An exhausted Donald Trump and an ashen-faced Benjamin Netanyahu announced on 29 September that Israel had agreed to a peace plan for Gaza. The plan was negotiated between Trump and various Arab and Islamic states, including Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. It includes 21 points, amongst which are:
No forced deportations of Palestinians from Gaza, with a right of return for Palestinians who do leave.
The deployment of a multinational International Stabilisation Force to police and control Gaza, under the supervision of a peace board led by Trump and involving former British Prime Minister Sir Anthony Blair. The ISF would train Palestinian police forces to run Gaza, in consultation with Egypt and Jordan.
A technocratic, apolitical government to run Gaza. The governance may shift to the Palestinian Authority if it engages in adequate reforms, which the Arab states will support. The Israelis demand that these reforms include suspending payments to Palestinian insurgents, terrorists, and their families; changes to the education system; and ending efforts to pursue Israel in international courts.
The disarmament of Hamas and the demilitarisation of Gaza, amnesty for Hamas members who give up their weapons and leave Hamas, and Hamas’ withdrawal from any governance role in Gaza.
The distribution of aid to Gaza under the auspices of UN agencies, rather than the Israeli-American Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
An economic redevelopment plan to rebuild Gaza, with a special economic zone with preferential tariff rates and access to the markets of involved countries.
No Israeli control over Gaza, though Israel will keep a buffer zone indefinitely, including along the border with Egypt. Israel will gradually hand over control to the ISF.
Hamas to release all Israeli captives, living and dead, within 72 hours. Israel would release 250 Palestinian lifetime prisoners, 1700 Gazans detained after 7 October, and the remains of 15 deceased Gazans for the remains of every Israeli released.
If Hamas rejects this plan, Israel would continue military operations in parts of Gaza that are not outside its control, but the plan would continue in areas currently controlled by Israel.
The war would end completely if Israel and Hamas both accept it.
Moreover, during their meeting, Trump and Netanyahu called the Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al Thani. Netanyahu apologised to Qatar for the Doha attack. A trilateral American, Israeli, and Qatari committee would be set up to resolve the differences between Qatar and Israel. This was clearly a humiliation for Netanyahu and an attempt to reconcile with Arab states angered by the Doha attack. Trump had also rejected the prospect of Israel annexing the West Bank in retaliation to the recognition of a Palestinian state by Western countries, although he stated that Netanyahu strongly opposes a Palestinian state.
Israeli context
Netanyahu claimed that the plan met all Israeli requirements. However, the plan falls well short of the stated ambitions of the Israeli right, and Netanyahu personally, who had sought to expel the Palestinian population and take over parts or all of Gaza as a prelude to doing the same in the West Bank.
Additionally, while the deal does not speak about a Palestinian state, it does allow the PA to continue to aspire for a future role. And it does not reverse the recognitions of a Palestinian state made by most Western countries. Israel has been voting for Netanyahu repeatedly for over a decade, implicitly and explicitly rejecting a Palestinian state.
Furthermore, by allowing international forces from Muslim countries, the plan both risks the radicalisation of these troops, and confirms Israel’s status as an American and international protectorate, undermining Israeli sovereignty. The deployment of an international force is a precedent that may then be applied to the West Bank and Jerusalem. While sensible to outsiders, this will never be acceptable to the Israeli right.
Given the above, it is difficult to see how PM Netanyahu’s cabinet survives until the 2026 elections. His key coalition partners, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, are already attacking the agreement. By contrast, the Israeli opposition seems willing to accept the plan. They realise that the Israeli military is exhausted, and that continuing with policies that would lead to Israel’s international isolation is suicidal.
Arab context
Arab states have sought a peaceful resolution of the conflict since 1981, with the Fahad Peace Plan, proposed by Saudi King Fahad bin Abdul Aziz. The main concept has been land for peace: establishing a Palestinian state on territories captured by Israel in 1967, in exchange for peace. The plan was reaffirmed in the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative. The two sticking points have been Palestinian radical organisations, the latest incarnation of which were Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Israel’s refusal of such plans.
It seems that this time, the Arabs, Turkey, Indonesia, and even Pakistan used Israel’s reaction to the October 7, 2023 attacks to break Hamas’ ability to oppose their plans. Their aim is to prevent the Palestinians from disrupting the Arab and Muslim governments’ own domestic and external politics through attacks such as 7 October, or through suicide bombings, or through terrorism more broadly. Especially given the radicalising impact of these activities, and of the Israeli disproportionate response, on their populations.
