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THE ISRAELI RIGHT’S ‘TIME OF MIRACLES’ IS OVER. THE
PALESTINIANS ARE GOING NOWHERE  
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Meron Rapoport
October 2, 2025
+972 Magazine
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_ While problematic for many reasons, Trump’s 20-point plan to end
the war in Gaza appears to spell the end of the Israeli government’s
expulsion fantasies. _

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with U.S. President
Donald Trump and at the White House announcing the U.S. 20-point plan
for ending the war in Gaza, Washington, DC, September 29, 2025., The
White House/CC BY 3.0 US

 

We should know better than to take any so-called peace proposal
presented by U.S. President Donald Trump along with Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at face value. But as the world awaits
Hamas’ response to Trump’s 20-point plan
[[link removed]] for ending the war
in Gaza, published in conjunction with the pair’s White House press
conference on Monday, it is possible to begin drawing some early
conclusions about what this all means for Israel and the Palestinians.

Before any discussion of who “won” or “lost” over the past two
years, however, we must not forget the simple fact that if this
agreement is implemented to the letter, the genocide will end, the
razing of Gaza will stop, humanitarian aid will flow in preventing
further starvation, all of the remaining Israeli hostages will be
released along with thousands of Palestinians held with and without
charge in Israeli prisons, and Israeli soldiers will no longer be
killed in service of a senseless and criminal war.

There is plenty that is confusing and contradictory in both Trump’s
speech and the written proposal, while some of the countries that
initially endorsed the text are already distancing themselves
[[link removed]] from
it following last-minute alterations
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Netanyahu. But the fundamentals are much the same as they have been
throughout the ceasefire negotiations going all the way back to
October 2023: the release of the Israeli hostages in exchange for an
end to the war and the release of Palestinian prisoners, a phased
Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the relinquishing of power by Hamas, and
the entry of a multinational security force with the involvement of
several Arab states.

After an estimated 100,000 Palestinian deaths
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the flattening of most of Gaza’s cities, any talk of “victory”
for Hamas would be plainly absurd. But this proposal is no victory for
Israel either — certainly not for Netanyahu and his partners in
government, whose ambitions of cleansing Gaza of its Palestinian
population have long been clear.

Not even a week had passed since the Hamas-led attacks of October 7
when Israel’s (somewhat impotent) Intelligence Ministry, led by Gila
Gamliel of Netanyahu’s Likud Party, published an official plan
[[link removed]] calling
for the “evacuation” of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents. The army
began implementing a policy of destroying entire neighborhoods
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prevent the return of the displaced not long after, and this became
its primary mode of operation starting with the so-called
“Generals’ Plan”
[[link removed]] in
late 2024. 

The result is that Rafah
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much of Khan Younis
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south along with Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya
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now parts of Gaza City
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the north no longer exist, having been entirely razed to the ground
and their populations squeezed into an area
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percent of the Strip’s land.

An aerial view of destroyed residential buildings in the Tel Al-Sultan
neighborhood, following the withdrawal of the Israeli army during a
ceasefire, Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, January 19, 2025. (Ali
Hassan/Flash90)

From the moment Trump presented his “Gaza Riviera” plan in
February of this year, ethnic cleansing — whether framed as
“voluntary immigration” or simply expulsion — became the
Israeli government’s central plan of action
[[link removed]].
Netanyahu spoke about it openly
[[link removed]].
Defense Minister Israel Katz established a “transfer
administration” to develop plans to carry it out. Israeli and
American officials shopped around
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countries willing to absorb large numbers of Palestinian refugees. 

The army presented “driving out the population
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“Operation Gideon’s Chariots” launched in May, and boasted
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convoys of hundreds of thousands of people forced out of Gaza City in
recent weeks as a result of “Gideon’s Chariots II.” Finance
Minister Bezalel Smotrich claimed
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dividing up real estate in Gaza with the Trump administration, as what
he has described as a “decisive victory
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the Palestinians appeared within reach. For the Israeli right, it was,
as Settlement and National Missions Minister Orit Strook put it
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of miracles.” 

Much has been left ambiguous in the White House’s 20-point plan, but
when it comes to the question of migration, the language is
unequivocal. “No one will be forced to leave Gaza, and those who
wish to leave will be free to do so and free to return,” Article 12
states. “We will encourage people to stay and offer them the
opportunity to build a better Gaza.”

