The Sharm el-Sheikh Farce: Trump’s Gaza “Peace Plan”

 Nov. 1, 2025

Right after two years of massacre, genocide, and destruction of Gaza’s cities, villages, farmlands, industries, and infrastructure by Israel – in retaliation for Hamas’s criminal and foolish attack on October 7, 2023 – an absurd political spectacle was staged with about thirty world leaders under US president Donald Trump’s direction. A ceasefire, presented as the first stage of “peace,” was declared, and Hamas was forced to surrender its last card – the living and dead hostages – to Israel, in exchange for the release of about two thousand Palestinian prisoners. Neither Israel nor Hamas was truly willing to accept this agreement. Benjamin Netanyahu, pressured by the hostages’ families and Israeli public opinion – and mainly under Trump’s growing pressure, who himself faced increasing demands from his supporters to end the Gaza war – agreed to this hollow peace.

The September 9th missile attack on Qatar, a close US ally and host to America’s largest military base in the region, as well as a major business partner of the US and the Trump family, further inflamed Trump’s anger and pressure on Netanyahu. Hamas, having lost most of its combat forces and facing the growing despair and anger of Gaza’s people, was also forced – under pressure from two of its patrons, Qatar and Turkiye, and its neighbour Egypt (which sought Trump’s favour) – to accept this humiliating agreement. The tragedy of the war is the encouragement of, on the one hand, even further Zionist radicalism, intensification of ethnic-cleansing, and additional militarization of the region, and on the other, the horrendous loss of life and infrastructure in Gaza.

The Farce

Calling one of the largest gatherings of world leaders a “farce” is not an exaggeration – it reflects a deeply bitter and dangerous reality. It was a spectacle featuring a ridiculous, self-congratulatory speech by Trump, before whom even Mussolini would appear dignified. The flattery of leaders and their desperate attempts to win Trump’s favour revealed, on the one hand, the still immense power of American imperialism and, on the other, the pitiful weakness and lack of character among European and Islamic political leaders.

In one scene – recorded by an American TV network during a break – the president of Indonesia, supposedly representing the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation with over 240 million Muslims, almost pleadingly asks Trump if he can meet Eric (Trump’s son), to which Trump, surprised, replies that he’ll arrange it.

Most absurd of all, the agreement was not signed by the two warring parties, Israel and Hamas, but by four countries: the United States, Egypt, Qatar, and Turkiye. According to Witkoff/Kushner’s interview with CBS after the signing, the Israeli representative and a Qatari delegate embraced each other amid the cheers of those in attendance!

A Look at Part of Trump’s “Peace Plan”

Although Israel failed to completely destroy Hamas as it had intended, it succeeded – with the help of its Western allies and many Arab and Islamic countries – in forcing Hamas to sign a humiliating “peace” agreement. Without delving into every detail of this so-called peace plan, I will highlight a few significant points.

The first phase of the plan – namely the ceasefire, exchange of hostages and prisoners, gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, and permission for the entry of food and medical aid – was the simplest, loudest, and in some sense, the most important stage for Trump’s circle and other leaders, as it allowed them to pretend that peace had been achieved. Even this phase, however, was not as simple as it appeared. According to US Vice President J.D. Vance, parts of this supposedly straightforward phase have still not been implemented: Israel continues its killings under various pretexts, has restricted the entry of food and medicine, and has not yet reopened the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian border.

The second phase – disarmament, demilitarization of Gaza, security measures, and destruction of Hamas’s tunnels and military infrastructure – will not be easy, and Hamas has not officially accepted it. Hamas knows well that any “guarantees” for the safety of its members who surrender their weapons are meaningless, as Israel’s past policies have shown its intent to eliminate its enemies in various ways. More importantly, the assumption that Hamas will disappear is false; its supporters and affiliates will remain in Gaza under new names and forms. Even after this ceasefire, Hamas demonstrated that it still holds control and prevented rival tribal gangs – some organized by Israel – from seizing control of the areas vacated by Israeli forces.

The third phase pertains to governance and reconstruction in Gaza – the most problematic and revealing part of this so-called peace plan – and deserves closer attention.

