Sign Onto Trump’s Gaza Plan Now

The plan is great progress. Israel should agree to work out the details later.

The Trump plan is a framework plan. Like most Trump plans, it leaves many details to be filled in with time.

That’s alright. It is a method that has sometimes provided a path to breakthroughs.

Israel needs the plan to start going into force in real time. If Arab countries and the Palestinian Authority refuse to let it come into force before they get concessions against it, then Israel will have a right to put forward its own  equally divergent demands for amendments. But it would be foolish for it to obstruct even more than they do.

If Netanyahu rejects the plan or delays too long haggling over things that must be resolved later, he will have scored an own goal.

The Trump plan, as ToI has shown, makes a reasonable compromise between Netanyahu’s wish for something other than the Palestinian Authority in Gaza, and the belief of most analysts that only the PA can do the job. It gives Israel full consideration for its interests. Israel gets a substantial transition before the PA can have primary authority in Gaza. Hamas is required to give up power and to be disarmed.

The details on these points will be difficult, but not as difficult as the present existing situation.

It would petulant to refuse this and hold out for a perfect solution. There is no perfect solution in real life. Demanding that every wish be fulfilled means demanding that no agreements are reached and no progress is made.

Israel needs an agreement. This one is a good one — the best one available.