The ‘indispensable’ players in securing a Middle East peace deal

President Donald Trump took a victory lap on Monday.

Speaking before the Israel Knesset, Trump hailed a “new dawn in the Middle East” before traveling to Egypt where he led world leaders in affirming a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.

Trump announced both parties had signed his 20-point peace plan last week, putting a stop to two years of conflict by requiring Hamas to return Israeli hostages and Israel to withdraw its troops from Gaza.

Close observers praised Trump for accomplishing the unlikely, with some emphasizing his threats to Hamas, and others highlighting the pressure he put on Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“You have to carry a big stick in this part of the world. And (Trump) speaks the language,” conservative columnist Bethany Mandel told the Deseret News.

Since Hamas’ massacre of Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, 2023, Mandel, who is an American Jew, has dedicated her time to drawing attention to the hostages in Gaza and helping their families.

With the remaining hostages returned to Israel on Monday, Mandel said it felt like “God had scripted this crazy moment” on the Jewish-calendar anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack which is also a religious holiday.

“The level of miracle — I cannot stress to you how meaningful this was today," Mandel said. “Very few people thought that we would get every single living hostage out of Gaza.”

Trump was uniquely positioned to force Hamas’ hand because, unlike his Democratic predecessors, he promised the destruction of the terrorist group and relied on likeminded surrogates to strike a deal, Mandel said.

Who is Jared Kushner?

At the center of the negotiations were the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who helped bring Israel, Hamas and surrounding nations to the table over the past several months.

Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump and is Jewish, played a high-profile role in Trump’s first term as an unpaid adviser. He is credited with helping to craft the landmark Abraham Accords that normalized relations between Israel and several Muslim countries.

Former Ambassador Robert O’Brien, who served as national security adviser to Trump from 2019 to 2021, said Kushner was the administration’s “‘Swiss Army knife’ diplomat on the Abraham Accords negotiations.”

“He would literally fly anywhere and talk with anyone to advance the ball,” O’Brien told the Deseret News. “He had little regard for his personal security in a dangerous region, which gave the Secret Service headaches because he was the president’s son-in-law. He was utterly unconcerned with getting credit for his work from the president, (former Secretary of State Mike) Pompeo or me.”

“He was totally focused on getting the peace deal done,” O’Brien continued. “I have said this before, while the Abraham Accords are 100% President Trump’s accomplishment, they would not have been signed without Jared’s relentless efforts.”

Like Trump and Witkoff, Kushner made his name in New York City real estate. After stepping away from international diplomacy to focus on his private equity firm, Kushner returned last month, and especially over the past week, according to multiple media reports, to help create a blueprint for ending the war.

The New York Times, Politico and CNN, among others, highlighted how Kushner capitalized on his business connections from managing investment funds in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to sell the financial incentives of ending the war.

“(Kushner) saw an opportunity for him to step in and make the final sale,” Mandel said.

Witkoff, Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, were welcomed in Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square on Saturday night by thousands of Israelis who broke into chants of “Thank you, Trump!”

Why was Trump successful?

Ultimately it was Trump who was responsible for the historic deal — not the business tactics of his fellow real estate developers, according to Aaron Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Could this deal have been done without Jared Kushner? Yeah. Could this deal have been done without Donald Trump? No,” Miller told the Deseret News. “We’re talking about indispensability.”

Miller, who has advised multiple U.S. presidents on Middle East policy, said three factors allowed Trump’s effort to succeed: his relationship with Netanyahu, pressure from neighboring countries and the weakness of Hamas.

After cultivating confidence with conservatives in Netanyahu’s government during his first term, Trump possessed the political capital to push them to accept a deal they otherwise would not, Miller said.

“No U.S. president has been as tough with an Israeli prime minister as Trump — that was critically important,” Miller said.

Trump’s personal “political clout” was the most important ingredient to bringing a pause to what has been an intractable conflict, according to Miller. But a long-lasting peace deal is still distant, he predicted.

The core divides over border security, refugees and Jerusalem remain as wide as they’ve ever been, Miller said, and no amount of clever business dealings on the part of Kushner or Witkoff is likely to close those gaps.

“It’s not a real estate deal,” Miller said. “Let’s be clear, without Trump, none of this would have happened.”

What’s in the Gaza peace plan?

Trump’s 20-point peace plan begins with the premise that Israel and Hamas must stop fighting. The Israel cabinet approved the ceasefire on Thursday, shortly after a meeting with Witkoff and Kushner.

Next, the Israel Defense Force agreed to leave nearly half of Gaza as the first of three drawdowns. This move was followed by the exchange of 20 living and some of the deceased Israeli hostages, for nearly 2,000 detained Palestinians.

The plan now includes an increase in aid deliveries to Gaza, the demilitarization of Hamas, the creation of a temporary governing board and the implementation of an economic development plan to “rebuild and energize Gaza.”