Twenty-one months since the war began engulfing Gaza, the Middle East has drastically changed. The political landscape has measuredly shifted amid Trump touting his outrageous vision of Gaza as a real estate flagship project and Arab states’ scrambling for alternative plans that are more tenable.
The war has quashed the validity of age-old assumptions and reframed questions facing Israel and the Palestinians. The regional players are also recalibrating as if the region is on the verge of a new age, a clean slate for a fresh start.
A prominent question now is: What next? The answer could be beneath the rubble and in the midst of ruins indicating the beginning of a Middle East never known before. Forces at play are stirring the rubble, and although the final silhouette of what is coming is still unclear, one truth is clear: change is inevitable.
The US President Donald Trump says that Israel has agreed to terms for a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza. If it sounds familiar, then it is so given many truces have come and gone in the past. Meanwhile, Hopes are rising that Israel and Hamas could be inching closer to a ceasefire in the 21-month war in Gaza as the US president is urging progress. Yet, the fact that it is not the first ceasefire between the two and probably will not be the last is a sobering thought. When history is fraught and truce is temporary, can hope be justified?
The idea of a short truce has been discussed since the collapse of the last short-lived ceasefire in March. A similar proposal was floated in May, but Hamas saw it as an Israeli plot to ramp up its attacks on the pretext of a ceasefire instead of a permanent peace arrangement. As the devastation in Gaza worsens by the day, will this time be any different? 21 months of war have devastated Gaza.
Ideally, any negotiated ceasefire needs to have detailed terms to ensure the parties know what they should do and when. Detailed terms would also enable international actors and other third parties to denounce any violations of the deal. Nevertheless, a ceasefire would only be a short-term win. Even in the short-term, it will undoubtedly see violence abating to some extent and enable more aid flow into Gaza, and the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
What is happening in Gaza unfolds in the midst of ruins indicating the beginning of a Middle East never known before. Forces at play are stirring the rubble, and although the final silhouette of what is coming is still unclear, one truth is clear: change is inevitable.
The conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people is one of the longest-running and most violent disputes in the world, with its origins going back more than a century. The consequences of the historic dispute over issues including land, borders and rights are still being felt and include the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and the latest conflict between Israel and Iran.
Gaza is no exception. In a conflict that has been going on for more than 70 years, compromise and concession have become a game of cat and mouse. Wielding immense political and military prowess, Israel is the playful hunter or the cat, and Hamas, the prey i.e., the mouse, trying its best to evade its capture or being killed. But ultimately the prey falls into the hands of the hunter. Thus, Hamas has little choice but to accept the terms of the ceasefire if it wants to halt the violence currently being inflicted on Palestinians. There is no shortage of reasons to end the war in Gaza. The only question is: Do Israel and Hamas have the will to do so?
On the Ground: What’s Left of Gaza
Israel in the past year carried out assaults in the cities of Jenin, Nablus and Tulkarm in the northern West Bank, and also in Hebron’s camps in the southern West Bank. The only ones unaffected by Israeli assaults were Jewish settlers and their supporters. Simultaneously, it razed Palestinian camps adjacent to the Palestinian cities. The sporadic daily attacks that were taking place before October 7 turned into coordinated military operations. The Israeli forces destroyed the infrastructure in most of the camps of Nablus, Jenin and Tulkarm and displaced more than sixty thousand Palestinians from these camps to the cities of the West Bank.
After waging the war for 21 months and scoring a few victories over Hamas but nowhere near wiping out the militant wing of the group, Israel sees only hard options now on top of its disproportionate response in reducing most of Gaza to rubble and putting millions of its people on the brink of starvation. Israel is currently ratcheting up military operations daily in Rafah, albeit with one tactical change of trying to inflict lesser civilian fatalities. In many ways, Israel seems to be the principal roadblock to lasting peace.
Israel has imposed a renewed siege on the 365 square kilometer strip, deepening an already dire hunger crisis, and threatening, as the UN Human Rights Office warned, the viability of the Palestinians continuing to live in Gaza. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has decided to call up tens of thousands of reservists and launched an intensified ground offensive in the enclave, aimed at capturing and holding territory, and taking direct control of aid delivery. Israel has already reduced to rubble much of northern Gaza and forcefully moved over one million people who used to live there before the war began in October 2023. Now, Netanyahu says that as part of the new offensive, Palestinians would be moved again from their makeshift shelters and refugee camps. The Israeli government claims that “military pressure” is the only way to force Hamas to release the remaining hostages. But in the name of combating Hamas, Netanyahu has unleashed a relentless assault on the entire population of the Gaza Strip, even as the rest of the world mutely watches.
Gaza, as the Red Cross has put it, has already become “hell on earth.” In 21 months, Israeli forces have killed more than 57,000 Palestinians in the enclave, most of them women and children. Nearly all of Gaza’s 1.9 million residents have been displaced multiple times. Tens of thousands have been wounded in a territory that lacks even basic medical facilities.
On the Palestinian side, there are plenty of hardliners and dissenting militant factions ready to play the role of spoiler. There are also people who just want revenge for all the horrible things that have been done to them. If such violence occurs, the Israelis will not respond in a positive manner. Even if such violence does not happen, Israel could claim they have evidence Hamas is reorganizing in ways that they say violate the cease-fire. They would then return to bombing.
Ariel Sharon’s Five Finger Plan
Reviving the five-finger plan proposed by Ariel Sharon in the 1970s, the Israeli forces are dividing the Strip into five sections. They are maintaining a buffer zone along the border with the strip, with a width of one kilometer, which in total cuts off more than 18 percent of the Strip’s territory. Also, the prohibited sectors around the Philadelphi corridor, the Netzarim corridor, and the Morag Corridor make living spaces much narrower in Gaza.
Oslo Accords West Bank Divisions
The Oslo Accords divided the West Bank into three sections: Area A, which consists of the major West Bank cities and their camps. According to the agreement, the civil and military responsibility in this area falls under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority. Area B, which is under Palestinian civil administration, but Israel or the Israeli Civil Administration is the one who manages security affairs there. Area C, which has civil and military responsibility in this area, falls under the jurisdiction of the Israeli Civil Administration and the Central Military Command of the Israeli Army.
Israel Discards West Bank Divisions
What has happened since October 7 is Israel virtually abolished any Palestinian Authority civil jurisdiction in Area B. It also almost completely abolished the Palestinian Authority’s security responsibility in Area A. Areas B and C are the core of the Palestinian state project. Without geographical contiguity between Palestinian cities, the state project becomes a mere fantasy. This will transform Palestinian cities into a collection of unconnected cantons. The right-wing dream of burying the Palestinian state project and the Oslo Accords becomes a reality. Like Gaza, the fate of the West Bank’s refugee camps is a matter of concern. Transfer plans are not internationally accepted, and Egypt and Jordan refuse to accept any Palestinian refugees. These two countries are already suffering from a high population growth rate and extremely poor economic conditions, which means that the Israeli plans are projects for future major crises.
