The juxtaposition between the evident and criminal flaws in the Trump Gaza plan (which, while incredibly thin on detail, makes grandiose claims, is cringeworthy in parts, and unlikely to be actualized), and its apparent enthusiastic endorsement from various quarters requires some explaining and unpacking – including where it might lead and whether anything can be salvaged from this detritus.
This note is an attempt to do just that. First, there is no avoiding that this plan is as sinister as it is delusional. It is not serious – it fails to offer the kind of substantive, detailed and realistic proposals that could improve a desperately horrific situation.
Where granularity is needed around the specifics of timelines, withdrawal maps, verifications and guarantees for implementation, there is instead the same preposterous, vacuous notion of ‘trust Israel and America’.
But it is also nasty. It is dripping with racism towards Palestinians (who were not consulted in the paper’s preparation) over whom new mandates for economic and governance colonization are to be imposed. Apparently only those who are being genocided (rather than the state conducting the genocide) must be de-radicalized and disarmed. The choice offered to Palestinians between genocide or apartheid is barely concealed.
It came then as no surprise when Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu ran to the Israeli press to offer his victory jig over his latest conquest in Washington DC. The White House remains ‘Israel First’ territory, ‘America First’ be damned.
Put simply, it is not a genuine attempt at offering an horizon for peace (read Fadi Quran for what a real plan might look like). And yet, for all the egregious sins of omission and commission, for all its unseriousness – when the key facilitator and enabler of war crimes puts out a plan in the midst of a genocide – it cannot be ignored.
Shifting geopolitics and the move away from unipolarity are felt less palpably at this stage in the West Asia/Middle East region. That will change, but not in a timeline that addresses the urgency of realities in Palestine.
So there is a frustrating but necessary division of labour in responding to what the U.S. has put forward. It is more than understandable, it is fully justified, to take the principled position of rejecting engagement with the plan entirely. After all, this is not a blueprint which will define the future in Gaza or elsewhere, similar to the 2019/2020 first Trump administration so called ‘Peace to Prosperity’ plan. But on the negative side, this paper and how it is related to could very well shape components of a reality that might become even more detrimental to international law, justice and peace. And the blunt reality is that state actors will and have already engaged.
The plan is being used to push back against the momentum behind holding Israel accountable, the thing that could actually produce positive change. Minimizing that negative impact will benefit from a trenchant critique of the plan. So with all the caveats regarding a plan that would be comical were it not so tragic, it is worth briefly deconstructing what’s in there.
It might be helpful to consider the 20 points as being divided into three baskets.
The first basket picks up on the previous papers for securing a ceasefire, hostage release and end of war – but as noted, it lacks detail. The second basket, which is the most fleshed out in the paper (still far from a blueprint) consists of arrangements for running Gaza – security, governance, economy, investments and service provision – which have implications also for the West Bank. The third basket consists of the merest passing reference to a political horizon for peace – so caveated by conditionalities and so limited in scope that it seems designed to guarantee a perpetual Palestinian status of living without rights, freedoms or hope.
Each of these three baskets requires a somewhat different approach, hence the suggestion of a division of labour. Most urgent, of course, is to end the daily killing, displacement and starvation, to end Israel’s genocidal assault.
Can the plan at least achieve that? The short answer is no.
The issue here is not Hamas. The paper significantly shifts the goalposts of what was discussed in the past – in the knowledge, and one has to assume from the Israeli side with the intent, that Hamas will not accept this. The key point is that in the unlikely event of Hamas acceptance, Israel’s war against Gaza will still not end.
There are two possible response options, pushing to accept the immediate ceasefire component of the plan as is or pushing for clarifications and details, and the changes needed to actually make this the end of this particular nightmare.
The first option consists of an attempt to bludgeon Hamas into signing off on this, including threats of ‘paying in hell’ if they do not – a hollow threat, given that Palestinians are already deep into the 9 circles of Dante’s hellish Inferno.
The second option is about engaging Hamas – that is not shorthand for appeasing - anyone who is serious about wanting to end this and even about the safe return of Israeli captives understands that Hamas will have to agree (and has been willing to reach an agreement on reasonable terms for quite some time – in other words, not the ones presented by Israel/U.S.).
