Trump's peace plan tackles Israel fatigue, crimps China in Middle East

US President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace deal is designed to appease his political base, increasingly impatient with his unqualified support for Israel, and keep China from expanding its influence in the Middle East.

- Bhagyashree Garekar US Bureau Chief

Mr Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza, published by the White House and endorsed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calls for an immediate ceasefire contingent on the release within 72 hours of all 48 remaining hostages captured in the Oct 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel.

Hamas would be disarmed and its members granted amnesty if they decommission weapons, and offered safe passage if they choose to leave Gaza. Israel would commit to a gradual withdrawal from Gaza while retaining a security buffer and also release 250 Palestinian life-sentence prisoners and 1,700 Gazans detained after Oct 7, 2023.

Mr Trump has also discarded his previous proposal to empty the Gaza Strip of Palestinians and transform it into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.

Instead, there is a plan for a massive surge of aid to Gaza and a plan to rebuild it under a “Trump economic development plan”.

It also provides for the creation of a multinational stabilisation force for Gaza, with troops provided by Arab and mainly Muslim nations, and keeps the door open for future Palestinian statehood.

The proposal has not yet been accepted by Hamas, but Mr Trump said he believed that the possibility of a peace deal was “beyond very close”.

Ahead of the second anniversary of the Oct 7 attack, Israel fatigue is real: The percentage of Americans who believe that support for Israel serves the US national interest has fallen sharply over the past 21 months of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

Only 47 per cent of 1,276 registered voters polled by Quinnipiac University between Sept 18 and 21 said the support for Israel was in the US interest. In December 2023, months after the Hamas attack, the figure stood at 69 per cent.

Opinions of Mr Netanyahu are even more negative – only 21 per cent have a favourable opinion of him. And only 31 per cent approve of Mr Trump’s handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict.