Hamas Conditionally Agrees to “Peace Plan”

Earlier this week, Pres. Trump threatened Hamas, warning it to accept terms of his “20-point” deal or face “all HELL, like no one has ever seen before;” Concurrently, the Arab states mounted a full court press. Under duress, Hamas has agreed to some terms of the proposed Trump-Netanyahu “peace plan.”  Despite the global huzzahs and Trump’s bombast (it “may be unprecedented…it is unprecedented,” “one of the great days ever in civilization…which could lead to “eternal peace”) it is far from a done deal.  It is neither “eternal” or even “peace in our time,” as Neville Chamberlain infamously predicted.

In a statement today demanding Hamas immediately agree to the entire plan, Trump called the Palestinian-Israeli conflict a “3,000 YEAR CATASTROPHE.” This is a botched conception of current and past Middle East history, betraying utter ignorance. At best, one can say that the region has, for millennia, been in perpetual conflict among major Mediterranean, and more recently European powers.  While ancient Judea was part of that past bloodshed, Israel’s war against its Arab neighbors (including in Gaza) is a successor to European colonization, occurring over the past 150 years. It has nothing to do with ancient history.  As I wrote here, Israel aspires to regional hegemony, becoming in effect the latest in a long line of colonial powers.

Hamas has not agreed to the entirety of the document. The strategy behind its response is laid out by Jeremy Scahill in this trenchant account based on interviews with Hamas leadership:

It [the response] was a strategic gamble; at its core, Hamas’s response was not an unequivocal acceptance of Trump’s demands, but the text was also void of any language that explicitly rejected any of his terms. It was aimed at threading a needle by crediting Trump, linking him more closely to a diplomatic alliance with Arab and other Muslim nations, and sending a message that Hamas was embracing the essence of Trump’s plan. But it also needed to preserve Palestinian rights and, most significantly, defer any answer on most of the terms laid out in the proposal. The key goal was to achieve an immediate Gaza ceasefire and to win Trump’s buy-in to restrain Netanyahu’s bloodlust and to start real negotiations.

The only provision it approved in full is the release of all Israeli hostages pending a halt to IDF hostilities. Though Trump demanded an end to such attacks, the army continues to fire on, and murder Palestinians.

Even when it did accede to a separate point, it did so only partially. The original proposal called for a “Board of Peace” administered by Tony Blair and some of his designated cronies to run Gaza for at least five years.  Few, if any Gazans would agree to a second foreign occupier there. Instead, Hamas proposed a governance body of Palestinian technocrats.  The Trump-Netanyahu document specifies such a body only after the Board of Peace determines that Gaza is “ready” for independent Palestinian control.  It mentions a period of five years, but even that is shrouded in vague conditions.Instead it proposed a governance body of Palestinian technocrats.

Netanyahu too has, in effect, rejected key elements. He refused to fully withdraw his forces,. He declared the IDF would maintain a perpetual presence of its forces in a “security zone” inside Gaza.  Thus, the latter would have the “distinction” of two simultaneous occupiers on its territory.

The widely celebrated 20-point peace deal is not the triumph it is made out to be, and is anything but “accepted” by Hamas.  Many media outlets have used that word in headlines. But it is premature. Israel has summarily rejected key elements.  Neither has Hamas fully embraced it.  The best we can say is that the latter has indicated an openness to further talks that would flesh out its details.

Israel, on the other hand, has only agreed to fulfill those conditions in its own version of the deal. It has sent a negotiating team to Egypt to iron out the details.  The delegation is led by Netanyahu confidant, Ron Dermer, who negotiated the Israeli amendments to the original peace document.  Is he there to sabotage a deal or to sign one? Based on previous failed negotiations over the past two years, I don’t hold out much hope Israel will play a constructive role.

Past ceasefire deals have fallen apart in similar fashion.  Earlier this year, Israel honored the first phase of a ceasefire, only to refuse to enter into negotiations regarding the second phase, as was specified in the original proposal.  Netanyahu thereby scored a coup: he got some hostages released while continuing a war criticial to his political survival.

The current deal offers Israel numerous “outs” and offers vague promises lacking specificity.  That is why it’s critical to pin down the particulars, add hard deadlines and benchmarks. Otherwise, it is more of the same vague hopes and dreams dashed on the rocks of Israeli machinaton and prevarication.