The latest phase of the imperial takeover of Gaza is underway. Arthur Townend looks at the history of ‘peace processes’ and how the West and Israel have sought to cement their control over Palestinians
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Sunday 25 January 2026
Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, US president Bill Clinton, and PLO chair Yasser Arafat (Picture: Vince Musi / The White House)
Donald Trump’s new “Board of Peace” is a gang of war criminals, with himself as “chairman” of the board.
United States secretary of state Marco Rubio, Trump’s son in law Jared Kushner and notorious war criminal Tony Blair will run the West’s colonial administration of Gaza.
So too will Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu—the architect of the genocide—who now sits on the board.
The Trump White House claims the board is part of a “credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood”.
A National Committee for the Administration of Gaza of 15 technocrats will serve under the board. It will be led by Ali Shaath who served as a deputy minister in the Palestinian Authority (PA).
His appointment is designed to give a veneer of Palestinian participation, but he answers directly to the board.
The PA’s complicity is no accident—it flows from the Oslo Accords of 1993 and the sham “peace process”.
Then, too, the US claimed that its plan would lead to Palestinian self-determination. It promised a “two-state solution” with a Palestinian state based on the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel had grabbed in 1967.
At the table were then US president Bill Clinton and Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).
But the 1993 Accords, and a follow-up agreement in 1995, granted Palestinians control of less than 20 percent of the West Bank.
The Palestine Authority (PA) was created with Arafat as its first president. He was a symbol of Palestinians’ heroic resistance and leader of the armed struggle against Israel from the 1960s.
But Israel kept control of security, key sections of the economy and the majority of the Palestinian territory.
The Oslo Accords were a product of Palestinian resistance—and the PLO leaders making disastrous concessions to Israel.
The First Intifada, a mass uprising against Israel, began in 1987 and shook the US and Israel.
It erupted with strikes, boycotts and rallies and inspired resistance across the Middle East—in Egypt, Turkey, Sudan, Kuwait, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and Syria. But, even at the height of the Intifada, the PLO’s leaders were prepared to make major concessions.
Arafat had founded the Fatah nationalist party in 1959 and then led the PLO, a coalition of Palestinian resistance groups, from 1964.
The PLO’s strategy was reliant on the support of Arab regimes in the region. This saw it adopt a policy of “non-interference” in the class struggles across the Middle East in exchange for military and financial support. In practice, this meant not linking the struggles of Palestinians and workers and the poor in Lebanon, Jordan or elsewhere.
But linking the fight for liberation to machinations of various regimes proved disastrous. Support was contingent on their own strategic interests—and Arab ruling classes certainly didn’t want to see the Palestinian struggle linking to political and social struggles domestically.
After the 1948 Nakba, Israel’s atrocities had scattered Palestinians throughout the region.
In Lebanese and Jordanian refugee camps, Palestinians were organising.
Palestine has the potential to mobilise mass opposition against Arab ruling classes—and throughout the 1970s many states were unstable.
In Jordan, the Palestinians became a challenge to king Hussein’s monarchy.
In 1970, Hussein’s forces killed thousands of Palestinians in what became known as Black September.
The Six Day War in 1967—where Israel grabbed East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza—concentrated PLO forces in Lebanon.
Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 was fuelled by an attempt to crush the Palestinians living there. The invasion weakened the PLO and it was forced to set up scattered new bases in Tunisia, Yemen and Sudan.
The First Intifada was breaking out as the PLO was making concessions due to the limitations of its strategy. It had come to accept in principle the idea of a “two-state solution”, a major victory for the US and Israel. In 1987, the PLO leaders faced a choice. They could support the resistance from below across the Middle East—or stick with it’s policy of “non-inteference”.
During the Intifada, Arafat visited Kuwait and expressed his support not for the protesters there, but for the regime itself.
PLO leaders also tried to contain the popular Palestinian solidarity which erupted in Jordan.
Looking to stop the spreading resistance, the US began talks between Israel and the PLO. These Oslo negotiations led to Arafat’s historic concession—a recognition of Israel and the construction of a “mini-state” of Palestine. Israel retained control of the Palestinian economy and accelerated its exploitation.
By 2005 almost 75 percent of imports to the West Bank and Gaza originated in Israel, while 88 percent of West Bank and Gaza exports was directed to Israel.
From 1993 to 2000, unemployment in the West Bank rocketed from 10.1 percent to 23.8 percent, with 56 percent of the West Bank falling below the poverty line.
The Oslo Accords allowed Israel to enforce colonialism with the backing of Europe.
While the Accords increased the flow of aid from European states, they did nothing to break Israel’s grip on Palestine.
Working with the Israeli occupation, the PA constructed a repressive regime. The PA built a police force of 30,000, patrolling Palestinian territories and arresting political opposition.
Fatah became a bloated, corrupt organisation with 100,000 personnel. PA officials operated Israel’s permit scheme, controlling the movement of Palestinians in their own land.
The PA had become a sub-contractor for the occupation.
In 2000, the Second Intifada erupted. The next five years saw ongoing Palestinian resistance, but not on the same mass scale as 1987.
The PA claimed to support the resistance but it wanted to defend the Oslo Accords and fell in line behind Israel’s attempts to crush the resistance.
The PA’s failures became increasingly obvious. Life for Palestinians was no better, and Israel’s colonial repression was increasing.
Out of this despair grew Hamas, which didn’t sign up to the Oslo Accords.
In the 2006 PA elections, Hamas defeated Fatah. Fatah protested. Israel was appalled.
The US backed an immediate coup. But Hamas secured control of Gaza—creating a de facto split between the PA-controlled West Bank and Gaza.
When the Arab Spring broke out in 2011, Mahmoud Abbas became president of the PA. True to form, Abbas worked with Israel to suppress resistance in Palestine.
The PA’s concessions to Israel did not stop the annexation of the West Bank which accelerated during the genocide.
The PA has been able to do nothing but watch as settlers and Israeli forces ethnically cleanse Palestinian towns.
Time and again, Fatah had the opportunity to embolden massive uprisings across the Middle East.
But it never tapped into the potential of that resistance. Since 7 October, the Palestinian resistance in Gaza has valiantly fought against Israel’s genocide.
But Hamas’ strategy, too, relied on the support of regimes such as Iran which are not consistent or principled supporters of the Palestinian struggle.
Armed struggle, and a reliance on support of regimes in the region, will not defeat Western imperialism’s watch‑dog state.
The next stage in the imperial takeover of Gaza is underway.
But hope still lies with mass movements that challenge US imperialism, Israel and the regimes in the region.