Washington & Trump’s Policy in West Bank and Gaza
The Announcement of Two-State Solution
On September 28, 2000, Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, followed by bloody clashes. This date marked the beginning of the Second Palestinian Intifada. The Second Intifada was bloodier than the first one. Hamas and Islamic Jihad resorted to suicide bombings in shopping centers and even schools in Israeli cities. Israeli forces responded by assassinating Hamas’s political leadership, including movement’s founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and senior leader Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, among others. Most of the operations, including the assassinations, caused innocent civilian casualties. In an attempt to find solutions, US President George W. Bush in a speech on November 14, 2003, called for the establishment of a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel. This call by President Bush later became known as the fabled two-state solution. The then Bush administration, preoccupied with the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq and tackling terrorism, could do little to implement its vision. And its senior officials first priority was containing the bloodshed in Palestinian territories.
Rise of Israeli Right
The main outcome of the Intifada was the collapse of the Israeli peace camp and the fall of Labor Party leader Ehud Barak, whom Sharon succeeded. The Labor Party and the entire Israeli left were on the margins of the Israeli political scene, as remains the case until today. The rise of the Israeli right, which absolutely rejected the two-state solution, made the task of the Bush administration more difficult, which was already preoccupied with complexities of the Iraq War.
Arrival of Obama Administration
Later, with the arrival of the Obama administration in the White House in 2008, the two-state solution was revived again. However, the Obama administration could not improve the situation either. The new Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu challenged the Obama administration on numerous occasions. The Intifada had stopped but Netanyahu was still pursuing Hamas behind the scenes. Meanwhile, the West Bank was quiet. The Palestinians were tired and wanted a break. But Obama’s Secretary of State John Kerry was continuing his tours in the region to mediate between the Palestinians and the Israelis.
The Arab Spring
The Arab Spring erupted in Tunisia in late 2010, and from there, it moved to Egypt, then to Libya, to Yemen, and finally to Syria in March 2011. Major events were unfolding in the region such as the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, followed by a military council, then ascension of the Muslim Brotherhood to power. Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was living in exile in Saudi Arabia. The Arab Spring transitioned into bloody civil wars in Libya, Yemen, and Syria. One of the Israeli ministers even commented, “Why does John Kerry choose the only quiet spot in the Middle East, i.e. Israel and the Palestinian territories, and come to mediate?” The Middle East region was on fire. In the end, despite making more rounds than those made by former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Secretary Warren Christopher, Kerry failed to achieve any results. During the second Obama administration, things were getting worse for the two-state solution. Eventually, the Obama administration left the White House, making way for President Donald Trump.
First Trump Administration
After successive US administrations that were deeply involved in the Middle East peace process—Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama— the first Trump administration implemented a policy quite different from its predecessors. From the first days, Trump seemed indifferent to the two-state solution and the Palestinian dilemma in general. In a press interview, he said: “Why should I care? Let them establish two states, three states, or one state. I do not care.” The new US president and his administration made no effort to adopt a balanced policy or to be a peace broker. Trump’s first act was to nominate David Friedman as US Ambassador to Israel. The nomination met strong opposition from liberal Jewish organizations and Democratic senators. In the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, this translated to 12 votes in favor of the appointment and nine against.
Reasons Behind Opposition against Friedman?
But what were the reasons to oppose Friedman? Friedman is an Orthodox Jew well-known among evangelical Christians and a New York corporate bankruptcy lawyer. He met real estate developer Donald Trump in 1994. He saved Trump from losing millions of dollars in a casino crisis in Atlantic City. Friedman, the son of a conservative Rabbi, fervently shares his father’s admiration for Zionism. However, his fascination with Zionism reached to the point where American Jews became his main enemy. He described the left-wing Jewish organization J Street as worse than “kapos” — Jewish prisoners who collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust.
US Embassy moves to Jerusalem
After his appointment, Friedman immediately got to work by completely ignoring Middle East experts at the State Department. He moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, and the administration closed its Jerusalem consulate, which used to be Washington’s diplomatic channel with the Palestinians for decades. The Trump administration also closed the Palestinian representative office in Washington. Friedman’s other work includes convincing the administration to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which Israel occupied in 1967, pushing for a different policy on Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The settlements were expanding and some of them were turning into real cities, and the number of settlers in the West Bank reached more than eight hundred thousand. Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in 2019 that those settlements do not violate international law.
Trump’s Deal of the Century
During Trump’s first term, he and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who was Middle East envoy at the time, presented what was known as the “Deal of the Century.” In cooperation with the president’s son-in-law, Friedman worked on the “deal of the century,” which stipulates that Israel annex all settlement blocs in the West Bank, as well as the entire Jordan Valley.
Deal of the Century’s Vision of Palestinian State
In exchange, Palestinians could declare a state on the remaining areas not annexed by Israel. The Palestinian state would be a group of isolated patches of land lacking geographical contiguity, mostly due to bypass roads used by the settlers. To overcome this problem, they presented unrealistic visions about a group of tunnels and bridges for regional contiguity between Palestinian cities and towns. The deal included real estate solutions to the problem of a Palestinian state. Cities and towns connected with a series of bridges and tunnels under and above Israeli settlements. Though the Palestinians rejected Trump’s “Deal of the Century,” the plan was eventually shelved due to the formation of another plan in which the Palestinians were not included at all.
Abraham Peace Project
While Friedman was working to obtain the largest amount of land for Israel, the president’s son-in-law began working on another track- one that excludes the Palestinians from any political settlement. It focused on peace between Israel and a number of Arab countries such as Sudan, the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco. Kushner started working with the UAE ambassador to Washington, Yousef Al Otaiba, to normalize relations between the Arabs and the Israelis. The efforts succeeded after making certain promises in a meeting between Netanyahu and the transitional Sudanese President Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. This led to the signing of the Abraham Accords between Morocco, the UAE, and Bahrain with Israel. Eventually, on September 15, Israel and UAE, and Israel and Bahrain signed the Abraham Accords in the White House Garden. Morocco joined the accords shortly after that. Trump’s advisors made it clear that normalization between Israel and the Arab states would eventually force the Palestinians to accept peace in the real world, according to the current balance of power and away from diplomacy.
Friedman’s Two Hats
The strangest thing Friedman did was how he erased the marker between his diplomatic obligations and personal activism. It was no longer possible to distinguish whether he was the US ambassador to Israel or the Israeli ambassador to the US. In one incident, prior to Trump’s visit to Israel, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas conveyed a message to the US president through Ron Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress. The message stated that the Palestinian Authority was prepared to make unprecedented concessions in order to reach peace with Israel.
Through his work as an ambassador, Friedman knew about the message, and immediately informed Netanyahu, suggesting the Israeli prime minister should destroy Abbas’s reputation and discredit his credibility. The Israeli side prepared a video by incorporating selective clips of Abbas’s statements in which he allegedly incited violence against Israel. When Trump saw the video during his visit to Bethlehem, he became furious and rebuked Abbas, saying, “You deceived me. You spoke about your commitment to peace, but the Israelis showed me that you were engaged in incitement.” Abbas’s attempts to explain that the videos were taken out of context or fabricated were to no avail; the damage had already been done. Israeli journalist Barak Ravid has written in his book “Trump’s Peace” that Ambassador Friedman was pursuing his own agenda with Netanyahu.
