Between the 1996 and 2025 Sharm el-Sheikh Summits: Trump’s Unrealistic Expectations
Images from the Sharm el-Sheikh Peace Summit held on October 13, 2025, inevitably evoke the “Summit of the Peacemakers” convened in the same city in March 1996. That earlier assembly occurred in the aftermath of a series of suicide bombings conducted by the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades—the armed wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas)—in various Israeli cities during 1995. Notable incidents include the Ramat Gan bombing near Tel Aviv in July 1995 and the Kfar Darom bus bombing in April 1995, among others.
At the 1996 summit, attendees included Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, U.S. President Bill Clinton, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, French President Jacques Chirac, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Turkish President Süleyman Demirel, Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, among others.
If the level of political and diplomatic representation at the 1996 summit was not higher than that at the October 2025 Sharm el-Sheikh summit, it certainly matched it.
Nevertheless, the outcomes of the 1996 “Peace and Anti-Terrorism” summit are noteworthy. In subsequent years, the global community experienced some of the most catastrophic and deadliest acts of terrorism in recent history and the ensuing conflicts:
- The bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (1998).
- The attack on the U.S.S. Cole in the port of Aden (October 2000).
- The September 11, 2001, attacks on New York’s World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon in Washington.
- The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan (2001).
- The Bali bombings in Indonesia (2002).
- The U.S. invasion of Iraq (2003).
- The Riyadh bombings in Saudi Arabia (2003).
- The Madrid train bombings in Spain (2004).
- The London bombings in Britain (2005).
- The rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) and its wave of global terrorist attacks.
By analogy, considering the developments subsequent to the 1996 summit, it is unlikely that U.S. President Donald Trump’s unrealistically high expectations for the October 2025 Sharm el-Sheikh Peace Summit will endure.
Trump declared that “the Gaza war is over, and the future of the Middle East will be bright” after signing an “agreement to end the war in Gaza” with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. However, conflict is likely to reignite soon. Israel is expected to resume attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Ansar Allah (the Houthis) in Yemen, and Hamas in Gaza, which will neither surrender its weapons nor withdraw from Gaza, nor implement the second phase of the agreement. Israel will probably continue its conflict with Iran in a second round, aiming to fully eliminate Tehran’s nuclear program. Israel is also unlikely to hold back from conducting military operations within Syria against the new governing authority, which could result in clashes with Turkey over Syrian territory.
Just as Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 followed the 1978 Camp David Accords with Egypt—and stayed until withdrawing in 2000, without those accords stopping regional wars and upheavals—the October 2025 Sharm el-Sheikh summit will similarly fail to prevent future wars and conflicts in the Middle East.
The root of the issue is the complexity of the Middle East conflict. It is entangled with intricate layers of causes, factors, and connections that cannot be unraveled through dozens of highly organized conferences and summits—especially not in a hurried, media-driven gathering that offers rhetorical statements but achieves no real resolution. How can such a summit hope to resolve a struggle that has persisted for three thousand years, intertwining religion, ideology, history, demographics, geopolitics, geostrategy, geoeconomics, and self-interest?
Throughout history, no one has successfully resolved the conflicts among Muslims, Jews, and Christians. From the emergence of these religions and the Muslim conquests of the Levant, Iraq, Constantinople, Europe, and Africa, to the Crusades, which caused millions of victims among all three faiths, and later to modern colonialism and Western mandates over the region. These events have left a legacy of lingering hostility, distrust, and antagonism among the followers of these faiths.
Neither the Eisenhower Doctrine, the Johnson Doctrine, the Nixon Doctrine, nor the Reagan Doctrine succeeded, nor did George H. W. Bush’s Madrid Conference of 1991. Western efforts led by the United States and socialist efforts led by the Soviet Union all failed to contain the conflict. A single improvised meeting—such as the 2025 Sharm el-Sheikh summit—unquestionably lacks the capacity to resolve such a complex historical dilemma.
Trump’s broad slogans regarding prosperity and stability in the Middle East, along with his vague and ambiguous plan, will certainly not resolve this conflict either.
The ongoing conflict in the Middle East is poised to challenge even the most powerful nations globally, and no party is anticipated to effectively resolve its complexities—paralleling the historical failure of the founders of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, who, thousands of years ago, were unable to establish lasting peace among themselves. The destiny of their followers will likely mirror this historical pattern.
It is possible that President Trump aimed to achieve a diplomatic victory in the Middle East following his unsuccessful attempts to resolve the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, as well as his setbacks in dealings with China. What he failed to comprehend is that the complexities of Middle Eastern conflicts are significantly more intricate and perplexing than any other disputes he has purportedly resolved elsewhere.