Kushner-led ‘composite’ Gaza governance mechanisms and the ‘new representative alternative’

By Hassan Asfour
Although Trump’s plan with its twenty provisions contained “ambiguous” or multiple-interpretation items, after the signing of the Sharm el-Sheikh declaration on October 13, 2025, its outlines have become much clearer, especially with the successive statements by President Trump and American spokespeople.

The core issue that has been clarified to a large extent is the political dimension of Trump’s plan and the Sharm el-Sheikh declaration, which represents a total disregard for the Palestinian state as the U.S. president stated without any ambiguity that he will not spend his time debating that because it is a matter for Israel. This position is a political insult to members of the international coalition who had initiated moves to advance recognition of the State of Palestine.

But the most politically dangerous development was what two American advisers announced on Thursday, October 16, 2025 (Palestine time): that they are considering forming a “professional civil management committee” in the Gaza Strip in coordination with the parties and ensuring the approval of Netanyahu’s government. They said the focus would not be on the old debates about sovereignty, statehood, and autonomy, but on making Gaza “a functional, livable place,” and that “this is the first time many believe a new alternative can be created — neither the Palestinian Authority nor Hamas — which can form a new leadership to enable the Palestinian people to be freed from the harsh conditions they have endured.”

The remark is extremely clear: the forthcoming central U.S. objective is to establish a “special entity-based governance” in the Gaza Strip that would represent the Palestinian people, echoing Trump’s comment in his Sharm el-Sheikh speech when he said he had ended a 3,000-year war. According to the Talmudic narrative promoted by the Trump administration, Gaza is presented as the only Palestinian expression while the rest is Israel.

The political dimension of Trump’s plan has become crystal clear: it aims to replace Gaza’s entity with the national entity, and doing so requires creating governance mechanisms and implementation tools to serve that goal. Thus, the talk about forming a “Peace Council” chaired by Trump has become a central task to shape subsequent objectives, including determining the path of executive mechanisms.

The Peace Council would be the supreme authority imposed on the Gaza Strip; it would appoint an executive governor. It has become clear that the U.S. president chose Jared Kushner instead of Blair, as Kushner is the architect of the “Greater Gaza” project he designed since February 2024 — in other words, he fired the first shot toward destroying the Strip that preceded the October 2023 conspiracy.

The Peace Council is considering forming what it called an “international stabilization force” that would assume comprehensive security tasks in the Gaza Strip, oversee disarmament along with associated measures, and map out the work of the administrative committee and the special policing role, which will be more complicated than traditional work due to the retaliatory aftermath of the two years of the extermination war.

The Peace Council and its executive body have begun outlining how to exploit reconstruction, saying it would start in areas still under the control of the occupation army. This carries a political message that security tied to Israeli interests is the path to new construction — in other words, no reconstruction in areas that might have quasi-security presences.

The plan to rebuild in areas under occupation control explains why Trump wants Hamas to remain as an added time-bomb in the Gaza Strip: to use it as a pretext for security and political instability and to create a particular kind of chaos that provokes a popular reaction potentially leading to multiple conflicts. This would serve the goal of entrenching the narrative that Palestinians are not ready for proper governance and therefore require a “special tutelage.”

Reconstruction of the Gaza Strip has become the Peace Council’s sharpest weapon and its executive tool to pass the broader political scheme, whose contours were defined by Trump’s words and his advisers’ statements: the central aim is “to create a new leadership for the Palestinian people,” to rid them “of the bad leadership and wrong decisions. There are already many interested people, and the (Peace Council) will ultimately choose their representatives, and this could succeed greatly if appropriate leaders are chosen who act out of public interest, seeking to establish a new system different from the old systems.”

Certainly, the “administrative committee” for the Gaza Strip will face a political test: the more it distances itself from the goal of a unified national polity (the State of Palestine) and adapts to executive governance mechanisms treating the Gaza Strip as the feasible entity, the greater its chance to continue and to be part of the “alternative leadership”; without that, it will never see the light of day.

The message is clear: the day after is already taking shape toward creating a “new leadership” to replace the old “bad” one — the path to reconstructing the Gaza Strip begins with rebuilding the political structure.

Are there Palestinian mechanisms to confront the Trump-led Judaizing project? Yes, but they require rare courage, self-endurance, and decisions that mobilize Palestinians everywhere to defend their national project — decisions not captive to calculations about one reaction or another. There is nothing more degrading than the present situation. Confrontation must be chosen as a supreme necessity; otherwise, prepare the shroud for the dream of the first polity over the land of Palestine.

Note: A special time I spent with someone who spent most of his life outside normal human life — someone who came out of the enemy’s captivity into a very incomplete freedom. A time with personalities whose speech is unorthodox, without grandiloquent slogans. They understood that homeland is a value, sacrifice is a value, and life is also a value. Time with them gave the soul added energy. Peace to you, noble politicians. Peace to you, sons of my homeland awaiting its freedom.

Special note: Petro, oh Petro — we amputated ourselves out of our unique love for you, for a homeland that has become the target of modern colonial universalism. We amputated ourselves out of our love for the people of the Phoenix and its immortal leader Yasser Arafat, who sends you his kisses from where he is in the sky of the homeland, soaring with his spirit. Palestine was and will remain Palestine. Let Trump and his gang drink from Gaza’s sewers if they do not like it.