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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Trump is turning Gaza into a brutal colonial protection racket</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Jonathan Cook</div>
<div class="gmail-meta-data">
<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time">November 21, 2025</div>
</div>
</div>
<hr>
<div class="gmail-content">
<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div><p>The West has spent two years partnering <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/israel" target="_blank">Israel</a> in its campaign of <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/israel-genocide-gaza" target="_blank">wanton destruction in Gaza</a>.</p>
<p>Now the <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/us" target="_blank">United States</a> - with the permission of a cowed United Nations Security Council - has <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/how-un-resolution-creates-new-foreign-mandate-over-palestinians" target="_blank">appointed</a> Donald Trump to preside over the ruins.</p>
<p>Like a Roman emperor, the US president will be able <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/un-resolution-gaza-codifies-illegal-trusteeship-over-palestinians-says-expert" target="_blank">to dictate</a>
the fate of Gaza\u2019s people with a simple gesture. Whatever he decides -
whether the thumb turns up or down - it will be called "peace". </p>
<p>Trump\u2019s most likely side-kick in this depraved charade will be <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/breakdown-tony-blairs-bizarre-proposal-run-gaza" target="_blank">Tony Blair</a>, the former British prime minister. He <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/tony-blair-trump-gaza-deal-hamish-falconer-b2852110.html" target="_blank">won</a>
his war-crime spurs more than 20 years ago, when he joined one of
Trump\u2019s predecessors, George W Bush, in launching an illegal invasion of
<a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/iraq" target="_blank">Iraq </a>and a subsequent, catastrophic occupation that left that country in ruins too. </p>
<p>Satire cannot do justice to this moment.</p><p>The eradication of Gaza could be achieved only with the complete
hollowing out of international law - the legal global order that was
established many decades ago to prevent a third world war and the
horrors of the Holocaust. </p>
<p>Marking the demise of that era, the Security Council <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/full-text-us-resolution-gaza-approved-un-security-council" target="_blank">voted</a> 13-0 this week to endorse <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/full-text-us-resolution-gaza-approved-un-security-council" target="_blank">Trump\u2019s "peace plan" </a>for Gaza, with only Russia and China daring to abstain. </p>
<p>The dissenting representatives of the crumbling legal order - from the judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/users/francesca-albanese" target="_blank">Francesca Albanese</a>, the UN\u2019s legal expert for the occupied territories - have been isolated, vilified and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/trump-administration-imposes-new-sanctions-four-icc-judges-prosecutors-2025-08-20/" target="_blank">sanctioned</a> by <a href="https://www.state.gov/releases/2025/07/sanctioning-lawfare-that-targets-u-s-and-israeli-persons" target="_blank">the Trump administration</a>. No one appears to be willing to come to their defence. </p>
<p>Quite the contrary. <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/germany" target="_blank">Germany</a>,
whose own genocidal rampage across Europe more than 80 years ago once
left it a pariah state and drove the creation of the new legal order,
now confidently leads the way in flouting those very rules. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>UN Resolution 2803 makes Trump the debauched feudal overlord of Gaza </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It has <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clygdj9w23po" target="_blank">resumed</a>
supplying Israel with the weapons it needs to continue the slaughter,
justifying the decision on the grounds that Israel is murdering fewer
Palestinians during Trump's duplicitous "ceasefire". </p>
<p>On Wednesday, Israel broke the ceasefire once again, killing more
than 30 people in a series of air strikes, including 20 women and
children. </p>
<p>Even the current "peace" allows Israel to occupy some 58 percent of Gaza in a depopulated "Green Zone", effectively <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/14/us-military-plan-divided-gaza-green-zone" target="_blank">partitioning</a>
