No Landmark Egypt Meet For Pmx After Missing The Point With His Conditional Support For Gaza Peace Plan

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WHEN world leaders gathered in Egypt recently to witness the signing of the ceasefire deal to end the Gaza war, one prominent leader was conspicuously absent – the outspoken Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

Anwar has always been a fiercely vocal supporter of the Palestinian cause, hence he should surely be invited to this ceremony in recognition of his unflagging support for a Palestinian state.
But unfortunately, he was not invited because he only gave “conditional support” to US President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan which effectively ended the devastating two-year war in the Gaza Strip.



















What were his conditions? He told the Dewan Rakyat that one of them was to allow Palestinians who have been expelled to return to their country.
The other conditions pertain to Palestine’s right to exist as a country besides tackling the issues of Israelis’ atrocities and their occupation of the West Bank.
These conditions are commendable but unfortunately, they are not what Trump peace plan is all about. And they came at an inopportune time.

What is supremely important at this juncture is to stop the Gaza war which had taken a terrible toll on the Palestinian population.
Only the US has the clout to push for the peace deal which means all other matters must wait for settlement at a future date.
Why conditional support??
The whole world knows that Palestinians have been fighting to establish their own state with many member states of the United Nations (UN) having lately recognised Palestine as a sovereign state.
No matter how much Israel is opposed to the creation of a Palestine state, there will come a time when it must eventually bow down to the wishes of the international community and accept their arch-foes as their permanent neighbour.
But that eventual tryst with destiny has not yet arrived and Anwar’s own terms for peace must be placed in cold storage.
Trump and the leaders of Qatar (Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani), Egypt (President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi) and Turkiye (President Recep Tayyip Erdogan) inked the deal in Sharm el-Sheikh which is seen as “opening a new chapter for the region defined by hope, security and a shared vision for peace and prosperity”.
The two heavy weights in the Middle East – Egypt and Turkiye – have endorsed the Trump peace plan without setting out any conditions and that matters most because any peace deal in this regional hotspot will fall apart if Egypt and Turkiye are not partners for peace.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (left) and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Image credit: AFP-Getty Images via NBC News)If Egypt and Turkiye were to join Anwar by only giving conditional support to the Gaza ceasefire deal, the war in that strip of land will continue with more unimaginable suffering and hardship piled on the civilian population.
Politics in the Middle East is very complicated and no one country whether Western or Asian can come up with an endurable masterplan to untangle all the complexities and intricacies of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Take, for example, Anwar’s call to let expelled Palestinians return home. He’s probably referring to all the descendants of the 700,000 Palestinian Arabs who were expelled or fled from their homes during the 1948 Israeli-Arab war which led to the creation of the state of Israel.
PMX misses the boat
In subsequent years, Israel fought at least six more wars with several Arab forces and many more thousands of Palestinians were rooted out of their homes.
Now, if all the Palestinians are allowed to return home, it would mean that the state of Israel would have to be dismantled because the land the Palestinians once owned is the land now called Israel.
Hence, Trump’s peace plan will have no chance of success if the president has to take into account the problem of the expelled Palestinians because this issue would take years to settle.
If there is one leader who must figure prominently in any permanent peace plan, it must surely be Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.
Palestinian president Mahmud AbbasBut Abbas who was present at the ceasefire signing ceremony did not set terms for the ending of the Gaza conflict.
The top priority for him is to see that the bloodshed ends on the Gaza battlefield. And Trump saw to it that the guns go silent.
Anwar has missed the chance to be one of the witnesses of the peace plan but he will have his say when the state of Palestine is eventually established.
For now, Trump is the man of the hour and soon he will be in Kuala Lumpur for the 47th ASEAN summit on Oct 26-28 to witness yet another ceremonial signing of a peace agreement between Thailand and Cambodia to end their border war.
US president Donald Trump will be in Kuala Lumpur to attend the 47th ASEAN summit on Oct 26-28 (Image credit: AFP)At least, Anwar as the 2025 ASEAN chair can share the same stage with Trump because he played a major role in getting the warring foes to the negotiating table.
Perhaps, PMX can raise again with Trump all the pertinent points about Palestine and get a satisfactory response from the American leader whom the world hate to love and love to hate. 
Phlip Rodrigues is a retired journalist.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of  MMKtT.
- Focus Malaysia

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