Middle East Press On: Rebirth, Palestinian, Gaza Peace Plan: New Age Islam's Selection, 13 October 2025
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
13 October 2025
The Defeat Of Israel And The Rebirth Of Palestinian Agency
Justice First: Rewriting The Gaza Peace Plan
As The Hostages Return, What Has Israel Learned From The Gaza War?
Exchanging Palestinian Prisoners For Israeli Hostages Sets Stage For Further Massacres
Palestinian Leadership Post-Gaza War: Who Are The Prospective Leaders Of The Future?
Trump’s Flaws In Domestic Politics Helped Broker Gaza Ceasefire
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The Defeat Of Israel And The Rebirth Of Palestinian Agency
by Dr Ramzy Baroud
October 13, 2025
For decades, the prevailing notion was that the ‘solution’ to the Israeli occupation of Palestine lay in a strictly negotiated process. “Only dialogue can achieve peace” has been the relentlessly peddled mantra in political circles, academic platforms, media forums, and the like.
A colossal industry burgeoned around that idea, expanding dramatically in the lead-up to, and for years after, the signing of the Oslo Accords between Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Israeli government.
The unmaking of ‘peace’
The problem was never with the fundamental principle of ‘dialogue,’ ‘peace,’ nor even with that of ‘painful compromises‘ — a notion tirelessly circulated during the ‘peace process’ period between 1993 and the early 2000s.
Instead, the conflict has largely been shaped by how these terms, and an entire scaffolding of similar terminology, were defined and implemented. ‘Peace’ for Israel and the US necessitated a subservient Palestinian leadership, ready to negotiate and operate within confined parameters, and entirely outside the binding parameters of international law.
Similarly, ‘dialogue’ was only permissible if the Palestinian leadership consented to renounce ‘terrorism’ — read: armed resistance — disarm, recognise Israel’s purported right to exist as a Jewish state, and adhere to the prescribed language dictated by Israel and the US.
In fact, only after officially renouncing ‘terrorism’ and accepting a restricted interpretation of specific UN resolutions on the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza did Washington agree to ‘dialogue’ with Arafat. Such low-level conversations took place in Tunisia and involved a junior US official — Robert Pelletreau, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs.
Not once did Israel consent to ‘dialogue’ with Palestinians without a stringent set of preconditions, driving Arafat to a unilateral series of concessions at the expense of his people. Ultimately, Oslo yielded nothing of intrinsic value for Palestinians, apart from Israel’s mere recognition, not of Palestine or the Palestinian people, but of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which, over time, became a conduit for corruption. The PA’s continued existence is inextricably linked to that of the Israeli occupation itself.
Israel, conversely, operated unchecked, conducting raids on Palestinian towns, executing massacres at will, enforcing a debilitating siege on Gaza, assassinating activists, and imprisoning Palestinians en masse, including women and children. In fact, the post-‘dialogue,’ ‘peace,’ and ‘painful compromises’ era witnessed the largest expansion and effective annexation of Palestinian land since the 1967 Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza.
Gaza as the anomaly
During this period, there was a widespread consensus that violence, meaning only Palestinian armed resistance in response to unconstrained Israeli violence, was intolerable. The PA’s Mahmoud Abbas dismissed it in 2008 as ‘useless,’ and subsequently, in coordination with the Israeli military, devoted much of the PA’s security apparatus to suppress any form of resistance to Israel, armed or otherwise.
Though Jenin, Tulkarm, Nablus, and other regions and refugee camps in the West Bank continued to forge spaces, however constrained, for armed resistance, the concerted efforts of Israel and the PA often crushed or at least substantially reduced these moments.
Gaza, however, consistently stood as the anomaly. The Strip’s armed uprisings have persisted since the early 1950s, with the emergence of the fedayeen movement, followed by a succession of socialist and Islamic resistance groups. The place has always remained unmanageable — by Israel, and later by the PA. When Abbas loyalists were defeated following brief but tragic violent clashes between Fatah and Hamas in Gaza in 2007, the small territory became an undisputed center of armed resistance.
This event occurred two years after the Israeli army’s redeployment out of Palestinian population centers in the Strip (2005), into the so-called military buffer zones, established on areas that were historically part of Gaza’s territory. It was the start of today’s hermetic siege on Gaza.
