‘Hamas will never govern Gaza.’ How do those words become reality?
INTRODUCTION
Those are the words of President Donald Trump’s nominee for US National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, the day the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect on January 19, 2025. This position of the Trump administration was confirmed by US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, in a call with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty on January 28, 2025, in which they discussed the importance of close cooperation to advance post-war planning. The question is how to make those words and that position a reality. The answer is the formation of an alliance of nations to assume governance of Gaza and lead the Palestinian people on a path to self-governance.

BLUEPRINT FOR AN IMPOSED PEACE
On May 4, 2024, the Center for Conflict Resolution Strategies (CCRS) published its “Blueprint for an Imposed Peace to End the Israeli Palestinian Conflict” (the “Blueprint”), an excerpt of which was published on The Times of Israel blog on May 24, 2024 and the entirety of which can be found at www.centerforconflictresolutionstrategies.com.
The Blueprint proposes that Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, Morocco, join with Israel, the EU, and US to form an Alliance for the governing of the Palestinian people. They will form a Governing Council that will oversee the day-to-day governance of Gaza and the West Bank by Trustees acting under their direction. This will continue until such time as the Palestinian people achieve certain benchmarks, including rejecting terrorism and terrorist organizations, showing that they are ready and capable of self-governance. As a deradicalized and demilitarized people, they will remain under the protection of the Alliance, which will ensure long-term security for them and Israel.
It is through this Alliance that Hamas will be removed and excluded from governing Gaza and for the first time in the Conflict’s 77-year history, leadership representing the interests of the Palestinian people and Israel will govern Gaza.
THE CEASEFIRE IS AND MUST BE THE END OF THE “EXPERIMENT” OF LEADERLESS SELF-GOVERNANCE BY THE PALESTINIANS OF GAZA
Effective January 19, 2025, Israel and Hamas entered into a ceasefire, with Hamas agreeing to return Israeli hostages, alive and dead, and Israel agreeing to terms that allow Hamas to survive in Gaza, absent Israel renewing the war or otherwise acting to achieve Hamas’ removal from Gaza. Absent immediate action, the ceasefire will simply become part of the repeating cycle of violence of the Conflict with another ceasefire to end another war.
Israel abandoned Gaza to the Palestinian Authority and ultimately Hamas in 2007 because it had no one to negotiate peace with. That “experiment” in giving the Palestinians of Gaza an opportunity to self-govern in such “vacuum” failed horrifically, with a direct consequence being the massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023, and the follow-on deaths and injury to almost 16,000 Israeli soldiers and police officers. Leaving Hamas to regain control of Gaza, which it is already doing, will simply be repeating that failed experiment with the likely future result being more horrific than October 7 and its aftermath and ensure a continuation of the cycle of violence of the Conflict.
Thus, the ceasefire mandates that action be taken quickly to adopt a post-ceasefire governance plan that excludes and precludes any role for Hamas in the governance of Gaza.
HAMAS IS ALREADY RETAKING CONTROL OF GAZA AND WILL NOT VOLUNTARILY LEAVE
On January 15, 2025, before the ceasefire even became effective, the defiantly “victorious” Hamas leader and top negotiator in the ceasefire negotiations, Khalil al-Hayya, praised the October 7 massacre and confirmed that Hamas will continue to pursue Israel’s destruction. Hamas fighters openly took to the streets in full dress uniforms to celebrate the return of Palestinians released by Israel. Hamas is out in force patrolling the street, manning civil service offices, stopping looting, and otherwise showing the Palestinians flooding back into northern Gaza who is in charge.
Further, there were reports of Hamas wasting no time in killing Palestinians believed to have collaborated with Israel. Hamas has clearly shown that it has every intention of fighting, killing, and doing whatever else is necessary to regain control of the Palestinians in Gaza.
Unless immediately countered, by the time the terms of the ceasefire are completed with the last return of the hostages, Hamas will have reestablished its civilian and military control of Gaza and reversed many of the gains that almost 16,000 dead and wounded IDF soldiers fought to achieve for Israel’s long-term security, which can only be achieved by freeing the Palestinians of Gaza from the jackboot of Hamas.
The terms of the ceasefire and Hamas’ immediate action to retake full control over the Palestinians of Gaza supports the easy to draw conclusion that Hamas has no present intention of leaving Gaza voluntarily and most likely will fight to maintain control. The accuracy of that conclusion will play out in Phases 2 and 3 ceasefire negotiations. It can be expected that Hamas will keep the hostages “in play,” as long as possible because they now know that they are Hamas’ truly effective “human shield,” not the people living in Gaza.
The best chance to avoid a continuance of the war against Hamas is for Hamas to be shown that peace-seeking Arab states are aligned with Israel and the US in ensuring that Hamas will never govern Gaza again. The time to send that message is now.
PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH
President Trump has already shown that the peace through strength alliance of Israel and the US is the only realistic path for resolving the Conflict and achieving long-term peace in the Middle East. A counterbalance to Hamas bombast and the fears of many Israelis expressed by Rabbi Amichai Eliyahu, Israel’s Minister of Heritage, in his The Times of Israel blog article “The unbearable price of freedom,” that Israel was releasing the “next Sinwars in the making,” and addressing Israel’s “moral crisis” and long-term security concerns. With now the United States unequivocal support to eliminate Hamas from governance of Gaza, the goals of those Israelis who opposed the ceasefire, can also be achieved, hopefully without the further killing of hostages by Hamas, and the death and injury of over 16,000 Israeli soldiers, policeman, and innocent civilian will not have been in vain.
Hamas may have survived its elimination for now, but its days of using the radicalized population of Gaza as a weapon to wage war on Israel are over. The Biden administration acted in a manner that gave Hamas hope that it would survive and at least participate in the post-war governance of Gaza, which is clearly evident in the terms of the ceasefire. But Trump has put an end to any such outcome. Trump has already ended US funding of the UN’s terrorist supporting “relief” organization, UNRWA, and signaled through his nominee for UN Ambassador, Elise Stefanik, there will be a reckoning with the supporters of terrorism and antisemitism at the United Nations.
PUTTING PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH IN ACTION – THE ALLIANCE FOR PEACE
The best chance to minimize continuance of the war against Hamas and end Hamas’ control of Gaza, is for peace-seeking Arab states to aligned with Israel and the US to put in place a post-war governance structure that meets the dual complementary goals of ensuring Israel’s security and providing the Palestinian people with the opportunity to deradicalize and better the trajectory of their lives while on a path to self-governance. That opportunity does not exist with any involvement of a terrorist/criminal organization.
Revered Israeli diplomat and former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abba Eban, famously observed, the Palestinians “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” But the Palestinian people have never had leadership whose goal was to seize the opportunity to better their lives. Rather, they have up to this day been used as a weapon to wage war on Israel. Given their now twenty years of indoctrination and subservience to Hamas, not only do they not have their own leader to pursue peace and better their lives, but they have been indoctrinated to believe that peace can only come with Israel’s destruction.
CONCLUSION
The Palestinian people must be provided with leadership that imposes peace on them and for them, even if many are not currently of a mind to accept peace. That strength of that leadership resides with the Arab nations of the Alliance that are serious about peace for the Palestinian people and peace in the Middle East. That is the way forward. That is how the words quoted above become reality.