America’s Middle East Peace Plan: Can It End the War?

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Video originally published on June 10, 2024.

This analysis examines America's Middle East Peace Plan: Can It End the War? in historical and strategic context. It traces how the core developments unfolded, which institutions and actors shaped outcomes, and what those decisions changed on the ground. Rather than repeating headline-level claims, it focuses on concrete mechanisms, constraints, and tradeoffs that explain the trajectory of events. The discussion moves from Key Developments through Strategic Implications to Risk and Uncertainty, then evaluates wider consequences. The goal is to clarify not only what happened, but why these developments still matter for current planning, risk assessment, and policy decisions.

Key Takeaways

The topic on the president's mind was neither a border crisis, nor a campus protest, nor aid package, anti-trust suit, or his son's then-upcoming trial; it was the Israel-Hamas War, and over some eleven minutes and.
American hostages would be released as well, and most likely brought back to the United States if they chose to make the journey and could do so in stable condition.
For perspective, that figure is greater than the estimated 500 aid trucks per day considered a requirement to fulfill the food, water, medical, fuel, and supply needs of Gaza's roughly 2.3 million inhabitants.
He evoked the prospect of calmed tensions on Israel's northern border, where the Hamas-allied Hezbollah organization has been all too willing to continue trading fire with the IDF since the Israel-Hamas war began.
The article is grounded strictly in the source video script and listed references.

Key Developments

The topic on the president's mind was neither a border crisis, nor a campus protest, nor aid package, anti-trust suit, or his son's then-upcoming trial; it was the Israel-Hamas War, and over some eleven minutes and change broadcast on national television, Biden put forward America's first comprehensive proposal to bring about a peaceful resolution to the conflict. In the days ever since, Biden's proposal has been met with a mix of full-throated endorsement by some, dismay by others, and outrage, by those who consider America's idea of a peace to be both unacceptable and unsustainable. But what has become abundantly clear, is that this particular proposal isn't going away anytime soon—and that in fact, it may be the Middle East's best shot at a drawdown since the current war began. In today's special episode of Warographics, we'll be taking a close look at the new peace plan out of Washington: the steps toward resolution that it calls for, the devastating and incredibly costly war that it hopes to disrupt, and whether there's reason to hold out hope that it might actually work. The Peace Plan. The proposal put forth by Washington on the thirty-first of May, was presented as a culmination of months of work behind the scenes. As Biden described it, the plan he presented now was an effort to reach what he described as a, quote, “durable end” to the war, over and above the efforts to establish temporary ceasefires that have largely failed to materialize. Per Biden—and, make no mistake, we will certainly be digging into the reactions to this part of his statement—the plan is fundamentally an Israeli one, a comprehensive offer that leads to a ceasefire, the release of hostages, and ultimately, the conclusion of the war. The plan, laid out in three stages, had allegedly been transmitted to Hamas before being presented in full to the global audience. Those three stages, went as follows. Stage one is set to last for a period of six weeks, upon the mutual agreement of Israel and Hamas to enter into the accord. It includes a complete ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and the release of a subset of the Israeli hostages still held in Gaza: women, the elderly, and the wounded. American hostages would be released as well, and most likely brought back to the United States if they chose to make the journey and could do so in stable condition. In exchange for the release of those hostages, Israel would release hundreds of Palestinians held prisoner in Israel, maintaining a relative consistency in the rate of exchange in prisoner swaps and releases between Israel and Hamas. Israel would withdraw its forces from all populated areas of Gaza—and, to be specific, that's not all of Gaza, that's all populated areas, a distinction that Biden declined to clarify in exact terms. Norway, for the record, is not part of the EU, but tends to politically align with it anyhow. The Israeli government has been quick to lash out at each of the nations who recently made the jump, but if anything, Europe has been emboldened by the change. The EU's chief of foreign policy, one Josep Borrell, has indicated his newfound support for the International Criminal Court as it seeks a warrant for the arrests of both Benjamin Netanyahu and high-ranking members of Hamas. So as news broke of the US president's new peace proposal, it cascaded down upon both an Israeli government, and a Gazan population, that have found themselves in dire straits. With Hamas battered but morphing into a long-term insurgency, Israel fractured and increasingly isolated, and Gazan civilians enduring famine, airstrikes, and displacement depending on who and where they are, the Biden plan certainly didn't get a unanimous reaction…but did it ever elicit some feedback. On the side of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu's response was an optimistic one at first. In the wake of Biden's statement, Netanyahu reaffirmed that Israel will not conclude its war until all hostages are returned, and until Hamas is no longer able to either fight, or govern…but he emphasized that according to the plan Biden described, Israel would be able to fulfill those objectives while bringing about a peace.