In 2006, Hamas secured a majority of seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council, an unexpected turn of events that infuriated Washington, Tel Aviv, Ramallah, and other Western and Arab allies.
The fear was that without Israel’s PA allies maintaining control over the resistance inside Gaza and the West Bank, the occupied territories would inevitably result in a widespread anti-occupation revolt.
Consequently, Israel intensified its suffocating siege on the Strip, which refused to capitulate despite the horrific humanitarian crisis resulting from the blockade. Thus, starting in 2008, Israel adopted a new strategy: treating the Gaza resistance as an actual military force, thereby launching major wars that resulted in the killing and wounding of tens of thousands of people, predominantly civilians.
These major conflicts included the war of December 2008-January 2009, November 2012, July-August 2014, May 2021, and the latest genocidal war commencing in October 2023.
Despite the immense destruction and the relentless siege, let alone external international and Arab pressures and isolation, the Strip somehow endured and even regenerated itself. Destroyed residences were rebuilt from the salvaged rubble, and resistance weaponry was also replenished, often utilizing unexploded Israeli munitions.
The 7 October rupture
The 7 October Hamas operation, known as Al-Aqsa Flood, constituted a significant break from the established pattern that had endured for years.
For Palestinians, it represented the ultimate evolution of their armed struggle, a culmination of a process that commenced in the early 1950s and involved diverse groups and political ideologies. It served as a stark notification to Israel that the rules of engagement have irrevocably shifted, and that the besieged Palestinians refuse to submit to their supposed historical role of perpetual victimhood.
For Israel, the event was earth-shattering. It exposed the country’s vaunted military and intelligence as deeply flawed, and revealed that the country’s leadership assessment of Palestinian capabilities was fundamentally erroneous.
This failure followed the brief surge of confidence during the normalisation campaign initiated by the US and Israel with pliable Arab and Muslim countries during Trump’s first term in office. At that time, it appeared as though the Palestinians and their cause had been rendered irrelevant in the broader Middle Eastern political landscape. Between a co-opted Palestinian leadership in the West Bank and besieged resistance movements in Gaza, Palestine was no longer a decisive factor in Israel’s pursuit of regional hegemony.
The centerpiece of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategy, and his aspiration to conclude his long political career with the ultimate regional triumph, was suddenly obliterated. Enraged, disoriented, but also determined to restore all of Israel’s advantages since Oslo, Netanyahu embarked on a campaign of mass killing that, over the course of two years, culminated in one of the worst genocides in human history.
His methodical extermination of the Palestinians and overt desire to ethnically cleanse the survivors out of Gaza laid bare Israel and its Zionist ideology for their inherently violent character, thus allowing the world, especially Western societies, to fully perceive Israel for what it truly is, and what it has always been.
Resistance, resilience, and defeat
But the genuine fear that unified Israel, the US, and several Arab countries is the terrifying prospect that resistance, particularly armed resistance, could re-emerge in Palestine, and by extension across the Middle East, as a viable force capable of threatening all autocratic and undemocratic regimes. This fear was dramatically amplified by the ascent of other non-state actors, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Ansarallah in Yemen, who collectively with the Gaza resistance managed to forge a formidable alliance that required direct US involvement in the conflict.
Even then, Israel failed to achieve any of its strategic objectives in Gaza, owing to the legendary resilience of the Palestinian people, but also the prowess of the resistance that managed to destroy over 2,000 Israeli military vehicles, including hundreds of the pride and joy of the Israeli military industry, the Merkava tank.
No Arab army has managed to exact this scale of military, political, and economic cost from Israel throughout the country’s violent existence of nearly eight decades. Though Israel and the US — and others, including some Arab countries and the PA — continue to demand the disarming of the resistance, such a demand is rationally nearly unattainable. Israel has dropped over 200,000 tons of explosives over Gaza over the course of two years to achieve that singular objective, and failed. There is no plausible reason to believe that it can achieve such a goal through political and economic pressures alone.
