(TNND) — Joyous crowds in Israel welcomed the release of hostages held for over two years by Hamas.
President Donald Trump was given a hero’s welcome during his address Monday at the Knesset, Israel’s house of representatives.
And Trump urged leaders from the Middle East and around the world to “forge a magnificent, great and enduring peace” during a summit in Egypt.
Goodwill was in high supply as the first phase of Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan got underway.
Peace had been achieved, even if its fragility might be tested over Gaza’s postwar governance in the weeks and months to come.
“When peace is achieved for one part of the world, it brings more hope for peace in other regions where life is still under threat,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on social media.
But experts voiced doubt that the momentum would carry over into other areas of focus for Trump, including his push for peace between Russia and Ukraine.
“It’s just not a question of positive feelings or anything like this,” Russian foreign policy expert Mark N. Katz said.
Conflict resolution comes about when a powerful country is willing to pressure its smaller ally to back down, Katz said.
In the case of the Gaza war, U.S. ally Israel was also the stronger party in the conflict.
And Katz said Hamas, “really on (its) back foot,” understood that it couldn’t continue the war and survive.
Katz, a professor emeritus of government and politics at George Mason University, said the dynamics between Russia and Ukraine are very different than the dynamics between Israel and Hamas.
“So, the real key to solving the Russia-Ukraine (war) is whether someone, whether Trump or anybody else, can pressure (Russian leader Vladimir) Putin, the stronger party, into backing down,” Katz said.
And, so far, Putin hasn’t shown an appetite for concessions.
Trump has increasingly come to the realization that it’s not Ukraine that’s the obstacle to peace, Katz said.
But the U.S. doesn’t have the same type of sway over Russia as it has over Israel.
It’s clear that sanctions alone aren’t going to influence Russia to come to the table, Katz said.
Sharing Tomahawk missiles with Ukraine might exert meaningful pressure on Putin, and Trump has voiced openness to doing just that.
“To tell you the truth, from Putin’s point of view, he’s probably just as happy that Trump’s devoting his time to (Gaza) and not to Ukraine,” Katz said.
Trump also might not be able to parlay his Middle East successes into anything that’ll help him or his party domestically.
Todd Belt, the Political Management program director at George Washington University, said the Gaza breakthrough won’t help Trump or Republicans get Democrats to back down on their health care demands to reopen the government.
And Belt said American voters won’t care that Trump stopped the fighting in Gaza come next year’s midterm elections.
Foreign policy issues usually don’t rank very high for voters, he said.
“They rank higher when you have a president running, and they’re way down the list when it’s a midterm election,” Belt said. “So, I don’t anticipate that this is going to have much of an effect at all.”
Trump looks like a powerful leader who has forced Netanyahu to succumb to demands, Belt said.
But there’s also risk that Netanyahu pulls Israel out of the peace deal if something breaks down along the way, with disarming Hamas and other aspects still up in the air.
“And if Netanyahu takes one of those off-ramps, as a lot of people expect him to, then this will undermine that idea of Donald Trump being the strong leader who finally brought Netanyahu to heel,” Belt said.
Presidents would much rather focus on their domestic policy agendas than foreign policy entanglements, Belt said.
But even that might not happen with Trump committing himself to chair the transitional oversight “Board of Peace” for Gaza, Belt said.
“This is only indirectly influential in the fact that it reflects strongly upon Donald Trump and his leadership,” Belt said. “And that’s not what’s going to be necessarily what’s on the ballot next November.”
Meanwhile, Katz said he expects the war between Russia and Ukraine to drag on for a while.
“The truth of the matter is that Putin regards himself as being at war with the entire West. The West, however, does not see itself as being at war with Putin. In other words, Ukraine’s at war with Putin, not the West. And unless and until the West comes to the realization that Putin is after us … that there will not be, I think, the ability to pressure him,” Katz said. “That there’s been just all along an underestimation of Putin’s resentment, hatred and determination.”
