But there remain many challenges ahead, including the fear that the current extremist government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will derail the deal, limiting it to the release of all Israeli detainees, dead and alive.
Standing next to Netanyahu after a lengthy meeting at the White House, Trump said the announcement of the deal amounted to a “historic day” for the region. This will remain to be seen, considering the vague details and deadlines where the Israeli commitment to full withdrawal from Gaza and a path to Palestinian statehood is concerned.
Egypt has welcomed the plan. So did the Arab and Muslim countries whose leaders met with Trump in New York last week on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly meetings that witnessed a near world consensus on the urgency of establishing an independent Palestinian state. All have expressed their faith in the leadership of the US president, who now is now also the chairman of a newly created “Peace Board” charged with overseeing the implementation of the agreement.
Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Turkey, Pakistan and Indonesia confirmed they would exert every effort to cooperate in carrying out the plan to end the war in Gaza, start immediate reconstruction, prevent the forced displacement of the Palestinian people and restart the long-stalled peace process aimed at reaching a permanent solution that would end Israel’s occupation of Palestine and allow the establishment of the Palestinian state. The Arab and Muslim countries also welcomed statements made earlier by Trump against any plans to annex the Occupied West Bank.
The statement added the eight countries confirm the need for the immediate free flow of aid into Gaza without any restrictions, release of Israeli detainees and Palestinian prisoners, the establishment of a security mechanism that would guarantee the security of all parties, full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the full integration of both Gaza and the West Bank as an indispensable step to establish a Palestinian state.
Achieving those goals will certainly be no easy task, considering the historically close, integral ties between Israel and the United States, as well as the conduct of the Trump administration since he took office more than eight months ago, allowing Israel to continue the unjustified daily killing of Palestinians on his watch and tolerating its violation of the ceasefire deal mediated by his own personal envoy, Steve Witkoff, a day before he re-entered the White House on 20 January.
While the 20-point plan, which now awaits approval by Hamas, promises a path towards “Palestinian statehood,” Trump showed sympathy and understanding for Netanyahu’s declared, firm rejection of the creation of a Palestinian state. The Israeli premier minced no words when he declared from the UN’s podium on Friday while performing his usual, tasteless show that he would not let leaders of European countries shove a Palestinian state down Israel’s throat.
Only a few weeks ago, Trump ordered the US State Department to revoke the visa of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his delegation in order to prevent him from directly addressing the UN General Assembly’s 80th meeting, and he now stood silent while Netanyahu lashed out at the Palestinian Authority and cast doubt on its ability to control Gaza along with the West Bank, contrary to the 20-point plan.
Netanyahu repeated his long list of demands to accept dealing with Abbas and PA, making a big deal of reviewing Palestinian textbooks to remove what he describes as hatred for Israel and saying it must stop financially supporting families of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel while disregarding the outrageous, utterly racist statements that were being made daily by top ministers in his government.
Those ministers are pushing for reoccupying Gaza and building illegal settlements there, going so far as to call for using nukes to wipe Gaza out indefinitely. They have been banned from entering dozens of countries, and their statements are integral to the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court against Netanyahu and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, over charges of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Moreover, when one UN agency and investigation panel after another find no label for what’s happening other than “genocide” and a “man-made famine”, portraying all Palestinians as supporters of terrorism is simply pathetic.
What Netanyahu needs to understand is that the willingness of Arab and Muslim countries to cooperate in carrying out Trump’s plan will by no means be a path to ignore legitimate Palestinian rights, and that they firmly reject being an alternative to the Israeli occupation. As much as Trump stated he would be closely overseeing the implementation of the plan, the Arab and Muslim leaders whom he met in New York will also be constantly reminding him of his commitment to ending Israel’s occupation of Gaza and a path towards a permanent peace.
Ensuring that Hamas can no longer pose a threat to Israel’s security should not be a licence to maintain the presence of Israeli occupation troops. Egypt, along with Arab and Muslim countries, will continue to press for “full withdrawal”, including from so-called “security buffer zones” which Netanyahu said would remain under Israel’s control for the “foreseeable future.” It should also be clear that there must be strictly defined deadlines to hand over the governance of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority since any new bodies or boards created to oversee the implementation of the plan must not turn into an alternative to Israeli occupation.
Indeed, the economic incentives and pledges to build free zones in Gaza are promising. Yet it should be clear to Trump by now that the Palestinian struggle and aspiration to statehood is not about improving living conditions but the legitimate right to self-determination and the aspiration of Palestinians to enjoy their full rights on their ancestral land.
Trump’s plan is a first step, but there is a long way ahead. Arab and Muslim countries, along with all nations worldwide that clearly now support legitimate Palestinian rights, must firmly stand against all the obstacles the Israeli prime minister is likely to throw in the way of peace to keep the entire region in a state of a permanent war in order to fulfill his illusions on redrawing the map of the Middle East and create “Greater Israel.”
* A version of this article appears in print in the 2 October, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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