By Qamar Bashir
Press Secretary to the President (Rtd)
Former Press Minister, Embassy of Pakistan to France
Former Press Attaché to Malaysia
Former MD, SRBC | Macomb, Michigan, USA
In a stunning act of political defiance, Israel’s hard-line cabinet effectively nullified Trump’s Gaza Peace Plan by passing a resolution that authorized the expansion of settlements into the West Bank and renewed military operations even as the peace framework was being finalized. The move blindsided Washington’s diplomatic team, particularly Vice President J. D. Vance, who was in Tel Aviv precisely to secure Israel’s commitment to compliance. According to U.S. officials cited by Reuters and Haaretz, the vice president regarded the Israeli resolution as a deliberate breach of trust and a personal affront, describing it privately as an insult delivered “at the highest level.”
Initially, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government appeared cautiously supportive. Yet within weeks, domestic political pressures and far-right factions within his coalition began to dismantle that fragile understanding.
For regional observers, the timing was no accident. Analysts from Al Jazeera and Le Monde noted that Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc viewed the Gaza Peace Plan as a strategic threat — a framework that could limit Israel’s military freedom and restore international legitimacy to the idea of Palestinian statehood. By reigniting combat operations and approving annexation in the West Bank, Israel’s leadership seemed intent on pre-empting any diplomatic arrangement that might constrain its territorial ambitions.
Trump’s administration had offered Israel extensive security guarantees, economic incentives, and enhanced defense cooperation in exchange for compliance. The vice president’s visit was meant to formalize these commitments. Instead, it concluded in frustration, leaving Washington’s credibility as an honest peace broker hanging in the balance. The rupture was more than symbolic; it revealed the widening gap between an American administration seeking stability and an Israeli government increasingly driven by nationalist ideology.
This humanitarian devastation is not an unintended consequence but a calculated strategy. Israeli hardliners argue that prolonged economic collapse will weaken militant networks and deter future uprisings. History, however, teaches the opposite: despair breeds resistance. A society stripped of dignity and survival cannot be pacified through starvation. No peace plan can take root amid hunger, displacement, and grief.
For the United States, this crisis poses an excruciating dilemma. For decades, the U.S.–Israel partnership has rested on three pillars — security cooperation, political alignment, and shared democratic ideals. But when an ally openly defies a sitting American vice president and undermines a peace framework painstakingly negotiated by Washington, those foundations begin to crumble. According to Defense News, the United States currently provides Israel with roughly $3.8 billion in annual military aid, most of it unconditional. That policy is now facing bipartisan scrutiny in Congress. Several senators have proposed conditioning aid on measurable improvements in civilian protection, echoing growing public sentiment that America must not bankroll violations of humanitarian law. A Pew Research poll conducted in September 2025 found that sixty-one percent of Americans favor temporarily suspending arms transfers to compel a cease-fire.
Across the Middle East, the shockwaves have been immediate. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt — all early supporters of Trump’s peace initiative — condemned Israel’s annexation vote as an act of deliberate sabotage. Turkey and Iran warned that continued aggression could trigger regional retaliation, language that has raised fears of a broader conflagration. Analysts point out that these countries, along with Pakistan, now possess credible deterrent and precision-strike capabilities that could drastically alter Israel’s strategic calculus if the United States withdraws its protective shield.
Even without direct confrontation, the diplomatic cost for Israel is mounting. The European Union has suspended preferential trade talks, and the U.N. General Assembly has called an emergency session to debate sanctions related to settlement expansion. For the first time in decades, Israel finds itself not only at odds with its adversaries but estranged from its oldest allies.
The tragedy is that Israel’s current trajectory mirrors the mistakes of history. Nations that have endured persecution and suffering should understand, more than any others, the moral necessity of restraint. Post-war Germany and Japan, once militaristic powers, rebuilt themselves into peaceful, prosperous democracies by renouncing aggression and embracing accountability. Their transformation stands as proof that security arises not from domination but from legitimacy and trust. Israel, endowed with immense scientific talent, economic vitality, and a globally connected diaspora, could follow a similar path — if its leadership chose coexistence over conquest.
Instead, its current defiance threatens to turn strength into isolation. The illusion of invincibility can blind a nation to its own vulnerabilities. True power lies not in the ability to destroy but in the capacity to reconcile. A country surrounded by hostility cannot ensure its safety through endless wars; it must seek durable peace through justice and empathy.
The immediate task now is to restore U.S.–Israeli trust and revive the 21-point peace roadmap before the window for diplomacy closes completely. That will require a verifiable halt to annexation, unrestricted humanitarian access to Gaza, a phased prisoner exchange, and credible international guarantees for demilitarization and reconstruction. Regional powers such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey must act as guarantors, while the United States and European Union provide financial and institutional support for rebuilding. Without such coordinated engagement, the Middle East risks descending into yet another prolonged and destabilizing conflict.
Israel’s defiance may appear, to some, as a show of resolve. In truth, it reveals fragility — a dependence on foreign backing, on perpetual mobilization, and on the dangerous illusion that peace can be achieved through dominance. If Washington rediscovers its moral compass and conditions its support on accountability and restraint, it can still salvage both its peace plan and its reputation as a global arbiter of justice. But if this spiral continues, the United States may one day realize that by shielding an ally from responsibility, it has imperiled not only Israel’s survival but also America’s credibility as the world’s champion of peace.