Legacy of Trump’s first term
The first Trump administration’s efforts were achieving a historic breakthrough in normalization between Israel and the Arab world. Meanwhile, Trump’s decisions regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict included recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Syrian Golan Heights; moving the US embassy to Jerusalem; recognizing the legitimacy of Israeli settlements in the West Bank; and closing the PLO representative office in Washington.
Arrival of Biden Administration
When the administration of President Joe Biden arrived in the White House, it reversed all the policies pursued by President Trump on energy, climate, Russia, and Ukraine, except for the policy towards the Palestinian issue.
Continuation of Trump policy
The Biden administration maintained all the measures taken regarding the transfer of the embassy to Jerusalem, spoke vaguely about the legitimacy of the settlements, and kept the Palestinian representative office in Washington closed. However, it continued to pay lip service to the two-state solution, mostly through remarks by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Their statements appeared rehearsed at international events despite the fact the US administration saw daily how the two-state solution was becoming irrelevant and no longer executable. The October 7, 2023, attack made US policies more stringent in Israel’s favor.
Character of Leaders
The moment Blinken arrived to express solidarity with Israel following October 7 attacks, he said: “I am here as a Jew first.” Historians immediately remembered the words of another Jewish American Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, when Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir tried to focus on the Jewish dimension of his personality to influence his position. He responded, “You must remember that firstly I am an American, secondly I am secretary of state, and then after only I am a Jew.” However, those times of maintaining diplomatic unbiasedness seems to be over for good. Senior officials in the Biden administration such as Blinken, Sullivan, and Brett McGurk, began to act openly as if they were only interested in Israeli agenda and narrative. They had abandoned their roles of the honest mediator and sponsor of a peace process. On every possible occasion, President Biden declared that he was a Zionist — a declaration that no American president had ever made.
American Right’s View on Gaza
In aligning with the administration, state governors went much further, Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis said: “Just as we reject refugees here in Florida, Israel must reject the continued presence of Palestinians in Gaza.” DeSantis later competed with Trump in the Republican primaries; only to withdraw in the latter’s favor. Another Republican candidate Nikki Haley, who also withdrew in favor of Trump, went to Israel and wrote a message on the missiles meant to be dropped over Gaza. On the occasion, she said there were no innocent people in Gaza and called for eliminating everyone.
US Congress’ Supply of Bombs to Israel
In Congress, things were more severe. Strangely, despite the House and Senate’s inability to agree on common policies, including US interests, foreign policy or the budget, Democrats and Republicans regularly voted in favor of more arms shipments to Israel.
When information leaked that the Biden administration signed deals with Israel to send highly destructive bombs, the administration quickly backed down and delayed some deals. There were some attempts to curb the Israel’s hostile incursions in the West Bank. After a news leaked that an extremist Israeli army battalion, the Netzah Yehuda Battalion, killed an elderly Palestinian American and would be blacklisted for it, the Israeli army said it would move its battalion to northern Israel, away from the West Bank. However, the said relocation of the battalion has yet to be verified.
Biden Administration Disapproves of Israeli Ministers
The Biden administration condemned two far-right ministers, Bezalel Smotrich, and Itamar Ben-Gvir. When Smotrich, the finance minister in Netanyahu’s government, arrived in the US, no administration official received him. However later on, the two ministers were absolved of their conduct.
Suppressing Gaza War Protests in Universities
The Biden administration pressured universities to stop pro-Palestinian demonstrations. The university presidents not agreeing to halt sit-ins or expel demonstrating students were harassed. Congressional reprimands were initiated, and university presidents were accused of failing to prevent attempts to intimidate Jewish students. Interestingly, the most active demonstrations against the Gaza war were those held by American Jewish students in New York.
Biden’s Attempt to Advance Abraham Accords
During the Biden administration, intensive consultations took place to make Saudi Arabia join the Abraham Accords. But Riyadh preferred to wait until Trump returned to the White House, especially since the October 7 operation that aborted all efforts in this regard. The focus shifted to stopping the war and concluding a deal to release Israeli hostages in exchange for releasing prisoners aligned with Hamas and other factions from Israel prisons.
Biden’s Political Legacy
The Biden administration did not succeed in expanding the Abraham Accords. While the Biden administration was about to win the grand prize, which was a potential normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel, developments in the region spoiled this endeavor. And the Biden administration left the White House after its defeat to Trump in the 2024 elections. The political legacy it left behind on the issue of the Middle East peace process has been its contribution to destroying the chances of peace. Strikingly, during the farewell of administration officials, protestors held daily rallies outside Secretary Blinken’s house, pouring red liquids to express the continued bloodshed in Gaza. Even for the success of releasing Israeli hostages, Netanyahu preferred to credit the incoming Trump administration instead of Biden administration official. The deal was later agreed upon with Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy to the Middle East.
The political legacy left behind by the Biden administration on the issue of the Middle East peace process has been its contribution to destroying the chances of peace.
Trump’s Second Term
US President Donald Trump’s second mandate in office has already shaped up to be qualitatively different from his first term as president from 2017 to 2021. In just six months, Trump has taken actions in the international arena that represent a fundamental break with America’s approach to foreign policy.
After Trump won the 2024 election, his administration gave continuity to everything the Biden administration had pursued, but in a rougher manner. Federal aid was cut to universities accused of promoting leftist ideas and supporting Palestinians. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested demonstrators and issued deportation orders against them. Such measures were taken despite some activists holding green cards for permanent US residency or being married to American citizens. Court decisions in Boston and New York were ignored, and detainees were transferred to deportation facilities in Arizona.
Six months into his second presidency, Trump has shown a wide array of foreign policy possibilities that include his public remarks on taking over Greenland and purchasing the Panama Canal; viewing Gaza as real estate to develop; announcing he would end the Ukraine war in 24 hours; claiming to have brought peace to India and Pakistan; backing the war in Gaza while green signaling airstrike on Iranian nuclear facilities. All of these often indicate constantly roving stances. But what exactly is Donald Trump policy for Gaza?
March Ceasefire
Trump entered his second term helping his predecessor’s administration secure a ceasefire that lasted for a little over a month from mid-January until early March. At the same time, Trump also spoke about America taking over Gaza and forcing all Palestinians to leave. He offered Israel additional military equipment as it stepped up a military campaign against Hamas that continues to have devastating consequences on the Palestinian people. Trump’s formula on this front seems to be leaning towards offering Israel a blank check to do what it prefers. With the current right-wing government in Israel, including extremist voices calling for the annexation of the West Bank and displacement of Palestinians, a dangerous and unpredictable scenario can unfold in a brief period of time.
Politically, Trump relies on real estate developer and dealmaker Steve Witkoff, who does not speak harshly, appears flexible, is willing to listen, and does not harbor an extremist ideology. However, the new Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, uses the harshest language. When approached by activists who support a ceasefire in Gaza, he responded in a matter emphatic to Israel and approved of its actions. He has endorsed Trump’s plan to evict Palestinians from Gaza and develop the land as exotic destination with tourist resorts.
