On its own terms, the "Trump plan" does not read like the outcome of negotiations grounded in conflict realities but resembles a set of surrender terms, drafted to legitimise domination. The plan must be located within the broader context of the Palestinian struggle after they were robbed of their homeland.
The story begins in the First World War. The Sykes–Picot Agreement of 1916 shattered Arab hopes of independence, placing Palestine under a foreign mandate.
A year later came the infamous Balfour Declaration: Britain's Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour wrote to Lord Rothschild pledging support for "a national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine. The accompanying caveat about safeguarding the rights of non-Jews was a colonial fig leaf.
From 1922 onward, Britain translated that promise into policy. Mandate authority was used to facilitate waves of Jewish immigration and land transfer, steadily turning Palestine into a Zionist project.
A land rich in history, culture and community was progressively stripped of title, its people marginalised in their own homeland. The cover-up was facilitated through a fraudulent narrative: the slogan "a land without a people for a people without a land". It justified the Nakba of 1948, when Palestinians were massacred and driven out, setting the pattern of banishment and colonisation that state power would entrench once Israel was born.
When the UN voted in 1947 to partition Palestine, Pakistan's founding father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, warned the US president that supporting such a resolution would sow the seeds of endless conflict.
Initially hesitant, the US soon succumbed to Zionist lobbying and threw its full weight behind the plan. Israel's birth was thus midwifed by British betrayal and guaranteed by American power. Wars followed, fought with courage by Arab armies but met with the full weight of Western support for Israel.
Over time, Washington became Israel's indispensable shield. Henry Kissinger's "salami tactics" of the 1970s deepened Arab divisions, weakening any collective position. US policy elevated Israel's security to the organising principle of the Middle East, building it into a military, political and economic outpost of American power.
The Palestinians, fragmented in leadership but consistent in courage, fought to reclaim statehood and dignity. Their struggle endured massacres in Sabra and Shatila, the crushing of uprisings, the settlement sprawl of the West Bank and the isolation of Gaza.
Iran offered limited support through non-state actors, but most Arab states drifted away. Through it all, Israel's impunity was secured by America's veto power.
Palestinians were dehumanised in Israeli rhetoric — likened to insects, to roaches and treated as such.
Almost as a corollary, the Western media often turned away, ignoring the scale of killings. Yet uprisings continued, iconic resistance grew and poets like Mahmoud Darwish gave voice to a people refusing erasure.
The world watched an asymmetry of power so vast that a nuclear-backed state could fear unarmed teenagers with rocks.
The October 7 attacks must be condemned. But what followed was a vastly asymmetrical and devastating response: Gaza under relentless bombardment, hospitals, schools and water systems obliterated; starvation weaponised; humanitarian lifelines choked. This genocide has been documented by international organisations as well as countless human rights monitors.
The images, streamed daily, have left no doubt about the scale of atrocity. The Israeli project appeared to be not only to punish but to erase Gaza.
Against this backdrop, the Trump plan must be judged by its provisions, not its slogans. Its language of ceasefire and humanitarian aid could give it an appealing veneer, but its structural logic is starkly one-sided. It absolves Israel — the state, the IDF and Netanyahu personally — of responsibility for genocide.
It grants Israel veto power over every step towards Palestinian statehood, with Netanyahu deciding what is acceptable rather than the UN or international law. It rejects UNSC Resolution 242, which anchors Palestinian statehood in pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as the capital and instead offers a state on Israel's terms, whenever and if ever it chooses.
It imposes no accountability on Israel despite its record of violating past agreements, while legitimising an indefinite IDF presence by conditioning withdrawal on total Palestinian surrender and Hamas's disarmament, with Israel always judging compliance as insufficient.
It remains silent on settlements, effectively endorsing continued colonisation, and it proposes external governance, with Gaza effectively placed in the hands of outsiders — including Tony Blair, whose record in Iraq speaks for itself. This is not a peace plan. It is a permission structure for Israel to consolidate victory while the world looks away.
In practice, it is an eternal victory plan for Israel, advancing the Zionist vision of a Greater Israel while burying the framework of international law.
For Pakistan, participation in such diplomatic forums is natural and even necessary. Our history, our moral standing, and our longstanding commitment to Palestine make our presence at the table important. But an unqualified endorsement of this plan would be unwise.
If Pakistan engages, it must do so on principles: an immediate and permanent ceasefire with unimpeded humanitarian access; recognition of Palestinian statehood anchored in UNSC Resolution 242, based on pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital; a complete settlement freeze and rollback under international supervision; reciprocal and verifiable security guarantees that do not allow for an indefinite IDF veto; prisoner exchanges under international oversight; and binding international enforcement mechanisms to ensure compliance.
These are not maximalist demands — only minimum conditions for dignity and justice. What the Trump plan ignores — and what Israel and its backers consistently miscalculate — is the endurance of the Palestinian spirit. Despite massacres, starvation, displacement and betrayal, Palestinians have refused to surrender their dream of return and statehood.
From Sykes–Picot to Balfour, from Nakba to Oslo, from October 7 to Gaza’s ruins today, the Palestinian struggle has never died. Its resilience is a rejection of the cynicism of power politics. True peace will not come from managing Palestinians into submission. It will only come from restoring their rights.
Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed in this piece are the writer's own and don't necessarily reflect Geo.tv's editorial policy.
The writer is a senior journalist. She tweets at nasimzehra and can be reached at: nasimzehragmail.com