Peace in Gaza Comes Down to a “Yes, But” Formula

American diplomat George Mitchell, who played a key role in Northern Ireland’s peace process, once said that diplomacy is seven hundred days of failure and one day of success. In Gaza, there have already been seven hundred and thirty days of failure without a single day of triumph. The scale of destruction, the death toll, and the spread of the conflict to neighboring states stand as monuments to the collapse of diplomacy and what remains of international law. It is likely the lowest point for the profession since 1939.

Some argue that failure was inevitable: the conflict is so deeply rooted and resistant to compromise that it can end only through force—by suppressing or eliminating one of the sides.

Yet in the West a rare consensus is taking shape—the war was catastrophically misjudged. Mistakes were made by European leaders, who initially ceded initiative to the U.S. Democratic administration—the same one that idealized modern Israel and failed to anticipate how its government would respond to the horrors of October 7, or how that reaction would fracture Western societies.

Former Biden allies are now publishing a flood of confessions and justifications. In her book about her failed presidential campaign, Kamala Harris writes: “I begged Joe, when he spoke publicly, to show the same empathy for the suffering of civilians in Gaza as he did for Ukrainians. But he couldn’t do it: he declared with conviction, ‘I am a Zionist,’ yet his words about innocent Palestinians sounded insincere and lacked compassion.”

Harris adds that Benjamin Netanyahu never reciprocated Biden’s loyalty, preferring instead to see Donald Trump across the table.

Former deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli-Palestinian affairs Andrew Miller admitted: “We didn’t act like a superpower. Instead of starting from the assumption that these problems could be solved, we convinced ourselves that we were incapable of influencing our ally—Israel.”

Donald Trump had no such inferiority complex. He used his own unpredictability as a primary diplomatic tool. But like Biden, his special envoy Steve Witkoff became mired in efforts to secure the release of hostages without triggering a resumption of Israeli military action—as had happened in March this year.

When new versions of Witkoff’s proposals began to circulate, France and Saudi Arabia decided to act independently. They used the UN conference on the two-state solution as a platform to restart diplomacy, breaking the U.S. monopoly over the peace process. For the first time in many years, the issue of Palestinian self-governance was brought to the center of discussion.

Before the conference—originally scheduled for June but postponed after Israel’s strike on Iran—Emmanuel Macron secured a letter from Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas endorsing a “day after” plan for the period following a ceasefire. The plan called for the disarmament of Hamas, the exclusion of its representatives from governance, and the transfer of authority to a transitional council of experts “under the aegis” of a reformed Palestinian Authority. Unlike previous declarations, this time the promise of reform took concrete shape: Abbas agreed to hold long-delayed elections, initiate internal reforms, and permit the deployment of international forces.

Various versions of the “day after” plan had been discussed since 2024 by experts from the United States, Israel, the UAE, and Egypt. The Saudi-French initiative consolidated those efforts into a document known as the New York Declaration. It was adopted at the UN conference in July and approved by the General Assembly in September—with only Israel and the United States voting against it.

“While the media focused on the issue of recognizing Palestinian statehood, the real diplomatic breakthrough happened elsewhere,” noted one European diplomat. “We convinced the Americans to link the ceasefire to a plan for the future—and to understand that simply stopping the war is not enough.”

The same diplomat added, hinting at Washington’s overreliance on Israeli power: “We also convinced them that you can’t keep rolling the dice forever and expect to get double sixes.”

A key moment came at the August summit in the White House, where Jared Kushner, Tony Blair, and Steve Witkoff persuaded Donald Trump to abandon the idea of mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza. “Trump had no illusions about Netanyahu’s reliability,” recalled one participant. “He understood that for Jordan and Egypt, the prospect of waves of Palestinian refugees was a red line.” In the end, Trump removed the idea of forced relocation from the agenda.

Another outcome of the meeting was a convergence between the approaches of the White House and France. As French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot explained, “President Trump instructed his advisers to travel to Arab countries, to France, and to the United Kingdom to bring together the ideas we had all been working on for months and years.”

According to Barrot, the purpose of the conference and the subsequent General Assembly vote was to remove obstacles to a two-state solution. Arab countries condemned the October 7 attacks and supported the clause excluding Hamas from governing Gaza.

“Everything has changed now. We’ve achieved a shift in mindset: everyone sees Hamas for what it is—a terrorist organization,” Barrot emphasized.

