The Deception Game
The Deception Game
Source: Drop Site News 2025
By Jeremy Scahill and Jawa Ahmad
Oct 2, 2025
In the initial meetings Tuesday in Doha, regional mediators from Qatar and Egypt, as well as officials from Turkey, told Hamas that the Palestinian side should state its positions and objections to the Trump outline, Nazzal said. “It is our right to express these observations. Therefore, regardless of the American position on our stance, we cannot give a blank check or sign off blindly on an agreement we were not part of—whether the United States accepts that or not,” Nazzal said. The mediators “expressed an understanding that Hamas has the right to voice its observations, especially since it was not involved in the dialogue between the Americans and the Israelis.”
The framework was drafted in coordination with Netanyahu’s top adviser, Ron Dermer, and spearheaded by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff. Kushner, who reportedly took the lead in shoring up Arab support, is often touted by Trump as the mastermind of the so-called Abraham Accord “normalization” agreements with Israel. Kushner has extensive business dealings in Gulf countries and Israel and his investment firm, Affinity Partners, is backed by billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar.
The Trump proposal includes plans for “investment proposals and exciting development ideas” in Gaza to be managed by an “international transitional body” that would effectively take control of the Strip. During his appearance alongside Netanyahu on Monday, Trump called Gaza “the most magnificent piece of land in many ways in the Middle East.” Asked about whether Kushner’s business interests represent a conflict of interest, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt denounced the suggestion as “frankly despicable.”
Since Trump unveiled his plan on Monday, officials from several Arab and other Muslim states implied they were blindsided by Trump when he stepped to the podium with Netanyahu and claimed the plan he outlined had their full support. Publicly, these nations offered words of praise for Trump’s “sincere efforts to end the war in Gaza” but did not explicitly endorse his 20-point plan.
Some of them have claimed that the final text distributed by the White House was markedly different from drafts those countries were shown and to which they offered their feedback and ultimate endorsement. Pakistan’s foreign minister Ishaq Dar said, “This is not our document,” adding that the outline released by Trump and Netanyahu should be viewed as “an announcement from their side.”
After Arab and Muslim countries had indicated last week that they would support Trump’s plan, Trump allowed Netanyahu and Dermer to make significant changes to the terms, in some cases removing or substantively altering items that those nations had understood would be in the document. “Netanyahu managed to secure noteworthy changes following a pair of hours-long meetings” with Kushner and Witkoff last week, according to the Times of Israel. These “significant 11th-hour changes” included making Israeli troop withdrawals contingent upon Hamas’s disarmament. Some changes were reportedly made inside the White House moments before Trump and Netanyahu took the stage to announce the plan. “Officials from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Turkey were furious over the changes,” reported Axios. “The Qataris even tried to convince the Trump administration not to release the detailed plan on Monday due to those objections.”
“These [Muslim] countries have fallen into a deception, and some of them have informed us of this,” Nazzal said. “The deception lies in the fact that what was agreed upon is not the same as what was announced. This is a major political scandal,” he added. “As the world’s greatest superpower, it is disgraceful for [the United States] to engage in deceiving countries that are considered its allies.”
A growing number of Muslim nations are now suggesting that the terms, as published, need to be revisited, though they are choosing their words carefully. Egyptian foreign minister Badr Abdel Aaty said Trump’s plan “contains many positive elements,” but added, “there are also elements that require extensive discussion and, as the saying goes, the devil is in the details. Therefore, these issues must be discussed in depth in order to reach a consensus on them, especially with regard to implementation on the ground.”
On Tuesday, Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani praised aspects of Trump’s plan, saying it addressed the most urgent issues, namely a ceasefire, but added that there were “practical and implementation challenges” to be worked out through negotiations. This, he said, “is primarily the work of the Palestinian side with the Israeli side, but also as a broader supporting international community, there must be a clear and legal framework for this matter, which of course will be at the UN Security Council.”
Whether Trump would now entertain new language or amendments proposed by Qatar, Egypt and other nations involved with the negotiations, let alone Hamas, is an open question.
