Today President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a joint press conference in which they announced a plan–Trump’s “Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict”–that, according to the President, would not only end the war in Gaza:
I’m not just talking about Gaza. Gaza is one thing, but we’re talking about much beyond Gaza. The whole deal, everything getting solved. It’s called peace in the Middle East.
Trump praised everyone from the King of Saudi Arabia (“a phenomenal person”) to President Erdogan of Turkey (“a friend of mine, strong man, but a good man”); apparently everyone in the region contributed to the deal that was announced today.
I suspect that Netanyahu wants to bring the war to an end, mainly because of domestic pressures. He praised Trump as “the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House…it’s not even close.” He endorsed the Trump peace plan:
I support your plan to end the war in Gaza, which achieves our war aims. It will bring back to Israel all our hostages, dismantle Hamas’s military capabilities and its political rule, and ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.
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Your plan is consistent with the five principles my government set for the end of the war and the day after Hamas. Everybody asked, What is your plan for the day after Hamas? Here’s our plan. Pass it in the cabinet. All our hostages, both those who are alive and those who died, all of them, will return home immediately. Hamas will be disarmed. Gaza will be demilitarized. Israel will retain security responsibility, including a security perimeter for the foreseeable future. And lastly, Gaza will have a peaceful civilian administration that is run neither by Hamas nor by the Palestinian Authority.
The full text of the Comprehensive Plan is here. For the most part, its elements are predictable. The war ends; Israeli troops begin to withdraw; hostages, both living and dead, are returned within 72 hours; Israel will release more Hamas terrorists and others; aid will be sent to Gaza; Hamas members who put down their weapons will receive amnesty; there will be an economic development plan for Gaza.
So what is new in the Comprehensive Plan? Gaza will be governed, on an interim basis, by a “technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee,” supervised by “a new international transitional body, the ‘Board of Peace,’” headed by none other than Donald J. Trump. Tony Blair will also be a member. As Israeli forces are withdrawn, order will be maintained in Gaza by “a temporary International Stabilization Force” which will be formed by “Arab and international partners.”
Hamas is to have no ongoing role in governing Gaza, and its terrorist infrastructure will be destroyed.
One obvious catch is that Hamas has not agreed to the plan. If Hamas does not agree, or “if they supposedly accept it and then basically do everything to counter it,” Netanyahu vowed to complete that organization’s destruction. In that event, Trump said, “Israel would have my full backing to finish the job of destroying the threat of Hamas.”
Apart from Hamas’s real or apparent consent, there are obvious questions about the peace plan. Will the “technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee” not be another genocidal group? Will Trump’s “Board of Peace” actually have control over events? Will an international force, apparently drawn from Muslim countries, be willing or able to suppress the terrorist impulse that governs Gaza? Will Hamas’s infrastructure actually be destroyed, and Hamas disabled as a fighting force?
The fundamental problem, in my opinion, is that the root of the evil is not Hamas, per se. The real problem is that Gaza’s sick culture, perverted religion and twisted educational system have produced a populace that is devoted to genocide above all else. Have two years of war taught the people of Gaza a lesson? Will there be a process in Gaza akin to the de-Nazification of Germany after World War II? Are Gazans really willing to lay down their arms and live normal lives?
I don’t know, but I think an appropriately cautious answer is, I will believe it when I see it.
