PRESIDENT Donald Trump has brokered a 20-point Gaza peace plan between Israel and Hamas. Stopping the bombing and securing the release of the hostages are crucial first steps. Yet from a Palestinian perspective, a central question remains: will this be a just peace?

Multiple lines of evidence indicate that Trump and his allies are not concerned about the rights of Palestinians. For example, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is a lead negotiator in the agreement. Notably, in March 2024, Kushner recommended that Israel bulldoze an area of its Negev Desert and move Gazans there.

Trump’s broader circle shares similar views. His ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has stated that “there is no such thing as a Palestinian.” Huckabee also claims that there are no such things as a West Bank, settlements or an occupation. Huckabee insists that any future Palestinian state must be located outside the land of Israel, and within “Islamist-controlled properties and territories.”

Moreover, Trump appointed Martin Oliner as a member of the US Holocaust Memorial Council, the governing board of the US Holocaust Museum. Oliner described Palestinians in Gaza as “fundamentally evil,” “collectively guilty” and “not worthy of any mercy.” Outrageously, he stated, “But we’re still being accused of genocide. But maybe we need to kill more civilians.”

Another example is Trump’s initial choice for UN ambassador, Representative Elise Stefanik (Republican-New York), an ardent supporter of Israel’s full territorial claims. In her Senate confirmation hearing, Stefanik acknowledged that she believes that Israel has a biblical right to the entire West Bank. Stefanik also refused to answer whether Palestinians have the right to self-determination.

While these statements reflect disturbing rhetoric, the situation on the ground also reveals a pattern of disregard for Palestinian rights. In August 2024, Ronen Bar, then head of Israel’s security agency Shin Bet, condemned the “terrorism” of militant West Bank settlers, who are conducting a campaign of murder, arson and intimidation against Palestinians in order to expel them from their land. These attacks continue today. Yet Trump lifted Biden administration sanctions on the settlers involved.

In 2021, two former Israeli ambassadors to South Africa, Ilan Baruch and Alon Liel, co-authored an op-ed concluding that Israel had become an apartheid state. They cited the two-tiered legal system in the West Bank, illegal settlements, the demolition of homes, and the forcing of Palestinians to live on smaller and smaller tracts of land.

Let’s heed the words of Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Jerusalem resident Nathan Thrall:

“All the time we have these wars in Gaza and the world says, ‘Let’s restore calm.’... What is the calm that we’re asking to be restored? It’s a system in which Israel is the sole sovereign between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea with seven million Jews and seven million Palestinians, and the vast majority of those Palestinians do not have basic civil rights.”

The fundamental issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the lack of Palestinian human rights and the lack of legal equality between Palestinians and Israeli Jews. Without confronting this core injustice, there can be no lasting peace.

Terry Hansen is an opinion writer who has contributed multiple articles on Gaza, focusing on humanitarian issues, US policy, and Israel’s actions in the region.