the territory for the forseeable future. Daily, Israel bombs families
sheltering in the wreckage of the enclave\u2019s interior, declared a "Red
Zone". And Israel continues to <a href="https://x.com/SkyNews/status/1990177406150185185" target="_blank">block </a>the entry of food and medicines, including the temporary housing needed as winter rains deluge the territory. </p>
<p>Is this what, 19 years ago, Condoleezza Rice, Bush\u2019s secretary of state, meant when she spoke of the coming, painful <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2006/7/22/rice-sees-bombs-as-birth-pangs" target="_blank">"birth pangs of a new Middle East"</a>.</p>
<p>Now, it seems, they have arrived in full force - and the region has never looked more terrifying.</p>
<h3>A joint US-Israeli occupation</h3>
<p>UN Resolution 2803 makes Trump the debauched feudal overlord of Gaza. His lackeys on a so-called <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2025/11/17/middleeast/us-gaza-israel-un-vote-intl-latam" target="_blank">"Board of Peace"</a> will "include the most powerful and respected Leaders throughout the World", according to Trump. </p>
<p>They will have sovereign power over the enclave\u2019s ruins for at least
the next two years - and undoubtedly long beyond that. The Board will
decide how Gaza is governed, what constitutes its borders, how or
whether it is rebuilt, and what economic life is permitted. </p>
<div>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/how-un-resolution-creates-new-foreign-mandate-over-palestinians" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/styles/read_more/public/images-story/un%20security%20council%20us%20israel%20reuters.jpg.webp?itok=vsRhIXL1" width="400" height="250" alt="" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img">
</a></p><p>How the UN Gaza resolution creates new foreign \u2018mandate\u2019 over Palestinians</p>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/how-un-resolution-creates-new-foreign-mandate-over-palestinians" target="_blank">Read More »</a>
</p></div>
<p>In effect, oversight of the system of colonial control and abuse
Israel has exercised over the territory since the late 1960s - which the
International Court of Justice (ICJ) <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/icj-clears-fog-hiding-western-support-israel-rogue-state" target="_blank">ruled</a> illegal last year - will be transferred to the United States, with the Security Council\u2019s blessing. </p>
<p>This is now formally a joint US-Israeli occupation. </p>
<p>The US that now holds Gaza\u2019s fate in its hands is the same US that has spent the past two years arming Israel.</p>
<p>Those weapons made possible the levelling of Gaza, the ethnic
cleansing of 2 million people from their homes, and a mass slaughter
identified by every major human rights group and international legal
body as a genocide. </p>
<p>Trump\u2019s "peace plan" is the international order\u2019s equivalent of
putting a convicted serial child abuser in charge of a primary school.</p>
<p>There will be no UN peacekeeping force in Gaza to try to protect its
people. That would too readily expose the masquerade of Trump\u2019s version
of "peace". </p>
<p>The UN force in <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/lebanon" target="_blank">Lebanon</a>, Unifil, has <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/lebanese-army-feeling-us-israeli-151028715.html" target="_blank">reported</a> thousands of Israeli violations of a supposed year-old "ceasefire" there. Israel is not just <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/2025-11-19/ty-article/thirteen-killed-in-israeli-strike-on-palestinian-refugee-camp-in-lebanon/0000019a-99d6-dd6e-a5fa-fbf65e320000" target="_blank">bombing Lebanese families</a>, but this week <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/11/1166378" target="_blank">shot</a> at Unifil peacekeepers too.</p>
<p>Rather, the Board - meaning Trump and the Pentagon - will supervise
an "International Stabilisation Force" (ISF) in Gaza, supposedly to be
in place by January. </p>
<h3>Disarming Hamas</h3>
<p>Last year the ICJ <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/recognition-palestine-repeat-wests-oslo-peace-fraud" target="_blank">ruled</a>
that Israel must end its occupation and pull out of all Palestinian
territories "as rapidly as possible", including Gaza. Apparently in line
with that ruling, <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/uk" target="_blank">Britain</a> and <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/france" target="_blank">France</a> led a handful of other western states in <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/explainers/palestine-statehood-countries" target="_blank">recognising a Palestinian state </a>a few months ago. </p>
