Domination Is Peace: Trump’s 20 Point Peace Plan for Palestine feat. Dana El Kurd

the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel. Hamas has since released all remaining Israeli hostages as well as the bodies of those who were killed, and Israel has withdrawn from certain parts of the Gaza Strip and started to release political prisoners as well as the bodies of Palestinians who have been killed after they were detained since October seventh. Some of the testimonies from these prisoners is just incredibly

heart to stomach. The degree of the humanization that's been allowed to take place in these Israeli prisons, the torture and abuse that they faced, is truly truly harrowing. Some of the Palestinian bodies that have been released, are mutilated with extreme signs of torture. Some were released blindfolded and cuffed, returned with a noose around their neck. Greta Tunberg, who was on the flotilla recently trying to break the siege of Gaza, just also returned from Israeli prison where she

was also abused and stripped and mistreated. She said in a recent interview, if they do this to a white person with a Swedish passport, we can only imagine what they do to Palestinians. And of course we are seeing this play out before our eyes. In a fair and just world where international law meant something, there would be consequences for this. Instead, today I want to talk about this plan that's been proposed by the Trump administration, the

Point Piece Plan for Gaza. Reportedly, ex UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has been consulting with Trump and his son in law slash adviser Jared Kushner for some time hashing this plan out. We'll get back to him in a bit, as he's quite the character. This plan, as the name suggests, has twenty points, but it's a little light on details. It outlines the return of remaining Israel hostages very quickly within seventy two hours. It says the Gaza Strip needs

to be quote demilitarized. It talks about the creation of an international stabilization force, an international security force to operate on the ground in Gaza with the eventual withdrawal of Israeli troops, but within a buffer zone, and this force would consist of soldiers from other countries. It also talks about the formation of a quote technocratic, apolitical Palestinian temporary government to run the Gaza Strip territory until the peace

process is concluded. But this temporary Palestinian government would only be allowed to engage in service provision nothing more. That government would also be overseen by a quote Board of Peace run by Trump himself, his pal Tony Blair, and other yet unspecified members. There is some language on the economic development of a quote new Gaza, and some discussion

of initiatives to promote tolerance, essentially to deradicalize Palestinians. Notably, the plan does not endorse ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza, which was wildly a serious thing on the table for a few months that Trump endorsed. But what it does say is still pretty insidious. Essentially, the plan says that a possible pathway to Palestinian self determination and statehood is conditioned on advances in quote Gaza's redevelopment and a quote

Palestinian authority reform program that is faithfully carried out. Only then, the plan says, quote conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self determination and statehood. Basically, if the Palestinians do good, if they comply with the International Security Force, if they take orders from the Board of Peace and quote reform the PA in some way, and what that means is a really big open question, then maybe their demands for self determination in statehood will

eventually be discussed. As I've said before on previous episodes, that statehood part is a bit tricky because statehood means different things to different people. Apparently, Jared Kushner talked about maybe giving Palestinians a state without the annoying little detail

of actual sovereignty. The Israeli prime minister that signed the Oslo Accords yet Zakrabin, which was the first time Palestinians and Israelis a reed to anything directly said after signing that Israel would only ever give Palestinians something quote less than a state. The international community keeps recognizing a Palestinian state when the Palestinians don't really have control of any territory. It's like is the state in the room with us now.

It's also important to note here that the plan that Trump is proposing doesn't really include any Palestinian input, at least meaningfully. The goal from Israel and the US's perspective is for Hamas to be removed from the equation altogether. There's some discussion actually still of whether they will actually disarm or not, because Hamas has said to the media

that it's not considering this. And as I mentioned, there is this throwaway line about reforming the Palestinian authority, but what that means and how the Palestinian people actually factor in isn't addressed. Here's my educated guess. When Trump, an Israel, and the international community say they want to reform the PA, we have to look at what they've been doing and pushing for in the past couple of months to understand

what that actually means. So for them, if we look at their track record, reforming the PA means figuring out an acceptable alternative from their perspective, to replace the octagenarian Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, so that the PA can seem on paper more legitimate and better positioned to sign away Palestinian rights during future negotiations. They've already been pushing behind

the scenes to set that up. They pressured Abbas to convene the Palestine Liberation Organization Central Council, change the bylaws, create a vice president position, and appoint the guy that's acceptable to the US and Israel to that role. That man was Sena Cher, Palestinian businessman and former security guy

who polls at two percent with Palestinians. What reforming the PA does not mean it looks like, is actual democratic reform where Palestinians can choose not only their president but also on their legislative representatives and on the PLO legislative body,

the National Council. It looks like reforming the PA doesn't mean all Palestinians will be allowed to participate if limited elections are held, and it seems it doesn't mean responding to what Palestinian civil society has been asking for, which is reforming the PA by reforming the PLO altogether, so that all Palestinians can participate in the discussion of national liberation.

