Trump Should Keep His Eyes on the (Nobel) Prize in the Mideast | Opinion

President Donald Trump loves being a disruptor, but his wrecking ball is mostly misdirected: tariff wars with Canada and Mexico, withdrawing from the World Health Organization, sneers at allies and cancelling USAID—these and similar actions are bad for Americans and terrible for the world. The Middle East is the exception: it's practically begging for a bashing of heads. Trump seems just the man, and it begins Tuesday.

Trump's meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—the first foreign leader at the White House since the inauguration—is one of those rare summits that actually cannot be replaced with a phone call, and as such is not a waste of taxpayer dollars. There is a puzzle of statesmanship that must be solved very quickly, with carrots and sticks that are best presented in person, and behind closed doors.

The pieces of the puzzle include (but are not limited to) the following: ensuring the ceasefire deal in Gaza is carried out to the end, despite Netanyahu's probable desire to scuttle it halfway through in order to preserve his far-right coalition government; a plan for governing Gaza after Hamas; a roadmap of hope for the Palestinians that preserves security for Israelis; peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia; and a strategic plan for dealing with Iran's nuclear program.

The prize for getting all this right just might be a Nobel Peace Prize for Trump—as absurd as that may seem to anyone who has followed his gauche, ignorant, bullying, legally dubious path from 1970s Manhattan real estate conman to world record holder for impeachments in the House of Representatives. And it would be deserved.

At the core of this high-stakes maneuver is the war in Gaza. The current ceasefire deal, if fully implemented, will require Israel to end its military campaign while Hamas remains in power. It is simply a fact that while Israel has destroyed much of the jihadist group's fighting force and killed its top leadership, it has failed to wipe it out entirely. Indeed, Hamas has recruited thousands of new fighters and engages in shows of force by hooded men brandishing automatic weapons at each of the recent hostage release extravaganzas.

In large part this is because Netanyahu himself has refused to discuss the day after Hamas, because his far-right allies oppose the only plausible alternative to Hamas—the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, run by the more moderate Fatah movement. So, once Israel leaves Gaza, Hamas takes over again and declares a twisted form of victory—giving joy and encouragement to terrorists the world over.

The far-right parties—who basically prefer a forever-war and an effort to expel the Gazans and resettle the strip with Jews—threaten credibly to bring down the government over this. That's why Netanyahu is under suspicion of trying to scuttle the second stage of the ceasefire next month. Preventing this is Job One for Trump's team.

The challenge is that Netanyahu—Israel's longest-serving premier ever—is pathologically obsessed with staying in power. And the likeliest way Netanyahu can survive politically while ending the war is if he walks away with something bigger—something that allows him to shift from a messy war narrative to a glorious peace narrative ahead of Israel's next election. That something could be "normalization"—a bureaucrat's word for peace—with Saudi Arabia. This would finally clear the way for a Western-Sunni-Israeli military alliance arrayed against Iran and its terrorist proxies—which the Saudis desire.

Saudi Arabia has long insisted that Palestinian statehood is the prerequisite. But a new formula may be emerging. In 2020, the UAE and Bahrain made peace with Israel in exchange for an Israeli commitment not to annex parts of the West Bank—far less than full Palestinian statehood, but enough of an achievement to give them political cover. This time, Saudi Arabia may be willing to enter a deal in exchange for Israel dropping its objections to the PA taking control of Gaza.

The logic here is clear: the PA, for all its corruption and dysfunction, is still a better alternative than Hamas, which has led Gaza into devastation and now clings to power in the wake of an unnecessary and brutal war.

Hamas—or what remains of it—will need to be convinced. And that's where the next round of Trumpian arm-twisted must come. Persuading the moderate countries—possibly through their generally-useless umbrella group, the Cairo-based Arab League—to put the squeeze on Hamas in a way that focuses jihadist minds.

