Trump looks to the UN to bail out his ’20-point plan’ for Gaza

As Donald Trump’s administration struggles to find ways to implement its fatally flawed “20-Point Plan” for Gaza, it has taken the surprising step of trying to obtain the approval of the United Nations Security Council.

The U.S. has been circulating a draft resolution that would grant UN legitimacy to Trump’s plan and create of a UN-mandated security force tasked with disarming Hamas. It is clear that this cannot hope to be approved without fundamental changes but it is a sure sign the administration is desperate to find a path forward in Gaza. Nor could there be better evidence that Trump’s “peace plan” was, as so many guessed, hastily thrown together with little real planning or thought. 

The United States has often turned to the United Nations as a vehicle for putting coalitions together to accomplish some task or to grant legitimacy to some misadventure. But this administration is extreme in its disdain for multilateralism in general and the UN in particular even compared to its most unilateralist predecessors.

The Trump administration faces a quandary in Gaza. They want to stop the major destruction of Israel’s genocide so they and their cronies can cash in on rebuilding the Strip. 

In the short term, however, Gaza needs to be stabilized. Israeli troops need to be withdrawn and replaced, but neither Israel nor the U.S. will tolerate a self-governing Palestinian force. Hamas needs to be disarmed and politically neutralized for American ambitions to move forward and to keep Israel at bay. 

And all of that needs to be done without direct American military participation. There is already considerable and growing consternation in both the isolationist and “America First” camps in Trump’s base over his policies that are deepening U.S. involvement in issues beyond U.S. borders, especially in the Middle East. Trump can’t afford to stoke that unease by putting American troops in harm’s way in Gaza. 

In short, Trump needs accomplices for the next crime in Gaza. 

Direct Israeli involvement on the ground inevitably leads to a return to the previous level of violence; it’s the only way Israel could possibly disarm Hamas, even though they have failed to do it in two years of genocide and obliteration of Gaza. That’s not what Trump wants.

But, while countries like Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Azerbaijan have indicated a willingness to be part of a security force in Gaza, they are not willing to be the instruments of confrontation with Hamas. As a result, that most “America Alone” of all presidents turns, bizarrely, to the United Nations.

What is in the UN resolution the U.S. is proposing?

The leaked draft resolution, which also addresses Trump’s so-called “Board of Peace” (BoP) and an International Stabilization Force (ISF) to manage security in Gaza for the foreseeable future, appears to be a non-starter. But it is also clear that Trump’s Arab and Muslim partners are willing to support the general contours of his plan as long as they don’t have to actually confront Palestinian armed forces.

Speaking to the BBC, King Abdullah II of Jordan put it bluntly. 

“What is the mandate of security forces inside of Gaza? And we hope that it is peacekeeping, because if it’s peace enforcing, nobody will want to touch that,” said the King. “Peacekeeping is that you’re sitting there supporting the local police force, the Palestinians, which Jordan and Egypt are willing to train in large numbers, but that takes time. If we’re running around Gaza on patrol with weapons, that’s not a situation that any country would like to get involved in.”

The Trump administration has put the cart before the horse, attempting to recruit peacekeepers before a peace agreement has been reached. In this case, from the American and Israeli point of view, “making the peace” means disarming Hamas. But there has never been a plan for how to do that, except for Israel’s failed effort to do it by genocide. 

Even now, in the wake of the horrors of the worst of Israel’s genocide and the ongoing killing and blocking of most humanitarian aid to Gaza, a clear majority of Palestinians oppose disarming Hamas. While that opposition is stronger in the West Bank, where 78% oppose disarming the group, it’s still strong in Gaza, where 55% oppose it. 

Yet Trump simply expects it to happen without negotiations or any attempt to make a case to the Palestinians (whatever that might be) that they should support Hamas’ disarmament.

The draft resolution that has been leaked strongly suggests that the proposed UN-mandated security force would be tasked with disarmament. The draft, “Authorizes Member States working with the BoP and the BoP to establish a temporary International Stabilization Force (ISF) in Gaza to deploy under unified command acceptable to the BoP, with forces contributed by participating States, in close consultation and cooperation with the Arab Republic of Egypt and the State of Israel, and to use all necessary measures to carry out its mandate consistent with international law, including international humanitarian law.”

The mandate of the ISF, according to the resolution, would include “stabiliz[ing] the security environment in Gaza by ensuring the process of demilitarizing the Gaza Strip, including the destruction and prevention of rebuilding of military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, as well as the permanent decommissioning of weapons from non-state armed groups.”

So, a UN-mandated force would enter Gaza and do the work of disarming Hamas for the U.S. and Israel. That reflects the Trump administration’s belief that Muslim and Arab militaries can get away with disarming Hamas and other Palestinian groups by force where Israel or the U.S. could not. Calling that reasoning flawed is a galactic understatement 

Plus, with Israel and Egypt “coordinating” with the ISL, it would certainly, in practice, function as a proxy Israeli occupation force. There is no mention of Palestinian input, let alone a coordinating role, in the resolution. Palestinians would be, once again, at Israel’s mercy. 

