Yes, the Nobel Peace Prize may be in President Trump’s grasp if he manages to produce a Israeli-Palestinian deal.
In his second inauguration speech, President Donald Trump vowed to recast himself as a peacemaker. Since January 2025, he has boasted of stopping or cooling six wars, remarking, “I’ve stopped six wars—I’m averaging about a war a month.” His allies, both at home and abroad, now argue that such efforts alone warrant Nobel recognition. Yet while these ceasefires and accords are impressive, one conflict towers above them all: the century-old Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
If Trump delivers a credible peace between Israelis and Palestinians, he will not only join the ranks of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton as architects of Middle East peace, but he may also eclipse them, securing the Nobel Peace Prize and reshaping the regional order.
Trump’s claim of mediating six conflicts reflects both ambition and uneven achievement. In June 2025, after Israel’s airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear sites triggered a massive Iranian retaliation, Trump escalated with US bunker-buster strikes, pushing both sides under US and Qatari mediation to accept the first direct truce in their forty-six-year enmity.
Later that month, he presided over a Washington agreement between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, a war that has killed six million since the 1990s, hailing it as “a glorious triumph,” though experts warn the ceasefire remains fragile.
In July, as Cambodia and Thailand’s border dispute erupted into clashes that killed dozens and displaced 300,000, Trump threatened to suspend trade talks unless fighting stopped; within days, both governments agreed to a US-brokered ceasefire over disputed temple lands.
In South Asia, when Kashmir flared in May, Pakistan publicly thanked Trump for mediating a ceasefire with India—though New Delhi dismissed his role, insisting the truce came from direct military channels—yet the violence subsided nonetheless.
His most substantive success came on August 8, when Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders signed a White House peace accord ending thirty-five years of conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh; Trump declared, “It’s a long time—35 years they fought, and now they’re friends.” Both leaders nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Meanwhile, his engagement in the twelve-year Nile dam dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia has yet to yield a breakthrough. Siding openly with Cairo, Trump warned Addis Ababa it must compromise, but negotiations remain stalled even as US pressure continues to loom over the process.
Together, these efforts highlight an unusually activist US foreign policy. Trump has mediated wars that span four continents, involve nuclear states, and collectively account for millions of casualties. But none of these conflicts rival the symbolic weight or explosive potential of Israel–Palestine.
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict dates back over a hundred years, to rival nationalist claims under the British mandate. It has since erupted in wars (1948, 1967, 1973), two intifadas (1987–1993, 2000–2005), and recurrent Gaza wars. The human toll is staggering, with hundreds of thousands of military personnel and civilians killed on both sides. Since 2008, four Gaza wars have claimed tens of thousands of Palestinian lives.
The current Gaza war, triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that killed 1,200 Israelis, has become the bloodiest chapter yet. More than 62,000 Palestinians, including nearly 19,000 children, have been killed as of August 2025. The war has displaced much of Gaza’s population and produced famine conditions.
This conflict has global ramifications. From oil shocks in 1973 to diplomatic realignments in 1993, its reverberations are felt worldwide. This is why resolving it is often described as the “holy grail” of diplomacy.
Carter’s Camp David Accords in 1978 brought peace between Israel and Egypt. Clinton’s Oslo Accords in 1993 gave the Palestinians self-rule in parts of Gaza and the West Bank. Yet both left the central issue unresolved: a final status of peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Trump has the opportunity—and perhaps the momentum—to do what no president has done.
History shows that war can create opportunities for peace. The 1973 Yom Kippur War ultimately led to Anwar Sadat’s outreach and the Camp David Accords, which saw the first peace agreement between Israel and an Arab country. The First Intifada, after six years of bloodshed, gave way to the Oslo Accords breakthrough in 1993. Conflict fatigue, international pressure, and shifting domestic calculations can force adversaries to compromise.
