The latest White House discussions on Gaza’s future, attended by senior American officials and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, highlight once again how international diplomacy often imagines solutions in abstract terms, divorced from the desperate realities on the ground.

The language of “comprehensive plans” and “humanitarian motives” rings hollow against the backdrop of bombed-out neighborhoods, mass displacement, and famine. The central problem is that post-war visions for Gaza are being shaped without acknowledging the lived experience and political aspirations of Palestinians themselves. While promises of “peace and prosperity” are voiced in Washington, the same conversations rule out the possibility of Palestinian statehood. This contradiction exposes the fragility of such proposals. Any plan that denies political agency to the people it concerns is bound to collapse under its own contradictions. At present,........

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