Trump’s Gaza plan is ready. The real challenge is making it happen - opinion

For almost a year, the United States and its partners have been developing the architecture for ending the Israel-Hamas War and replacing it with something very different: demilitarization, Israeli withdrawal, Palestinian governance, international security arrangements, and reconstruction.

The plans already exist.

The problem is no longer the absence of a plan. The problem is implementation.

There has also been movement from Hamas. Hamas leaders have indicated readiness to discuss demilitarization and transfer civilian and security control of Gaza to the new Palestinian technocratic government. The dispute has remained over sequencing.

Israel says Hamas must first disarm. Hamas says that if it surrenders its weapons before Israel withdraws, Israel will have no incentive to leave. Israel says that if it withdraws first, Hamas will retain its weapons and rebuild.

There is only one way through that dilemma: Neither side goes first. They move together. That should be the essence of the post-election implementation process.

Gaza should be divided into clearly defined areas. In each area, the same sequence should occur simultaneously. Hamas hands over and decommissions its weapons under international supervision. Israeli forces withdraw. The International Stabilization Force moves in. The new Palestinian police deploy. The National Committee for the Administration of Gaza assumes civilian authority. And reconstruction begins immediately.

A neighborhood in which weapons disappear should become a neighborhood in which bulldozers arrive. Schools should reopen. Electricity and water should be restored. Families should move from tents into temporary housing. Gazans should be employed clearing rubble and rebuilding their own communities.

That is how demilitarization becomes more attractive than continued armed rule. And that is how Israeli withdrawal becomes compatible with Israeli security.

The United States should insist on verification from everyone. Hamas cannot be permitted to hide weapons or preserve an underground military structure. Israel cannot withdraw on paper while maintaining permanent military control over territory from which it supposedly withdrew. One authority. One police force. One gun.

The Palestinian technocratic government cannot govern Gaza from outside Gaza. Its ministers, civil servants, engineers, doctors, and administrators must enter and begin working. Authority is created by exercising authority.

The same is true of the International Stabilization Force. The countries expected to participate must turn commitments into deployment, particularly along the lines separating Israeli forces from areas transferred to Palestinian administration.

Reconstruction is not merely humanitarian assistance. It is part of the security architecture. Every Palestinian should see a direct relationship between demilitarization and a return to normal life. Every Israeli should see a direct relationship between withdrawal and a security system preventing Hamas from rebuilding its military capabilities.

That is the bargain.

But what happens if Netanyahu wins and forms another government? Then Trump faces a different test. The question would no longer be whether Netanyahu agrees with every element of Trump's regional strategy. The question would be whether one government – Israeli or Palestinian – can prevent the US and its regional partners from advancing a broader transformation that they consider to be in their interests.

Trump would have another option: work with the major Arab states, and principally with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to construct a regional package whose logic is not based primarily on demanding painful Israeli and Palestinian concessions. Instead, the package could be built around benefits.

For Israel, that could include normalization with Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries, deeper regional economic integration, American security guarantees, major investment, new transportation and energy corridors, and a fundamentally different regional strategic environment.

But incentives without consequences are rarely sufficient. If either Israeli or Palestinian leaders chose to block an agreed American-Arab regional framework, they would also have to understand that obstruction carries political, diplomatic, and economic costs. What those consequences should be would have to be defined in advance, transparently and applied to both sides.

Trump's leverage is greatest when the choice is not presented as America forcing Israel to surrender something to the Palestinians, or forcing Palestinians to surrender something to Israel. It is greater when Washington and its Arab partners put an entirely different future on the table and ask both peoples whether their leaders are prepared to participate in it.

This is where bin Salman could become central. Saudi Arabia can offer something that Washington cannot offer on its own: entry into the region itself. Saudi normalization with Israel, combined with Palestinian political progress and Gulf investment, could transform the strategic equation for everyone.

Gaza cannot remain an island detached from that larger transformation.

Palestinians must elect their own leaders. That means ensuring Palestinian legislative elections take place and presidential elections follow. Palestinians can then begin rebuilding their institutions, fighting corruption, and restoring genuine and legitimate Palestinian agency. The technocratic government should stabilize Gaza and prepare the ground for elected Palestinian governance – not become a substitute for it.

Israel also has obligations beyond Gaza. Settlement expansion, annexationist measures, and settler violence in the West Bank cannot be separated from any serious regional strategy. Recent Israeli moves to expand the E1 settlement project illustrate how developments in the West Bank can directly affect the viability of a wider political process.

Trump likes deals. This could become one of the biggest deals of his presidency. Much of the machinery has already been created. What is missing is execution.

Peace between Israelis and Palestinians will not arrive after everyone agrees on everything. It will have to be constructed in pieces, while a much larger regional package makes the destination worth reaching. The plans are already written. After the Israeli election, the real question will be whether the US and its regional partners are determined to turn them into reality.