Above photo: Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu following their White House meeting in the Oval Office, on February 4, 2025. Avi Ohayon, GPO.
To Avoid Ethnic Cleansing In Gaza.
While Israel and the United States are working together on a plan for Gaza, they have slightly different interests. This gap is opening space for regional Arab leaders to propose an alternative vision that avoids full-scale ethnic cleansing.
There was an easy way to determine whether the United States, under both Joe Biden and Donald Trump, was sincerely interested in putting an end to Israel’s onslaught in Gaza. All they needed to do was put together a sensible ceasefire plan and put their political weight behind it.
Instead, Biden came up with a convoluted three-stage plan that contained every opportunity for either side to sabotage it, and Trump ran with it. Hamas, of course, has no reason to sabotage the agreement. The Israeli genocide has essentially leveled most of Gaza, the people are suffering immensely, and Hamas has nothing to gain but still has something to lose by the genocide continuing.
Israel is a different story. The Netanyahu government has failed to achieve any of its stated “goals” in Gaza, especially as it pertains to Hamas. Far from being eliminated, as Netanyahu still insists he will do, Hamas and other armed groups retain sufficient numbers to be the dominant Palestinian force in Gaza, even while Israel has succeeded in reducing their support from outside sources. Although now inspired by Trump to once again try to force a mass exodus from Gaza, Israel remains far from achieving what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spent tens of billions of dollars, sacrificed many Israeli lives, and caused unimaginable destruction to accomplish.
So it came as no surprise that, after appeasing the American president by giving him the ceasefire he had vowed to achieve, Netanyahu refused to even begin discussing Phase II of the ceasefire, which was supposed to see the release of all the hostages and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. This, on top of numerous Israeli breaches of the ceasefire, continuing to put obstacles in the way of humanitarian aid, delaying the release of Palestinian prisoners, and other dirty tricks designed to undermine the ceasefire.
While Israel and the United States are working together, they are pulling in slightly different directions. Just as he has done from the start, Netanyahu is de-prioritizing the hostages, focusing instead on how to resume the slaughter, appease his right wing, and continue to stave off challenges to his rule. Trump, meanwhile, is laser-focused on the hostages and wants Gaza to end as his success story. While both want to force Palestinians off the land, the difference in how they prioritize full ethnic cleansing opened the space that a new Egyptian plan, unanimously adopted by the Arab League, is attempting to fill.
Changing Phases
Phase I of the ceasefire ended last Saturday and Israel wasted no time in restoring a complete blockade on food, water, fuel, and all humanitarian aid entering Gaza. Israel and Hamas were supposed to be negotiating the details of Phase II during Phase I, but Israel refused to talk. The threat of the resumption of the genocide is clear and very present.
Hamas saw this coming, of course. On February 19, they proposed releasing all of the remaining hostages in another prisoner swap in exchange for Israel withdrawing its forces from Gaza and declaring an end to the “war.” In an attempt to make Israel and the mediators—chiefly the United States—more receptive to their offer, they doubled the number of Israeli hostages to be released in an upcoming prisoner swap from three to six.
It turned out to be a tactical error. The United States and Israel both rejected the offer, but U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff took the idea of immediately releasing hostages and turned it into an offer Hamas has no choice but to reject.
Witkoff had been focusing on extending Phase I of the ceasefire deal. There was no reason to believe that Israel would suddenly come to the table when they hadn’t before, so all an extension really meant was that Israel would wait a little longer before resuming its murderous campaign.
To get Israel, and very likely his own boss, to buy into the idea, Witkoff proposed that half of the hostages remaining in Gaza would be released in exchange for extending the ceasefire, where only a few Palestinians were being killed by Israeli forces per day, rather than the hundreds or more per day that were dying before.
Hamas correctly saw this as a dangerous road, one that would whittle away the little leverage they had to try to keep the genocide at bay in exchange for weeks, or perhaps just days, of more respite. They had no choice but to reject this plan, calling instead on all parties to move to Phase II and adhere to the ceasefire plan that all had agreed to. This led to another iteration of the “Hamas rejected peace” mantra.
The Arab Plan
A coalition of Arab states, led by Egypt and including Jordan, Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia, has come up with a reconstruction plan for Gaza in response to Trump’s announcement that he intended to drive all the Palestinians out of the Strip and turn it into a “Riviera on the Mediterranean.” The plan is ambitious, perhaps overly so, in anticipating it can be completed in five years, and it would cost some $53 billion. But it would be a way of rebuilding Gaza without forcing the population to leave.
In the Arab plan, Palestinians would live in temporary housing, such as large tents and mobile homes and some more substantial housing would be part of the first phase of reconstruction, which would last at least six months. A technocratic government of independent figures, but under the supervision of the Palestinian Authority, would administrate the Strip, and Jordan and Egypt would train security forces. Hamas is not specifically mentioned in the plan, leaving open the question of its role or even presence in Gaza.
