By Sharon Kehnemui 

(December 29, 2025 / The New York Sun) Prime Minister Netanyahu’s meeting with President Trump Monday comes at a critical juncture in the Gaza peace agreement, as reports suggest the president’s interest and commitment to greater Middle East security may be waning.



Mr. Trump has been characterized lately as seemingly less enamored by Mr. Netanyahu, whose insistence on maintaining a secure military flank around Gaza has irked his inner circle and threatens the president’s 20-point peace plan. An Axios report on Friday suggested that the president’s aides — from Vice President JD Vance and his chief of staff Susie Wiles to peace negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff — are sick of dealing with concerns raised by Mr. Netanyahu, who is coming to America for his fifth meeting with the president. 

Mr. Trump, who has been notably subdued about the visit and his relationship with Mr. Netanyahu, remains central to closing the chasm between the pledges and the reality of the peace deal. As head of the newly formed Gaza Board for Peace, which he is chairing alongside a group of U.N. technocrats and international mediators, Mr. Trump is the glue holding together the transition to a new Palestinian government, oversight of Gaza’s reconstruction, and implementation of the International Stabilization Force responsible for disarming Hamas. 

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As some observers have noted, this stage is also a challenge to Mr. Trump’s reputation as a mediator. “Allowing countries extremely hostile to Israel being involved is bad for the United States of America and will reduce the likelihood of any real peace,” the president of the Zionist Organization of America, Mort Klein, tells the Sun. 

Mr. Netanyahu has “got to make Trump understand — I say this as an American citizen — that this is bad for America. This is bad for Trump’s interests in getting peace. You cannot get a real peace with Turkey and Qatar involved,” he says.

Political commentator Mark Levin also called the proposition of Turkish and Qatari forces in Gaza “absurd and dangerous” and lit up over the anonymous report that Israel is being bullied into accepting “a grave threat against its citizens now and in perpetuity.”

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