With Hamas reasserting control of Gaza's cites, Trump's peace plan can't be implemented without more fighting.

On Monday, President Trump told the Knesset that, with the cease fire and hostage release in place, it’s “the historic dawn of a new Middle East, a Holy Land that is finally at peace.” In other news, Hamas reemerged to violently assert control over parts of the Gaza Strip that are no longer controlled by the IDF, namely the population centers.

According to the Financial Times, “Hamas has set up checkpoints, engaged in gun battles with rivals, and meted out beatings to Palestinians it suspects of having collaborated with Israel.” Thus, says Gregg Carlstrom of the Economist, Hamas is poised to “assert control over day-to-day life [in Gaza] by murdering, torturing, and terrorizing its rivals.”

Some new dawn.

Trump’s peace plan calls for Hamas to disarm. Hamas has not disarmed and has no intention of disarming.

Trump’s plan also calls for establishing an international stabilizing force to provide security in Gaza, to be replaced later by a Palestinian force, and for massive influx of aid and, ultimately, the rebuilding of Gaza. But none of this will be achieved unless Hamas disarms and recedes.

For once, I agree with Max Boot. He surely is correct in saying that “Arab states are not going to send peacekeeping troops [to Gaza] if they will have to fight Hamas.” Nor will the U.S. or any European nation. Furthermore, “Israel and the United States will not permit reconstruction funds to flow [into Gaza] if Hamas will siphon them off as it has in the past.” Well, Israel won’t, anyway.

Yesterday, Trump said that if Hamas doesn’t disarm “we will disarm them.” Sorry, but I can’t imagine Trump sending American troops into Gaza to take on Hamas.

There is only one military that is both willing and able to disarm Hamas by force. That military is the IDF.

Therefore, implementation of Trump’s peace plan depends on the IDF returning to the parts of Gaza from which it has withdrawn, taking on Hamas, and policing these areas while Trump attempts to create his peacekeeping force. (Whether such a force can be cobbled together while Israel fights Hamas is a fair question.)

It turns out, then, that Trump cannot have both his ceasefire and the rest of his peace plan. Fulfillment of his plan, or anything close to it, requires giving Israel the green light to start fighting again (or on Israel fighting again without that green light). Will this harsh reality be enough to induce Trump to give the green light?

Maybe not. Trump might prefer to rest on his laurels as a “peacemaker,” without implementing the rest of his plan, to a renewal of fighting in Gaza. Not only would such a renewal embarrass him, it might also dash his hopes of winning the Nobel Peace Prize, something he covets.

I don’t know what the likelihood is that the leftists who give out that award will ever confer it on Trump. But any chance that they will surely depends on Trump keeping Israel at bay.

If, in the minds of those who award the Nobel Peace Prize, there’s a case for giving it to Trump, it’s that he, unlike his predecessors, was able to stick it to Netanyahu — to “bring him to heel” as the Washington Post puts it. If the IDF renews the fighting in Gaza, that case evaporates.

On the other hand, I doubt that Trump wants to be “played” by Hamas, or perceived as having been played. He does not want his statement that Hamas will be disarmed to become an empty threat. Nor does he want to be hounded by hostile reporters constantly asking him when the next steps of his peace plan will be implemented and why they haven’t been.

Therefore, after a period of non-fighting, Trump might well give Israel the green light to take on Hamas again.

I see two possible outcomes. The first one is that after a decent interval during which everyone celebrates the “peace” and Hamas comes back into the open as flagrantly committed to ruling Gaza and killing Jews as ever, Israel goes back into the populated areas. Either Israel will be able to turn the policing of these areas over to an international body or, more likely, will have to stay on and do the policing itself. But one way or another, Hamas will be unable to control Gaza and its fighters will continue to be killed.

The second outcome is less violent but also less satisfactory, at least to me. Israel remains in Gaza but outside of its main population centers. Hamas reasserts control of these centers, and they remain “Mogadishu on the Mediterranean,” to use Boot’s description. But the IDF contains Hamas within that hellhole, thereby preventing new attacks on Israel. And, at the first sign of efforts to attack Israel, e.g., more tunnel building or development of rocket capacity, the IDF goes in, eliminates the threat, and then returns to the perimeter.

I prefer the first outcome, but there’s a case for the second. As long as Hamas can’t harm Israel, it’s fair to ask why Israelis should expend blood trying to help Gaza, whose population has long been committed to the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews, end its nightmare, let alone flourish in Trump’s dream scenario for the Strip.