9/26/25
Can Trump's Gaza Plan Reconcile Israel's and Saudi Arabia's Competing Strategies?
A view of Gaza from Israel on Thursday. The Gulf states told Donald Trump that any Arab cooperation on Gaza would have to be under the PA's auspices. Credit: Jack Guez/AFP
In a typical display of optimism, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff described the latest American plan as a realistic start. He told journalists that the plan unveiled to the Arab and Muslim leaders who met with U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday "addresses Israeli concerns as well as the concerns of all the neighbors in the region." And he was "hopeful, and I might say even confident, that in the coming days we'll be able to announce some sort of breakthrough."
Witkoff is an affable man who won Israeli hearts with his warm approach and his support for the hostages' families. But in both his and our experience, his optimism has proved premature or overblown.
The plan's principles, first reported on the website Axios, include a permanent cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, a gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops from the enclave, a massive influx of humanitarian aid, the return of all the hostages and, above all, a blueprint for running Gaza after the war.
Steve Witkoff and Emmanuel Macron in Paris this month. The optimism of Trump's envoy has proved premature and overblown. Credit: Ludovic Marin/AFP
Gaza would be governed by a Palestinian mechanism excluding Hamas, aided by troops from Arab states and other countries. This government would receive funding from Arab states and other countries to rebuild Gaza in cooperation with the Palestinian Authority.
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Arab leaders politely voiced the requisite satisfaction with the "fruitful" meeting. But they quickly added that their support was conditional on provisions to expand the plan's scope beyond Gaza. According to Arab sources, these conditions include barring an Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank, preventing Israel from occupying territory in Gaza and maintaining the status quo on the Temple Mount that restricts non-Muslim prayer.
In these leaders' view, Gaza isn't just a humanitarian problem or a local war that has cost the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians, it's the key to solving the Palestinian problem. But that's likely to be a bit more than what the Trump plan can provide.
When it comes to ideas for ending the war and deals for bringing the hostages home, the past year has been particularly fruitful. But implementation is a different story.
Trump's latest plan contains 21 paragraphs, far less than the 91 glossy pages of the Egyptian plan unveiled in February. It's apparently also less pompous than the program for building a Riviera in Gaza that Trump came out with that month, the one that would give the Americans control over the Strip after the war and terrified the entire Middle East.
Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the White House on Thursday. Credit: Saul Loeb/AFP
Maybe Trump has learned a thing or two in the seven months since he brought his magic show to the world, and especially during his warm visit to the Gulf states in May.
The heads of those states, led by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and United Arab Emirates President Mohamed bin Zayed, told their guest that any Arab cooperation on Gaza would have to be under the PA's auspices, since the PA is the sole recognized representative of the Palestinian people. The UAE president is the only leader who has expressed a willingness to take part in an international Arab force in Gaza, subject to conditions.
The warm embraces, the flowing flattery and even significant diplomatic gestures – Trump's recognition of Syria's new president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, and his cancellation of most American sanctions on Syria – didn't soften Riyadh's hard line on the Palestinian issue, which has changed radically over the past two years.
Once, the Saudis only demanded an improvement of Palestinian living conditions in the West Bank and Gaza and a vague statement about the Palestinians' right to statehood in exchange for a normalization with Israel. Today, they're mobilizing the international community to recognize a Palestinian state. It's no accident that the crown prince, who hasn't visited the United States since 2018, once again skipped the UN General Assembly this year.
Prince Mohammed thinks the more than $1 trillion he has pledged to invest in America during Trump's presidency should have a significant diplomatic return. He didn't want to find himself in the position of the other Arab and Muslim leaders at that meeting with Trump and be asked to dilute his plan into the American-Israeli outlook.
In the crown prince's view, Saudi Arabia, which was behind the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, is in a different league. And while he sees the sweeping international recognition of a Palestinian state as an important diplomatic achievement for the Palestinian people, he also realizes that it's currently just words whose fruit hasn't even started to bud.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Doha, Qatar, this month. He thinks the more than $1 trillion he has pledged to invest in America during Trump's presidency should have a significant diplomatic return. Credit: Saudi Press Agency/AFP
Riyadh has reaped diplomatic capital by building this recognition fairly quickly, in close cooperation with France. As in 2002, this depicts the prince as a power who is leading the Middle East and is capable of forging an international coalition rather than just an Arab one. That positions Prince Mohammed as a rival to Trump in determining the diplomatic paradigm, and certainly the military one, that will shape policy in the Middle East.
