A ceasefire is just about holding, but the second phase of President Donald Trump‘s peace plan between Israel and Hamas is fraying under two pressure points.
The first and most preeminent problem is Hamas’s refusal to surrender its heavy weapons in Gaza. The expanding influence of far-right Israeli settler interests in the West Bank poses the second challenge. If Trump cannot resolve these issues, violence will recommence, and his peace plan will implode. That would be a disaster for Israeli and Palestinian civilians, Israel’s diplomatic standing, and both Trump and the U.S.’s credibility with foreign allies.
The first problem is an unsurprising one. An Islamist terrorist group devoted to purifying the entirety of Israel of all Israelis and Jews, Hamas was always unlikely to live up to its word in agreeing to lay down its arms. Hamas knows that once its anti-tank weapons, mortars, rockets, and other heavy weapons are gone, it will lose the means of politically dominating Gaza and attacking Israel. Of course, that’s why Trump’s peace deal put such a priority on Hamas’s disarmament. After Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, atrocity, attacks which took more than 1,200 innocent lives and saw 251 others kidnapped into Gazan dungeons, it became morally and strategically impossible for Israel to allow Hamas to continue existing in its previous form.
Still, the Trump administration is realistic about what disarmament should look like. The administration recognizes that disarming Hamas of every grenade and AK-47 assault rifle is impractical to the point of being impossible. Moreover, those weapons can also pose only a marginal threat to Israel. Instead, the administration is focused on disarming Hamas of its heavy weapons. To that end, Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently called for a “focus” on “the kind of weaponries and capabilities that Hamas would need in order to threaten or attack Israel as a baseline for what disarmament would look like.” Absent that disarmament, he observed that there is no credible prospect of the major international investment in postwar Gaza that is so desperately needed.
The Trump administration is desperate to avoid a return to fighting. But it also recognizes that there is no way Trump’s much-vaunted Gaza governing council and security stabilization force can operate in Gaza while Hamas retains heavy weapons. The United States will thus have to increase pressure on Qatar and Turkey, Hamas’s two key sponsors and enablers, while also clarifying that it will support resumed Israeli military action if the terrorist group doesn’t start to disarm. While Trump needn’t rush here, nor can he accept the current status quo to become the norm. After all, that would only ensure Hamas retains its ability to act as Gaza’s powerbroker into perpetuity. It will also give Hamas time to reconstitute its forces to recommence attacks on Israel.
But if the threat of resumed Israeli military action constitutes the sword-side of any new diplomatic gambit, the possibility of massive investment in Gaza can constitute the carrot.
With the buy-in of America’s Arab allies in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt, the U.S. has apparently developed a “Project Sunrise” plan to rebuild Gaza as a thriving coastal metropolis. This proposal offers a pathway toward more positive Gazan aspirations and opportunities outside of Hamas’s hateful ideology. Again, however, the Trump administration should also make clear to its Arab allies and to the Palestinian people that if Hamas refuses to disarm, Project Sunrise will not find the light.
Next up, there’s the West Bank quandary.
The key problem here is the escalating effort by far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich to establish new settlements that eliminate any practical prospect for Palestinian statehood. Smotrich and Netanyahu have been clear that this is their overriding motive when it comes to settlement policy. And while a Palestinian state will be a highly remote prospect for the foreseeable future (in large part because of the continued dominance of the Palestinian political process by a mix of jihadists and corrupt geriatrics), the basic potential of that state is a critical element for Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy.
It is problematic, then, that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government formally announced 11 new West Bank settlements on Sunday. This announcement follows weeks of escalating violence by Israeli settler extremists against Palestinian civilians, actions which are designed to force Palestinians out of their homes. The Israel Defense Forces have also come under attack as they protect Palestinians and attempt to detain settler extremists, receiving little follow-on support from the government.
These actions constitute a clear break with Trump’s Oct. 23 pledge that “Israel’s not going to do anything with the West Bank.” In turn, if Israel continues with largely unrestrained settlement activities, Trump will lose buy-in for his peace plan from America’s Arab allies. He will also risk losing the positive economic and political momentum secured with those allies since he returned to office.
And to be clear, while some Israeli settlements in the West Bank will remain part of Israel in all future scenarios, unrestrained settlement expansion damages U.S. national security by fueling anti-American jihadist propaganda. Trump should lay down a marker for Netanyahu’s government, warning that he expects a more concessionary stance here.
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Trump deserves great credit for bringing two years of brutal war to an end. But if he wants Israelis and Palestinians, and America and the world to reap the dividends of peace, he must return his attention to the Middle East.
If not, the extremists will take increasing advantage of the vacuum of his distraction.