A Return to Colonialism

The details of the plan clearly show a return to a colonial-style framework reminiscent of earlier centuries. Israel “generously” promises in Article 16 that “Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza.” It is remarkable that, in an international agreement attended by the United Nations, one party feels it is doing a favour by promising not to commit an illegal act.

Before that, Article 15 states that the US, with the help of Arab states and other allies, will establish an “International Stabilization Force” (ISF) to train Palestinian police and cooperate with Israel and Egypt in guarding and controlling the borders. Depending on the progress of the peace plan and “assurance that Hamas no longer poses a threat to Israel,” the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) will gradually withdraw and hand over Gaza to the ISF.

Different sources point out that some countries have already expressed hesitation about sending forces to join the ISF due to the vague mission and possible risks. Even more significant is that Israel has declared the list of countries participating in the ISF must be approved by Israel, and the US has agreed. Israel does not want, for example, Turkiye – seen as a supporter of Hamas – to have troops in Gaza.

The most shameful part of the plan, however, is Article 9, which establishes a “transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee.” This committee, composed of “qualified Palestinian and foreign experts,” will operate “under the supervision” of a temporary international body called the “Board of Peace,” chaired by Donald Trump and Tony Blair, along with other leaders yet to be named. This body will administer Gaza’s affairs until the Palestinian Authority (PA) carries out the fundamental reforms demanded of it. Only after fulfilling numerous additional conditions will Gaza’s administration supposedly be handed over to the PA.

In the colonial and decolonization eras, it was the United Nations that appointed interim administrators to guide small African nations toward independence. Now, in the 21st century, it is US imperialism – openly, without pretense – that appoints a “leader” itself. It doesn’t even trust its own Arab clients to manage the colony, instead selecting Tony Blair, who, alongside his ally George W. Bush, orchestrated the brutal invasion of Iraq, to oversee it. Ironically, Hussein al-Sheikh, deputy head of the Palestinian Authority, proudly met with Tony Blair and pledged cooperation. The Palestinian political groups and organizations, including Fatah and Hamas, which over the past 18 years ignored the calls for unity, agreed in the Cairo meeting that governance in Gaza should be transferred to the transitional committee.

Economically, Article 10 states that Gaza’s reconstruction will proceed under the “Trump Economic Development Plan,” designed in collaboration with the “creators of the miraculous modern cities of the Middle East” (read: the wealthy Arab sheikhs). For some, this plan is better than Trump and his associates’ earlier proposal to expel Palestinians and turn Israeli-controlled Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East,” built by Trump-linked real estate developers. Recognizing that mass expulsion and another Nakba were unrealistic, Israel and the US have “graciously” stated that no one will be forcibly expelled from Gaza. But in essence, the difference between this plan and the previous one is negligible.

The entire peace negotiation process has been led by two US real estate tycoons close to Trump – Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner (Trump’s son-in-law) – who have simultaneously signed multimillion-dollar contracts with Gulf Arab companies under legal cover.

Article 11 briefly mentions the creation of “Special Economic Zones” (SEZs) with preferential tariffs, with details to be determined later. To me, this recalls the “Qualified Industrial Zones,” (QIZs) established in the 1990s with US backing, to integrate Arab industries with Israel. Products from these zones could enter US, Israeli, and some Arab markets tariff-free, provided they contained 35% of materials from the US, Israel, or other member countries, 8% of which had to be Israeli. Later, the plan was extended to Palestinian industries in the West Bank. Although the current plan doesn’t explicitly reference such zones, it’s almost certain that they will apply a similar model in Gaza. The ultimate goal of all these economic schemes is to bind the economies of neighbouring Arab states to Israel and the US, without granting them access to Israel’s advanced technology and industries.

Most notably, there is virtually no mention of establishing an independent Palestinian state. In Article 19, with endless linguistic contortions, the text says: “While Gaza re-development advances and when the PA reform programme is faithfully carried out, the conditions may [!] finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognize as the aspiration of the Palestinian people.” Then, Article 20 promises, “The United States will establish a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians to agree on a political horizon for peaceful and prosperous co-existence.”

Nothing could be more hollow. The Trump circle knows well that Netanyahu and his far-right allies oppose any form of Palestinian statehood – whether “two-state” or even the “one-and-a-half-state” idea I have written about before. To fill the gap, they resort to verbose, conditional language that only dangles the vague “possibility” of autonomy and statehood for Palestinians in some distant future.

