For the third time in two years, there is a fragile but welcome pause in Gaza's horror. Bombs have slowed, aid trucks are expected to trickle in and some families are finally able to search for their loved ones' bodies. Across Gaza's ruins, there will be fleeting moments of relief — mothers finding their children alive, families reuniting and communities daring to breathe after relentless siege and starvation. But even as the world exhales, and even if the new Trump-Netanyahu 'peace plan' holds, it threatens to turn this fragile lull into a blueprint for permanent subjugation — a plan wrapped in the language of peace but rooted in domination.

Donald Trump's newly unveiled 20-point Gaza plan has been lauded by some Western and Arab leaders as a "historic breakthrough." Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney praised it as a pathway to peace and pledged Canada's support in marketing it abroad. But peel away the rhetoric and it becomes clear that this proposal is not a roadmap to peace; it is colonialism dressed up as diplomacy, an ultimatum to besieged and brutalised people.

At its core, the plan demands that Palestinians — the very people subjected to siege, bombardment and displacement — undergo "de-radicalisation." In other words, victims of war crimes are told to surrender their dignity and political aspirations in order to be deemed acceptable partners. Meanwhile, Israeli leaders accused of genocide and crimes against humanity face no accountability. A recent poll shows 82 per cent of Israelis support "cleansing Gaza" of its population, yet the plan says nothing about confronting that extremism. As Palestinian-Canadian lawyer and former peace negotiator Diana Buttu has noted, it is grotesque to demand that........

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