The second barrier was the reluctance of Arab governments to publicly declare their intent to establish relations with Israel. The new UN document went further than any of its predecessors.

“We got them to declare that they seek not just normal relations with Israel but the creation of a shared regional architecture—modeled on ASEAN or the OSCE,” said Barrot.

Thus, in the weeks and days leading up to the General Assembly vote, Arab states were actively seeking ways to engage with Israel. Hamas, which had long rejected the idea of two states, found itself isolated from power—a fate its weakened leadership was forced to accept.

For Israel, the New York Declaration—which explicitly referred to the creation of a Palestinian state—was unacceptable. So when Donald Trump presented his plan to Arab and Muslim countries on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, that declaration became the benchmark for comparison.

The plan, drafted by Tony Blair and Jared Kushner, was deliberately vague and devoid of timelines. Arab states were skeptical, but proponents argued that excessive detail would kill the initiative. The absence of leaks was taken by Western diplomats as a good sign—a signal that the plan was being treated seriously.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu—who remained in New York after the General Assembly—held two extended meetings with Steve Witkoff. After Israel’s September 9 strike on Hamas representatives in Qatar, which was taken as a personal affront by Witkoff and Doha, the prime minister had fallen out of favor with the White House. Yet he managed to extract concessions. Amnesty for Hamas members would apply only to those surrendering their weapons under international supervision. The wording on Israeli troop withdrawals was also softened: Israel would now be required to pull back only to a “security zone” covering about 17 percent of the territory—until “terrorist threats were eliminated.”

Netanyahu addressed the Israeli public in a video statement, assuring them that the “red lines” remained intact: the separation of Gaza and the West Bank, the rejection of any return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza, the refusal to pursue a two-state solution, and the maintenance of a military presence over most of the enclave. At the same time, he did everything possible to ensure that Hamas would reject the plan—clearing the way for the continuation of the war.

Although the plan did not specify when power would be transferred from the technocratic council to an elected government, Qatar, Turkey, and Egypt urged Hamas to accept many of the disputed provisions, suggesting they could be clarified later. The key objective was to end the war.

Diplomats said the message resonated not so much with Hamas’s political wing in Doha as with its fighters in Gaza—a younger generation hardened by the war. With Qatar’s mediation, a response was crafted—a “yes, but” open to multiple interpretations. To Netanyahu’s frustration, Trump chose to take it as an unqualified “yes.” What proved decisive was that Hamas was prepared to relinquish its greatest bargaining chip—the remaining hostages.

As Tahani Mustafa of the European Council on Foreign Relations notes, since October 7 Palestinian politics has taken on a more pragmatic outlook: “Palestinians are looking for someone who can make life bearable, keep them on their land, and improve their living conditions. People are asking for the bare minimum. Most have resigned themselves to their fate.”

On that basis, the technocratic council—formally chaired by Trump but effectively run by Blair and members of the Palestinian diaspora—could gain legitimacy through its effectiveness. Yet Blair faces an extremely unstable environment: elections are looming in both Israel and Palestine. His task will be to build relations with Palestinian political forces. Although Blair maintains close ties with Middle Eastern elites, he has little contact with broader society, meaning that mediation in the intra-Palestinian dialogue—currently being led by China—will likely fall to Egypt.

If elections do take place, they could mark a turning point. In the West Bank in 2021, thirty-six independent lists were registered—an unexpectedly high number. The question is what happens if the results prove unacceptable to the Blair-led council.

As the war drags on, Israel’s reputation is in free fall. Across the Arab world, it is increasingly seen as a threat to regional security, while in the Global South it is being compared to apartheid-era South Africa. Protests continue across Europe and accusations of genocide mount, as growing numbers of American Jews and Democrats voice discontent with Israel’s actions.

Robert Malley, a veteran American negotiator from the Oslo era, recently published a book arguing that a rational diplomatic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is impossible. He writes that outside mediators are “too focused on formal agreement—on the words of a Palestinian state—instead of grasping the essence of the conflict as a clash of historical narratives.”

“From Israel’s perspective, they won in 1948. They won again in 1967. But Palestinians see themselves as victims of the historical injustice of 1948—the expulsion of 700,000 people and the loss of their land.

When we Americans came in and said, ‘let’s forget about the right of return, about old grievances, wrap it up nicely and call it peace,’—that was never going to work,” Malley observed.