How these plans will unfold remain unclear – especially given that the key decision-maker, Donald Trump, is unpredictable. One of the recent developments is the establishment of a “civil–military coordination center” in southern Israel near the Gaza Strip. This center, made up of 200 American personnel and led by an American general and an American diplomat who is the US ambassador to Yemen, is supposed to guide the implementation of the peace plan. It is an important event and indicates the US decision to act directly and independently of Israel, and it will heighten tensions between the US and Israel. In addition, Trump’s recent remarks to Time magazine about the possibility that he might decide to free Marwan Barghouti were also very unexpected. One can guess that Israel strongly objects to both of these recent US decisions. In the first case, it fears that the US will advance the plan not through Israel but directly. Regarding Barghouti’s release, it is very likely that Netanyahu’s government will oppose, to the extent it can, to freeing this prominent Palestinian leader who has been sentenced to five life terms. Barghouti, a pragmatic radical and strong supporter of the two-state solution, commands respect across Palestinian factions. It remains to be seen whether he will be freed – and, if so, whether he can achieve anything meaningful amid Israel’s powerful right wing and the Palestinians’ disarray, weakness, corruption, and hardship.

Where Is the Arab and Islamic World?

All these discussions lead to one fundamental question: where are the Arab and Islamic leaders?

They are, of course, everywhere – present at major international meetings and business summits, with their own grand global organizations – but they are not taken seriously in world politics. Israel’s genocide in Gaza was a clear example. After Israel attacked Qatar, the “Organization of Islamic Cooperation” (OIC) and the “Arab League” hastily held an emergency summit in Doha. After fiery speeches, the leaders of Muslim-majority countries “emphasized the need for coordinated action and stronger political and economic pressure against Israel,” calling on the world to condemn it – as if they had forgotten that they themselves make up a large portion of that world.

The OIC, which claims to be “the collective voice of the Muslim world,” consists of 57 countries with a combined population of more than 1.8 billion people (over four times the population of the European Union and five times that of the United States) and a combined GDP (PPP) exceeding $38-trillion – larger than that of the US and far greater than that of the EU. Yet, throughout two years of Israel’s blatant killings and destruction in Gaza, it has failed to take any meaningful action. The organization has long been mired in internal conflicts. For example, India, a country with nearly 200 million Muslims (close to 10% of all Muslims worldwide), has been excluded from membership due to Pakistan’s opposition. Major Muslim-majority countries – Turkiye, Iran, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia – have always been competing with each other for leadership of the Islamic world. Other divisions have centred on human rights. Although the OIC does not openly reject the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it has held its own conference titled “Human Rights in Islam,” emphasizing that all rights and freedoms outlined in the declaration must be “subject to” Islamic Sharia law.

The Arab League, made up of 22 countries with a total population exceeding 481 million (larger than both the EU or the US) and a combined GDP (PPP) of nearly $10-trillion, has been primarily preoccupied with internal disputes: Egypt’s expulsion and reinstatement, Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia’s request for US intervention against Iraq, Libya’s expulsion, Syria’s suspension, the Yemen-Saudi conflict, and many similar examples. Each leader’s main concern has been to preserve power and prevent another “Arab Spring.”

The “Gulf Cooperation Council” (GCC) – composed of the relatively small but immensely wealthy Gulf monarchies – possesses substantial financial power (a GDP PPP of about $4-trillion and sovereign wealth funds nearing $6-trillion) and works in close cooperation with the United States (hosting the largest US bases in the Middle East: the air base in Qatar, the Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, bases in Kuwait, and an air base in the UAE). Despite their influence, they have been neither willing nor able to use their power to pressure Israel or the US. Aside from tribal rivalries and controversial interventions in countries such as Libya and Sudan, their main concern has been protecting their global investments – especially in the US military-industrial sector, where profits are highest. Nearly all of them – some openly, some discreetly – are waiting to join Donald Trump’s “Abraham Accords.”

That said, the immense role of the Al Jazeera network in exposing Israel’s atrocities in Gaza should not be overlooked.

