Trump Heads to Egypt After Historic Day in Israel

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00:00All right, President Trump has just boarded and is about to take off from Israel, head

00:04to Egypt.

00:05Let's get to Bloomberg's Oliver Crook right now in Jerusalem, where we heard a large number

00:11of speeches this morning, all of them quite long.

00:15Oliver, what do you make of what we heard from the president, from Netanyahu and others?

00:21Yeah, really capping off, you know, really for the Israelis, a magnificent day.

00:25They all have been saying in their history and the sort of hero's welcome that Donald

00:30Trump got here about seven hours ago when he arrived in Ben-Gurion Airport outside of

00:34Tel Aviv, where he's now about to take off, where he was welcomed by the prime minister

00:38of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, took a ride in the beast from Tel Aviv into Jerusalem, went

00:45before the Knesset, the parliament within Israel, the first American president to be sitting

00:51president to speak before the Knesset since 2008, when it was George W. Bush.

00:55And really receiving massive applause, absolutely sort of being showered with praise for basically

01:01what the president of the United States has achieved over, in very short order, something

01:05that seemed really kind of impossible two weeks ago, where on the same day that he spoke before

01:10the Knesset, the last remaining living hostages that were being held by Hamas were coming into

01:15the custody of the IDF and crossing back into Israeli territory.

01:19The speaker of the Knesset referred to this, that Trump will be remembered not just as an

01:23American president, but a giant of Jewish history and will be remembered for 1,000 years.

01:28And those were the kinds of remarks, and that is the kind of sentiment that you feel here

01:32in Israel over the last few days when we first got that announcement of the ceasefire at the

01:37end of last week.

01:37And even as I arrived here in Tel Aviv, as you're landing, before you even touch ground

01:41in Israel, look out the window.

01:42You see a skyscraper with an Israeli flag and an American flag beneath it.

01:48The highway that paves the direction from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the same highway that

01:52Trump would have taken, it used to be lined with Israeli flags.

01:55Now every third flag is an American flag.

01:57And that is really the sentiment today in this really historic day in Israel, more than two

02:02years after the beginning of the war of October 7th.

02:05And what is hopefully, hopefully, again, this is a complicated question, the beginning of the

02:09end of this war.

02:10Yeah, no, that's exactly what I was going to ask.

02:12I mean, Israel is obviously and understandably overjoyed that the remaining hostages have

02:19been released.

02:20And I heard one hostage's parents say, the war is over.

02:26Is that true?

02:27Is this war over?

02:28Can that be said?

02:31It really depends who you ask, Matt.

02:33And I think that what all of the joy and the jubilation that we are feeling around Israel

02:38and really around the Middle East and really around the world today, I think, Matt, unfortunately,

02:42masks a bitter, bitter reality, which is that the path forward is not at all certain.

02:47It is not at all self-evident.

02:49And despite the fact that you have this 20-point plan that is laid out, that has a lot of ideas

02:53that could ultimately, theoretically, Matt, lead to Palestinian statehood, there are a

02:57lot of steps before that that it's not clear how you get to.

03:00There's the question of governance over Gaza.

03:02How is that going to work?

03:03This technocratic Palestinian-led group that is sort of overseen by this board of peace,

03:08chaired by Trump and a number of others.

03:10That, before you can even get to that, you need to have a security arrangement within

03:13Gaza.

03:14That means that there needs to be potentially external force that come in to guarantee that

03:17peace.

03:18Who is going to sign up for that?

03:19This has been the long challenge.

03:21Even Arab states are not necessarily going to sign up to be behind that.

03:24It's a security force that needs to be credible with Israel, needs to be credible with the

03:28local Palestinians.

03:29And that really goes to the next question.

03:31I think the immediate question, Matt, which will determine whether or not this is the end

03:34of the war, which is, what is Hamas now?

03:36What is going to be the next step for Hamas?

03:38Hamas themselves have said that they are not going to fully disarm.

