The worldwide delusion that Donald Trump’s bizarre approach to diplomacy has delivered a ceasefire – or even “peace” – in Gaza is being enthusiastically embraced by Ukraine’s president as he prepares for a White House meeting this week.
It suits Volodymyr Zelensky to join the chorus of world leaders praising Trump for having pushed Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire rather than point out the truth, which is that the Israeli prime minister had no further need of war.
In Trump’s words to the Knesset, Netanyahu had “won” in Gaza.
The US president spelled out how that was possible. And Zelensky wants to win too.
Trump said: “We make the best weapons in the world, and we’ve got a lot of them, and we’ve given a lot to Israel, frankly, and Bibi [Netanyahu] would call me so many times. ‘Can you get me this weapon, that weapon, that weapon,’ some of them I never heard of, Bibi, and I made them, but we’d get them here, wouldn’t we?
“And they are the best. You obviously use them very well, but so many that Israel became strong and powerful, which ultimately led to peace. That’s what led to peace.”
It’s debatable whether Trump could have forced Netanyahu to end his campaign in Gaza earlier by cutting off weapons supplies when he came into office. Israel was still fighting to destroy Hamas and continuing its campaign in Gaza, flattening the enclave, bombing hospitals and restricting humanitarian aid amid widespread allegations of genocide.
Israel’s stated aim was the eradication of Hamas. But the scorched-earth approach has delivered on the strategic aim, which is to make Gaza unlivable. Any Gazan who can will leave and join the 600,000 other Palestinians who have emigrated over the last couple of decades.
But Trump kept the weapons flowing to Israel just as he cut off the supply to Ukraine – attempting to force a ceasefire and peace plan on Ukraine which entirely favoured Vladimir Putin at the time.
Ukraine fought on. It has developed long-range missiles and drone attacks, striking 5,000 kilometres inside Russia, while Europe rushed to fill the weapons gap. Kyiv has kept the invading Russians at bay even after losing tens of millions in American military aid.
Israel enjoyed a steady flow of bombs, jets, missiles, and intelligence throughout its campaign in Gaza, with the result that Trump told Netanyahu: “I want to congratulate you for having the courage to say, ‘That’s it. We’ve won.’”
Zelensky has a team already en route to the US to talk to the Trump administration about opportunities to make money rebuilding his country, repairing the energy infrastructure and mining its minerals.
He knows that while Trump is ebullient over what he thinks he has achieved in Gaza, he might be mesmerised into contributing to Ukraine.
“We have to get Russia done. We’ve got to get that one done,” he said in the Knesset before directly addressing his envoy Steve Witkoff: “If you don’t mind, Steve, let’s focus on Russia. We’ll get it done.”
The US has so far only threatened Russia with economic sanctions under Trump. US trade with Russia has always been small.
But there are some small signs that Trump is losing patience with Putin.
Putin has not achieved what he aimed to do in Ukraine.
In Israel, Netanyahu was facing public opposition to his continued campaign in Gaza from his own armed forces. His operations in the enclave have been described by the United Nations as genocide, and Israel was facing the very real prospect of international economic boycotts, disinvestment and sanctions.
Unlike Russia, Israel has no oil or gas to fuel its war. It needs American subsidy to do that and it needs US weapons to campaign.
Israel stopped its fighting in Gaza to get the last hostages out and to avoid further global isolation.
To get Putin to stop, Zelensky knows he needs help from Trump in a real military form. To get a breakthrough to either peace talks or, better still, a collapse of invading Russian forces in Ukraine, Zelensky needs Trump to hold Putin’s feet to a real fire.
The White House is inching that way, it seems. Trump’s administration is considering selling Ukraine its Tomahawk cruise missiles, which could be used to strike Russian targets deep in the country. Kyiv is already hitting Moscow’s fuel and energy infrastructure, but it could use some help to go after its command and control systems.
Zelensky also desperately needs air defences as Moscow has upped its efforts to destroy Ukraine’s own energy networks as winter approaches. More than 30,000 people were left without power in Kharkiv on Monday night after waves of air attacks from Russia.
Trump has said he thinks Ukraine could win its war and turn back Putin’s “paper tiger”.
Since Trump himself has acknowledged that Israel’s “victory” in Gaza was due to American weapons, Zelensky is heading to Washington with one request: “Give me the weapons and I’ll burn that tiger.”
