Here is a one-word summary of the response from some American Muslims to news about the Gaza ceasefire deal: verification.
There was a strong debate last year like so much the community turned on the Democrats and supported Donald Trump, a Republican, in unusually high numbers – bet he could succeed where Joe Biden had failed and end the 15-month Israel-Hamas war.
Their calculus was questioned or even ridiculed, given the unstable position of the Trump party against Israel and the lack of evidence that he ever cared about the Palestinians.
But now some are citing reports that Trump applied bare-bones pressure to end the cease-fire deal days before he takes office. It seems that the Israeli government has been pressured by the most important alliance in the world: the leadership of the US Republican Party.
“At least in the short term it looks like the calculations the community made have paid dividends,” said Dawud Walid, Michigan-based executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
“It looks like president-elect Trump made good on his words to the community.”
Walid says he voted for Biden in 2020, but did not vote Democratic in 2024, and refused to reveal a choice at the ballot box.
Samra'a Luqman, for her part, firmly crossed the political spectrum – as progressive Bernie Sanders, who is still a Democrat, but vote for Trump in frustration.
“I'm very happy that the one promise that President Trump made to me has come true before he was even inaugurated,” the Dearborn, Mich., woman told CBC News on Wednesday.
“If there's anything I feel, it's anger that Biden couldn't have done this sooner himself and (offered) relief to the children of Gaza.”
It is undoubtedly too early to make long-term predictions about essential questions such as: Will this deal work? Will the peace prevail? And, this is important, will this lead to a better future for Palestinians? This will be explored in the coming days, months and years.
In the meantime we may be seeing the end of a catastrophic war that has killed tens of thousands and devastated the world at large.
A team effort, says Biden
For his part, the current president described it as a team effort. Details of the ceasefire agreement they are very similar to the lengthy proposal that his administration put forward in May, with the swap of his friendly prisoners.
But he credited the hard work of his team in arranging the deal, and admitted that he had instructed them to bring the incoming administration in.
“The Bible says, 'Blessed are the peacemakers.' Many peacemakers helped make this deal happen,” Biden said at the White House.
He offered mixed messages when it came to Trump's role, however. Biden pointed out that the current and future administrations spoke as one American team. But when a reporter asked if Trump deserved credit, he shot back: “Is that a joke?”
US President Joe Biden spoke on Wednesday after Qatar's prime minister announced that Israel and Hamas have reached an agreement to end the war in Gaza and release hostages. “Too many innocent people have died, too many communities have been destroyed,” Biden said.
Here's what we know.
Several Israeli media outlets are reporting that Trump's team pressed Benjamin Netanyahu's government to accept an agreement, however reluctantly.
One revolution had colorful details. The Haaretz newspaper reported that Trump's Mideast envoy Steven Witkoff called from Qatar late last Friday to inform Netanyahu's supporters that he would be in Israel to meet the following evening.
The aides politely explained, the newspaper said, that Netanyahu would be in the middle of observing the Sabbath but would meet with him later that evening.
They were shocked by the response from the Jewish secular developer, New York, who was appointed by Trump. Witkoff does not communicate in normal diplomatic ceremonies, Haaretz said, citing a senior Israeli diplomat, and explained in “sore English” that Sunday was “not very interesting to him.”
The incoming administration was eager to take credit. The next national security adviser in the White House, Mike Waltz, credited the progress to the “Trump Effect,” on X.
Trump himself didn't spend much time gaining credit.
“We've accomplished so much without even being in the White House,” he posted on his Truth Social website.
He promised to apply this agreement to wider agreements, apparently referring to the possibility of a peace settlement between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
After months of negotiations, Israel and Hamas are closer than ever to reaching a ceasefire agreement. The National breaks down how the ceasefire could develop.
'Permanent Arch-Emergency'
Now comes the hard part.
The Biden administration has argued that long-term peace requires greater political autonomy for Palestinians, including a path to statehood.
Without that, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a speech this week, violent attacks, including by a resurgent Hamas, will only continue.
“What we're looking at (without Palestinian freedom) is a permanent revolution that erodes and drains Israel, and perpetual war,” Blinken said.
Trump will only deserve praise if he works towards a brighter political future for Palestinians, says Eric Alterman, a journalist and author who has been a vocal critic of both the president-elect and Netanyahu.
That's because, for now, it's not yet clear that Trump is interested in that. Alterman says he could still turn a blind eye, while Israel annexes new pockets of the West Bank, making a Palestinian state increasingly impossible.
In fact, he says, it's possible that as part of Wednesday's deal, Netanyahu took some kind of commitment from Trump to turn a blind eye.
“We'll see what the payback is going forward,” said Alterman, who has written a a book on the history of US policy towards Israel.
“I'm not ready to give him credit yet. It's not even day one (of his presidency).”
Alterman says it's unclear what precipitated the deal from months of delay and prompted Netanyahu to accept an offer he had previously rejected.
It is also unclear whether Biden could have done much better. Many have argued that Biden could have cut arms to Israel, but, says Alterman, it is not clear what would have worked.
He says that Biden was afraid that he would lose a head-to-head confrontation with Netanyahu – that the American people would side with Israel, and that Israel would have continued to operate in Gaza anyway.
The bottom line: Biden wasn't willing, or able, to handle the pressure Trump put on him, he says, and it's a permanent scar on the legacy of a president with several domestic success.
Regarding Trump, Alterman said: “The world will understand this, ideally, because Donald Trump comes in and wants a deal – because he wanted a deal. “
