Trump's Plan for Peace: Security, Governance, and the Politics of Transition in the Palestinian Territories

The devastation wrought in Gaza since October 7 has produced both a humanitarian catastrophe and a geopolitical opening that outside powers are eager to seize. Into this breach has stepped the United States, with President Donald Trump positioning himself not merely as mediator but as the central architect of a sweeping new framework for Gaza’s postwar order. The proposal, presented as a mechanism to restore stability and forestall renewed cycles of violence, seeks to pair a hard-edged security blueprint with a reimagined system of governance under international supervision. Yet its very ambition underscores the contradictions at its core. It presumes the possibility of forcibly eradicating entrenched militant structures while simultaneously claiming to engineer a political environment conducive to peace. In this tension lies both the plan’s allure to policymakers and its likely fragility in practice.

Framing the plan as a decisive break with past half-measures, Trump and his allies have cast it as a comprehensive response to what they describe as decades of failed diplomacy and ineffective deterrence. But behind the rhetoric of boldness and renewal lies a set of unresolved dilemmas that threaten to undermine its credibility before implementation even begins. The framework presupposes that Gaza can be “deradicalized” through demilitarization, that governance can be externally imposed without democratic legitimacy, and that a vague promise of eventual Palestinian statehood will be sufficient to placate popular demands for sovereignty. Each of these assumptions has already provoked skepticism among some actors, international observers, and Palestinians themselves, who view the initiative less as a peace plan than as an attempt to manage the conflict indefinitely under new terms. The plan therefore enters the diplomatic arena not as a neutral solution, but as a deeply contested project whose success depends on overcoming structural obstacles that previous initiatives have consistently failed to resolve.

The trajectory of Gaza’s militarization since Hamas seized control in 2007 underscores why the assumption of rapid deradicalization is, at best, aspirational. Over nearly two decades, successive Israeli campaigns, whether in 2008–09, 2014, or 2021, achieved limited tactical successes but failed to uproot the underlying architecture of resistance. Smuggling corridors from Sinai, locally manufactured rockets, and the continual replenishment of arms demonstrate that Gaza’s armed infrastructure is not a temporary aberration but a deeply entrenched system that has adapted to siege conditions. To speak of a “terror-free zone” without accounting for this adaptive resilience risks substituting rhetorical ambition for strategic feasibility.

The military and political landscape after October 7 further complicates any attempt to engineer Gaza’s demilitarization. The attacks exposed not only Israeli vulnerabilities but also the scale of Hamas’s operational sophistication: coordinated infiltration, mass hostage-taking, and exploitation of the subterranean tunnel network. Israel’s subsequent bombardment inflicted extraordinary destruction, but analysts note that material devastation alone does not translate into political compliance. As some have argued, the logistical challenge of disarmament amid such urban density would require intrusive verification regimes and decades of sustained international engagement. What emerges, therefore, is a paradox. Israel may succeed in degrading Hamas militarily, but the very conditions of occupation and devastation may generate fertile ground for renewed militancy.

Historical precedent offers little reassurance. Israel’s 2005 disengagement, which sought to extricate the state from the burdens of direct occupation, illustrates the limits of unilateral solutions. The withdrawal did not yield peace; rather, it left a governance vacuum that Hamas exploited to consolidate power. Reoccupation now reverses that trajectory but without addressing the fundamental drivers of resistance, namely the absence of sovereignty, the persistence of blockade, and the lack of a credible political horizon. In this sense, the proposed reoccupation is not a break from history but a reenactment of its contradictions, substituting military control for political resolution while risking the entrenchment of conflict for another generation.

The Trump administration’s peace proposal hinges on the conviction that Gaza can be rendered "terror-free” through a sweeping campaign of disarmament, monitored ceasefires, and the deployment of an International Stabilization Force (ISF). This security architecture is presented as the necessary precondition for humanitarian relief and political transition, yet the operational details remain frustratingly ambiguous. The plan outlines broad goal; eradication of Hamas’s military capacity, verified weapons collection, and eventual Israeli withdrawal, but avoids specifying enforcement mechanisms, timelines, or benchmarks for success. In practice, such omissions shift the burden of implementation onto actors with sharply divergent interests, raising doubts about whether the plan is structurally capable of delivering the stability it promises.

The feasibility of comprehensive deradicalization and disarmament must be evaluated against Gaza’s entrenched realities. Decades of clandestine arms production, a sophisticated tunnel network, and an ecosystem of resistance groups make total demilitarization nearly impossible to verify, let alone enforce. Analysts have emphasized that even with international oversight, identifying and neutralizing hidden stockpiles would require not only sustained ground presence but also intelligence cooperation at a level unlikely to materialize in the current political climate. The very notion of erasing militant capacity through technical monitoring betrays a profound misreading of the adaptive strategies Hamas and its affiliates have honed under siege and blockade.

