The ASEAN summit’s embrace of Trump’s Gaza plan is a moral failure
When the leaders of Southeast Asia gathered in Malaysia this week for the 47th ASEAN Summit, their message to the world was unmistakable: they support President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan. In a moment that should have demanded moral clarity, ASEAN instead chose political convenience.
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, serving as ASEAN chair, praised Trump’s “comprehensive plan to end the Gaza conflict,” calling it “a glimmer of hope” that diplomacy could prevail even in the world’s most intractable war. It was a curious declaration, given that the plan has already produced neither peace nor justice — and that, even as ASEAN leaders spoke, Israel was bombing Gaza again.
Trump’s 20-point plan, brokered through U.S. mediation, lays out a phased ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. The first stage involves prisoner exchanges and partial Israeli withdrawals from Gaza. Later stages envision reconstruction and a new governing authority that explicitly excludes Hamas. On paper, it reads like a roadmap to stability. In reality, it looks more like a blueprint for control — one that sidelines Palestinian representation and institutionalizes Israel’s dominance under the soothing language of “peace.”
That Southeast Asian leaders, many of whom once championed anti-colonial independence, would rally behind such a plan is both perplexing and disappointing. ASEAN was founded on principles of sovereignty, nonalignment, and mutual respect. But this week, the bloc appeared less like a community of independent nations and more like a chorus of validation for Washington’s geopolitical theater.
Anwar, to his credit, said he “did his best” to appeal to Trump that the plan must be “comprehensive, durable, and fair.” But appealing to Trump’s sense of fairness is a fool’s errand. The current U.S. president has never been guided by moral consistency. His record on Palestine — from his first term’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital to his relentless defunding of UNRWA — is defined by cruelty and political calculation. His new “Gaza peace” effort merely repackages those instincts in diplomatic form.
The core problem is not diplomacy itself, but the kind of diplomacy on offer. Trump’s plan treats the Gaza crisis as a management problem — something to be “stabilized” through deals and sequencing — rather than as a human catastrophe rooted in occupation and blockade. It offers no path to accountability for war crimes, no restoration of Palestinian sovereignty, and no guarantee of security for civilians.
Even as President Trump and his aides tout the cease-fire’s progress, Israel continues to expand its military operations. This week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered “immediate, powerful strikes” on Gaza despite the supposed truce. More than 68,500 Palestinians — mostly women and children — have been killed since the war began in October 2023, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Over 170,000 have been injured, and entire neighborhoods have been flattened. The “peace plan” exists in name only; the violence continues unabated.
ASEAN’s willingness to bless this plan under such conditions is nothing short of moral abdication. It is one thing to pursue dialogue, quite another to endorse a framework that enables impunity. The bloc’s leaders know better. Many of their nations have lived under the shadow of imperialism and foreign intervention. To now align themselves with a policy that denies Palestinians political agency is to forget their own histories.
The geopolitical logic is transparent. In an era of renewed U.S.-China rivalry, Southeast Asian leaders see value in staying close to Washington. Endorsing Trump’s initiative is a low-cost gesture of goodwill toward a superpower eager to reassert influence in the Global South. But this short-term diplomacy carries a long-term price: the erosion of ASEAN’s moral authority.
Malaysia’s offer to send peacekeepers to Gaza under this plan only compounds the contradiction. What kind of peacekeeping is possible when one side remains the occupier and the other is excluded from governance? What legitimacy can a ceasefire have when Israeli warplanes still dictate life and death from the skies?
The tragedy here is not just that Trump’s plan is unjust — it is that it pretends to be just. It gives the illusion of progress while entrenching domination. ASEAN, by endorsing it, has lent its credibility to that illusion.
What Southeast Asia should have done was simple but courageous: refuse to rubber-stamp a plan conceived in Washington and enforced by Tel Aviv. Call instead for a truly international peace process grounded in human rights and law, not American power. Speak not as bystanders to Western diplomacy, but as survivors of colonialism who know what real self-determination means.
Instead, ASEAN leaders sat beside Donald Trump and called it diplomacy. History will remember their words — not as a gesture of leadership, but as a failure of conscience.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.