Can One Person Really Broker Middle East Peace?


Can History Actually Change in a Single Morning?

When wheels don't move but the world does: witnessing peace from a different kind of front line


I'm going to say something controversial. Three things, actually.

First: Trump doesn't deserve credit for this. Second: Peace negotiations are performative theatre that change nothing. Third: One man's signature can't end decades of suffering.

Now let me tell you why I'm wrong about all three.

The Weight of a Monday Morning

This morning, I woke up at 4:49 UTC in my small flat in Italy. My wheelchair sat by the window where pale October light was just starting to break. I smelled the coffee brewing (that sharp, bitter scent that marks every important morning), and I opened my laptop to watch history unfold in real time.

Twenty hostages walked free from Gaza after 736 days. Twenty human beings saw daylight again. I watched the footage, and my hands trembled on my desk.

You see, I don't approve of Trump's actions. I've written about his policies, his rhetoric, his approach to science and truth. But this morning, watching those reunions—Avinatan Or embracing his girlfriend Noa Argamani, families collapsing into each other's arms—I had to admit something that stuck in my throat like gravel.

He did an impeccable job.

The Aha Moment (Or: When Your Ideology Meets Reality)

Here's what nobody tells you about being chronically ill and politically engaged. You spend so much time analyzing, critiquing, deconstructing power structures that you forget power sometimes actually does something.

I've studied peace negotiations. I know the statistics. Most fail. Most are lip service. Most change nothing for the people on the ground who just want to wake up without sirens, without fear, without losing everyone they love.

But 736 days is a long time. Long enough for a child to forget a parent's voice. Long enough for hope to calcify into something harder and more bitter.

And then, in one morning, it shifts.

That's the moment that broke me. Not Trump's speech (which rang with typical grandiosity). Not the political theatre at Sharm el-Sheikh. But the realization that sometimes the imperfect vehicle delivers the precious cargo anyway.

What It Means to Watch From the Sidelines

I can't walk. I navigate the world from a different vantage point, literally and metaphorically. From my wheelchair, I've learned that progress rarely looks how you expect it to. It doesn't arrive in the form you'd choose. It doesn't come from the messenger you'd vote for.

But it comes anyway.

Here's what I observed today: Trump told the Knesset that "the long and painful nightmare is finally over." Netanyahu called him "the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House." Meanwhile, 1,968 Palestinian prisoners were released. Families in both Gaza and Ramallah wept with relief and confusion and complicated grief.

Nobody's hands are clean here. That's the truth they don't put in the headlines.

The Science of Impossible Things

At FreeAstroScience, we break down complex principles into simple terms. So let me apply that here.

The physics of peace: You need multiple forces acting in concert. Qatar, Egypt, Turkey, and the United States. Pressure and diplomacy. Threats and incentives. The weight of 736 days of suffering creating enough gravitational pull to bend even the most stubborn trajectories.

Trump's role? He was the catalyst. Not the cause, but the element that accelerated the reaction. Chemistry students know this: catalysts don't get consumed in the process. They remain themselves (problematic, flawed, controversial). But they make the impossible reaction possible.

I watched him sign that document at Sharm el-Sheikh. The room erupted in applause. He said, "Everybody's happy." And I thought: Are they, though?

The Uncomfortable Truth About Credit

Here's where I wrestle with myself. You're watching me do it right now, in real time, on your screen.

I don't like giving Trump credit. It feels like betraying my values, my analysis, my careful critique of his administration's approaches to science, truth, and human rights. But withholding credit when it's due? That's not honesty. That's ideology wearing honesty's clothes.

So here's my compromise with reality: Trump was instrumental. His team (Witkoff, Kushner, the Qatar and Egyptian mediators) navigated impossible terrain. They got it done. Twenty people went home. Hundreds of Palestinian families reunited. The war, at least for now, went quiet.

And I can acknowledge that while still maintaining every other criticism I've ever articulated.

That's what intellectual honesty looks like. It's uncomfortable. It should be.

What Happens Next (The Part Nobody's Talking About)

Trump told the Knesset this would be "a golden age for the Middle East." He said Gaza would be rebuilt, demilitarized, transformed. He floated the idea of visiting Gaza himself, maybe putting his foot on its soil.

