By: Prof. Dr. Mohsen Mohammad Saleh.
A veiled Israeli occupation… an international US guardianship… the delegitimization and erasure of Palestinian identity… and the liquidation of resistance in preparation for the liquidation of the Palestine issue… this, in essence, constitutes the underlying reality of Trump’s plan to end the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip (GS).
Conversely, Trump’s plan, announced on Monday 29/9/2025, appears to respond to certain urgent Palestinian needs, most notably halting the Israeli aggression, facilitating the entry of humanitarian aid, and preventing the displacement of the GS’s inhabitants. It also offers vague, open-ended promises of an Israeli withdrawal from the GS and the implementation of a “reasonable” prisoner-exchange deal that could serve as a basis for further negotiation. Nevertheless, the plan pointedly disregards, or deliberately evades, the fundamental and defining issue of the conflict: the Palestinian people’s right to their land, their sovereignty over it, their capacity to make their own decisions, and their freedom to elect their leadership by their own will.
Undoubtedly, there is an urgent and paramount need to bring an end to Israel’s genocidal war against the GS, for there can be no justification for the loss of a single drop of blood where it can be averted. However, this plan deliberately constructs a false dichotomy between the Palestinians’ immediate humanitarian needs and their inherent, legitimate, legal and political rights, as though the fulfillment of the former would nullify their entitlement to the latter.
Points of Tension and Potential Explosion:
• The problem with Trump’s plan lies not with Hamas, nor solely in relation to Hamas, but with the entire Palestinian people in all their orientations. The plan does not treat Palestinians as normal human beings possessing the same fundamental rights as all others; the right to freedom and to a dignified life on their land under their sovereignty. Rather, it seeks to extend Israel’s demeaning approach toward Palestinians, regarding them as deficient in capacity or even as “human animals,” into an international practice, with the support or tacit endorsement of Arab and Muslim states!! Furthermore, it reduces Palestinians to their most basic material needs, those they share with “animals and slaves,” such as food and water, in order to make these a means of extortion and bargaining.
• After more than a century of resistance, revolutions and uprisings, and following hundreds of international resolutions affirming the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, the right of return and the establishment of their independent state, Trump comes to usurp legitimacy from its rightful holders and to establish an “international transitional body” over the GS, which he calls the “Board of Peace,” chaired by Trump himself. Its administration could potentially fall under Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. This body is formed without consultation with or consent from the Palestinian people, without a defined timeline for the conclusion of its role, and links its continuation to what it calls the completion of the reform program for the Palestinian Authority (PA). This program is tied to standards and criteria set by “the enemy itself” and the occupying power, standards that have proven unattainable throughout the 31-year existence of the PA (since 1994) and that have served merely as a cover for the continuation of occupation, the subjugation of the Palestinian people, the conversion of its institutions into tools serving Israel, and the erasure of the Palestinian file.
• The Palestinian people are the most educated in the Arab world and rank among the highest globally. They possess hundreds of thousands of skilled professionals and experts across all scientific, technological, economic, administrative and political fields… They do not need a single dirham or dollar from anyone… nor do they require food or sustenance… Their fundamental problem is the occupation… and the resolution of their problem lies in ending the occupation. It is the occupation that seizes their land, suppresses them, stifles their freedom, erases their creativity, kills and displaces them, and destroys their infrastructure, schools, hospitals and factories… What Trump does, in contrast, rewards the occupation rather than bringing it to an end.
• Trump’s plan presents Hamas and the resistance forces with what can only be described as “suicide and self-destruction.” It removes them from the Palestinian political scene, nullifies their resistance, destroys their infrastructure, disarms them, and demands their acquiescence to US and international guardianship over the GS. It further obliges them to accept the continued Israeli presence over large parts of the GS, making any withdrawal conditional, discretionary, and subject to standards set solely by Israel… In short, the plan represents a process of surrender in exchange for the provision of basic necessities to the people of the GS.
• It seeks, with calculated deception, to depict Hamas and the Palestinian resistance as the principal impediments preventing the Palestinian people from securing their basic needs. At the same time, it endeavors to frame them in opposition to both the Arab world and the international community, as if they alone were responsible for the continued war and devastation in GS. Moreover, it attempts to invert the core of the Palestinian narrative: at a time when global sympathy for the Palestinian people and the Palestine issue has expanded and the brutality and arrogance of Israel have been exposed, this effort channels, weakens and depletes international support, redirecting blame and anger toward Hamas and the Palestinian resistance.
• Trump’s plan establishes a functional entity charged with core security tasks; acting on behalf of Israel, it will pursue the uprooting of Hamas and the resistance, tracking their military cells, detaining, eliminating and neutralizing them, and will also target Hamas supporters within governmental, educational, health, economic and service sectors in order to remove them, as has occurred and continues to occur in the West Bank (WB). The pace and scope of Israel’s gradual withdrawal from GS will be tied to this functional entity’s success in delivering Israeli objectives. Consequently, whether Hamas accepts the plan or rejects it, its leadership is being singled out as a target, and efforts to eradicate it by harsh or subtler means will continue.
