Bored of Peace: Why is Trump undermining his own Gaza plan?

A lot can change in a week. Barely five days after President Donald Trump hailed the “historic agreement” on Hamas’s disarmament by the Board of Peace (BOP) — the body Trump created to oversee his Gaza Peace Plan — the very same Board of Peace has now effectively reneged on its own agreement.

The deal emerged from eight months of intensive negotiations between BOP High Representative Nicolay Mladenov and Hamas, along with various regional stakeholders, and was expected to pave the way for implementing the long-delayed second phase of Trump’s 20 Point Plan. This would have included desperately needed reconstruction and the establishment of a Palestinian governing body and police force, alongside the disarmament of Hamas and withdrawal of Israeli forces from the devastated enclave.

Trump and his BOP had already given Israel an effective pass on most of its Phase 1 obligations, refusing to call out Israel’s daily violations of the ceasefire. Israel has persisted in carrying out near daily airstrikes across Gaza, killing at least 1,250 Palestinians since the ceasefire was signed last October, even as it continues to severely restrict aid , seize more territory , and block the return of Palestinian governing and policing bodies.

Last week’s agreement would’ve required each side, notably Israel, to meet all of its outstanding obligations. The two most contentious points — distinguishing between heavy weaponry and small (private) arms, and the sequencing of weapons decommissioning and Israeli withdrawal — were finally agreed after intense pressure on Hamas by the Egyptians and other interlocutors.

Most crucially, the deal called for a parallel, phased process in which Israeli military withdrawal and the decommissioning of Hamas weapons occurred concurrently — a pragmatic provision that would ensure progress and prevent either side from exercising a “veto” over the process. Keen to make the deal work, Trump administration officials even lodged an implicit threat , warning that if Israel rejected the plan, “obviously President Trump would be very, very disappointed.”

But Israel rejected the terms of the deal , insisting there would be no Israeli withdrawal unless Hamas was fully disarmed and Israel maintained the freedom to continue conducting military operations in Gaza. Instead of calling Israel out, the Trump-aligned BOP did a complete about-face, adopting the Israeli position wholesale. “Contrary to inaccurate reports,” read Monday’s BOP statement , “we note that the withdrawal of the IDF beyond the Yellow Line will take place only once decommissioning is complete , as Hamas committed to the mediators [emphasis added].”

Of course, the agreement said no such thing. Article 8 of the BOP’s Road Map expressly states that the decommissioning “process is linked to a phased Israeli withdrawal from the areas it controls in Gaza and the inventorying of weapons held by armed militias.” Indeed, Mladenov himself had said “Withdrawal must move in lockstep with decommissioning.” As such, Trump’s Board of Peace has essentially rewritten its own peace plan, requiring Hamas to meet all of its Phase 2 obligations even before Israel has met any of its Phase 1 obligations.

The implications of the Trump administration’s whiplash-inducing turn will be serious and far-reaching. First and foremost, it badly undermines Mladenov’s credibility as a broker. If anything he negotiates can be so quickly and easily negated by the White House, why should Hamas — or for that matter other regional actors like Egypt and Qatar — talk to him?

Trump is also undercutting his own peace plan more broadly, jeopardizing one of his few concrete foreign policy achievements. Hamas is unlikely to go along with this latest shifting of the goalposts; after all, the demand that the group unilaterally disarm even as Israel entrenches and expands its control over Gaza while carrying out deadly attacks on a daily basis would be widely (and accurately) viewed as surrender.

Most devastatingly, for Gaza’s 2.2 million inhabitants, who have already withstood unspeakable horrors and are now living in the most horrid of conditions , Trump’s U-turn will indefinitely delay desperately needed relief, recovery and reconstruction.