President Trump is expressing confidence that prospects for a peace deal between Israel and Palestinians are nearly at hand, suggesting in a TruthSocial post Sunday that all the participants in multiparty talks are close to agreement despite little appetite in Israel to quit the war before Hamas is obliterated. 

“We have a real chance for GREATNESS IN THE MIDDLE EAST. ALL ARE ON BOARD FOR SOMETHING SPECIAL, FIRST TIME EVER. WE WILL GET IT DONE!!! President DJT,” the president wrote Sunday morning.

Vice President JD Vance underscored the president’s claims Sunday, saying chances for a peace deal between Israel and Palestinian leaders are closer than they have been since Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. 

“I think the president has gotten us to the point where we’re at the one-yard line and all of us are very hopeful that we can punch through the end zone, and we can accomplish a major, major thing for peace in the region,” Mr. Vance told Fox News Sunday. 

The 21-point plan, outlined during talks at the United Nations on Friday, broadly calls for the return of all the Israeli hostages, more humanitarian aid into Gaza, and Hamas “to no longer be a terror threat to Israel.” 

Specifics of the deal include a phased Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza; amnesty for Hamas terrorists who disarm and leave the region; an interim government led by Palestinian technocrats and overseen by American, European, and Arab state partners led by Britain’s former prime minister, Tony Blair; reconstruction of Gaza by an Arab consortium to take place over five years; and closure of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in exchange for a minimum of 600 international aid trucks daily. 

The president’s plan also calls for acknowledgement of Palestinian aspirations for statehood and eventual Palestinian Authority governance of Gaza and the West Bank. Mr. Vance said the president wants Gaza and the West Bank to be governed by people who live there.

On the American side, negotiations are being managed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the president’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff. Arab and Muslim nations, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia, and Pakistan have been part of the shuttle diplomacy between Israeli and Palestinian Arab leaders. 

While the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, reportedly offered conditional support for the plan, a deal may be more elusive than Mr. Vance suggests. In a speech Friday at the United Nations that was boycotted by 76 nations, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will not cease its operations until Hamas is destroyed. He added that Israel has no plans to recognize a Palestinian state, likening recognition to “giving Al Qaeda a state one mile from New York City after September 11th.”

Nonetheless, Mr. Vance said that while negotiations could be derailed in the last minutes, “I think the president’s optimism is warranted here. I am more optimistic about where we are right now than at any point in the last few months.”

The prime minister’s office noted Saturday that documentation of the October 7 atrocities, which Mr. Netanyahu made available by a QR code during his remarks, has been scanned over 1 million times, with approximately 30 percent of the scans occurring in Iran and Gaza.