Trump’s Middle East policies often appeared reactive and lacked coherent strategic planning. Trump and his foreign policy team engaged in aggressive rhetoric, but there has been a lack of sustained diplomatic efforts to build international coalitions. This approach risks isolating the US and emboldening adversaries to expand their influence in the region.
Appointment of Huckabee
President Trump’s decisive move to fully scrap the two-state solution came with the appointment of Mike Huckabee as US Ambassador to Israel. With the appointment, things escalated to a new level. With the former governor of Arkansas (now governed by his daughter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders), there was no room for compromise, deals, or talk of peace. The new ambassador is a Baptist minister who believes in the Promised Land, the complete Land of Israel, and rejects the establishment of a Palestinian state and even rejects Palestinian identity. In remarks reflecting his long-standing stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Mike Huckabee stated, “I have never been willing to use the term ‘West Bank.’ There is no such thing. I speak of Judea and Samaria. I tell people there is no ‘occupation.’ It is a land that is ‘occupied’ by the people who have had a rightful deed to the place for 3,500 years, since the time of Abraham.” He added, “There is no such thing as a settlement. They are communities, they are neighborhoods, they are cities.” Huckabee, an opponent of the two-state solution, has long argued against Palestinian statehood.
In 2015, he drew a controversial parallel, saying, “In America, we have about a 400-year-old relationship with Manhattan. It would be as if I came and said we need to end our occupation of Manhattan. I am pretty sure most Americans would find that laughable.”
Following Huckabee’s confirmation by the Congress as US Ambassador to Israel, President Trump — despite widespread criticism — stated he would be instrumental in advancing peace efforts in the Middle East. However, far from bringing peace to the Middle East since taking office, Trump is now presiding over a region on the precipice of unresolved conflict that could magnify into even worse and far more entangled war in the future.
Trump’s involvement in Gaza
Trump wants to be seen as a dealmaker on the global stage. The US president is involved in the current developments in three principal ways. Firstly, right from the start of his administration he echoed prime minister Netanyahu’s language that there can be no future for Hamas. This was demonstrated in his Middle East Riviera vision for a post-war Gaza, an American-owned rich man’s paradise with the civilian population having been displaced.
It gave prime minister Netanyahu the political cover to discard the phase two talks to some extent. He has also been involved through his two envoys, Witkoff and Adam Boehler, the US envoy for hostage affairs. As Middle East envoy, Witkoff appeared to try to resurrect phase two negotiations. When those failed to make any progress, however, he tried, without success, to revitalize phase one talks with various modifications.
President Trump is involved to the extent that Israel now has a far more sympathetic ally when it comes to military action in Gaza. Trump’s sincere interest in ending the Gaza War should be commended, but sometimes good intentions may not be enough.
Overall, Trump’s Middle East policies often appeared reactive and lacked coherent strategic planning. Trump and his foreign policy team engaged in aggressive rhetoric, but there has been a lack of sustained diplomatic efforts to build international coalitions. This approach risks isolating the US and emboldening adversaries like Iran, China, and Russia to expand their influence in the region.
The Trump Plan
As usual, the strangest surprises came from President Trump. During his reception of Netanyahu at the White House on February 4, 2025, Trump announced a plan to transfer a substantial portion of Gaza’s population to Egypt and Jordan, and the United States gaining long-term ownership of Gaza. Trump added that Washington views the matter as a real estate deal, and that he is not talking about troops on the ground, but rather about owning Gaza to rebuild it into the “Riviera of the Middle East”. The Palestinians will not have the right to return because they will own much better homes. Netanyahu himself seemed surprised by the proposal and did not comment on it.
But will all of this compel the Palestinians to leave? And if they actually decide to leave, where will they go? Who will receive them while the entire West is trying to expel refugees? Apart from a passing reference from the Indonesian president about the possibility of receiving some Palestinians for several years, it seems that everyone in the region and outside of it does not agree with Trump’s plan of evicting Palestinians.
In fact, this was not the first time Trump had spoken of Gaza as a real estate deal. A year before this announcement, in a radio interview, he said that Gaza could be more beautiful than Monaco, if properly rebuilt. Before Trump, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had said at a symposium at Harvard in February 2024 that real estate on Gaza’s waterfront could be very lucrative. Kushner like Trump and a number of ministers in the Trump administration, including Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, share real estate developer profiles before entering politics.
Before Trump, Kushner, Witkoff and the likes, Yasser Arafat, who returned with thousands of his military and security forces to Gaza in July 1994, had said that the Authority, the new Palestinian state, will transform Gaza into the Singapore of the Middle East. It would have open crossings, an international airport, a port, agricultural projects, and job opportunities in the electronics industry, in Arafat’s vision. Gaza, whose people’s dreams once ranged from Singapore to Monaco to the Riviera, is now a scorched earth unfit for habitation. Its people seek safety in a dilapidated tent, waiting for a meal delivered draped with blood from charitable organizations.
Jordan as New Palestinian Homeland?
The most difficult topic for the Jordanian government is the return of talk in Israel about Jordan as an alternative homeland for the Palestinians. This is an idea that General Sharon had proposed on more than one occasion. In the last years, it has become more popular in Israeli circles, especially since a large number of West Bank residents hold Jordanian documents as the West Bank was subject to Hashemite rule from the 1948 war until 1967, when the West Bank fell under Israeli occupation.
King Hussein, the father of King Abdullah II, did not abandon the dream of reuniting the two banks of his kingdom one day. But he was forced to retreat after the Oslo Accords and agreed to be one of the mediators between Israel and the PLO. Jordan, which is still officially the custodian of the Islamic holy sites in East Jerusalem, wanted to minimize the consequences of the 1948 war. After 1967 Arab-Israeli war and the return of the West Bank to Jordan, it did not intend to welcome the reception of the West Bank residents inside the country, which is crowded and has few resources. What Jordan faces today is much harsher, and the Palestinian situation has become the greatest threat to the survival of the Hashemite throne.
Israel’s Acceptance of Trump Plan
In reality, Israel fully embraced Trump’s plan – despite initial shock – after its military operations resumed in the Gaza Strip as the second phase of talks to release abductees failed. It also witnessed surprising regional developments like Hezbollah’s suffering with the killing of most of its leaders and the fall of the Assad regime in Damascus. The day after Assad’s fall, Israel completely destroyed what once was the Syrian Arab Army. Apart from the weakening Houthis in Yemen, Israel apparently has gotten rid of all its opponents and is focused on making a final impact on the Palestinian cause. Aspirations have soared, and any talk less than a final burial of the Palestinian cause has become irrelevant in Israel. In the race against time between the Trump plan and the Arab plan, nothing seems decided. The return of Israeli forces to the Gaza Strip in a more violent manner will cause more horrific destruction and destroy any future idea of resuming life in Gaza.
Netanyahu’s War: Goals, Risks, and the Regional Ripple
Relations between President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have had plenty of ups and downs. As the two leaders met twice at the White House this week, things are decidedly on the upswing. President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu aim to swiftly pursue fresh peace arrangements with Arab states as part of Abraham Accords expansion.
