Trump’s ‘peace’ in the Middle East: A retrocolonialism built on sand

First published at The International Marxist-Humanist.

After two years, the guns are silent, at least for the most part. Long-suffering Palestinians are heading back to their hometowns and villages in Gaza, and the remaining Israeli hostages and some Palestinian prisoners are being released. Meanwhile, the Israeli Knesset has toasted US autocrat Donald Trump as the hero of the hour, and Arab, Muslim, and Western European leaders — from the EU nations to Egypt, and from Turkey to the Gulf monarchies and Pakistan — have gathered to celebrate these developments, while also genuflecting to Trump.

These bizarre ceremonies — in Jerusalem and Sharm El-Sheikh — proceeded with nary a word about the 67,000 Palestinian deaths that have resulted in legitimate genocide charges against Israel, nor the fact that not a single Palestinian representative was involved in the elaboration of the “peace” plan, nor the lack of even the kind vague promises of future elections that usually follow impositions from above like military invasions and coups.

In fact, Trump’s twenty-point “peace” plan does not contain the word “election” or “representative.” It does state:

Gaza will be governed under the temporary transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee, responsible for delivering the day-to-day running of public services and municipalities for the people in Gaza. This committee will be made up of qualified Palestinians and international experts, with oversight and supervision by a new international transitional body, the ‘Board of Peace,’ which will be headed and chaired by President Donald J. Trump, with other members and heads of state to be announced, including Former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

In short, what is proposed is a retrocolonialist protectorate, reminiscent of the imperialist machinations that divided up the Ottoman Empire after World War I — the infamous Sykes-Picot Agreement — or even of the carving up of Africa by European powers in 1884-85.

This will not pass!

As the celebrated Arab Marxist Gilbert Achcar predicts on his blog: 

As for the proud Palestinian people, they have spent a century proving their refusal to submit to their oppressors — whether the British Mandate authorities or the Zionist government. They will not kiss Donald Trump’s hand or show him ‘appreciation,’ no matter what those who claim to represent them may do. They will not submit to the so-called Peace Council chaired by Trump, which includes figures like Tony Blair, George W. Bush’s partner in the occupation of Iraq. Instead, the Palestinian people will continue their struggle for full rights, undiminished. (“Trump at the Knesset and Sharm el-Sheikh: A Festival of Obsequiousness,” Oct. 14, 2025).

During two years of hellish bombardments, of an Israeli genocide that has surely killed untold numbers beyond the 67,000 officially reported, the Palestinian people of Gaza have never given up. Not a single hostage was ever turned over to Israeli forces despite death raining down and starvation stalking the land for over 700 days. As they streamed back into their ruined cities and towns, one marcher declared ringingly to the global media:

We, Palestinians, are showing our attachment to our land and our resilience” (Laure Stephan, “A Gaza, le retour massif des deplacés dans le nord de l’enclave, Le Monde, Oct. 13, 2025).

Nor will the people of the world give up, especially the youth, who have engaged in two years of truly colossal street demonstrations, strikes, and occupations in support of Palestine. Among the latest manifestations here were a giant rally in Amsterdam, a massive general strike in Italy. Even in the US, public opinion has shifted so far against Israel and its genocide that a rightwing commentator complained recently, “Everybody under 30 is against Israel” (David Halbfinger, “Test for Israel: Repairing Ties to U.S. Voters,” NY Times, Oct. 13, 2025).

To be sure, the silence over Palestine that existed in the region and the world before October 7, 2023 has been shattered by the events of the past two years. Palestine is sure to remain high on the agenda of movements for global justice and peace for the foreseeable future.

For now, though, the Trump “peace” plan is a bitter, imperialist pill that the region is being forced to swallow. It and the world have had to watch the smiling perpetrators of genocide claim victory, ringed by supposed friends of the Palestinian people. At least for now, this has been a defeat for Palestine and for the global movement for human liberation.

Defeats like this are a time to regroup and continue the struggle, which we will surely do.

They are also occasions for reflection and rethinking. For the last two years have not only shattered the complacency of those regional and global powers that thought they could ignore Palestine, that the Palestinian people had been defeated, bottled up behind Israel’s apartheid walls, and silenced. 

These two years have also shattered the Axis of Resistance backed by Iran, and including the Syrian regime, Lebanese Hezbollah, and the Houthi-ruled part of Yemen, all of them declared supporters of Palestinian Hamas. They were unable or unwilling to aid Gaza in any meaningful way. The overthrow of the murderous Assad regime in Syria due to mass disaffection in the face of a small military force, and the barbaric Israeli attacks on Iran and Lebanon have severely weakened, if not destroyed, this alliance of convenience.

New pathways of resistance to the new and undisguised forms of imperialism developing around Trump’s Gaza “peace” plan will need to be found. Many will question the recourse to armed attacks by well-disciplined groups operating in secret, and links to dubious allies, vs. the kind of public mass movements that have been the hallmark of all successful revolutionary movements in recent years, and which are evidenced in the Gen Z revolutions taking place around the world today.

As we continue and deepen our support for the Palestinian resistance and our demands that those responsible for the genocide be held to account, and above all for the full national liberation of the Palestinian people, we will also be, as Marxist-Humanists, engaging in the global debates about where to go from here.

— Approved as a Statement of the Steering Committee of the International Marxist-Humanist Organization on October 15, 2025