The 20-point “peace plan” advanced by President Donald Trump on October 3—just days ahead of the two-year mark of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza—is being touted to end the occupier state’s brutal campaign.
Eight Muslim nations issued a joint statement on Oct. 5 in response to the proposed plan. “The Foreign Ministers of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, the Republic of Indonesia, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the Republic of Türkiye, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the State of Qatar and the Arab Republic of Egypt, today welcomed the steps taken by Hamas regarding U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal to end the war on Gaza, release all hostages, alive or deceased, and the immediate launch of negotiations on implementation mechanisms,” the statement read in part.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas have reportedly agreed to some of the points, but there is far from total agreement. Middle East analysts and observers argue that the proposal is not a peace plan but a disingenuous scheme that will continue Palestinian erasure and marginalization in Gaza.
Hamas delivered its response to the proposal on Oct. 3. Hamas agreed to the main terms, like ending the brutal war, the points addressing humanitarian aid distribution to the Palestinian people, and agreement to release the remaining captives, living and deceased, captured on Oct. 7, 2023. They also agreed to the idea of a Palestinian technocratic (a social system or system of government in which people with scientific or technical knowledge have a lot of power and influence) of Gaza. By presstime, the majority of the 20 points required further talks, according to Mousa Abu Marzook, a senior Hamas member, speaking to Al Jazeera.
“As for the other issues included in President Trump’s proposal that relate to the future of the Gaza Strip and the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, these are subject to a comprehensive national position and must be based on relevant international laws and resolutions,” read the statement. “These matters shall be discussed within a unified Palestinian national framework, in which Hamas will participate and contribute with full responsibility,” continued the statement.
According to Al Jazeera, after the response from Hamas, Israel responded that it was ready to implement the Trump Gaza plan.
In unprecedented terms, President Trump lauded Hamas as “ready for a lasting peace” and demanded that Israel immediately stop bombing Gaza.
“It is worth noting that Trump is calling on Israel to ‘immediately stop the bombing of Gaza’ based on Hamas agreeing to something they’ve ALWAYS agreed to: Releasing the hostages & giving up Gaza’s governance in exchange for Israel stopping the genocide,” wrote Omar Baddar, a political analyst, on his Facebook page.
“The real question comes later: Will Trump let Netanyahu use his poison pill (the part of the 20 point plan that lets Israel occupy Gaza indefinitely which no Palestinian will agree to) as an excuse to resume the genocide, or will he finally stand up to Netanyahu?” Mr. Baddar further wrote.
The Trump proposal comes two years into a relentless bloodbath conducted by Israel, backed militarily, financially, and politically by the United States. Notwithstanding, the White House plugging the document as the “comprehensive plan to end the Gaza conflict,” analysts say it’s problematic.
“There’s two big problems,” said Phyllis Bennis, director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute For Policy Studies. “Some of the things that are mentioned sound good. There’s talk that the war will immediately end. Israeli forces will withdraw (and) military operations will be suspended. All hostages will be returned. Israel will release 250 life sentence prisoners,” she said. “That’s all in there, but it’s all very dicey. There’s no real guarantee that the war will end, either immediately or permanently,” said Ms. Bennis.
Ms. Bennis noted areas such as point number 3 of the plan addressing the terms of exchanging Palestinian prisoners with Israeli captives on Oct. 7. Usually, the exchanges are conducted with the Red Cross/Red Crescent, where the swaps happen simultaneously. The exchange is carefully carried out at the same moment. “This isn’t that” said Ms. Bennis, speaking about President Trump’s plan.
“This one says that within 72 hours, Hamas will return all the hostages and all the bodies of dead hostages and then after that, Israel will release prisoners. Now, who’s going to enforce that? If Israel walks away?” Ms. Bennis said. “The other thing that’s missing is international law. There’s no acknowledgement of Israeli violations,” she noted.
Critics of the plan also argue that Palestinians were not present when this document was being discussed.
Ajamu Baraka, the director of Black Alliance for Peace North-South Project For People(s) Centered Human Rights, said the absence of Palestinians is redolent of before October 7, 2023, when the issue of Palestinian nationhood and independence was off the table.
“It wasn’t until the resistance that began on October 7 that the Palestinian question had to be revisited again,” said Mr. Baraka. He said the plan is not a “peace plan” but a return to the status quo, where the Palestinian issue can be dismissed.
He argued the U.S. believes the war has so weakened the Palestinian resistance, which includes Hamas, that they can force a surrender. “This is to beat down the Palestinian resistance in general, and to force them into the acceptance of the permanent exclusion of Palestinians from their own land, and the acceptance of Israeli dominance, not only in Palestine, but really in the region,” said Mr. Baraka.
The overall plan tells the story. “New Gaza” is slated to be an Oasis in the desert of sorts. The Trump plan says Gaza would be run temporarily by a technocratic Palestinian committee overseeing basic services, under the supervision of a new “Board of Peace” chaired by President Trump and including people like former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. This board would control redevelopment funding until the “reformed” Palestinian Authority takes over. However, the current occupier state, led by Mr. Netanyahu, vehemently opposes the (PA) presence in a post-war Gaza.
