As President Donald Trump embarks on a celebratory tour of the Mideast to mark a new ceasefire, a deep current of skepticism runs beneath the official optimism. Experts, including former members of his own administration, are questioning the durability of the truce and the feasibility of its core tenets, particularly the disarmament of Hamas.
H.R. McMaster, who served as Trump’s national security adviser, voiced a starkly pessimistic view just before the trip. He assessed the chances of Hamas voluntarily disarming as “pretty close to zero,” predicting that the Israeli military would ultimately have to “destroy them.” This highlights the fundamental gap between Israel’s non-negotiable demand and Hamas’s likely intentions.
This core disagreement casts a long shadow over the entire peace process. The current deal, focused on a hostage exchange and humanitarian aid, effectively sidesteps the most difficult final-status issues: who will govern Gaza after the war and how will security be guaranteed? Without a clear roadmap for these challenges, the ceasefire risks being little more than a temporary pause.
Furthermore, the broader political context remains hostile to a lasting peace. Israel’s continued expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank and its growing international isolation create a difficult environment for the kind of grand bargain Trump envisions, such as a Saudi-Israel normalization deal that would require progress on Palestinian statehood.
While Trump’s visit, including an address to the Knesset and a major regional summit, will generate powerful optics of peacemaking, the underlying realities are sobering. The president is promoting a vision of regional transformation, but critics warn that the unresolved conflicts and entrenched positions on the ground could easily shatter this fragile moment of hope.