Fact-checking President Donald Trump’s claims about peace, war and Iran after his Israel address
President Donald Trump, speaking in Israel on the day that Hamas released all living Israeli hostages and Israel released Palestinian prisoners and detainees, framed the agreement he helped broker as a “historic dawn of a new Middle East.”
He told the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, “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’s Oct. 13 address focused on his administration’s efforts to produce an agreement between Israel and Hamas, which included a Gaza ceasefire and the release of 20 Israeli hostages, 250 Palestinian prisoners and about 1,700 Palestinian detainees held without charges.
The future phases of the 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.
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Fact-checking has become a familiar tool for political reporters to hold office-holders and candidates accountable. But critics ask if fact-checkers sometimes miss the forest for the trees, and if the practice often struggles with false equivalency the way conventional political coverage does.