Aaron David Miller

There are basically three reasons why this agreement came to pass.

Number one, Hamas is much weaker.

particularly on the military side, and it's the military commanders, not the external leadership that are making the decisions.

Number two are key Arab states, two of Hamas's principal backers of the three, the third being Iran.

Qataris and the Turks basically leaned on Hamas in a way that they had rarely have ever done before.

But it's the third factor.

Let's be clear.

We would not be having this conversation

Had Donald Trump not done something that is quite unique, almost unprecedented in the annals of the U.S.-Israeli relationship, no president that I ever worked for, Jimmy Carter to Bush 43, and I'd add in Obama and Biden, no U.S.

president ever talked to an Israeli prime minister or pushed him and pressured him.

on an issue that that prime minister considered so vital, not only to his politics, but his definition of Israel's national security.

In June of 1996, when Bill Clinton finished his first conversation with Benjamin Netanyahu, an exasperated Clinton walked out of the office and exploded.

Who's the effing superpower here?

That's what Clinton said about Netanyahu.

Donald Trump answered

that question, at least for now.

And let me also add, having worked and voted for Republicans and Democrats, this is a man who is presiding over the erosion of American norms and institutions and undermining the very nature of constitutional government that his inaugural oath impelled him to protect.

And yet, he deserves enormous credit

for what he's done here.

Partly, it's a paradox.