Have we become trapped in a cycle of compulsory optimism as our available alternatives continue to shrink? The Sharm El-Sheikh Summit stands as a pivotal moment in the history of the Middle East, redefining political and economic paradigms that have been overtaken by events since 7 October 2023. U.S. President Donald Trump signed the Peace and Gaza War Termination Accord, describing it as “a new dawn for the region that ended three thousand years of hostility.” The agreement has indeed sparked immense hopes for reviving the peace process in the region. Yet many of these hopes may prove impossible to realise, and others may not survive the short time remaining in Trump’s term — which is, in essence, the crux of the issue.
Through the Sharm El-Sheikh Summit, Egypt sought to create both regional and international momentum to push the peace process toward the two-state solution, or at least to foil Israel’s habitual “Plan B” — designed to derail progress and undo achievements. The current peace framework may be seen as a blend of the Deal of the Century, the Abraham Accords, and the new Gaza Agreement. Together, they represent the maximum attainable outcome from a long history of missed peace opportunities. Just as the Deal of the Century evolved into the Abraham Accords, the current efforts may transform into something broader — expanded normalisation, a new regional security framework, or deeper economic integration. In this sense, while the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might not be fully resolved, it could accelerate wider regional shifts.
The current alternative is the Board of Peace proposed by Trump, chaired by him and joined by international figures such as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The Board represents an attempt to impose an external administration on Gaza. Historically, such arrangements have had mixed outcomes. In Bosnia and Kosovo, international administrations struggled to build sustainable local institutions once foreign support faded. Gaza, with its additional complexities — its ethnic fragmentation, lack of democratic governance traditions, and the aftermath of a two-year war — requires a far more pragmatic approach.
The priority must be to build Palestinian self-governing capacity from the ground up, while Arab states — especially Egypt and Saudi Arabia — provide security guarantees and economic backing to prevent any future Palestinian administration from becoming a platform for rearmament or a proxy for regional powers with their own agendas. This would require long-term commitment and substantial Arab investment in Palestinian governance.
Many diplomatic questions remain unresolved: Who will ultimately govern Gaza, regardless of the theoretical clauses in the ceasefire concerning the proposed Gaza International Transitional Authority (GITA)? To what extent can GITA, along with the U.S., Western allies, Arab partners, the Palestinian Authority, and Israel, persuade the 700,000 Hamas-affiliated Gazans to abandon their political allegiance to the movement?
If the ceasefire holds, the regional implications will be profound, reshaping alliances across the Middle East. Gulf countries have invested significant diplomatic and financial capital in Gaza peace initiatives and in cultivating relations with Israel. Should the summit’s outcomes succeed, terms such as “the Arab-Israeli conflict,” “armed resistance,” and “unity of fronts” may become relics of the past. The two-year Gaza war has produced entirely new power dynamics and realities. Ideologically driven militias have inflicted unprecedented disasters upon the Palestinian cause — arguably worse than the Nakba of 1948.
During the war, widespread protests erupted across the Strip against Hamas’s rule. The group saw rebellious clans as direct threats to its control, executing a leader of the Dagmash tribe in northern Gaza out of fear that Israel might exploit the clan against it. Hamas also attempted to assassinate Yasser Abu Shabab, a militia commander in Rafah — an attempt that failed. Such incidents serve as stark warnings to any political or religious faction that may drag the region into renewed conflict without regard for the suffering of the Palestinian people, who have endured starvation and displacement throughout the war. A single glance at the devastation across Gaza recalls the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima at the end of World War II. The same ideological currents — under different names — have plunged Lebanon, Yemen, and Syria into cycles of ruin.
The looming crisis lies in the fact that few believe Hamas will fully disarm once the war ends. The movement retains between 2,000 and 2,500 trained fighters, around 20,000 less experienced combatants, and a social base of roughly 700,000 Gazans loyal to it through tribal or ideological affiliation. However, all 24 Hamas brigades were militarily defeated by August 2024, leaving the group without a functioning army for over a year. What remains are fragmented, uncoordinated cells.
The current agreement binds Trump and his administration personally — not future U.S. administrations — and was never submitted to Congress. Thus, the peace track’s fragility remains tied to Trump’s term, which ends in three years. If the agreement between Israel and Hamas endures and the war truly ends, the key will lie in mutual concessions and in resolving military and strategic disputes. Yet there is a widespread fear that this momentum is merely aimed at securing the release of hostages. Both Israeli and Hamas voices have hinted that the agreement should stop there. Israelis fear looming investigations and prosecutions, as shown by the boos directed at Netanyahu when U.S. envoy Witkoff mentioned his name during a meeting with hostage families in Jerusalem. Hamas, on the other hand, dreads disarmament — its last remaining leverage.
It remains to be seen whether the summit’s outcomes will indeed become, as Trump boasts, “one of the greatest achievements in ending the Arab-Israeli conflict,” or just another mirage. The Deal of the Century reminds us that failure carries grave consequences. Even if this plan neither ends the war nor achieves lasting peace, it may still reshape the region in unforeseen ways.
The problem lies not in the abundance of plans, but in the planners’ vision of Arab geopolitics — aptly summarised by former U.S. envoy to Syria Tom Barrack’s controversial remark: “There is no such thing as the Middle East; there are tribes and villages — the countries were created by the British and the French.”
Hence, we remain trapped within the cycle of compulsory optimism, bearing in mind that many of Gaza’s ceasefire guarantees are merely verbal.
A final note amid all these shifts: both sides of the war are presenting its end as a victory. Though such a claim defies logic, it has created a new rule — victory now belongs not to those who achieve it, but to those who declare it. Yet the wise can still tell the true victor from those lost in illusion. That, however, is another story.
Dr. Hatem Sadek – Professor at Helwan University
