© ReutersIsrael Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets US President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday on 29 September, 2025
Arab and Muslim leaders can claim to have been duped into giving their backing to the plan unveiled by US President Donald Trump on Monday.
The plan announced in Washington was substantially different to the one they agreed to in New York. But that is the charitable way of reading what they have done.
Betrayal is another word that comes to mind.
A betrayal performed as a genocide is in full motion and which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been given a green light by Trump to continue.
The Qataris are furious they were written out of a mediation role and that Trump refused to delay the announcement. The Egyptians, too, are furious that the role of the Palestinian Authority (PA) has been downgraded and that Israeli forces will always remain in Rafah and along the border with Sinai.
But the names of each country are still on the statement welcoming the plan and neither have said or done anything to withdraw from it.
Either way, each of the eight regional nations that backed this agreement is serving the people of Gaza a bitter and bleak reward for two years of enduring the worst military onslaught in the history of this conflict.
For them, there is to be no light at the end of the tunnel. Only a different form of occupation and a different form of siege.
Just at that point in history when world opinion has definitively turned against Israel and just as more countries than ever before have recognised the Palestinian state, Arab and Muslim leaders have signed up to a plan that ensures that a viable state can never emerge from the rubble of Israel's vengeance.
The regional states can claim they stopped the mass ethnic cleansing of Gaza, the Israeli occupation, and brought the UN agencies back into Gaza. But the keys to each remain in Netanyahu's hands.
No agency
There is no guarantee they have stopped ethnic cleansing and genocide, because under this agreement, Israeli forces are not leaving the strip, and Netanyahu is the one who decides how quickly and how much of Gaza his forces hand over to the proposed International Stabilisation Force (ISF).
He is also free to decide how much aid and reconstruction materials to send in. There is no timetable for such a withdrawal.
But there is every guarantee that this postwar plan will stifle at birth Gaza reemerging under a Palestinian leadership of any kind.
Under this plan, there is no role for any Palestinian leadership in the rebuilding of Gaza. Gaza is definitively split from the Occupied West Bank by this agreement and all thoughts of joining the two have been jettisoned.
The PA fares no better than Hamas or the other factions. Already disarmed, the PA has to go further.
According to Netanyahu's remarks at the joint press conference, the PA has to drop its cases against Israel at the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), it has to stop paying the families of slain fighters, change the school curriculum and tame the media. And only then Israel will see.
None of the eight leaders, prime ministers or foreign ministers of Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, Egypt, Indonesia and Pakistan consulted the Palestinians before agreeing to this plan.
Just as the Palestinians have no agency in the authority that is about to be imposed on them in Gaza, they have had no say in devising a postwar plan.
The nations are now tasked with forcing Hamas to accept terms of surrender that Israeli tanks, drones, and robots were unable to achieve on the battlefield. They can do this with nothing less than an overwhelming sense of shame.
Arab counter plan
Where was the Arab counter plan? It does not exist. Where was the determination to counter Israel's expanding borders? That, too, is pure make believe.
Differences between the draft and the final statement cover the time limit for handing over the hostages, the distribution of aid, the number of Palestinian prisoners that would be released, the international stabilisation force, and the lines to which Israeli forces would withdraw.
On each of these issues, Israel's control has been hardened, and its commitments lessened, between the draft agreed at the UN and the announcement in the White House.
But the key ones are the following: a commitment on Israel to allow 600 trucks of aid in a day has been replaced by the words "full support" without numbers or specifying what equipment Israel will allow in; a commitment to withdraw from all of Gaza has morphed magically into a withdrawal "conditional on disarmament and the maintenance of a security perimeter".
The statement issued jointly by the leaders and foreign minister of the countries that Trump met - Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan, Egypt and Indonesia - referred to the first draft Trump and Witkoff had agreed to in New York.
Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner took that plan to Netanyahu. Together and over many hours in hotel rooms they changed the text radically. The Times of Israel referred to these changes as "edits".
© ReutersUS President Donald Trump meeting Arab and Muslim leaders at the 80th session of the UN’s General Assembly in New York on 23 September 2025
These two men are serial and shameless breakers of their word. They have form in abandoning positions to which they publicly signed up.
Critical changes
The worst example was the January ceasefire deal with Hamas which these regional actors blithely allowed Netanyahu to tear up, but there are many others. Another example, the talks with the Iranian delegation that Witkoff was about to have in Oman when Israeli warplanes and US B2 bombers struck Iran's nuclear facilities.
This was a deceit Trump publicly revelled in.
