On July 30, Donald Trump announced a new 15-point peace plan for Gaza, and what he called a major breakthrough: Hamas, the Islamic fundamentalist organization that’s been governing Gaza,¹ had agreed to begin disarming under the plan. It calls for Hamas to turn over its weapons in stages, as Israel step-by-step withdraws from the 70 percent of Gaza it now occupies. 

(This new plan is a more detailed version of the 20-point “Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict" that Trump issued on September 29, 2025, which both Israel and Hamas signed. The plan included lip-service to the eventual creation of a Palestinian state.)

Israel responded to Trump’s announcement by escalating its attacks in Gaza, killing at least 22 people, 18 of them in one day. 

Then on August 9, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected this new plan, openly breaking with Trump. “As long as I am prime minister, a Palestinian state will not be established," Netanyahu declared. "I want to be precise here: Israel rejects the 15-point document," he said, adding: "The IDF [Israeli army] will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is disarmed, and that means heavy weapons, less heavy weapons, all weapons.”

Real U.S.-Israeli Differences as Major Challenges Rock the U.S.-Dominated, Post-World War 2 Middle East Order 

Real differences between the U.S. and Israel are on display here. The Netanyahu government sees intensifying its genocidal slaughter of the Palestinian people in Gaza and campaign of murder, terror and land seizures in the Palestinian West Bank as crucial to Israel’s interests. Israel seems determined to fully finish off the genocidal slaughter and theft of land they began 76 years ago when Israel was founded. At the time of its founding in 1947, Israel murdered 13,000 to 16,000 Palestinians and stole 77-78 percent of what had been Palestine, about 8,020 square miles of land.

Trump’s so-called peace plan was always aimed at extending and deepening U.S. imperialism’s stranglehold on, and predatory exploitation of, the Middle East. (Go HERE and HERE for analysis of Trump’s plan.)

But they have had real differences with Netanyahu about how that should be done. For almost three years, Israel carried out a genocidal war on Gaza—murdering a total of over 73,000 people, including over 20,000 children, with more deaths untallied under the rubble of buildings. They destroyed hospitals, homes, farms, water plants and sewage systems. Israel systematically murdered journalists and healthcare workers, and forcibly starved the population.

This and Israel’s ongoing atrocities have created real problems for the U.S., including in terms of jolting the region, and potentially threatening the "stability" of key U.S. allies such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and others. 

The Unprovoked, Illegal War on Iran—and the Bogging Down of the U.S.-Israeli Alliance in a Stalemate—Has Further Exacerbated the Crisis

This was taken to a whole other extreme level in the aftermath of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. Launched at the end of February, the U.S. and Israel murdered hundreds of Iran's top leaders, they've murdered over 3,600 people, and Trump has repeatedly threatened to decimate the whole country. But in response, Iran (a reactionary regime in its own right) has bombed neighboring countries which the U.S. has historically relied on. The previous alliances are being frayed and the war has set off major economic crises around the world. 

While we cannot in this article go into all the ways that the difficulties encountered by the U.S. in its attempt to dominate Iran have unraveled things, these setbacks have contributed to a situation in which every power is scrambling to protect its position and, if they can, advance their interests.

The U.S. and Israel have no easy way out. It seems Trump wants to tone down Israel's open genocidal assaults but Netanyahu wants to double down. What we wrote on revcom.us in 2010 is even more true today:

...in profound ways, the U.S has not only stuck by Israel—it is stuck with Israel. Despite real problems and even significant differences at times, the unique "strategic relationship" between the U.S. and Israel continues because, from the perspective of U.S. imperialism, there is no real alternative on the chessboard in terms of the role Israel plays in the Middle East and throughout the world.

The sharpening tensions between the U.S. and Israel are both a reflection of, and heightened by, major changes and dramatic challenges confronting the order the U.S. forged that has allowed it to dominate the Middle East for the past 80 years, following World War 2. 