Strategic Implications

As Biden described it, the plan he presented now was an effort to reach what he described as a, quote, “durable end” to the war, over and above the efforts to establish temporary ceasefires that have largely failed to materialize. Per Biden—and, make no mistake, we will certainly be digging into the reactions to this part of his statement—the plan is fundamentally an Israeli one, a comprehensive offer that leads to a ceasefire, the release of hostages, and ultimately, the conclusion of the war. The plan, laid out in three stages, had allegedly been transmitted to Hamas before being presented in full to the global audience. Those three stages, went as follows. Stage one is set to last for a period of six weeks, upon the mutual agreement of Israel and Hamas to enter into the accord. It includes a complete ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and the release of a subset of the Israeli hostages still held in Gaza: women, the elderly, and the wounded. Some, but not all remains of hostages who died in Hamas captivity would be returned. Also during the first stage of the plan, reconstruction and aid-rehabilitation efforts would begin across Gaza. That includes a surge of desperately needed humanitarian aid, at a rate of 600 aid trucks allowed into Gaza per day, every day. For perspective, that figure is greater than the estimated 500 aid trucks per day considered a requirement to fulfill the food, water, medical, fuel, and supply needs of Gaza's roughly 2.3 million inhabitants. With those 600 trucks per day, would come a safe and reliable distribution infrastructure and hundred of thousands of temporary housing units. During that same time, Gazan civilians would be able to return to what remains of their communities and, in many cases, the shell or rubble of their former homes. Parallel to the prisoner exchange and reconstruction efforts, phase one of the ceasefire would be treated as a critical window for Hamas and Israel to agree on the terms of phase two. To ensure that the two parties don't regress out of the first stage of a ceasefire once it begins, phase one includes additional terms to extend past its initially allotted span of six weeks, so long as Israel and Hamas are mutually engaged in negotiations to eventually progress to stage two. When the second stage does kick off, it'll include terms for the release of all remaining living hostages. That includes soldiers, particularly men, of the Israel Defense Force or IDF, that Hamas has thus far been loath to see returned to the custody of their home nation. In exchange, the IDF and other Israeli forces will agree to a full withdrawal of troops from Gaza. At this stage, the temporary ceasefire of phase one would be regarded instead as a, quote, “cessation of hostilities permanently”, as Biden quoted directly from what he stated was Israel's proposal. After the fact, Netanyahu's chief foreign policy adviser reaffirmed Israel's endorsement of the plan, saying to the Sunday Times that it was, quote: “a deal we agreed to — it's not a good deal, but we dearly want the hostages released, all of them.” Meanwhile, Netanyahu publicly received the carrot part of what is most likely a carrot-and-the-stick offer from Washington behind closed doors: a bipartisan invitation to make an address to both houses of the US Congress, both giving him an opportunity to speak directly to American lawmakers as he so enjoys doing, and granting him a sole record as the first foreign leader ever to make an address to the full Congress four times in his career. But inside Netanyahu's cabinet and his governing coalition, other power players have reacted with all the fire and brimstone that was to be expected. Netanyahu's finance minister, a far-right Religious Zionist Party chairman named Belazel Smotrich, vowed that he would, quote, “not be part of a government that agrees to the proposed outline and ends the war without destroying Hamas.” Smotrich's close ally, Jewish Power Party leader and national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, derided the plan as a, quote, “victory for terrorism” and threatened to dissolve Netanyahu's government, echoing the threats made from across the aisle by Benny Gantz just weeks prior.

