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If all goes according to the script, the first three stages of the Trump peace proposal will be enacted in the early part of this week. A ceasefire, temporary but hopefully to become permanent, has already taken effect. Limited aid has finally been allowed into Gaza. Hostages and detainees are now being released.
What exists is a pause in hostilities, plus, in fairness, a clear determination among many actors, including US President Donald Trump and regional powers, to bring it all to an end. The position of Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition is ambivalent at best. Deciphering the views within a fractured Hamas is tougher to gauge.
How can this pause be translated into a permanent ceasefire and this conflict ultimately shifted onto a path to peace? What should and should not be done? Let’s start with the immediate.
First, if a ceasefire takes hold, attention must not flag. This will require focus and determination for the long term. Politics in the 21st century lacks these qualities. World leaders are easily distracted. The lesson of previous wars on Gaza is that grand statements in the wake of a ceasefire are all too quickly forgotten and a dangerous status quo can be allowed to fester. None of the root causes were addressed in the past.
It needs more than sustained focus, it needs results — a sense of moving forward the whole time
Chris Doyle
Second, the momentum needs to be sustained with regular moves forward. President Trump has banged heads together. Bringing the parties to Egypt may work out in this peace summit. He has created momentum, albeit with little sense as to the ultimate direction. But it needs more than sustained focus, it needs results — a sense of moving forward the whole time. The situation in Gaza has to improve day in, day out.
Third, everyone must be careful not to get drawn into the hype. The authors and architects of this plan have a vested interest in overplaying what has been achieved so far. This is not everlasting peace, as much as a ceasefire is desirable. It is not even a peace deal. It covers just Gaza, not the full conflict. The risk of this is to downplay the far tougher challenges ahead.
Fourth, the 20 points announced by Trump, negotiated with Netanyahu, must be revised. Three areas need to be addressed.
The first and arguably most serious is the total absence of Palestinian agency. The state of Palestine should be represented in all talks, starting now in Egypt. As Hamas has no role to play in the future of Gaza, beyond the issue of its disarming, it should have no role in determining Gaza’s future. For all the undoubted flaws of the Palestinian Authority, it has a structure and capability. Palestinians are the first to want its reform, not the outside powers, but progress must not be slowed to wait for this.
Palestinians must be at the center of determining the future of Gaza, including who governs it, who oversees the reconstruction, who gets the contracts and who negotiates with Israel.
Palestinians must be at the center of determining the future of Gaza, including who governs it
Chris Doyle
Those countries that have recognized the state of Palestine over the last few months should be leading on this. Palestine cannot be the one state not represented in talks.
Related to this is that the Trump plan must be broadened to include the West Bank. It cannot be a comprehensive approach if Gaza is treated as a separate enclave. Gaza is part of the occupied state of Palestine. Even under the Oslo Accords, the two areas were determined to be one single territorial unit.
Netanyahu and his coterie of anti-Palestinian ministers want to ensure complete separation geographically, demographically, economically and politically. The PA is therefore deliberately excluded. The Palestinian technocratic authority in Gaza will have zero relationship with Ramallah. There is no reference to safe passage between Gaza and the West Bank in the 20 points. As it stands, Palestinians will not be able to travel and trade between the two areas. All this must be challenged and from the start, this week in Egypt. Moreover, the crimes in the West Bank, particularly massive settlement expansion and settler violence, must be halted and reversed.
The third absentee is justice and accountability. What message does it sent to the world that genocide and crimes against humanity can be perpetrated with no cost? The cases at the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice must be backed. Those who committed crimes must be held to account. Businesses that aided and abetted the crimes should have no part in the reconstruction.
Regional actors should make their participation in the Trump plan conditional on all of the above. States should only commit funds and troops to the stabilization force if a state of Palestine is the clear destination, if Palestinians run their own affairs free from external control, and justice and accountability is at the heart of the way forward.
These states have leverage with Trump. Their funds and forces are an integral part of his route forward. It is time to make sure it all goes down the right path.
- Chris Doyle is director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding in London. X: @Doylech