{"id":995852,"date":"2026-08-12T10:08:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T10:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/995852\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T10:08:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T10:08:16","slug":"why-trumps-plan-for-gaza-was-built-to-fail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/995852\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Trump\u2019s plan for Gaza was built to fail"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have worked within multinational military planning. No headquarters, however capable, can compensate for a political design whose opening move depends on the end-state already existing.<\/p>\n

Phase one delivered something precious. The hostages came home<\/a>, and major combat subsided. Those achievements deserve recognition, especially after two years of misery.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Phase two carried a different burden. Hamas had to surrender the source of its coercive power. Israel was expected to relinquish the ground from which it could enforce security, allowing outsiders to enter Gaza before either side trusted the arrangement. The pause could be negotiated through reciprocal incentives. The proposed peace depended on enemies sharing an objective they did not share.<\/p>\n

Disarmament trapdoor<\/strong><\/p>\n

Disarmament was always the trapdoor. Hamas\u2019s claim to rule rests heavily on armed resistance, and its leaders have repeatedly linked their weapons to the continuation of Israel\u2019s \u201coccupation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khalil al-Hayya<\/a>, the newly elected Hamas leader, said in December that the arsenal would pass to a Palestinian authority only after a sovereign Palestinian state existed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s present government rejects that state. US President Donald Trump therefore treated the most profound dispute in the conflict as a technical task of supervised buybacks and weapons storage.<\/p>\n

\"USUS Army personnel, IDF personnel, and other international officials monitor screens displaying maps and imagery of the Gaza Strip inside the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) in November in Kiryat Gat. (credit: Amir Levy\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The roadmap announced on July 30 has been sold as a breakthrough. Its text shows how far Washington has retreated from the original promise. The arsenal and its underground infrastructure are to be \u201cdecommissioned and stored\u201d under the new Palestinian committee. No weapons will go to Israel or any other non-Palestinian party.<\/p>\n

Implementation of the wider transition may take three years. Hamas says heavy disarmament remains conditional upon Palestinian statehood. A sealed warehouse inside Gaza offers less assurance than destruction, especially when the armed network that filled it survives.<\/p>\n

Circular logic<\/strong><\/p>\n

Israel immediately exposed the gap. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on August 8 that Israel rejected Trump\u2019s plan and that the IDF would not leave its current lines until Hamas had completely disarmed.<\/p>\n

The roadmap links weapons decommissioning to phased Israeli withdrawal, with each move contingent on verification of the previous one. Hamas wants withdrawal before surrendering its ultimate leverage. Israel wants the leverage gone before withdrawal. A delay here shifts the balance on the ground. Calling this carefully structured sequencing gives a deadlock the suggestion of project management.<\/p>\n

The governance scheme suffers from the same circular logic. A committee of Palestinian technocrats, the NCAG, was formed in Cairo in January. The Board of Peace\u2019s own May report admitted it could not enter areas under Hamas\u2019s armed control. It needed predictable funding and freedom from parallel authority before it could govern.<\/p>\n

Hamas\u2019s administrative and coercive networks did not evaporate when the committee acquired letterhead. A government that arrives under foreign protection, while its rival still controls the streets, may receive buildings and a budget. Sovereignty will remain with the gunmen.<\/p>\n

The International Stabilization Force<\/a> was intended to bridge that gap. In October, the plan promised immediate deployment. Ten months later, Uganda had only just approved a contribution, joining Morocco in publicly pledging troops to a projected 20,000-strong mission.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The first Ugandan parliamentary question was telling: \u201cOn which side is our army going to fight?\u201d<\/p>\n

Troops who merely observe cannot disarm Hamas. Troops ordered to raid tunnels become combatants in an urban insurgency, operating alongside an IDF that reserves the freedom to strike.<\/p>\n

Coalition headquarters cannot dissolve national politics. Each contingent arrives with its own constraints and tolerance for casualties. Israel distrusts Turkish involvement because Ankara has embraced Hamas politically. Qatar helped mediate the ceasefire while maintaining its relationship with the movement.<\/p>\n

Intelligence will be closely guarded. Rules of engagement will be disputed across several capitals. One bombing or a misidentified gunman could leave commanders waiting for political permission while events outstrip them.<\/p>\n

Palestinian political question<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reconstruction was meant to secure stability, yet it became another hostage to the sequence. By May, $17 billion had been pledged, with little disbursed. The Board said large-scale rebuilding could not begin until demilitarization was verified. The delay leaves Gazans living in ruins and undermines the credibility of the new administration.<\/p>\n

Early rebuilding releases money and materials into territory where Hamas retains personnel and influence. Economic hope cannot displace an armed organization that controls access to work and personal security.<\/p>\n

\"PalestiniansPalestinians attend the funeral of 112 members of the Hassayna and Abu Sharia clan, who were killed in an Israeli strike in 2023, on August 4. A government that arrives under foreign protection, while its rival still controls the streets, may receive buildings and a budget. (credit: Dawoud Abu Alkas\/Reuters)<\/p>\n

The plan also quarantined Gaza from the Palestinian political question. Its pathway to statehood remained conditional and vague, while the Palestinian Authority remained peripheral and Hamas demanded a national outcome before surrendering its arsenal.<\/p>\n

Gazans were offered trusteeship under a Trump-chaired board, with no clear route to self-government. Even competent local administrators would struggle to gain consent under that architecture. Technical governance cannot create legitimacy when the proposed governors appear accountable to foreign sponsors.<\/p>\n

The planners in Kiryat Gat can produce branches and contingencies for immaculate briefing slides. They still lack a mission that holds up to contact with its premises. The probable destination is the arrangement Israel already understands: a fortified perimeter and recurrent strikes, while a weakened Hamas rules from behind the rubble.<\/p>\n

Trump promised to bridge multiple obstacles to transforming Gaza. His plan built each bridge on the assumption that the next bridge had already been crossed, and July\u2019s supposed breakthrough has led straight back to the start.\u25a0<\/p>\n

The writer is a former British Army officer, senior fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, and cohost of The Brink podcast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I have worked within multinational military planning. No headquarters, however capable, can compensate for a political design whose…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":995853,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[58985,45498,4527,249921,99,136822,50,145385],"class_list":["post-995852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-centcom","tag-gaza-ceasefire","tag-hamas","tag-hamas-disarmament","tag-israel","tag-jerusalem-report","tag-news","tag-trumps-peace-plan"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117081993456819311","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=995852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/995853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=995852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=995852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=995852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}