The compelling factor is the need for terms of an agreement that carry the serious prospect of sustainably ending military action and changing the reality in Gaza. Without revisions, the paper will not lead to an Israeli withdrawal, will not allow Palestinians to return to much of Gaza and will leave them kettled in small areas. Terms that almost guarantee Netanyahu will resume killing, perhaps initially at lower intensity, not even creating conditions for the massively needed scaling up on the humanitarian side.
One response is that as imperfect as this is, it is worth the risk, and that anyway there is no ironclad way of guaranteeing Israeli compliance with a more comprehensive package.
To understand the shortcomings of such ‘pragmatism’, a brief detour into Israeli politics is required.
The terms as currently set out work for Netanyahu because neither scenario require him to end the war – if there is no deal, the other side will again be blamed. If there is a deal under current terms, then the stages and conditionalities as set out allow the IDF to remain in most of Gaza (as Netanyahu has stated), to prevent Palestinian movement and give plentiful wiggle room for Israel to resume and then escalate military operations- just as when Netanyahu crashed the previous and more serious ceasefire agreement in March of this year.
Netanyahu would look to hold his coalition together, even if Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power and/or Smotrich’s Religious Zionism factions temporarily withdraw from the government during any brief period of implementation without forcing elections. He can also remind those actors that Israel will continue to have a free hand in the West Bank – not referred to at all in the paper, and where Israel can continue to wreak further destruction and Bantustanization.
If in the coming days Netanyahu senses that his coalition politics cannot sustain even a deal so skewed in his favour, then the paper still gives Netanyahu space to derail talks.
Let me again pre-empt the obvious objection to what I have written – namely that any deal will need Netanyahu’s consent and must therefore take his politics into account. The simple answer is, meeting Netanyahu where his current coalition is at, has been proven to have only one outcome – more extremism (whether in Gaza, West Bank, East Jerusalem, or even inside ‘48 Israel), more killing, permanent war and further regional destabilization.
It should be obvious, but for the avoidance of doubt, to indulge this Israeli coalition is to encourage perpetual war, ethnic cleansing and genocide.
An honest assessment at this stage includes two unavoidable conclusions. First, that pressure, not capitulation, is what will change the Israeli equation. Sadly, the second conclusion is that the best one can get out of Israeli politics in the short to medium term is to desist from the kinds of criminality which have produced these losses, destruction and displacement. That is possible and desirable. A horizon of peace and adherence to international legality is not on offer, there is no Israeli opposition waiting to enter government offering any such vision.
It is not constructive to pretend otherwise, to lie to oneself or one’s public as European governments in particular, but also others have consistently done. To end this will require a combination of pressure from within Israeli society and from the outside.
Some of that was beginning to be generated due to public pressure in Europe. Given the extent to which Europe is Israel’s backyard, Europe does have a significant role in impacting the terms of debate and conversation inside Israel. Let’s call those the ‘Three T’s’ – trade, tourism and tournaments.
One has to impact the calculations of the average Israeli in order to shift the domestic pressure equation. Visa-free travel to Europe is important to Israelis, Europe is Israel’s largest trade partner, and Europe is where Israel participates in international tournaments –from football and basketball to the Eurovision song contest.
Netanyahu’s hope, undoubtedly, is that the plan will serve as a sufficient distraction to push back the growing demand for action. In this division of labour – the groups in civil society who have understood what is happening should not be confused for a single moment. This is a time to redouble efforts, not to stand down - campaign for that shift in policy, pulling recalcitrant governments from paralysis towards action.
If Israeli society is sufficiently pushed, then a system already creaking will crack further, and new possibilities can emerge, including for a coalition (with or without elections) that is forced to end the war (to be clear, we are not yet in the zone of an Israeli politics that is willing to move beyond apartheid or to make peace).
We have mentioned Europe, but what of other state actors?
