Last week, just as Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip intensified, United States presidential envoy Steven Witkoff announced on social media that the “ceasefire” is entering its second stage. In the following days, the administration of US President Donald Trump unveiled the makeup of a foreign executive committee and a peace board that will oversee the provisional administration of Gaza composed of Palestinian technocrats.This setup reflects the wishes of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that neither Hamas nor the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority (PA) would be involved in Gaza’s future. Although the latter is mentioned in Trump’s “peace plan”, it supposedly first has to carry out a set of unnamed reforms to have any role in Gaza.What this means in reality is that Fatah, too, can easily be blocked from returning to govern the Gaza Strip with the excuse that these vague reforms have not been carried out.The problem with the present setup and Israel’s insistence on “no Hamas, no Fatah” is that they reflect a profound ignorance of the fabric of Palestinian society, its politics and history. The idea that a Palestinian political entity can be created by outside forces and fully integrated into the occupation to m …
