Palestinians walk past the rubble of destroyed buildings, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, on Thursday.Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters
Over time, the impossible can become possible. Also over time, the seemingly inevitable can be reduced to a pile of charred might-have-beens.
The only certainty is that time’s arrow points forward, into uncertainty.
The 20-point Gaza peace plan says that “Gaza will be a deradicalized terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbours.” That’s Point 1.
It says that “Gaza will be redeveloped for the benefit of the people of Gaza, who have suffered more than enough.” That’s Point 2.
Point 3 says that “if both sides” – Israel and Hamas – “agree to this proposal, the war will immediately end.”
Both sides having claimed to have sort of agreed, the war has ended, sort of. Gaza is still a violent place – more on that in a moment – but fighting between Israel and Hamas has stopped.
Now comes the hard part.
The remaining 17 points are all about achieving Points 1 and 2. The final destination, years in the future, is a self-governing Gaza within an independent Palestinian state, living in peace next to Israel, with Hamas disarmed and consigned to the dustbin of history.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration crafted what can be generously described as a novel process for reaching this long-dreamed-of peace. Most Middle Eastern governments, along with the leading European countries, Prime Minister Mark Carney and even the president of the soccer conglomerate FIFA jetted to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt earlier this week to be associated with it.
That is a hopeful sign. Time has remade the Middle East. Back in the 1960s, when the most powerful countries in the Arab world were Egypt and Syria, they tethered their foreign policies to the Palestinian cause. Talk of recognizing “the Zionist entity” was forbidden.
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That was a very long time ago. The centre of power in the Arab world today resides in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. They have zero interest in going to war against Israel, and rather a lot of interest in co-operating with it. They want the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to end, so that they can get on with business.
Unlike people in the streets of Toronto, Montreal and dozens of other Western cities, who spent the past two years chanting slogans such as “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free,” the new leaders of the Arab world are not dreaming of ending Israel and replacing it with a Palestinian state.
In Israel, public opinion has long been opposed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s self-serving continuation of war, and favoured a ceasefire that would bring the hostages home. As for the people of Gaza, they have spent the past two years as the prisoners of Hamas and its Oct. 7 strategy. They’ve had it with both.
Time has opened doors. But time, if wasted, may yet close them.
The Trump peace plan’s next steps call for the disarmament of Hamas and its removal as the government of Gaza; its replacement by a “technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee” not associated with Hamas or the Palestinian Authority; the establishment of an “international stabilization force” to provide policing and security in Gaza; and a gradual pullback of Israeli forces, to the degree that the new, non-Hamas administration competently manages the territory and ensures that “Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel, Egypt, or its citizens.”
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In other words, the peacekeepers are there to stop the revival of Hamas. They are supposed to protect the interim Palestinian administration, and the people of Gaza, from Hamas. That’s what the plan says.
Will this international security force, which has yet to be formed and may be drawn in large part from Arab and Muslim countries, be willing to do that? Arab soldiers sent to Palestine, fighting Palestinians?
Don’t bet on it.
In the interim, Hamas is taking advantage of the time between the ceasefire and whatever comes next to reassert control over areas from which Israel has withdrawn. There is a power vacuum, and it is filling it. Hamas fighters have come out of hiding and begun attacking other Palestinian militias vying for power. That has included at least one public execution of prisoners, to remind Gazans of who’s in charge.
To the extent Hamas restores its status as the government of Gaza, Israel will not further withdraw, and may even restart fighting. The 20-point peace plan, which in the best of circumstances could take years to complete, will not leave the station, and will never arrive at a two-state solution.
Given that Mr. Netanyahu and Hamas are both opposed to the final destination, and the stops in between, time is of the essence.