Despite warm words and gestures, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu returned home Friday without a Gaza ceasefire deal – a setback for U.S. President Donald Trump, who sees himself as a global dealmaker. It’s worth recalling the Rebbe’s longstanding view on these negotiations.

By Anash.org reporter 

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu returned home Friday without reaching a ceasefire agreement in Gaza – a disappointing outcome for U.S. President Donald Trump, who had hoped his high-profile meeting with Netanyahu in Washington would lead to a diplomatic breakthrough.

Over two days of meetings at the White House, the two leaders exchanged warm words and gestures, including Netanyahu’s formal nomination of Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, but the talks yielded no tangible progress toward ending the fighting or freeing the remaining hostages held by Hamas.

Trump had supported a proposed 60-day truce, aiming to halt the violence and use the momentum to advance wider regional agreements. But Netanyahu held firm, offering only a short-term pause in exchange for hostages. He reiterated that any long-term ceasefire must be contingent on Hamas disarming – a demand the group has repeatedly rejected.

The absence of a deal underscores the limitations of Trump’s current political influence, despite the strong personal rapport between the two men and his efforts to portray himself as a global dealmaker.

It’s worth recalling the Rebbe’s longstanding view that American involvement in Middle East negotiations is often driven by superficial motives – primarily performative politics or an attempt to curry favor with Arab states for economic and geopolitical gain, such as access to oil. In many cases, the Rebbe cautioned, the U.S. has little real interest in Israel’s long-term security and well-being.

As the Rebbe famously warned during the Camp David negotiations, when then-President Jimmy Carter pressured Israel to sign a peace treaty with Egypt, “At the time, the political climate was such that the president of the United States needed to secure an agreement…to demonstrate his prestige ahead of the [upcoming] elections. For him, the specific content of the agreement was of little consequence.”

The Rebbe insisted that had Israel stood its ground, it could have reached an agreement without compromising its security, on its own terms, and without the dangerous concessions that eventually followed.