Trump Grabs Hostage Spotlight
Terry H. Schwadron
Oct. 14, 2025
As we all have seen by now, the arrival of returned hostages taken two years ago from Israel by masked Hamas fighters, was mostly pure joy — with a mirrored reaction of the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in the West Bank and Gaza.
Perhaps outside the organized hoopla, the negotiated releases also could provide a moment for silent, serious reflection about why this awfulness happened at all, and the change in mindset and hatreds that will keep it from happening again. It was a moment for maybe even a question or two about why we cannot seem to give hope a longer leash, and to drop the constant Donald Trump political overlay — for a job that is well short of complete.
Of course, Israeli families were praising Trump for engineering the critical moment, even while warning their own leaders. And, of course, Trump wanted to bask publicly in what more appropriately might be private moments.
Away from emotional family reunions and premature talk of continuing peace, streams of homeless Gazans were carrying their possessions back to devastated cities, conscripted Israeli military were remaining on high alert at new hand-drawn border lines, in the West Bank the push and pull between Jewish settlers’ intent on grabbing land and Palestinian residents was still under way. Even Trump managed to remind all that threats from Iran continue.
The world was holding its breath that whatever remains of Hamas leadership will disarm and walk away — an unlikely prospect — or that the tens of thousands of deaths would not bequeath new generations of retribution in the name of peoplehood and justice against a continuing occupying Israel.
Whatever negotiations starting at the Sharm el-Sheikh summit with Trump and Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah el-Sisi — neither Israel nor Hamas officials were taking part — were headed for the deferred, more complicated questions about next steps, including an unexplained document signed by Qatar, Egypt and Turkey. Trump insists on chairing a meeting about details that he then ignores.
Performance Stage
Of course, the day was a performance stage for Trump and the various Israeli and regional Gulf nations to make this supersized humanitarian effort to cease the active war into something more lasting into a huge political rally for themselves.
The Trump ability to grab almost any spotlight for himself was dwarfed by this event: Trump’s image was hanging from buildings, the Knesset gave him an ovation, he was receiving the thanks of families.
Even cynics and critics were willing to defer to recent work-to-date that largely credited Qatari intervenors, pressure from Trump and his negotiators on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and maneuvering from Saudi, Egyptian, and Turkish leaders in the background.
Still, for Trump, a 65-minute, wavering speech to Israeli legislators was opportunity to declare himself a peacemaker at large and to bask in public admiration, to declare a new “dawn” for a Middle East still dependent on U.S. interests. Trump was publicly insisting “the war is over” even as Netanyahu and Hamas stopped well short of that. Of course, along the way, Trump loosely rewrote history to smack his Democratic predecessors and slapped at European countries ready to recognize Palestinian interests,
Unaddressed were questions of why this hostage release happened now, what was so different about conditions a month ago or eight months ago when Trump took office or longer ago than that. Mostly unaddressed was the role of the Qataris, the same Qataris who served up a free luxury aircraft to Trump and now apparently will have access to a new U.S. pilot training facility to man promised purchase of U.S. fighter jets, as well as business opportunities with members of Trump’s own family.
For Netanyahu, it marks a new challenge to avoid jail and to stay in office without the cover of constant war — including a Trump pitch for a pardon for Netanyahu rather than a more complete investigation of how Oct. 7, 2023, had come about at all. For Gulf emirs, it was opening day of a campaign to move out Hamas to pave an almost literal path for a redeveloped Gaza in place of ruin. For Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, it was a moment to seek relevance away from guns and masked kidnapping.
For the hostages themselves, it was a day for family reunion and health checks. For Palestinian civilians, it was another day of struggling for food and housing.
‘Joy’ is Complicated
The contradictory feelings are everywhere in this story.
There has been a flood of U.S. polls and media stories about generational degradation of support among younger Americans for seemingly ruthless Israeli tactics, however justified. As well, there had been two years of out-of-control Republican political conflation of Jewish identity with specific support for military strategy from a right-learning Israeli government that often showed itself to throw out any recognizable Jewish values, never mind humanitarian values, for a desire to grab Palestinian real estate and control that exceed security concern.
Tactics to withhold food and medicine, to target schools and hospitals made to cover Hamas military tunnel hiding places, to lump all civilian Palestinians as targets, and to level Gaza led to two years of continuous war that spilled into Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and finally into Qatar. That last unsuccessful attack on Hamas politicians in Doha seemed to be the linchpin to unlock Trump anger against Netanyahu and to an overdue release of the hostages to end the fighting. Trump himself incongruously credited peace with dropping bombs on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
As mentioned previously, the hard work of making a ceasefire into a lasting peace remains complex — a condition that eludes the Trump impatient demand for everyone in his hearing range just to listen to him alone. Peace is not the work of a bullying dictator, even one who for a day is hearing an unceasing prayer of thanks from multiple sides.
The Work Ahead
Trump’s 20-point proposals have titular buy-in but making them real is difficult even beyond the obvious disarmament questions. Aid, rebuilding, creating a Gaza with or without Palestinians all are unaddressed. Neither is the future of the West Bank, the shelling of ships from Yemen’s Houthis, continuing threats from Iran, and the Trump insistence on undercutting the United Nations. They do not show how Arab nations or refugees will suddenly embrace Israel as a cooperative neighbor or how Israel will recognize Palestinians as their own state.
Whatever Trump’s positive role in bringing about the release of the hostages, he will not stop Jewish haters from entering a British synagogue, as happened last week, or shootings at churches, mosques, and other religious-claimed attacks in the United States and around the world. For reasons that may have as much to do with the prospects of foreign investment in a “Riviera on the Mediterranean” as on humanitarian concern, Trump pressure created a prisoner exchange, not the elimination of hate.
Trump’s foreign efforts that depend on international cooperation and good behavior are completely at odds with his dictatorial actions at home. Trump is insistent, for example, on keeping American troops from any peacekeeping in this newly reborn Middle East, but eager to put even elite armed military forces onto U.S. city streets for reasons that change daily but that underscore his desire to do whatever he wants, legal or not.
For me, this should be a day of joy for the families of hostages not another excuse to idolize Trump.
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