Former President Bill Clinton (D) said in a post to X on Monday that President Donald Trump and his administration “deserve great credit” for negotiating the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal.
“The horrors of the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel and the conflict they reignited have resulted in unbearable human loss,” Clinton wrote. “It has been hard to watch and nearly impossible to rationalize.”
“I’m grateful that a ceasefire has taken hold, that the last 20 hostages have been freed, and that desperately needed aid has begun to flow into Gaza,” he said. “President Trump and his administration, Qatar, and other regional actors deserve great credit for keeping everyone engaged until the agreement was reached.”
“Now Israel and Hamas — with the support of the United States, the region, and the world — must try to turn this fragile moment into lasting peace that provides for the dignity and security of both Palestinians and Israelis,” he continued. “I believe that they can’t there, but only if they do it together.”
Clinton’s praise is notable, given President Trump’s tense relationship with him and his wife Hillary Clinton, who ran against Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Bill Clinton also previously criticized Trump for his handling of the Israel-Iran tensions over the summer, Fox News reported.
“First of all — they’re not talking about negotiating peace in the Middle East because the Israelis have no intention of… under Prime Minister Netanyahu, of giving the Palestinians a state. And now, they’re too divided and crushed to organize themselves to achieve it,” Clinton said during an appearance on “The Daily Show.”
“Mr. Netanyahu has long wanted to fight Iran because that way he can stay in office forever and ever. I mean, he’s been there most of the last 20 years,” he said. “But I think we should be trying to defuse it, and I hope President Trump will do that.”
“We have to convince our friends in the Middle East that we’ll stand with them and try to protect them,” he said. “But choosing undeclared wars in which the primary victims are civilians, who are not politically involved, one way or the other, who just want to live decent lives, is not a very good solution.”
Clinton did say at the time that the United States should not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon but emphasized the importance of protecting innocent civilian lives.
“Do I think that we have to try to stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon? I do,” he said. “But we don’t have to have all this outright constant killing of civilians who can’t defend themselves, and they just want a chance to live.”
Days after Clinton’s comments, President Trump launched Operation Midnight Hammer, striking multiple uranium sites in Iran with B-2 bombers and other jets.
Hillary Clinton also praised Trump for engineering the peace deal.
“I really commend President Trump and his administration, as well as Arab leaders in the region, for making the commitment to the 20-point plan, and seeing a path forward for what is often called the day after,” she told CBS News after Hamas agreed to the ceasefire deal.
Hillary Clinton previously said she would personally nominate Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize if he was able to convince Russian President Vladimir Putin to end his war and return all territory seized in Ukraine.
“You know, look, if we could pull that off — if President Trump were the architect of that — I’d nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize,” she said during an appearance on the “Raging Moderates” podcast.
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