The Third Eye: Trump’s initiative in Gaza

New Delhi, Oct 5 US President Donald Trump seeking to be ‘the peacemaker of the world’, embarked on a detailed plan of resolving the conflict in Gaza in the back drop of Hamas feeling the weight of Israel’s full-blown offensive backed by the US on one hand and some important European countries including France and Britain besides Canada and Australia, supporting recognition of a Palestinian state, on the other.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in keeping with India’s policy of favouring peaceful resolutions of all armed conflicts of global implications, has lost no time in welcoming Trump’s 20-point plan for ending the Gaza conflict, saying that it provided a ‘visible pathway’ for long-term peace for the Palestinian and Israeli people.

While Hamas has responded by agreeing to review Donald Trump’s plan, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that if Hamas rejected it, then ‘Israel will finish the job by itself’. He claimed that he had not agreed to a Palestinian state during his talks in Washington. Netanyahu, however, told the US President that Israel supported the latter’s plan to end the war in Gaza, which ‘achieves our war aims’. President Trump announced in his typically hyperbolic style that ‘we have one signature that we need and that signature will pay in hell if they don’t sign’. Significantly, Saudi Arabia-a US ally- had been working with the UK and France to promote the idea of a two-state solution for the Palestine dispute.

Trump’s plan calls for a ceasefire, release of hostages by Hamas ‘within 72 hours’, disarmament of Hamas, grant of amnesty to Hamas elements who accepted the idea of ‘peaceful coexistence’ with Israel and gradual Israeli withdrawal from Gaza followed by a post-war transitional authority headed by Trump himself - thus putting the US President right at the centre of implementation of a possible peace accord. It is reported that Qatar-which had hosted the Doha talks between US and Taliban for the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan in Biden Presidency and which has now provided a safe shelter for Hamas’s exiled leadership- has indicated that Hamas would study the proposal seriously and responsibly.

Hamas is said to have already begun consultations with its political and military leaders both inside Palestine and abroad. The targeted missile attack made by Israel on September 8 on the residential compound housing the Hamas leadership at Doha, top leaders of the outfit barely surviving the attack- surely made an impact on the latter. At the same time, killing of more than sixty thousand Palestinians-mostly civilians- had created a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, attracting the attention of the world that could not be disregarded by the US. Amidst Israeli air strikes and shelling continuing across Gaza, the Palestinian Authority welcomed Trump’s ‘sincere and determined efforts’. With key Arab and Muslim countries supporting the peace initiative of Donald Trump, Hamas seemed to be under greater pressure, particularly because its organised terror attack on Israel on October 7 in 2023, is what had triggered the retaliatory Israel Defence Forces(IDF) attack in Gaza.

Interestingly, President Donald Trump stated once again that he settled the ‘very big’ conflict between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan. He was addressing Generals and Admirals summoned from around the world by Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth in Quantico, the Marine Base town in Virginia. The address was designed to counter the reservations expressed in US Army circles against the deployment of Defence force for ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) work. Claiming that he had settled ‘so many wars’ since his becoming President of the US in January, Trump remarked that it would be an ‘insult’ to the US if he does not receive the Nobel Peace Prize, adding sarcastically that ‘they might give it to some guy who didn’t do a damn thing’.

It is significant that President Trump specifically named Pakistan President Shahbaz Sharif and Field Marshall Asif Munir, Pak Army Chief among the world leaders who fully supported his plan to end the Gaza conflict. Sharif who was in New York for the high level 80th session of the UN General Assembly had met Trump, along with Munir in the White House. The Pak leaders had already gone on record to recommend President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize for bringing about a ceasefire between India and Pakistan after the two countries had got into a military confrontation following the Pak-directed terror attack at Pahalgam.

The US President already had the backing of Israel on the Nobel Prize question. Trump took his claim for Nobel Peace Prize to the UN forum on September 25. Incidentally, his attempt to negotiate peace in Russia-Ukraine ‘war’ had not yielded a timely result because of President Zelensky’s tough stand on territorial issue- Trump who had a personal bonhomie with President Putin wanted Ukraine to be accommodative towards Russia on this matter. Outside of Russia-Ukraine armed conflict, however, President Trump is convinced that he had enough to his credit to get him the Nobel Peace Prize.

India’s positive response to Trump’s initiative for peace in Gaza is in keeping with the importance this country attaches to its relations with the US, Israel and the Arab states of the Middle East and the interests it had in world peace and the cause of humanity. India has not allowed its national strategy to be weighed down by Donald Trump’s erratic policy directives on issues of tarif , visa and immigration and kept up an approach of strategic autonomy, trust in negotiations and a belief in the natural friendship between the two largest and trusted democracies of the world. Its policy of bilateral friendships with all for mutual security and economic interests-without aligning with any world power- and adherence to the call of resolution of all armed conflicts through a peaceful negotiation, has served the country well. This approach goes with emphasis on making the country self- sufficient in economic, security and defence-related matters and adoption of strategic patience in dealing with tricky international relations.

Donald Trump has stated that if Hamas did not come round, Israel would have full backing of US in doing whatever was needed to be done in ‘cleaning up’ Gaza in quick time. He had envisaged developing Gaza commercially as a riviera attracting tourists and the plan of creating a transitional authority headed by Trump himself, was apparently meant to serve this agenda. Trump has been drawn to Pakistan for reasons of trade and in the process he has tended to ‘hyphenate’ India and Pakistan on the issue of Kashmir. India did well to tell the US President that no ‘third party’ intervention was needed in the matter and that this country had already set the conditions for holding any talks with Pakistan. The unpredictability about Donald Trump’s statements makes it necessary for India to draw the red line on whatever affected its national interests.

Israel’s offensive has reduced much of Gaza to rubble, killed over sixty thousand Palestinians, mostly civilians, as mentioned earlier and produced a sight of mass hunger- all of which was not acceptable to the world at large. It is true that the October 7 terror attack of Hamas that resulted in the killing of over 1200 Israelis and kidnapping of 250 others, including women and children as hostages by the terrorists, was totally unpardonable, and India was amongst the first countries to condemn it outright. It revived the ‘existential’ threat for Israel, which was sensitive to the fact that it was surrounded by hostile territory on all sides. Mass destruction in Gaza, however, could also not be condoned even as the use of extensive underground bunkers by Hamas terrorists in Gaza had made collateral damage in Israel’s counteraction inevitable up to a point.

The fact of Hamas having been taken by the fundamentalist Iran under its embrace added to the security concerns of Israel in the ongoing military confrontation between Iran and Israel. The two-state formula in Palestine must give adequate guarantee to Israel that there will be genuine peaceful coexistence between Israel and its neighbours. It will be advisable to have more than one states representing Palestine, station a peace keeping force in Gaza and provide encouragement to the Arab states to move towards democratisation. No situation of a ‘clash of civilisation’ should be allowed to develop in the turbulent Middle East. The peace initiative in Gaza must address these long term concerns too.

(The writer is a former Director Intelligence Bureau)

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