Trump’s Peace Plan is Tailor-Made for Israel. It Still Might Work.

The agreement this week between Israel and Hamas is not a forever peace as President Trump has claimed nor the total victory that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised. As long as Israel pursues its annexationist policies in the West Bank the agreement cannot offer a credible path to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Too much blood has flowed and too many traumas have scarred an entire generation of Israelis and Palestinians for that to be possible, at least for the foreseeable future.

But for the first time in two years a U.S.-brokered accord offers a way out of the bloody parade of horrors Israelis and Palestinians have visited on one another since Oct. 7, 2023. With focused and determined leadership, it may be possible at least to imagine a better pathway for Israelis and Palestinians.

Under the agreement, Hamas is to release Israeli hostages in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners, Israeli forces are to pull back in Gaza and Israel is to allow in humanitarian aid. Those are among the few elements that negotiators for both sides actually agreed to in the 20-point plan proposed by the United States last month, a plan that aspires to a comprehensive end to the Israel-Hamas war.

With two combatants pledged to each other’s destruction, the pitfalls of an ambiguous plan, much of which remains to be negotiated, are all too obvious. Israel and Hamas both would have leverage over the pace at which provisions would be carried out and could block progress. The plan seems to offer few details about how both sides move from one phase to another; how compliance will be monitored and by whom; and what happens if one side fails to carry out its obligations.

The other flaw is that the plan, like so many U.S. initiatives before it, is tailor-made to address Israeli needs and requirements.

Of course, extremist ministers in Mr. Netanyahu’s government oppose some elements. The plan does away with any notion that Palestinians will be forced out of Gaza. It inveighs against any Israeli occupation or annexation. And it includes the release of Palestinians who have murdered Israelis.

But the plan adheres strongly to Mr. Netanyahu’s goals, including front-loading the return of the hostages, demilitarizing Hamas and ending its governance in Gaza. While mentioning Palestinian statehood, it promises only a vague pathway to that target.

It is perhaps the most pro-Israeli component of the plan — the release of the hostages — that offers the best chance of defusing the conflict and benefiting Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Once the hostages are released, the justification and support for Israel’s continuing its comprehensive military operations in Gaza will erode and most likely end under pressure from Washington and key Arab states.

Along with the hostage released, Israel is supposed to undertake a limited withdrawal. Battle lines so described in the accord would remain frozen until conditions are met for the complete staged withdrawal. Humanitarian assistance would surge “without the interference” as the agreement notes, of either Hamas or Israel. Monitoring and pressure from the mediators — Egypt, Qatar, possibly Turkey but mainly the United States — would be critical in making this happen.

Why, at the beginning of the third year of this war, which started with the killing of 1,200 people in Israel by Hamas and has led to the death of tens of thousands of Palestinians and the devastation of Gaza, are we possibly closer now than ever before to ending it?

It could be that the military commanders of Hamas on the ground who are responsible for making decisions were under pressure from the external leadership to accept this deal and ensure the political survival of the organization. At the same time, the group may well have determined that keeping the hostages was an increasing liability because it allowed Israel to continue comprehensive military operations and pressure Hamas without end. Arab states almost certainly made this argument. A weakened and isolated Iran, Hamas’s main patron, was evidently unwilling and unable to do much to change the group’s fortunes for the better.

But the main driver in this affair was Mr. Trump’s pressure on Mr. Netanyahu. It was evident that Mr. Netanyahu would rather not have done this deal. In an unusual display of U.S. presidential pressure on an Israeli leader, Mr. Trump forced him. As the inestimable Israeli journalist Nahum Barnea noted, Mr. Trump doesn’t threaten Mr. Netanyahu, he orders him.

It’s impossible to predict whether the headlines of hope and promise reflected in Mr. Trump’s Gaza initiative will truly bring the war to to an end, let alone create momentum toward a broader peace.

Almost every point in the president’s initiative contains a universe of complexity that needs to be negotiated. At its core, the plan, like its predecessors over the past two years, contains a fundamental impasse: how to reconcile the conflicting objectives of Hamas and Israel.

That impasse is the reason all previous efforts to defuse the conflict never moved beyond an initial stage. The Netanyahu government wants Hamas to disappear as a military organization and as a political entity capable of resurgence. Hamas clearly wants to retain its weapons, remain the most influential force in Gaza and ultimately dominate the Palestinian national movement.

It strains credulity to imagine that any security forces from Arab countries would deploy into Gaza, as the plan suggests, risking killing Palestinians or watching as Israeli forces did the same. Other elements of the plan, including decommissioning Hamas’s arsenal or dismantling its tunnel system are big lifts. Constructing a “board of peace” dominated by international actors has its own difficulties.

There’s the issue of the president himself. If he does manage to bring about the release of the hostages, the delivery of humanitarian assistance and reduced Israeli military operations, it may well be that the Gaza situation will become less urgent to him. A president whose attention span is short and unfocused might lose interest in the next phases, which entail enormously complicated negotiations.

The past two years have driven home the reality that in a conflict perceived to be existential, or nearly so, from the perspective of the combatants, the influence of outside parties is inherently limited.

That said, having been a part of failed Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking efforts for the better part of 20 years, I believe any accord, especially one between Israel and Hamas, is an extraordinary accomplishment. Under these circumstances and in the face of immense human suffering, it was essential to offer a different pathway, however imperfect.

Aaron David Miller, a former State Department Middle East analyst and negotiator, is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

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