The armistice provides a much-needed respite, but it does not pave the way for a breakthrough in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The case for a roadmap that will bring lasting peace, freedom, and security—for Palestinians and Israelis alike.
The ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in Gaza is a beginning, not an end. It, and the broader so-called 'Trump Plan', is not a peace, nor even a viable process towards a peace. For now, it is just a hostage exchange and a pause in the assault on whatever is left of the Strip. What is needed to ensure an end to the almost century-old conflict is bigger: a comprehensive political framework that avoids the pitfalls of the defunct Oslo process, one that guarantees for both Palestinians and Israelis that their rights and existence are ensured, and that they will each be safe from such violence ever occurring again. Toward this comprehensive end, a group of Palestinian experts developed the Palestinian Armistice Plan, a rights-based plan for a permanent end to violence and a transition to peace between all Palestinians and Israel.
The importance of the ceasefire cannot be overstated. There is finally a glimmer of hope after two years of an Israeli campaign of death and destruction of such unprecedented horror and scope that the majority of the world's experts have declared it a genocide. With the implementation of the ceasefire and hostage exchange, there is a possibility of survival for those who have clung to life thus far, if the Israeli blockade in fact ends and urgent humanitarian aid — food, medicine, shelter — is permitted to enter Gaza. The temporary stop to Israeli hostilities, however, is far from being a permanent end to the conflict. At a minimum, the government of PM Netanyahu on more than one occasion in the past has breached similar agreements, and once he has retrieved hostages this time around there will be little to stop him from returning to his campaign to annihilate Gaza. And even if the lull in Gaza holds, violent attacks by the Israeli military and settler gangs in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, continue to increase in scope and intensity, further undermining the credibility, legitimacy and ability of the Palestinian Authority to govern within its limited jurisdiction. Israel's threat to annex the West Bank, a critical part of Palestinian territory, while formally on hold for now, is de facto being implemented on the ground.
As Palestinians begin to recover, and to deal with the trauma of Gaza and its aftermath — slowly clearing the rubble, finding the bodies, beginning to rebuild and think about what their future could look like — they will need to rebuild their polity also. Yes, there will need to be a reckoning, including a surge of journalists and investigators along with the assistance and protection, and people to document what has been done to over two million human beings over the past two years. There can be no return to the status quo ante, the prison that Gaza was for almost twenty years. There can be no return to the occupation that has continued since 1967. There can be no return to the failed Oslo structures and the managed, perhaps even curated conflict that led to the traumatic events of October 7. The conflict needs to be resolved, for everybody's sake.
With these imperatives, the Palestinian Armistice Plan is an attempt to lay the groundwork of a comprehensive and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians. It is not itself a plan for permanent peace, but rather a plan for a peaceful transition, to permit both sides to recover, and rebuild, and reform, prior to deciding how they will share the land that lies between the river and the sea — the Plan itself is agnostic about whether a one- or two-state solution should be chosen. Instead, the Plan is based on rights and processes, not on outcomes. Building on international law, it draws heavily from previous proposals such as the Arab Peace Initiative and the Bahrain Declaration of the Arab League, ensuring regional acceptance and regional integration for Israel on this basis. It is not limited to Hamas, but proposes an armistice between all Palestinians everywhere, represented by an inclusive Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and Israel. Understanding that both parties need to be secure — not only Israel, but Palestinians too, who are currently trying to survive in some of the most insecure conditions in the world — the Palestinian Armistice Plan calls for UN-mandated international peacekeeping forces to enter, at the request of the State of Palestine, to keep both sides safe during the transition, and deployed in all of the Occupied Territory (along the 1948 Armistice Line, often referred to as the pre-1967 border of Israel).
To achieve this, recognition and support of the State of Palestine is an essential starting point. As reinforced by the recent movement led by France, the UK and others, there can be no two-state solution without two states, logically. This is a first step, a predicate. Israel's occupation from 1967 must be rejected by all countries — it is an occupation that has been often reaffirmed to be illegal, most recently by the International Court of Justice in its unambiguous 2024 Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. The illegal occupation must not be condoned or supported. And the State of Palestine, declared on that same Occupied Palestinian Territory in 1988, must be recognized by all, and its sovereignty respected and supported.
The recognition of the State of Palestine and its sovereignty will put a limit to Israel's expansionism and shut down the attempts of its extremist elements to expand and annex Palestinian territory in Gaza and the West Bank. It will also indicate to both sides that they shall not be erased — and this is an existential fear, of which the Israelis often speak, but which is, also, a profound Palestinian one as well. But, as noted above, this is not the end of the story, but only the beginning.
Next, the State of Palestine is also the context within which Palestinian political structures can begin to be built or rebuilt, and Palestinian political representation be reformed. Hope in a functioning Palestinian State will itself serve as a disincentive to violence. At a political level, only the end of the occupation will entail the end of the resistance. Palestinians have enormous energy, and potential. This needs to be harnessed to build a free future, and that can only be begun within the context of a State. No other plan or proposal currently under discussion comes close to dealing with all the critical issues that must be addressed up front; and without addressing all these issues, any proposal is bound to fall short and fail.
Unlike either the current Trump plan or the proposal suggested by the Blair Institute, the Palestinian Armistice Plan ensures that the decision-making authority for Palestine resides with the Palestinians. This is crucial, because only by ensuring such can Palestinians begin to exercise their basic rights of freedom and self-determination. Clearly, this is complicated; free and fair elections will take time to organize. Until elections are possible, within one or two years, the Palestinian Armistice Plan suggests a number of essential mechanisms to ensure immediate citizen participation in decision-making at the local level, as well as citizen participation in oversight and control at the top level. It ensures that the technocratic Palestinian government, which is called for in the Plan, will exist under the sovereign authority of the PLO, but will also be responsible to the Palestinian people and to international donors sitting in a tripartite committee.
The three basic elements of this transitional governance structure (for all of the State of Palestine, not only for Gaza), are fundamental. Sovereignty ensures the correct balance, and the desire of citizens to participate, and the exercise of fundamental rights. Oversight and reform ensures control and responsibility — along with various mechanisms the Plan proposes, such as relying on blockchain technology to avoid the misuse and diversion of international aid. And third, cohesion under an inclusive and reformed PLO ensures that all Palestinians are represented, united under a legitimate governance structure, and bound by that structure's decisions.
Following the transition period and elections, it will be possible for a real dialogue to occur with Israel (also, ideally, following a period of safety and renewal within Israel), and agreement reached on how the two entities, and two peoples, wish to share the land — separately, in a confederation, or in some form of a binational state. But this will only be enabled by putting the political context first, prior to the economic; and ensuring safety and security for all within this political context, with an international peace force.
The process of building and healing Gaza, and the whole country, will be staggering. What Israel has been permitted to do there over the past two years, indeed over the past twenty years, is a blot on all of our humanity. There will need to be a reckoning; but, as Palestinians, we must look ahead, build futures for our orphans and somehow, in some way, make the sacrifices worthwhile. We know the price we have paid for freedom. We have paid it many times over. It is time for Palestinians to be free.
Jamal Nusseibeh is a lawyer and currently CEO of an investment firm in Greenwich, Connecticut. He studied Law and Political Science at Sciences Po (IEP, Paris), Columbia University (New York), and City University, London. He is one of the initiators and authors of the Palestinian Armistice Plan.