<p>But in supporting UN Resolution 2308, both have, entirely
predictably, reneged on their promise. Although at the insistence of
Arab states, the resolution makes <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/18/one-of-the-oddest-un-resolutions-in-history-seeks-to-solidify-shaky-gaza-ceasefire-into-an-enduring-peace" target="_blank">a vague nod</a>
to a possible "pathway" to statehood, the "Board of Peace" - that is,
the US and Israel - gets to decide when, or if, that actually happens. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Trump\u2019s 'peace plan' is the international order\u2019s equivalent of
putting a convicted serial child abuser in charge of a primary school</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A precondition is that <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/tags/mahmoud-abbas" target="_blank">Mahmoud Abbas</a>\u2019 supine <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/explainers/what-palestinian-authority-and-why-does-it-matter" target="_blank">Palestinian Authority</a>
(PA) submits to an undefined "reform programme". The PA already serves
as Israel\u2019s reliable security sub-contractor in the Occupied West Bank,
having turned itself into a modern-day Vichy regime.</p>
<p>It was the PA\u2019s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/18/un-resolution-gaza-trump-plan-palestinian-foreign-minister-hamas" target="_blank">endorsement </a>of
Trump\u2019s "peace plan" that gave Russia and China the cover to abstain at
the Security Council rather than scuttle the resolution with their
vetoes. </p>
<p>The reality is that nothing the PA can do - even colluding in its own
evisceration - will make Israel view it as a suitable Palestinian
government. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhau <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/netanyahu-rejects-palestinian-state-after-us-backed-plan-sparks-far" target="_blank">reiterated </a>as much this week, shortly after the resolution was passed, saying he would never allow a Palestinian state.</p>
<p>Instead, Israel will simply stay on in Gaza. It is not required to
withdraw until the multinational force is deployed and the Israeli
military agrees that it has enforced "demilitarisation milestones" in
the enclave. Yet it is hard to imagine who will be willing to take on
disarming Hamas. </p>
<p>Trump has<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/14/us-military-plan-divided-gaza-green-zone" target="_blank"> ruled out</a>
deploying US soldiers or funding Gaza\u2019s reconstruction. "The US has
been very clear they want to set the vision and not pay for it," a
diplomatic source told the Guardian. </p>
<p></p>
<p>The US regional military command, Centcom, initially drew up plans
for thousands of British, French and German soldiers to form the core of
the ISF, according to documents seen by the paper. A source described
the plans as "delusional". </p>
<p>No European state will wish to risk its soldiers in the Gaza
hellscape, caught between Hamas\u2019 battle-hardened guerrilla fighters and
an Israeli military continuing to treat much of the enclave as an
effective free-fire zone. </p>
<p>Instead, the White House is reported to have approached <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/egypt" target="_blank">Egypt</a>, Indonesia, Azerbaijan, <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/qatar" target="_blank">Qatar</a>, <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/turkey" target="_blank">Turkey</a> and the <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/uae" target="_blank">United Arab Emirates</a>. </p>
<p>But Arab and Muslim states, having already sickened their publics by
mutely colluding in the genocide, are unlikely to want to be seen being
dragged into disarming the only practical resistance to that genocide. </p>
<p>Astonishingly, it was left to Hamas to remind the world of what international law actually requires. In <a href="https://archive.vn/oS70e" target="_blank">a statement</a>
after the UN vote, the group noted: \u201cAssigning the international force
[ISF] with tasks and roles inside the Gaza Strip, including disarming
the resistance, strips it of its neutrality, and turns it into a party
to the conflict in favour of the occupation.\u201d </p>
<p>In the meantime, Israel will continue to fill the breach unhindered. </p>
<h3>Ties to crime gangs</h3>
<p>In fact, the ISF is a consolidation of Israel\u2019s long-running campaign
to oust the UN from any role in monitoring its illegal occupation of