Not only did Israel fail in Gaza, or, more accurately in the words of many Israeli historians and retired army generals, was decisively defeated in Gaza, but Palestinians have managed to reassert Palestinian agency, including the legitimacy of all forms of resistance, as a winning strategy against Israeli colonialism and US-Western imperialism in the region. This explains the profound fear shared by all parties that Israel’s defeat in Gaza could fundamentally alter the entire regional power dynamics.
Though the US and its Western and Arab allies will persist in negotiating in an attempt to resurrect the almost 90-year-old Palestinian leader Abbas and his Oslo paradigm as the only viable alternatives for Palestinians, the medium and long-term consequences of the war are likely to present a starkly different reality, one where Oslo and its corrupted figures are definitively relegated to the past.
Finally, if we are to speak of a Palestinian victory in Gaza, it is a resounding triumph for the Palestinian people, their indomitable spirit, and their deeply rooted resistance that transcends faction, ideology, and politics.
All of this considered, it must also be clearly stated that the current ceasefire in Gaza cannot be misconstrued as a ‘peace plan’; it is a mere pause from the genocide, as there will certainly be a subsequent round of conflict, the nature of which depends heavily on what unfolds in the West Bank, indeed the entire region, in the coming months and years.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20251013-the-defeat-of-israel-and-the-rebirth-of-palestinian-agency/
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Justice First: Rewriting The Gaza Peace Plan
by Ranjan Solomon
October 12, 2025
The so-called Gaza deal, announced with fanfare by Washington, is neither just nor legitimate. It is a trophy for Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner — a cynical exercise in self-promotion disguised as diplomacy. For the people who matter most — the Gazans, the Palestinians, the Arab nations whose histories are tied to the land — there was no seat at the table, no voice in the room. Even the United Nations, whose mandate is to protect the occupied and mediate peace, was not consulted. What the world has been handed is not a peace accord but a political masquerade — a deal written by the occupier, for the occupier.
True peace cannot be imposed by those complicit in the destruction of Gaza. The deal lacks the fundamental ingredients of justice. There is no end to the occupation, no commitment to reparations for decades of displacement and devastation, and no recognition of Palestinian sovereignty or the right of return. What it offers instead is a recycled illusion — the illusion that one can build peace upon ruins while maintaining apartheid walls, checkpoints, and blockades. The civilians who have endured the bombings since October 2023, the starvation of children, and the collapse of hospitals see this clearly: there is no justice in deals that ignore their suffering.
The two-state solution, once considered a moral compromise for coexistence, has long been rendered obsolete by Israel’s relentless expansionism. Settlements have fractured the West Bank into isolated enclaves; Gaza has been reduced to rubble and deprivation. A “state” without control over its borders, airspace, or economy is not sovereignty — it is subjugation. In principle, a unitary, democratic state where Palestinians and Jews live as equals would be the truest expression of justice. Yet even that vision feels impossible today, for how can Palestinians coexist with those who have bombed, starved, and killed their families with impunity?
If a two-state formula is to be revived, it must not be the hollow version of Oslo, which only legitimised Israeli domination. It must return to the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital and full withdrawal of Israeli forces from occupied territory. Anything less would perpetuate apartheid under the guise of compromise. The decades of failed negotiations — from Camp David to Annapolis — have proven that half-measures only embolden the occupier. Peace cannot flourish in the shadow of injustice.
The Trump-Kushner deal must be dumped, except for the ceasefire clause that offers temporary relief from slaughter. The world must return to the drawing board and craft a peace plan rooted in historical truth, moral responsibility, and respect for Palestinian identity and integrity. No durable peace can emerge without acknowledgment of guilt and repentance. Israel must apologise for the genocidal war since October 2023, a war that has killed tens of thousands of civilians, starved children, and destroyed every basic human facility. It must recognise the Palestinian right to resistance under international law — a right born of occupation and denied for 77 years.
Settlers must withdraw from the West Bank. Their very presence violates the Fourth Geneva Convention and constitutes a war crime. Their removal is not vengeance but justice — a step toward dismantling a system of privilege built on stolen land. Jerusalem must become an international city, shared by all faiths and both peoples, under a joint administration that reflects its universal spiritual significance. No peace is possible while Jerusalem remains a monopoly of Israeli power and exclusion.
