Last week, the world, and the Palestinian people in particular, impatiently awaited the response by Hamas to the peace plan announced officially in a joint press conference between US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after their talks at the White House on 29 September.
Netanyahu said that his country would accept the plan and stressed that it met the war aims of Israel. But both leaders warned that if Hamas did not accept the plan, Israel with the full backing of the US administration would “finish the job” and “destroy” Hamas.
For five days, Hamas came under enormous pressures from all quarters, mainly from the people of Gaza themselves who have been living in a hellish situation for the past two years since Israel unleashed a merciless war of aggression against them without the faintest regard for the laws of war.
The mediators in the peace plan, Egypt and Qatar joined by Turkey, also did their best to push the Hamas leadership to accept the plan. Their main argument was probably that there was not any alternative on the table at present and that there was unlikely to be one in the future either. In other words, the cost of stonewalling or outright rejection would be suicidal not only for Hamas itself but also for the Palestinian people.
The Trump plan has put Hamas between a rock and a hard place. True, the plan is not the best from a Palestinian point of view, and it is lacking in detail as to Israel’s commitments regarding the question of withdrawal from the Gaza Strip on an agreed schedule. The matter of disarming Hamas is another serious sticking point. Both the United States and Israel have insisted on the group’s immediate disarmament, with no ifs or buts, and without linking this to a firm Israeli commitment regarding the ultimate withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the end of the war.
The international stabilisation force that would supposedly assume domestic security responsibilities within the Gaza Strip under the plan also has to be figured out and coordinated with the Palestinians. But there were no ready answers to these questions in the five days from 29 September to 3 October, when Hamas announced its “conditional acceptance” of the Trump plan.
It cannot have been easy for the group’s leadership to take this road full of ambushes, but it was the only sustainable alternative before the Palestinians. It is not a leap into the unknown, but many details will have to be worked out, as far as possible to the advantage of the Palestinians.
The Egyptian government hosted indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel on 6 October precisely to work out the details of the first stage of the plan, namely the release of the Israeli hostages, both living and dead, who number 48 according to the Israeli government, and the outlines of stage one in the long and uncertain process of the withdrawal of the Israeli army from Gaza.
The US administration was represented at the meeting by US Special Envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff, along with Jared Kushner, both of whom played a key role in drawing up the plan. It should be noted that former British prime minister Tony Blair was also on hand to discuss it. Some press reports credit him and Kushner with being the main architects of the peace plan. Various drafts were discussed with Netanyahu and his Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer when they were in New York last month.
In its statement of acceptance, Hamas said it would release the hostages but did not address the issue of disarmament or its “exile” from Gaza after the war’s end. These two issues should be included in a sort of separate package of firm three-way commitments by Hamas, the Palestinian Authority (PA), and the Israeli government. These commitments, to be negotiated indirectly, should mention the withdrawal schedule of the Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and the official date to declare the end of the war.
There are question marks with regard to Israeli intentions once the first stage of the Trump plan has been implemented with the release of all the Israeli hostages. Some observers have doubts about whether Netanyahu, who will shortly find himself in an election cycle with all that this implies in terms of policy formulation and domestic political calculations, will scrupulously honour his country’s commitments on the final withdrawal of the Israeli troops and the declaration of the official end of the war in Gaza.
I guess it would be too much to expect that he will, given past dealings with him on all matters related to the so-called peace process, left defunct deliberately from the day he formed his first government in May 1996. It is encouraging to learn, however, based on a report in the Jerusalem Post, that the mediators and Israel have begun to establish a joint command centre that would oversee the implementation of the peace plan. Its venue is still to be determined, but the Israeli newspaper mentioned either Egypt or Qatar as hosting it.
The road ahead in carrying out the 20-point Trump peace plan, especially after the release of the Israeli hostages, is not certain. It all depends, in the final analysis, on how committed Trump is to the implementation of this ambitious plan in its entirety and on his willingness to face up to the manoeuverings and machinations of the Israeli Prime Minister.
The writer is former assistant foreign minister.
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