President Trump has been posting a lot of AI-generated images lately — Hakeem Jeffries in a sombrero; Russell Vought as the Grim Reaper — so you’d be forgiven for thinking that a recent White House photo of him with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was dreamed up by ChatGPT.
But, in fact, the photo is no deepfake:
There’s a lot going on in this image. A telephone console rests on Trump’s lap, a stern expression on his face. Netanyahu is holding the phone, reading from a prepared script.
The official White House caption for the photo makes it sound perfectly anodyne: “President Donald Trump leads a trilateral phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani discussing the U.S. peace plan for Gaza, Monday, September 29, 2025, in the Oval Office.”
But that simple description masks the complex geopolitics going on behind the scenes. Earlier in September, Israel had launched an airstrike in Qatar, aiming to kill key leaders of Hamas who live in the Gulf nation. The targets of the strike survived, although lower-level members of Hamas were killed — as was a Qatari security officer.
Qatar, of course, was infuriated by the violation of its sovereignty, but so were Trump and his advisers, who received little advance notice of the attack. In addition to working together to ink a Gaza ceasefire, Trump and Qatar are intermingled by financial interests: the Trump Organization announced a $5.5 billion deal to build a luxury golf resort in Qatar earlier this year, not to mention the Boeing 747 jetliner (valued at $400 million) infamously gifted to Trump by the royal family.
According to the New York Times, Trump spent more than a week badgering Netanyahu to apologize to Qatar leading up to their September 29, reportedly telling the Israeli prime minister “that even he apologized sometimes, and that it was Mr. Netanyahu’s turn to say he was sorry.”
The moment of the apology is captured in the above photo. “Mr. Prime Minister, I want you to know that Israel regrets that one of your citizens was killed in our strike,” Netanyahu told Al Thani, the Qatar leader, according to his office. “I want to assure you that Hamas was the target, not the Qataris. I also want to assure you that Israel has no intention of violating your sovereignty again in the future, and I have made that commitment to President Trump.”
The episode represented a rare capitulation by Netanyahu, who has spent decades bedeviling American presidents and attempting to portray himself as the senior partner in the U.S.-Israeli relationship, despite his country’s smaller global footprint. “Who the f— does he think he is?” Bill Clinton reportedly fumed after a 1996 meeting with Netanyahu. “Who’s the f—ing superpower here?” Literally tethered by a telephone cord, the photo of Trump and Netanyahu showed the Israeli PM being successfully cowed by a U.S. president for one of the few times in recent memory.
The failed Qatar strike — and Netanyahu’s subsequent (forced) apology — appears to have provided the nudge needed for the U.S. and its Arab partners to push Israel and Hamas closer than ever to negotiating an end to their ongoing war, which will mark its two-year anniversary tomorrow. About 67,000 Palestinians and 2,000 Israelis have been killed since the fighting began, according to each side’s numbers.
At his recent meeting with Netanyahu, Trump unveiled a 20-point peace plan, which includes an immediate end to the war, Israel’s gradual withdrawal from Gaza, the return of the 20 surviving Israeli hostages and around 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, a surge of aid to Gaza, the laying down of its arms by Hamas, and a Gaza governed by a committee of technocratic Palestinians (with no role for Hamas) overseen by an international “Board of Peace” chaired by Trump himself.
Netanyahu accepted the plan, and Trump gave Hamas an ultimatum to either sign on or face “all HELL, like no one has ever seen before.” Hamas responded several hours later, with a statement agreeing to release all of the Israeli hostages and to “hand over the administration of the Gaza Strip to a Palestinian body of independents.” The group did not commit to giving up its weapons or surrendering any role in Gazan governance, although it agreed to “immediately enter into negotiations through the mediators to discuss the details” of the arrangement.
That was, apparently, good enough for Trump, who posted on Truth Social: “Based on the Statement just issued by Hamas, I believe they are ready for a lasting PEACE. Israel must immediately stop the bombing of Gaza, so that we can get the Hostages out safely and quickly!” (Israeli airstrikes continued to hit the Gaza Strip in the hours following Trump’s post.)