A Middle East free of nuclear weapons is another essential pillar of regional stability. Israel, the region’s only nuclear power, has long evaded accountability under US protection. Its armaments must be submitted for international inspection, followed by a process of gradual demilitarisation, not only of Israel but of all parties in the region. Disarmament will follow justice — never precede it. True security is inseparable from justice, and peace without accountability is an illusion.
The role of Hamas must be determined by Palestinians themselves, through a democratic and transparent process, not dictated by Washington, Tel Aviv, or Brussels. The hypocrisy of Western powers is evident: they call for democracy yet refuse to accept the outcome when Palestinians vote freely. Any legitimate peace framework must include all Palestinian political forces, not selectively label some as “terrorists” while rewarding the true perpetrator of state terror.
The United States and the European Union can be participants in dialogue, but not its arbiters. Their record of bias disqualifies them from leading negotiations. Instead, the peace architecture must expand to include Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Arab League, and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The oversight mechanism should be internationally constituted under the United Nations, coordinated by a Global South country respected for its neutrality and moral credibility. This would restore balance and legitimacy to a process long hijacked by the West.
For decades, Israel has claimed to be the only democracy in the Middle East. Yet democracies do not bomb hospitals, starve populations, or imprison entire communities behind walls. Israel is not the victim in this equation; it is the occupying power. It cannot dictate the terms of peace while continuing to steal land and water, demolish homes, and assassinate journalists. The global community must say plainly: Israel is only one of the parties — not the judge, jury, or executioner.
To achieve lasting peace, the conversation must shift from security to justice. Security without justice is repression. Peace without dignity is surrender. The Palestinian cause is not a dispute over borders but a struggle for freedom and equality — a struggle against a system of colonialism and racial supremacy sustained by Western complicity.
The international community must confront its own moral failure. The silence of powerful states in the face of genocide is a stain on modern civilisation. The United Nations must reclaim its original mandate — to protect the weak from the powerful, the occupied from the occupier. A permanent UN observer mission in Gaza, under the protection of neutral states, could begin rebuilding trust. Global civil society, from universities to trade unions, must intensify boycotts, divestments, and sanctions until Israel complies with international law.
History teaches that no empire, however brutal, lasts forever. South Africa’s apartheid regime collapsed when global conscience aligned with internal resistance. The same will happen in Palestine. The spirit of the people — those who have endured siege, starvation, and sorrow — remains unbroken.
The Trump deal is not a roadmap to peace; it is an epitaph for the moral authority of those who pretend to mediate it. Real peace will not come from deals written in Washington or Jerusalem but from the ashes of injustice — when Palestinians can walk their land in freedom, when the refugee camps empty, when apology replaces arrogance, and when both peoples stand as equals before the law of humanity.
Enough is enough. The world has watched too many false dawns. It is time to end the occupation, dismantle apartheid, and recognise the right of Palestine to live — free, sovereign, and whole. Until that day, every “deal” that ignores justice is nothing more than a hollow victory for the powerful and a betrayal of the oppressed.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20251012-justice-first-rewriting-the-gaza-peace-plan/
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As The Hostages Return, What Has Israel Learned From The Gaza War?
By Marion Fischel
October 13, 2025
For the first time in two years, Israel can breathe. Relief, gratitude, and exhaustion mingle as the hostages begin to return, and a nation emerges – battered but standing – from one of the darkest and most difficult chapters in its history.
The day long imagined but seldom believed possible has finally arrived. After two years of anguish, Israelis are preparing to witness the homecoming of those torn from their families – a moment that restores a measure of justice and reminds the country of its own stubborn will to endure. For a brief moment, it feels as though a terrible wrong has been righted.
That relief, however, is tempered by sober reflection: that it took so long, that so many lives were lost before US President Donald Trump brokered a deal that neither Netanyahu, Hamas, nor mediators Egypt and Qatar could afford to refuse.
Yet, even within that frustration lies acknowledgment of what perseverance, military resolve, and diplomatic pressure have ultimately achieved.
In the days ahead, global and regional reactions will determine which doors this agreement opens – and which ones it closes. Israel’s relations with its neighbors and with its closest ally have already been shaped by two years of war. They will now be tested and, perhaps, redefined by the choices made in the coming days and by what comes next.