Unsurprisingly, Israel quickly rejected the plan. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein explained that Israel believes the plan “fails to address the realities of the situation following October 7, 2023, remaining rooted in outdated perspectives.” By this, Marmorstein means that October 7 renders only Trump’s ethnic cleansing plan acceptable.
Tellingly, the United States was at first cagey about its response to the plan.
White House National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes initially said that “While the president stands by his bold vision for a post-war Gaza, he welcomes input from our Arab partners in the region. It’s clear his proposals have driven the region to come to the table rather than allow this issue to devolve into further crisis.”
But once Israel’s firm “no” came out, the Trump administration quickly shifted its tone. The next day, Hughes stated “The current proposal does not address the reality that Gaza is currently uninhabitable and residents cannot humanely live in a territory covered in debris and unexploded ordnance.”
The Arab League plan is very light on issues of governance and security. Ultimately, the aim of the plan is to reinstall the Palestinian Authority as the ruling body in Gaza. Given that this has been categorically ruled out by Israel, that is going to be a tough sell, especially since the PA is hardly beloved by the Palestinian people themselves.
But in the first stage of the plan, the management of the territory would be in the hands of a technocratic body, unaffiliated with any faction. The PA would oversee the technocratic body, but it would not be part of the PA. PA President Mahmoud Abbas said there might be elections in a year, but that is another well-worn mantra that never becomes reality, and, given how little popularity Abbas and the PA enjoy among Palestinians, this is likely to be another hollow promise if it is in Abbas’ hands.
Egypt and Jordan have said they’d train Palestinian police to maintain local security. This, too, can hardly be said to sound promising to Palestinians, given the reputations and human rights records of those two countries. There is also a proposal for UN peacekeepers, another non-starter as far as Israel and the U.S. are concerned.
Yet there is something to hold on to in this plan, if Arab states are sincere about pressing it forward. Israel will, without a doubt, reject any plan that does not allow it to extend its invasion until Hamas is completely destroyed—a goal which, as we’ve seen over the past 17 months, is unattainable and is simply a recipe for genocide and ethnic cleansing.
But Israel is not the only party Donald Trump listens to. Arab states—including those Trump is most concerned with like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar—have a genuine stake in stopping Israel from resuming its genocide and trying to force a wave of two million Palestinian refugees out of Gaza.
One need not delude oneself into believing these dictators care about human, much less Palestinian, rights to understand that they have a vested political, security, and economic interest in stabilizing Gaza and preventing Trump and Israel from forcing some two million people out of the Strip.
It is promising that there was this much agreement among Arab states on the Egyptian plan, something not very common these days. And the way it was put together does make it seem like it was crafted with negotiations in mind.
Despite Israel’s and the U.S.’ rejectionism, there is still a possibility that some kind of agreement might come out of this.
Trump’s bluster aside, there is little practical hope that he or Netanyahu can realize their vision of ethnically cleansing Gaza. Palestinians remain connected to the land of Palestine, and no one wants to take in a large number of refugees who are not fleeing war but have been forcibly driven out of their homeland. They may still try, and that will lead to even more destruction and bloodshed. But it’s unlikely that the plan will succeed in driving Palestinians out in large numbers.
For their part, Hamas has repeatedly expressed a willingness to stand aside in the governance of Gaza, but is unwilling to disarm and certainly is not about to simply leave. Trump can tweet in all caps that ‘THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY‘ to his heart’s content, but what can he really threaten either Hamas or the people of Gaza with? Since neither he nor Netanyahu is prepared to offer Palestinians an alternative that doesn’t include the resumption, at some point, of the genocide in an effort to drive them out of Gaza, what more can they possibly do?
Hamas accused Trump of encouraging Netanyahu’s obstinance with his threats. That may be true, but a more important development may have been the clandestine discussions Trump’s hostage negotiator, Adam Boehler held directly with Hamas. When it was revealed that the talks had been taking place, the U.S. said they had “consulted” with Israel. Subsequent reports indicated that Netanyahu was quite unhappy about the talks.
The talks broke down after news of their existence broke, which likely indicates that it was someone in Israel who tipped off the media. Trump then sent out his bombastic threat. But the fact that the U.S. took the step of talking directly to Hamas—which flies in the face of long-standing, if self-defeating and foolish, U.S. policy—and did so without coordinating or even getting agreement from Israel indicates a certain loss of patience with Netanyahu on Trump’s part.
It also could mean that Trump is trying to get the last remaining living American citizen, as well as the bodies of four that are dead, being held in Gaza out in a separate deal, something that would not go over well in Israel.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday that Trump believes “it is the right thing for the American people” and added “there are American lives on the line”
Meanwhile, the Israeli Prime Minister’s office said in a statement: “During talks with the U.S., Israel expressed its opinion about the issue of direct talks with Hamas.”
This episode demonstrates that Trump is willing to follow his own course. That could open up real possibilities for the Saudis, in particular, to influence his thinking on the Egyptian plan for Gaza, if the Saudis and other Arab states are willing to put in the work, and the political capital to push it.