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The second phase of US President Donald Trump’s plan to end Israel’s war in Gaza is not moving forward, and most probably will not. The recent wave of high-level American visitors to Israel, including Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, failed to achieve any progress. This is contrary to the first phase of the ceasefire, which — despite being implemented after two years of excruciating inaction — has gone relatively smoothly. The reason is that phase one met at least one of the main objectives of each side — releasing the hostages and stopping the genocide — dosed with a lot of US pressure to make it palatable.

Despite their deep differences, all the Palestinian factions — and indeed many of the convened Arab governments, especially Egypt — agree that they have three problems with the second phase of Trump’s plan. The first is that the plan isolates the two geographical regions of the Occupied Territories, the West Bank and Gaza, from each other: in progress, policies and leadership. This is a consolidation of the separation enforced by Israel in its effort to fragment the Palestinian body politic. Palestinians expect the two territories to fall under the same administration, or at least to be linked.

The second problem is that the plan puts Gaza under foreign custodianship. This runs directly counter to the Palestinian aspiration of independence and self-determination. It stymies the Palestinian struggle to end the Israeli occupation, exchanging it for another foreign-led military or militaries with no clear end point. In addition, Egypt seems wary of having a foreign military presence on its doorstep and is therefore seeking a UN resolution before implementation.

The third problem is that the second phase of the plan — made clear by Trump’s scandalous speech to the Israeli Knesset — ignores the political nature of the crisis of Gaza and treats it as only a humanitarian and economic crisis. It would have been more serious for the plan to approach the crisis as part of the political conflict whose resolution hinges on ending Israel’s post-1967 occupation of the territory, thus giving Palestinians freedom, self-determination and independence.

Israel is trying to duplicate in Gaza the model it developed in the West Bank, with the added condition that the Palestinian Authority should have no role or responsibilities. This model seeks to enforce a division of labor between the Israeli occupation forces and the PA. In the West Bank, Israel allows only itself — unilaterally and by force — to maintain security control and responsibility over land use and borders. We see that, in the post-phase one Gaza Strip, Israeli military forces remain on more than half of the land, creating a new “yellow line” to mark this area.

Simultaneously, in the West Bank, Israel allows the PA to hold de facto responsibility for education, health, law and order, municipal services and so on. The only difference is that Israel is refusing to allow the PA to have any role in Gaza, leaving administrative tasks to an unknown combination of international and local bodies.

The American administration’s approach of trying to solve the crisis by avoiding any reference to the West Bank, Palestinian political rights, the two-state solution and even the Palestinian political leadership gives the impression that its main objective is to counter recent international momentum toward recognizing Palestinian political rights and an independent state. This momentum culminated in the wave of European states’ recognition of the state of Palestine at the UN in September and unprecedented international solidarity. As some states move to prevent arms from reaching Israel, the country faces a flagging tech sector and foreign divestment.

Israel’s unacknowledged dilemma is that, without the PA and the Palestine Liberation Organization (both of them recognized by the Arab League and UN as the legitimate bodies representing the Palestinian people), it will not find any serious third party to handle nonsecurity responsibilities in Gaza. That party will not be legitimate and will only serve to complement Israel’s illegal military presence and occupation.

The lessons from these horrific two years in Gaza is that ignoring Palestinian political rights will not make them disappear. Proceeding with “normal” political regional order regardless of the daily suffering of the Palestinians and stripping them of their land and holy sites cannot be normalized. Continuing to treat Israel as a country exempt from or above international law threatens the stability of the region, and the world.

Weakening the PA and the PLO, rather than empowering them, as Israel has been doing, can only increase radicalization and empower alternatives that are not in anyone’s interest. Leaving Israel to its whims is also leading to radical changes within Israeli society that remove any glimpse of the two-state solution, replacing it with a rapidly unfolding one-state apartheid reality and ongoing brutality and violence.

Ghassan Khatib is a lecturer in international studies at Birzeit University and has held several positions in the Palestinian Authority. He also founded and directed the Jerusalem Media and Communications Centre.