Adversaries of Benjamin Netanyahu will never admit it, but the most heartily despised prime minister has managed to transform the strategic balance of the region with astonishing speed. In just 21 months, he has eviscerated Hezbollah in Lebanon, triggered the downfall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and wrecked the nuclear ambitions of Iran’s regime. One by one, superficial, and widely believed assumptions — Hezbollah was impregnable, Assad was as safe as houses, Donald Trump would never deploy US forces in the Middle East, and Iran’s nuclear program was indestructible — have tumbled ignominiously to the ground.
Israel has assassinated Hamas’s senior leadership figures such as Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh, and most recently killed Hakham Muhammad Issa Al-Issa, the logistical mastermind of the October 7 attacks. Despite claiming these big scalps, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu cannot claim victory in his maximalist goal of eradicating Hamas. This failure is causing Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners to push for continued war in Gaza.
Now, precisely because of these successes, the time has come for Netanyahu to draw a line. He should accept America’s proposed ceasefire in Gaza and stop the killings. Everywhere else, he has succeeded. In the rubble and misery of Gaza, the least he can do now is bring Israel’s Carthaginian campaign to an end.
True enough, the great minds of the foreign policy world are already questioning Israel’s military achievements. Many are deeply invested in the adamantine belief that military action can only ever achieve a short goal in Gaza, which is now the longest and bloodiest war in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Despite Trump’s bravado, lasting peace looks elusive in the near term because after years of peace talks, countless lives lost and a tremendous amount of money spent, no one has found a resolution to the historical dispute. Moreover, buoyed by Israel’s triumph in successive wars since 1948, successive Israeli governments have failed to build a durable political settlement with the Arab world.
Great minds of the foreign policy world are already questioning Israel’s military achievements. Many are deeply invested in the adamantine belief that military action can only ever achieve a short goal in Gaza
A former French ambassador to Washington, Gérard Araud, put the dilemma neatly. “Trump’s proposal for Gaza is met with disbelief, opposition and sarcasm, but as he often does, in his brutal and clumsy way, he raises a real question: What to do when two million civilians find themselves in a field of ruins, full of explosives and corpses?”
This is an issue Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has always dodged. He has refused to engage on the question of who will rule Gaza after the conflict, largely because it would undermine his governing coalition of far-right parties that want to resettle Gaza with Israelis. Taken together, the doctrine of strategic depth and Israel’s desire to detach itself from civilian governance suggest that the IDF will seek to indefinitely occupy some, but not all, of Gaza. This strategy is unsurprising, given that Israel has pursued it in all of its diverse occupations to date. These experiences provide a projection of what Israel’s planned “day after Hamas” scenario in Gaza might look like.
As war escalates in the Middle East, Israel’s government believes it has the advantage. Perhaps it does. But the challenge is to translate military prowess into lasting strategic gains and ultimately peace. Without it, blood will keep flowing for years to come.
First, Israel is unlikely to control Gaza’s urban areas for long. Israel baulks at managing everyday governance in an occupied territory and will refrain from overseeing Gaza’s health, education, and welfare ministries, for example. Similarly, IDF planners know that a prolonged military presence in a dense urban area would be an operational nightmare.
Secondly, Israel may restore its attachment to “strategic depth,” a doctrine that seeks to take and indefinitely hold sparsely populated foreign territory. The idea is to keep any fighting outside of Israel itself. Israel is a small country that has gone to war with all its neighbors and as a result has felt safer the more territory it holds beyond its recognized borders. The problem with this twin strategy can be seen in Israel’s previous experiences in Gaza, which suggests it has rarely met Israel’s security goals.
A recent poll by Agam Labs, a research group affiliated with Hebrew University, found that 70 per cent of the population in Israel (Jews and Arabs combined) supported Israel’s attack on Iranian targets on June 13. Yet 75 per cent preferred to end the war in Gaza in exchange for the release of all Israels hostages held by Hamas. What better time, then, for the Israeli prime minister – “Mr Iran” – to announce an end to the war in Gaza and bring the remaining 50 hostages home; to make the most of the “Bibi bounce” and seek to renew his mandate with fresh elections?
The Repercussions of the War on Egypt and Jordan: Security and Economic Interests
Egypt and Jordan, the two countries Trump nominated as the new homeland for the Palestinians suffered the most from the effects of the war.
Egypt
Before the war, economic conditions in Egypt were not promising. The country suffered from the effects of political unrest, the fall of Mubarak’s regime, and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood to power. All of this led to a decline in Egyptian tourism revenues, on which the country relies for its revenues. Annual revenues exceed $14 billion, and they also provide permanent and temporary job opportunities for tens of thousands of young Egyptians. The Houthi intervention in the war in Yemen and the targeting of naval vessels in the Red Sea have led to a sharp decline in Suez Canal revenues as well. This is all amid a sharp increase of foreign debt as a result of an ambitious modernization program adopted by President Sisi, including the establishment of modern cities and major projects such as a seaport and airport in Egypt, whose returns have yet to be seen. Hence, Egypt’s rejection of the Trump plan.
Gazan Migrants in Egypt
In fact, more than 100,000 Gazans have arrived in Egypt as a result of a program adopted by the Hala Company, headed by Ibrahim Al-Arjani, who is a close associate of President Sisi and a member of the Sinai tribe adjacent to Gaza. Under this program, any Gazan can enter Egypt for a payment of $8,000. Many have exploited this program to escape the war. But the program limits the number of beneficiaries. Given the amount required per person and considering large family sizes — with an average of six children — in Gaza. Many people have also entered Egypt for treatment after being injured in the war, while others have chosen to transit through Egypt to reach Turkey, Qatar, and Malaysia — countries that asked Egypt to accept a limited number of Gaza refugees. Egypt was affected economically, but it compensated for this by receiving regular investments from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the Emirates.
Security Measures Taken
The effects of the Gaza war remained limited. From a security standpoint, Egypt sent large forces to Sinai to control the situation in the Sinai region, as well as to confront the possibility of a large wave of migration from Gaza. The Egyptian troop deployment was in violation of the terms of the Camp David Accords. However, all these concerns remained under control.
Jordan Flooded with Syrian Refugees
As for Jordan, it was also witnessing great economic suffering before the war due to various issues. There was suspension of transit trade between Turkey and the Gulf state as a result of the Syrian war. It was overburdened by Jordan’s reception of nearly two million Syrian refugees who fled from southern Syria, putting pressure on its already scarce resources. Jordan received significant support from the European Union to support its economy, amounting to over $1.5 billion annually. Some Gulf states also provided financial contributions. The security impact of the war in Gaza on Jordan was much greater than the effects in Egypt and the rest of the countries of the region.
Demographic skewness
According to some estimates, more than half of Jordan’s population is of Palestinian origin, and tens of thousands demonstrated almost daily to demand that King Abdullah sever relations with Israel, besiege the Israeli embassy in Amman, and return employees to Tel Aviv due to the security situation. All of this made the Jordanian government appear in an inconvenient situation with the continuation of the war and the increase in its human and bloody costs. The most difficult problem is that a large migration from the West Bank to Jordan will overthrow the demographic balance between citizens of Palestinian origin and those of East Jordanian origin. This means that the Jordan known as of today may not exist.
