peace

President Donald Trump’s peace plan, released Monday by the White House and approved by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is a powerful step toward ending the war in Gaza and securing a better future for both Israelis and Palestinians.

As a strong supporter of Israel and of Prime Minister Netanyahu, I am thrilled to see real leadership emerging from both Jerusalem and Washington. This proposal is an extremely well thought out, comprehensive vision for peace, reconstruction, and stability that places human life and coexistence above political games and terror.

By backing this plan, Netanyahu has demonstrated plainly that he is a statesman of historical stature committed to getting all the hostages released and obtaining peace, but not peace at any cost.

Trump’s generous plan puts the ball squarely in Hamas’s court.

By turning Gaza into a warren of terror tunnels and using Palestinian civilians as human shields, Hamas has led to Gaza’s ruin, while blaming Israel for every consequence of its own blind extremism. Hamas’s useful idiots around the world, of course, have happily echoed the terrorist group’s propaganda, despicably accusing Israel of genocide and famine, an unacceptable and antisemitic canard.

Both Trump and Netanyahu have made clear that, if Hamas refuses the deal, it would mean Hamas’s destruction: “Israel would have my full backing to finish the job of destroying the threat of Hamas,” President Trump said.

Netanyahu is showing the world that Israel will never back down from fighting terror, but it will always say yes to peace — provided that the other side is of good faith and truly willing to end violence. It is the total absence of the latter that is at the core of this conflict. 

President Trump has once again proven that he understands the Middle East like few others. In his first term, he rightly rejected the stale “peace process” and gave us the Abraham Accords, a historic breakthrough of normalization in the region. In his second term, he has stood shoulder to shoulder with Israel as it has waged an existential, seven-front war, going so far as to deploy U.S. planes to join Israel in its campaign against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Now, with this plan, Trump is offering a realistic framework, not an unworkable one that puts the onus on Israel.

Unlike past U.S. administrations that pressured Israel into dangerous concessions or empowered failed actors, Trump’s approach puts the safety of Israeli civilians first and demands accountability from the Palestinians. It lays out a vision of de-radicalization, reconstruction, and a way forward.  And while offering the carrot of peace and development, the President is also wielding a stick in the form of an ultimatum to Hamas.

The plan puts Hamas in a corner, because if it turns down a peace offer accepted by Israel (and much of the Arab and Muslim world), it will show its true colors to the world and give Israel the moral justification it needs to “finish the job.”

Israelis are exhausted from having fought this war for nearly two years. For the sake of Israelis and Palestinians, who have suffered tremendously due to Hamas’s violent fanaticism, I hope Hamas accepts the deal.

President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are to be commended for their clear-sightedness and courage, when so many of their predecessors – and contemporaries around the world – have displayed the precise opposite qualities.