Perhaps the most noteworthy initiative over this period has been the formation of The Hague Group –countries who have committed themselves to pursuing the rulings of the international court system and to implementing policies which ensure non-complicity in the violations of international law and war crimes being committed. That includes bans on arms sales to Israel, not allowing ports for shipments of arms and fuel for the war, support for the international courts and other measures.
That group is co-chaired by South Africa and Colombia, and had 34 countries attend its recent ministerial level convening in the margins of the UN General Assembly in New York September 26th – almost exclusively from the Global South. While the states represented do not have the depth of relations with Israel to decisively move the needle, they are laying down a marker and helping generate a gravitational pull in the direction of states taking practical and consequential measures.
States in the region, Arab and Muslim majority states, are increasingly managing a regional reality which acknowledges that Israel has become the primary radicalizing and de-stabilizing factor. With its military strikes violating the sovereignty of six states, in addition to its attacks on Palestinians, and with the latest aggression against Qatar, Israel now features prominently in the mapping of national security threats of many countries. But adjusting to that new reality will play out over a longer period of time.
In the interim, most of these states have avoided deploying direct leverage (for instance, using economic power in the case of Gulf states) and have instead focused on working diplomatic channels with the U.S.
And it is, of course, the U.S. which holds the most immediate and impactful leverage vis-à-vis Israel.
The relentless conveyor belt of arms going from the U.S. to Israel, the economic, political, diplomatic and security assistance, the level of American enabling makes this not just Israel’s, but also America’s war. And in the bigger picture, there is an attempt to impose a Pax Israel-Americana on the region.
Shortly before presenting what was then a 21-point plan, President Trump met with eight leaders of Arab and Muslim majority states (in alphabetical order: Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and the UAE). Most of those states are engaged in different ways in an effort to coax the position of the U.S. administration into a place that is outside of Netanyahu’s comfort zone, and that offers a somewhat more robust prospect for America to push Israel into a plan that could end the war.
One might see this as an approach predicated on driving some kind of wedge between Netanyahu and Trump – knowing that Trump can be unpredictable and has lost patience briefly with Netanyahu in the past; also knowing that there is a major tension inside the MAGA movement between Israel First and America First.
However, the downside and major challenge in this approach is that thus far it has been proven to rest on highly flimsy foundations – any Trump frustration at Netanyahu tends to be quickly papered over by the many Israel whisperers in his close circles, and is unlikely to translate into a sustained policy standoff.
In this 2025 paper, similar to the 2019/2020 ‘Peace to Prosperity’ plan, Trump 2.0 has unsurprisingly repeated the predilections of Trump 1.0 in endorsing Israel’s narrative, conditions and designs for the future.
Another side note is required here regarding the posture adopted by those eight Arab/Muslim majority states and others. While frustration that more is not being done by those states is legitimate, there is a tendency for that to spill over into positions which strengthen and assist the spin and narrative of Netanyahu.
His play is to cynically claim that most of these states are quietly aligned with Israel, want nothing more than to normalize at the expense of the Palestinians, and that any gestures to the contrary are purely performative. It is somewhat similar to his racist and inaccurate claim, which he has taken to repeating recently, that any opposition in Europe to Israel’s policies springs from fear of invading hordes of Muslim migrants.
Israeli PR consistently puts out hints that further normalization is about to occur, or that various states are about to agree to take in tens or hundreds of thousands of Palestinians ethnically cleansed from Gaza. Most of this is smoke and mirrors designed to create a counterpoint to the reality that exceptionalism is waning, and that relations with Israel are on an increasing trajectory of denormalization.
When Netanyahu recently acknowledged isolation and the possibility of Israel pursuing a form of economic autarky, it was a misstep which was received badly inside Israel. This ground should not be ceded, and despite historical reasons for misgivings, it would be wrong to echo Netanyahu’s spin and to indulge this predisposition to assume that any state is just waiting to sell the Palestinians down the river.
That is not the contemporary story of support being shown for Palestinians in the public nor does it align with where public sentiment in the region is at.
It is useful to briefly compare and contrast the written statements put out in response to the plan by the eight Arab/Muslim majority states and by the EU respectively.
The European response falls into the category of disinformation and capitulation; the Arab/Muslim majority response at least leans into the possibility of engaging in order to pull the plan in a direction that can be worked with.
