue completely, moving him closer to the Arab position on how best to end the war.

Several Trump officials have told media outlets that this was a turning point which galvanised the president to apply maximum pressure to get a peace deal done.

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

His Abraham Accords, which established ties between Israel and a number of Arab nations, such as the UAE, was the most significant foreign policy success of his first term.

His visits devoted in the cities of the Gulf region in recent months contributed to change his thinking, says an expert of the a policy institute. The US president did not travel to Israel on this Middle East trip but went to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the state where the leader heard consistent appeals to put a stop to the conflict.

Less than a month after that Israeli strike on Doha, Trump sat close as Netanyahu personally phoned Qatar to express regret. Subsequently, the Israeli leader gave approval on Trump's comprehensive proposal for the territory - one that additionally had the backing of influential Arab states in the area.

If the president's alliance with Netanyahu provided him the ability to pressure Israel to strike a deal, his history with Arab rulers may have ensured their support, and assisted them persuade the group to agree to the arrangement.

"A key factor that evidently occurred was that President Trump developed leverage with the Israelis, and through intermediaries with Hamas," says Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This was crucial. His ability to achieve this on his timing, and avoid yielding to the desires of the combatants has been a problem that many previous presidents have struggled with, and he appears to handle with some success."

The reality that Trump is far better liked in Israel than the prime minister personally was an advantage that he employed to his advantage, the expert continues.

Now Israel has agreed to freeing over a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons and has agreed to a partial withdrawal from the strip.

The group will release all the captives still held, living and dead, captured in the original 7 October assault, which caused the loss of over 1,200 Israelis.

A conclusion to the conflict, which has resulted in the devastation of the territory and the deaths of over 67,000 {Palestinians|Pal