The U.S. Continues to Back Israel, Even as Differences Sharpen 

Even in the face of these disputes, the U.S. has not backed off of its financial and military support of Israel. And Netanyahu recently claimed that the U.S. and Israel are currently discussing their differences over Trump’s so-called peace plan. "They [the Americans] have ideas—some of them are acceptable to us, and some are not acceptable to us,” he said, “and we know how to stand our ground on these matters."

It’s not possible to predict exactly where all this will go, but we do know that the Palestinian people are being killed, terrorized, and dispossessed, and that Israel is continuing to rampage through the region. ² 

The Ongoing Horrors Under Trump’s “Ceasefire”

When Trump announced his Gaza ceasefire 10 months ago, he claimed it would halt the violence in Gaza, lead to a surge of urgently needed humanitarian aid, a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces, and much more. In reality, the horrors have continued:

• In the 300 days since the Gaza ceasefire was declared, 300 Palestinian children have been murdered—one for every day of the so-called “ceasefire.” 

• Israel continues to wantonly violate the ceasefire. Over 1,250 Palestinians have already been killed, and the pace of killing has been increasing, not decreasing, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry: 152 people were killed in July, the highest monthly toll in 2026. The staggering death toll since Israel launched its U.S.-backed genocide in October 2023 is now 73,300 dead, including 20,000 children, and more than 174,200 injured. 
• There has been no surge of humanitarian aid. Instead, Israel is continuing its criminal blockade. The UN reports that some 1.4 million of Gaza’s two-plus million people still face acute food insecurity. With food scarce, Gaza’s medical system still crippled, and trauma ever-present, Gaza's birth rate has dropped and miscarriages have tripled in the last six months. 

• The Israeli army is now occupying nearly 70 percent of Gaza, and are pledging NOT to withdraw. This means that two million Palestinian people are forced to cram themselves into 15 square miles—living amidst rubble and death.

See also, 1,000 Days of the U.S.-Israeli Genocide in Gaza... 1,000 Days of Slaughter, Starvation and Terror - This Crime Against Humanity—and the System that Spawned It—Must Be Stopped, revcom.us, July 6, 2026. 

Escalating Atrocities and Terror Across the Palestinian West Bank

The Palestinian West Bank (named for being west of the Jordan River) is legally Palestinian territory and is today home to three million Palestinians. But Israel seized it in 1967, imposed a military occupation, and encouraged some 500,000 Israelis to illegally settle there (many of them religious fanatics).

Life has become an ever-darkening nightmare for the Palestinians that’s gotten even worse in recent years, and especially after October 2023. Since then, the UN estimates that at least 1,111 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers and its military, including more than 240 children, and Israel has demolished more than 3,000 Palestinian homes. 

Today Israeli settler and military violence is surging across the West Bank and roiling the region. So far this year the UN reports that settlers have launched at least 580 attacks and displaced an average of 17 people a day. The Norwegian Refugee Council estimates that over 200 Palestinian communities are at risk of being driven from their land.

Mosques have been burned. Even young school children are targeted. In the village of Umm al-Khair the path they took to school was recently blocked by barbed wire marked with Israeli flags. Now the children are holding classes on a nearby hillside.

Israeli attacks on Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound, one of the most important sites for Muslims, are especially incendiary. By law and tradition, only Muslims can pray there, yet attacks by Israeli nationalist and religious fanatics have been escalating. On July 23 over 2,000 of these lunatics, led by the fascist government minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, prayed at the site. 

Jordanian officials warned that Al-Aqsa was facing the “imminent” threat of an Israeli takeover. They convened an emergency high level meeting of ministers from Arab countries and Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said, “We warn that tampering with the status quo … could trigger a religious conflict that will reverberate beyond Palestine and Jordan into the whole Muslim world.” He added, this was “something that the whole international community should be aware of. Jerusalem is a tinderbox.”

Think about that. This, and the whole nightmare, underscores this urgent truth:

We can no longer afford to allow these imperialists to continue to dominate the world and determine the destiny of humanity. And it is a scientific fact that humanity does not have to live this way.

— Bob Avakian