Give Peace a Chance |
Over the past 2 ½ years, Israel has tried to solve its strategic problems by military means. While the military victories have been dramatic, Israel’s strategic problems remain. Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran still pose an existential threat to Israel’s security, and most of Israel’s population remains exposed to missile attacks. If Clausewitz’s statement “War is a continuation of politics (policy) by other means” is true, perhaps it is also true that politics (policy) is a continuation of war by other means. Or more accurately, once you have exhausted all military options, it is time to use politics, diplomacy and policy to achieve strategic goals.
Israel’s leaders are beginning to accept the idea that military force alone has its limitations. True security for Israel will only be achieved by an internal regime change in Iran and a Lebanese government determined and empowered to disarm Hezbollah. While Israel and the world’s focus has been on Iran and Lebanon, Gaza has not remained static. The Trump Plan is the political next step following a devastating war that lasted 2 years and killed thousands of civilians but weakened Israel’s enemy. Every day that Phase II of the Trump plan is delayed Hamas’s hold on Gaza and its population is strengthened and Israel’s security is once more threatened. For the sake of Israel’s security, Phase II in Gaza cannot wait for Israel to finish its wars in Iran and Lebanon which may take weeks or months.
Phase II of the Trump Peace Plan calls for Hamas and other factions to “agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form. All military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, including tunnels and weapon production facilities, will be destroyed and not rebuilt. There will be a process of demilitarization of Gaza under the supervision of independent monitors, which will include placing weapons permanently beyond use through an agreed process of decommissioning, …”.
Six months after the start of the October 2025 ceasefire and three months since Steve Witkoff declared the start of phase two of the Trump Peace Plan, no one seems to know how or when the disarmament of Hamas in Gaza will be implemented. Israelis will not sleep peacefully until this happens. If the international community does not want to see a return to war in Gaza, wants to see the suffering of the Palestinian people end and wants Gaza recovery to begin, countries must step forward and take responsibility for the disarmament of Hamas.
Phase II of the Trump Peace Plan does not have an attached Gantt Chart which makes it clear which steps must take place first before other steps can be taken. There is no timeline which says that Hamas disarmament must take place before humanitarian aid is allowed in at the levels agreed upon in January 2025 and the rehabilitation of infrastructure such as roads, water, energy, wastewater treatment, and solid waste disposal and the rehabilitation of hospitals and food services. Some see this as a weakness in the agreement but the lack of a timeline and interdependency of steps towards stabilization and recovery may also be a strength.
Disarmament of Hamas, which is not based on Israeli military force and a return to war, will require an international effort, coordination with Palestinians in Gaza and the Israeli Government, and time. Gaza recovery will also require an international effort, coordination with Palestinians in Gaza and the Israeli government, and time. Neither effort can wait for the other; both must be implemented in parallel. Thanks to the Trump Peace Plan, the Middle East has been given an opportunity to step out of the negative feedback loop it has been stuck in since the collapse of the Oslo Accords, but only if we give it a chance.
At the end of January 2025, Oxford University, the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, and Damour for Community Development convened the Track II Water, Energy, Food Security, and Environment (WEFE) Experts Conference in Athens, Greece. In the shadow of war, sixty Palestinian, Israeli, and Jordanian resource management experts came together to explore cross-border cooperation around natural resource management and basic infrastructure initiatives. The goal of the conference was to identify initiatives which could improve WEFE services to the region and simultaneously build trust through partnerships.
One of the proposals that came out of the conference, proposed by a former PA government official and a former Israeli government official, was a joint Palestinian Israeli initiative to build an artificial island off the coast of Gaza out of the building rubble created by the war. Following the conference, the Arava Institute and Damour’s Israeli Palestinian teams continued to work together to advance this ambitious idea, including traveling together to Washington, DC, to meet with US Administration officials. This process proves that there are common interests that allow Palestinians and Israelis to work together to improve the region even as military conflict continues.
On January 14th, 2026, the Executive of the Board of Peace appointed the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG). The committee itself, as dictated by the Trump Peace Plan, is a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee. According to my Palestinian colleagues, the members of the committee are all capable professionals focused on delivering the day-to-day running of public services and municipalities for the people in Gaza and not on politics. Many are former PA officials but were not appointed by the current PA government. In fact, the head of the NCAG, Dr. Ali Shaath, left the PA in 2014. In many ways, this is a prototype for a “reformed Palestinian Authority” which could become a true partner for Israel in a revitalized, peaceful, and sustainable Middle East. That is of course, if Israel gives the committee a chance to succeed.
Massive destruction has taken place in Gaza over the past two years. Almost all infrastructure has been devastated, 80% of the houses have been destroyed, millions of Palestinians have been displaced, the health and education systems have collapsed, there is continued widespread food insecurity and overwhelming unemployment. All this means that the NCAG team of technocrats have their work cut out for them and they have very little time to start delivering relief. If the Palestinian people in Gaza do not see some progress towards recovery, unrest, violence, and instability will follow. If Gazans don’t start to see results, the NCAG will be quickly replaced or rendered ineffective, and a downward spiral will begin.
It is in Israel’s self-interest that electricity be restored to Gaza so wastewater treatment plants can be restored and the 100,000 CM of wastewater flowing daily into the Mediterranean Sea are abated. It is in Israel’s self-interest that the public health and waste management systems are restored to prevent the spread of disease which knows no borders. It is in Israel’s self-interest that Gaza’s economy be restarted so that the only employers in Gaza for the hundreds of thousands of unemployed youths are not Hamas and other terrorist groups. It is in Israel’s self-interest that the NCAG succeed in delivering relief and recovery to the people of Gaza.
Without Israel’s full-cooperation, NCAG will not succeed. The Israeli government’s dual-use policy, denying entry into Gaza of any item which might be used for military purposes such as solar panels, batteries, fuel, construction material, caravans, etc. makes recovery impossible. The Israeli government’s inspection apparatus at the Kerem Shalom and Nitzanim crossings, which were inadequate prior to the war, is not at all suitable for the massive amount of building material, supplies, and equipment which must be brought in for Gaza recovery. The trickle of Palestinians in desperate need of medical treatment, being allowed to leave Gaza through the Rafah crossing does not come close to the need of almost 20,000 Gazans to leave to seek health care they cannot get inside of Gaza. The trickle of people allowed into Gaza does not provide an adequate answer to the need for professionals to enter Gaza and begin the recovery process. The NCAG appointed by Board of Peace Director-General Nikolay Mladenov to administer Gaza, have yet to receive permission from Israel to enter Gaza.
If we want to see a different Middle East than the one we are living in, we need to give NCAG a chance. We need to give peace a chance.