Tehran, Sept. 29 -- Donald Trump is betting that momentum and optics can do what 21 months of grinding war, failed truces, and serial "frameworks" could not: force a pivot from siege to settlement in Gaza. As Benjamin Netanyahu walks into the West Wing, the theater is familiar-the handshakes, the flags, the sound bites about "peace" and "security." What is different is the context: a death ledger that has climbed beyond the tolerable, a region that no longer masks its impatience, European capitals edging toward recognition of a Palestinian state, and an Israeli prime minister more isolated abroad than at any point in his long political career.

In Washington, aides have sketched what they call a 21-point scaffold: a cease-fire with verifi...