Amid a ceasefire in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu becomes the first foreign leader to visit the White House during the second Trump administration, and President Donald Trump uses the occasion to declare his intention to take over and redevelop Gaza.
Abdullah II remains studiously noncommittal in support of Donald Trump’s idea for the U.S. to take over the Gaza Strip, rebuild it and relocate its Palestinian residents to other countries. With Jordan’s strong economic, strategic and defense ties to Washington, no one expected the king to be effusive for Trump’s suggestions for Gaza’s future. Jordan lacks the economic and demographic absorptive capacities and the political interest to take another wave of Palestinians into its territory.
Benjamin Netanyahu makes his second White House visit of Donald Trump’s second term, but the discussion this time expands beyond Gaza and regional peace to include bilateral trade after a Trump announcement of new tariffs on Israeli goods.
May 13, 2025 President Donald Trump’s address laying out a vision for Middle East peace and prosperity and ending sanctions on Syria at the 2025 Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, https://www.youtube.com/live/wj1QOz3iuCE?si=qQRR2GcqZhtt1F5o Well, thank…
Visiting Qatar after Saudi Arabia and before the United Arab Emirates in a Middle East trip that excluded Israel, President Donald Trump praises and pledges to defend Qatar and indicates a deal on Iran’s nuclear program is close.
Speaking in English, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announces Israel’s airstrikes on Iran, targeting nuclear enrichment, nuclear weaponization, nuclear scientists, the Natanz nuclear facility and ballistic missile infrastructure. Netanyahu says the attack is for the world, not just for Israel.
President Trump announces precision U.S. airstrikes on Iran’s key nuclear sites, citing Iran’s four-decade-long hatred of the U.S. and killing of Americans and others. He thanks the U.S. military, the Israeli military and Prime Minister Netanyahu, warning Iran to pursue peace because more targets remain.
Before a White House dinner, President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talk about Gaza, Iran, Syria and Middle East peace.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit to Israel was primarily prompted by American criticism of Israel’s airstrike on September 9, targeting Hamas leaders in Doha, the Qatari capital. Rubio arrived in Doha at the end of an emergency Arab-Islamic leaders summit that roundly condemned Israel’s attack. In Doha, he affirmed US interests in Qatar, with particular knowledge that it hosts America’s largest air base in the Middle East and the forward headquarters for the US Central Command. The US was seeking to balance its relationship with Israel and Qatar.
A comprehensive U.S. plan to end the Hamas-Israel war is unveiled eight days before the second anniversary of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.
President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu explain their expansive vision for a peaceful Middle East through the implementation of a 20-point U.S. plan to end the Gaza war with the support of many Arab and Muslim countries.
President Trump issued a presidential order placing Qatar under the military protection of the United States. He did not submit his policy for U.S. Senate ratification, as would be necessary for the staying power of a treaty. The U.S. had never offered such protection to an Arab country, let alone one that sits across the Persian Gulf from Iran. The action was viewed as a direct response to Israel’s intrusion into Qatar’s sovereignty three weeks earlier in a failed attack on Hamas leaders in Doha. But the order might have been a step toward including Qatar in the Abraham Accords. And Qatar is potentially a key funder in rebuilding the Gaza Strip.
Amid praise for the end of the war in Gaza and hopes for long-term peace, humanitarian aid and freed hostages, world leaders barely acknowledge Hamas exists, let alone that it bears any responsibility for the status of the Strip.
A memo obtained by multiple news organizations in early October 2025 explains the implementation plan for the U.S.-brokered Gaza ceasefire.
In a Knesset speech, Prime Minister Netanyahu delivers effusive praise for President Trump’s Middle East peacemaking even though the U.S. plan appears to have put the support of key Muslim powers in the region ahead of sign-on from Israeli or Palestinian officials.
The U.S., Turkey, Qatar and Egypt commit to trying to implement President Trump’s vision for enduring peace in Gaza and the entire Middle East without offering details or obtaining the sign-on of Israeli or Palestinian officials.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid, addressing the Knesset, praises Donald Trump for brokering the Gaza peace plan, calls on his fellow Israelis to renew their values-based democracy, and warns Israel’s enemies in the Middle East and beyond that the Jewish state is here to stay.
Donald Trump takes a victory lap and lays out short- and long-term visions for Gaza, Israel and the Middle East while becoming the fourth U.S. president to address the Knesset.
U.S. Middle East envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff express confidence in a “60 Minutes” interview that the Trump peace plan will succeed in Gaza after two years of the Hamas-Israel war.
Visiting Israel, U.S. Vice President JD Vance expresses optimism about the rocky Hamas-Israel ceasefire and broader hopes for Middle East peace while refusing to set deadlines for Hamas to disarm or return all hostage bodies.
The CENTCOM head demonstrates the strong U.S.-Israeli relationship in his eulogy for Omer Neutra, an Israeli-American soldier whose body was held in Gaza for two years.
The U.N. Security Council voted 13-0 on November 17, 2025, to adopt Resolution 2803, endorsing the 20-point Trump peace plan to end the Hamas-Israel war. The precedent-setting resolution provides a pathway to stability in the Gaza Strip and offers a chance for less violence in the Palestinian-Israeli relationship.
Prince Mohammed bin Salman and President Donald Trump continued a decades-long process of strengthening Saudi-U.S. ties during a White House meeting that put Saudi security and investment ahead of the Abraham Accords.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio explains the urgent need to establish the Board of Peace and the International Stabilization Force for Gaza to move from Phase 1 to Phase 2 in the ceasefire, but he also warns that the work likely will last longer than the Trump administration.
