MATE: U.S. Rewards Al-Qaeda, Punishes Palestinians

Aaron Maté calls the Trump–Netanyahu Gaza “peace plan” a farce, saying Netanyahu confirmed as much by telling an Israeli audience—right after praising the deal in Washington—that Israel would not withdraw from Gaza (02:49, 02:57). Maté adds that a last-minute meeting among Ron Dermer, Jared Kushner, and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East peace envoy—inserted new conditions ensuring continued Israeli military control. Maté notes that Kushner’s own stated “vision” treats Gaza as a real estate project for profit (03:04, 03:21). In Maté’s words, this isn’t peace; it’s surrender terms imposed on Palestinians (03:43).

Maté argues the pattern is familiar: public nods to Palestinian “self-determination” with no concrete steps, while everything is framed around Israel’s security, not the safety of the occupied population (08:27, 09:22). As precedent, Maté points to the Oslo years, which he says offered a mirage of statehood while settlements expanded in the West Bank (10:32). The net effect, Maté says, is impunity: policy and process that reward facts on the ground.

Maté also flags the plan’s personnel and language. He calls Tony Blair’s proposed role an insult given Blair’s record in the Iraq war, noting that Trump once campaigned against those same neocon architects (10:52, 11:01). Maté notices phrasing about the “people of Gaza” rather than “Palestinians of Gaza,” which he reads as preserving room for expulsions and importing low-wage workers to build resorts—policy designed to crush Palestinian self-rule, not enable it (11:18, 11:30). And the United States, Maté argues, keeps writing the script—at home and abroad.