How this deal was achieved – and how earlier efforts failed – will also reverberate in Israel’s politics and determine the contours of the next election. It will shape the campaign already underway to cast the agreement as a national success and measure how much credit Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can claim. Only on election day will we be able to see whether the public agrees.
But those arguments will unfold later. For now, there is quiet acknowledgment that something once thought unattainable has been realized.
Hamas did not agree to release all the hostages at one time as a result of Trump’s diplomatic acumen alone. It was forced to do so by pressure, by the persistence of IDF soldiers and reservists who fought to dismantle Hamas and by a public that refused to let the hostage issue fade. This outcome, as painful and costly as it has been, is also a testament to Israel’s endurance and unity of purpose.
Still, the images from Gaza – an enclave reduced to ruin – will remain etched in global memory. However justified this campaign was, its diplomatic cost abroad is steep.
Israel’s challenge now is not only to rebuild what was destroyed in its South, but also to restore its standing in a world where, for many, the moral compass has been lost and too many can no longer distinguish between terrorists who scorn human life and those forced to fight them.
The immediate danger ahead for Israel is complacency. In the rush toward relief and normalcy, Israelis cannot allow old habits of apathy, division, and avoidance to return. Two years is a long time to live inside a nightmare. We must now learn from it, not merely survive it.
These years have revealed that the home front is as vital as the battlefield; that mental and psychological resilience are as essential as physical security; and that the fractures within Israeli society cannot simply be ignored. Real dialogue – as Jewish tradition teaches – demands patience, empathy, nuance, and solidarity. Anything less will tear us apart.
In the battle of narratives, Israel has struggled to tell its story, and the Palestinian narrative has won this round. Hamas propaganda, amplified by Al Jazeera and by organized pro-Palestinian student movements in the West, has revived some of the oldest antisemitic tropes in modern history.
Yet the real challenge is not messaging but mindset. Israel cannot afford to treat the Palestinian issue as something to be ignored until violence erupts again. Jerusalem needs to be proactive because neglect carries its own heavy cost.
As Western and Arab leaders convene in Sharm el-Sheikh to discuss “the future of Israelis and Palestinians” – without either side represented at the table – Israelis must remember that this front is not behind us. It is merely waiting for our attention.
The nightmare may finally be over. Now, the test of what we’ve learned begins.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-870275
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Exchanging Palestinian Prisoners For Israeli Hostages Sets Stage For Further Massacres
By Louis René Beres
October 13, 2025
One of several unresolved issues in the Israel-Hamas agreement concerns the two-state solution. Whatever else might be implemented under this agreement, conferring Palestinian statehood would represent a core violation of authoritative international law.
Among other things, this is because the driving forces behind statehood, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, have been responsible for decades of egregious anti-Israel terrorism.
Moreover, this undiminished criminality has never sought creation of a new Arab state to exist side by side with the Jewish state. Prima facie, its objective has been a “one-state solution.”
The evidence is corroborative. By this exterminatory solution, all of Israel would become part of Palestine. To wit, on PA and Hamas maps, all of Israel, not just Judea/Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza, is delineated as “Occupied Palestine.”
Both PA and Hamas remain clear about their unchanging commitment to terrorism-violence as the path to Palestinian “self-determination.”
The dangers of releasing terrorists
It follows, inter alia, that Palestinian prisoners now being exchanged for Israeli hostages will quickly step up criminal harms against the innocent. In essence, the Trump-brokered agreement will set the stage for a next round of October 7 massacre-style defilements.
Over time, some of the freed terrorists will plan calibrated escalations to chemical, biological, or nuclear (radiation dispersal) terrorism. Also likely will be variously coordinated rocket attacks on Israel’s nuclear reactor at Dimona. Although generally forgotten, Hamas launched such an attack in the past, but it has not been able to inflict serious harm.
Terrorism is not just bad behaviour; it is a codified and customary crime under binding international law. Its explicit criminalization can be discovered at all listed sources of the UN’s Statute of the International Court of Justice.
This signifies that whenever Palestinian jihadists claim the right to use “any means necessary” against an Israeli “occupation,” their arguments are unsupportable in law.