Perhaps just as problematic is the absence of clarity on who, precisely, would enforce the disarmament provisions. The ISF is conceived as a multinational coalition composed of willing partners, yet to be named. In theory, an ISF composed of American, Egyptian, Jordanian, and Gulf Arab contingents could neutralize militant resurgence while building local capacity. In practice, the coordination of states with divergent strategic priorities and domestic constraints presents a formidable obstacle. Egypt resists permanent entanglement in Gaza' Jordan faces political exposure at home; the Gulf states weigh regional prestige against public opinion strongly hostile to collaboration with Israel. Even if an ISF materializes, its perception among Gazans will likely define its operational lifespan. Protectors in the optimistic view, occupiers or foreign proxies in the more probable scenario. But without a clearly defined command structure, rules of engagement, and duration of mandate, the ISF risks devolving into a symbolic presence incapable of preventing either clandestine rearmament or local resistance to foreign troops.

The contradictions of the ISF model underscore the fragility of the broader proposal. Israel’s insistence on retaining a “security perimeter” around Gaza blurs lines of authority and raises questions over the true locus of sovereignty. Should Israeli forces reserve the right to intervene at will, the ISF risks becoming little more than a symbolic fig leaf, eroding its credibility before it begins. Meanwhile, Arab participation, essential to legitimizing the mission, remains contingent on Washington’s willingness to address their political demands, including a credible path toward Palestinian statehood. Absent such assurances, regional contributions will be perfunctory at best, undermining the very multilateralism the plan claims as its hallmark. What emerges, then, is not a stabilizing force but a fragile coalition whose contradictions may collapse under the weight of contested legitimacy, leaving Gaza suspended between occupation and international oversight without the clarity of sovereignty.

Finally, the emphasis on deradicalization as a mechanical process underestimates the political dimensions of militant persistence. Disarmament cannot be sustained in a vacuum. Unless Palestinians see a viable political horizon, including prospects for representation and eventual sovereignty, disarmed factions may simply reconstitute underground or splinter into more radicalized cells. By tying the cessation of hostilities to an unrealistic expectation of total demilitarization, the plan risks establishing conditions for perpetual deadlock rather than genuine peace. In this respect, the security provisions illustrate the broader flaw of the proposal: the substitution of ambitious but vague promises for the hard, detail-oriented work of reconciliation, governance, and legitimacy-building that alone can anchor durable stability in Gaza.

The governance provisions of the Trump proposal represent its most controversial departure from established norms of post-conflict transition. By envisioning an international “Board of Peace,” chaired by Trump and featuring figures such as Tony Blair, the plan substitutes external stewardship for indigenous political authority. While such an arrangement is defended by its architects as a mechanism to guarantee impartial oversight and prevent a rapid relapse into militant rule, it effectively denies Palestinians the ability to directly shape their immediate political future. This externalization of sovereignty is not merely a procedural question; it reactivates long-standing anxieties in Gaza and the West Bank about foreign-imposed tutelage and colonial-style administration, raising doubts about whether such a structure could ever command genuine legitimacy in Palestinian society.

The marginalization of the Palestinian Authority (PA) within this scheme deepens these concerns. Although the plan suggests the PA may eventually reassume control over Gaza, its absence from the transitional framework undercuts its credibility and further weakens an institution already struggling with questions of capacity and representativeness. Excluding Palestinian political actors from the outset creates the impression that sovereignty is conditional upon external approval rather than internal consent. This risks producing a political vacuum in which the PA is too weak to assert its authority when called upon, while Hamas and other factions, though formally excluded, continue to shape realities on the ground through subterranean networks. The result is a paradoxical situation: a governance framework designed to stabilize Gaza may instead intensify its fragmentation.

Just as fraught is the plan’s decision to link humanitarian relief, reconstruction, and political progress directly to the release of Israeli hostages and the exchange of Palestinian prisoners. On one level, this mechanism attempts to align immediate humanitarian imperatives with conflict resolution incentives, creating a transactional pathway for both sides to achieve tangible gains. Yet by rendering food, medicine, and rebuilding materials conditional upon political bargaining, the proposal risks reducing civilian survival to a form of leverage. International humanitarian law emphasizes that basic needs must not be subordinated to military or political objectives; tying relief to hostage diplomacy blurs this principle and erodes the neutrality that underpins humanitarian action.

The ethical consequences of this conditionality reverberate beyond legal frameworks. In practice, the linkage incentivizes both sides to withhold or delay concessions, prolonging civilian suffering while bargaining over lives becomes normalized as a political tactic. For Gaza’s population, already besieged by displacement and infrastructure collapse, the message is unmistakable: their welfare is contingent not on universal human rights but on the vicissitudes of political negotiation. Such instrumentalization threatens to entrench rather than resolve cycles of coercion. Rather than fostering reconciliation, the mechanism risks institutionalizing distrust, as each side learns that humanitarian lifelines can be exploited as bargaining chips, thereby embedding a logic of hostage-taking into the very fabric of post-war reconstruction.

