Ignoring the new reality or refusing to engage with it would mean to lose agency.
There are two conversations unfolding in the wake of the latest ceasefire, which has brought a fragile pause to the carnage in Gaza – one quiet, pragmatic, and regional; the other, loud, moral, and global. The first takes place behind closed doors, among diplomats, intelligence services and political veterans of the Middle East. The second fills our timelines, animated by outrage and solidarity – the only decent human response to horror. The first is sketching a new map of power, as the second speaks of betrayal and mistrust.
If one listens carefully, a striking conclusion emerges from regional capitals: the war in Gaza is over – not only militarily, but as a political paradigm. In the eyes of those who manage statecraft, the agreement marks a point of no return. What is unfolding is not a truce; it is a reordering. Gaza’s catastrophe has triggered a recalibration that will ripple far beyond its borders, reaching deep into Israel, reshaping Palestinian politics, and redefining what regional stability will mean for years to come.
In this new calculus, Hamas – and indeed the entire project of political Islam, alongside most non-state actors – faces exclusion from formal politics. The ruling classes of the region, newly aligned around the pursuit of stability, commerce and controlled modernisation, now regard such movements as relics of the past and as agents of chaos. A growing consensus holds that all such actors must be contained or eradicated.
The same logic of control will extend to the West Bank – simply because the emerging regional order prizes governability above all else. The Arab plan is that Arab states, joined by select Islamic and international powers, will step in to place the West Bank under temporary supervision – administrative, financial, and security-based – paving the way for a managed transition.
The Palestinian Authority will be offered what may be its final opportunity to reform – a process that will be overseen by a team of independent technocrats tasked with restructuring institutions, governing Gaza, and preparing the ground for elections. Should the Palestinian Authority resist this restructuring, it risks isolation and insolvency.
Many will see this as an attempt not at reform but at co-option – certainly the logic of those driving this process is not democratic idealism. They seek to secure the Palestinian street through a leadership that can both contain discontent and negotiate in predictable terms. Palestinians do not have monarchs or dynasties, and in the absence of such structures, the ballot box remains the only viable tool to sustain internal legitimacy, even if born out of external calculation.
The Palestine Liberation Organization, long hollowed out, may soon stand as little more than a symbolic umbrella, a ceremonial home for the parties of “liberation”. In the emerging regional order, it risks being seen as a structure that has outlived its political moment, its struggle reduced to declarations, appeals, and the pursuit of donor funds. Those who wish to remain politically relevant will have to reconstitute themselves — bearing in mind the new order — as civilian parties stripped of their revolutionary ethos.
These are the contours of what many in policy circles now regard as inevitable. It is a vision few describe openly, yet it is quietly embraced with growing confidence from Amman to Cairo, from Riyadh to key Western capitals.
But here lies the divide. While insiders speak in the language of systems, supervision, and “order,” many around the world recoil at what they see as cynical calculation and co-option — a rearrangement of power stripped of justice, accountability, or honest vision. Activists and solidarity movements see these manoeuvres not as reordering but as betrayal. They cannot trust Israel or the United States, nor can they trust the intentions of regional governments that appear to have aligned themselves with money and power. And they are right to be suspicious.
Yet between naivete and cynicism, there must be a space for realism — not the realism of resignation, but of awareness. What is happening now is not the fulfillment of justice but the emergence of a new structure that will define what justice can, or cannot, achieve. To ignore it is to forfeit agency once again.
The earthquake of Gaza has changed the grammar of the conflict. Israeli power, though brutal, is no longer absolute. Regional politics are shifting. A new order is being written — and those who wish to remain actors in it must learn its vocabulary. Otherwise, they risk becoming footnotes, remembered only for their refusal to adapt to the world as it remade itself before their eyes.
In my view, both realities – the pragmatic and the moral – are now unfolding side by side, their currents intertwining, clashing and advancing through all their contradictions. Alongside this divide runs a second, intersecting axis: on one hand, Israel’s unrelenting expansionist project continues to challenge and erode every emerging framework of peace, justice or order. The other, defined by the transactional calculations of regional powers – each, in varying degrees, tethered to and influencing the United States.
In the near term, the collision of these currents is bound to produce turbulence. But in the longer view, as Washington’s attention will be invariably forced to shift towards China and Russia, and as Western public sentiment turns decisively against Israel’s impunity and the colonial logic underpinning it, it is hard to imagine how the second current, the regional pragmatists, will not ultimately prevail, perhaps sooner than expected.
Meanwhile, solidarity movements will continue to speak in the register of values – of rights, memory, and the moral law that still insists upon justice in an age of expediency. Their voice remains indispensable: it is the conscience that recalls what politics too often forgets. The arc of history will not bend towards justice on its own; it must be pulled there by those who refuse amnesia, who don’t trade values for comfort.
For diaspora Palestinians and the international public moved by solidarity, the work ahead is clear. They must resist the lulling comfort of placating gestures that will surely multiply: recognitions, resolutions, promises of reconstruction. Accept these with grace, but do not mistake them for transformation.
The push for tangible shifts on the ground as well as the pursuit of accountability must remain relentless. The architects and executors of the genocide in Gaza must one day stand before the law, not out of vengeance, but to restore meaning to justice itself. Only through such persistence can conscience remain a political force and that the struggle for Palestine – for dignity, equality, and truth – continues to define not only a people’s destiny, but the moral temper of our time.
The other, harder task is the one too often left unattended: the building of new political leadership on the ground. There is now a gap – narrow, uncertain, but real. It is not an easy one to step into, but it is one that must be seized.
The next generation must understand that bearing witness, protesting or commenting from the margins will no longer suffice. No one will extend an invitation to lead; they will have to claim that space themselves through initiative, clarity, and the hard work of organising.
As Palestinians return to political ground zero, those who wish to see a new kind of leadership must engage directly to craft policy, and to help form and fund the movements that can carry a nation forward.
For only through the rise of new political forces, and a language capable of speaking both to the street and to the halls of power, can Palestinians reclaim their voice in this new unfolding chapter.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect media’s editorial stance.
