Newsmax Chief Washington Correspondent James Rosen reported in a Newsmax Special Report on Thursday that the signal event of President Donald Trump’s third 100 days in office has to be the brokered Gaza peace deal.
Rosen said, “Among the signal accomplishments of President Trump in the third hundred days of his second term was the deal he and Special Envoy Steve Whitkoff brokered for a ceasefire in Gaza, which also secured the release of the remaining hostages, Israeli and American, being held captive there by Hamas.”
But Rosen reported that the lingering situation in Gaza leaves questions. “Any survey of Gaza today yields only a picture of widespread devastation, with the international community still far from agreement on all the elements that will be necessary for the 2.2 million inhabitants of Gaza to have at long last a viable future, from security to reconstruction to governance and foreign aid,” he said.
Rosen interviewed John Alterman, the Brzezinski chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, who faults Israel for not planning beyond the achievement of its military objectives.
“I think the Israelis really haven’t thought through,” said Alterman, “how this is all going to work. There’s not a clear sense of how they should deal either with the Palestinian Authority or with the future of governance in Gaza.”
Rosen offered that, “Despite President Trump’s issuance on his 252nd day in office of a 20-point peace plan for Gaza, Alterman sees the president as a talented dealmaker, sometimes contented with dealmaking for its own sake.”
Alterman told Rosen, “It’s not deals in service of a strategic end. I don’t think he likes to think about what the endgame should be. He’s pretty good at understanding how to build leverage. But what I don’t see is a lot of thought given to how do you sequence and prioritize.”
Rosen closed his report on Trump’s accomplishment with the analysis that “In terms of sequencing, all agree that reconstruction of Gaza cannot begin until security is first established on the ground.”
He extended that thought and said, “But Arab governments do not want their troops to be seen as inheritors of an Israeli occupation. And they are also demanding real steps toward the establishment of a Palestinian state, a concept President Trump has not endorsed.”
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