Dana El Kurd (2:33)
Call Zone Media. Hello everyone and welcome to It Could Happen here. My name is Dana El Kurd and I'm a writer, analyst and researcher of Palestinian and Arab politics. I'm an Associate professor of Political science and a senior non resident fellow at the Arab Center Washington. I'm recording this on October 19, 2025, negotiators from a number of countries and Israel were in Cairo recently discussing the next phase of 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 And Israel has withdrawn from certain parts of the Gaza Strip and started to release political prisoners as well as the bodies of Palestinians who have been killed after they were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 7. Some of the testimonies from these prisoners is just incredibly hard to stomach. The degree of dehumanization 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 Thunberg, 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 20 point peace plan for Gaza. Reportedly, ex UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has been consulting with Trump and his son in law advisor 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 20 points, but it's a little light on details. It outlines the return of remaining Israeli hostages very quickly, within 72 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 de radicalize 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 and 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, Yitzhak Rabin, which was the first time Palestinians and Israelis agreed 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 and 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 octogenarian Palestinian President Mahmoud Abdas, 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 a guy that's acceptable to the US and Israel to that role. That man was Hsin al Sheikh, Palestinian businessman and former security guy who polls at 2% 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 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 agreed too. This is legitimate, even if that PA doesn't represent people. Even if most Palestinians, 85% in the latest poll are dissatisfied with the PA's conduct and 42% support the dissolution of the PA altogether, this is a dangerous game to play.