After the so-called peace agreement, the PA and Hamas will plausibly mirror their long-bloodied past. From the beginning, all supporters of Palestinian terrorism-violence against Israelis have maintained that the “sacred” end of Palestinian insurgency justifies the means.
Leaving aside the everyday and ordinary ethical standards by which any such argument must be unacceptable, ends can never justify means under conventional or customary international law.
Empty Palestinian witticisms notwithstanding, one person’s terrorist can never be another’s freedom fighter. While it is true that certain insurgencies can be lawful – for example, “just cause” is at the heart of the US Declaration of Independence – even residually permissible resorts to force must conform to humanitarian international law.
This references resorts that are distinctive, proportionate, and militarily necessary – authoritative standards that were made applicable to insurgent armed forces by Article 3 of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the 1977 Protocols to these Conventions.
Regarding the rule of “proportionality,” this does not demand equivalent or symmetrical force – only force that is balanced against clearly stated goals.
Legal standards for terrorism
Whenever an insurgent force resorts to unjust means, its actions become terroristic ipso facto. Even if the ritualistic Palestinian claim of a hostile Israeli “occupation” were reasonable rather than contrived, a corresponding right to oppose Israel “by any means necessary” would be false. Any openly unjust means would be an expression of criminal terrorism.
These unchallengeable or “peremptory” legal standards are also binding on all combatants by virtue of customary and conventional international law, including Article 1 of the Preamble to the Fourth Hague Convention (1907).
This foundational rule, called the “Martens Clause,” makes all persons responsible for upholding the “laws of humanity” and the “dictates of public conscience.”
History deserves some pride of place. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was formed in 1964, three years before there were any “occupied territories.” What, therefore, was the PLO attempting to “liberate” between 1964 and 1967? There can be only one logical answer.
In law, terrorist crimes mandate universal cooperation in apprehension and punishment. As punishers of “grave breaches” under our decentralized system of international law, a system created after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, all states are required to search out and prosecute, or to extradite, individual terrorist perpetrators. In no circumstances are states permitted to treat terrorists as “freedom fighters.”
There is more. States are never authorized to support terrorism-violence against other states, whether by direct action or by acting within protective terms of an international agreement. This is emphatically true for the United States, which identifies international law as the “supreme law of the land” at Article 6 of the Constitution and at assorted Supreme Court decisions.
The American nation was formed by its Founding Fathers according to timeless legal principles of Sir William Blackstone’s Commentaries and the Hebrew Bible.
If, as widely anticipated, the Trump-brokered Israel-Hamas agreement leads to Palestinian statehood, Israel could expect tangible enlargements of terrorism-violence. And because some of the new state’s assaults on Israel would be ones of direct military action rather than of insurgency, international law would correctly identify these actions as “crimes of war.” Here, the only decipherable changes would be linguistic.
There is one final observation. As the Israel-Hamas agreement will coincide with President Donald Trump’s new mutual security pact with Doha, Palestinian terrorists and war criminals who could flee to Qatar would be guaranteed immunity from law-based punishments. In short order, such immunization could lead Hamas and other jihadi fighters to implement new cycles of barbarous terrorist assault.
Two core questions deserve immediate consideration: (1) Has Israel taken appropriate note of this agreement “side effect?” and (2) Could foreseeable consequences of the agreement with Hamas reasonably be consistent with a genuine peace?
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-870199
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Palestinian Leadership Post-Gaza War: Who Are The Prospective Leaders Of The Future?
By Neville Teller
October 13, 2025
Whether US President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Gaza is implemented partially or fully, the endgame is in sight. However we reach the final outcome, paragraphs 9 and 10 of his 20-point plan will shortly come into play. To quote:
“9. Gaza will be governed under a temporary transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee, responsible for day-to-day services and municipalities.
“This committee will include qualified Palestinians and international experts, with oversight by a new international ‘Board of Peace,’ chaired by President Donald J. Trump, with other members – including former UK prime minister Tony Blair – to be announced.
“10. This ‘Board of Peace’ will set the framework, handle funding, and supervise Gaza’s redevelopment until the Palestinian Authority completes its reform program and can safely assume control.”
