- The author is a senior lecturer in Palestine Studies at University of Exeter and Co-director of European Center for Palestine Studies (ECPS)

ISTANBUL

The Trump Plan for Gaza, unveiled on Sept. 29, 2025, has been widely framed as a bold new initiative to end the war and usher in regional stability. Yet, when examined within the longer history of Western-sponsored peace proposals in Palestine, its underlying logic becomes unmistakably familiar. Far from offering a path to justice, the plan extends a century-long pattern of agreements that fragment Palestinian land, suppress political agency, and entrench structures of domination.

Within days of the plan's announcement, the October 10 ceasefire was already collapsing. Israel violated the agreement 80 times in the first ten days, killing more than 80 Palestinians. By the end of Jan. 2026, the death toll from these early breaches had exceeded 500, exposing the plan’s deeper contradictions.

On Nov. 17, 2025, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2803, establishing the Board of Peace. Two months later at Davos, Trump signed its charter, appointing himself Chairman for Life and granting himself full authority over interpreting and applying its articles. The Board’s reconstruction vision, which was unveiled by Jared Kushner, was promoted through glossy renderings of "New Gaza" and "New Rafah" [1]. These projects, however, disregard existing land ownership and are to be offered only to "vetted Gazans."

Meanwhile, as Israel continued its assaults on Gaza, Israeli violence in the West Bank escalated. In January 2026 alone, the Colonization & Wall Resistance Commission recorded 1,872 attacks [2] by the Israeli army and settlers. UNRWA warned [3] that the West Bank was facing its gravest humanitarian crisis since 1967, with 33,000 Palestinians forcibly displaced and entire refugee camps demolished. These realities are entirely absent from Trump’s plan.

Peace agreements as colonial tools

The Trump Plan fits within a historical pattern in which peace agreements serve colonial interests. The same logic has shaped agreements in Palestine for more than a century. From the secret 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement to the 1939 White Paper, and from the Balfour Declaration to the Oslo Accords, external powers have repeatedly imposed frameworks that defer Palestinian rights, fragment territory, and privilege Zionist—and later Israeli—strategic interests. Trump's plan continues this trajectory by framing Gaza as a separate political entity and excluding the Palestinian Authority entirely.

The plan's 20-point structure relies on deliberate ambiguity, interim arrangements, and undefined security criteria. One clause states that the Israeli army will withdraw "to the lines agreed upon…" while Israel keeps pushing deep into the strip and is now stationed on more than 58% of the Strip. The so-called "yellow line," an invisible boundary enforced with lethal force, has become a de facto new border. "The yellow line is a new border line," [4] Israel’s chief of staff declared. This ambiguity mirrors the Oslo Accords, where phased withdrawals never materialized and settlement expansion accelerated.

Israel is also expanding its military operations across the region, including in Lebanon and Syria. More recently, the US ambassador to Israel told Tucker Carlson [5] that it would be "fine" for Israel to control a vast stretch of the Middle East as a biblical entitlement.

Economic peace as a substitute for rights

Like the 2020 Peace-to-Prosperity Plan, the new proposal leans heavily on economic promises. Jared Kushner once assured Palestinians that "Israel’s prosperity would spill over very quickly," [6] echoing the Peel Commission’s 1937 claim that Jewish capital would bring prosperity to all. This rhetoric masks a deeper strategy: replacing political rights with economic incentives. Meanwhile, Israel has already issued licenses for gas exploration off Gaza’s coast [7], reinforcing the colonial logic underlying the plan.

Symbolic presence, absent agency

The plan establishes a Palestinian Technocratic Committee to administer Gaza, chaired by engineer Ali Sha’ath. Yet, when the committee used the Palestinian Authority emblem, Israel immediately intervened [8], insisting that no PA symbols would be permitted. This episode illustrates the broader dynamic: Palestinians may administer, but only within boundaries set by Israel.

The Board of Peace, chaired by Trump and including figures such as Tony Blair, is tasked with supervising Gaza’s transition. This claimed supervision rests on the pretext that Palestinians are unprepared to govern their own affairs. The UN General Assembly has long affirmed [9] that "inadequacy of political, economic, social or educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence." Yet the Board of Peace does precisely that, placing Gaza under an international trusteeship without Palestinian consent.

Rewriting narratives, reshaping memory

Two articles in the Trump Plan reveal its ideological ambitions. Article 13 demands that “New Gaza will be fully committed to… peaceful coexistence,” while Article 18 calls for interfaith dialogue to “change mindsets and narratives.” This is not reconciliation grounded in justice; it is an attempt to reshape Palestinian identity. Coexistence with Israel is not presented as the outcome of justice, but as a precondition for participation.

Leaked QNN documents [10] show that the Palestinian Ministry of Education made sweeping, EU-pressured revisions to textbooks across grades 1–10, removing or diluting material tied to Palestinian history, identity, geography, and political reality. National symbols, references to cities like Jerusalem and Jaffa, and lessons on resistance, prisoners, refugees, and the Nakba were deleted or rewritten, while terms such as “occupation” and “martyr” were replaced with neutral language. Many lessons were substituted with themes of coexistence or body_abstract peace under external donor and political pressure.

The Trump Plan makes no mention of the destruction, displacement, or mass death Palestinians have endured. It does not acknowledge Israel’s responsibility for the devastation of Gaza or the ongoing annexation of the West Bank. Trump described Gaza as "incredible real estate" [11].

Palestinians are spoken about, not spoken with. Their political representatives are excluded, and their rights are deferred indefinitely. This is not a peace plan. It is a blueprint for deepening apartheid and legitimizing dispossession. This Plan is not a break from the past but its continuation. It extends a century-long pattern of colonial governance, economic coercion, and political exclusion.

The path forward requires resistance, international solidarity, and a commitment to justice and liberation, alongside all efforts to pressure Israel to end its colonial project.

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2025/11/gaza-new-plan-united-states/684879/

[2] https://www.cwrc.ps/page-4215-en.html

[3] https://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/official-statements/unrwa-commissioner-general-gaza-water-systems-devastated-unrwa-delivers-Lifeline

[4] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/26/yellow-line-the-de-facto-israeli-buffer-zone-shaping-life-in-gaza

[5] https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/21/middleeast/huckabee-israel-us-land-intl

[6] https://www.alquds.com/ar/articles/1529795861841079700

[7] https://www.adalah.org/uploads/uploads/Letter_Tender_Gas_Gaza_Eng.pdf

[8] https://www.gov.il/en/pages/news-logo-03022026

[9] https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/declaration-granting-independence-colonial-countries-and-peoples

[10] https://qudsn.co/post/214288.

[11] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYEq0TBOW-k

*Opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Anadolu's editorial policy.