The result? Egypt has apparently signed up to a permanent Israeli presence in Rafah and along the Philadelphi Corridor which separates Gaza from Sinai. Israel has been adamant about retaining control of both.
Qatar is back in the role of mediator, although its future worth has been put in grave doubt by Israel's obvious attempts to write it out of this agreement.
Netanyahu's apology was limited as he did not apologise for attacking the Hamas delegation Doha was hosting. On the other hand, Netanyahu has got an agreement which hands him complete control over the withdrawal of his troops from Gaza long after the hostages have been released.
The key issues which are critical to Hamas - a complete Israeli withdrawal and cessation of war before the hostages are released and the red line of keeping their weapons - have also suffered critical changes between the first and final drafts.
The first draft stated that "Israeli forces will withdraw to the battle lines as of when the [US special envoy Steve] Witkoff proposal was presented to prepare for hostage release." But it did not specify which Witkoff proposal, as there have been a number of them.
The final statement simply states "Israeli forces will withdraw to the agreed-upon line."
This, too, appears to refer to a map published which gives Israeli forces control of the majority of Gaza even after the first pull back of troops.
As The Times of Israel notes, point 16 of the original agreement read Israeli forces "will progressively hand over the Gaza territory that [it] occup[ies]."
To this has now been added the following caveats: "IDF will withdraw based on standards, milestones, and timeframes linked to demilitarization that will be agreed upon between the IDF, ISF, the guarantors, and the US".
No wonder Netanyahu had a big smile on his face. And no wonder he told Israeli television viewers: "Who would have believed this? After all people constantly say, you must accept Hamas' terms, get everyone out. The IDF should withdraw, Hamas can recover and it can also rehabilitate the strip. No way. That's not happening."
Netanyahu was then asked if he agreed to a Palestinian state. He replied: "Absolutely not. It's not written into the agreement, but there is one thing we did say. That we would strongly oppose a Palestinian state. President Trump also said it. He said he understands it."
Here he is right.
The last of the 20 points merely says "The United States will establish a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians to agree on a political horizon for peaceful and prosperous co-existence."
Article 19 only gives the vaguest nod to statehood. It recognises self determination and statehood as the "aspiration" of the Palestinian people - note not the right - but even that aspiration is contingent on "redevelopment advances in Gaza and PA reform faithfully carried out".
Who is the arbiter of this process? Israel of course.
This did not need the busy hands of Witkoff and Kushner to rewrite. The betrayal of the Palestinian national cause by those Arab and Muslim leaders who claimed to have promoted it for so long had already been completed.
For there is not one word in this plan about self determination and the inalienable right of Palestinians to their own state. Trump is deaf to anything but Israeli statehood between the river and the sea. He sees Palestinians as migrant workers.
The betrayal complete
Trump devoted some time in his press conference to describe how he defied regional opinion on the decisions he made in his first term of office to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, or the annexation of the occupied Golan Heights.
"And you know what? It turned out to be amazing. Everybody thought it was going to lead to the end of the world, right? The end of the world, Ron. That's what they said. It didn't lead to anything."
That is how he really views Israel's Arab neighbours. With contempt. His description of the history of Gaza is so distorted, it's hard to know where to begin.
According to Trump, in 2005, Ariel Sharon, then prime minister of Israel, withdrew from the prime sea front property of Gaza in search of peace.
"And they said, 'All we want to do now is have peace.' Instead of building a better life for the Palestinians, Hamas diverted resources to build over 400 miles of tunnels and terror infrastructure, rocket production facilities and hid their military command post and launch sites in hospitals, schools, and mosques. So if you went after them, you wouldn't even realize you ended up knocking out a hospital or a school or a mosque."
This is what has lodged in Trump's head about a period when Hamas won the only election ever to take place under Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's rule; when Fatah with Israel's help tried and failed to mount a pre-emptive coup, and when a brutal 17-year siege started.
Trump justifies the destruction of every hospital, school and mosque in Gaza over the last two years which are war crimes and amount to genocide.
But it's even worse than that.
Blair's failure
Tony Blair, the man who in his oration at Sharon's funeral described the former general whose tanks lit the path for gunmen massacring Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila camps in Lebanon as a "man of peace", is back to haunt Gaza.
No-one outside Ramallah has played a bigger role than Blair in keeping Hamas out of a national unity government, which for decades was the only path to deconfliction.
In 2006, the year before he became Middle East envoy, Blair sided with then US President George Bush, rejecting the results of a freely won election, boycotting Hamas and laying the foundation of international support for a permanent siege. The Quartet's conditions ensured Hamas' exclusion.
Now he is back as a member of the "Board of Peace".
