David Ignatius on Israel–Hamas Deal: ‘Joe Biden Could Never Do That, and Donald Trump Was Able To Do It’

SCARBOROUGH: “David Ignatius it’s so fascinating, as Elizabeth said, Israelis, their belief has been if anybody was going to be able to resolve it would be Donald Trump. That’s on the Israeli side of the ledger. I know you and I have been in meetings before together speaking with Arab leaders and Arab diplomats who said the same thing, only Donald Trump can resolve this issue. He understands us. We understand him. Which again, very unique that you’re hearing that not only from the people on the streets of Israel, but also hearing that from Arab diplomats and leaders.”
IGNATIUS: “So, Joe, on the two sides of that, I can remember in the month or so after October 7, an Israeli senior official saying to me, we are so disoriented and traumatized by this war. the United States is going to have to make decisions for us. Joe Biden could never do that. And Donald Trump was able to do it and did it at the decisive moment when he said, essentially, this war must end and Israel cannot annex the West Bank, which many right-wing Israelis wanted. In the same way, he — he reached out to the Arabs and said, I’m serious about peace and began to work with them quietly since Steve Witkoff, an unlikely emissary, but Witkoff developed an extraordinarily close relationship in particular with the Qataris. And behind the scenes, they have moved week by week toward the deal that they announced a week ago, the 20-point plan. What’s interesting about that, Joe and Mika, is that it took ideas from all over the Arab world, from the U.A.E., from Qatar, from Saudi Arabia, from Tony Blair in Britain, and pulled them all together into a single plan with the U.S. weight of support behind it. That’s how we got here. And in each case, it’s Trump deciding these people, endless combatants cannot do it on their own, I’m going to intervene forcefully. Tragically, that is something that Joe Biden, for all his desire for peace, wasn’t able to do.”