Peace on Israel’s terms: Kushner and Netanyahu’s scheme to redefine the Gaza peace plan

In a desperate attempt to salvage what is left of Trump’s “peace deal” in Gaza after it was blatantly rejected by Israel, Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, hopped on a plane and embarked on a mission to the Middle East. Bizarrely, this self-proclaimed expert on the region – by virtue of having skimmed through 25 books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – chose not Israel, the very party that renounced the deal, as his first destination.

Instead, on Sunday, 16 August 2026, Kushner went to the Egyptian coastal city of El-Alamein to meet with a Hamas delegation led by its new chairman of the Political Bureau Khalil al-Hayya. Also present were former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, Board of Peace Director Nickolay Mladenov, and Qatari, Turkish and Egyptian mediators. This is emblematic of the Trump administration’s foreign policy conduct. The US had for years refused direct contact with Hamas, which it dubs a “terrorist organisation”. But the Trump administration, recognising the reality of power and who actually holds influence on the ground, has increasingly become comfortable with direct contact with Hamas.

During the meeting, Hamas briefed Kushner on ongoing Israeli ceasefire violations in Gaza. Since the fragile “ceasefire” went into effect, there have been near-daily Zionist violations, with at least 1,260 Palestinians killed in Gaza. All of the supposed deliverables on the Israeli side have been blatantly ignored, including halting attacks, allowing full humanitarian aid to enter, opening the Rafah crossing and withdrawing from Gaza. Instead, Israel has gradually expanded its area of control in Gaza, now controlling about 70 percent of the enclave.

Yet, it seems their pleas fell on Kushner’s deaf ears. Instead of holding Israel accountable and responsible for the failure to resolve the quagmire, it was the Palestinian resistance that was pressured to yield even further concessions. Kushner demanded more steps toward disarmament from Hamas before requiring any Israeli compliance. The following day, Kushner travelled to Israel to meet Netanyahu, the very man behind this whole fiasco, and clearly the superior partner dictating the terms. Together, they unilaterally and arbitrarily announced that progress toward disarming Hamas and advancing the Gaza peace plan could begin within a month. Under the new understanding between Kushner and Netanyahu, Israel retains its full right to resume military operations in Gaza at will, while Gaza’s reconstruction would not begin until Hamas is fully disarmed.

This is further clear evidence of the goalposts continually being shifted by the Zionist regime and the US, and of the US continuing to reward Israeli rejectionism and expansionism with an even more favourable set of terms.

Even after Israel blatantly rejected Trump’s 15-point proposal, Washington’s response has been to capitulate further. This comes despite the fact that the US and its Board of Peace have already conceded so much from their original demands. Netanyahu perfectly understands this dynamic, and exploits it to the regime’s advantage.

US administrations have repeatedly made appeals, issued warnings, and complained privately to Israel over its atrocities, only to eventually retreat and accommodate the regime once the political cost of confrontation grew. US “red lines” often become negotiable when Israel pushes back hard enough.

Now, with Kushner clearly taking his cues from Netanyahu, the US has practically abandoned the reciprocal and phased approach that formed the very spirit and mechanism of the original plan agreed to by Hamas. That plan rested on a clear framework: Hamas’s surrender of weapons to a new Palestinian governing body, and governance transition to an independent Palestinian National Committee, were tied to Israel halting its attacks and withdrawing from Gaza. Kushner and Netanyahu have now unilaterally dismantled this framework. Under the revised terms, Hamas must first fully demilitarise, handing over all of its weapons under US military supervision, with every weapon collected permanently decommissioned so that it cannot be used again. Only then will Israel begin to take steps of its own.

This effectively hands Netanyahu veto power over the entire so-called peace process. The regime will now arbitrarily determine what constitutes “complete disarmament” that must be fulfilled before any demand for Israeli withdrawal is made. At its whim, the Zionist regime can claim that weapons remain hidden or that new threats from Hamas have emerged, thereby justifying its continued genocide in Gaza. Meanwhile the Palestinians are left without effective means of self-defence. This is not wild speculation. One has only to look back at Sabra and Shatila in the early 1980s to know what happens after the Palestinian resistance is forced to back down and evacuate.

Kushner’s move to extract yet more concessions from Hamas is fundamentally flawed. It is the Palestinian resistance that has fully complied with the terms of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement, while Israel has systematically refused to honour its own commitments.

The Hamas delegation is therefore correct to point out that it has already accepted the original plan, and that the onus of implementing the plan therefore rests on Israel first meeting its obligations. Pressuring the compliant party while accommodating the violator inverts the logic of any credible peace framework.

The Kushner-Netanyahu understanding lays bare the fundamental bad faith at the core of the US-led “peace” process. By unilaterally altering the agreed-upon roadmap to demand Palestinian disarmament and political dissolution as preconditions, while simultaneously granting Israel an unrestricted right to resume its genocide at will, the US has revealed itself not as a mediator but as a co-author of Israel’s terms. The party that has rejected its obligations is rewarded with greater freedom of action, while the party that accepted the original framework is pressed to make yet more concessions as well as made to look like the culprit. This is not a credible pathway to peace, but a mechanism for imposing peace on the Zionist regime’s terms.

By surrendering its role as an impartial mediator and allowing Netanyahu to dictate the terms of engagement, the US has not only undermined the credibility of its Gaza peace plan, but also destroyed what little trust remains in US-led mediation.

A peace process that gives one side the power to rewrite the rules, determine compliance and resume war at will is not a peace process at all. It is capitulation dressed up as diplomacy.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.