Last Friday at midnight, phase one of a 20-point peace plan crafted by President Donald Trump came into effect between Israel and Hamas.
The planarticulated that Gaza would be “deradicalized” and redeveloped, that Israeli forces would withdraw and that both sides would exchange hostages. According to the plan, Gaza will be “governed under the temporary transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee, responsible for delivering the day-to-day running of public services and municipalities for the people in Gaza,” as well as economic development. The committee will be chaired by Trump and consists of several heads of state, including former United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair. After all of this, a dialogue is to be developed with the goal of ensuring long-term peace with Palestine having a pathway to statehood.
The plan was endorsed by the heads of the Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Canada, China, France, Italy and the United Kingdom, among other countries. With the implementation of the first phases of the plan, both sidesreceived a return of their hostages.
Professor Mary Ellen O’Connell, a professor of law and professor of international peace studies at the Kroc Institute, commented on the cease-fire in a statement to The Observer.
“Oct. 13 was a great day. The release of 20 Israeli hostages and thousands of Palestinian prisoners, as well as the promise of major shipments of humanitarian aid to Gaza, came as a great relief… People of good faith around the world need to consider how to encourage President Trump to support peace in a way that respects rights and law,” O’Connell wrote.
While this peace has been a moment of hope for those watching the conflict over the past two years, there have been questions about its stability and the ability of this conflict to come to a peaceful resolution. Professor Atalia Omer, who teaches religion, conflict and peace studies at the Keough School of Global Affairs wrote in a statement to The Observer, “The ceasefire is already violated – according to credible reports in Haaretz, Israel knew that Hamas will have hard time accessing the deceased hostages due to the utter destruction of Gaza, but now because Hamas has failed to delivered all the dead bodies, this offers a pretext to prevent entry of aid trucks as per the agreement.”
Omer said the lack of Palestinian involvement in the governance of the territory makes the situation, “very concerning in terms of the long term redressing of Palestinian grievances around their century long experience of dispossession, domination, and denial of their narratives, all vindicated and enabled by the international community.”
She argued former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s involvement on the peace board is, “troubling” because of his role in the Iraq War.
Professor Michael Desch, director of the Notre Dame International Security Center and a professor of political science, commented on the current state of the cease-fire.
“The Israelis are complaining that Hamas has not disarmed, and I think that’s a fair complaint, although not surprising. And the Israelis are also complaining that Hamas has not returned all the bodies of Israeli hostages who were killed, and that, I think, is unfair. I mean, those people are under tons of rubble, along with many more Palestinians. So to expect, given the absolute state of destruction that Gaza has been subject to, [it would] be a miracle, if they were able to find all of the bodies,” Desch said.
Desch said there are several factors which, in his opinion, are inhibiting peace in the region. These include the Netanyahu government, which he says has, “no commitment to long term peace that produces an independent Palestinian state … and only the United States can keep [Netanyahu’s] feet to the fire and to his credit, President Trump seems to have been willing to do that, at least in the short term.”
He also suggested that there is a need for a stabilizing force in Gaza, including both neutral and Arab nations, as well as the need for large amounts of money to rebuild infrastructure there, which he hopes can come in contributions from the Arab and Gulf States and Europe.
Desch further emphasized how the Israeli government is hostile to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“Netanyahu wants no independent Palestinian state,” Desch said. “Members of his coalition believe that not only Gaza, but also Judea and Samaria and the West Bank are part of Eretz Israel, and they want the Palestinians to pick up and go somewhere else. And so in [Netanyahu’s] government, there’s no hope. I think there might be the possibility of a Labor government being more willing to continence an independent Palestinian state, although after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin during the Oslo period of the 1990s, any movement in that direction seems likely to incite civil war in Israel.”
According to Omer, there are also issues in finding peace because of allegations of genocide occurring in Gaza. “There are also multiple reports on the systematic and engineered starvation of the Gaza strip – with all that it is shocking the lack of discussion of accountability for the people who orchestrated the genocide,” Omer wrote.
Omer argued the way forward must involve Palestine as an actor in negotiations.
“Gaza is for Palestinians to determine how it is going to look like and the US and the other international forces need to create the conditions for Palestinians to revitalize their political leadership,” Omer wrote. “The main flaw is that the ‘plan’ is a neocolonial imposition that does not change the realities on the ground of a regime of apartheid and occupation – if this regime does not change, there is no possibility of moving toward peace and equality.”