Many leading anti-Israel, Western activists and organizations have rejected US President Donald Trump’s Monday peace plan, characterizing the 20-point proposal to end the Israel-Hamas War as an emblem of surrender, colonialism, and ethnic cleansing.
CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin said on Monday on X/Twitter that the plan was a “demand of surrender” to colonial and imperial powers.
Benjamin went on to say that a permanent occupation would be created by the initiative to establish an international committee headed by Trump and former UK prime minister Tony Blair to oversee a transitional Palestinian government.
“Trump and [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu call this a peace plan, but it’s nothing more than a blueprint for permanent occupation,” he said in a video.
Within Our Lifetime’s head, Nerdeen Kiswani, slammed the plan as well, calling it a “blueprint for surrender and foreign control,” which would have “Gaza run by outsiders.”
Further, Kiswani derided the international efforts to recognize a Palestinian state as legitimizing the Palestinian Authority, which could now enable it to be “imposed on Gaza as Israel’s subcontractor.”
“A complete political surrender of Palestinian resistance,” Kiswani wrote on X. “This is outsourcing Israel’s occupation, handing Gaza to a subcontractor while stripping Palestinians of any independent leadership or resistance.”
Global Sumud Flotilla steering committee member Yasemin Acar said on Instagram that the plan “offered terms of surrender, not terms of justice.”
Acar attacked the legitimacy of the US and Israel to propose peace, as they were “white supremacist” colonial powers. Trump was attempting to preserve an imperial system, the activist said aboard the Family vessel sailing to challenge Israel’s blockade of Gaza.
Peace could not be created with “justice,” said Acar, calling on pro-Palestinian activists to stand in solidarity with Gazans in their fight for liberation.
“Colonizers don’t get to define peace,” she said. “Justice comes before negotiation. This is a fight for liberation and for our shared humanity.”
5Pillars editor Roshan Muhammed Salih called on Palestinians to turn down the plan and for mass protests across the Muslim world to put pressure on the Arab leaders that he saw as engaging in betrayal. Salih said that the Muslim leaders were saving Israel from isolation while initiating a gradual eradication of Palestinians.
“The Palestinians must reject this surrender deal,” said Salih. “The choice before the Palestinians in Gaza is the same choice that they have faced for two years – surrender or genocide. And for two years, they have been willing to pay the price of dignity and honor. The same choice is before them today.”
The director of the online publication, the Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah, also said on social media that the “surrender” posing as peace would result in genocide.
“The notion that it is the victims of this evil genocidal entity who must be disarmed, and not the evil genocidal entity perpetrating a holocaust, shows how unserious and evil this ‘peace’ plan is,” Abunimah said.
US model Bella Hadid’s sister, Alana Hadid, also attacked the peace plan’s proposal to disarm Hamas in an Instagram video.
“This plan is not peace – demilitarization just means stripping Palestinians of any ability to resist occupation while Israel keeps its full military arsenal,” she said.
Palestinians should be deciding their fate, not the US and Israel, Hadid continued, and any end to the conflict had to involve justice – the ending of the blockade and “occupation.” She also asserted the plan as propaganda to reframe a “genocide” as legitimate warfare.
'Betrayal of the Palestinian people'
Americans for Justice in Palestine also demanded “justice” in a statement in which they slammed Trump as betraying the Palestinian people instead of holding Israel accountable for its alleged war crimes in Gaza.
“Peace cannot be a reward for criminality. It cannot be built atop Israel’s occupation of Palestine, its repeated assaults on Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon, and beyond,” the AJP said. “True peace demands justice – an end to occupation, aggression, and impunity.”
Journalist Mariam Barghouti said on X that the plan set the groundwork for annihilation.
Rutgers University professor and activist Noura Erakat deemed the peace plan a “threat of annihilation.” Because, she said, it does not provide Palestinians with self-determination, it allows continued Israeli control of the borders, and it evades any taking accountability for “the genocide.”
Palestinian Youth Movement DC, Maryland, Virginia chapter issued a video criticizing the peace plan as a scheme to “serve the ruling class,” and called for an arms embargo in its stead.
At a meeting to plan an October 4 protest, the People’s Forum told participants that the meeting between Trump and Netanyahu reinforced US complicity and legitimized Israel’s crimes.