Gaza Future Poetically Reframed under Threat of Hell

TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 6 Oct 2025

Anthony Judge | Laetus in Praesens - TRANSCEND Media Service

Memorable Visualization in 3D of Connectivity of a 20-Point Plan

Introduction

4 Oct 2025 – Framed as a long awaited breakthrough, President Donald Trump has presented — with the support of Benjamin Netanyahu — a 20-point plan to resolve the tragic conflictual situation in Gaza (Full text: Trump’s 20-point ‘comprehensive plan to end the Gaza conflict’, The Times of Israel, 29 September 2025; Here’s the full text of Trump’s 20-point plan to end Israel’s war on Gaza, Aljazeera, 29 September 2025). As expected, it has given rise to extensive commentary, and will continue to do so (How Arab nations, rest of the world reacted to Trump’s Gaza peace plan, Aljazeera, 29 September 2025; Jamal Kanj, Trump’s Plan: Instant Rewards for Israel, Vague Promises for Palestinians, CounterPunch, 2 October 2025; Binoy Kampmark, Palestinian Subordination: Trump’s Gaza Peace Plan, CounterPunch, 3 October 2025). The many countries indicating their carefully worded “support” for the Gaza Plan are noted in the relevant Wikipedia entry (Donald Trump’s September 2025 Gaza Strip proposal).

Only history will decide whether the Gaza Plan was merely an exercise in virtue signalling to the advantage of its proposers — notably in quest of the Nobel Peace Prize, as discussed separately (Blessed are the Piecemakers as Children of God? 2025). Is it designed to fail as a mean of justifying the further action — specifically articulated as a threat by Donald Trump with a deadline of 4th October 2025: If this LAST CHANCE agreement is not reached, all HELL, like no one has ever seen before, will break out against Hamas … THERE WILL BE PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST ONE WAY OR THE OTHER (Truth Social, 3 October 2025). As such it is framed as an offer one can’t refuse — a classic feature of organized crime.

More intriguing is the symbolism evoked for the religious by the sense in which Trump — acclaimed as leader of the free world — effectively frames himself as embodying an archetypal figure capable of unsealing the gate to Hell. No singular universal figure unseals Hell’s gates across all cultures, but figures like Christ, Hades (Greek mythology), or Yama (Hindu and Buddhist lore) have controlling authority over access to the underworld. In the Bible (Revelation 9:1–11), it is the fifth angel — Abaddon, also known as Apollyon — who is given the key to open the apocalyptic abyss. Such connotations may be readily confused with the Hellfire missile — the primary air-to-ground precision weapon for the armed forces of the United States. Curiously, as the hound of Hades, the mythological Cerberus also features as the US Cerberus air defense system, as does the Helhound grenade.

The significance of the religious connotations extends especially to the understanding of “evil”, upheld as epitomized by Hamas, and therefore justifying any response from those opposed to it — thereby framed as the “good” (‘Disturbing and disgusting’: Hamas labelled as ‘evil, grotesque monsters’, Sky News, 23 February 2025; Shaul Magid, Amalek, Hamas, and Kant: Thoughts on Evil in the Time of War, Contending Modernities, 26 March 2025; David Patterson, From Hitler to Hamas: A Genealogy of Evil, ISGAP Flashpoint, 17 October 2023). The tragedy is that such framings are reciprocated, most notably between the Abrahamic religions, each framing itself as the “good” and the other as “evil” — but calling for a degree of insight which theologians have been unable to articulate (Framing by others of claimants of evil as evil, 2016; Ensuring Dynamics of Sustainability by Appreciative Recognition of Evil, 2022).

Particular controversy has been evoked by the key role attributed to Tony Blair and his apparent involvement in the preparation of the Gaza Plan ( Dale Miller, Tony Blair: Plan for former prime minister to lead Gaza post-war transitional authority a ‘sick joke’, The Scotsman, 26 September 2025; Miranda Jeyaretnam, What to Know About Tony Blair’s Controversial Legacy in the Middle East Amid Planned Gaza Role World Israel-Hamas War, Time, 30 September 2025; Maziar Motamedi, Why is the divisive Tony Blair now touted for post-Gaza war interim role? Aljazeera, 28 September 2025; Anas Iqtait, Tony Blair supervising Palestinian ‘modern governance’ is satire, not diplomacy, The Sydney Morning Herald, 30 September 2025; Joe Macaron, From Arthur Balfour to Tony Blair, a cruel colonial joke in Gaza, The New Arab, 30 September, 2025; Nabil Al-Nasha, Proposal for Gaza’s future governance revealed in leaked draft plan, ABC News, 2 October 2025). The mythological connotations are also echoed through the soubriquet given to Blair’s primary collaborator, whether or not he is involved in future Gaza management (Peter Mandelson: How the Prince of Darkness became his excellency, BBC, 21 December 2024).

