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.