03:41This is something that they've talked about for a while now.

03:44That is really a prerequisite to make any sort of major progress here.

03:48There is aid that is going to be continuing to go into Gaza, but it's not just aid that's

03:52needed.

03:52It's, of course, reconstruction.

03:54And there could be halts put on reconstruction if Hamas does not sort of disarm.

03:58And these are going to be the really very challenging conversations that will begin, actually, really,

04:02in the next hour or so, when Donald Trump arrives in Sharm el-Sheikh, where he has assembled

04:06a great litany of world leaders all the way from Europe, the rest of the Middle East, and

04:11far from around the world, to try to discuss what the sort of custody and the stewardship

04:14of Gaza will be in the coming months and years.

04:17Yeah.

04:17What exactly, Oliver, do we expect to happen in Sharm el-Sheikh?

04:21And why isn't Benjamin Netanyahu going to attend?

04:26He's widely known to be non-Orthodox, very flexible as a secular Jew.

04:32Why would he skip it?

04:36Yeah, so there's been a lot of debate about that.

04:38So there was initially questions about whether or not he was invited.

04:41There were questions about whether the optics are more difficult for Egypt or for the Israelis

04:45or for some of the other Arab states, for that matter, that are attending the signing

04:49ceremony.

04:49From what we understood from some of the reporting from local news here, when Trump arrived in

04:53fairly short order, he got on the phone with the president of Egypt, with Benjamin Netanyahu

04:58there, basically convinced him to invite him.

05:00And then Benjamin Netanyahu, because it's a holiday here in Israel, said that the timeline

05:04was too close and that basically he couldn't really make it to go to the signing ceremony

05:09in Egypt.

05:09Now, what the reality of that situation is, I don't think we will know for sure, but there

05:13is certainly intense domestic pressure in Israel, in Egypt, and of course all the other

05:18Arab states that potentially would make that very difficult.

05:20But we're expecting this to be a sort of joyous occasion, this signing ceremony.

05:24But Matt, what will be absolutely crucial here is to start defining the roles of all

05:28of these nations, what they're going to play in the future of Gaza, and of course, keeping

05:33momentum behind this initiative that basically came close to out of thin air about a week ago

05:39and came into reality in very short order.

05:41And that is going to be the challenge for the next few days.

05:43What's the TikTok look like right now, Oliver, in terms of not in terms of the Chinese social

05:50media site, but in terms of when we expect things to happen now?

05:54Because Sharm el-Sheikh was scheduled already to have begun, and clearly the president hasn't

06:00even taken off yet from Israel.

06:04Yeah, the timeline is certainly going to be delayed here.

06:06So what we expect is Air Force One to take off from Ben-Gurion Airport here just outside of

06:10Tel Aviv, really any moment now, and then go fly directly to Sharm el-Sheikh, where,

06:15again, Trump has assembled a great many leaders from around the region and representatives from

06:20all of the—many of the Arab states, whether it's Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, all

06:26of whom have been very involved within this process.

06:28But also, interestingly, Matt, a lot of the European leaders too, right?

06:31And many people, I think many within Israel, have quite a bit of resentment, actually, for

06:36many of these European leaders, whether it's Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, who all fairly

06:40recently recognized the state of Palestine, but they're going to be in that meeting.

06:44They've started to talk about what kind of role they potentially could play in the support

06:48of reconstruction of Gaza.

06:51So those are going to be the conversations with those leaders.

06:53But again, I think that part of the problem here, Matt, is we have a 20-point plan.

06:56You know, 20 points sounds pretty detailed, but there is a lot of detail still missing,

07:00and there need to be a great many different roles that need to be allocated, and there needs

07:04to be a commitment of what everybody is going to—willing to do and what role they're willing

07:08to play.

07:09We heard from Donald Trump a little bit earlier saying that everybody wants to be a part of

07:13this Board of Peace, so-called, this thing that oversees governance in Gaza, but that still

07:17has not taken shape.

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