My most immediate reaction from this morning's news that a "deal" had been reached between Israel and Hamas was one of relief. The genocide and destruction cease (as of now); the hostages, dead and alive, are returned; hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, seen as political prisoners by Palestinians, will be released; and humanitarian aid will “surge” into the Strip. That, as Phase 1 of the agreement, is good in and of itself.
What about Phase 2? In that part of the “deal” negotiations are to take place over a permanent ceasefire, the disarmament of Hamas, the complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the flow of more humanitarian aid and the future governance of Gaza – plus key issues that will likely extend into Phases 3, 4, 5 and counting: Who will govern Gaza until an international stabilizing force” is created and deployed? Who will govern Gaza subsequently? Will Palestinians themselves have any meaningful role in their own governance and determining their own political future? What does “de-radicalizing” Gaza’s population mean (Points 1 & 19 of Trump’s plan)? And who will pay the estimated 45-80 billion for Gaza’s reconstruction?
These are important issues regarding Gaza, but from a wider political perspective, Gaza has lost it relevance. Israel has achieved its goal there – pacification – eliminating the last bastion of Palestinian resistance to Zionism’s 130-year campaign of Judaizing Palestine.
Unlike the West Bank (where brutal but little noticed military pacification is also being conducted, especially in the refugee camps of the north where some 40,000 people have been displaced, part of Israel’s declared Gaza-fication of the West Bank), Israel has no interest in Gaza besides security (it has reportedly been pumping out Gaza's natural gas fields for years). True, religious Zionists would like to settle there, but, with its Palestinian population of more than 2 million, Israel would rather cut it free than have to govern it permanently or, God forbid, actually annex it to a Greater Israel.
That is why Phase 1 of the Trump’s deal is likely to be the last; neither Israel nor certainly Trump have any interest in dealing with Gaza anymore. Once it is put under some “temporary” technocratic administration and an international peace-keeping force establishes a security regime – with ultimate security control remaining with Israel, which can intervene militarily at will – Gaza with its Gordian Knot of issues and problems ceases to be Israel’s (or America’s) problem. Israel’s focus shifts to the big prize made possible by the pacification of Gaza: the normalization of a “Greater” Israel, including its settlements.
This is what is coming down the pipeline as Trump returns to his 2020 “Vision of Peace” plan and the completion of the Abraham Accords. In that bigger political picture, Gaza is not an issue in and of itself. For all the suffering it generated, the Gaza “war” simply paved the way for the normalization of an Israeli apartheid regime over all historic Palestine. The Abraham Accords thus pose the greatest threat to the Palestinian people since the Nakba.
While our attention has properly been focused on Gaza and the genocide occurring there, it has obscured and deflected our attention from what is politically a much more significant issue: the impending normalization of Zionism’s colonization of Palestine, a development which leaves little political space for the Palestinians to continue their struggle for self-determination in their homeland.
It is to this danger that we must now turn – and urgently.
9 October 2025