After nearly two years of relentless bombardment and the death of more than 66,000 Palestinians, with over 168,000 others wounded, US President Donald Trump has finally unveiled a 20-point “peace initiative” for Gaza—one that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the very architect of the aggression, has swiftly endorsed. Trump, with his sights fixed on the Nobel Peace Prize, hailed the announcement as “potentially one of the great days in civilisation.” Yet, for Palestinians, the initiative reads less like a peace plan and more like the consolidation of defeat. Despite the promise of halting Israel’s vicious attacks, the deal offers no genuine relief, dignity, or security to the Palestinian people.
Under the terms of the proposal, hostilities would formally cease within 72 hours of Israel’s acceptance, with the return of Israeli captives from Gaza in exchange for the release of 250 Palestinians serving life sentences and 1,700 prisoners from Gaza. But this ostensible gesture of reciprocity is undermined by the asymmetric terms attached: Israel is not required to withdraw its forces in advance, nor to renounce its entrenched military posture. Rather, the plan freezes “battle lines” until vague “conditions” are met for a staged withdrawal—effectively preserving Israel’s territorial and military dominance under the guise of a ceasefire.
The most audacious feature, however, lies in the envisioned governance of Gaza. Hamas, long branded for elimination by Netanyahu, would be stripped of authority and replaced by an international transitional administration—the so-called “Board of Peace”—chaired by none other than Trump himself. This construct not only erases Palestinian self-determination but also hands the reins of Gaza’s political future to external powers with vested interests. Amnesty for Hamas leaders and safe passage for those wishing to leave Gaza are framed as benevolent concessions, yet they mask a deeper reality: the systematic dismantling of local political agency and the redefinition of Gaza on terms dictated entirely by outsiders.
Ultimately, the plan is less about peace than about pacification. It seeks not to heal Gaza, but to neutralise it—denying Palestinians the right to define their own political destiny while embedding them in structures of dependency
Equally telling is the stipulation that Gaza must be transformed into a “de-radicalised, terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbors.” On the map, Gaza has only one neighbor—Israel. The wording betrays the plan’s priorities: protecting Israel’s security while silencing Palestinian resistance, regardless of the structural violence that gave rise to it. That Israel—a state accused by countless human rights organisations and scholars of committing genocide in Gaza—is the primary beneficiary of this arrangement reveals the grotesque inversion at the heart of the plan: the aggressor is rewarded with peace guarantees, while the victims are lectured on de-radicalisation.
As Diana Buttu incisively observed, “the people who carried out the genocide – and the US, which funded it – are the ones who get to decide the future of the people against whom they’re committing genocide.” The plan offers no binding guarantees to Palestinians, no mechanisms to safeguard their rights, and no acknowledgment of their suffering. Instead, Gaza—once a vibrant, living city—is reduced to rubble, and its reconstruction is to be overseen by the very states complicit in its destruction. Trump has even warned that, should Palestinians reject the plan, Israel will have free rein to act with US backing. In effect, Palestinians are placed in a cruel bind: either submit to externally imposed rule or face unrestrained violence.
This logic resonates with a distinctly colonial approach. Like earlier empires, the US and Israel present themselves as trustees of “civilisation,” assuming the authority to dictate Gaza’s political, social, and cultural future. The creation of a “Board of Peace” chaired by a foreign leader echoes the colonial “mandates” and “protectorates” of the 20th century, where imperial powers imposed transitional administrations that promised order but delivered subjugation. The call for Gaza’s “de-radicalisation” mirrors the colonial project of labeling indigenous resistance as “savage” or “terroristic” in order to legitimise domination. Even the promise of redevelopment recalls the language of “civilising missions,” where the destruction wrought by imperial violence was reframed as an opportunity to remake societies in the image of the conqueror.
Ultimately, the plan is less about peace than about pacification. It seeks not to heal Gaza, but to neutralise it—denying Palestinians the right to define their own political destiny while embedding them in structures of dependency. Just as colonial administrations once supplanted native governance with imported institutions, so too does this initiative attempt to overwrite Gaza’s identity with the language, culture, and political system of those who destroyed it. In this sense, the Gaza “peace initiative” is not the end of violence but its continuation by other means: the violence of imposed rule, cultural erasure, and the slow suffocation of a people’s right to exist on their own terms.
What is perhaps most disheartening is the manner in which many Muslim-majority states have responded. Rather than condemning the plan’s colonial logic, several have chosen to applaud it. Even Pakistan—long eager to project itself as a leader of the Muslim world—welcomed the initiative with enthusiasm, offering symbolic words of solidarity with Palestine while implicitly legitimising a framework that entrenches its subjugation. This posture reveals an unsettling truth: when confronted with the weight of global power, even states that claim a moral or religious mantle are willing to sacrifice principle for expediency.
To endorse such a plan is not a neutral act; it is to accept the normalisation of violence and dispossession, to become complicit in the very structures of domination that strip Gaza of its dignity. Silence and acquiescence allow Israel and its allies to frame the destruction of an entire people as a “peace process.” Endorsement by Muslim states, in particular, not only undermines the cause of Palestine but corrodes the very moral authority they claim to embody.
Let there be no doubt: there is only one Palestine, and it remains under occupation by Israel—a state accused of committing genocide before the eyes of the world. The words of the Prophet (PBUH) remain an enduring reminder: “The believers, in their mutual love, mercy, and compassion, are like a single body; if one part of the body feels pain, the whole body responds with sleeplessness and fever” (Sahih Muslim). To stand with Gaza is not merely a political position but a moral obligation—an obligation to resist the colonial subjugation of an entire people and to affirm, unequivocally, their right to live in freedom and dignity. Anything less is a betrayal not only of Palestine but of the very principles of justice and humanity.