The exclusion of Hamas from any governing structure is both a strategic necessity and a perilous gamble. On one hand, Washington and Jerusalem insist that no durable settlement is possible while Hamas retains coercive authority; on the other, the outright banishment of its political apparatus risks perpetuating the very instability such a framework seeks to prevent. Conditional amnesty provisions, designed to entice militants into civilian life, are undermined by the absence of clear mechanisms for verification and reintegration. Without credible incentives or inclusive pathways, disarmed cadres may fragment into clandestine cells or more radical splinters, thereby reproducing cycles of insurgency rather than extinguishing them. The paradox is stark: excluding Hamas promises legitimacy in the eyes of Israel and the United States, but potentially delegitimizes the project entirely in the eyes of Palestinians who, however reluctantly, acknowledge Hamas as a fixture of their political reality.

The result is a looming vacuum that cannot be dismissed as hypothetical. Political voids in conflict zones rarely remain unfilled; rather, they are seized by opportunistic actors who thrive in environments of fractured authority. The disempowerment of Hamas, without simultaneous investment in robust and credible Palestinian institutions, invites precisely the kind of fragmentation that destabilizes societies. Historical parallels in Iraq and Afghanistan suggest that disbanding entrenched armed structures without parallel political integration produces insurgent afterlives far more difficult to control. Thus, the plan’s rigid separation of security and politics neglects a central lesson of twenty-first century conflict management. Military demobilization divorced from meaningful political inclusion creates instability by design.

The challenge of reconstruction in Gaza is inseparable from the political uncertainties that surround the proposed transition framework. RAND’s estimates suggest that rebuilding basic infrastructure alone will require decades and exceed $50 billion in costs, a figure that presumes uninterrupted international funding and coordination unlikely to materialize given donor fatigue and political contingencies. The absence of clear guarantees, coupled with conditional aid tied to hostage agreements and security benchmarks, risks embedding reconstruction in a permanent state of suspension. Without durable mechanisms for oversight and delivery, the promise of renewal may devolve into an exercise in managed stagnation, compounding the social trauma of war and heightening the perception that humanitarian relief has been subordinated to geopolitical bargaining.

The plan also introduces a profound demographic risk: reconstruction tied to ill-defined security provisions could accelerate indirect displacement, whether through deliberate engineering or structural neglect. Institutions such as the Atlantic Council have warned that absent explicit safeguards, Gaza’s reconstruction effort may facilitate generational mass displacement, either by rendering areas permanently uninhabitable or by channeling aid in ways that incentivize outward migration. This prospect resonates deeply with historical memory, evoking parallels to prior episodes of forced movement and undermining the credibility of claims that the plan serves humanitarian ends. The danger is that Gaza will be reshaped not as a functioning polity but as a fragmented humanitarian zone, stripped of political agency and vulnerable to external designs.

Equally significant is the deferment of Palestinian statehood to an amorphous “political horizon” contingent on internal reforms and externally defined stability benchmarks. By conditioning sovereignty on criteria set largely by outside actors, the plan entrenches an asymmetry of power that directly undercuts the principle of self-determination. For Palestinians, the absence of a concrete timeline or binding commitments is not merely a diplomatic shortfall but a signal that their political future remains hostage to external interests, rather than to their own democratic will. Critics argue that this vagueness mirrors a familiar pattern in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, where promises of statehood are perpetually postponed while facts on the ground, military occupation, settlement expansion, and now demographic uncertainty in Gaza, continue to evolve. In this sense, the plan risks freezing the conflict rather than resolving it, leaving the structural grievances that drive violence unaddressed and perhaps even intensified.

The Trump peace proposal for Gaza illustrates the inherent contradictions of attempting to fuse hard security imperatives with a framework of externally imposed governance. On the one hand, the plan aspires to provide immediate stability through demilitarization, international oversight, and reconstruction tied to hostage release. Yet on the other, its structural ambiguities, ranging from the undefined role of the International Stabilization Force to the vague promises of a “political horizon” for Palestinian statehood, undermine its credibility as a vehicle for durable peace. By postponing meaningful Palestinian ownership and embedding conditionalities that subordinate sovereignty to external benchmarks, the plan risks entrenching the very grievances that have historically fueled cycles of violence. Put simply, proposals that sideline local legitimacy in favor of securitized control may only reproduce instability under a new guise.

What ultimately emerges is not a pathway toward reconciliation but a precarious balancing act in which humanitarian needs, political legitimacy, and security guarantees are in constant tension. The promise of reconstruction is hollow if it remains hostage to political maneuvering, just as the language of deradicalization rings hollow absent a genuine framework for enfranchisement. Unless Palestinian voices are meaningfully integrated into the architecture of governance, and unless international oversight is perceived as facilitation rather than occupation, the plan will likely be remembered less as a turning point than as another episode of externally engineered failure. In this sense, the peace proposal reveals the limits of imposing order from without. Stability cannot be manufactured through conditional aid or managed by proxy administrators, but must be anchored in the lived realities and political aspirations of the people most affected by the conflict.