Moreover, while the resolution allows for a technocratic administration of unaffiliated Palestinians to deal with administrative matters in Gaza, that administration answers to the so-called “Board of Peace.” And the resolution would mandate the BoP through 2027, at which point it would be renewed, but only in coordination with Israel and Egypt. No mention is made of what happens if the UNSC fails to renew the mandates of the BoP and ISL, let alone what happens if Palestinians find the conditions the BoP imposes onerous. 

The only glimmer of Palestinian involvement is in a declarative clause at the beginning of the document, where it describes, in the vaguest of terms, the BoP as being fully in command of Gaza “until such time as the Palestinian Authority has satisfactorily completed its reform program, the satisfaction of which shall be acceptable to the BoP.”

With the BoP headed by Donald Trump, and given that the known terms of Palestinian Authority “reforms” have been dictated by Israel, we can rest assured that the PA could only get such a passing grade from the BoP if it becomes even more directly subservient to Israel than it already is. Which, of course, would only fuel more resistance, for which Israel would blame the PA while it kills more Palestinians, and the cycle continues. 

Does this resolution have a chance of passing?

We should be clear that the leaked resolution could be changed significantly before it comes to the UNSC for a vote. That said, the chances that it changes significantly enough for Arab and Muslim states to feel comfortable enacting it are virtually zero.

The U.S. is unlikely to submit the resolution if it will be opposed by the very states that Trump hopes will implement it on the ground. And, as King Abdullah pointed out, those states are not going to want to be the force that disarms Hamas. That’s the key point.

While Pakistan is the only one of the states that might participate in this farce currently sitting on the Security Council, it is still unlikely that the United States could get the nine votes it needs on the 15-seat Council to pass it. Too many states would see the reluctance of the Muslim world as an obstacle. For the same reason, it is likely, even if the U.S. could muster enough votes, that one or more of the five permanent UNSC members would veto it.  

Even Trump, who knows little about the workings of the UN, will not bring a resolution that is doomed to fail, and even he will be able to recognize that this will be doomed. The only way to get UNSC approval is to change the situation on the ground first so that any force going in would be a peacekeeping one, not an enforcing army.

But that would require negotiation and compromise, neither of which are hallmarks of the Trump administration. Also, even if they tried to compromise, any real compromise to the existing framework would cause huge pushback from Israel. 

Hamas has indicated in the past some willingness to consider giving up its offensive weapons and only keeping sufficient arms to defend themselves against attack from Israel or, more likely, Israel’s Palestinian agents in Gaza. 

But they are not likely to do even that if there is no prospect of Palestinian self-defense or if Gaza is going to be, in effect, under foreign rule. And Hamas’ position may well have changed now that they and the rest of the people of Gaza have seen that “ceasefire” means Israel continues to bomb, shoot, and starve Palestinians, but at a slightly lower rate and with far less resistance. 

If the resolution is hopeless, what is Trump hoping to accomplish?

Trump probably has two main goals with the UNSC draft, if he is unwilling to make the major changes to it that would be required. 

One goal is to be able to tell his partners that he tried, but the UN just wouldn’t cooperate. He might hope that would address the concerns some states have expressed about entering Gaza without a UN mandate. If so, he’ll be disappointed again.

Another goal could be the idea that has been floated by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to begin construction in the area of Gaza where Israeli forces remain entrenched. Kushner is talking about building residential areas in eastern Gaza in two years.

That is obviously nonsense. There is so much rubble—as well as unexploded ordinance—throughout Gaza that it simply isn’t feasible to build significant residential blocs in so short a time. Even with an expanded schedule, the tentative nature of the one-sided “ceasefire” is likely to impede major efforts to clear the rubble and even begin reconstruction, even in the large part of Gaza Israeli troops still control. 

The bottom line is that Trump and his cronies have several half-baked ideas, some more outlandish than others, but they have imposed a ceasefire and a threadbare 20-Point Plan without any of the substance or even common sense thinking that an initiative like this requires. As a result, they are left flailing from one idea to another in the hope that something will work and put them on the path to both sustainable “quiet” in Gaza (which means continued Israeli aggression, albeit at a less dramatic level, and no Palestinian retaliation) and finding a way to profit off the conditions in Gaza.

Even that hope is unlikely to be fulfilled. Once Israel has recovered the last of the hostages’ remains, Netanyahu will have every reason and less disincentive to destroy Trump’s “ceasefire,” even though it is only Palestinians who have ceased while Israel continues to fire. 

Netanyahu will seek a pretext that will satisfy Trump. By the time he finds it, Trump may already have grown frustrated by the inability to move forward with his plans or have simply gotten bored with the whole issue. 

And, as has so often been the case, Israeli aggression against Gaza will start up again.