Gaza peace deal that could have paved way for Palestinian state 'collapsed after Trump re-election’, ex-US diplomat says

James Rubin, who worked under Secretary of State Antony Blinken in the Biden administration, said the US Government and Tony Blair had managed to get both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities to agree to a ceasefire.

Speaking on the Christiane Amanpour Presents the X Files podcast, the 65-year-old alleged that he, Mr Blinken and the former British Prime Minister had worked for nine months in 2023 on a proposal that would see an end to the fighting, Israeli hostages freed and Gaza run without Hamas in charge.

This deal was not only agreed upon by both sides, but also with the rest of the world's Arab nations, the ex-US ambassador said.

However, the agreement fell through because the dealmakers "ran out of time" and attentions turned to the US election, with Trump's victory "essentially evaporating" the deal, Mr Rubin said.

"It collapsed because we ran out of time," Mr Rubin told Ms Amanpour. "We were in October [2023] and we were very close. But then everyone [in the middle east] started waiting to see who would win."

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"They know our politics so well and they are all waiting to see if they are going to deal with the Biden type people, or they are going to deal with Trump, which are two very different things. So they put it out on hold and when Trump won, our power essentially evaporated."

According to Mr Rubin, his agreement would see an international force that "would run between Israel and the Palestine local police", which would "prevent Hamas from ever again re-arming and rebuilding its capabilities".

Whilst the deal would not see American boots on the ground in the West Bank, Mr Rubin said the United States central command was going to organise the force, which was the "crucial thing".

"The Israelis bought into this and we got there agreement to fully withdraw from Gaza," he said.

"The hard part was to get all the Arab nations on board and to get them to commit to forcing Hamas aside. We understood we needed all the Arab countries and the Palestinian authority to stand up and be the leaders of this new entity that was going to, not yet be a Palestinian state, but a step on the road to a Palestinian state.

"And the United States would have supported a UN resolution in which Gaza's control would be the first concrete step towards the establishment of a Palestinian state. We were starting to get the Arab countries to agree to that, to getting an agreement that would have stopped the war."

In order to get this proposal together, Mr Rubin said his "best buddy" Mr Blair was meeting privately with powerful figures such as the President of the United Arab Emirates, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and the president of Egypt to gather information for the deal.

"We were getting these back channels of information. I would take that to secretary Blinken and he and I cooked up a plan. We realised that there was two problems that you have to solve," Mr Rubin said.

"You have to figure out how to get the Israelis out of Gaza and two you have to figure out how Gaza is going to be run without Hamas in charge. After Hamas did what it did, there was no way any Israeli government was ever going to let Hamas be in charge of anything ever again.

"So these two things had to be done. What we came up with was an actual proposal for an international force that would run between Israel and the Palestine local police and it would prevent Hamas from every again re-arming and rebuilding its capabilities so that it could ever again did what it did on October 7.

"So in the end, I was on the phone every day. Tony Blinken was on the phone as much, if not more then me. We were talking to individuals in Israel, in the Arab countries that might deploy and with the military so that we could organise a force."

But after Trump was re-elected in November 2024, the Israeli Government knew that the new US Government "wasn't going to make Gaza the highest priority", Mr Rubin said.

He explained: "We were hoping he [Trump] would follow it up. We were hoping to have the US force Israelis to accept the United States voting for a Palestinian state in the United Nations.

"Donald Trump was never going to do that. So the Israeli's knew they had a different administration which didn't care as much about Gaza. That wasn't going to make Gaza the highest priority."

Mr Rubin was appointed as Special Envoy and Coordinator of the Global Engagement Center on November 16, 2022 by Secretary of State Antony Blinken. His term ended on December 23, 2024.

In the US, the secretary of state serves as the principal advisor to the president on all foreign affairs matters.

Mr Rubin also worked as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs in the Bill Clinton Administration from 1997–2000.

The White House and Tony Blair have been approached for a comment.