I rolled my eyes at that part. (You probably did too.)

Because here's what I know from studying complex systems: First phases are always easiest. The hardest work happens in phases two and three—the parts still being negotiated, still theoretical, still dependent on everyone actually keeping their promises.

Trump said, "The war is finished." But wars don't finish. They pause. They transform. They leave scars that take generations to even begin to heal. Ask anyone who's lived through one.

Gaza looks like "a demolition site," Trump observed. He's not wrong. Now comes the impossible part: building something liveable from the rubble. Creating governance structures. Ensuring Hamas disarms (good luck with that). Making certain Israel doesn't restart operations when political winds shift.

That's the work that determines whether today was actually historic or just momentarily hopeful.

A Personal Reflection on Incomplete Victories

From my wheelchair, I've learned to celebrate incomplete victories. Every day I manage to write, to work, to engage with the world despite my body's limitations—that's an incomplete victory. It doesn't solve everything. It doesn't cure me. But it's something.

Today feels like that. Incomplete but real.

Twenty families got their people back. That's not all the hostages (28 bodies still await return, some remains may never be recovered). It's not justice for everyone who's suffered. It's not the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which predates all of us and will likely outlive us too.

But it's something. And sometimes, something is enough to build on.

The Question I Can't Stop Asking

Here's what keeps circling in my mind: What does it cost you to acknowledge when someone you oppose does something right?

For me, it costs comfort. It costs the easy narrative where I'm right and they're wrong, full stop. It costs me the tribal satisfaction of refusing to see nuance in my opponents.

But keeping that cost? Refusing to pay it? That costs something worse. It costs intellectual honesty. It costs the ability to recognize truth when it appears in unexpected forms. It costs the very thing that makes science possible: the willingness to update your understanding when new data arrives.

And today brought new data. Uncomfortable, inconvenient, but undeniable.

Looking Forward From Here

So where does this leave us? Trump will fly back to America, declare victory, move on to his next crisis. Netanyahu will navigate Israeli politics, which remain fractured and complicated. Hamas will either honor this agreement or violate it (my bet: some mix of both, depending on who's making decisions in which moment). Palestinians in Gaza will begin the brutal work of rebuilding from near-total destruction.

And I'll sit here in Germany, in my wheelchair, watching and analyzing and trying to make sense of it all for you.

Because that's what we do at FreeAstroScience. We take the complex and make it comprehensible. We look at the data without flinching. We acknowledge uncomfortable truths because that's how you actually understand the universe—whether you're studying celestial mechanics or human conflicts.

Trump did an impeccable job brokering this ceasefire. There. I said it again, in case you missed it the first time. Does that change my overall assessment of his presidency, his policies, his approach to science and truth? No. But it changes my assessment of this specific historical moment.

And maybe that's the lesson here. People are more complicated than our categories for them. Events are messier than our ideologies allow. History happens in the spaces between what we expect and what we'd prefer.

A Final Thought

Tonight, twenty people will sleep in their own beds for the first time in over two years. Nineteen hundred Palestinian families will welcome home their loved ones. Somewhere in Gaza, the silence will feel strange after so much noise, so much destruction, so much unrelenting fear.

Is this peace? I don't know. History will judge that.

Is this progress? Absolutely.

And if we can't acknowledge progress when it happens—even when it arrives through imperfect channels, delivered by imperfect people—then what hope do we have of recognizing the next opportunity when it appears?

I'm choosing hope today. The complicated, uncomfortable, ideologically inconvenient kind. The kind that admits Trump got this one right while maintaining every other critique. The kind that says peace is possible even when it seems impossible, even when the wrong person makes it happen.

Because from my wheelchair, I've learned this: The universe doesn't care about our preferences. It just keeps moving, keeps changing, keeps offering us chances to evolve.

Today was one of those chances. Let's see what we do with it.


Written specifically for you by Gerd of FreeAstroScience, where we explain complex scientific and political principles in terms that actually make sense. Because understanding the world shouldn't require a PhD—just curiosity, honesty, and the courage to update your beliefs when reality demands it.


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