Muhammad Sankari, spokesman for the U.S. Palestinian Community Network-Chicago (US-PCN), sees the proposed plan as the doorway to another foreign occupation with the U.S. and a few buddies in charge, but continuation of Palestinian removal.
“Even if it is a Palestinian figurehead, they would not be representing the Palestinian people,” said Muhammad Sankari, spokesman for the U.S. Palestinian Community Network-Chicago (US PCN).
“The plan is nothing short of a formalization of the genocide of the Palestinian people … a road map to permanent Israeli settlements … a complete abdication of the Palestinian right of self-determination,” said Mr. Sankari.
In this whole equation, the Palestinians have been reduced and for the ones who will remain, basically a non-entity.
“That’s what makes this thing so unviable,” argued Mr. Baraka. “The Palestinian people have paid in blood and death to maintain themselves on their land and after more than 700 days of war, for them to just voluntarily surrender. It’s just not going to happen,” he said.
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, National Representative of The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, spoke before the world and cautioned about the plans of Israel in the region. He also encouraged the Muslim countries to support the Palestinian people.
“Do you know that our Palestinian family, they don’t have strong friendship in the Muslim world. Why is that? Are we Muslims? Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said, ‘You are not a Muslim if you don’t want for your brother what you want for yourself.’ Now, I know that the Muslim world feels the pain of the Palestinians, but they are afraid—afraid to stand. And from the rostrum, I am asking the Muslim world to stop fearing the consequence of standing,” Minister Farrakhan said during his 2024 Saviours’ Day Message, “What Does Allah, The Great Mahdi And The Great Messiah Have To Say About The War In The Middle East?”
He continued, “So, I am saying this openly to my brothers and sisters in Islam: You have to stand up against the genocide that is happening to our Palestinian family. They do not need platitudes; they don’t need cheap talk. They need the Muslim world to unite and say to Israel what you should say.”
The Israeli genocidal war in Gaza has claimed over 66,000 Palestinian lives with another estimated 14,000 missing, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Even amid the announced 20-point plan Israel continued its military onslaught in the region. Al Jazeera reported the following on its website on Oct. 3:
Israeli attacks continue to pummel Gaza City, killing at least 42 people in the city since dawn, including three children in the Sabra neighborhood. A total of 72 people have been killed across the Gaza Strip today.
Israeli settlers have stormed a Bedouin community in the occupied West Bank, adding to an ongoing uptick in Israeli settler violence in the two years since Israel started its war on Gaza.
At the end of the day, if history bears witness, there is no evidence to suggest that Israel or America would hold to any agreements made with the Palestinian resistance.
“It’s like the treaties between the Indigenous peoples of North America and the U.S. authorities. There’s not one treaty … one agreement … that the Europeans upheld,” said Mr. Baraka. “So, as the Indigenous people said, the White man speaks with a forked tongue,” he added. They cannot be trusted,” he said.
The plan is only a cover to provide for the American audience and some elements in Europe, a justification to continue the slaughter in Gaza.
Mr. Sankari said the Palestinian political and resistance leadership is stuck between a rock and a hard place. “I think it’s because not even they could have imagined the total and abject failure of the entire international world to prevent this genocide from continuing,” he said.
“Every red line, every international norm has been crossed time and time again and the fact of the matter is the international community has signed the death warrant of the Palestinians in Gaza,” Mr. Sankari said.
That’s the reality of the situation they are in, trying to see what they can salvage from this to end the genocide. “Not just completely surrender to Israel, so that they’ll be able to just come back one month later, two months later, three months later, and continue to wipe out the people of Gaza,” said Mr. Sankari.
The Chicago organizer and activist condemned the requirement that Palestinian resistance groups like Hamas to disarm. “That to me is not even thinly veiled but an open expression of genocidal intent,” argued Mr. Sankara.
Requiring the Palestinian people to relinquish any small means to defend themselves against the fifth-largest army worldwide and the most well-equipped military in the region as a demand to end genocide is unconscionable.
Any progress for a two-state solution, giving Palestinians their own autonomous land and government, has gone nowhere over the years. Recently, an increasing number of countries have supported this step.
However, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan has also warned that Israel will never support a two-state solution.
“Why would the Palestinians not want a ‘separate state,’” Minister Farrakhan asked in a message he delivered as part 12 of his 2013 lecture series, “The Time and What Must Be Done.”
“Why wouldn’t they want their own people that have been made vagabonds (homeless wanderers) in the Earth to have the right of return to their native land? Why would you say you want ‘two nations, side-by-side’ living in peace—but you will never allow the Palestinians to be armed, to protect the sovereignty of a Palestinian state?” he continued.
“You will never allow them the weapons that would allow them to protect their own airspace! You know that! And I know that! So, what kind of ‘sovereignty’ will they have with no ability to protect themselves from any outside force? No, I am sorry. … there will be no ‘peace’ with Israel and the Palestinians,” Minister Farrakhan said.