But his victory is neither complete nor assured. Saudi Arabia hasn't persuaded Trump to recognize a Palestinian state. Indeed, in saying that the PA can't be part of the solution in Gaza, Trump's position is virtually identical to that of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Prince Mohammed didn't even manage to win an entry visa to the United States for Palestinian President Mohammed Abbas. Nor has he managed to open the Allenby Bridge crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, which Israel controls, or ensure the continuation of the status quo on the Temple Mount in the face of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's dangerous provocations.
The leverage the crown prince thought he had gained over Trump in exchange for the enormous pledged investments proved effective in Syria. But so far, he has had great difficulty dealing with an American-Israeli coalition that rejects solving the war in Gaza by solving the Palestinian issue as a whole.
The competition between these two strategies, in which Riyadh's power will be tested, will also determine the fate of the latest Trump plan, or any plan for ending the war. For instance, the principle agreed on by everyone and included in every plan – that Hamas can't be a partner in running Gaza – requires a decision on how the group will be ousted from control of the Strip.
Israel has said that destroying Hamas is its supreme goal. The occupation of Gaza Cityand the refugee camps in central Gaza, the systematic destruction, the wholesale killing, the moving of Gaza's people into a few specific areas and the seizing of territory are all meant to ensure that Gaza becomes a kill zone in which, theoretically, only two armed forces will remain – the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas' fighters.
Benjamin Netanyahu at the Finance Ministry this month. He aims to disconnect Gaza from the West Bank.Credit: Debbie Hill/Reuters
Under this thinking, any price is collateral damage: the lives of the hostages and soldiers, international boycotts and sanctions, ruining any chance of a normalization with Saudi Arabia, harm to the Israeli economy and, of course, the deaths of thousands of Palestinians. The Israeli government's plan doesn't include the concept of a "day after," not of the plans proposed by the Egyptians or the Americans, and certainly not of the Saudis, who would reunite Gaza with the West Bank.
In fact, according to the Israeli line, the goal of "destroying Hamas" should never be fleshed out, nor should there be a timeline for ending the war.
Netanyahu aims to disconnect Gaza from the West Bank and the entire Palestinian issue. Any talk of a "day after" must be neutralized because it would interfere with his plan and undermine the continuation of the war.
The Trump plan is an attempt to reconcile Netanyahu's "total elimination of Hamas" strategy with the Saudis' position. One side says that "Hamas can't be in Gaza" and the other says that "Hamas can't be a partner in running Gaza."
But from Netanyahu's perspective, this isn't a compromise but a tectonic clash, because the minute it's agreed that Hamas can't help govern Gaza, the slippery slope to the "day after" begins in which someone who isn't Israel may agree to take on the job.
Whether governance and reconstruction are based on the Egyptian, American or Saudi plan, they spell the revival of the PA as a governing body for all Palestinian territory. This also means the defeat of Netanyahu's decades-long struggle to crush the legitimacy of Palestinian representation, which is the basis for establishing a Palestinian state, and not just in name.
But the greatest "threat" is that the minute Trump adopts the Arab plan, he's effectively committing to recognizing the PA's status as the authority for all civil, political and diplomatic activity in Gaza.
As far as anyone knows, the president hasn't yet stipulated when the "day after" begins, what the cease-fire conditions will be and how much he still believes Israel can destroy Hamas. Without these basics, the Trump plan looks like a mishmash of chapters from two different books – one by Netanyahu and one by the Saudis and the international community, for now, without the United States.
It may be that after the Trump-Netanyahu meeting, we'll better know where the president is heading, including the weight allotted to each of the regional and global players trying to influence him.
But remember that this is the same Trump who changed his stance on Vladimir Putin, while humiliating Volodymyr Zelenskyy before embracing him. He attacked America's European allies and then reached agreements with them. He savagely attacked the Houthis and then signed a cease-fire with them. He negotiated with Iran and then bombed it.
He might present Netanyahu with a spectacular feat of diplomatic acrobatics, but it's too early to tell what will come of it when he lands on the mat, or at Ben-Gurion Airport.