• Most provisions of the plan are characterized by vagueness and a lack of specificity, particularly regarding Israel’s commitments; many clauses would each require a separate negotiation track to place them on a viable implementation path. This structural ambiguity affords Israel substantial room to maneuver, evade obligations, and impose fait accompli.
• Trump’s plan separates GS from the WB, striking at the core of the two-state solution and obstructing the momentum recently gained in the recognition of a Palestinian state, which now counts 156 states, approximately 81% of the world’s countries, as recognizing it. The Trump plan places no obligation on establishing a Palestinian state and conditions entry into any negotiation toward statehood on Israeli–US approval of what it calls “PA reform,” essentially the same sterile track that began with the Oslo Accords 32 years ago.
• A fundamental problem remains that Trump himself lacks trustworthiness and credibility, is notorious for falsehoods, shows little concern for reversing his commitments, and treats not only the Palestinian people but all regional peoples and political systems with condescension. Similarly, Netanyahu and Israeli leadership more broadly are well known for violating agreements and interpreting them as they see fit, imposing facts on the ground, and openly pursuing projects of annexation, Judaization, displacement and even the vision of a “Greater Israel.”
• The Trump plan provides opportunities to “rehabilitate” Israel, “whitewash” its image and rebrand it, It also aims to inject strong momentum into normalization efforts, including the expansion of the Abraham Accords, after Israel’s brutal conduct had undermined this trajectory throughout its war on GS. It also seeks to break Israel’s global isolation, without requiring it to pay any real price for its actions.
• On the other hand, the mere presentation of the plan by Trump and Netanyahu’s approval constitutes a practical acknowledgment of the inability of Israel’s overwhelming military power to achieve its objectives in GS, to crush the resistance, or to recover Israeli captives. This assessment is reinforced by the report submitted by the Chief of Staff of the Israeli army to Netanyahu prior to the plan’s announcement, which concluded that there was no realistic prospect for a decisive Israeli victory over the resistance and emphasized the necessity of turning to the political track. Consequently, the plan seeks to achieve through politics what military force has failed to accomplish.
• As we noted in a previous article, Israel’s true objective was to strike Hamas, strip it of its weapons, and prevent resistance activity from emanating from GS, in addition to recovering the captives. By contrast, full occupation, mass displacement, and direct rule were articulated as a higher ceiling. These measures were deliberately staged as bargaining chips that could later be relinquished and “sold” to secure Israel’s primary aim, thereby presenting them as if they were major concessions.
Engaging with the Trump Plan:
Engaging with the Trump plan requires both firmness and prudence, particularly given that it is designed to impose surrender on the resistance while isolating it regionally and internationally. The resistance is not compelled to respond with unconditional acceptance or outright rejection; fundamentally, the plan constitutes a proposal placed on the negotiating table. Notably, even the Israeli side has at times rejected or undermined plans that were accepted by Hamas.
The provisions of the plan comprise a mixture of positives, negatives and risks. Responses to the plan can be categorized on three levels:
First: Positive provisions that could be accepted and adopted following some adjustments and clarification of details, such as the cessation of hostilities, the entry of humanitarian aid, the return of displaced persons, reconstruction, and the exchange of prisoners…
Second: Provisions that fall within a gray area and require serious negotiation to achieve clear outcomes, such as scheduling the Israeli withdrawal and establishing its timeframe, the functioning and powers of a “technocratic apolitical Palestinian committee,” the PA’s assumption of control over GS, the potential temporary presence of non-Palestinian forces, the nature of their transitional tasks, operational mechanisms, and their deployment locations.
Third: Provisions that do not pertain directly to Hamas itself but rather to the inherent and inalienable rights of the Palestinian people. These include the sovereign authority that leads or oversees GS, the right to armed resistance, the right of resistance factions to political participation and to rebuilding the PLO, participation in free and fair elections that genuinely reflect the will of the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, sovereignty over their land, and rejection of foreign control… Such points should be the focus of Hamas and the resistance forces in seeking a broad Palestinian national consensus, emphasizing that they constitute internal Palestinian matters to be determined by Palestinians themselves. Accordingly, their rejection arises from Palestinian national will and the higher interests of the Palestinian people, rather than from an intent to obstruct the end of the war or the alleviation of suffering. Pressure, therefore, must be directed at the aggressor, Israel, rather than at the Palestinian people, who remain victims of occupation and defenders of their natural rights.
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Finally, despite its humanitarian façade, the plan fundamentally aims to “rescue” Israel, to rehabilitate and rebrand the occupation, to legitimize the occupation and international guardianship, to legitimize efforts to dismantle Palestinian resistance, and to erase the Palestine issue, whether Hamas accepts it or not. Consequently, the only viable approach is to engage with the plan with the prudence and firmness necessary to uphold the aspirations of the Palestinian people.
Al-Zaytouna Centre for Studies and Consultations, 2/10/2025
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