Here’s a one-word summary of the reaction from some American Muslims to news of the Gaza ceasefire deal: vindication.

There was heated debate last year as so many in the community turned on Democrats and supported Donald Trump, a Republican, in unusually high numbers — betting that he could succeed where Joe Biden had failed and end the 15-month Israel-Hamas war. 

Their calculus was questioned or even ridiculed, given the unflinching pro-Israel stance of Trump’s party and the dearth of evidence he has ever cared about Palestinians.

But now some are pointing to reports that Trump deployed bare-knuckle pressure to push through a long-stalled ceasefire deal days before he takes office. The Israeli government was apparently squeezed by its most important ally in the world: the leadership of the U.S. Republican Party. 

“At least in the short term it seems like the calculation that the community made has paid dividends,” said Dawud Walid, the Michigan-based executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

“It appears president-elect Trump made good on his words to the community.” 

Walid says he voted for Biden in 2020, but did not vote Democrat in 2024, and declined to reveal his choice at the ballot box.

Samra’a Luqman, for her part, swung resolutely across the political spectrum — as a Bernie Sanders progressive, who remains a Democrat, but voted for Trump in frustration. 

“I’m thrilled that the one promise that President Trump made to me has actualized before he even got inaugurated,” the Dearborn, Mich., woman told CBC News on Wednesday.

“If there’s anything I feel, it’s anger that Biden couldn’t have done this sooner himself and [offered] relief for the children of Gaza.”

It’s undeniably early to make long-term prognostications on essential questions like: Will this deal work? Will the peace hold? And, this is key, will this lead to a better future for Palestinians? This will be scrutinized in the days, months and years ahead.

In the meantime we may be witnessing the end of a catastrophic war that has killed tens of thousands and destabilized the broader world. 

Team effort, says Biden

For his part, the current president described it as a team effort. The details of the ceasefire agreement are very similar to the long-stalled proposal his administration put forward in May, with its hostage-prisoner swap.  

But he credited his team’s hard work in arranging the deal, and acknowledged that he’d instructed them to involve the incoming administration.

“The Bible says, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’ Many peacemakers helped make this deal happen,” Biden said at the White House.

He offered mixed messages when it came to Trump’s role, however. Biden celebrated that the current and future administrations spoke as one American team. But when a reporter asked if Trump deserved credit he shot back: “Is that a joke?”

WATCH | Biden lauds ceasefire agreement:

Biden ‘deeply satisfied’ after ceasefire deal reached between Israel and Hamas

U.S. President Joe Biden spoke Wednesday after Qatar’s prime minister announced that Israel and Hamas have reached a deal to pause the war in Gaza and release hostages. ‘Too many innocent people have died, too many communities have been destroyed,’ Biden said.

Here’s what we know.

Several Israeli media outlets report that Trump’s team pressured Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to accept a deal, however reluctantly.

There was a colourful detail in one outlet. The newspaper Haaretz said Trump’s Mideast envoy Steven Witkoff called from Qatar late last Friday to tell Netanyahu’s aides that he would be in Israel to meet the next afternoon.

The aides politely explained, said the newspaper, that Netanyahu would be in the midst of observing the Sabbath but would meet him later that evening.

They were shocked by the reply from the secular Jewish, New York real-estate developer appointed by Trump. Witkoff does not communicate in typical diplomatic niceties, Haaretz said, quoting a senior Israeli diplomat, and explained in “salty English” that the Sabbath “was of no interest to him.” 

The incoming administration was eager to take credit. The next White House national security adviser, Mike Waltz, credited the breakthrough to the “Trump Effect,” on X. 

Trump himself wasted little time grabbing credit. 

“We have achieved so much without even being in the White House,” he posted on his website Truth Social.

He promised to parlay this pact into broader agreements, appearing to allude to the possibility of a peace arrangement between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

WATCH | Details of the deal:

Breaking down the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal

After months of negotiating, Israel and Hamas are closer than ever at reaching a ceasefire deal. The National breaks down how the ceasefire could unfold.

‘An enduring insurgency’

Now comes the hard part.

The Biden administration has argued that long-term peace requires greater political self-determination for Palestinians, including a path to statehood.

Without that, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a speech this week, violent attacks, including by a revived Hamas, will only keep recurring.

“What we’re looking at [without Palestinian freedom] is an enduring insurgency that will bleed and drain Israel, and a perpetual war,” Blinken said.

Trump will only truly deserve praise if he works toward that brighter political future for Palestinians, says Eric Alterman a journalist and author who has been deeply critical of both the president-elect and Netanyahu.

That’s because, for now, it’s still unclear Trump has any interest in that. Alterman says he may still turn a blind eye, while Israel annexes new pockets of the West Bank, making a Palestinian state increasingly impossible.

In fact, he says, it’s possible that, as part of Wednesday’s deal, Netanyahu extracted some sort of assurances from Trump to turn a blind eye.

“We’ll see what the payback is in the future,” said Alterman, who has written a book on the history of U.S. politics regarding Israel.

“I’m not willing to give him credit yet. This is not even day one [of his presidency].”

Alterman says it’s unclear what dislodged the deal from months of delay and inspired Netanyahu to accept an offer he’d previously rejected.

It’s also unclear whether Biden could have done much better. Many have argued that Biden could have cut off arms to Israel, but, says Alterman, it’s not clear that would have worked.

He says Biden feared that he would lose a head-to-head showdown with Netanyahu — that the American people would have sided with Israel, and Israel would have continued its operation in Gaza anyway.

The bottom line: Biden was not willing, or able, to exert the pressure Trump did, he says, and it’s a permanent scar on a presidential legacy with several domestic successes.

As for Trump, Alterman said: “The world will understand this, appropriately, as Donald Trump coming in and demanding a deal — because he wanted a deal.”