After two terrible years — beginning on the horrific morning of October 7, 2023 — there is now a chance this war could end, at least temporarily. Hostages could return home, aid could flow into Gaza, reconstruction efforts could start to take shape, and lives and societies could start to mend. This chance exists not because the 20-point proposal released by the United States on September 29, 2025, is a model of diplomatic detail or nuance. It exists because its patron, President Donald Trump, appears determined not to take “no” for an answer — meaning he is willing to interpret almost any answer as a “yes,” regardless of its content or intent. If, in the past, negotiators crafted vague bridging proposals to allow both sides to say “yes,” now the parties are crafting vague “yes, but” responses to allow the US administration to claim, and perhaps even produce, a success: a partial, messy, disingenuous one, yet nonetheless vital end to this historic round of violence.
Peace in the Middle East — or constructive ambiguity in reverse | Middle East Institute
