By Uzma Ehtasham
Donald Trump has never been shy of grand gestures. His latest foray into Middle East diplomacy is no exception. The former and once-again aspirant US president has unveiled a 21-point “peace plan” that promises, in one sweeping stroke, to resolve one of the world’s most intractable conflicts. Within 48 hours, he claims, hostages will be released, Hamas disarmed, Israeli bombardments halted and occupied territories abandoned. Gaza, under his scheme, would be demilitarized and handed over to a council of international experts, while Trump himself would preside over a “Board of Peace” with none other than Tony Blair as Gaza’s de facto prime minister. It is part ceasefire mechanics, part trusteeship, part theatre — a performance that mixes the serious with the absurd.
The choreography surrounding the announcement has been no less dramatic. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, phoned Doha to apologize for a recent air raid — an unusual concession that Qatar accepted with something approaching relief. Pakistan’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif swiftly endorsed the broad outlines of the proposal, as did the country’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, at least according to Trump’s telling. The White House hailed a “historic day for Middle East peace”. Trump, never one to underplay his role, boasted that Arab and European leaders alike had signaled their support. Netanyahu himself has publicly “accepted” the plan, lending the moment a veneer of international consensus.
But strip away the stagecraft and the contradictions are glaring. Hamas, the central Palestinian actor in Gaza, has not even been handed a written copy of the plan it is supposed to accept within 72 hours. Palestinians are told they will gain the right to shape their destiny — but only if their principal resistance movement is dismantled, disarmed and erased from political life. Gaza, battered by nearly two decades of siege and bombardment, would not be granted sovereignty but placed under something akin to international trusteeship, managed by American oversight. It is a peace proposal that, in essence, demands surrender from one side and magnanimity from the other.
The dissonance between rhetoric and reality is impossible to ignore. As Trump spoke of ceasefires, governance arrangements and reconstruction, Israeli bombs were still falling on Gaza. Women and children were being pulled from the rubble even as cameras broadcast his pronouncements. To insist upon Hamas’s disarmament while leaving Israel’s military machine untouched — and indeed, while Israel continues expanding buffer zones and settlements — is to propose not peace but codified imbalance.
To be fair, not every aspect of the plan is devoid of merit. The idea of prisoner exchanges, an end to raids, and international guarantees for Gaza’s reconstruction could provide points of entry for negotiation. Nevertheless, negotiation requires trust, and trust cannot be built when one party is told to disband while the other continues to fire. Nor can it grow if Trump insists on casting himself as both broker and governor-in-waiting. Diplomacy demands humility, and humility is a quality not often associated with the man who sees himself as indispensable to every deal.
The deeper flaw is one that has long haunted international initiatives in the region: the refusal to grapple with Palestinian political reality. The Palestinian Authority, weakened and discredited, lacks both legitimacy and capacity. Hamas, despite its pariah status in western capitals, commands real authority on the ground in Gaza. To exclude it entirely from any interim arrangement is to deny the lived power dynamics of the strip. One cannot simply wish away a movement that, for better or worse, remains central to Palestinian resistance and identity. Peace requires engaging with those who hold influence, not bypassing them in favor of technocrats flown in under American patronage.
What the episode reveals is how diplomacy continues to stumble over the same stone: the unwillingness to acknowledge that Palestinians cannot be pacified into submission. Their grievances — dispossession, occupation, siege — are not erased by the promise of reconstruction funds or by the appointment of foreign administrators. The lesson of Qatar’s firm posture is instructive. Only when Israel confronted the risk of tangible political cost did it issue a rare apology. If the wider Muslim world displayed similar unity and resolve, the calculus of power might shift in ways no American plan could engineer.
The truth is simple. A plan that demands disarmament from Hamas but not restraint from Israel is not a roadmap to peace. It is a one-sided arrangement designed to stabilize Israel’s security at the expense of Palestinian rights. Trump’s “Board of Peace”, with himself at the head and Tony Blair installed as a kind of colonial governor, may make for dramatic headlines. But to those still burying their dead in Gaza, it is likely to look like just another American fantasy, detached from the daily brutality of occupation and bombardment.
(The writer is a public health professional, journalist, and possesses expertise in health communication, having keen interest in national and international affairs, can be reached at uzma@metro-morning.com)
