The Media Line: Deputy FM Sharren Haskel: ‘This Resolution Takes Power Away From the UN and Gives It to Trump’ 

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Deputy FM Sharren Haskel: ‘This Resolution Takes Power Away From the UN and Gives It to Trump’ 

As Israel reassesses the UN-backed plan, expert Eytan Gilboa highlights President Donald Trump’s strategic reversal, while Tzvi Sukkot warns the window to dismantle Hamas is narrowing 

By Gabriel Colodro/The Media Line 

The United Nations Security Council’s approval of President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza has thrust Israel into a new diplomatic and strategic landscape, one shaped not by traditional multilateralism, but by the American president’s direct imprint on the region’s future. 

For years, Trump dismissed the UN as ineffective or openly biased. Now, Jerusalem is absorbing the consequences of a resolution that embeds his Gaza architecture into international law and authorizes a multinational force to stabilize the Strip, oversee demilitarization, and support a technocratic Palestinian committee. 

“No one expected Trump to bring his plan through the UN,” said Professor Eytan Gilboa, one of Israel’s leading experts on US-Israel relations at Bar-Ilan University and Reichman University. He called the vote “the first time a Trump peace initiative is being adopted by the Security Council,” noting that until recently, Trump “didn’t want to hear about the UN, didn’t trust the UN and didn’t work with the UN.” For Gilboa, the shift reflects a strategic calculation, not a philosophical change. “If the UN supports Trump,” he said, “maybe there is an opportunity to improve its reputation.” 

If Gilboa provides the historical lens, Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel delivers the political core. Her assessment cuts directly against the perception that the Security Council has empowered the UN system. Instead, she argued, the opposite has occurred. 

“This is the United Nations Security Council taking responsibility out of the hands of the UN and handing it to Donald Trump,” she told The Media Line. 

Haskel insisted that the plan’s real authority lies not in New York but in the Peace Council chaired by Trump, which the resolution establishes as the body overseeing Gaza’s transition and vetting its governance structures. 

Her critique of the UN is blunt and reflects years of Israeli frustration. 

“The UN has not been honest and not been neutral,” she said. “It amplified Hamas propaganda and blood libels.” For Haskel, the vote is not a moment of newfound multilateral goodwill; it is the UN acknowledging its own failure and “putting Trump in the driver’s seat” because no other actor can enforce the plan. 

Haskel warned that the diplomatic phase opened by the resolution is fleeting. If the international community fails to apply sustained pressure, she said, Israel will face an unavoidable alternative. 

“If the world does not apply massive pressure now, the diplomatic path will disappear and only the military option will remain.” 

Her concern is rooted in observation rather than theory. 

“Every place the IDF left,” she said, “Hamas returned.” She stressed that the organization has already begun testing the ceasefire’s boundaries, and that any weakness in implementing the plan risks recreating the conditions that led to the war. 

Gilboa added that securing the resolution required intense American diplomacy. The administration was “very worried that Russia or China will veto,” he said, and invested heavily in persuading both to abstain. 

“The Europeans are on board,” he noted, describing the vote—13 in favor, two abstentions—as a “geopolitical shift” in which Arab states and Western powers aligned behind Trump’s framework. But he warned that agreements enshrined in UN language do not necessarily translate to action. Multinational forces, he said, often become “ineffective and symbolic” unless given a mandate with real enforcement power. 

Inside Israel, the plan’s operational dimension remains a central concern. Former Deputy Director of the Mossad and current opposition lawmaker Ram Ben-Barak told The Media Line that the core question is who will physically ensure Hamas’s disarmament. 

“We need to understand what this force is,” he said. “Who will be the commander, how many soldiers, what soldiers, from where—they have to be able to fight. You cannot bring soldiers who are not real fighters.” 

He argued that Hamas will not voluntarily relinquish its weapons. 

“If you want to demilitarize Gaza, you need someone who is ready to fight,” he said. “Otherwise, Hamas will not give up their weapons.” 

Haskel shares that view but approaches it through the broader political context. She described Gaza as “the experiment of the two-state solution,” arguing that it resulted not in stability but in a “terrorist state.” 

The reference point shapes her skepticism about the plan’s mention of a “credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination.” Even as the resolution acknowledges Palestinian aspirations, she insisted that no such path exists under the current ideological and institutional conditions. Any future Palestinian entity, she argued, must be rooted in profound cultural reform rather than diplomatic formulas. 

Meanwhile, coalition voices are focused on the plan’s tactical consequences. Zvi Sukkot, a member of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, noted that the initial days after the vote passed without rocket fire. 

“We didn’t see any rockets,” he said. “We expected something. But it didn’t happen.” 

Sukkot said this quiet may reflect the extent of Hamas’s damage. 

“People say Hamas has tens of thousands of missiles,” he said. “But they need infrastructure. They need launchers. And after everything that happened, they don’t have it.” 

Yet he cautioned that Hamas’ resilience should not be underestimated. 

“There is a window,” he said. “We have to make sure Hamas does not have the ability to rebuild.” He warned that if the stabilization force lacks determination, “we will be dealing with the same problem again.” 

His concern mirrors Haskel’s: The plan grants a narrow opening, but it could close quickly if regional actors hesitate. 

For Haskel, past failures provide a clear warning. She pointed to Lebanon as the cautionary tale. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, she said, “failed to prevent Hezbollah from building one of the biggest terrorist armies inside Lebanon.” 

The implication is unmistakable: If the international force in Gaza follows a similar pattern, it will merely “observe terrorism, not stop it.” That experience shapes her view of Hamas’s likely strategy. 

“Every time we withdrew, they came back stronger,” she said. 

She believes Hamas is already looking for ways to pivot, as Hezbollah has done, by morphing into a hybrid political-military actor. 

What emerges from the interviews is a portrait of a country confronting a diplomatic structure unlike any it has known. The UN has endorsed a plan it will not run, a multinational force it will not command, and a political vision chaired by the same American president who once dismissed it. 

Gilboa sees opportunity and risk in this transformation. Haskel sees a last chance to prevent Hamas’s resurgence. Sukkot sees a narrowing timeline. Ben-Barak sees a dangerous gap between expectations and capabilities. 

The Security Council’s vote may ultimately be remembered not for its text, but for what it represents: a moment in which President Trump used the UN to legitimize a plan that removes authority from the UN itself. 

Whether this formula stabilizes Gaza or sets the stage for the next confrontation will depend less on the resolution and more on the months ahead when diplomacy, pressure, and force will determine whether the plan succeeds or unravels.