Fred Kaplan at Slate has the low down on the “big meeting” between Trump and Netanyahu today:
President Donald Trump appeared before the White House press corps Monday, proclaiming it “one of the great days ever in civilization … a historic day of peace … let’s call it eternal peace” for Gaza and the entire Middle East. But then, after 45 minutes of mutual back-rubbing, he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said they would not take questions because they were waiting for “signatures and approvals” on many documents.
So does this mean the two leaders and the Arab powers in the Middle East didn’t make peace in our time?
Most crucially, Trump and Netanyahu admitted that Hamas had not agreed to any of the 22 articles in a peace proposal written mainly by Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff; Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who helped write the Abraham Accords in his first term; and Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, who has been involved in several Middle East peace ventures.
If Hamas still refuses to sign, Trump made clear, Israel would have the right to finish the war any way it wants—and the United States would support the assault.
That should probably be the lede here—Netanyahu got Trump’s endorsement for extending the war in Gaza to some vision of total victory—because, first, Hamas has rejected most of these terms in the recent past and, second, it is not clear that the Arab and Muslim powers in the region have agreed to all of the articles either.
There you have it.
The press conference was so bad I had to turn it off. The two of them congratulating themselves was just too much to take especially since it was pretty obvious that nothing substantive had happened except that Trump had promised if Hamas didn’t come to heel within 72 hours he gave permission to keep killing and destroying at will.
It was when Trump announced the “Board of Peace” for Gaza chaired by him that I had to check out, especially after listening to this garbage for more than half an hour:
Trump spent much of his monologue in the press room boasting, as he has many times, that no other president could have done this, especially “Sleepy Joe” Biden, whom he condemned or ridiculed three times. He also spent a few seconds moaning once more about the U.N. teleprompter that malfunctioned right before his speech to the General Assembly. (He noted that he delivered remarks “from the heart” anyway, adding, “Could Biden have done that? I don’t think so.”)
Yeah whatever. Kaplan concludes with this sad dose of reality:
If Trump and the Arab leaders are serious about making peace in Gaza, they will have to mount the same sort of pressure: Trump on Netanyahu, the Arabs (especially Qatar) on Hamas. Nothing in this proposal or in Monday’s press conference indicates that any of the outside powers are ready to impose such pressure. So the war is likely to thunder on.
Just another photo op in the gaudy, golden oval for Trump.