President Donald Trump’s dream of receiving a Nobel Peace Prize could hinge on the actions of a major international ally, CNN analyst Kimberly Dozier reports.
Trump and his allies have made it clear the president feels entitled to the prestigious award, which four past presidents — including former President Barack Obama — have received. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday told reporters, “It’s well past time that President Trump was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”
And in February, Trump himself — flanked by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — told reporters of the prize, “I deserve it, but they will never give it to me.”
Netanyahu, for his part, could be Trump’s key to the coveted award, Dozier explained Sunday.
Speaking with CNN “This Morning,” Dozier explained the ongoing “pressure” campaign “on the Israeli government to make concessions” to Hamas in the ongoing war in Gaza.
“What’s happened is the Israeli government and the White House together have decided to go with a more maximum pressure campaign, instead of saying yes to some of Hamas’s demanded compromises,” Dozier said. “As part of this two-stage deal, the U.S. and Israel are now saying it’s got to be done in a one-shot deal where Hamas agrees to completely disarm and all of the living and the dead hostages are turned over.”
Dozier described the Israel and White House approach as “maximalist positions that have been met on Hamas’s side by saying ‘no, we won’t disarm. We won’t disarm until there’s a Palestinian state.’”
Asked where the “hardening on both sides” will lead, Dozier told CNN the crucial act of deal making could fall outside of the purview of United States’ leadership.
“I cases like this, in the past, when you’ve got Israel and the U.S. playing the hard line, that’s when you’ve got to have somebody else step in,” Dozier said. “And in this case, you’ve got the Qatar and Turkey route together with Egypt. They’re continuing to talk to Hamas. Hamas leadership went to Turkey for discussions there trying to get them to reach some sort of compromise. You’ve also got another track, Saudi Arabia, in discussions with Britain, the [European Union], Canada to recognize a Palestinian state. So this is basically the carrot for the White House.”
“Saudi Arabia is saying if you want your Nobel Prize, if you want peace in the Middle East, and to expand the Abraham Accords, President Trump, you’ve got to back a Palestinian state, which the current Israeli government doesn’t want,” the analyst added.
“So that’s the different tracks that are trying to break the deadlock,” she said. “But the parties are hardening their positions. and for now, that means continued fighting on the ground.”
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