The “time of miracles,” that once-in-a-century opportunity to
eliminate the Palestinians from Gaza once and for all, is over.
Battered and bruised, the Gazans remain. 

Article 16 further states that “Israel will not occupy or annex
Gaza.” Together with Trump’s comments
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that West Bank annexation is also off the table for the time being,
the government’s wish list is fast slipping away.

Moreover, the dizzying U-turn of Netanyahu’s spokespeople in the
right-wing media — from euphoric excitement about the impending
expulsion to fervent support for Trump’s anti-transfer deal —
stems not only from a desire to glorify the prime minister ahead of
what many are anticipating will be an early election next year
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it may also stem from the belated recognition that mass deportation is
simply not feasible. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with U.S. President
Donald Trump and at the White House announcing the U.S. 20-point plan
for ending the war in Gaza, Washington, DC, September 29, 2025. (The
White House/CC BY 3.0 US)

The facts are that Egypt will not allow any forced displacement into
Sinai, and not a single country has agreed to accept hundreds of
thousands of Palestinian refugees. Even if Israel succeeds in
destroying Gaza City and pushing out every remaining resident to
Al-Mawasi in the south, it will still be “stuck” with 2 million
Palestinians, and with a level of international isolation once
considered impossible. 

It seems that many in Israel, even among Netanyahu’s supporters, are
now realizing that it is better to close the chapter in Gaza and
declare victory than to continue waging a military campaign with no
clear endpoint and with objectives that can never be achieved.

Blockade out, statehood in?

Hamas, and the Palestinians in general, are certainly not happy with
the new proposal, and for good reason. With the exception of an
initial, limited withdrawal of Israeli forces, there are no dates or
guarantees for subsequent pullbacks. This leaves the door open for
Israel to say that its conditions have not been met, and that it will
therefore continue occupying large chunks of Gaza. The proposal also
includes the “demilitarization” of the Strip and the destruction
of all military infrastructure, meaning no armed Palestinian groups
will be able to repel Israeli aggression.

On the political level, the Palestinian Authority (PA) will not return
to Gaza until it has undergone a “reform program” whose duration
is left undefined. The longstanding disconnect between the Gaza Strip
and the West Bank will thus continue indefinitely, and Gaza itself
will be placed under a kind of American-British trusteeship. Hamas
will give up all governance powers, and its leaders “who commit to
peaceful co-existence” will be given amnesty and provided safe
passage should they wish to leave the Strip.

As an organization built on the idea of “resistance,” it will be
exceedingly difficult for Hamas to accept what will inevitably be
perceived as surrender. It may reject the agreement precisely for this
reason.

Members of the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas and
mourners attend the funeral of Al-Qassam fighters who were killed
during the war between Israel and Hamas in the Al-Shati camp, in Gaza
City, February 28, 2025. (Khalil Kahlout/Flash90)

But here, too, things are a little more complicated. The International
Stabilization Force (ISF) outlined in the text broadly resembles
something that PA President Mahmoud Abbas
[[link removed]] and
even some European governments
[[link removed]] called
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two decades ago to protect the Palestinians from Israel. Israel never
bothered to comment on those proposals; now, Netanyahu is presenting
the idea as a historic achievement.

It is not yet clear what exactly the ISF will look like, what powers
it will possess, and how its coordination with the Israeli military
will function. But it is clear that it will comprise foreign soldiers
— from Pakistan, Indonesia, and perhaps Egypt — alongside local
Palestinian police. 

It is not for nothing that Netanyahu preferred Hamas to rule in Gaza
[[link removed]]: he knew
it had no international backing, so he could rain down bombs on the
Strip whenever he liked. It will be much more difficult to act
forcefully against Pakistani soldiers who are backed by a nuclear
power. Israel’s Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs can continue to boast
[[link removed]] that Israel
will maintain overall security control over Gaza, but the text says
otherwise. There is no suggestion in any of the clauses that Israeli
forces will be able to operate in areas under ISF control.