Palestine.</p>
<p>In that sense, it is a continuation of the same sham cooked up earlier this year by Israel and the US in establishing the <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/gaza-humanitarian-foundation-israels-new-model-weaponised-aid" target="_blank">"Gaza Humanitarian Foundation"</a>
(GHF). That "charity", staffed by mercenaries, forcibly replaced UN aid
agencies that for decades had been responsible for distributing food. </p>
<div>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/un-resolution-gaza-codifies-illegal-trusteeship-over-palestinians-says-expert" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/styles/read_more/public/images-story/us-security-council-vote-gaza-17-nov-2025-afp.jpg.webp?itok=OSwDj0uV" width="400" height="250" alt="" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img">
</a></p><p>UN resolution on Gaza imposes 'illegal trusteeship' over Palestinians: Top legal expert</p>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/un-resolution-gaza-codifies-illegal-trusteeship-over-palestinians-says-expert" target="_blank">Read More »</a>
</p></div>
<p>The Foundation\u2019s handful of "aid hubs" rapidly became <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/cy8k8045nx9o" target="_blank">killing grounds</a>,
with starving Palestinians lured into these traps like mice seeking
cheese. More than 2,600 desperate Palestinians were gunned down in its
queues, and at least 19,000 wounded. </p>
<p>UG Solutions, <a href="https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/who-profits-us-corporations-and-the-whitewashing-of-israels-genocide-in-gaza/" target="_blank">the military subcontractor </a>that supplied mercenaries for the GHF, is recruiting again - this time, one of its officials <a href="https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/gaza-ghf-ug-solutions-aid-massacres-mercenaries-ceasefire-trump" target="_blank">told </a>Drop
Site News, "in support of humanitarian aid delivery and possible
technical assistance to the International Security [Stabilisation]
Force". </p>
<p>Previously, UG Solutions was found to have <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/far-right-islamophobic-bike-gang-hired-guard-gaza-aid-centres" target="_blank">hired</a> members of an anti-Muslim US biker gang to serve as security guards in Gaza. </p>
<p>The job of the ISF will not be to keep Israel\u2019s genocidal army in
check. It will be to "disarm" all Palestinian resistance to Israel\u2019s
continuing - and now Security Council-approved - illegal occupation of
Gaza. </p>
<p>While the international community is dragooned into helping Israel
crush resistance to its criminal occupation, Israel will be given cover
to further cultivate ties to <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/%3Ciframe%20width=%22951%22%20height=%22596%22%20src=%22https://www.youtube.com/embed/tRxaf91WXT0%22%20title=%22Inside%20Gaza's%20criminal%20gang%20backed%20by%20Israel%22%20frameborder=%220%22%20allow=%22accelerometer;%20autoplay;%20clipboard-write;%20encrypted-media;%20gyroscope;%20picture-in-picture;%20web-share%22%20referrerpolicy=%22strict-origin-when-cross-origin%22%20allowfullscreen%3E%3C/iframe%3E" target="_blank">Palestinian crime gangs</a>.</p>
<p>For the past year it has armed those gangs so they could steal the
trickle of aid Israel allowed into Gaza. Israel then blamed Hamas for
the thefts. This self-rationalising narrative allowed Israel to conceal
the fact it was the party responsible for depriving ordinary
Palestinians of food while also giving it a military pretext to refuse
to allow in more aid.</p>
<div>
<p><img src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/Mourners%20react%20as%20they%20attend%20the%20funeral%20of%20Palestinians%20who%2C%20according%20to%20medics%2C%20were%20killed%20in%20overnight%20Israeli%20strikes%2C%20at%20Al-Shifa%20Hospital%20in%20Gaza%20City%2C%20November%2020%2C%202025.%20-reuters.jpg" width="408" height="229" alt="Mourners react as they attend the funeral of Palestinians who, according to medics, were killed in overnight Israeli strikes, at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, November 20, 2025." class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;">
</p>Mourners react as they attend the funeral of
Palestinians who, according to medics, were killed in overnight Israeli
strikes, at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on 20 November 2025 (Reuters)
</div><p><span></span>This alliance will now <a href="https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/first-person/2025/06/25/israel-arming-gangs-fracture-gazas-society-inside" target="_blank">grow more sophisticated</a>.
