The Duran Podcast - Arab proposals and Trump's 20-Point peace plan

Episode Date: October 4, 2025

Arab proposals and Trump's 20-Point peace planThe Duran: Episode 2354

All right, Alexander, we're a few days removed from Trump's 20-point plan for Gaza, which he announced at the White House in a meeting with Netanyahu. A lot of people are analyzing the good and the bad and the ugly with this plan. There are positive points, there are negative points, and there are also a lot of parts to the plan, which will probably make it so that it never really crystallizes. So what are your thoughts about Trump's peace plan? If it even is Trump's peace plan, because I know you're going to mention that anyway,

if it even is Trump's 20-point plan. Well, it is. Let's actually start at that point. I mean, it isn't Trump's 20-point plan. I mean, the genesis of this was a series of proposals put forward. about two weeks ago by the Arab States to be pushed by them at the UN General Assembly meetings that have been taking place in New York. And they said, you know, they were highly critical of Hamas. And we discussed in program, after program on this journal that Arab states overwhelmingly

disliked Hamas. I mean, Hamas now has its allies, which it didn't be, by the way, very much back in 2023, but, you know, Syria, the new Syrian government is friendly to Hamas. Qatar has long had a history of involvement with Hamas. But anyway, let's escape that. The Arab states overall don't like Hamas, so they said that Hamas should step aside, it should disarm, there should be a peacekeeping force, brought him to Gaza, there should be a seized fire, and this entire territory should be brought back under the control.

of the Palestinian Authority, the former PLO, which now runs the West Bank, and which claims and is recognized by the Arab states as the legal representative of the Palestinians. Anyway, that was the Arab plan. So what Trump has done is he's taken that plan. He's created this board, this board of peace. he was originally going to make Tony Blair his head, which was a disastrous idea. He's now decided to appoint himself its head.

And he's still going to have Blair, though, sitting on it. And most people assume because Trump is going to be busy with other things, it'll be left to Blair to actually plan it. So that's his idea. That's the part of the plan, which really is, his particular contribution. Many people have analyzed this plan and have debated it. And to be clear, if it were to work in a certain way, it would be a step forward. I mean, it would end the fighting. It would create a technocratic government in Gaza. It would ultimately, perhaps result

in a reunification of the Palestinians within the Aegis of a perhaps reformed Palestinian Authority. And above all, it would introduce into Gaza for the first time since the Six-Day War. Military force, which was not Israeli, but which came from the other Arab states and from the Muslim world, and that would be a game changer. precisely for that reason, it is never going to happen. The Israelis will not accept it, and I doubt that Hamas either will. I mean, why would Hamas agree to something like this, and other Palestinian organizations allied to Hamas are already rejecting it?

So my own personal view is that this plan isn't going to go anywhere, it isn't going to change. Anything, the Israelis said that they supported it. but they're already walking it back. There was talk that this plan if implemented would result in negotiations leading to eventual establishment of a two-state solution, but Netanyahu has always set his face against a two-state solution to the crisis

on the Palestinian territories. And other Israeli officials agree with him. He has already said that Israel is not going to withdraw its forces It's from Gaza, even though the plan requires the Israelis to do so, though the mechanisms to do that are very, very unclear. So I don't think this plan has a ghost of a chance of being put into place. My own sense is that once again, this has been cobbled together in order to get the Western powers through what would otherwise have been a difficult general assembly session. And, of course, in terms of the Europeans, they can back this plan. They can recognize the state of Palestine.

But again, doing all of these things means that they don't have to take any serious action. They can, the Europeans can recognize the state of Palestine and because of this plan, which will fall apart, they can then support Israel as it continues its operations in Gaza. So it does give the Europeans that cover and that flexibility. Yes. What if, what if? And the Trump administration too, by the way. Right. I was going to get to that, actually.

I was going to ask you about. I was going to ask you about that. Was the ultimate goal of this plan to give the Trump administration cover so that they do say the plan is falling apart? It doesn't matter how it fell apart. I imagine even if Hamas, even if Hamas accepted the plan, there would be other parts of the plan that would derail it, right? Absolutely. So the Trump administration, in a very simple wording, can go to the American people and say, We presented a peace plan.

It fell apart. And Trump even said it at the meeting. He'll support Bibi. I'll support you in whatever you do if the plan is rejected. So he did say that. So does that give the Trump administration cover as well? Yes, that's exactly. And that's the purpose of it.

Again, to repeat, this isn't a plan that has been elaborated and created by the Trump administration. But they understand that they're having difficulties now. with the Gulf states who have been upset by the Israeli attack on Qatar. And Trump has now guaranteed that the United States will protect Qatar, which, by the way, we always assumed that Qatar already had that guarantee. But anyway, he's now given that guarantee all over again. I don't think that means anything very much. And we've got this plan also, which I don't think it means anything very much either.

And you're perfectly right, even if Hamas accepted this plan, which they haven't yet done. But let's assume they did. It's a very, very complex plan. It requires lots of steps to be taken in order to implement it. It could fail at any one of them. And always and invariably, you would be in a position to say that it's Hamas, the Palestinians, who have failed in some way, and that that is why the plan has failed. So this is what this is all about. The only way that this conflict can end is if there is a clear decision by the UN Security Council, ordering a ceasefire in Gaza and insisting upon the introduction of a peacekeeping force. Otherwise, I think this conflict in Gaza will continue. And that's the reality.

How does that happen, though, when the U.S. is on the Security Council? I mean, they will never allow that either, will they? Well, it doesn't. But that is the point. They're under pressure. They don't want to do that. They don't want to use their veto power. They just have, by the way, to stop humanitarian relief going to Gaza. And they come under some criticism for this.

So they don't want to be put in this position all the time. So they're backing this plan, which, of course, nobody really believes is ever going to succeed. So just to wrap up the video, the plan in essence provides, this is a cynical way of looking at it, but it does provide the Trump administration and Israel, Netanyahu, some time and space to continue the war. Is that the purpose of, or at least one of the purposes of the plan? That is the purpose. And I myself believe, and of course, I have no proof of the, this, but I myself believe that the ultimate intention anyway is, you know, move on to the attack on Iran at some point.

Right. And then of course nobody's going to be thinking about Gaza anymore. Yeah, very true. All right. We'll end the video there. The durand.orgals.com. We're on X. We're on telegram and we're on Rumble.

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