Lack of Israeli consensus stalls Trump’s Gaza peace plan
By Delaram Ahmadi
Staff writer
US President Donald Trump has urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to move forward with his Gaza peace plan, stressing that its implementation should not be held up pending the formation of a new government in Israel. Despite the implementation of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement in October 2025, outstanding disagreements have stalled progress on subsequent phases. In an interview with Iran Daily, international affairs analyst Mohammad Hossein Baghi said that while the United States may have the determination to resolve the issue, there is no consensus in Israel on reaching a solution.
IRAN DAILY: Does Washington genuinely have the political will to force Israel to honor its commitments, or are these pressures largely diplomatic and aimed at public relations?
BAGHI: The Gaza peace plan should be examined within a broader agenda, namely the US elections and then the Israeli elections. The reality is that, following the defeat of Trump and the Republicans in the midterm elections, Trump is seeking to score points on the foreign policy front.
Given the deadlock in the Ukraine war, the impasse over advancing the Gaza peace plan and the stalemate in the war against Iran, I believe that now that the fate of Congress has been determined, Trump is keen to leave behind a legacy and secure at least one tangible achievement in foreign policy. Gaza is one of the areas where he could do so.
On the other hand, following the Israeli elections and the defeat of Netanyahu’s camp, figures such as Imran Khalid, a geostrategic analyst at the Mail & Guardian, argue that “The conventional reading is that two weakened leaders will now become more cautious. But only half of that reading is correct. The calendar that constrained both men has expired, and what replaces it is not mutual caution but a widening divergence between their respective needs.”
Against this backdrop, two distinct positions can be identified within the Israeli camp regarding the peace plan. The first is Netanyahu’s security-oriented approach, which seeks only to disarm and destroy Hamas. The second is the approach of a likely Eisenkot-led government, which, although it categorizes settler violence as “Jewish terrorism,” ultimately does not differ fundamentally from Netanyahu’s position on Hamas and Gaza.
Therefore, Trump is willing to resolve the Gaza war and reach a settlement, but the Israeli side still lacks the consensus needed to arrive at a solution.
One of the main pillars of Trump’s plan is the disarmament of Hamas and the transfer of Gaza’s administration to a Palestinian technocratic structure. Can such an arrangement be implemented without an agreement among Palestinian factions and guarantees of an Israeli troop withdrawal?
In Israel’s terminology, disarmament means the surrender of all Hamas weapons and, in practice, rendering the group incapable of operating. In Hamas’s terminology, as it has repeatedly stated, disarmament means handing over some heavy weapons to a committee made up of Palestinian forces while retaining light weapons in its own hands.
So, at the outset, there is a fundamental difference between the two sides in how they view disarmament. The proposed Palestinian technocratic structure, meanwhile, would largely comprise Palestinian figures based in the West Bank rather than the Gaza Strip, which Israel has laid waste to. Thus, there is no consensus even between the two Palestinian territories.
At least as long as Netanyahu remains in power, there is no prospect of an agreement taking shape. After all, October 7 happened under his watch, and any retreat or move toward peace would spell the end of Bibi’s political career.
In any case, if Eisenkot succeeds in forming a government and Netanyahu leaves office, there may be hope that Trump, during the remainder of his presidency, could compel the new government to make concessions on peace in Gaza.
Given the deep divisions between Israel and Palestinian factions over Gaza’s future, what guarantees are there within the US plan to prevent continued occupation, military attacks and violations of the ceasefire agreement?
If Eisenkot fails to form a government, or if Netanyahu remains in power for any reason, there is no hope that the occupation will end. If the United States acts as a “guarantor” of the ceasefire, and Arab countries step in and offer incentives to both Hamas and Israel, then there may be a glimmer of hope.
Allow me to explain another reality through the words of Raymond Hinnebusch, who examines more precisely the role of “subnational” groups — Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Ansarullah in Yemen and others. He believes that the problems of the Middle East stem from the region’s geopolitical structure.
Unlike regions organized and shaped around a powerful center, East Asia, for example, with China at its core, the Middle East has developed around a fragmented center consisting of weak and, in some cases, pre-modern territorial states. These Arab identities continue to struggle to define themselves. Hinnebusch argues that the Middle Eastern order was largely imposed from outside by Western imperialism.
With the end of World War I in 1918 and the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, Palestine was among the territories that emerged from the empire, but it met a different fate from other Arab countries.
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