Hold That Nobel Prize: This Peace Plan Will Die, and Bibi Will Kill It

Within two weeks, a disillusioned, agitated and livid-with-Netanyahu’s antics Trump adopted a general framework and plan: a somewhat vague outline of how to end the war and an intricate yet nebulous roadmap of “Postwar Gaza.” He forced Benjamin Netanyahu into endorsing it publicly, realizing that a Netanyahu pledge and commitment made in a closed room has the lifespan and credibility of a mayfly.

Yet the plan begins with a clear and attainable goal, not with the intractable down-the-road obstacles: a ceasefire, even if temporary, and a hostage release. This is what dejected and traumatized Israelis want (except for one Benjamin Netanyahu); this is what desolate Palestinians are desperate for; this is what Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, Trumpworld’s business buddies, had implored him to do, and this is exactly what Trump announced ceremoniously on both Wednesday and Thursday.

The ad was aired a week after Israel’s reckless attack on Doha, without U.S. coordination or sufficient advance notice, in a bold attempt to kill three Hamas leaders directly involved in negotiations in the middle of the capital city of the chief mediator, Qatar. This was not only Netanyahu’s hubris at work, attacking a U.S. ally, but an audacious overreach that tested Trump’s notoriously flat learning curve (see Vladimir Putin). During the White House meeting where he presented his plan, and to make Netanyahu realize just how serious he was, Trump resorted to old-fashioned humiliation: He made him apologize to the Prime Minister of Qatar in a call on a phone the president was by sheer coincidence holding on his lap, with Mohammad Al Thani on the other side.