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LIFE IN GAZA MAY GO FROM UTTER HELL TO MERE NIGHTMARE. WHAT HAPPENS
NOW?
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Hussein Agha, Robert Malley
October 14, 2025
The Guardian
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_ It took an American president unbound by traditional domestic
constraints to get this done and provide the parties with what they
could accept _
‘This conflict is not a technical dispute over territory,
boundaries or security arrangements. It is a deep, abiding, emotional,
struggle between two peoples.’, Anadolu/Getty Images
Donald Trump [[link removed]]’s
peace plan for Gaza [[link removed]] demands
atonement from Palestinians for the horrific acts of 7 October, not
from Israel [[link removed]] for the
barbarity that followed. It calls for Gaza’s deradicalization but
not an end to Israel’s messianism. It micromanages the future of
Palestinian governance while saying nothing about the future of
Israel’s occupation.
It is riddled with ambiguities, devoid of timetables, arbiters or
consequences for inevitable eventual violations. If all goes according
to plan – if the deal’s vagueness is not exploited to torpedo it;
unavoidable clashes over subsequent phases do not get in the way of
the first stage; Arab and Muslim states maintain pressure on the
United States and the United States gets Israel
[[link removed]] to comply – life for
Gazans will transition from utter hell to mere nightmare. Their
condition will shift from defenceless prey to twice-dispossessed
refugees in their own land. And still, it would be a momentous
achievement.
Israel seldom has enjoyed such unrivalled regional military dominance
and has never been more isolated. The Palestinians have rarely
benefited from such widespread support, and their national movement
hardly ever been more adrift. Neither side managed to convert the
tremendous assets they accumulated into tangible political gains.
It took an American president unbound by traditional domestic
constraints, immune to laws of political gravity, willing to break
with convention, engage with Hamas and tackle Israel, to get this done
and provide the parties with what they could accept. For Israel, the
return of hostages, a continued military presence in Gaza
[[link removed]], and the end of a war that
was sapping domestic resources and draining global support. For Hamas,
a halt to the brutal slaughter, an influx of humanitarian aid, release
of prisoners, ruling out deporting Gazans and annexing the West Bank,
and a de facto recognition of the movement as chief Palestinian
interlocutor on matters of war and peace.
For both, this was validation for an imperfect deal. Little of the
plan’s provisions mattered beyond those. As it has in the past,
progress in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict depended less on textual
details, about which Trump knew nothing, or on intellectual
contortions, which he disdains, than on the exercise of raw power –
which he relishes. That this ought to have happened long ago, that so
many lives could and should have been spared, is beyond dispute. It is
a burden those responsible must bear and for which they ought to be
held accountable.
Then there is the involvement of Turkey and Qatar, states that Hamas
trusts and upon which it depends. They could get the Islamist movement
to agree to what it previously had rejected and accept guarantees it
earlier discarded. This was not a deal between Israel and Hamas. It
was a deal among President Trump, the Turkey president, Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan, and Qatar’s emir, Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani. The United
States provided guarantees to Israel, and Turkey and Qatar provided
guarantees to Hamas.
Where direct American assurances to Hamas that the war would not
resume after the hostages were released proved lacking, indirect
assurances through Ankara and Doha did the trick because Hamas views
Washington as less likely to betray states about whom Trump cares a
lot than an armed movement about which he cares very little. Israel
basked in having vanquished an Iranian axis of resistance. It
inherited a Turkish/Qatari axis of Islamists instead.
A striking feature of the landscape has been the utter absence, the
invisibility, of the recognized Palestinian leadership. These were
talks about the Palestinians’ future with no official Palestinian
representative in the room. Like a bystander pleading for a role in a
play written and staged by others, the Palestinian Authority offered a
running commentary on the horrors of a war in which it did not fight
and then applause for a deal with which it had nothing to do. Unable
to rule the West Bank, it volunteers to govern Gaza. What greater
proof of irrelevance than having to beg for relevance.
Israel set out to break the Palestinians’ will, to crush their
resolve. Instead, out of memories of atrocities, mass killings and
widespread destruction, more radical elements may sprout, seeking
vengeance and resorting to desperate acts. Images of 1948 helped
summon the Palestine
[[link removed]] Liberation
Organization; the realities of these past two years could give rise to
more lethal outcomes. It may take some time, but to listen to
Palestinians in general, and to Gazans in particular, is to sense an
ominous inevitability: that history is gearing up for revenge.
Tomorrow may indeed be yesterday.
Trump’s unorthodoxy helped create this fragile truce. Greater
heterodoxy will be required for a sturdier answer to the matter of
Gaza, greater still for a path to peaceful coexistence between
Israelis and Palestinians. Adroit plans or clever language will not
help. Each of the confrontations between Israel and Hamas – in 2009,
2012, 2014 and 2021 – spawned intricate blueprints to open
crossings, ease restrictions, begin reconstruction and stop arms
smuggling. Not one was implemented. The same holds for innumerable
proposals for a two-state solution that, since at least 2000,
skillfully resolved issues of territorial allocation, the division of
Jerusalem, and security arrangements, but consistently failed to
resolve the conflict. If the problem were purely technical, Americans
would have an impressive record of success, not a desultory catalogue
of failures, for no one can top their semantic ingenuity. Elaborate
plans will not yield progress. Wielding power, playing politics, and
understanding and shaping the sensitivities of both sides may.
An unorthodox approach would eschew the quick fixes of the past that
fixed nothing: those that obsessed about technical solutions; banked
on more “sensible” Israelis and more “moderate” Palestinians
who enjoyed little domestic sway; focused on bilateral engagements
between parties whose uneven power guaranteed failure; excluded
influential third parties; and clung to rigid notions of partition
that failed to address deeper grievances and aspirations. This has
been tried in vain for more than three decades. The futile pursuit of
those illusions and deceits brought us to where we are.
This conflict is not a technical dispute over territory, boundaries or
security arrangements. It is a deep, abiding, emotional, struggle
between two peoples. It serves no purpose to pretend otherwise. The
pretence may make some feel better. It will not improve the lives of a
single Israeli or Palestinian. No good has come from misinterpreting
reality. Some good may come from facing it.
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Hussein Agha has been involved in Israeli–Palestinian affairs and
negotiations for more than half a century. He spent more than 25 years
as a senior associate at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford.
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Robert Malley is a lecturer at Yale University’s Jackson School of
Global Affairs. He served in in senior Middle East positions in the
administrations of presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe
Biden.
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Agha and Malley are the authors of Tomorrow is Yesterday: Life, Death,
and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine
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* Israel-Gaza War
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