The Arab Response: The Counterplan
On February 12, 2025, President Trump again presented his vision for a solution in Gaza to the Jordanian King Abdullah II. The king appeared alarmed as the American plan assumed his country of receiving large numbers of Gazans. The Kingdom of Jordan in 1970 had experienced a civil war between its citizens of Bedouin origin in East Jordan and those of Palestinian origin. The Palestinian origin citizens comprised of refugees of the 1948 war. Since those events, known as Black September, the Kingdom has proceeded with extreme caution on the Palestinian issue. And time has only served to escalate tensions between citizens of East Jordan and Palestinian origins.
Though disputes between them are currently limited to football stadiums or some offensive newspaper articles, the gap between the two sides is very wide. It relates to living conditions, life opportunities, job advancement, and the monopolization of certain fields, such as security and media, in favor of East Jordanians. With the recurring wars between Hamas and Israel, internal cohesion in Jordan is vanishing. Citizens of Palestinian origin support Hamas and vote in elections for Jordanian Islamist movements. Citizens of Jordanian origin support the Hashemite throne and consider the King’s efforts to keep Jordan out of the Middle East fires to be incredibly wise.
Egypt’s Plan
King Abdullah barely passed the Trump test and told him that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi was preparing an alternative plan to the American plan. Cairo finally announced its plan after consulting with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, and Jordan. The plan consists of three stages and costs about $53 billion. The first stage costing about $20 billion is the recovery phase to remove the rubble and build temporary housing. The distinguishing factor of the Arab plan is the reconstruction without displacing Palestinians. It also includes reforms in the Palestinian Authority and peacekeeping forces, whose participants are not yet specified. Importantly, it guarantees that an operation like October 7 will never be possible in the future. The Arab counterplan was met with extreme coldness in Washington and outright rejection in Israel. Netanyahu himself and some of his ministers do not favor the Palestinian Authority’s return to Gaza. In their eyes, Hamas and Mahmoud Abbas are essentially the same thing.
Viability of Trump Plan
Does all this leave us with only one option, the Trump plan? In fact, the Trump plan is doomed to failure for several reasons related to President Trump himself. He is known for adopting plans that appear great on paper but then clash with the realities of geography, history, and economy. Also, he then ceases to be concerned with them as happened when he launched a broad promotional campaign for the “Deal of the Century”, and he adopted it for a long time, consumed communications, and tours, and then never mentioned it again.
Today, with the plan to transform Gaza into the Riviera of the Middle East, things seem even more difficult. Who is the army that will force Gazans to board ships or cross the Sinai Desert to leave Gaza? This, at best, is ethnic cleansing that the world will not accept. Secondly, no country has agreed to receive any Palestinian refugees, so how can it receive two million Palestinians and provide them with housing and job opportunities, as the Trump plan assumes? And who will finance all of this? Most observers in Washington believe that the Gaza Riviera plan is similar to all of Trump’s plans, such as tariffs and others, and stems from the same logic: presenting a shocking, terrifying, and surprising offer and waiting for others to come up with a deal. An alternative deal that satisfies Trump, and makes him back down from his plan, and everyone feels relieved at getting rid of the nightmare.
Perhaps the success of the Arab plan is more viable not because of its logic but because of the greater possibility of the failure of the Trump plan.
Success of the Arab plan is more viable not because of its logic but because of the greater possibility of the failure of the Trump plan.
October 7: What Comes After Is Not the Same
Understanding October 7
Before arriving at the conclusion that attempts to outline what might come after the end of the war, one cannot avoid questions that remain unanswered to this day. How can one understand October 7? What were its military and political calculations? Who made the decision and what did they want to achieve? Who knew about it? These questions may be answered by the results of an independent commission of inquiry, which Netanyahu still opposes. As for the other parties, much about them will be in the dark. Most of the Hamas leaders inside Israel have been killed, and the participating regional parties are not known for their transparency.
Hamas’ Deception
What is known so far is that Hamas leaders Mohammed Deif, Yahya Sinwar, and Marwan Issa, carried out a large-scale deception operation to lead Israel to believe that Hamas leaders were occupied with improving the lives of their people and trying to develop life in Gaza. That way, they were contained and no longer wanted to fight against Israel. But how did Hamas carry out the deception operation?
Within the framework of calming Gaza after the Sword of Jerusalem operation in response to the events in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem, Hamas conveyed through intermediaries its desire to allow workers from Gaza to work in Israel. Subsequently, Israel issued permits to more than thirty thousand Gazans who crossed every morning to work in Israel. Hamas asked some Palestinian businessmen abroad to come to Gaza and establish service projects, and a number of them responded and considered establishing vital projects in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli Intelligence on Hamas
In Israel, observers say that Hamas had fooled Israeli security officials with its deception tactics. As such the security officials submitted reports at the political level, stating that Hamas had been deterred. However, the story is not that simple. Most ex-leaders of the internal intelligence service said that Hamas’s deterrence strategy was ineffective. They believed that the organization was preparing a major operation against Israeli towns adjacent to the Gaza Strip. They issued warnings in this regard to the Israeli government. Also, they added that Netanyahu’s strategy, from the outset, of overlooking Hamas’s control of the Strip to ensure its separation from the West Bank is merely political sorcery. Moreover, they warned such will lead to dangerous consequences. Netanyahu denied all of this, saying that he was not warned of any potential Hamas attack. He expelled IDF Commander Herzi Halevi, Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar, and the State Prosecutor, and rejected all demands to form an independent investigation committee, similar to what happened after the 1973 October War and the 1982 Lebanon War.
Regional Players Steer Clear
On the same day of the October 7 operation, Iran denied any knowledge of the decision to attack, as did Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah. Qatar also confirmed that the Hamas leadership residing in Doha did not know about it. If so, who knew?
And is it true that everything that happened in the Middle East since October 7 was the result of a decision made by just two people: Mohammed Deif and Yahya Sinwar? Considering Dief, he was seriously injured from a previous assassination attempt. Was it possible for Dief to undertake such serious planning and execution of this magnitude despite his health condition? So, that leaves just Sinwar. So, was he the only person who took responsibility, planned and executed an operation that changed the face of the Middle East? Did he realize that an operation of this magnitude would lead to the destruction of Gaza Strip and the displacement of two million Palestinians? Was he a victim of his own success, and did he succeed more than he planned? Was the Quds Force, which oversaw all operations of the so-called axis of resistance, not consulted? And was Qatar, which hosts the leadership of Hamas, the leadership of Hezbollah, or even the Islamic Jihad movement in Gaza, not informed? If one believes all of this, this means that one man who spent half his life in Israeli prisons did all of this.