The gangs can be sheltered and trained inside the "Green Zone" before
heading out on operations, backed by Israeli air power, into the ruins
of the "Red Zone" to fight Hamas. </p>
<p>Hebrew media has already <a href="https://www.maariv.co.il/news/military/article-1241797" target="_blank">reported</a>
that the Israeli army has been "guarding" the gangs behind a "yellow
line" separating the Green and Red Zones. Any other Palestinians who
approach this cordon are shot on sight. </p>
<p>By looting aid from Gaza\u2019s starving population, the gangs have <a href="https://www.newarab.com/analysis/how-israel-aiding-gangs-gaza-sow-societal-collapse" target="_blank">proved </a>they have no interest in protecting civilians - or any compunction about helping Israel to tear apart their own society. </p>
<p>There is already a model - if a failed one - for Israel to draw on. For years, until it was forced out in 2000, Israel<a href="https://www.newarab.com/analysis/rise-and-fall-south-lebanon-army" target="_blank"> protected</a> Christian-led paramilitaries that helped enforce its illegal, brutal two-decade occupation of south Lebanon. </p>
<h3>Behind the curtain</h3>
<p>This week, hand-picked members of the media were given a peek behind the curtain to see who will be running Gaza. </p>
<p>The New York Times <a href="https://archive.ph/Fb43c" target="_blank">reported</a>
that a warehouse in the Israeli town of Kiryat Gat, north-east of Gaza,
was serving as the headquarters of a new "Civil-Military Coordination
Centre". </p>
<p>It is filled with Israeli, US and European military officials, Arab
intelligence agents, diplomats and aid workers. There was, the paper
noted, no one representing Palestinian interests. </p>
<div>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israels-settler-colonial-expansion-never-done-yet-it-still-cannot-finish-job" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/styles/read_more/public/images-story/Palestinian%20children%20look%20at%20damage%20in%20a%20mosque%20following%20an%20attack%20carried%20out%20by%20Israeli%20settlers%2C%20in%20the%20village%20of%20Deir%20Istiya.%20in%20occupied%20West%20Bank%20November%2014%2C%202025.%20REUTERS.jpg.webp?itok=SB_CJc42" width="400" height="250" alt="" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img">
</a></p><p>Israel's violent expansion is never done, yet it still cannot 'finish the job'</p>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israels-settler-colonial-expansion-never-done-yet-it-still-cannot-finish-job" target="_blank">Read More »</a>
</p></div>
<p>The same building was used earlier to house the Gaza Humanitarian
Foundation, the US and Israeli-backed mercenary group that pretended to
be an aid agency until it was wound up last month.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://archive.ph/CM6cf" target="_blank">new centre</a> is led by Aryeh Lightstone, who served in Trump\u2019s first term under the then US ambassador to Israel, <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/tags/david-friedman" target="_blank">David Friedman</a>,
an outspoken, pro-Israel zealot whose main mission was to get the US
embassy moved - in violation of international law - to the
Israeli-occupied city of Jerusalem. </p>
<p>Lightstone is likely to emerge as the new <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leUWhjIQKVA" target="_blank">Paul Bremer</a>, the hugely unqualified US-appointed governor of Iraq following the illegal 2003 invasion.</p>
<p>Bremer <a href="https://crescent.icit-digital.org/articles/paul-bremer-s-self-serving-defence-of-his-role-as-the-us-s-vice-consul-in-iraq" target="_blank">gutted</a>
what was left of Iraqi national institutions and civil society after a
US "shock and awe" bombing campaign. The resulting lawlessness made the
Iraqi population prey to sectarian death squads, while US firms sought
to plunder Iraq\u2019s wealth. </p>
<p>The profits from<a href="https://al-shabaka.org/briefs/the-gas-fields-off-gaza-a-gift-or-a-curse/" target="_blank"> untapped</a>
oil and gas now beckon off Gaza\u2019s coast - a prize Palestinians have
been denied for decades, not least by Blair when he served as the
Quartet\u2019s Middle East envoy. It is hard to imagine Trump will not now be
eyeing Gaza\u2019s riches. </p>
<p>So clueless are many of the centre\u2019s officials about Gaza that it had
to hold a primer for newcomers on "What is Hamas?", according to the
New York Times. </p>
<p>To keep things light, each day is reportedly themed on one of the
catastrophes facing the people of Gaza: "Wellness Wednesdays" deal with
the issues thrown up by Israel\u2019s eradication of hospitals and schools,
while "Thirsty Thursdays" concern Israel\u2019s destruction of the enclave\u2019s
water infrastructure.</p>
<h3>Nowhere safe</h3>
<p>Shortly before the UN vote, the Guardian reported that the US had
decided only to rebuild in the "Green Zone", the section of Gaza under
Israeli control. The Red Zone is to be left in ruins for the time being.</p>
<p>A US official <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/14/us-military-plan-divided-gaza-green-zone" target="_blank">told</a>
the paper of the Gaza plan: "Ideally you would want to make it all
whole, right? But that\u2019s aspirational. It\u2019s going to take some time.