Today’s war in Gaza has created similar dynamics. Israel has demonstrated military superiority but learned that overwhelming force cannot bring permanent quiet. Hamas, though bloodied, remains defiant, while the Palestinian Authority faces a crisis of legitimacy. Arab governments, pressured by outraged publics, are again insisting that the Palestinian issue be addressed. European states have begun unilaterally recognizing Palestine, while Washington rejected the two-state solution framework sponsored by the EU and the Arab League in New York in July.
Trump’s advisers admit openly that Israeli-Saudi normalization must await progress on the Palestinian issue. In other words, the road to Riyadh runs through Ramallah.
Yet any peace Trump pursues must avoid the trap of empty symbolism. Past efforts have often collapsed under the weight of unmet expectations. Recognizing Palestinian statehood prematurely, without real reforms, risks rewarding corruption or entrenching Hamas.
Trump’s own 2020 plan, though firmly rejected by the Palestinians, laid out conditions that remain central to any credible settlement: disarming militias, ending terrorism, and overhauling governance before statehood. Those principles hold true today, but demand refinement to meet the demands of the current moment.
A workable agreement would demand that the Palestinian Authority root out corruption, improve efficiency, eliminate the “pay-for-slay” stipends, and rebuild legitimacy in the eyes of its own people and international partners. It would also require unambiguous security guarantees—neutralizing Hamas and ensuring Israel’s borders are fully protected against future threats.
In parallel, Israel would have to accept painful concessions: halting settlement expansion, providing genuine territorial contiguity for a Palestinian state, and addressing the thorny question of Jerusalem, possibly through shared or special sovereignty arrangements. Only a deal that combines Palestinian reform, ironclad security, and Israeli compromise can deliver peace that is more than symbolic and robust enough to endure.
The peace must be enforceable, staged, and internationally supported. Without such substance, it will collapse like Oslo. With it, it could endure.
The prize is not just Israeli-Palestinian peace but Israeli-Saudi normalization. Saudi Arabia, as guardian of Islam’s holy sites and leader of the Arab world, has long conditioned peace with Israel on Palestinian statehood. While the Abraham Accords of 2020 brought in smaller Arab states, Riyadh held out.
Under Biden, normalization talks stalled amid the Gaza war and tense personal relations with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. MBS, alienated by Biden’s “pariah” rhetoric, appeared to wait deliberately for Trump’s return, calculating he could secure better terms on US defense guarantees and nuclear cooperation.
Now, with Trump back, the conditions for a grand bargain are stronger. If Palestinians are offered credible statehood within a Trump-mediated framework, MBS could present normalization not as betrayal, but as solidarity. Once Saudi Arabia recognizes Israel, a domino effect could follow across the Arab and Muslim worlds. This would not only realign Middle Eastern geopolitics but also create an American-led bloc of stability from the Levant to the Gulf.
Trump has long craved Nobel recognition, griping that Barack Obama won one in 2009 “for doing nothing.” After his Armenia-Azerbaijan breakthrough, both leaders nominated him. Should he succeed in delivering Israeli–Palestinian peace and Israeli-Saudi normalization, his Nobel Peace Prize claim would be undeniable. Past laureates include Begin and Sadat (1978) and Rabin, Peres, and Arafat (1994). Trump would surpass them by closing the region’s central conflict.
It would also cement his place in history. Carter is remembered for Camp David, Clinton for Oslo. Trump could be remembered as the president who delivered “true peace” in the Middle East. The Gaza war’s tragedy, paradoxically, may create the urgency and leverage for such a breakthrough. Trump has the momentum, leverage, and personal rapport with key players to make it happen.
If he does, the Nobel Peace Prize will be the least of his rewards. He will have ended a conflict that defined a century, redefined America’s role in the world, and reshaped the Middle East for generations to come.
About the Author: Abdullah Hayek
Abdullah Hayek is a Middle East History & Peace Fellow with Young Voices and an independent Middle East analyst and consultant based in Washington, D.C.
Image: Shutterstock/DorSteffen