In short, no matter how hostilities end, the Board of Peace will be seeking suitable Palestinian candidates to fill the “technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee” that will provide Gaza with its temporary transitional governance.
At the same time, suitable Palestinians will be required to head the reformed Palestinian Authority and eventually “assume control.” A successor to its president, 89-year-old Mahmoud Abbas, could possibly be installed, or at least announced.
Who are these prospective Palestinian leaders of the future, untainted by Hamas, or other jihadist philosophies, or by a rejectionist past?
Prospective Palestinian leaders
One name forces itself to the front of the list – Mohammed Dahlan. Now based in the United Arab Emirates, he is widely regarded by Western and Israeli commentators as a potential post-war leader.
His credibility is boosted by the fact that he is a native Gazan, born in 1961 in the Khan Yunis refugee camp. As a teenager, Dahlan helped set up the Fatah Youth Movement, known as the Fatah Hawks.
In his twenties, he was arrested more than once by the Israeli authorities for political activism, but never for terrorist activities. He put his time in Israeli prisons to good use by learning Hebrew, which he speaks fluently.
In the early 1990s, Dahlan was reliably reported to have helped in the negotiations leading to the Oslo Accords. The first Accord, signed in 1993, was violently opposed by Hamas, which severed relations with Yasser Arafat as a result.
Arafat chose Dahlan to head the Preventive Security Force in Gaza. Israel and the US supported and closely cooperated with him in his new role, particularly in countering Hamas. Building up a force of 20,000 men, he became so powerful that the Strip was nicknamed “Dahlanistan.”
In 2001, Dahlan began denouncing corruption in the PA, calling for reform. The 2006 Palestinian elections saw Hamas gain a majority in Gaza. Dahlan called their election victory a disaster, and denounced Hamas as “a bunch of murderers and thieves.”
Six months later, Hamas staged a bloody coup in Gaza, seized power, and expelled those Fatah officials it had not murdered. Years later, it was revealed that Dahlan played a key role in an abortive US plot to remove Hamas from power.
In October 2007, the Bush administration reportedly pressured Abbas to appoint Dahlan as his deputy. Ever since, Abbas regarded him as a dangerous rival.
In June 2011, he charged Dahlan with financial corruption and murder, even accusing him of killing leader Yasser Arafat. In 2011, Dahlan was expelled from Fatah. French investigators in 2015 concluded that Arafat died of natural causes.
Settling in the UAE, Dahlan became a close adviser to Mohammed bin Zayed, then crown prince, now the UAE president. Though never officially acknowledged, Dahlan is believed to have played a behind-the-scenes role in facilitating the normalization of relations between the UAE and Israel, resulting in the Abraham Accords in September 2020.
The most plausible figure after Dahlan is Salam Fayyad, 73, a former Palestinian prime minister. Widely viewed as a technocratic, Western-friendly administrator, Fayyad built up a reputation as a financial and administrative reformer, first as finance minister and then as PA prime minister.
Significantly, during Blair’s time as special representative of the Quartet for Middle East Peace, Fayyad worked closely with the former UK prime minister on economic development and institution-building in the Palestinian territories.
In particular, they collaborated on the “Fayyad Plan,” a roadmap to statehood. Blair, a member of Trump’s Board of Peace, will no doubt support Fayyad as a candidate for the technocratic committee, which it is to oversee.
Additional potential candidates
Another potential candidate is Mohammad Mustafa, the prominent Palestinian politician and economist appointed PA prime minister in March 2024. Widely viewed as a technocratic reformer, his career has been marked by high-profile international experience and economic leadership, including 15 years at the World Bank Group in Washington, and senior advisory roles for the governments of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
Hanan Ashrawi, 79, the veteran PA diplomat, is also a possibility. In December 2020, she resigned from the Executive Committee of the PLO, citing the marginalization of women and young people in Palestinian leadership. Less involved in formal political office than she used to be, she remains very active as a public activist and advocate, pushing for reform and accountability.
Two other possibilities are Hussein al-Sheikh, currently the PLO’s secretary-general, and Majed Faraj, the chief of PA intelligence. Western circles typically regard al-Sheikh as a pragmatic speaker, deeply involved in diplomatic engagement and security coordination.