Risk and Uncertainty

American hostages would be released as well, and most likely brought back to the United States if they chose to make the journey and could do so in stable condition. In exchange for the release of those hostages, Israel would release hundreds of Palestinians held prisoner in Israel, maintaining a relative consistency in the rate of exchange in prisoner swaps and releases between Israel and Hamas. Israel would withdraw its forces from all populated areas of Gaza—and, to be specific, that's not all of Gaza, that's all populated areas, a distinction that Biden declined to clarify in exact terms. Some, but not all remains of hostages who died in Hamas captivity would be returned. Also during the first stage of the plan, reconstruction and aid-rehabilitation efforts would begin across Gaza. That includes a surge of desperately needed humanitarian aid, at a rate of 600 aid trucks allowed into Gaza per day, every day. Per the American president, this second-phase ceasefire would likely include additional terms and details not yet negotiated, including stipulations and caveats by Israel aimed at protecting its own interests. At the conclusion of phase two, although Biden doesn't state it directly, it's strongly implied that Gaza would return—at least in a functional sense—to its status as a blockaded and encircled, but not technically occupied territory within its pre-October-2023 geographical limits. Finally, phase three is the least clearly defined at this time, consisting of the implementation of a far larger, but as-yet-unspecified reconstruction plan for Gaza. As for who would be responsible for the implementation of this reconstruction plan, how extensive the reconstruction would be, and whether reconstruction is done in coordination with Hamas-affiliated organizations or a non-Hamas-affiliated successor, all of that hasn't yet been clarified. At this stage of the ceasefire process, Israel would expect to receive any and all remains of hostages that had not yet been returned at a prior stage of the ceasefire. It's unclear whether current expectations would include the signing of a peace accord during stage three, the implementation of a non-Hamas leadership structure in Gaza, any recognition of explicitly-outlined autonomy or even sovereignty for Palestine, or any of the other long-anticipated political changes that both sides of the war hope to eventually put into effect. After he outlined the three stages of the plan, Biden delved into what Washington considers to be the critical barriers in the way of Israel accepting a deal. In response to anticipated Israeli skepticism that an offer could ever be made with Hamas, Biden emphasized that the IDF has, at this time, thoroughly devastated the Hamas organization, to the point that a copycat attack, on the scale of the October 7, 2023 terror attack that saw the Israel-Hamas War commence in force, would now be functionally impossible. While news in early May that the United Nations had revised down its casualty counts prompted a brief moment of hope that the situation in Gaza might not have been so apocalyptically terrible as was once believed, that hope was dashed before long. Rather than revise down the count at all, the United Nations later clarified that it had begun to differentiate the number of people, and particularly the number of women and children, who had been killed and were identifiable, from the number that had been killed but either hadn't yet been identified, or simply couldn't be. The death toll remains unchanged above 35,000, with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs specifying on May 6 that at least 14,500 children and 9,500 women had been killed—but according to data published two days later, just barely under 7,800 children and 5,000 women, plus 10,000 men and nearly 2,000 elderly, had been identified, with the rest unknown. On Israel's side, news continues to trickle out that fewer hostages may still be alive than the Israeli public had hoped. After a previous round of ceasefire talks fell apart partially because Hamas stated that it didn't have the number of living hostages Israel wanted to have released, news broke on the third of June that four more hostages previously thought alive had perished months prior.

Outlook

For perspective, that figure is greater than the estimated 500 aid trucks per day considered a requirement to fulfill the food, water, medical, fuel, and supply needs of Gaza's roughly 2.3 million inhabitants. With those 600 trucks per day, would come a safe and reliable distribution infrastructure and hundred of thousands of temporary housing units. During that same time, Gazan civilians would be able to return to what remains of their communities and, in many cases, the shell or rubble of their former homes. Parallel to the prisoner exchange and reconstruction efforts, phase one of the ceasefire would be treated as a critical window for Hamas and Israel to agree on the terms of phase two. To ensure that the two parties don't regress out of the first stage of a ceasefire once it begins, phase one includes additional terms to extend past its initially allotted span of six weeks, so long as Israel and Hamas are mutually engaged in negotiations to eventually progress to stage two. When the second stage does kick off, it'll include terms for the release of all remaining living hostages. As such, the security risk presented by Hamas has, in Biden's telling, been nullified. Continued the American, quoting here: “I know there are those in Israel who will not agree with this plan and will call for the war to continue indefinitely. Some – some are even in the government coalition. And they've made it clear: They want to occupy Gaza, they want to keep fighting for years, and the hostages are not a priority to them. Well, I've urged the leadership in Israel to stand behind this deal, despite whatever pressure comes.” And concluding his overture to the Israeli public, Biden emphasized the risks that may arise if, quote, “this moment is lost”: that pursuing an unclear and undefined idea of total victory in Gaza is an approach that's likely to see Israel bogged down in the war, drained of both the lives of its soldiers and its economic resources, in a fruitless endeavor that is likely to isolate Israel further while failing to either defeat Hamas, or bring home hostages still in Gaza. Concluding the address, Biden emphasized the Unite States' commitment to both the safety and security of Israel, and the humanitarian reconstruction of Gaza, threading a difficult political line within his own starkly divided nation. He implicitly offered substantial US aid in rebuilding the education, medical, and other human infrastructure that has been destroyed thus far in the war, but also strongly implied that the United States would continue to engage in arms deals to supply Israel with defense and warfighting equipment, while guaranteeing Israel that if Hamas were to fail in fulfilling its commitments, the IDF would be welcome to return to its military operations. Given Gantz's position as one of Netanyahu's greatest political rivals, that would be an especially meaningful gesture, and although it wouldn't crumble Netanyahu's ruling coalition, it would place him at the mercy of a far-right faction within Israel without which Netanyahu certainly couldn't hold on. And across the Atlantic, president Biden has followed up his peace plan by endorsing a long-held rumor that Netanyahu's continual engagement in the Israel-Hamas War is a matter of self-preservation. In an interview with TIME Magazine done prior to his public announcement, Biden responded to a question on whether he believes Netanyahu's prolonging of the war is a political survival tactic by stating in part, quote, “I'm not going to comment on that. There is every reason for people to draw that conclusion.” Asked after the transcript of that TIME interview was released, Biden's national security spokesman, John Kirby, confirmed that his Commander-in-Chief's answer remained unchanged. Finally, it's become clear that Israel's support among European nations is dropping faster than ever. On the fourth of June, Slovenia became the fourth nation in recent days to formally recognize a Palestinian state, a decision that was confirmed overwhelmingly by the national parliament. Slovenia joined Spain, Norway, and Ireland, all of which had chosen to recognize Israeli statehood a few days prior. Collectively, the four became the first European nations to recognize Palestine since Sweden did it in 2014, with the only other six EU nations that recognize Palestine all having done so back in 1988.