We can guess that the US, Israel, and the international community quote unquote are unlikely to offer any of this because they've propped up the PA in the past and seem intent on propping up some puppet government of the PA in the future. But they need the PA, as some acceptable Palestinian entity to be even tangentially involved in future negotiations so that they can say, look, the Palestinians agree to this is legitimate, even if that PA doesn't

represent people. Even if most Palestinians eighty five percent in the latest poll are dissatisfied with the PA's conduct and forty two percent support the the solution of the PA altogether, this is a dangerous game to play. Any sort of peace process in the future, as impossible as it seems at this current moment, that isn't predicated on the complete annihilation of one side of the conflict, will need some degree of public support. It will need societies involved in

this conflict to buy into the process. Otherwise you get spoilers, you get political actors engaging violence to disrupt the peace process, or you don't really resolve the underlying issues in an even compromised, satisfactory way, and people get upset and the conflict continues. So if you don't include people's buy in, what you're banking on is being able to suppress people, and what you want isn't really peace. It's authoritarian conflict management.

It's illiberal. It maintains structural violence in the name of preserving peace. It means Palestinians wouldn't get the rights they have under international law, the right to self determination, and it means the occupation in some form doesn't end. The thing is this is well understood, and it's well understood by the people involved in this twenty point piece plan for Gaza. Tony Blair, for example, was Prime Minister of the UK when the Northern Ireland conflict was being negotiated

and settled. He understood then that public buy in was important. The Good Friday Agreement, which ended the conflict in Northern Ireland for the past twenty seven years, had not one but two referendums, one for the people of Northern Ireland and one for the people of the Republic of Ireland. The process of getting to the Good Friday Agreement also included all groups militant groups from both sides of the conflict. This is what it takes for a conflict to be

contained in some shape or form. But for some reason, when international leaders or ex leaders in the case of Tony Blair, think about conflicts in the Middle East involving Arabs, then public buy in, democratic processes, sustainable peace no longer factor into decision making. The buy in an opinion of the public matters, but apparently only certain publics. In other conflicts, also, like the breakdown of Yugoslavia, the perpetrators of genophsidal violence

were held accountable by international law. They were taken to the Hague. They faced repercussions, of course, not perfectly, not entirely, not everyone. Some parties of the conflict that emerged in Bosnia after were rewarded for their violence. The vision of the Serbian leadership that committed war crimes in Bosnia came to fruition to some degree in the form of Republica Serpska today, which is a semi autonomous region that divides

Bosnia Herzegovina. But nevertheless, the international community at least understood the necessity of holding perpetrators accountable for violence and war crimes, even if the execution was incomplete. In this case, there

is no such discussion. A number of human rights organizations and the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory have found Israeli leaders President Isaac Hertzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and then Defense Minister Yuav Gallant personally responsible for the decisions made in Gaza, the decision to engage in genocide in Gaza, but the ceasefire plan, which they are billing as a quote peace plan for a new Gaza, and their time trying to make the basis of future

negotiations says nothing about accountability for crimes committed. Trump, in fact, went in front of the Kanesset, the Israeli parliament, and insisted on his support for Prime Minister Natanieho. He even got involved in Nataniahu's corruption case that he has domestically in Israel, addressing President Isaac Hertzog, as Kanesse members clapped and jeered, hey, I have an idea, mister President. Why

don't you give him a pardon. That's what we're dealing with here, Just an audacious, outrageous display of corruption on so many levels. The fact that these guys are the guys putting together the so called peace plan votes poorly for the sustainability of this ceasefire agreement beyond the first phase.

Beyond Israel getting what it wants the hostages, a huge buffer zone that leaves Israel in control of Gaza's former urban areas, and possibly they might get the neutralization of Hamas, it's not clear that this ceasefire agreement can actually advance into a sustainable negotiation that maintains peace in the long run. It's why scholar Marika Sosnowski at the University of Melbourne, who studies ceasefire agreements in particular, calls this a strangle contract.

She notes that Israeli withdrawal, release of hostages, and full aid being led into Gaza is the quote bare minimum you would expect both sides to acquiesce to as part of a ceasefire deal. She expresses concern that this agreement is highly coercive and that it quote enables the more powerful party to force the weaker party into agreeing to anything in order for them to survive. This is in direct contrast to a bargain between two equal parties that

can sustain peace. She also very rightly notes that Israel could at any time claim the Palestinians are not abiding by the terms of the agreement and and the ceasefire, justifying restarting the war. The Palestinians have no leverage at all in this agreement, and obviously they can't rely on unbiased international mediation with the Trump and Kushner and Blairs

of the world. At the helm of this Sisnowski quotes a Palestinian leader from Yermuk camp in Syria who said, to her quote, if there is a ceasefire, people know the devil is coming. I think that captures exactly everyone's fears in this moment. The Palesadian Civil Defense Agency says forty Palestinians have been killed in Gaza today October nineteenth. Children have been shot and killed in the West Bank.

After the ceasefire agreement, Israel raided the family homes of Palestinian prisoners in five districts across the West Bank before releasing them. Nataniehu has said he won't open the Rafach crossing. These all seem like Israeli violations to the ceasefire to me, but that's not how it'll be reported. And because the Trump administration has twisted the meaning of words where domination

equals peace and injustice equal stability. Once this happens, I fear very few will question the premise of this agreement and the entire peace process to begin with a peace process for Palestinians aren't even allowed to participate. No one can be surprised when this doesn't last, and no one can be surprised that this cannot be the basis for sustainable peace. But hey, I hope I'm wrong. Thank you for listening to this episode of It Could Happen Here. Here's hoping for justice and peace.