In sum, these countries and their unions, despite their vast resources and potential power, have mostly served as playthings of global powers because of the nature of the regimes ruling them. Many of their leaders not only lack sympathy for the Palestinians but even view them as a nuisance. Even more surprising is that, apart from the regimes, the majority of people in the Arab countries, unlike Arabs in diaspora who have shown strong support for the Palestinians and have been a crucial force in the anti-war demonstrations, have shown little serious reaction to Israel’s crimes in Gaza.

Since the ‘Arab Spring’, we have been reminded of the many uprisings of Arab peoples against the Ottoman, British, and French empires, as well as the independence struggles of Egypt, Algeria, and Syria. The phrase ‘Arab Awakening’ was originally coined in the 1930s by the great Arab historian George Antonius, for whom it then carried real meaning. Sadly, given the harsh reality of today’s Arab world and across the Middle East, the region is still dominated by the triad of authoritarian regimes, religious fundamentalism, and neoliberalism, so the hopes of a renewed ‘awakening’ remain unmet.

No Peace Without an Independent Palestinian State

Trump and his entourage noisily proclaimed the “greatest peace in history” and the end of “three thousand years of conflict” (sic.), expecting a Nobel Peace Prize. The bitter irony is that, amid today’s tragic global conditions – and the utter incompetence and blind obedience of Arab and European leaders to the US – only Trump had the leverage to impose the current ceasefire on Israel and Hamas.

There is no need to repeat the complex details of the Palestinian issue, which I have discussed elsewhere.1 It suffices to say that without the establishment of a genuine Palestinian state within the pre-1967 borders alongside Israel, no lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians will ever be achieved.

The Precondition for a Palestinian State Is Political Change in Israel

As long as Israel is ruled by a reactionary coalition of the far-right and Jewish religious fundamentalists, any talk of positive change for Palestinians is futile. A brief look at the occupied West Bank is telling: over the past two years, while global attention has been focused on Gaza, Israel has built new settlements and expanded existing ones. The entire western stretch of the fertile Jordan Valley has effectively been emptied of Palestinians. The government has distributed thousands of weapons among Jewish settlers, and gangs of Jewish youth regularly attack Palestinian homes and farms – killing over a thousand people so far. The army, police, and judiciary of the so-called “only democracy in the Middle East” do nothing to stop these crimes.

When, on October 23, the Knesset – the Israeli parliament – brazenly approved in its first reading a bill to “annex” the West Bank to Israel, it shocked many observers. Even Trump and his vice president condemned it. Yet even if Israel fails to formalize annexation, its policies on the ground are moving in that direction.

Reconstruction of Gaza, under conditions where all its infrastructure – roads, utilities, water, and sewage systems – has been destroyed, and millions are homeless while criminal gangs (some armed and supported by Israel) clash with the remaining Hamas hooligans, will be impossible without serious Israeli cooperation. Even if a figure like Marwan Barghouti were to lead a future Palestinian government, he would be powerless to change this reality.

Israel’s hands-on policy is the continued occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, but, as I have noted elsewhere, it faces a “demographic dilemma”: the total number of Palestinians under occupation and within Israel now exceeds the number of Jews, turning Jews into a minority within their own “Jewish state.” Hence, Israel seeks by every means to reduce their numbers. Unfortunately, given the weakness of leftist and progressive movements and the unwavering support of the US and global Zionism, no positive change in Israeli policy is visible on the horizon.

This is not to diminish the current ceasefire or efforts to alleviate the suffering of the people of Gaza. Given the harsh conditions facing the Palestinian people, any action that prevents violent confrontations and deals with the immediate needs of these people is positive. It remains to be seen how much Palestinians will be able to exploit the current situation – particularly the disagreements developing between the current US leadership and the Israeli government – to their advantage.

In summary, a key prerequisite for a lasting peace is the rise of progressive, secular, and democratic forces in both Israel and Palestine. Without cooperation between progressive movements on both sides and their struggle against their own reactionary and religious-fundamentalist forces, the world will continue to witness new rounds of conflict and war between Israelis and Palestinians.

The open letter signed by 450 prominent progressive Jews – including intellectuals, artists, and former Israeli officials – condemning Israel’s “unconscionable actions” and calling on the United Nations and other nations to sanction Israel, together with the continued efforts of global antiwar movements, are but small sparks in this darkness. •

1. “Obstacles to Palestinian-Israeli Peace,” and “Global Alignments in the Palestinian Issue.”