Conspiracies
A number of researchers in understanding October 7 theorize that Tehran, especially its hardline wing — the Revolutionary Guards and the Intelligence Service — was desperate to stop Arab normalization with Israel, especially the Abraham Accords. When the Biden administration seemed serious about trying to include Saudi Arabia in the agreement and the decisive moment approached, Tehran ordered the implementation of the October 7 operation to destroy the Abraham Accords. This hypothesis does not seem very convincing as Tehran was working with the patience of a carpet weaver to expand in. The Middle East has been under siege for a quarter of a century through slow, measured, and cautious steps. Would it have bet on everything at once, in a move resembling the actions of desperate gamblers? But other than Tehran, the Revolutionary Guards, and the Quds Force, who has the ability to convince Hamas of this operation?
Hamas has mutually beneficial relations with Turkey and Qatar. Turkey in order to have a foothold in the most prominent issues in the Middle East, and Qatar is trying to play a role in most of the region’s issues. But Turkey is a member of NATO. Would it dare make such a decision and gamble on all its relations with the United States and Europe? Qatar has the largest American military and security base in the Middle East. Could it have coordinated such an operation away from the ears of the Americans and their security services? And does it even have an interest in an operation of this magnitude? Beyond conspiracy theories, it may be a long time before we understand October 7.
The Hamas Dilemma and the Political Vacuum
Gazans Criticize Hamas
Despite the fear of Hamas militants and their continued ability to take revenge against any challenge to the movement, one has begun to see angry crowds criticizing Hamas in the strongest terms. They are holding it responsible for the destruction of the Strip and the destruction of people’s lives.
Although the quality of life in Gaza was not high before the last war, the scenes that the people of Gaza show of their city before October 7 show a city that was good by Middle Eastern standards. There were beautiful houses, organized streets, beach outings, thriving markets, strawberry farms, and citrus orchards. All of that is gone now, and the people of Gaza hold Hamas responsible and may never accept its rule again. Logically, there is no point in rebuilding if there is once again a Hamas leader thinking of the next adventure and the next destruction. Moreover, the concept of governance itself has become meaningless. The main task will take years.
Hamas’ Political Grip
The biggest roadblock to peace is Hamas’ continued influence in the Gaza strip. Hamas is obviously in a difficult position. They have been decimated organizationally and institutionally. They have lost international sponsorship. A lot of people in Gaza are really upset with them. But that cannot erase the reality on the ground that Hamas remains the only political organization with an actual capacity to control things in Gaza.
For years, Hamas was three things at once. It was a militant group with an estimated 30,000 fighters and an arsenal of rockets. It was Gaza’s de facto government, in charge of 2.3 million people. And it was a force in Palestinian politics, the main opposition to Fatah, the nationalist party that runs the Palestinian Authority (PA). In the aftermath of a ruinous war, it can no longer play all three roles: its leaders must choose one.
The first one would be to focus on the military wing. Hamas could step back from running Gaza and appoint a group of technocrats to manage civil affairs. It would wield power behind the scenes and work to rebuild its forces. Some observers call this the “Hezbollah model” after the Shia militia, which has long been Lebanon’s strongest power. And if the ceasefire fails to rapidly improve Palestinian lives, and if no legitimate governing alternative emerges, the group could regain steam.
Political Vacuum
The region has been plagued with hostility in the past as well, but this war with the use of modern technologies has changed the landscape both physically as well as politically.
Researchers often tend to repeat their previous knowledge and imagine that the outcome of the current battle will be a repetition of what happened in the past. Hamas will lick its wounds and begin attempts to rearm and maintain control over the Gaza Strip.
How often have we heard the lazy aphorism that you cannot defeat an ideology? Tell that to the Nazi Party and Imperial Japan. As they were, Hamas and its fellow jihadists in Gaza are in the process of being militarily defeated, and when that is complete, their ideology will no longer have the direct capability to inflict harm on their enemies. But the ideology itself will remain and what is left of its leadership will do their utmost to rearm and rebuild what they have lost. The same is true in the West Bank.
Any attempt by the Palestinian Authority to send troops will lead to a confrontation between Fatah and Hamas, a repeat of what happened in 2007. All of these scenarios no longer have any intellectual legitimacy, at least not for many years to come. The reality is that the Gaza Strip has now become ungovernable due to the lack of any basis for any government: no government centers, no police stations, no money, and, most importantly, the loss of legitimacy by the governed.
The Arab plan seems to have been written in urgency and thus is lacking in features. It is still not clear who will provide the funds, who will rebuild, and where the international peacekeeping forces will come from. If Hamas does not surrender its weapons, and a sizable portion of its leaders and forces leave, who will guarantee that the peacekeeping forces themselves won’t be hostages in the Gaza tunnels?
Will the picture change if Hamas leaders and most of the fighters leave Gaza? Similar to what the PLO leadership in Beirut did in 1982 when they left with the fighters to Tunisia, Damascus, and Yemen. Even in this case, Gaza will remain borderless, and the delivery of aid, as well as materials to be used in the reconstruction process, will pass through Israel. This means procrastination and delay until the Gaza Strip turns into a large refugee camp.
A deal has been on the table for months. Having reshaped the region and confounded its critics, Hamas should now do what is both right and wise. It should take what is on offer in Gaza, release the hostage and end the war. It must release all Israeli hostages in return for a permanent truce and a withdrawal of forces. The next steps include securing food and medicine for the population, receiving, protecting, and distributing aid, and attempting to find ready-made housing or tents for shelter.
Will the picture change if Hamas leaders and most of the fighters leave Gaza? Even in this case, Gaza will remain borderless, and the delivery of aid, as well as materials to be used in the reconstruction process, will pass through Israel. This means procrastination and delay until the Gaza Strip turns into a large refugee camp.
The Future of Gaza and Potential Scenarios
The Israeli Plan for the West Bank and Gaza
Beyond the war, Israel has little idea of how Gaza is to be handled, except that it will not give up its security role there easily now. It is an occupier once again after having left the Gaza Strip in 2005.
But why is Israel doing all of this? What is its plan for Gaza? Does Israel want to return to military rule in the Gaza Strip as was the case before it withdrew in 1993 and before it dismantled the settlements in 2004? Will the Israelis rebuild the settlements in Gush Katif and Netzarim? The main decision-makers in Israel, such as the army and security forces, as well as the media, completely reject this option.
“The day after” has been the most frequently repeated phrase since the Israeli attack on Hamas following the October 7 attack. The Israeli government has strongly resisted all internal pressure from the military, security establishment and the Israeli opposition to present any plan for the day after the war. Even amidst insistence from some members of the government, such as Benny Gantz, Gadi Eisenkot, Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, and the Shin Bet internal security service, the Netanyahu government continues to evade presenting a vision for a solution in Gaza after the fighting. The only thing the Israeli government has clearly stated is that no role for Hamas in governing the Gaza Strip will be acceptable from now on, and there will be no return of the Palestinian Authority to govern the Strip. What then?
The Shin Bet, Israel’s internal intelligence agency, proposed a plan for post-war Gaza. According to it, Israel would work with some trusted local Palestinian tribes who cooperated with it during the occupation. These tribes will be tasked with receiving international aid flowing into the Strip and distributing it to the population. Thereby eliminating any role for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). However, the plan failed to hold. According to reports from Gaza, Hamas militants have killed or tortured members of these tribes and the families supporting this plan. The Shin Bet project quickly collapsed and was removed from the agenda.