Faraj is viewed as a leader in Palestinian efforts to counter terrorism and maintain West Bank stability. He regularly collaborates with Israeli and US intelligence, and his agency has thwarted numerous planned attacks against Israel. Although both men have historical connections to Fatah armed activity, they are generally regarded in Western official circles as valuable security and political interlocutors.
With the sole exception of Dahlan, none of these names appears on the list of leaders most favored by the Palestinian public. According to the latest poll, Palestinians overwhelmingly support 66-year-old Marwan Barghouti as their preferred leader.
Arrested by Israel in April 2002 during the Second Intifada, he was convicted in 2004 on five counts of murder and attempted murder, and sentenced to five life sentences plus an additional 40 years. He will not be included in the return of some 2000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees under the Trump ceasefire arrangements.
Others ranking high are Khaled Mashaal – Hamas through and through – and, more feasible as a future leader, Mustafa Barghouti, a physician, activist, and prominent Palestinian politician known for his secular, reformist orientation.
The Trump plan need not fail for lack of Palestinian leaders. There is also the Palestinian diaspora to scour for possible figures able and, hopefully, willing to play their part in rebuilding Gaza and constructing a hopeful future for the whole region. The political will to get started is all that is needed.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-870182
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Trump’s Flaws In Domestic Politics Helped Broker Gaza Ceasefire
By Sebastien Levi
October 12, 2025
The deal that has just been brokered in Gaza is a major achievement for US President Donald Trump. Unlike the previous deal negotiated by Joe Biden but that he helped finalize, this one is truly his, and credit should be given where it belongs.
What is notable is that the very features that made this deal possible are also the ones that are eroding America’s democracy and prosperity.
Trump is a dealmaker, a truly transactional person with very few core principles. This is what helped him detach Qatar and Turkey from Hamas, by granting these two countries some benefits that outweighed their support for the terror group.
A more traditional president may not have been able or willing to grant a full security agreement to Qatar and hint to sell F-35 fighter jets to Turkey. His transactional approach, that can lead to corruption and a lack of a consistent set of policies, was actually extremely beneficial to achieve a ceasefire.
Trump's approach to politics and diplomacy
Trump’s lack of knowledge and grasp on policy matters is often, and rightly so, mocked on the national stage. He can be easily manipulated as long as he can boast of some successes. A think tank like Heritage Foundation has perfectly understood this to use him as the vessel that could implement its radical conservative ideology.
In diplomacy, his lack of specifics and firm beliefs was actually a blessing as it helped him focus on the end goal, declare the deal done while leaving to others the necessity to work things out. What does not work on health care or taxes can work in diplomacy, especially when the views seem irreconcilable.
When these irreconcilable views are held by radical enemies, like in the Israel-Hamas War, brutality is sometimes necessary to impose a deal, and Trump was able to do just that, on top of a voluntarist mindset.
This brutality on the national stage is causing a major rift in the country, to the detriment of national unity and the very democratic nature of the country, but it has proven effective to impose the Gaza deal – at least its first stage.
Playing to Trump's ego
Trump’s ego goes hand in hand with his brutality. He does not tolerate dissent and wants to be flattered. This causes him to engage in endless fights and retribution, instead of getting things done domestically. The hostage families have understood this and flattered his ego – while appreciating his genuine concern for the hostages – and he said himself that he was aware of their appreciation.
All the parties involved have played his ego, from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize to the Arab states at the UN, and even Hamas was careful enough to thank him repeatedly. At the end of the day, his quest for the ultimate reward for his ego, a Nobel Peace Prize, and the reluctance to oppose him by all the parties may have made this deal possible.
Trump’s short attention span may doom the next stages of the agreement. Yet, there is also a more optimistic outcome: Maybe this indisputable success will cause Trump not only to make sure it leads to long-term pacification in the Middle East but also to pause and think he could get similar applause domestically if he focuses less on retribution, petty grievances, or attacks on checks and balances, and more on solving problems instead of weaponising them, thereby implementing to be the president he promised to be back in 2016.
Born and raised in France, the writer is the correspondent of French Jewish radio, Radio J, in the US, where he has been living for 15 years. He also holds US and Israeli citizenships. His opinions are his only.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-870177
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