What Gaza and Ukraine reveal about a new era of imposed peace

From Gaza to Ukraine, externally designed peace plans have replaced negotiation with compliance, reshaped sovereignty and sidelined the people most affected, writes Tatiana Svorou.

WITH near unanimous vote About the US President EmbersThe UN Security Council cemented a transition in the Gaza plan that was built over Palestinian objections and without their participation.

The framework increases external oversight, strengthens an international power, and deepens the legitimacy crisis before the new system begins by making Palestinian sovereignty conditional on compliance with external criteria.

of the UN Security Council approval Trump’s Gaza plan on November 17, 2025 marked the consolidation of a political process built almost entirely without Palestinian participation. The resolution was passed effortlessly, with 13 votes in favour, none against and two abstentions; no state was willing to challenge the decision by veto or protracted debate. The Peace Board, the centerpiece of the plan, will have wide-ranging executive authority over Gaza’s administration, reconstruction and security architecture.

Gaza-based Palestinian groups had no role in determining how the plan would work, and it was negotiated primarily between the United States, Israel and regional states. Palestinian Authority consultation was held only on the margins. However, the only place allocated to them (a technocratic committee) limits their participation to administrative tasks and excludes them from shaping key political decisions.

This dynamic is even more evident when considering that Hamas has rejected the planned call for a foreign stabilization force to operate in the Strip, insisting that such a deployment would undermine Palestinian rights and representation. Hamas stated that the UN’s approval of the introduction of an international force stripped it of its neutrality and made it a party to the conflict in favor of occupation, while the broader coalition of Gaza groups did. described as a form of offer “imposed tutelage” This prevents Palestinians from directing their own future.

However, their objections did not affect the final decision. International Stabilization ForceIt has the authority to control borders, disarm armed groups and implement internal security directives. deployed will rule without the democratic approval of the people.

At the same time, the structure of the plan does not just sideline Palestinians, as it reshapes basic legal principles. Conditioning Palestinian sovereignty and political recognition on a set of external criteria, institutional reforms, demilitarization and security alignment, resolution It reframes the right to self-determination as something Palestinians must earn, rather than a right guaranteed by international law.

Even Israel’s withdrawal is made contingent on Palestinian “performance”; The established legal reality that ending occupation is an obligation of the occupying power, not a privilege granted based on the behavior of the occupied, is reversed.

Yet this framework reflects a broader political doctrine that defines Trump’s approach to ending conflicts. Just like in Gaza offers Trump’s approach to Ukraine on November 19 presents a pre-written political plan to those experiencing the conflict and then seeks to secure acceptance of conditions shaped by actors with much greater power. The people most affected are faced not with negotiation but with a finished plan crafted around the interests of others.

And along these lines, what should have been a negotiation becomes a presentation, and what should have required consent is treated as something expected. The result is a familiar pattern in which those who will experience the consequences are talked to rather than spoken to, reduced to spectators rather than recognized as political actors with the right to shape their own futures.

Therefore, such a regulation will inevitably create a deep legitimacy gap. A governance model imposed from outside cannot expect trust from the people who are subjected to siege, bombardment and forced displacement. And here the effects extend far beyond Gaza. By endorsing a model in which sovereignty became conditional and external control normalized, the Security Council set a precedent for how powerful states might govern disputed or occupied territories in the future.

If Palestinian rights are treated as provisional, the principle of self-determination becomes negotiable everywhere. The decision thus undermines not only the rights of Palestinians, but also the integrity of the entire international legal order that is supposed to protect them.

At its core, the Gaza plan treats Palestinians as an administrative problem rather than a political people. Outsiders design the institutions, outsiders set the standards, outsiders decide when Palestinians will finally exercise the rights already recognized in international law. Therefore, such a regulation will inevitably create a deep legitimacy gap.

Under international law, particularly under the principles of self-determination, sovereign equality, and the prohibition of imposed structures of government, any model of government must derive its authority from the people it governs. Moreover, a system of governance designed from outside without the genuine participation or consent of a population subjected to siege, bombardment and forced displacement cannot meet the requirements of popular sovereignty contained in Article 1 of the Covenant. UN Charter (affirming the principle of self-determination) and Article 1 of the Convention International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights This reiterates that all peoples have the right to freely determine their political status.

As long as Palestinians are denied the right to shape their own future, any plan imposed from outside will repeat a pattern that Palestinians know all too well; Promises of stability will mask another layer of domination. If Palestinians are not recognized as political actors in their own right, what chance do any foreign-designed frameworks offer anything beyond another governed status quo?