A ‘positive response’ from Hamas to United States President Donald Trump’s ceasefire and hostage-release proposal has prompted widespread international welcome — including from the Palestinian Authority, Arab and Muslim-majority countries. Yet, nothing can obscure the fact that the plan rewards the aggressor while forcing the victims to negotiate for their own survival.
The Gaza ceasefire proposal offers the release of all Israeli captives — both alive and dead — in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and bodies held by Israel. But as analysts point out, the deal overwhelmingly favours Israel and offers no concrete guarantees for the Palestinians, who have endured relentless bombardment and displacement since October 2023.
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim appears to have summed up the sentiment of most of the conscious global citizens when he said: “The peace plan presented by the United States is not perfect, and we even disagree with much of it. However, our current priority is to save the lives of the Palestinian people.”
He stressed that the support extended by Arab and Islamic nations does not reflect total acceptance of the plan, but a collective effort to halt the bloodshed and give Gazans a chance to live again. “The release of all hostages and a ceasefire in Gaza are within reach,” he added hopefully.
Yet, optimism remains thin on the ground. The sheer magnitude of Palestinian suffering — with over 66,000 killed and 168,000 injured, most of them women and children — defies words or adjectives. Despite the mounting death toll, Western nations, led by the United States, continue to shield Israel diplomatically and militarily, insisting on Israel’s “right to defend itself” while denying Palestinians their basic right to live.
The 20-point Trump plan, accepted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, outlines a temporary ceasefire and the exchange of captives. However, its contents make one thing clear: it is a deal between the perpetrator and the financier, not the victim.
Under the plan, Hamas must hand over Gaza’s administration to a so-called “Board of Peace”, chaired by Donald Trump himself, and including former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair — a figure widely condemned for his role in the Iraq invasion under false pretext.
In return, those Hamas members who agree to disarm and pledge peaceful coexistence will be granted amnesty, while others will be offered safe passage to third countries. Israeli troops are supposed to withdraw later, but the plan offers no mechanism to ensure this happens — no timelines, no enforcement, and no penalties for violations.
Meanwhile, Trump’s public warning is chilling: if Hamas rejects the proposal, Israel will have “free rein” to act with full US backing. This statement alone has led observers to conclude that the plan’s underlying threat is more coercive than conciliatory.
Human rights organisations and scholars have repeatedly labelled Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide, yet the Trump plan treats Israel as the aggrieved party. Every guarantee is extended to Israel; not a single safeguard is given to Palestinians.
Even humanitarian aid, the plan says, will be channeled through the UN and International Red Crescent, but fails to mention whether the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) — accused of corruption and mismanagement that led to over 1,000 deaths of aid-seekers — will be dismantled.
Essentially, the plan places the future of Palestine in the hands of those responsible for its destruction. The US, which funds Israel’s military campaign, and Israel, which executes it, are positioned as the arbiters of Gaza’s fate — a deeply colonial arrangement.
On September 12, the UN General Assembly voted in favour of reviving the long-discussed two-state solution. Yet, on the ground, the idea is increasingly detached from reality.
Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank have expanded drastically, fragmenting Palestinian territories and erasing the possibility of a contiguous state. The occupation of East Jerusalem continues, and movement restrictions, land grabs, and home demolitions have only intensified since 2023.
Analysts warn that the Trump plan, far from uniting the Palestinian territories, will further isolate Gaza from the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The text mentions a “credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination,” but only as a conditional clause — dependent on the so-called Palestinian Authority reform, a vague and externally controlled process.
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s record gives little reason for optimism. He has repeatedly vowed to block any effort toward Palestinian statehood. Just a day before the UNGA vote, he approved a major settlement project that would bisect the West Bank and declared publicly, “There will be no Palestinian state.”
His long history of undermining the peace process and deepening the occupation has made many sceptical about whether the latest plan will ever be implemented.
In March this year, it was Israel that broke the ceasefire after just two months, when 48,000 Palestinians had already been killed. Had Netanyahu honoured the truce, at least 18,000 more lives could have been spared.
History too offers grim lessons. The Oslo Accords of the 1990s, once hailed as the beginning of peace, were slowly hollowed out as Israel expanded settlements and undermined Palestinian autonomy. Now, the Trump plan seems to erase even the pretense of Palestinian participation. Trump met Arab and Islamic leaders on September 23 to discuss his proposal — but no Palestinian representative was invited.
The most damning criticism of the plan is moral: Palestinians are being forced to negotiate an end to their own genocide.
By tying the cessation of bombings to Palestinian compliance with a plan designed by their oppressors, the world is, once again, making the victims responsible for stopping their own suffering.
There is no mention of Israeli accountability for war crimes — no commitment to investigate the indiscriminate bombings of hospitals, schools, refugee camps, or the use of starvation as a weapon. Instead, the perpetrators are promised immunity and international legitimacy.
While the Trump proposal might momentarily pause the bloodshed, it offers no justice, no sovereignty, and no security for Palestinians.
If the international community, especially the Arab world, truly empathises with the decades-long suffering of the Palestinians, it must work relentlessly to turn the dream of a sovereign Palestinian state into reality, sooner rather than later.