Since Monday, officials from Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian groups have universally denounced the plan as a naked ploy by Israel to attempt to achieve through this proposal what it has failed to win on the battlefield.
Ziyad al-Nakhalah, the secretary general of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the second largest armed resistance group in Gaza, called the proposal “a recipe for continued aggression against the Palestinian people,” saying, “we consider the American-Israeli announcement a recipe for igniting the region.”
The Trump plan, if accepted by Hamas as written, would have far reaching ramifications for the cause of Palestinian self-determination, not just in Gaza.
Mohammed Al-Hindi, the chief political negotiator for PIJ, said Wednesday evening that within Trump’s proposal there are two different tracks that Palestinian negotiators need to separate. The first addresses the active war on the ground and terms for a ceasefire, exchange of captives, and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip. These terms, he said, Hamas and PIJ have the authority to negotiate because they are fighting the war. “The Palestinian resistance needs to introduce some amendments on this point that concerns the resistance, because from the beginning we said there is no objection from the resistance to a comprehensive deal that includes the release of all prisoners in the hands of the resistance in exchange for stopping the aggression and withdrawal,” Al-Hindi said in an interview with Al-Araby television. Among the issues he said must be negotiated are guarantees that Israel would fully withdraw its forces and not resume the genocide, as well as the formulas for the freeing of Palestinians held captive by Israel.
The second track of Trump’s proposal, he said, introduces sweeping concepts that would forever alter the course of the fight for Palestinian statehood and self-determination. Al-Hindi said that Hamas and PIJ do not have the exclusive mandate to make agreements on behalf of all Palestinians. “As for the general national issues, they concern the entire Palestinian homeland. There is no resistance, no Hamas, no Jihad, no one authorized to speak alone about the Palestinian national project,” Al-Hindi said. “For example, the day after, the future of governance in Gaza and the future of the West Bank—these concern every Palestinian and we are not authorized to decide them alone. They require broader consultations. What is in the paper is an assault on the Palestinian national liberation project: It amounts to an American mandate in favor of Israel.”
Regarding Gaza specifically, Trump’s plan would permit Israeli forces to remain entrenched inside the Strip indefinitely and link the delivery of food, medicine and life essentials to a nebulous system of verifying the disarmament of Palestinian resistance groups. It would also impose a foreign authority to oversee the running of Gaza, backed by the deployment of an international armed force. The plan would also require that Hamas release all Israeli captives held in Gaza before any Palestinians would be freed. The proposal offers no mechanism to ensure Israel complies with the agreement and Netanyahu said Monday that Israel has no intention of entirely withdrawing from Gaza.
While officials from Hamas and other groups have made clear their opposition to the terms within the plan, none of these sentiments yet represent an official response. Hamas is under tremendous pressure from inside Gaza to negotiate an end to the genocide, relentless bombings, forced displacements and the mass starvation campaign. Several Hamas officials have told Drop Site over the past several months that the group understands that whatever decisions are made in an effort to end the genocide will impact not just Hamas, but the very future of the broader Palestinian cause.
Nazzal said that Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza and its attacks against nations across the region over the past two years should also serve as an ominous warning to all Arab nations. “We, as the Palestinian people, part of the Arab and Islamic region, must coexist with the Arab and Islamic reality. We must deepen our ties with the Arab regimes, maintain communication with them, and work to convince them that the Zionist project poses a danger to them,” he said.
Nazzal cited comments made by Netanyahu in an Israeli TV interview in August where Netanyahu said he was on a “historic and spiritual mission” and felt “very much” connected to the concept of a Greater Israel and the Promised Land.
“Netanyahu proposed the Greater Israel project, and this project is dangerous. By Greater Israel, he means Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. Look at the ongoing aggression against Syria, despite the fact that Syria has done nothing since the new regime came to power. Look at the aggression against Lebanon,” Nazzal added. “The Zionist project is a danger not only to the Palestinians but to the entire region. This requires the Arab regimes to change their policies, to view the Zionist project with suspicion and concern, and to take practical measures to confront this project.”