Per Axios, when Netanyahu told Trump that he didn’t view Hamas’ response as signaling much of substance, Trump fired back: “I don’t know why you’re always so f—ing negative. This is a win. Take it.”
This is classic Trump, who is a strong believer in Norman Vincent Peale’s “power of positive thinking” — Peale officiated Trump’s first wedding — and often seeks to construct his own reality, where everything is a “win” (except for the things that it serves him politically to declare as working against him).
But he will not be able to positive-think his way into peace in Israel/Palestine, solving one of the most entrenched conflicts on the planet by the sheer force of will, even if he has pushed both sides to make notable concessions in the last few days.
As mediators convene in Cairo today to iron out the details, Israel and Hamas are both riven by internal splits about whether to accept a deal. Netanyahu’s far-right governing partners are threatening to leave his coalition if he agrees to a deal that involves anything less than the complete dissolution of Hamas, which would lead to a collapse of Netanyahu’s government and initiate new elections. (Meanwhile, other members of the Israeli public have continued protesting, urging Netanyahu to end the war and return the hostages. Trump shared photos from one such protest Saturday, a not-so-subtle intervention in Israeli domestic politics.)
According to the Wall Street Journal, leaders of Hamas’ political arm support accepting the ceasefire agreement (and are even “willing to give up rockets and other offensive weapons,” though they want to retain some defensive arms) while leaders of the group’s military wing remain opposed.
Last week, Times columnist Thomas Friedman shared his iron role of Middle East reporting: “What people tell you in private is irrelevant. All that matters is what they say in public to their own people in their own language.” Both Netanyahu and Hamas have complicated balancing acts ahead of them, juggling the interests of various members of their complex coalitions as they decide whether to move towards a deal or, as with several previous points in the two-year war, to end negotiations.
And they will also have to contend with Trump, who has threatened “HELL” for Hamas if they don’t sign on and appears similarly frustrated with Netanyahu’s intransigence. (As always, it is unclear if his frustrations will translate to tangible consequences.) For now, at least in public, he remains stubbornly optimistic about his ability to achieve the impossible, believing that this effort will not be the latest in a line of false starts, but rather the final push toward peace. “It looks like the Middle East could very well be solved after 3,000 years approximately,” Trump declared in a recent interview. No biggie!
As Trump is doubtless aware, the recipient of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize is due to be announced on Friday. His weeks of focus on Russia and Ukraine have now given way to a flurry of meetings and Truth Social posts about Gaza, a telltale sign that he now believes his ticket for the prize will be punched not in eastern Europe, but in the Middle East.
In other news…
The Supreme Court convenes today for a new term, which will include key cases on voting rights, conversion therapy, and — of course — President Trump.
Trump’s attempts to federalize the Oregon National Guard — or to deploy National Guard units from California or Texas to Portland — have been temporarily foiled by a federal judge.
The U.S. government is still shut down. Not much new to report there.
Meanwhile, the French government collapsed after just 14 hours, as the country’s fifth prime minister in two years resigned, so things could always be worse.
Maybe it's my bias showing, but something about your intro rubbed me the wrong way - mentioning Trump's social posts as a humorous aside without acknowledging how unprecedented and unhinged it is contributes to the widespread normalization of his extreme behavior. His recent post about Democrats being the "party of Satan" would have led to weeks of blowback from anyone else - previous presidents and candidates have been reamed for far less outrageous broad characterizations of their opponents - and this after Trump's acolytes just spent weeks lecturing their opponents about the need to stop dehumanizing their enemies - but for Trump it's literally just another Thursday.
But as always thanks for reporting on details of events that I didn't read elsewhere.
To be honest, I'm more interested in what's happening in Chicago right now than what *might* happen between Israel and Hamas, until something actually happens.
Geez Gabe. You said “ that’s classic, Trump, the power of positive thinking”. No, classic Trump is lying, bullying, revenge, tax evasion, cruelty, arrogance, and finally stupidity…..give me a break.