Fact-checking Donald Trump’s speech in Israeli parliament

On the day Israel and Hamas exchanged captives and detainees as part of the Gaza deal, United States President Donald Trump framed the agreement he helped broker as a “historic dawn of a new Middle East”.

“This is not only the end of a war, this is the end of an age of terror and death and the beginning of the age of faith and hope and of God,” Trump told the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, on Monday.

Trump’s address focused on his administration’s efforts to produce an agreement between Israel and Hamas, which included a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of 20 Israeli captives, 250 Palestinian political prisoners and about 1,700 Gaza detainees held without charges. Many of the Palestinians were “forcefully disappeared” from Gaza by Israel.

The future phases of Trump’s 20-point plan that could lead to a lasting peace are complicated and uncertain. After his speech, Trump flew to Egypt to sign the deal with world leaders at a summit that launched the first phase of the agreement.

Under the plan, Arab and international partners will develop a stabilisation force to deploy in Gaza, while day-to-day governance would shift from Hamas to a Palestinian committee. The committee will include Palestinians and international experts, with oversight by the “Board of Peace”, chaired by Trump and including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Trump, the fourth US president to address the Knesset, praised his handpicked negotiator, Steve Witkoff, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio while taking swipes at his Democratic predecessors, Barack Obama and Joe Biden. He also called for Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, to pardon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has faced a years-long corruption case.

Here are fact-checks of some of Trump’s comments:

Trump said he ‘settled eight wars in eight months’

The agreement signed on Monday is widely considered a landmark moment in a decades-long conflict, and Trump was a key player. But his repeated talking point about solving eight wars is exaggerated.

Trump had a hand in ceasefires that have recently eased conflicts between Israel and Iran, India and Pakistan, and Armenia and Azerbaijan. But these were mostly incremental accords, and some leaders dispute the extent of Trump’s role.

Peace has not held in other conflicts. The US was involved in a temporary peace deal between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, but violence in the region has continued, with hundreds of civilians killed since the deal’s June signing. After Trump helped broker a deal between Cambodia and Thailand, the countries have accused each other of ceasefire violations that have led to violent skirmishes.

A long-running standoff between Egypt and Ethiopia over an Ethiopian dam on the Nile remains unresolved, and it is closer to a diplomatic dispute than a military clash. In the case of Kosovo and Serbia, there is little evidence that a potential war was brewing.

Trump has made notable progress by securing the Israel-Hamas ceasefire and captive agreement, but the deal involves multiple stages, so it will take time to see if peace holds.

‘So we dropped 14 bombs on Iran’s key nuclear facilities, totally, as I said originally, obliterating them. That’s been confirmed.’

It is impossible to know whether Operation Midnight Hammer – in which the US bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities in June to undercut Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities – succeeded in “obliterating” those sites, because US and allied intelligence is not necessarily available to the public.

More than three months after the US attack on Fordow, a major underground Iranian nuclear site, it’s not clear how much damage US bombs created. Officials haven’t publicly released a definitive damage assessment.

An August 20 analysis by The New York Times said subsequent assessments have found an increasing likelihood that significant damage resulted from the strike. However, the Times concluded that “with so many variables – and so many unknowns – it may be difficult to ever really be certain.”

‘The Iran nuclear deal turned out to be a disaster.’

Trump omits that Iran had largely complied with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in which the country agreed not to pursue nuclear weapons and allow continuous monitoring of its compliance in exchange for relief from economic sanctions. The agreement was set to expire in 10 to 25 years.

Trump withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and did not renegotiate the agreement as he promised.

Many experts praised the pact for keeping nuclear weapons out of Tehran’s hands. The International Atomic Energy Agency said it found Iran committed no violations, aside from minor infractions that were addressed.

After dropping out of the compact, the US imposed economic sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme, and Iran reduced its compliance with the deal.

Under the Obama and Biden administrations, ‘there was a hatred toward Israel, it was an absolute hatred’

The two Democratic presidents had somewhat strained relationships with Netanyahu, who has often courted US Republican leaders, but during their tenures, the US continued to support Israeli foreign policy and its military.

Osamah Khalil, Syracuse University history professor and expert on the modern Middle East, said it’s untrue that Obama or Biden “held a personal animus toward Israel, especially Biden”.

“Indeed, both administrations oversaw expansions in US military assistance and coordination with Israel,” Khalil said. “In 2016, Obama signed the largest US military aid package in history.”

In 2016, the US and Israel signed a 10-year, $38bn memorandum of understanding. It cited several priorities, including updating the Israeli air fleet and maintaining the country’s missile defence system.

Military funding for Israel continued under Biden. In the two years since October 7, 2023, the US government spent $21.7bn on military aid to Israel.

Biden ordered US troops to be deployed in and around Israel and Gaza and shielded Israel at the UN by blocking many ceasefire resolutions, Khalil said.

Obama and Biden ‘did nothing with this incredible document, the Abraham Accords’

Obama’s presidency ended years before the Abraham Accords were signed.

The 2020 agreement during Trump’s first term brought together the leaders of Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. The countries agreed to peace and cooperation with Israel, establishing embassies, preventing hostilities and fostering tourism and trade.

The Biden administration tried to bring Saudi Arabia into the accord, but this effort languished after Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023 triggered Israel’s brutal war on Gaza. A United Nations inquiry commission has called the Israeli actions in Gaza a genocide.

After Israel’s war on Gaza, “the idea of official Israeli-Saudi relations became much harder,” said Jeremy Pressman, a University of Connecticut political science professor and expert on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

During this war, Israel killed more than 68,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, and destroyed 92 percent of all residential buildings in Gaza – home to 2.3 million people.