Israel-Hamas war: Why Trump wants a Gaza ceasefire, explained

Is a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas coming soon? It depends who you ask. Since last week, multiple news reports have indicated there has been a breakthrough in negotiations between the two sides. But other reports indicate there are still large gaps to overcome, and the exact nature of the conditions necessary to get to a ceasefire and hostage deal remains murky.

If one does emerge, however, one person will try to take credit for it: Donald J. Trump.

On Monday, the president-elect held a press conference where he echoed remarks his account posted on Truth Social threatening “all hell to pay” if hostages held in Gaza were not released by the time he took office.

“I’ll be very available on January 20th,” he said. “And we’ll see. As you know, I gave a warning that if these hostages aren’t back home by that date, all hell’s gonna break out.”

Since the conflict erupted on October 7, 2023, a comprehensive hostage deal and ceasefire has remained elusive (though a pause in the Israeli offensive in November 2023 allowed for the release of 50 hostages taken on October 7 in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners and more aid to Gaza). This week, however, a senior Palestinian negotiator told the BBC that talks are in a “decisive and final phase” and both Israeli and American officials were reportedly traveling to participate in ceasefire talks in Doha, Qatar.

Reporting by the Wall Street Journal and NBC suggests that Trump’s decision to insert himself into negotiations has helped to push Hamas toward a deal. To understand what effect a looming Trump presidency might be having on the talks and the future of the conflict, Today, Explained sat down with Steven A. Cook, senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Cook spoke with Today, Explained co-host Noel King about the prospects for a ceasefire, Trump’s track record on Israel, and how Trump might approach Israel and the ongoing conflict during his second term. Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

How did Trump approach Israel in his first term?

Well, Trump was a very pro-Israel president, which is saying something because most presidents actually are very pro-Israel. He moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, [a change] that had been law since the late 1990s but no president had ever acted on it. He recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights and turned a blind eye to the worst excesses of the Israeli government when it came to settlements in the West Bank.

Donald Trump is always being buffeted by two competing narratives. One of them is that things in the Middle East are very hard to get done, to the degree that, often, nothing gets done. And the other is “Donald Trump just gets things done.” Was it hard for Trump to get done on Israel what he did in his first term?

Well, no, because he basically did it by presidential fiat.

First, as I said, the move of the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was something that was a law that Congress passed, I believe, in 1998. So it just was a matter of the president saying, “I’m going to move the embassy to Jerusalem.” Previous presidents had said, “for national security reasons, we don’t want to prejudice the outcome of final status negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. Therefore, we’re going to keep things as they are, even though we have the right to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.”

Trump said, “No, I’m going to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.” He didn’t get anything from the Israelis for it, which was likely a diplomatic mistake, but it was really something that he was doing to placate his evangelical base, which [wants] very, very strong US support for Israel and maximalist Israeli policies.

The world has arguably gotten more complex since Donald Trump’s last term. Russia, Ukraine, October 7th, every nation that was pulled in after October 7th. Do you think Trump and his foreign policy team recognize things may be more complicated this time around?

You’d like to think that they do, that they’re in touch with reality. Some of the statements that Trump has made about the region would suggest that he thinks he’s just going to pick up where he left off when he reluctantly left office in January 2021. He’s been talking about expanding the Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia. That has been greatly complicated as a result of the war in the Gaza Strip. The Saudi price for normalization has gone up steeply since the war began. And now the Saudis are demanding an actual two-state solution, something that the Israelis are not prepared to even entertain at this moment.

The president also seems to think that he can just say there needs to be a hostage deal and there will be a ceasefire and hostage deal in the Gaza Strip. I think he, at least in his statements, doesn’t recognize how dramatically different the region is from when he left office.

Do any of his appointments reflect the major changes the region has undergone?

The national security adviser-designate, Congressman Mike Walz, is someone who is a very pro-Israel personality. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who’s been designated to be the secretary of state, also has very strong pro-Israel credentials. And of course, his [designate for] UN permanent representative is Elise Stefanik, the congresswoman from New York, who made a name for herself for being pugnaciously pro-Israel, as well as taking on elite college presidents in those famous hearings after the October 7 attacks. And then there is Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, who’s been named US ambassador to Israel, who is a very, very pro-Israel figure. He doesn’t recognize the Palestinian people as a nation. And he doesn’t regard Israel’s settlement in the West Bank as illegal.

