Imposing peace in Gaza
Two years after October 7, 2023, there is a possibility of a truce in Gaza. It is an uncertain, fragile, and biased prospect, but a real one. An opportunity to stop the violence, but not to resolve the conflict. peace plan Donald Trump's proposal lays the groundwork for a ceasefire, but it remains a proposal drafted by Benjamin Netanyahu's main ally, without the involvement of the Palestinians, with few guarantees of compliance, and without a timetable for the Israeli army's withdrawal. Hamas has agreed to release all the hostages—20 alive and up to 28 dead—but demands negotiations on some elements of the plan.
At a time of unprecedented international pressure due to the total and systematic destruction of Gaza and its people, which was unleashed with total impunity after October 7, diplomacy is once again mobilizing around the only international actor with the capacity to negotiate with Netanyahu. This is provided that what is proposed strengthens the Israeli prime minister, because Netanyahu had no problem publicly humiliating Hillary Clinton when it was the Obama administration who was demanding that he curb his settlement policy.
Trump's hierarchy prevails over European governments incapable of having their own shared alternative to the conflict. And those who recently signed the recognition of the Palestinian state are now signing up to a proposal for peace plan that doesn't contemplate any possibility of making it possible. Quite the contrary, it strengthens a guardianship. It halts hostilities to leave a devastated reality in which the Palestinians now only occupy less than 22% of the lands they consider theirs; with 67,000 Palestinians dead in two years, and with the return of hunger as a weapon of war.
Furthermore, proposing Tony Blair to lead this transition perfectly summarizes the background of the US strategy. As CIDOB researcher Moussa Bourekba pointed out after learning of the proposal, "it's about resolving a colonial conflict through a colonial mandate a century later." But it also connects with the business agenda of Trump's foreign policy. Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, the think tank Founded by the former British Prime Minister in 2016, it is backed by billionaire Larry Ellison, a key player in the US digital state transformation project under Donald Trump. Blair's institute also contributed to the development of the Gaza Riviera project.
The skill of a Nobel Prize-obsessed Trump is to offer immediate solutions regardless of the complexity. Once again, as happened with the Abraham Accords, which the first Trump administration promoted to normalize Israel's relations with the region, the Palestinian cause is once again diluted under the weight of other regional balances and interests. Furthermore, the negotiation of the peace plan It also serves European capitals the perfect excuse to halt the only real pressure measure on Israel they had decided to discuss: the suspension of the association agreement, which is now beginning to be seen as less necessary in the discourse of some European capitals.
But Palestine is much more than Hamas. And several European officials today privately admit the error of the decision not to recognize the result of the elections held in Palestine in 2006 and the EU's "no contact" policy with Hamas, which remains in effect today. This error is the beginning of the geopolitical irrelevance that weighs on the EU in a conflict that is less than 400 kilometers from its borders. And while the bombing of Gaza continues, and indirect negotiations in Egypt, the world and the region cling to the idea of stopping the violence with a peace imposed by Trump's coercive power as the only opportunity.