It\u2019s not going to be easy."</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The reality is that Trump\u2019s 'peace plan' is never going to be meaningfully realised - and is not intended to be</p>
</blockquote>
<p>According to reports, the US will build what are to be called
"alternative safe communities" - a polite way to refer to the
construction of holding pens for Palestinians - in the areas under
Israeli control. There is no indication yet that these will be permanent
communities.</p>
<p>The Green Zone is where ISF troops will be stationed too, presumably
alongside the Israeli military. They are expected to man crossing points
along the yellow line, the death zone separating the Green and Red
Zones.</p>
<p>"You\u2019re not going to leave [the Green Zone]," a US official told the
Guardian of the multinational force, in an all-too-obvious echo of US
experiences in Iraq two decades ago. Then, the US had to build a giant
garrison town in the centre of Baghdad called the Green Zone, from which
its soldiers rarely ventured unless on military operations.</p>
<p>Palestinians will supposedly be permitted into these "safe
communities", but only if they can prove they or their extended families
have no connections to Hamas, Gaza\u2019s government for nearly two decades.
That will necessarily exclude large chunks of the population.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Everywhere else in Gaza will presumably remain "unsafe" - meaning
Israel will have a free hand to bomb it, as now, under the pretext that
these areas remain Hamas strongholds. </p>
<p>This will play to all of Israel\u2019s devious strengths. It will pressure
Palestinian families to serve as informers and collaborators to gain an
exit from the Red Zone \u2013 replicating a system of control Israel has
specialised in for decades. </p>
<p>In pre-genocide Gaza, Israel notoriously <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/12/israeli-intelligence-unit-testimonies" target="_blank">achieved</a>
the same by tapping phone calls and blackmailing anyone who had a
secret - such as their sexual orientation, an affair, or mental health
issues. Israeli authorities also often demanded collaboration before
they would issue a medical travel permit out of Gaza for the sick or
injured.</p>
<p>Its recruitment of informers is primarily designed to fragment Palestinian society, and spread distrust and discord. </p>
<p>Via a system of patronage and privilege, these new "safe communities"
will also serve to further incentivise crime gangs to collude with
Israel, helping it sustain a civil war in Gaza to make the territory
permanently ungovernable - and justify Israel\u2019s refusal to countenance
Palestinian statehood.</p>
<p>In any other context, what all of this amounts to would be clear: a protection racket now headed by the US gangster-in-chief.</p>
<h3>Living hell</h3>
<p>The reality, however, is that Trump\u2019s "peace plan" is never going to be meaningfully realised - and is not intended to be. </p>
<p>Gaza was already one of <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/gaza-war-one-year-changing-us-all" target="_blank">the most densely populated places </a>on
earth. How is its surviving population of two million or so to be
crammed into half the space, with no homes and all its hospitals and
schools either bombed into rubble or out of reach? </p>
<div>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/trump-gaza-plan-great-betrayal-arab-muslim-leaders-rewarding-israel-genocide" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/styles/read_more/public/images-story/Israel%20Prime%20Minister%20Benjamin%20Netanyahu%20meets%20U.S%20President%20Donald%20Trump%20at%20the%20White%20House%20on%20Monday%20September%2029%2C%202025-reuters.jpg.webp?itok=cwh4okyN" width="400" height="250" alt="" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img">
</a></p><p>The great betrayal: Why Arab and Muslim rulers backed Trump's Gaza plan</p>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/trump-gaza-plan-great-betrayal-arab-muslim-leaders-rewarding-israel-genocide" target="_blank">Read More »</a>
</p></div>
<p>In truth, this is simply a way to justify prolonging a living hell for Gaza\u2019s population under cover of a "peace plan". </p>
<p>Israel had exhausted world sympathy to the point where western
leaders\u2019 complicity in the genocide had become too visible to conceal. </p>
<p>Now rather than having Israeli military officials on air spouting
self-evident lies about only targeting Hamas fighters, we will have US
officials explaining - with the help of far more savvy public relations
teams - how they are struggling under insuperable odds to improve the
situation of Palestinians. </p>
<p>Anyone refused entry into the Green Zone will be presented as Hamas
or an ally of Hamas. Families in the Red Zone killed with US-supplied
bombs will be terrorists by definition. The new "barbarians at the
gate".</p>
<p>The western media will finally be placated, as its genocide-complicit
correspondents are ushered into Gaza - but only into the Green Zone.
There, they will be guided around model "safe communities", where they
can busy themselves airing footage of afflicted Palestinians fleeing
Hamas and offered respite. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the vast majority of Palestinians will struggle to survive
the winter without shelter and significant aid, with no hospitals and
no schools for their children. All while being indiscriminately bombed
by Israel. </p>
<p>This is the only "peace" Trump is offering. </p>
<p><em>The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.</em></p>
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