Israeli Rule of Gaza?
Will Israeli decision-makers, who refused to return to rule in Gaza when things were not as bad, really agree to rule two million exhausted Palestinians who need everything and take responsibility for their health, education, and livelihood? In addition to that, the people of Gaza, who were exposed to widespread destruction, will they launch revenge operations? Is time doomed to repeat itself endlessly? It seems that despite all the noise made by Israeli extremists, the military establishment will not agree to rule Gaza again. This explains its desire or search of other alternatives, such as tribal or family rule, Arab forces, or simply anyone who would accept to rule a place that is no longer fit to rule.
In fact, the entire goal of the Oslo Accords was to get rid of the rule of the major Palestinian communities in Gaza and the West Bank, despite the feverish demands of some Israeli parties, such as the Religious Zionism Party.
“Unofficial plan” from Israeli Military
The second idea came from the army in an unofficial manner, through reserve generals. This is a method followed in Israel to present ideas without the generals in service bearing responsibility for them before the government. The idea talks about deploying Arab forces in the Gaza Strip, but the chances of this idea are as slim as the previous one. No Arab country volunteered, especially the Abraham Accords countries, Morocco, the Emirates and Bahrain, to adopt the project. As for other Arab countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, they stipulate that the plan be linked to a clear political horizon ending with the declaration of a Palestinian state.
Plans from Knesset: Returning Settlements
Officially Israel avoided offering solutions. However, ministers and representatives in the Knesset conceived a different kind of solution and organized a conference to return settlement to the Gaza Strip. According to the plans proposed, the settlement plans accelerated to reach record levels. They even offered real estate services and land for sale. But no one took this conference seriously. No one thought of buying land in an area that was still raging with bloody battles and a large number of kidnapped Israelis still in Gaza. In the first place, settlement in Gaza did not have a good reputation in Israel. The day the settlement project in Gaza was disbanded was a day of relief.
Two State Solution: Still Possible?
Today, after two years of bloody killings in Gaza, the horrors of October 7, and the systematic destruction of West Bank camps, it can be said that the opportunity for a two-state solution has become more distant than ever. It was an opportunity that was theoretical all along and was never real at all, as the Israeli right rejects it. This right garnered support from religious parties such as the party of National Security Minister Ben-Gvir and the Religious Zionism Party led by Smotrich. They are partners of Netanyahu and the main opponents of a Palestinian state since the signing of the Oslo Accords. But despite all this, why do successive American administrations continue to propose a two-state solution despite knowing this solution is impossible? American affairs experts in Washington say that the talk of American officials about the two-state solution is nothing but lip service. American officials pay it to please their European and Arab allies.
No Alternative to Two State Solution
The most popular explanation in Washington is that other than the idea of a two-state solution, there is no other policy that can be proposed now on the Palestinian cause. There is simply no other game. The collapse of the two-state solution creates more problems than it could solve. The alternative based on a one-state solution is not possible, given the amount of hatred and revenge that followed October 7. Even in the wildest imaginations, it is impossible to imagine the two people coexisting in one state.
Apartheid-like System?
What is to be done? Israel annexing the West Bank without granting Palestinians’ citizenships would mean the existence of an apartheid state. The world rejected this idea with the fall of the apartheid system in South Africa.
Israeli Army Backs out of Ruling Gaza
Of course, the idea of deporting Palestinians, led by religious Zionist parties, will not find acceptance anywhere in the world, including the United States. Demanding to overthrow the Palestinian Authority or its spontaneous collapse will lead to the return of the direct occupation of more than two and a half million people in the West Bank, an option rejected by the Israeli army and a large number of the Israelis.
Idea of Village Associations practiced in 70s?
Some Israeli researchers are proposing a return to the idea of village associations, which was rehearsed in the 1970s. This is a concept in which notables, mukhtars, and families oversee local government in each Palestinian city. This concept fell in the 1970s due to its unpopularity among Palestinians, and because Fatah activists neutralized those who chose to cooperate with Israel in this project. But this happened fifty years ago, and today the picture looks different.
Graft & Incompetence of Palestinian Authority
The majority of the Palestinian streets reek of despairs of the corruption and incompetence of the Palestinian Authority. The Middle East witness’s major collapses in the region, such as in Syria, Lebanon, and Libya, and fears their fate similar to that of Gaza. The most important aspect is the amount of support provided to Israel by the US administration, Congress, state governors, business leaders, and owners of major companies such as Tesla, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft.
European Support to Palestinian State
Amid all this, a number of European nations such as Ireland, Spain, and, most recently, French President Emmanuel Macron are rushing to announce their intention to recognize a Palestinian state under the two-state solution. The coming months will answer the question: Will there be celebrations marking the success of the two-state solution and the recognition of a Palestinian state? Or will these recognitions be at a memorial service for the two-state solution?
Abraham Accords: Giving Lasting Peace A Chance in the Region
Still, one important question remains unanswered: “What will permanently end the conflict?” The answer to it looks gloomy, given the consequences of the most recent war.
In spite of a ceasefire, century-old issues that have been dragging on between Israel and Palestine still remain unaddressed. The most sensitive among them is the existence of Palestinian state and the dispute over Jerusalem, which both claim to be their state’s capital. The issue is extremely contentious as it is rooted deeply in both sides’ religious beliefs.
Moreover, Israel encroached settlements in the West Bank, which the International Court of Justice ruled as “illegal,” will keep surfacing time and again. Still, the seemingly never-ending cycles of violence ongoing since the Balfour Declaration of 1917 should be buried forever, if chance is to be given to peace.
Additionally, regional tensions such as Iran-Israel and Israel-Yemen will not stop from stoking the conflict. Amid such, any actor could exploit such friction for own vested interests and undermine peace initiatives. So, what is to be done then?
There is only one feasible way to break this vicious cycle of violence. Both Israelis and Palestinians should understand that pursuing the path of “killing the other” will only prompt in more deaths, destruction and displacement. Nothing else can come out of such a policy. Both sides should realize that coexistence is the only solution to lasting peace and a Palestinian state in which people can live a dignified life will bring harmony. Therefore, this seems to be the only lasting guarantee for Israel’s security and stability.
There is only one feasible way to break this vicious cycle of violence. Both Israelis and Palestinians should understand that pursuing the path of “killing the other” will only prompt in more deaths, destruction and displacement. Both sides should realize that coexistence is the only solution to lasting peace and a Palestinian state will bring harmony. Therefore, this seems to be the only lasting guarantee for Israel’s security and stability.
The Abraham Accords sowed seeds in the region show that both sides can live in harmony and peace. It is not to say that expanding the accords between more countries will ultimately bring peace. The underlying causes, which have long been the primary source of tension and conflict in the Middle East, must be prodded and addressed.
Doing so will ensure a permanent end to the fighting, put an end to the cycles of distrust, and let the first steps towards reconstruction, rehabilitation and prosperity be taken. It will also divert the Trump administration to focus on other, more pressing issues on its foreign policy agenda.
In sum, the lessons learned from Gaza are manifold, but the most profound is that the old-world order is unsustainable and change is mandatory.
