Eran Etzion ערן עציון@eranetzion
The new UN Security Council resolution on Gaza sets several dangerous precedents in the history of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. It effectively strips Gaza of its political context and places the territory under Trump’s exclusive control for two years. He will govern through a vague front-entity, the so-called “Peace Council,” whose members he alone will appoint — and which the UNSC has now granted unlimited authority over Gaza.
The resolution severs Gaza and its future from the rich historical, political, and legal context of the conflict. It makes no reference to any prior UN or Security Council resolutions, nor to previous Israeli–Palestinian agreements.
It also removes the Palestinian Authority from any role in Gaza and entrenches the separation between Gaza and the West Bank.
The weak, recycled line from Trump’s plan about a possible “political horizon” — referencing Palestinian self-determination and statehood as a vague, tentative and distant prospect — is empty lip service. It will allow Trump and Netanyahu, in the twilight of his government, to claim that Palestinians must first “become Finns” (in Dov Weissglas’s old phrase) before they can “satisfy” any of these supposed conditions.
Arab and Muslim states involved — Egypt, the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia, and the weakened PA — endorsed the text reluctantly, each calculating what concessions it could extract from Trump. In the coming days we’ll learn what Saudi Arabia receives from Washington, and later what others will be paid in exchange for sending forces and/or money to Gaza.
Russia and China abstained; it will be revealing to learn what Moscow demanded and received in return for not wielding a veto.
In classic Trump-era fashion — the era of charlatanism and “alternative reality” — the resolution brazenly declares that “the parties have accepted Trump’s 20-point plan.” This is a blatant falsehood. Neither Hamas nor Netanyahu’s government has accepted it.
Hamas and other Palestinian factions announced yesterday they will oppose the resolution. Negotiations with Hamas — led once again by the U.S., another unprecedented development — will now intensify in an attempt to disarm the organization.
Whether Netanyahu publicly blesses the resolution or not, he sees it as a success. The chances of the framework collapsing and the war resuming remain high — and the burden of proof will not be on him.
From an Israeli strategic perspective, the resolution should have been far more detailed: granting a comprehensive mandate to the international force, launching immediate talks on resolving the conflict in its full regional context, and anchoring binding roles for Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, and Jordan. None of this happened, because these states refuse to work with Netanyahu and have concluded that as long as he is prime minister, no meaningful progress toward conflict resolution, normalization, or peace is possible.
Unless Trump fully internalizes this reality — and stops providing Netanyahu with political oxygen — the danger of the ceasefire collapsing and a return to war remains significant.
The likely scenario for the coming months: Hamas retains control over roughly half the Strip and deepens its dominance over its 2.3 million residents, even while negotiating with the U.S., Qatar, Turkey, and Egypt over its own future and Gaza’s. In parallel, attempts will be made to create the international force, define its mandate, and deploy it. The “Peace Council” and a Palestinian technocratic committee will also be established. But the phrase “standing on chicken legs” will likely remain the most accurate description of this fragile, fluid situation.
