Trump’s Gaza Plan May Fail Precisely Because it’s His

It seems churlish to carp about President Trump’s peace plan for Gaza when its announcement and early steps have caused such widespread relief. Trump himself, always eager for quick and dramatic successes abroad, has encouraged the euphoria in some circles by declaring in the Israeli Knesset the “dawn of a new Middle East”, rather than expressing the caution appropriate when announcing progress towards resolving perhaps the world’s most intractable conflict. But there are even more grounds for skepticism that this will be the peace plan to succeed when so many others have foundered – grounds rooted in simply it being his plan.

To be sure, significant steps towards winding down the conflict have been taken. Hamas has released all the surviving Israeli hostages, giving up its last source of leverage upon Israel. The IDF has also withdrawn from Gaza’s population centres, which could not be reversed without incurring renewed international criticism and Trump’s displeasure, given his public promise to prevent it. Trump’s plan further offers something to all the relevant regional actors.

For war-weary Israelis, it means an end to the immediate fighting and the return of the surviving hostages. For Prime Minister Netanyahu, who faces an election soon, the ability to claim military victory over Israel’s major enemies (Hamas, Iran, and Hezbollah), a demilitarized Gaza in whose governance Hamas has no role, and the return of the hostages, for whose fate his apparent unconcern has exacerbated his deep unpopularity. For the Palestinians, an end to the suffering in Gaza, humanitarian aid, large-scale reconstruction, and an increased prospect of eventual statehood. For Hamas, an exit, via amnesty or exile, from a conflict which has weakened its military potential, its standing in the Arab world, and the network of tangible support based upon Iran and to which the Assad regime in Syria was central. For most of the Arab world, it’s an end to Hamas’ disruptive role in the region.

But it took a particular alignment of forces to get us to this point. Hamas, and its backers, had to be weakened, Israel had to have a credible claim to victory, and the Arab states that have at best tolerated Hamas had to be pressed to force concessions upon it (and Israel’s recent strike on Doha played a salutary role). Of course, Trump also applied pressure on all parties. However, this alignment of forces is fragile and almost certainly transient, as are the opportunities it creates, unless they are embedded in solid arrangements and understandings.

Moreover, while the general principles of Trump’s plan command widespread, though not universal, assent, the divisive details on the vexing questions that have derailed previous negotiations have been kicked down the road. Welcome as what’s already happened may be, it’s the easy part. The stability of a post-conflict Gaza will depend upon the nature of the proposed government of Palestinian technocrats, the possible role of a reformed Palestinian Authority, the composition and powers of the suggested International Stabilization Force (ISF), the authority of the international supervisory body, the timing of further Israeli withdrawal, and the benchmarks that would have to be met for the Palestinians to incrementally earn statehood.

Above all, it depends upon the complete and verifiable disarmament of Hamas, to which the organization has not clearly committed. Indeed, since the current ceasefire was declared, Hamas has hunted down and killed members of rival factions, with Trump’s blessing, as a ‘security measure’, hardly indicative of a willingness to lay down arms. If Hamas remains an armed force, it will retain influence in Gaza, even without formal authority (the precedent of Hezbollah in Lebanon is instructive). If the disarmament of Hamas is not comprehensive and verifiable, volunteers for an ISF will be scarce, the next Gaza government will be too weak to enforce stability, and neither state-to-state reconstruction funds nor private investment will flow into Gaza in meaningful amounts. Conflict with Israel will recur, though the specifics are hard to predict.

Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and lead negotiator Steve Witkoff seem to have been more involved in reaching what agreement exists than Trump himself. Neither seems any more knowledgeable than Trump about the complexities of regional history, but they don’t care. Kushner boasted of seeking agreement first, details to follow, adding “it’s just different being deal guys.” While Trump’s team presumably pride themselves on toughminded pragmatism, the callow naivete here is breathtaking. Like Trump himself, they apply the logic of real estate deals to geopolitics, but while a real estate deal may have a zero-sum component, the struggle between Hamas and Israel has a larger one at its core. Trump’s fabled transactional mentality and shallow understanding of human nature leave him ill-equipped to grasp motivations deeper than the merely mercenary and which cannot be defused in a ‘deal.’

The intractable nature of the struggle between Israel and Hamas reflects the latter’s conviction, enshrined in its charter, that a Jewish state can never be legitimate and must be eradicated. For Hamas, survival and the capacity to fight again constitutes victory. Full and permanent disarmament would amount to defeat as well as surrender of the organization’s very raison d’etre. As a result, a final resolution of this intractable struggle will be harder than Trump and his associates can understand or at least are willing to acknowledge.

The framework of Trump’s plan also resembles what Joe Biden proposed but without success. It is arguable that Trump’s brutal application of power upon the parties was necessary to get to the first stage of a settlement, but Trump is less likely than Biden to progress further. Since Trump’s return to office, his indifference to international norms and pathological volatility have reduced others’ willingness to rely upon US commitments.

That the US is less trusted leaves it with less influence over both ally and adversary, so with less power to shape events. Even if Trump were to earn back the trust of others, a durable settlement would require the sustained engagement of Washington, diplomatically, economically, in extremis militarily, than we could expect from a leader so fickle and averse to the risks of protracted involvement in foreign quarrels where he has no direct stake. The most pressing condition of progress at the moment would be vigorous US pressure on Qatar and others to hold to a hard line against Hamas. Yet Trump can be swayed by flattery or bribery, as we see in the implicit quid pro quo of a Qatari air base in the US for the ‘gift’ of a plane to Trump.

In addition, while Israelis, including Netanyahu, may be among the few who count Trump a firm friend, he would sacrifice their interests readily. He had no qualms about forcing the Houthis to cease firing on US shipping while Israeli commerce remained fair game, and kept his distance from Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities until it seemed to have succeeded and made his endorsement advantageous. There is no reason to think he would be bound by any obligations assumed as part of a regional settlement once they had become inconvenient.

The most likely outcome of the current process is a face-saving fudge, where Hamas would accept disarmament, but limited to certain weapons or to Gaza alone, and where verification would ultimately prove inadequate. And after taking his victory lap for the cameras, Trump could gradually distance himself from the situation, blaming the intransigence of others for lack of further progress. Eventually Gaza would again become a base for terrorist attacks, Israel would be compelled to pre-empt or respond, and the conflict would resume. But whenever it became apparent, the failure of Trump’s Gaza plan would largely be because it was his.