The worldwide delusion that Donald Trump’s bizarre approach to diplomacy has delivered a ceasefire – or even “peace” – in Gaza is being enthusiastically embraced by Ukraine’s president as he prepares for a White House meeting this week.
It suits Volodymyr Zelensky to join the chorus of world leaders praising Trump for having pushed Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire rather than point out the truth, which is that the Israeli prime minister had no further need of war.
In Trump’s words to the Knesset, Netanyahu had “won” in Gaza.
The US president spelled out how that was possible. And Zelensky wants to win too.
Trump said: “We make the best weapons in the world, and we’ve got a lot of them, and we’ve given a lot to Israel, frankly, and Bibi [Netanyahu] would call me so many times. ‘Can you get me this weapon, that weapon, that weapon,’ some of them I never heard of, Bibi, and I made them, but we’d get them here, wouldn’t we?
“And they are the best. You obviously use them very well, but so many that Israel became strong and powerful, which ultimately led to peace. That’s what led to peace.”
It’s debatable whether Trump could have forced Netanyahu to end his campaign in Gaza earlier by cutting off weapons supplies when he came into office. Israel was still fighting to destroy Hamas and continuing its campaign in Gaza, flattening the enclave, bombing hospitals and restricting humanitarian aid amid widespread allegations of genocide.
Israel’s stated aim was the eradication of Hamas. But the scorched-earth approach has delivered on the strategic aim, which is to make Gaza unlivable. Any Gazan who can will leave and join the 600,000 other Palestinians who have emigrated over the last couple of decades.
But Trump kept the weapons flowing to Israel just as he cut off the supply to Ukraine – attempting to force a ceasefire and peace plan on Ukraine which entirely favoured Vladimir Putin at the time.
Ukraine fought on. It has developed long-range missiles and drone attacks, striking 5,000 kilometres inside Russia, while Europe rushed to fill the weapons gap. Kyiv has kept the invading Russians at bay even after losing tens of millions in American military aid.
Israel enjoyed a steady flow of bombs, jets, missiles, and intelligence throughout its campaign in Gaza, with the result that Trump told Netanyahu: “I want to congratulate you for having the courage to say, ‘That’s it. We’ve won.’”
Zelensky has a team already en route to the US to talk to the Trump administration about opportunities to make money rebuilding his country, repairing the energy infrastructure and mining its minerals.
He knows that while Trump is ebullient over what he thinks he has achieved in Gaza, he might be mesmerised into contributing to Ukraine.
“We have to get Russia done. We’ve got to get that one done,” he said in the Knesset before directly addressing his envoy Steve Witkoff: “If you don’t mind, Steve, let’s focus on Russia. We’ll get it done.”