Source: Drop Site News 2025
By Jeremy Scahill and Jawa Ahmad
Oct 2, 2025
In the initial meetings Tuesday in Doha, regional mediators from Qatar and Egypt, as well as officials from Turkey, told Hamas that the Palestinian side should state its positions and objections to the Trump outline, Nazzal said. “It is our right to express these observations. Therefore, regardless of the American position on our stance, we cannot give a blank check or sign off blindly on an agreement we were not part of—whether the United States accepts that or not,” Nazzal said. The mediators “expressed an understanding that Hamas has the right to voice its observations, especially since it was not involved in the dialogue between the Americans and the Israelis.”
The framework was drafted in coordination with Netanyahu’s top adviser, Ron Dermer, and spearheaded by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff. Kushner, who reportedly took the lead in shoring up Arab support, is often touted by Trump as the mastermind of the so-called Abraham Accord “normalization” agreements with Israel. Kushner has extensive business dealings in Gulf countries and Israel and his investment firm, Affinity Partners, is backed by billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar.
The Trump proposal includes plans for “investment proposals and exciting development ideas” in Gaza to be managed by an “international transitional body” that would effectively take control of the Strip. During his appearance alongside Netanyahu on Monday, Trump called Gaza “the most magnificent piece of land in many ways in the Middle East.” Asked about whether Kushner’s business interests represent a conflict of interest, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt denounced the suggestion as “frankly despicable.”
Since Trump unveiled his plan on Monday, officials from several Arab and other Muslim states implied they were blindsided by Trump when he stepped to the podium with Netanyahu and claimed the plan he outlined had their full support. Publicly, these nations offered words of praise for Trump’s “sincere efforts to end the war in Gaza” but did not explicitly endorse his 20-point plan.
Some of them have claimed that the final text distributed by the White House was markedly different from drafts those countries were shown and to which they offered their feedback and ultimate endorsement. Pakistan’s foreign minister Ishaq Dar said, “This is not our document,” adding that the outline released by Trump and Netanyahu should be viewed as “an announcement from their side.”
After Arab and Muslim countries had indicated last week that they would support Trump’s plan, Trump allowed Netanyahu and Dermer to make significant changes to the terms, in some cases removing or substantively altering items that those nations had understood would be in the document. “Netanyahu managed to secure noteworthy changes following a pair of hours-long meetings” with Kushner and Witkoff last week, according to the Times of Israel. These “significant 11th-hour changes” included making Israeli troop withdrawals contingent upon Hamas’s disarmament. Some changes were reportedly made inside the White House moments before Trump and Netanyahu took the stage to announce the plan. “Officials from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Turkey were furious over the changes,” reported Axios. “The Qataris even tried to convince the Trump administration not to release the detailed plan on Monday due to those objections.”
“These [Muslim] countries have fallen into a deception, and some of them have informed us of this,” Nazzal said. “The deception lies in the fact that what was agreed upon is not the same as what was announced. This is a major political scandal,” he added. “As the world’s greatest superpower, it is disgraceful for [the United States] to engage in deceiving countries that are considered its allies.”
A growing number of Muslim nations are now suggesting that the terms, as published, need to be revisited, though they are choosing their words carefully. Egyptian foreign minister Badr Abdel Aaty said Trump’s plan “contains many positive elements,” but added, “there are also elements that require extensive discussion and, as the saying goes, the devil is in the details. Therefore, these issues must be discussed in depth in order to reach a consensus on them, especially with regard to implementation on the ground.”
On Tuesday, Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani praised aspects of Trump’s plan, saying it addressed the most urgent issues, namely a ceasefire, but added that there were “practical and implementation challenges” to be worked out through negotiations. This, he said, “is primarily the work of the Palestinian side with the Israeli side, but also as a broader supporting international community, there must be a clear and legal framework for this matter, which of course will be at the UN Security Council.”
Whether Trump would now entertain new language or amendments proposed by Qatar, Egypt and other nations involved with the negotiations, let alone Hamas, is an open question.
