‘Cut the s--t’: Trump’s straight-talking Mideast envoy deployed art of the deal

After months of tentative negotiations by the Democratic administration, the incoming US president sent Steven Witkoff to act tough with Benjamin Netanyahu.

As President Joe Biden finished his address to the nation announcing the ceasefire in Gaza, a reporter shouted over a question: “Who gets credit for this, you or Trump?” With a smirk, Biden replied: “Is that a joke?” The outgoing president may have been incredulous, but the question appears to be reasonable.

Biden and his team of seasoned diplomats had spent close to a year hashing out the deal. Then Donald Trump dispatched his new Middle East envoy Steven Witkoff, a real estate tycoon from the Bronx, and several meetings later it was done.

Steven Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy, had meetings with Hamas negotiators in Qatar. Picture: Reuters

In the weeks since being appointed, Witkoff, a Jewish property investor and founder of the Witkoff Group who plays golf with Trump, has shuttled between the US, Israel and the Gulf on what had seemed an impossible mission: to deliver his boss a truce before he takes office on January 20.

Where Biden’s negotiators had taken a softly-softly approach, Witkoff, who has a fearsome reputation in the property world, had done away with the niceties. He became friends with Trump in the 1990s when he was building up his real estate empire and the future president was buying properties in Manhattan. Two decades later Witkoff, 67, has a net worth of $US50 million ($80.5m) and through his investment firm owns a reported 51 properties in London, Miami and New York, including the Park Lane Hotel.

According to reports in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Witkoff told Benjamin Netanyahu’s office that he would be arriving from Qatar on Friday last week and wanted to meet. The Israeli prime minister’s aides informed him it was the Sabbath and he would have to wait until Saturday evening.

“Cut the shit, we all know Bibi’s flipping light switches on Saturday,” he apparently replied, referring to the prohibited use of electricity after sundown on the Jewish day of rest. “Tell him to get his ass to the office.”

Netanyahu, a leader said to bend to no man’s will, showed up. “Trump is serious about this deal, don’t ruin this,” Witkoff told Netanyahu.

The envoy’s skills were fully tested during the final hours of negotiations when he had to quickly overcome hurdles such as Hamas’s demands for maps showing the positions of Israeli forces after they redeploy outside Gaza’s urban centres under the deal.

According to reports in The National, a paper based in Abu Dhabi, during the meetings in Doha he addressed Arab delegates by first name and “diligently scribbled notes as he discussed the details of a possible deal with each of them”. The paper reported: “He was like a seasoned merchant; he gets good buys and knows how to sell.”

President Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in July last year. Picture: Jim Watson/AFP

Those familiar with the text of the agreement noted it was almost identical to the one presented by Biden’s negotiators in May, and again in July. “There would be no deal had Donald Trump not taken Netanyahu’s hand, bent it behind his back, then bent it a little more, then a little more, then pushed his head on the table and whispered in his ear that he would kick his balls,” wrote Chaim Levinson, diplomatic correspondent at Haaretz. “It’s a shame Biden didn’t realise this a long time ago.”

Both sides were quick to claim the credit on Wednesday.

Soon after the election, Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, and Brett McGurk, his top Middle East adviser, started meeting with their successors on the Trump team, Mike Waltz and Witkoff, to co-ordinate efforts.

In the final sprint in the talks, Witkoff joined a meeting between Netanyahu and his chief negotiators. McGurk dialled in. Over the next hour, the envoys from the two administrations probed the areas on which the Israelis were willing to be flexible. The prospect of an unpredictable Trump presidency no doubt focused minds, they said. Netanyahu was keen not to start off on the wrong foot with Israel’s most important ally.

Rarely, if ever, have incoming and outgoing administrations worked together at such a high-stakes moment. “No one has private authorship,” Witkoff said. “We are totally outcome-driven.”

The Times