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Here is a quick summary of the reaction of some American Muslims to the news about the cease-fire agreement in Gaza: justification.
Last year there was a heated debate like so many in the community turned to the Democrats and supported Donald Trump, a Republican, in unusually high numbers — betting that he could succeed where Joe Biden failed and end the 15-month war between Israel and Hamas.
Their calculus has been questioned or even ridiculed, given the staunch pro-Israel stance of Trump’s party and the lack of evidence that he ever cares about the Palestinians.
But now some are pointing to reports that Trump made a bare-bones push to push through a long-delayed ceasefire deal days before he took office. The Israeli government has apparently been squeezed by its most important ally in the world: the leadership of the US Republican Party.
“At least in the short term, the calculation the community made seems to have paid off,” said Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan-based Council on American-Islamic Relations.
“President-elect Trump appears to have made good on his words to the community.”
Walid says he voted for Biden in 2020 but did not vote for a Democrat in 2024 and refused to reveal his choice at the ballot box.
Samra’a Luqman, for her part, has moved decisively across the political spectrum – as a progressive Bernie Sanders, who remains a Democrat, but voted for Trump in frustration.
“I’m thrilled that the one promise that President Trump made to me came true before he was even inaugurated,” the Dearborn, Mich., woman told CBC News on Wednesday.
“If there’s one thing I feel, it’s anger that Biden couldn’t have done it earlier on his own and (offered) relief for the children of Gaza.”
It is undoubtedly early to make long-term predictions about important questions such as: Will this deal work? Will the peace be maintained? And, this is crucial, will it lead to a better future for the Palestinians? This will be scrutinized in the coming days, months and years.
In the meantime, we may be witnessing the end of a catastrophic war that killed tens of thousands and destabilized the entire world.
Teamwork, says Biden
For his part, the current president described it as teamwork. Details of the ceasefire agreement they are very similar to the long-delayed proposal his administration put forward in May, with a hostage and prisoner exchange.
But he credited his team’s hard work in getting the deal done and admitted he had instructed them to get the new administration on board.
“The Bible says: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’ Many peacemakers helped make this deal happen,” Biden said at the White House.
However, he offered mixed messages when it came to Trump’s role. Biden celebrated what the current and future administrations are saying as one American team. But when a reporter asked if Trump deserved the credit, he shot back, “Is that a joke?”
US President Joe Biden spoke on Wednesday after the Qatari prime minister announced that Israel and Hamas had reached an agreement to pause the war in Gaza and release the hostages. “Too many innocent people have died, too many communities have been destroyed,” Biden said.
Here’s what we know.
This is reported by several Israeli media Trump’s team under pressure Benjamin Netanyahu’s government accepted the deal, albeit reluctantly.
There was a colorful detail in one socket. Haaretz reports that Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steven Witkoff, called from Qatar late last Friday to tell Netanyahu’s aides that he would be in Israel and meet the following afternoon.
Aides politely explained, the newspaper said, that Netanyahu would be in the middle of Saturday’s festivities but would meet with him later that evening.
They were shocked by the response of a secular Jew, a New York real estate developer appointed by Trump. Witkoff does not communicate with typical diplomatic finesse, Haaretz said, citing a senior Israeli diplomat, and explained in “salty English” that he was “not interested” in Saturday.
The new administration was eager to take credit. The White House’s next national security adviser, Mike Waltz, attributed the breakthrough to the “Trump effect,” on X.
Trump himself wasted little time grabbing the credit.
“We’ve accomplished so much without even being in the White House,” he posted on his Truth Social website.
He promised to translate this pact into broader agreements, seeming to allude to the possibility of a peace agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
After months of negotiations, Israel and Hamas are closer than ever to reaching a ceasefire agreement. The National reveals how the ceasefire could play out.
‘Permanent Rebellion’
Now comes the hard part.
The Biden administration has argued that long-term peace requires greater political self-determination for the Palestinians, including a path to statehood.
Without it, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a speech this week, violent attacks, including by a resurgent Hamas, will only continue.
“What we’re looking at (without Palestinian freedom) is a perpetual insurgency that will bleed and wear Israel down, and a never-ending war,” Blinken said.
Trump will only really deserve praise if he works toward a brighter political future for the Palestinians, says Eric Alterman, a journalist and author who has been deeply critical of both the president-elect and Netanyahu.
That’s because it’s still unclear whether Trump has any interest in it. Alterman says he could still turn a blind eye as Israel annexes new parts of the West Bank, making a Palestinian state increasingly impossible.
In fact, he says, it’s possible that as part of Wednesday’s deal, Netanyahu extracted some kind of assurance from Trump that he would turn a blind eye.
“We’ll see how much it pays off in the future,” said Alterman, who wrote a book on the history of American policy towards Israel.
“I’m not willing to give him credit yet. It’s not even the first day (of his presidency).”
Alterman says it’s unclear what moved the deal forward after a months-long delay and inspired Netanyahu to accept an offer he had previously rejected.
It’s also unclear whether Biden could have done much better. Many have argued that Biden could have cut off Israel’s weapons, but, Alterman says, it’s not clear that would have worked.
He says that Biden was afraid of losing a direct confrontation with Netanyahu – that the American people would side with Israel, and Israel would continue its operation in Gaza anyway.
Bottom line: Biden wasn’t willing or able to apply the kind of pressure Trump did, he says, and that’s a permanent scar on the presidential legacy with several domestic successes.
As for Trump, Alterman said, “The world will understand it, appropriately, as Donald Trump came and demanded a deal — because he wanted a deal.”