Moreover, the Gaza Strip has been under Israeli siege for almost two
decades. If implemented, Trump’s plan will involve the establishment
of a so-called “Board of Peace” headed by the U.S. president
himself and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, meaning the blockade
will effectively end. According to the proposal, not only will aid
flow into Gaza at least to the extent agreed upon in the ceasefire in
January of this year (600 trucks a day), but “the entry and
distribution of aid will proceed without interference from the two
parties through the United Nations and its agencies, and the Red
Crescent” — spelling the end of the extremely deadly Gaza
Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) mechanism
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While many observers have pointed out that the “Board of Peace”
has more than a whiff of colonial rule about it, all of its mechanisms
— from security forces to the local administration and, most
importantly, funding — involve Palestinians alongside personnel from
other Arab and Muslim states. If those countries are unhappy with what
they see, this transitional administration will fall apart. 

And Blair may rightly be blamed for the deadly war in Iraq and its
disastrous aftermath, but it is hard to imagine him with his shiny new
image agreeing to the Israeli army dictating whether or not to allow
vegetables or flour into his small emirate in Gaza. Likewise, prior to
2023, Israel’s blockade made it virtually impossible
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Palestinians to leave the Strip, sometimes even demanding that they
renounce their residency as a condition for receiving an exit permit
or commit not to return for at least a year. According to the new
proposal, entry and exit will be unhindered.

Palestinians protest in front of the fence encaging the Gaza Strip,
August 21, 2021. (Mohammed Zaanoun/Activestills)

And then there is the issue of Palestinian statehood. On this, the
text could hardly be vaguer: “While Gaza re-development advances and
when the PA reform programme is faithfully carried out, the conditions
may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian
self-determination and statehood,” the penultimate clause states.

The reform program, it says, will be based on proposals already
published in Trump’s 2020 “Deal of the Century
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and the more recent Saudi-French initiative, which include references
to stopping the PA’s payments to prisoners’ families (which has
already been done
[[link removed]]),
changing the curriculum in PA schools under European supervision
(which has also been done in the past), and holding free elections —
something Palestinians have been demanding for many years.

If decisions regarding how “faithfully” this reform program is
carried out, and at what point “conditions may finally be in
place” to move toward statehood, are left in Israel’s hands, the
road to a Palestinian state will doubtless remain blocked forever
[[link removed]]. Indeed,
Netanyahu has already begun pushing the narrative
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his supporters that this agreement will in no way lead to independence
for Palestinians.

But if that decision rests with Blair and Trump’s “Board of
Peace,” along with the multinational security force, things may look
rather different. And if they decide the PA has met the relevant
conditions, Netanyahu will have to deal with the fact that he signed
an agreement committing to a “credible path” toward a Palestinian
state.

Paradigm shift

Netanyahu will try to present the agreement as a kind of return to
Oct. 6, 2023, to the policy of “managing the conflict” that
was championed no less
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opposition leaders Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett. But this policy
was based on the idea
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the international community, and especially the Gulf states, would
agree to deepen ties with Israel while bypassing and isolating the
Palestinians. 

Today, it seems the situation is entirely different. After Israel’s
bombing of Qatar, the Arab states, including in the Gulf, appear to
have reached the conclusion that Israel is a constant threat to their
stability, and that the only way to stabilize the Middle East is
through the creation of a Palestinian state — not out of solidarity
with the Palestinians, but out of concern for themselves. The
recent wave of diplomatic recognition
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a Palestinian state shows that the international community is
overwhelmingly of the same view.  

Global solidarity with Palestine is not expected to disappear anytime
soon, as evidenced again this week by the eruption of protests
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solidarity with the Sumud Flotilla attempting to break the naval
blockade. As such, Netanyahu — or whoever succeeds him if he loses
the election — may be about to discover that what worked before
October 2023 is no longer viable.

It is too early to tell whether this thwarting of the Israeli
right’s longstanding agenda will create the same kind of crisis as
the one engendered by the 2005 “disengagement”
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Gaza, but it is certainly a possibility. It remains to be seen what
kind of paradigm will replace it.

_A version of this article was first published in Hebrew on Local
Call. Read it __here_
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_MERON RAPOPORT is an Israeli journalist and writer, winner of the
Napoli International Prize for Journalism for an inquiry about the
stealing of olive trees from their Palestinian owners. He is ex-head
of the News Department in Haaertz, and now an independent journalist
and editor at Local Call._

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