Trump’s “Historic Breakthrough” in Gaza Was Short-Lived
Slate · L · trust 47/100
Follow Fred Signed Up For Email Alerts Error Signing Up For Email Alerts Close Enter your email to receive alerts for this author.
Sign in or create an account to better manage your email preferences.
Are you sure you want to unsubscribe from email alerts for Fred Kaplan ?
Last Thursday, President Trump announced that his Board of Peace had achieved a “ historic breakthrough ” in which Hamas agreed to disarm and Israel agreed to withdraw from Gaza. It may seem that this happened months ago—not just four days ago, as I write this—because the deal has vanished from the headlines. There are two reasons why. First, so much has happened since then on other Middle East war fronts. Second, the agreement—which truly would be historic if it were true—turns out to have no basis in reality.
As posted on social media, the deal has the tonal earmarks of an official document. It bears a throat-clearing headline—“A Roadmap for Completing the Implementation of President Trump’s Comprehensive Peace Plan in Gaza”—followed by a detailed 15-point itinerary. But on scrutiny, there’s nothing meaningful in any of them.
There are two major shortcomings that keep it from carrying much more weight than a flawed first draft by a junior fellow at a minor think tank would. First, yes, it says Hamas must totally disarm and Israel must totally withdraw. But it doesn’t say who goes first, and leaders of both entities have since said they won’t move until the other side does .
Second, the document mentions several organizations that will monitor the procedure (perhaps in simultaneous phases), then step in to provide security, a police force, steps toward a civil society, and so forth. For example, Article 2 states:
The timetable and implementation mechanisms of this Roadmap … shall be prepared within 14 days after all parties approve the Roadmap, which could be extended by a decision by the International Verification Committee (IVC). … [Then] the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) shall enter the Strip and start to assume its responsibilities. The IVC, that shall be established by the Board of Peace (BoP), comprising representatives from the guarantors, BoP and the International Stabilization Force, shall certify that both parties fulfill their commitments under the Roadmap before proceeding to the implementation of Phase 2.
If you’re puzzled, that’s OK, you should be. All these organizations—NCAG, IVC, and ISF—are the names given to new security forces to keep the peace and technocratic groups to form a new government, but here’s the thing: None of them exist yet . A few people have been named to them, but they haven’t set up operations on the ground, nor have they been vetted by anyone whose vetting is necessary to give them power.
And take a close look at the first sentence in that paragraph: The timetable and mechanisms “shall be prepared within 14 days after all parties approve the Roadmap ” (italics added). So far, none of the relevant parties—least of all Israel and Hamas—have approved any of these arrangements or obligations.
This is the key sign that the “Roadmap” was not prepared by serious people. Indeed, it seems to have been authored, for the most part, by Trump’s globetrotting emissaries, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and fellow real-estate tycoon Steve Witkoff, whose sorry stabs at diplomacy with Russia, Ukraine, and Iran should have alerted any president truly interested in peace that he should maybe send the amateurs back to Florida and bring some professionals back from the sidelines.
Another indicator of the document’s irrelevance is that it was issued by the Board of Peace, an organization that has no authority or power to do anything . Trump announced the board’s creation, and named himself its chairman, in September during the signing of the brief Israel–Hamas ceasefire that he had helped nail down. The idea was that the board would be the forum where Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and other Middle East countries discuss political reforms, reconstruction, and other issues relating to long-term peace in Gaza. However, by January, when Trump issued its formal charter, his vision for the board had expanded into a global powerhouse that would “promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict.”
In fact, though, it was never more than the vehicle for a Trump ego trip. The charter gave him the power to hire and fire the board members and to veto their decisions if he felt like it. Their tenure on the board would last three years, though permanent membership could be bought for $1 billion (paid to whom, to be used for what, was unclear). The leaders of a dozen or so countries, most having little power and no peacemaking experience, sought to butter up Trump by joining, though none of them forked over $1 billion. All the members of the U.N. Security Council turned down or ghosted Trump’s invitation.
Meanwhile, in the months since, the board has done nothing to advance the Gaza ceasefire or to help create a Palestinian, regional, international, or any other sort of organization that might play any role in peacemaking or socio-politico-economic reconstruction.
As if to cap the matter , on Friday, the day after Trump’s historic breakthrough, Hamas said it wouldn’t take even the “first step” toward disarming until Israel stopped its attacks on Gaza, then cited further conditions on disarming beyond the first step. The next day, Israel renewed airstrikes on Gaza, killing at least two people and damaging warehouses filled with medical supplies (which Israelis said were also filled with weapons).
In short, the 15-point Roadmap is just another indulgence of Trump’s fantasies—a series of fancy scribblings on a board game. Its release last week may have also been timed to distract attention from Trump’s quagmire of his own making in Iran—an attempt to show that, despite it all, he is still a man…
Read the original at Slate →
Open in TruthVane →