In 2010, after his term as envoy had expired, the Israeli revisionist historian Avi Shlaim wrote of the former UK premier: "Blair's failure to stand up for Palestinian independence is precisely what endears him to the Israeli establishment."
In February of last year, while the Palestinians in Gaza were still mourning their dead, Blair received the Dan David prize from Tel Aviv University as the "laureate for the present time dimension in the field of leadership".
"The citation praised him for his "exceptional intelligence and foresight, and demonstrated moral courage and leadership". The prize is worth $1m. I may be cynical, but I cannot help viewing this prize as absurd, given Blair's silent complicity in Israel's continuing crimes against the Palestinian people.
These words read as true about Blair today.
Palestinians alone
The options for Hamas are bleak.
The deal before them is substantially worse than the one Hezbollah accepted, and even that is being violated on a daily basis by Israel.
If Hamas surrenders the hostages, it has no guarantees the war will end and no more levers to ensure the release of Palestinian prisoners. Reject it and the war continues with Trump's full backing.
From Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan and Egypt, there are no surprises in the way they have folded.
But Turkey and Qatar are in this too. Together they have betrayed the Palestinians in putting their name to a deal as bad and as one-sided as this.
Time and again they were told to be wary about trusting US assurances and their mercantile relationship with Trump, and time and again they have been used as pawns.
They were the ones who warned about the dangers of going back to October 6, the day before the Hamas attack, when Saudi Arabia was about to normalise with Israel.
After two years of genocide, we have ended up with a proposed settlement which is substantially worse than the situation that existed on 6 October 2023.
Israel has a green light to stay in Gaza, either directly or through proxies like Blair.
Even if it pulls its troops fully back, it will continue to seal the border and control the amount of aid and quality of construction materials that go through.
It has a green light to invade al-Aqsa. It has a green light to build settlements in the West Bank.
This is the same formula tried with the Oslo Accords but on steroids.
Palestinians can only be allowed to live next to Israel in peace if they show themselves to be subservient to its wishes, cower in the corners of land settlers have not grabbed, and abandon all plans for an independent state of their own.
That is what "deradicalisation" means. Putting their national flag away, while the settlers unfurl their Star of David all over their former homes and land.
Never have the Palestinians, wherever they live, been more alone.
The Arab and Muslim leaders have responded to the bravery and steadfastness that Gaza's Palestinians have shown night and day on their television screens with fear, cowardice and self-interest.
Reader Comments
As Israel, so are the current Arab "states" the creation of the British empire. It were basically the British and the French (look up Sykes-Picot Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement) who draw arbitrary lines on a Middle-Eastern map, creating new "states", selected the most corruptable influencial clan in the region, and made them the "royal family". Current Arab "dynasties" are nothing Anglo-Saxon proconsuls, solely surviving on foreign aid.
So, what else was to be expected ?
Perhaps Trump's belief system in Judeo-Christianity is deep? Perhaps there is some blackmail threat like a nuclear false flag on American territory?
This is a power play, and we don't know the behind the scenes.
From the money point of view, are the natural gas reserves of Gaza being taken over by the USA/Israel?
And I think the masks will drop when the zionists do strike at Iran again. Which is just days away, I think.
Although the mentioned coming war seems more certain each day.
And if you listen to this : [Link] it gets even scarier ...
Context: Obama during his time fired 200 generals, admirals. The plandemic was accepted and promoted by the Pentagon. The trans, men-dressed-as-women, was accepted and promoted by the Pentagon. Performance standards for the military were reduced. Trump announces a golden dome and includes Canada and Greenland. The "comet" 3I/ATLAS and others enter our solar system. The name of Dept of Defense was changed to Dept of War.
The tone of the talks are preparedness and weeding out those not on board. That appears to be the intent.
A token example of Dunning-Kruger, who almost certainly has this job because of his rabid zionism and loyality to Trump.
This is becoming dangerous, because the US is weak as a conventional military force. Statements from the administration lately suggest they still persist in their supremacist fantasy. The greatest danger is, after a heavy beating in Iran, they turn to nuclear weapons.
Hegseth is old-school military and he is eliminating the DEI, trans, fat soldiers, weak mindset, where a Milley can call China and tell them Trump doesn't control the military. Hegseth is non political, and changing the name from Dept of Defense to Dept of War, is the sign that the USA military has been subverted. He is cleaning house.
He is obviously good at doing pep talks, which is basically what he did in Quantico.
But the fact remains, the US is conventionally weak, they cannot fight a war against a peer or even a near-peer. And their TOE [Link] is outdated and obsolete, stuck in the '90. Sale profits of the MIC always overtrump effectivity, reliability and defense requirements.
