President Donald Trump celebrated “peace in the Middle East” after he signed the historic peace agreement that ended two years of fighting in Gaza.
“At long last, we have peace in the Middle East, and it’s a very simple expression, peace in the Middle East,” Trump said during remarks at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, flanked by dozens of world leaders.
“We’ve heard it for many years, but nobody thought it could ever get there. And now we’re there.”
Trump went on: “This is the day that people across this region and around the world have been working, striving, hoping, and praying for. With the historic agreement we have just signed, those prayers of millions have finally been answered. Together, we have achieved the impossible.”
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His remarks came after Hamas released the final remaining 20 living hostages on Monday as Israel backed off its frontline positioning in Gaza over the weekend.
Now, according to Trump, mediators will begin work on phases two, three and four of the 20-point peace plan.
“This breakthrough that we’re here to celebrate tonight is more than the end of the war in Gaza, it’s, with God’s help, it’ll be the new beginning for an entire beautiful Middle East,” Trump went on.
He expressed optimism that more Arab and Muslim-majority nations would join the Abraham Accords, a series of normalization deals with Israel, as he took a shot at the Biden administration for failing to advance the deals.
“We’re going to get a lot of people joining the Abraham Accords. We have the four great nations that did it early on, and they stayed with it. And then you had the Biden administration, which is the worst administration in the history of our country. And obviously they did nothing on that in anything else.”
During Trump’s first administration, Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates joined the Abraham Accords.
“We don’t have a Gaza and we don’t have an Iran as an excuse. That was a good excuse, but we don’t have that anymore. All the momentum now is toward a great, glorious and lasting peace and our commitment to fulfilling the 20 point plan we developed together will be the crucial foundation for achieving that bright future,” the president went on.
Trump said he believed the deal would mean an end to “terror” in the region. “We want to get rid of the terror and get on to other things. There are many other things in life that are so good.”
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He suggested the next phase of the peace plan — rebuilding from the rubble in Gaza — would be the easy part. “We all know how to rebuild and we know how to build better than anybody in the world.”
At one point during his own address, Trump called up Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to speak. “Today is one of the greatest days in contemporary history because peace has been achieved after untiring efforts, efforts led by President Trump, who is genuinely a man of peace,” Sharif said. He added that Trump worked “relentlessly” to lead efforts to “make this world a place to live with peace and prosperity.” Sharif also said that Pakistan nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Trump, meanwhile, credited Secretary of State Marco Rubio for his work on the pace plan nine months in the making.
“I think he’ll go down as the greatest secretary of state in the history of our country. I really believe that, Marco.”
He described an optimistic vision for the Middle East.
“Let us continue in the spirit of cooperation and goodwill that has finally brought us to this incredible historic breakthrough. If we do it together, we will reach the Middle East’s incredible destiny, a safe and prosperous and beautiful crossroads of culture and commerce, faith in humanity and geographic center. This will be the geographic center of the world.”
