L. Kotor- Kamara Esq.
Introduction
For decades, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict has symbolized the world’s most intractable struggle over land, legitimacy, and survival. Each diplomatic initiative, from Camp David to Oslo carried the promise of resolution but ended in cycles of mistrust and renewed violence. It has been argued that the 2023 Gaza war exposed the complete exhaustion of the old peace formulas. The world watched as the humanitarian crisis deepened, and both sides reached a dangerous stalemate.
Against that backdrop, the 2025 Israeli–Hamas 20-Point Peace Plan emerged. Announced with unusual speed and political coordination, the plan presented itself as a practical solution: an immediate ceasefire, structured prisoner exchanges, international supervision, and the gradual rebuilding of Gaza. But beneath this pragmatic surface lies a deeper transformation. The plan reframes peace not as a shared political project but as a managed process, supervised, conditional, and externally enforced.
It can be posited that this new approach, while efficient, blurs the line between peacemaking and containment. It treats conflict less as a political dispute to be resolved and more as a security problem to be managed. This is what makes the plan both innovative and controversial.
The Structure of the Plan
The 20 points of the agreement are organized around three main pillars: security, governance, and reconstruction. The first phase calls for an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire, the release of hostages, and the freeing of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. These acts are meant to restore minimum trust and open the path for broader measures.
The second phase deals with demilitarization. Hamas is required to dismantle its military infrastructure, surrender weapons, and close its tunnel networks under the supervision of an international team. In return, Israel would ease its blockade, reopen border crossings, and permit humanitarian aid. It has been argued that this stage introduces a form of “managed peace,” where external actors not local governments, become the arbiters of compliance.
The third phase involves a transitional administration for Gaza composed of technocrats approved by both parties and overseen by what the plan calls a “Board of Peace.” This body, composed of representatives from regional powers and international institutions, would supervise reconstruction, ensure neutrality, and monitor adherence to the terms of demilitarization.
The final stage centers on reconstruction, which is explicitly tied to continued compliance. Aid and infrastructure funding are released only when demilitarization milestones are verified. It can be posited that this mechanism redefines aid as a tool of governance, one that rewards obedience and punishes deviation.
The New Grammar of Peace
The most striking feature of the plan is not its content but its logic. It has been argued that previous peace processes treated negotiation as an act of recognition: each side, however reluctantly, accepted the other’s political existence. This plan does not. Instead, it constructs peace as a sequence of technical conditions, verified by external authorities. The assumption is that peace is not built through dialogue but through control and monitoring.
It can be posited that this approach stems from a broader international trend: the shift from negotiated settlements to managed stabilization. We saw similar patterns in Bosnia, Kosovo, and East Timor, where international administrators replaced local sovereignty in the name of peace. The Gaza plan fits this pattern. It redefines sovereignty as provisional and conditional. Gaza would not be self-governed in the traditional sense but managed through external oversight until it proves its “readiness” for full autonomy.
This reflects what some scholars call the “managerial turn” in peacebuilding, the idea that peace can be engineered like an administrative project, not negotiated like a moral or political one. It has been argued that this approach may deliver immediate calm but risks eroding the political legitimacy required for lasting stability.
The Plan as a Shift in Narrative
Every peace agreement tells a story about who deserves trust, who holds power, and what peace means. The 20-Point Plan changes that story. It portrays Israel as the guarantor of stability, Hamas as the entity that must prove compliance, and the international community as the neutral custodian of the process.
It can be posited that this framing marks a departure from the older narrative of mutual recognition. In the Oslo framework, for instance, both sides were seen as political actors seeking coexistence. Under the 2025 plan, Hamas is treated primarily as a security risk to be disarmed, not a political representative to be engaged. This depoliticization of Hamas may create operational clarity but undermines the representational legitimacy that any durable peace requires.
The plan also redefines humanitarianism. Aid is no longer presented as an unconditional moral duty but as a compliance-based instrument. It has been argued that this transforms humanitarian actors into enforcers of political discipline, blurring the line between relief and regulation.
In a broader sense, the plan invites the world to accept a new kind of peace, one without reconciliation, built on management rather than consent. This may satisfy short-term security goals but leaves unresolved the deeper political grievances that fuel conflict.
Theoretical and Legal Implications
From a realist perspective, the plan makes sense. It acknowledges asymmetry and designs peace around it. Israel holds military and diplomatic superiority; Hamas does not. Realists would argue that peace must therefore reflect this imbalance rather than ignore it.
From a liberal institutionalist angle, the plan embodies faith in external institutions, the belief that international monitoring and technocratic governance can sustain order even in the absence of deep political agreement. Yet, as critics point out, this faith in institutions often masks a lack of political inclusion.
It can be posited that from a post-colonial perspective, the plan revives an older pattern of international trusteeship. Gaza, in this view, becomes a quasi-protectorate governed under international supervision. This may stabilize the territory but also perpetuates dependency and diminishes local agency.
Legally, the plan raises questions about authority and accountability. Without a clear UN mandate, the legitimacy of the proposed “Board of Peace” remains uncertain. Who governs Gaza during the transition? Who decides compliance? These ambiguities could later become points of friction, undermining the very stability the plan seeks to create.
Broader Significance
It has been argued that the 20-Point Plan is more than a blueprint for Gaza, it is a mirror of how the world now thinks about peace. The emphasis on security, verification, and external oversight reflects a global shift away from the ideal of sovereign equality toward a model of conditional sovereignty.
In this new paradigm, peace is not something parties build together; it is something managed by outsiders until one side earns the right to self-govern again. It can be posited that this shift is not unique to Israel and Hamas. Similar logic shapes international engagement in places like Yemen, Sudan, and Libya, where external actors impose stability frameworks without fully resolving the political roots of the conflict.
The plan therefore changes the narrative of conflict settlement: from reconciliation to regulation, from justice to control. Whether this is progress or retreat depends on what one believes peace should mean.
Conclusion
The Israeli–Hamas 20-Point Peace Plan has redefined what the international community considers “peace.” It has been argued that the plan’s efficiency and sequencing offer a model for managing prolonged conflicts, but its moral cost is the erosion of local ownership and political dialogue.
It can be posited that this plan signals the arrival of a new era in conflict resolution, one where peace is not negotiated but administered. The question, then, is whether peace built through control can endure once external enforcement fades. History suggests it rarely does.
Still, the plan’s existence forces a rethinking of how the world approaches seemingly endless wars. Perhaps it is both a warning and a prototype: a warning that peace without justice risks fragility, and a prototype for how modern states may choose to manage instability in the decades ahead.
