Without a Viable Governing Alternative, Trump's Peace Plan May Legitimize Hamas in Gaza -
Trump's plan for Gaza leaves an opening for Hamas to become an unarmed political movement. Israel must prepare for the possibility that, just as Trump legitimized Al-Sharaa's terrorist militias in Syria and signed agreements with the Taliban in Afghanistan, he might well view Hamas, too, as a 'deserving' organization if it just agrees to disarm
"I spoke to Hamas and I said, you're gonna disarm, right? They said, 'yessir.' That's what they told me," U.S. President Donald Trump said during his meeting with Argentinian President Javier Milei. Trump later denied having spoken directly with Hamas and added that "if they don't disarm, we will disarm them ... quickly and perhaps violently."
But during a conversation with journalists aboard his plane, it turned out that Hamas had actually received Trump's permission to function as an internal security force in Gaza.
Hamas' leaders "do want to stop the problems, and they've been open about it, and we gave them approval for a period of time," he said. "You have close to 2 million people going back to buildings that have been demolished, and a lot of bad things can happen. So we want it to be – we want it to be safe."
The president added that while he thinks this will work out fine, no one can be certain. He was also unfazed by Hamas' execution of gang members operating under Israeli auspices. Those gangs "were very, very bad," he said.
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It's unlikely that even Trump himself will remember all the things he said. Consequently, Israel would be wise not to draft its combat doctrine on their basis or try to identify a consistent line of thinking in them from which it could derive policy, or at least understand the bounds of its freedom to act militarily against Hamas.
But one overt fact requires no interpretation. During the interim phase, in which the process of returning the dead hostages is proceeding with nerve-racking slowness, and with Israel having already withdrawn from 53 percent of Gaza, Hamas is swiftly consolidating power in its own hands through force of arms and, with the permission it received from Trump, seizing control of internal security in Gaza.
At this point, it's hard to reconcile two presidential decrees, according to which, on one hand, the war has ended, but on the other, if Hamas doesn't disarm, America will forcibly disarm it. But between these two extremes, a scenario similar to the one that exists in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq might well develop.
In all of them, armed militias continue to conduct military operations and even control some territory, despite the fact that each country committed to either disarming them or merging them into its national army.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah still holds offensive and defensive weapons, in violation of the cease-fire agreement. Though the Lebanese army has begun dismantling the group's facilities and collecting weapons from its militants south of the Litani River, north of the river, this process – which is mandated by both UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and a Lebanese cabinet decision – is far from being implemented.
The lack of action stems from the fact that the heavy American pressure and threats, alongside continuing Israeli airstrikes, are offset by Lebanon's fear that a violent clash with Hezbollah could send the country into civil war.
In its defense, the Lebanese government argues that as long as Israel controls five sites inside Lebanon and continues to attack Lebanese targets, it will have trouble persuading Hezbollah to lay down its arms. It is therefore urging the Trump administration to pressure Israel to uphold the cease-fire terms in full. Meanwhile, Hezbollah continues to be part of both the cabinet and the parliament and, through them, to dictate Lebanese policy.
In Syria, the new regime led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa promised to disarm all the militias and has received U.S. approval to merge them into the national army. And in fact, a sizable portion of the militias that fought with Al-Sharaa when he led his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham militia in a successful assault on former President Bashar Assad's presidential palace have agreed to join the national army.
Nevertheless, dozens of militias and gangs that aren't subordinate to the government are still operating in Syria.
Al-Sharaa's biggest and most important challenge is to merge the Kurdish forces and the Druze militias into the army. He has been holding complex negotiations with them, but so far, the talks have produced no real results despite involvement by and pressure from both the United States and Turkey in the Kurdish issue and Israel in the Druze issue.
In Iraq, discussions have been underway for months about a law to merge the Shi'ite militias into the national army, so far with no real results. Granted, these militias are all under the umbrella of the Popular Mobilization Forces, which are subordinate to the Iraqi Defense Ministry. But this subordination, which entitles them to state funding, still leaves them with room for independent action in the framework of their loyalty to Iran or to pro-Iranian Iraqi politicians.
Here, too, Washington has been conducting tough negotiations, complete with threats, with the Iraqi government. But, as in Lebanon, political considerations and fear of a violent internal conflict trump the American threat.
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In each of these countries, the armed militias are a legitimate, integral part of society and local politics. The main difference between the status of the armed organizations in those countries and the situation in Gaza is that in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, there is a sovereign government that Washington can negotiate with, exert pressure on or reach compromises that could produce a mutually acceptable solution.
But in Gaza, there is no government. There is currently no intention of subordinating it to the Palestinian Authority, nor is there even an agreed date by which Gaza's temporary administration – the Gaza International Transitional Authority dreamed up by Trump, which is slated to be run by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair – is supposed to begin operations. Nor does anyone know when the international stabilization force will be set up.
What is clear is that even once that force is recruited, it won't be able to enter Gaza to start implementing Trump's plan if fighting erupts anew between Israel and Hamas. To guarantee the force a quiet entry into Gaza, the mediating countries will have to negotiate with Hamas, and America may even have to negotiate with it directly.
That wouldn't be a big innovation, since the precedent for direct American negotiations with Hamas, which sparked fierce criticism at the time, was set when Trump's special envoy for hostage response, Adam Boehler, negotiated directly with Hamas officials in Doha back in February. And it became routine practice once U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met in Egypt with senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya last week.
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Such direct talks appear to be likely in the near future as well. That's because the permission Trump gave Hamas to use force to maintain security in Gaza, even if only temporarily, not only grants the organization legitimate status, but also turns it into an integral part of Gaza's administration in practice, even though officially, it won't be part of the territory's civilian government.
It's also important to remember that just as Israel's cease-fire agreement with Lebanon didn't require Hezbollah to disband as an organization, Trump's plan for Gaza doesn't demand that Hamas be dismantled. Rather, it leaves an opening for the organization to become an unarmed political movement.
Consequently, Israel must be prepared for the possibility that just as Trump signed agreements with the Taliban in Afghanistan, legitimized Al-Sharaa's terrorist militias and didn't demand that Hezbollah disband, he might well view Hamas, too, as a "deserving" organization if it just agrees to lay down its arms.