dialogue

Evaluating President Trump’s Gaza peace plan

/ Dan Smith / 6 Comments

The fate of the peace plan for Gaza announced at the White House on Monday 29 September is not yet decided. Because Hamas accepted the hostage return part of the proposed deal, while seeking negotiation of other parts, US President Trump ordered Israel to stop bombing. It did not immediately do that though the Prime Minister’s office said it was preparing for “immediate implementation” of the first stage of the plan.

There has, of course, been considerable coverage of the plan in the news media. Some focusses on its prospects, including the impact of divisions within Hamas about it, along with the matter of whether Trump will impose a deadline for Hamas’ acceptance and how long it might be. There has been some coverage of gaps and uncertainties in the plan and plenty of advocates have been out there to disparage or support the plan. And there’s been quite some discussion about whether President Trump prevailed over Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in crafting the plan, or the other way round.

But, so far as I have seen, there has been little dispassionate coverage of whether it is actually a good plan, whether it will work. So this post is my clause-by-clause assessment of the Gaza peace plan.

Peace is a tricky business. An 1100 word document containing 20 points is not a treaty, is not legally binding, and is bound to contain a number of generalities and broad statements of intent. That leaves plenty of room for uncertainty to creep in. Nonetheless, it is a serious document and not the first one to address how to end the war in Gaza. It builds on the never-implemented January 2025 agreement, which itself built on the never-implemented May 2024 agreement. With those foundations, there ought to be some key issues on which there is clarity but there should also be some latitude for uncertainty, interpretation and further discussion.

In sum, not surprisingly, what comes out is mixed – some strengths, some weakness, some areas of clarity and some confusion.

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Ukraine, 1 year on: China’s peace plan is not a plan

/ Dan Smith / 1 Comment

A year after the renewed Russian invasion of Ukraine, China has come forward with a 12-point statement of its position on the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis. That, at least, is what is called by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

It is widely reported in the international news media as a peace plan. See, among others, AlJazeera, AP, BBC, CNN, DW, Guardian, New York Times, Reuters, Sky, Time (though it calls it a proposal).

But it is not a plan and China does not say it’s a plan – it’s a position according to the government and to CGTN, Beijing’s state-run English-language news channel (though, to be fair, CGTN joined the crowd and called it a plan on the second day of coverage). Further, it does not outline either what a peace settlement could consist of or a pathway for getting there. It is a statement of opinion that stays away from specifics about what its support for dialogue and negotiation could mean in practice.

And I think that in ramping up a statement of position into a peace plan that can then be criticised for lacking specifics, the news media are missing something.

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When all bets are off

/ Dan Smith / 5 Comments

Love or loathe the US election result, it feels like all bets are off. Once again, odds have been defied, opinion polls disproven, and what many people long thought was politically marginal and outside the realm of possibility has become mainstream and a fact. In a world already characterised by growing uncertainty, there is now more: primarily, does he really mean it in practice? Of a few things, we can be sure, however, and to them we must hold tight. Continue reading →

The Tunisian Spring and the Nobel Peace Prize

/ Dan Smith / 2 Comments

The ‘Arab Spring’ was triggered by the self-sacrifice of a Tunisian. Four years later Tunisia is the only country where the Spring’s early promise persists and, despite extreme pressures and many risks, political change is unfolding relatively peacefully. The new Nobel laureates, the National Dialogue Quartet, are an important part of the reason why. Here is some of the background. Continue reading →

A day of peace

/ Dan Smith / Leave a comment

Today, 21 September, is the UN International Day of Peace. It’s a day to think about how peace is achieved, safeguarded and built. It is, of course, not the work of a day. Think of Syria, and how much rebuilding of all kinds will be needed when the opportunity of peace arrives. Or think of Rwanda, 19 years on from the genocide, and how it is still recovering and building a peaceful society. Here’s a brief video of (some of) my thoughts about it.

DRC’s deadlock – new dangers, new beginnings

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Democratic Republic of Congo: In Kinshasa , the summit meeting of La Francophonie replete with heads of state, resounding speeches and ringing declarations; in the east, 2 million displaced people and rising tension as the M-23 rebels sit just 15 kilometres from Goma, capital of North Kivu province, held back only by an uncertain ceasefire; on TV, repeated statements that this is the 187/8/9th day of aggression by Rwanda.

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