Since Monday, officials from Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian groups have universally denounced the plan as a naked ploy by Israel to attempt to achieve through this proposal what it has failed to win on the battlefield.
Ziyad al-Nakhalah, the secretary general of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the second largest armed resistance group in Gaza, called the proposal “a recipe for continued aggression against the Palestinian people,” saying, “we consider the American-Israeli announcement a recipe for igniting the region.”
The Trump plan, if accepted by Hamas as written, would have far reaching ramifications for the cause of Palestinian self-determination, not just in Gaza.
Mohammed Al-Hindi, the chief political negotiator for PIJ, said Wednesday evening that within Trump’s proposal there are two different tracks that Palestinian negotiators need to separate. The first addresses the active war on the ground and terms for a ceasefire, exchange of captives, and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip. These terms, he said, Hamas and PIJ have the authority to negotiate because they are fighting the war. “The Palestinian resistance needs to introduce some amendments on this point that concerns the resistance, because from the beginning we said there is no objection from the resistance to a comprehensive deal that includes the release of all prisoners in the hands of the resistance in exchange for stopping the aggression and withdrawal,” Al-Hindi said in an interview with Al-Araby television. Among the issues he said must be negotiated are guarantees that Israel would fully withdraw its forces and not resume the genocide, as well as the formulas for the freeing of Palestinians held captive by Israel.
The second track of Trump’s proposal, he said, introduces sweeping concepts that would forever alter the course of the fight for Palestinian statehood and self-determination. Al-Hindi said that Hamas and PIJ do not have the exclusive mandate to make agreements on behalf of all Palestinians. “As for the general national issues, they concern the entire Palestinian homeland. There is no resistance, no Hamas, no Jihad, no one authorized to speak alone about the Palestinian national project,” Al-Hindi said. “For example, the day after, the future of governance in Gaza and the future of the West Bank—these concern every Palestinian and we are not authorized to decide them alone. They require broader consultations. What is in the paper is an assault on the Palestinian national liberation project: It amounts to an American mandate in favor of Israel.”
Regarding Gaza specifically, Trump’s plan would permit Israeli forces to remain entrenched inside the Strip indefinitely and link the delivery of food, medicine and life essentials to a nebulous system of verifying the disarmament of Palestinian resistance groups. It would also impose a foreign authority to oversee the running of Gaza, backed by the deployment of an international armed force. The plan would also require that Hamas release all Israeli captives held in Gaza before any Palestinians would be freed. The proposal offers no mechanism to ensure Israel complies with the agreement and Netanyahu said Monday that Israel has no intention of entirely withdrawing from Gaza.
While officials from Hamas and other groups have made clear their opposition to the terms within the plan, none of these sentiments yet represent an official response. Hamas is under tremendous pressure from inside Gaza to negotiate an end to the genocide, relentless bombings, forced displacements and the mass starvation campaign. Several Hamas officials have told Drop Site over the past several months that the group understands that whatever decisions are made in an effort to end the genocide will impact not just Hamas, but the very future of the broader Palestinian cause.
Nazzal said that Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza and its attacks against nations across the region over the past two years should also serve as an ominous warning to all Arab nations. “We, as the Palestinian people, part of the Arab and Islamic region, must coexist with the Arab and Islamic reality. We must deepen our ties with the Arab regimes, maintain communication with them, and work to convince them that the Zionist project poses a danger to them,” he said.
Nazzal cited comments made by Netanyahu in an Israeli TV interview in August where Netanyahu said he was on a “historic and spiritual mission” and felt “very much” connected to the concept of a Greater Israel and the Promised Land.
“Netanyahu proposed the Greater Israel project, and this project is dangerous. By Greater Israel, he means Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. Look at the ongoing aggression against Syria, despite the fact that Syria has done nothing since the new regime came to power. Look at the aggression against Lebanon,” Nazzal added. “The Zionist project is a danger not only to the Palestinians but to the entire region. This requires the Arab regimes to change their policies, to view the Zionist project with suspicion and concern, and to take practical measures to confront this project.”
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