Europe welcomes “Israel’s decision to support the plan” (although Netanyahu publicly declared things which contradict the plan) and calls on Hamas to accept as is; the eight states avoid doing that. The European response does not mention the words ‘West Bank’, does not rule out annexation in the West Bank, makes no mention of a full Israeli withdrawal in Gaza, ignores both the absence of Palestinian governance and the structures to be imposed there, and fails to relink Gaza and the West Bank. The Arab/Muslim majority states response addresses full Israeli withdrawal in Gaza, Gaza-West Bank integration, as well as no West Bank annexation.
But the initial revisions proposed by the eight to the plan were all rejected. None of those revisions appeared in the text released on Monday.
Finally, circling back to those three baskets, what does this analysis then tell us in terms of what can be done next?
On the first basket – terms for the war’s end, a ceasefire and the release of Israelis in exchange for Palestinian prisoners – the key will be to build in details that make this exercise meaningful and sustainable rather than remaining in the zone of an Israeli driven blame game which further perpetuates suffering. In the likely event that Hamas and the mediating parties respond with necessary clarifications and revisions, encouragement should be given to engage with rather than reject those.
Crucial is to make a full Israeli withdrawal credible, to secure the ability of Palestinians to access and move back to all parts of Gaza and to ensure access for aid – rejecting the illegal conditionality the plan seeks to impose on the entry of humanitarian assistance.
The plan refers to an International Stabilisation Force (ISF). There were a number of changes to the original 21-point plan, which pulled the conditions further in the direction of Israeli unreasonableness – one was to further condition the terms of deployment of the ISF and its relationship to the attempted new structures of colonial governance in Gaza, which the paper seeks to impose.
The idea of an ISF itself is problematic, but done correctly it could set a precedent for offering protection to Palestinians and for preventing Israeli military freedom of action – one that could even be replicated in other Occupied Palestinian Territory. Israel is not keen on the idea for those same reasons, and would seek to reconfigure it into a collaborative extension of the IDF.
But it is worth exploring whether the terms of reference for the ISF can be delineated to genuinely provide protection for Palestinians. And an ISF is the kind of concrete thing which Trump likes to parade. The President of Indonesia has publicly offered to make a major troop contribution (President Prabowo mentioned 20,000 troops in his UN speech). This would be one area to drill down on.
The response to the establishment of a non-Palestinian governance and economic regime for Gaza, with the involvement of the U.S. president and of Tony Blair, should mostly be one of prevention, avoidance and creating a path back to Palestinian owned and legitimized structures. As it stands, this sounds like the charter for a 21st century version of the Dutch East India Company.
Again, this is not to make the perfect the enemy of the good, because there is nothing positive about what is being proposed. It is, in fact, potentially, and this will be Israel’s intention – an attempt to create a further layer of international occupation of the Palestinian people, in addition to that of Israel, that will first be applied in Gaza and then be replicated in the West Bank. This will be Israel’s intention, and that is the subtext to what is being attempted here. The fact that the effort by the eight states to pull this structure, at least partly into a more Palestinian-led direction, and to push West Bank structures into Gaza, was rejected is the reveal here.
But in order to make an alternative more viable, there is a need to address the long-neglected realm of Palestinian political renewal. That is different from undertaking the kind of reforms dictated by Israel, the U.S. and their allies – a trap which the Ramallah Palestinian Authority has unsurprisingly fallen into or even embraced. This means giving Palestinians the political space to reconcile, unify and generate structures legitimately representative of Palestinians, wherever they are, capable of pursuing a strategic project that challenges the status quo and offers a Palestinian alternative.
If one puts the three baskets together, this is a plan to guarantee the continuation of conflict, perpetuate existing insecurity and injustice for Palestinians, and indeed to encourage Israel further down the path of zero-sum overreach which is likely to generate further blow back even to the detriment of Israelis themselves.
In other words, any engagement that this plan should be based on a clear understanding of what one is trying to achieve, as well as to avoid, while simultaneously maintaining pressure on Israel and building alternative pathways.