Arab and Muslim states likely genuinely feared the consequences of the USA’s apparent carte blanche to Israel, and the possibility of Israel forcing the Palestinians out of Gaza through Egypt and Jordan, which would have required a regional war. Israel seemed more than willing to engage in such a war. As such, they negotiated this plan, which, like the Lebanon ceasefire of 2024, essentially requires Hamas to surrender.
The Arab and Muslim states’ preferred option is to deal with Israel as China has dealt with Hong Kong and Taiwan: building up capability and waiting for the right political moment to act. This represents a return to the pre-1967 Islamic-Jewish conflict, in which states, not militant groups, controlled the use of force.
Crucially, this is likely one of the few times in which the Arab and Islamic pressure played a bigger role in Washington’s calculus than Israeli interests. In the context of the American - Chinese competition, the voice of the Muslim world will slowly play a more important role than Israeli interests.
The Palestinians
It is unclear if Hamas even has full control over the captives it is holding, given that the group’s leadership has been decimated and that it is operating as decentralised cells. Furthermore, with the Israeli military severely exhausted, Hamas may choose to continue the fight in the hope that it would not be required to surrender. However, given that Turkey, Qatar, and other states are going to threaten Hamas with consequences such as refusing to host its leaders, funding cuts, and refusing to finance reconstruction, we think that Hamas will be forced to accept the deal while trying not to fully implement the clauses related to disarmament.
For the Palestinian Authority, the plan is a success: subject to some reforms, which will be overseen by international partners, it will likely return to controlling Gaza. Armed with international support, it will continue to push for Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state. The key question now will be the succession to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is ninety years old. A chaotic succession would provide Israel with a carte blanche to pursue its policies.
Scenarios
Partial failure
The plan undoubtedly represents a defeat for Hamas. However, it also represents a defeat for Israel, as a successor government to Netanyahu may be forced to accept the idea of a Palestinian state, something which would strip away sites deemed as holy by Jews from Israel, and dramatically reduce Israel’s strategic depth. As a result, neither side is likely to implement the plan, leading to its eventual collapse. Israel would then annex the depopulated areas of Gaza, trapping the population in severely inhumane conditions, and pressuring them to slowly exit through military means. This would obviously raise the risk of a conflict with Egypt. Israel would continue to escalate in the West Bank, with the aim of thwarting a Palestinian state, and reducing the Palestinian population to a series of disconnected urban Bantustans.
Partial success
The level of pressure on Israel succeeds in allowing the deployment of international forces. Israel, to appease the right, resorts to further escalation in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Arab and Muslim states rally again, pressuring the USA to implement the Gaza framework in the West Bank, including the deployment of international observers. Israeli control over the West Bank is slowly eroded, with some of the smaller settlements being gradually dismantled. The ability of Israel to form stable cabinets slowly collapses, as internal disagreements over peace with the Palestinians lead to increasingly chaotic domestic politics, resulting in rapidly collapsing governments.
The war resumes
Israel uses its leverage over the American Congress to thwart President Trump, and/or Hamas rejects elements of the deal, leading us back to full-scale war. It appears that the Administration is genuinely fed up with Netanyahu and tired of his deception, making this unlikely.
Implications
In either scenario, more Western sanctions on Israeli settlements are likely, with restrictions on trading with Israel gradually tightening to build a more stable peace and force it to accept a two-state solution.
Israel’s political stability is likely to worsen, as a result of mistrust between the different components, and the growing radicalisation of the Israeli right.
Efforts to impose a two-state solution on an unwilling Israel are likely to backfire, as the sense of isolation further empowers the Israeli right, while it drives the more left-leaning Ashkenazi secularists to migrate.
On the other hand, Israel is now fully an American protectorate. It failed to fully defeat Hamas in large part because it was reliant on the West for air defence, military hardware, ammunition, and aid. The Americans will likely use this leverage to rein Israel in and prevent the continuing drift of the Muslim world towards China.
The USA may be able to get the Saudis to join the Abraham Accords. However, this will largely be symbolic, with limited opportunities in tech, entertainment, and finance, rather than broader and deeper investments. Simply, the widespread Israeli support for extreme measures in Gaza has poisoned the relationship between Jews and Arabs for a generation. This would be especially true in the event of another right wing government in Israel.
Egypt and Turkey will now work on eroding Israel’s qualitative military edge. They will look to Europe, but more so, to China and Russia, in order to acquire the right military hardware required to deter Israel.
The Tony Blair led international government of Gaza will likely stumble repeatedly as it navigates Gaza’s complex political and clan-based divisions, a likely pro-Hamas low level insurgency, and more.
If the plan is implemented, Tony Blair’s extensive connections to the tech industry, especially Oracle and likely Palantir, will be used to replicate Israeli surveillance over the Palestinians, creating a high-tech prison that struggles to impose liberal values on an illiberal society.