The Arab countries have historically missed every opportunity for progress in the region—from rejecting the 1947 UN Partition Plan for the Holy Land to the Arab League's infamous "Three No's" of 1967 (no peace with Israel, no recognition, no negotiations). Even when it tried to play a constructive role—such as the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative — it failed to follow through with real diplomatic muscle. The so-called Arab Spring of 2011 came to tears as well, yielding a winter of civil wars and Islamist fanaticism, failed states and redoubled repression.

But the Arabs now will have a real opportunity to help the Palestinians by orchestrating Hamas's removal. The message should be clear: the tens of billions needed to rebuild Gaza and create the foundations for a future Palestinian state are available (and they are, essentially in escrow) but are absolutely conditioned on Hamas stepping aside.

If Trump is smart, his next invitations to the White House will be to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman together with his fellow Gulfie chieftains. They should be persuaded to declare publicly that while they support the goal of Palestinian statehood, Hamas undermines it and the invasion of Israel of Oct. 7, 2023, was a catastrophic error.

They should offer publicly to help the PA reform, including a transition plan for 89-year-old Mahmoud Abbas, who was last elected nearly two decades ago. A regional force, backed by Arab states, should be ready to help secure Gaza; exile should be offered to any Hamas leaders or fighters who desire it; and Qatar, which has long funded Hamas yet hosts the major U.S. military base in the region, must be pressured to shift its support toward Palestinian reconstruction under PA control.

Egypt will also need to finally enforce strict anti-smuggling measures along the Gaza border. In the past, weapons have flowed freely into Hamas's hands via tunnels from Sinai. If Egypt fails to comply, U.S. aid—both military and economic—should be on the line.

And Trump also has the option of squeezing European allies, which would be on-brand: Western nations, led by the United States, must be made to ensure that no funds reach Hamas through European financial networks. Every known conduit for Hamas financing must be shut down.

Some will argue that this is impossible, that Hamas will never willingly relinquish power. But history suggests otherwise. Organizations like Hamas depend on external funding, and when that is cut off entirely, pressure builds internally. Hamas takes great pride in its support among Palestinians—currently at between a third and two-thirds, depending on the moment, the alternatives and how the question is phrased.

If that support starts to crumble, and if Hamas is faced with a choice between total isolation — leading to Gaza's continued destruction—and stepping aside in exchange for reconstruction and legitimacy under the PA, cracks could begin to form in its leadership. There is a path forward.

There is another dimension to this already intricate Rubik's Cube of diplomacy: Iran. Netanyahu has long sought a green light for an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, something successive U.S. administrations have resisted.

But if Saudi-Israel normalization is on the table, and if the Arab League can orchestrate a Gaza solution, the Gulf states—including the UAE and Bahrain—may privately support a limited Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear program. Trump, always eager to project strength, may be tempted to quietly acquiesce.

Such a move would be fraught with risk, potentially igniting a wider conflict. But for Netanyahu, it could serve as a final bargaining chip—an assurance that Israel's most significant existential threat is being addressed, making the painful trade-offs in Gaza more politically palatable. Indeed, the moderate Israeli opposition would have no choice but to support him, freeing him of the diabolical Israeli far-right.

If all these moving pieces align, the result would be nothing short of historic. Netanyahu would secure a normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, cementing his legacy as a peacemaker rather than just a wannabe-authoritarian accused of war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

The Arab League, for the first time in its history, would play a decisive and constructive role in reshaping the Israeli-Palestinian landscape. Gaza would be freed from Hamas's grip, allowing for reconstruction and governance reforms under the PA. And Iran's nuclear ambitions could face a direct challenge, shifting the balance of power in the region.

It is an incredibly high-stakes gamble — one in which failure could lead to even greater instability, but success could fix a Middle East that's currently headed for the cliff.

If this succeeds, then Trump and perhaps even Netanyahu, and bin Salman might just find themselves as the most improbable trio to ever win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Dan Perry is the former Cairo-based Middle East editor and London-based Europe/Africa editor of the Associated Press, the former chairman of the Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem and the author of two books. Follow him at danperry.substack.com.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.