The Genesis of America's Middle East Peace Plan

He evoked the prospect of calmed tensions on Israel's northern border, where the Hamas-allied Hezbollah organization has been all too willing to continue trading fire with the IDF since the Israel-Hamas war began. And finally, Biden called back to the prospect of Israeli normalization of its relations with Saudi Arabia, a massive and potentially region-changing effort that went on hold once the war began—and, one that many international analysts suggest may have been the motivating factor that led Iran-backed Hamas to attack Israel at large scale last October. With Israel able to better engage in regional security agreements, Biden stressed that Israel's security would be enhanced far better than it would be by continuing to prosecute its counteroffensive against Hamas, while the people of Gaza would regain the opportunity to pursue a future, quote, “of self-determination, dignity, security, and freedom.” By the time the address was finished, the peace plan was laid out in stark detail: three stages, each progressing toward a more and more enduring state of peace. Each side of the war, having expressed its commitment both behind closed doors and on the world stage toward reaching a peace of some kind, would now have an opportunity to demonstrate their dedication to that peace, while also having their bluff called in a way that could not be ignored. Both sides were assured flexibility in their capacity to push for new inclusions or exclusions from the deal if need be, alongside the continual engagement of the United States, Egypt, and Qatar as mediators. And the human cost of not securing a ceasefire, the prospect of a continuation of a war that's seen thousands of children killed and countless lives shattered both in Israel and Palestine, was brought back fully into view. By 1:42 in the afternoon, May 31, Biden's address was closed out; the gauntlet had been thrown down, and now, it was up to Israel and Hamas to decide what would come next. We'll be exploring in detail the reactions on both sides of the war, and among the international community, to the proposal that America has brought to light. But before we can do that, it's crucially important to understand the Israel-Hamas War as it is now: no longer the piecemeal dis-assembly of the entire Gaza territory, but a continued military offensive against remnants of Hamas in the south, while the north teeters on the brink of utter collapse. At the time of writing, the bulk of the ongoing violence in Gaza is happening in the southern city of Rafah. There, Israel states that it is carrying out limited operations in the eastern part of the city, and pushing its forces into the central district to expand its offensive, in what it would like to present as a relatively constrained fashion. Those were four Israeli men, one a British dual citizen, and all between the ages of 51 and 85, who were believed to have died in the same place during Israel's operations in Khan Younis. And finally, although aid has been able to move into Gaza in recent days, parts of the northern section of the territory are believed to be in a state of famine—something that the restrictions on humanitarian access makes it exceptionally difficult to evaluate. Nor is there any real way out; Egypt's border crossing to Rafah remains closed, and Egypt's foreign minister told the press on June the third that it's likely to remain closed, unless Israel relinquishes control of the border crossing and hands it back to a Palestinian administration. In Israel, the fragile war cabinet that's been guiding the nation through this conflict has begun to show serious signs of fracturing. One especially prominent minister, Benny Gantz, proposed on Thursday, May 30 that Israel's parliament be dissolved. That's a slap in the face to president Netanyahu, even if the measure was unlikely to be taken up by the parliament for consideration and even less likely to pass. Gantz has spent a month pushing an ultimatum that Netanyahu build and agree to a so-called “day after” plan, laying out a process to handle the aftermath of the war, and Gantz has threatened to quit Netanyahu's war coalition if that doesn't happen.