This is an administration that is very pro-Israel. But of course, these people may end up just being implementers, bit players in what President Trump decides to do. And based on his first term, what he decides to do is what his gut tells him. He sees himself as a great negotiator, and I think at least on the two-state solution and on Iran’s nuclear program, that self-perception as a great negotiator and dealmaker may cause tension with an Israeli government that has other views on these two issues.

What do we know of the truth about what Trump and Netanyahu think of each other?

Well, I read Jared Kushner’s memoir of his time in the White House so that no one else had to. It was truly a dreadful read. But one of the things I learned was that with Netanyahu and Trump, there was a very significant trust deficit between the two leaders.

Trump was always concerned that Netanyahu was going to double-cross him and in those series of elections that the Israelis had while Trump was in office, Trump was actually rooting for Benny Gantz, who was the former IDF chief of staff who leads in an opposition party.

Netanyahu was always worried that Trump would run afoul of Israel’s interests, like sit down and negotiate with the Iranians over a new nuclear deal. Add to that the fact that Prime Minister Netanyahu relatively quickly called President Joe Biden when his election was confirmed in November 2020, [which] angered President Trump.

So ever since Trump’s reelection, Netanyahu has made a real effort to call Trump, placate Trump, what have you. But I still think that that trust deficit remains because Trump has a different view of things like the two-state solution and the Iran nuclear program than the Israelis do.

It is Tuesday afternoon as we speak and we’re hearing a ceasefire may be near. When do you think we’ll get a ceasefire?

I’ve been listening to columnists and others telling me that a ceasefire is imminent since at least February 2024. And what I know is that Hamas, and the person of [former Hamas leader] Yahya Sinwar, who the Israelis killed a number of months ago, was not interested in a ceasefire, believing that Hamas was winning the conflict because there’s a total war, and even though the Israelis were doing a lot of damage to Hamas’s cadres in the Gaza Strip, Israel’s international legitimacy was suffering greatly as a result of the conflict. And for Yahya Sinwar and others within Hamas, this was one of the goals, to undermine Israel’s legitimacy in the international order.

And then, of course, on the Israeli side, the settlers did not want a ceasefire. They want the quote-unquote “total destruction” of Hamas to clear the way for the Israelis to resettle the Gaza Strip. So there was no real incentive for a ceasefire.

Things have changed significantly since then, however. The Israelis have done a tremendous amount of damage to Hezbollah, Iran’s primary proxy in Lebanon, to the point that Hezbollah has been forced to cut a deal with Israel and there’s now a ceasefire in Lebanon. That leaves Hamas standing alone, which means Hamas now needs to make a decision: Will it save the remnants of itself by cutting a deal with the Israelis, or will it fight on believing that the continued fight will damage Israel internationally and that they’re going to play the long game?

Some of the indications coming from Israeli ministers and others, the Egyptians and others, are that Hamas has dropped a major sticking point, which is that they demanded that all Israeli forces leave the Gaza Strip. So that may pave the way towards a ceasefire and a hostage exchange.

There are a million reasons to want a ceasefire here, not least of which is the humanitarian catastrophe, which has unfolded for more than a year. But in the blunt calculus of politics, if we do get a ceasefire before Donald Trump is inaugurated, who gets the win? Trump? Biden? Will they fight over it?

Certainly Trump will claim it. The Biden team will also claim it. They’ve been working at this since the very beginning. I would say that the credit goes to the IDF — the IDF smashed Hezbollah, something that no Western analysts believe that they could do without utter destruction of Israeli population centers. And so once Hezbollah sued for a ceasefire, Hamas really was alone and without any recourse whatsoever.

Of course Donald Trump will claim it. That’s why he’s been posting on Truth Social and said in his first press conference that there would be hell to pay if the hostages weren’t returned by the time he’s inaugurated. He’s essentially setting it up so he takes the credit for it.