Toward the end of World War I, Chaim Weizmann, head of the World Zionist Organization and later the first president of Israel, established cordial relations with Emir Faisal, the son of Sherif Hussein of Mecca and later the first king of Iraq. Shortly thereafter, the two would sign an agreement establishing an alliance between an unborn Jewish state and an unborn Arab one, as recounted by the Israel State Archives:

On June 17, 1918, Weizmann wrote to his wife Vera in London about the romantic journey along the Red Sea past the “glowing mountains” of Sinai via Aqaba to the Anglo-Arab army in southeast Transjordan. Here he met Faisal: “the first real Arab nationalist I have met. He is a leader! He is quite intelligent and a very honest man, handsome as a picture. He is not interested in Palestine, but on the other hand he wants Damascus and the whole of northern Syria.”

Weizmann noted that [Faisal] he was contemptuous of the Palestinians and did not regard them as Arabs. He saw Faisal as an alternative to the Palestinian leadership, which was hostile to the Zionists’ aspirations. . . . Weizmann did not realize the depth of Arab nationalism, which was in its early stages but would quickly gain ground.

In December 1918, Faisal and Weizmann met again in London. In the interim, Faisal had captured Damascus, which he hoped would be the capital of the Arab kingdom promised by the British, but his regime there was fragile. In their talk on December 11, Weizmann promised help from the Zionist movement. . . . An agreement was drawn up, signed on January 3, 1919, in which Faisal expressed approval of the Balfour Declaration and Jewish settlement in Palestine. Other clauses ensured freedom of religion and Muslim control of the holy places sacred to Islam.

That accord was short-lived. Giving in to the demands of Arab nationalists, Faisal petitioned the Western powers for an Arab state that included Palestine. In short order, the British allowed France to take over Syria (against the wishes of both Faisal and Weizmann), Faisal became king of Iraq, and nothing came of his earlier alliance with the Zionists.

Information about a supposedly near-finalized hostage deal continued to trickle out yesterday. While it’s entirely possible that by the time you read this a deal will be much more certain, it is every bit as likely that it will have fallen through by then. More likely still, we will learn that there are indefinite and unspecified delays. Then there are the details: even in the best of scenarios, not all the hostages will be returned at once, and Israel will have to make painful concessions in exchange, including the release of hundreds of hardened terrorists and the withdrawal from key parts of the Gaza Strip.

Unusually—if entirely appropriately—the president-elect’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, has participated in the talks alongside members of President Biden’s team. Philip Klein examines the incoming Trump administration’s role in the process:

President-elect Trump has repeatedly warned that there would be “all hell to pay” if hostages were not returned from Gaza by the time he takes office. While he has never laid out exactly what the specific consequences for Hamas would be, there are some ominous signs that Israel is being pressured into paying a tremendous price.

There is obviously more here than we know. It’s possible that with the pressure from the Trump team came reassurances that Israel would have more latitude to reenter Gaza as necessary to go after Hamas than it would have enjoyed under Biden. . . . That said, all appearances are that Israel has been forced into making more concessions because Trump was concerned that he’d be embarrassed if January 20 came around with no hostages released.

While Donald Trump’s threats are a welcome rhetorical shift, part of the problem may be their vagueness. After all, it’s unlikely the U.S. would use military force to unleash hell in Gaza, or could accomplish much in doing so that the IDF can’t. More useful would be direct threats against countries like Qatar and Turkey that host Hamas, and threats to the persons and bank accounts of the Hamas officials living in those counties. Witkoff instead praised the Qatari prime minister for “doing God’s work” in the negotiations.”