Such agressive rhetorics makes me uneasy, to say the least. But someone has put him in his place, and he still keeps going. Which means neither are they aware of their actual situation.
In my view, the USA military has been subverted over the last 25 or more years. Milley as head of the Pentagon was an example; he notified the Chinese that Trump was not a threat to launch any action. Obama fired 200 generals. Trans Rachel Levine as an admiral. Admitting trans into the military. Forcing the military by mandate to take the covid 19 jab. The military recruitment
The conventional military has been degraded in the USA. Hegseth has been selected to fix it. He is following orders.
As a side note: I tried to investigate with Brave AI whether military standards have changed during the Biden admin, and Brave AI gave me the narrative. Yes, the military recruited obese people, but the standards for athletic fitness didn't change. This was to meet "modern recruitment environment".
The US military needs an overhaul, that we can surely agree upon. Both the personnel and the equipment.
By the way : [Link]
I concur mostly with Col. Wilkerson here.
What does summon mean? The generals and admirals are being put on notice that their views must correspond to the Constitution, not Woke garbage.
Fact is, while the constitution is mentioned in their oath, they swear to obey the orders of the commander-in-chief, and their superiors. Which in reality imposes < their> view (or detestation) of the consitution upon the armed forces.
From the letter:
" We intend to rebuild trust and restore the rule of law, particularly within the Armed Forces. Ultimately, we strive to once again become a moral people, restoring our nation, and making it again worthy of the great gift of liberty won by the colonial-era American people. "....
" For GEN Milley, ADM Grady, GEN McConville, ADM Gilday, ADM Lescher, Gen Brown, Gen Berger, Gen Smith, VADM Kilby, VADM Nowell, VADM Fuller, LTG Martin, Lt Gen Davis, MG Edmonson, GEN Williams, ADM Fagan, VADM Buck, Lt Gen Clark, MG Francis, LTG Dingle, Lt Gen Miller, RADM Gillingham, and numerous others ;
These individuals enabled lawlessness and the unwilling experimentation on service members. The moral and physical injuries they helped inflict are significant. They betrayed the trust of service members and the American people. Their actions caused irreparable harm to the Armed Forces and the institutions for which we have fought and bled."
The value of a law is not in the letters, but the people establishing and enforcing it. No "man's law" can establish justice and righteousness (God's law) when the men enforcing it are corrupt. Which is very much the case in the US right now, and had been for several decades.
I am still of the opinion that the Trump administration is willing to change this, and to remove corrupt criminals and foreign agents. Like e.g. Putin's administration did throughout the early 2000s.
However, I don't think the military is the best place to start with, especially in the context of their current agressive posture in the Middle East.
It includes the statement that US military bases/operations established under the British Commonwealth or foreign dominion will be closed .
The fifth item on the summons, indicates the President is fulfilling his sacred duty to uphold the Constitution.
The language of the letter is important, for it indicates that the USA was not sovereign for sometime...
Sheila indicates that California has been a captured state for decades going back to Ed Brown as Governor. About the 28 minute mark.
Then they go into the DoD Instruction 3000.07, Irregular Warfare . They talk about Chicago and all of the US agencies involved: DHS, FBI, National Guard, Marines, etc. This is Irregular Warfare - engineered riots by antifa, BLM - now antifa is a terrorist organization.
I recommend Sheila because she has done her research and has a better understanding of behind the scenes.
There is a now concealed reason for Truman to dissolve and liquidate the perfectly "fine" and established OSS.
Not only had the Brits finally managed to get their Trojan horse "central banking" sneaked into the US, they managed to infiltrate and subvert many agencies, including the OSS. Who else would have an interest in "operation paperclip", which salvaged key figures of their German project from Soviet/Russian access, perhaps even open publication ...
Mind you, Hitler had spent a year in the UK in the late '20, allegedly visiting relatives. Why scrub it from (Soros-controlled) Wackopedia, then ?
Long story short, I think we mean the same.
Although I'm not convinced that Trump, Hegseth and Rubio are the best people for that particular jobs. But they are what you have to work with ...
If some analysts are right, Trump and team with Executive Order 13848, set in motion the military as the only feasible solution to the deep state (elections were compromised by foreign and domestic enemies). This was in the Trump first admin which means the military (at least some of them) have been in play since Sept 2018 and during the Biden admin.
I suppose the Trump administrations has reasons for that, but still. The military is not trained for policing operations. Things can quickly escalate to a full-blown civil war.
I'm sure certain groups inside and outside the US want that, but I suspect they have no idea about possible consequences ...