Historical Context: The Israel-Hamas Conflict and Gaza's Plight

In recent days, heavy fighting has even popped up in Rafah's western reaches, including the district of Tel al-Sultan, while IDF soldiers in central Rafah have allegedly found weapons depots, rocket launchers, and tunnels. The fighting has been ongoing for about a month, after Israel initially launched its Rafah assault on May the sixth, and since then, an estimated one million people have been displaced from the city. Many of the people who'd previously lived there had been internally displaced from elsewhere in Gaza—most of them more than once, and some upward of half a dozen times. As for why Israel considered an invasion of Rafah to be worth its while, the nation alleged that four Hamas battalions were hiding out in the city, protecting what remains of their leadership and likely maintaining control of its remaining hostages as human shields. With Israel attacking targets in several parts of the city, civilians have been caught in the crossfire at large scale, as has been the case throughout Israel's brutal counteroffensive. Many displaced people have been caught up in airstrikes, shelling, and shooting. In the area immediately around Rafah where civilians are taking shelter, conditions are exceptionally grim, in squalid camps where food, water, and shelter are surged in by aid organizations when possible, but are often absent. Elsewhere in Gaza, the situation isn't much better. Hamas has circled out of the southern enclaves where it was believed to be hiding, with organized contingents popping back up in northern cities and other places that the IDF had designated as being cleared. That turn of events runs counter to the expectations that the Israeli government had set out for this stage of the war, but it's been largely unsurprising to international diplomats and analysts, who've observed in Hamas the capacity to become a long, unkillable insurgency in the mold of the Al-Qaeda or Islamic State of the 2010s. While Israel continues to claim that it can destroy Hamas within Gaza, that already-unlikely promise has become less and less believable by the day. Now, the IDF has had to surge troops back into some areas it had expected to leave, while marking out other zones as being in need of a circle back before Hamas can truly be declared defeated. As devastating as the status quo in Gaza still is, it's been punctuated by sudden outbursts of violence that somehow manage to be worse. On the Hamas side, the organization proved as recently as the twenty-sixth of May that it could still threaten Israelis in their own homes, firing a barrage of rockets out of Gaza that set off air raid sirens as far away as Tel Aviv. Although the rockets scored no known hits, they marked Hamas' first rocket attack since January, and the news that Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system had brought them down came less as a sign that Israel was still impervious to rockets, and more as a sign that rocket attacks may be just as much a part of Israel's future as its past. A few hours later, on May 27, the IDF shocked the world yet again in its own way, via an airstrike on a camp for displaced people in Rafah. In that incident, a fire spread among tents in Tal al-Sultan after a large explosion, eventually leaving forty-five people dead including women and children. The IDF indicated that it had killed two senior members of Hamas, but even Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu had to take to the airwaves to acknowledge the civilian tragedy that had taken place. And earlier in May, even Israel's main international backer, the United States, was forced to acknowledge that Israel likely used American-supplied weapons in ways that directly breached international humanitarian law. All that, despite the fact that the US simultaneously resolved to continue supplying Israel with equipment and munitions indefinitely. And then, there's the plight of the people caught in the middle, people from both Gaza and Israel who didn't take an active or voluntary role in the violence, but have been made part of this war anyhow. The news wasn't all bad for the peace plan; Yair Lapid, a prominent leftist opposition leader, vowed to throw his support behind the deal if Israel's far right chose to undermine it, providing a critical pathway for Netanyahu to stand behind the deal without immediately watching his governing mandate fall apart. Lapid's genuine support would almost certainly mean that a deal would pass the Knesset. But between the two major factions that Netanyahu's partnering with trying to pull him in opposite directions, and the leader of the opposition offering what Netanyahu likely sees as a deal with the devil, he's in a very difficult spot. And whether Netanyahu is open to the idea of passing the proposal through Lapid or not, numerous parties both within Israel and outside of it have focused on one critical problem with the deal as it's currently described. That problem, is that it doesn't actually include a mechanism to ensure that Hamas will not rule over Gaza in the future.

Frequently Asked Questions

What was Trump's plan to end the war in Gaza?

See the full article for details on What was Trump's plan to.

Which countries have joined Trump's Board of peace?

See the full article for details on Which countries have joined Trump's.

Will there ever be peace in the Middle East according to the Bible?

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Has Hamas agreed to the peace plan?

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What is the peace plan in the Middle East?

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Jackson Reed

Jackson Reed creates and presents analysis focused on military doctrine, strategic competition, and conflict dynamics.

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