Give Trump's Gaza peace plan a chance

When a bad man does a good thing, we should honour him for it, even if his motives are selfish.

- Gwynne Dyer

Donald Trump is only trying to “bring peace to the Middle East” because he wants the Nobel Prize, they say. He blusters and threatens and lies. He boasts about the seven wars he claims to have settled/ended/ avoided, but he cannot even tell the difference between Armenia (which did recently have a war) and Albania (which didn't).

All true, but so what? Mr Trump's motives don't matter, and neither does his geopolitical ignorance. As US president, he is the only person with the power to force the Hamas group in Gaza and the current Israeli government to discuss making peace, and after long hesitation, he has finally deployed that power. That certainly does not guarantee success. Neither the Hamas extremists who rule the Gaza Strip nor Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu actually want peace on the terms implicit in Mr Trump's draft 20-point peace plan.

Hamas would definitely welcome a lengthy ceasefire. Most of its leaders and at least half its fighters have been killed in the past two years of fighting. The dead leaders have been replaced by less experienced men and the rank-and-file by new recruits, but there has been a steep drop in their combat efficiency.