The 'Peacemaker-in-Chief'

"This was the granddaddy of them all. And frankly, I thought this was probably going to be the toughest, and maybe in many ways, it was."

"The prayers of millions have finally been answered. At long last, we have peace in the Middle East." 

"I've been involved in a lot of success. I have never seen anything like what's going on today." 

"Today, for the first time anyone can remember, we have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to put the old feuds and bitter hatreds behind us -- and to declare that our future will not be ruled by the fights of generations past." 

"Israel, with our  help, has won all that they can by force of arms. You've won. I mean, you've won. Now it's time to translate these victories against terrorists on the battlefield into the ultimate prize of peace and prosperity for the entire Middle East." 

"The total focus of Gazans must be on restoring the fundamentals of stability safety dignity, and economic development so they can finally have the better life that their children really do deserve after all these decades of  horror."

"I intend to be a partner in this effort." 

U.S. President Donald Trump 

U.S. President Donald Trump greets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he arrives at Ben Gurion International Airport, near Tel Aviv, on Monday. (Evan Vucci/The Associated Press)

 

The final release of the remaining Israeli hostages from Hamas hands in Gaza is indisputably a diplomatic tour de force, and no one can take that credit away from Donald Trump, the self-lauded master of the deal. From the unitary height of his position as the most powerful, influential man on this planet he exerted the weight he wields to convince all those involved in this ageless saga of suspicion and hatred, sectarian and tribal, to agree that terrorism cannot be permitted to destabilize an entire region, the tremblors of which may threaten the very peace of the entire globe.

 

That accomplished, the equally large challenge of future prospects in that tiny segment of the Middle East was addressed on the surface with the attendance of world leaders from Europe and the Middle East attending the global summit on the future of Gaza, in Sharm el Shiekh. In the absence of  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who declined to attend on a Jewish holiday, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Emir Shiekh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani of Qatar, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas pledged their commitment to a future Gaza. 

 

Twenty living Israeli hostages, young men to middle-aged men, captured by Hamas terrorists marauding through southern Israel on October 7, 2023, from kibbutzim and from the Nova Music Festival, were finally freed from the shackles of captivity after two years of starvation, shackles, privation and torture. The exchange price for their release was steep, the freeing of 1,700 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, among whom were murderers of Israelis. The disparity in numbers represents the usual fare paid by Israel for the release from captivity of their nationals from the hands of Palestinian terrorists. Experience has proven that the vast bulk of Palestinians released from Israeli prisons return to the very lethal predations that saw them imprisoned to begin with.

 

Nimrod Cohen, an Israeli hostage released from the Gaza Strip holds an Israeli flag after coming off a helicopter at the Ichilov Hospital, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

 

Now the issues at hand relate to the future of Gaza, to the vital  necessity of having Hamas disarm and surrender their weaponry, which they adamantly refuse to do, much less to vacate the Strip where they have over their years of governing it, transformed the land underground to a labyrinthine maze of tunnels for haven/escape from retaliatory attacks by the IDF following rocket strikes into Israel. Tunnels under hospitals, schools, private homes, apartment blocks, and mosques, where command posts, headquarters, weapons depots, communication stations and more were located. And more recently, subterranean dungeons for Israeli hostages.

 

There are pledges from Middle East nations and Western nations to help fund civic infrastructure, from the West, along with the ME nations to send peacekeepers to Gaza. No one has any solution how best to force Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to depart Gaza, to disarm, to disown their death charters for the destruction of Israel, for the deadly elimination of Jews everywhere. For his part, President Trump is 'confident' that the ceasefire he personally oversaw would be permanent. Skepticism abounds, however, among those with the experience of decades of conflict. 

 

It took no time at all for the realization to sink in that although the living hostages were restored to Israel and to their own lives as free men with a future ahead of them, Hamas failed in its signed obligation to transfer the 28 bodies of those whom they had murdered while in their custody; one woman and the rest Israeli men with the misfortune not to have been able to endure the hardships and psychological deadening of their inhumane incarcerations. The agreement was for the wholesale restoration of all Israelis, alive and dead. That old adage 'time will tell', certainly will. 

 

A crowd gathers around a bus carrying Palestinian prisoners who were released from an Israeli prison as part of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, upon his arrival in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)