The main objective of Trump’s plan is for Israel to relinquish Gaza to a foreign entity.
by Vision Magazine
Following a meeting at the White House on Monday, US President Donald Trump announced that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has agreed to his new plan for Gaza’s future.
The announcement came during a press conference following a meeting between the two leaders.
Trump released a comprehensive 21-point plan ahead of the press conference – updated from an earlier leaked version that appeared more antagonistic to Israeli interests. If Jerusalem does in fact accept the plan, all hostages currently being held by Hamas should be returned within 72 hours. Once the hostages are home, Israel would in turn free 250 life sentence Palestinian prisoners plus 1,700 Gazans detained after October 7, 2023.
The plan also calls for Hamas members who declare their commitment to ‘peaceful co-existence’ to receive amnesty. Those seeking to leave Gaza would be provided with safe passage.
But the most important feature of Trump’s plan is that it requires Israel’s military to relinquish control of Gaza to an International Stabilization Force (ISF) and to withdraw from its current positions to an agreed upon line. Israel would then halt all operations until conditions are met for a staged withdrawal that would put the strip under Trump’s international force.
This ISF would be tasked with training and providing support to vetted Palestinian police forces in Gaza, in coordination with Egypt and Jordan.
Under the American plan, Gaza civilian affairs would initially be governed by a temporary Palestinian committee under a new international ‘board of peace’ chaired by Trump himself.
While the plan does not address the future of the West Bank, the proposal does speak about ‘a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.’
It’s also important to note that if implementation of this plan were to prove a success, Trump or a future US president could seek to duplicate the model in the Samaria and Judea regions.
But success is unlikely due to the fact that what this plan really amounts to is an international force to shield Hamas from Israeli retaliations.
It’s not yet clear whether or not Hamas will accept this proposal but point 17 of the plan states that in the event Hamas delays or rejects it, Trump’s ISF would still take control of Gaza from Israeli forces. Point 16 states explicitly that Israel cannot continue to control or annex Gaza and that all territory must be relinquished to the ISF.
So while many features of the plan seem dependent on agreement from both Israel and Hamas, the one issue that appears to be firmly baked in is that Israel surrenders Gaza.
Roughly a day before Trump’s meeting with Netanyahu, Israel’s Channel 12 had reported that Israel’s security establishment was being excluded from discussions on Trump’s plan. Details of the real plan were reported to have been withheld from Israel’s security cabinet, as well as from Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir.
The report further noted that Netanyahu held a similar policy of secrecy regarding the Abraham Accords normalization agreements during Trump’s last term, and around potential Saudi normalization leading up to the war in Gaza.
While some Israelis and Diaspora Jews have naively expressed support for this plan – likely due to the more hostile plan artfully test ballooned prior to Monday’s meeting – this is partially the result of its pro-Israel window dressing.
What these Jews haven’t yet considered is that even if they hold onto the belief that Trump is a true friend of Israel, there’s no guarantee that his successors will be as friendly. In fact, everything we see about the trajectory of American politics indicates that Jerusalem should expect more overt hostility from future administrations.
There’s also no guarantee that Israel’s next prime minister will be as committed to Israel’s interests or as skilled at navigating the geopolitical playing field as Netanyahu.
If some hostile actor in Gaza were to launch attacks against Israel five or ten years down the line, striking through an American-led international force would likely be more complicated than simply fighting Hamas.
More importantly, an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza would be experienced as a failure to win the war. The clearest indication of victory is increased territory. Gaza is an integral part of the Jewish homeland that Israel was forced to surrender in 2005 by US President George W. Bush.
The only way to rectify all the pain and injustice caused by the Disengagement policy – practically and morally – would be for Prime Minister Netanyahu to retake Gaza, and rebuild the Jewish communities destroyed in 2005.
We should be hopeful that the prime minister understands all of this and that he’s already planning to outmaneuver Trump and effectively resist his nefarious plan.