How Three Real-Estate Moguls Ended the War in Gaza

The expert class believed that peace depended on pressuring Israel and appeasing its enemies. Trump and his allies succeeded by rejecting that myth.

By Michael Oren

For generations, soldiers, lawmakers, and ambassadors have attempted to end conflict in the region. During the Six-Day War in June 1967, Israel conquered Arab territories, then tried to trade this land in exchange for peace. In 1979, the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel promised “no more wars, no more bloodshed.” In 1993, the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization claimed to create a “New Middle East,” free of conflicts and even borders. All failed to establish enduring peace.

But Donald Trump, Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner—all adept at developing urban properties and golf resorts—seem to have succeeded where generations of aspiring peacemakers failed. How?

The answer is precisely that the Trump team is not a group of Middle East experts operating under the misconception that no Arab state would make peace with Israel before the creation of a Palestinian state. Neither Trump nor his envoys subscribed to the mainstream nostrum that Israel’s response to the terrorists trying to destroy it should be to cower under anti-missile batteries. Never did they believe that strategic advantage in the Middle East could be obtained by soft power, nor that Iran and its proxies could be incentivized to become responsible interlocutors, nor that the way to gain the cooperation of Israeli and Arab leaders was to cold-shoulder or browbeat them. They never accepted the myth that the way to end the war was to cut off arms supplies and military aid to Israel, isolate it internationally, and expose it to charges of war crimes and genocide.

Instead, Trump and his emissaries discarded all the experts’ assumptions. Kushner claimed to have read 25 books on the conflict while Witkoff may have read none, but what they knew could not be gleaned from a degree in Middle East studies. They understood that in diplomacy, as in construction projects, personal relations are paramount. All the region’s kings, and nearly every president and prime minister, had close working ties with this White House.

This meant that Trump was able to work toward peace by leaning not on Israel, but on Hamas and its principal backers, Qatar and Turkey. Rather than see Israeli military operations as a liability, if not a crime, inimical to peace, Trump and his fellow builders understood that Israel’s determination to fight was the only means of persuading Hamas to release all of the hostages and get Middle Eastern leaders to back the administration’s 20-point peace plan.

An example: On September 9, Israel launched an air strike on Qatar in an attempt to eliminate Hamas leaders gathering in Doha. The experts saw this strike as yet another opportunity to squeeze concessions out of Israel. Trump, by contrast, saw it as a means of convincing the Qataris that the war would not be limited to Gaza’s borders, and that it was time they told Hamas “enough.” He was right.

Trump and his emissaries understood that in diplomacy, as in construction projects, personal relations are paramount. All the region’s kings, and nearly every president and prime minister, had close working ties with this White House.

Of course, the Trump initiative was directed not only at ending the fighting in Gaza and releasing the hostages, but at demilitarizing and reconstructing the Strip. More broadly, it aims to expand the Abraham Accords and create a diplomatic horizon for the Palestinians.

As Trump said to the Israeli parliament on Monday: “Israel has won all that they can by force of arms. Now it is time to translate these victories. . . into the ultimate prize of peace and prosperity for the entire Middle East.”

This is a goal that’s contingent on convincing Hamas to give up its guns or be exiled from Gaza. And it is, again, where the experts will likely come in to claim that these hurdles are insurmountable.

But Trump could again prove them wrong. He and his fellow developers may yet find a way to succeed where the generals, politicians, and diplomats failed. By cutting off Hamas’s supply of arms and foreign cash and denying it the ability to steal humanitarian aid, they can force Hamas into submission. Its choice will remain as stipulated in Trump’s 20-point plan: Surrender or die.

The president, Hamas will learn, speaks the language of the Middle East, the language of strength.

Through that strength, the Middle East may finally, fundamentally, be transformed. Peace between Israel and Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and even Iran could indeed become a reality. The world’s largest Muslim countries—Indonesia and Pakistan—could join the Abraham Accords.

And, yes, Gaza could become an Eastern Mediterranean Riviera, its five-star hotels staffed by Hamas-hating Palestinians. Peace, as Trump has proven, can’t merely be negotiated—it has to be built. Real-Estate Moguls Ended the War in Gaza