The Gaza Plan is presented as a 20-point checklist, seemingly not ordered in any way. As previously argued, such lists far exceed the widely cited capacity to comprehend the coherence of presentations of more than some seven points (George Miller, The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: some limits on our capacity for processing information, Psychological Review, 63, 1956, 2). The focus in what follows is therefore on how a 20-point plan might be presented otherwise in order to enable its comprehension and the effective communication of the variety of issues it evokes — especially their impact on each other. This follows from recent consideration of 20-point mappings onto an icosahedron and the possibility of its visualization in 3D (Quest for coherent sustainability through the icosahedron? 2025).

Rather than focus on its highly problematic and questionable characteristics, as a response to a tragic global crisis of impotence, it is appropriate to ask: Why 20 points? If such an array of points is understood to be a credible framing of an appropriate response, how can such a framing be explored as a source of new insight into future proposals which might indeed be “fit for purpose”?

It is extremely curious, given the extensive use of destructive technology in the case of Gaza, that so little reference is made to the discipline of mathematics which enables it. An early concern focused on tiling patterns, for example (And When the Bombing Stops? Territorial conflict as a challenge to mathematicians, 2000). More generally this neglect relates to any “two-state” reconciliation (Reframing “Two-state” Possibilities, 2024). In the form of geometry, mathematics could inform the dynamics of the complex situation otherwise (Middle East Peace Potential through Dynamics in Spherical Geometry, 2012). Given the use of simulation by the military, it is curious that other uses are not made of that technology (Simulating the Israel-Palestine Conflict as a Strategy Game, 2023). Curiously with respect to the navigation of a conflict with “global” implications, little reference is made to the techniques of triangulation so fundamental to territorial navigation (Triangulation of Incommensurable Concepts for Global Configuration, 2011). Triangulation is a fundamental feature of the icosahedral mappings considered in what follows.

Given the limitations of conventional text presentation — potentially inadequate for the multi-dimensionality of the challenge — consideration is also given to the possibility of “poetic” stanzas, given their mnemonic value in reframing the appreciation, coherence and memorability of the points in the Gaza Plan to the wider world. Of particular interest are the connotations in languages of immediate relevance to the region, namely Arabic and Hebrew. The credibility of such an approach has been argued separately (Beyond Rhyme and Reason in the Face of Polycrisis, 2025). Given the global implications of opening any gate to Hell, with Yama as a responsible Eastern deity, it is appropriate to include a Chinese perspective.

One approach to such poetic reframing, with potential strategic implications in terms of appreciation and uptake, is the reinterpretation of the points of the Plan as individual haiku, as separately justified (Ensuring Strategic Resilience through Haiku Patterns, 2006). That argument considered the possibility of reframing the scope of the “martial arts” in response to strategic threats. It is perhaps appropriate to recall that haiku were the distinctive modality favoured by Dag Hammarskjöld as the first Secretary-General of the United Nations. The first President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, was known as “Haiku Herman” for similar reasons.

There is a case for recognizing the extent to which there is a disconnect between the conventional articulation of strategic options as “points” and the manner in which they are appreciated integratively — as a whole — whether aesthetically or in the light of their connotations in belief systems and traditional cultures. The disconnect is evident in other domains, notably climate change and environmental degradation, for which the articulations of science have relatively little effective traction. The appreciation of the tragedy of the bombing of Guernica through the painting of that name by Pablo Picasso (Guernica, 1937) frames one neglected dimension of the challenge of the bombing of Gaza (Reimagining Guernica to Engage the Antitheses of a Cancel Culture, 2022).

In what follows, questions have been variously addressed to AIs to clarify the immediate possibilities of comprehending the Gaza Plan “otherwise” — benefitting from the aesthetic connectivity offered by poetry (and the possibilities of poesis), and to envisage new possibilities for configuring complex negotiations in the light of that challenge. The argument addresses the tensions between a set of 20 points when coherently configured. It highlights the manner in which various patterns of negotiating “tables” might be recognized to address such intractable tensions, as previously envisaged (Configuring Multiple Disparate Sets of Strategic Principles, 2025; Using Disagreements for Superordinate Frame Configuration, 1992). The argument is developed with AI input, notably ….

Given the different cultures to which the elements of the Plan have been intended to appeal, the succinct renderings of it in Arabic, Hebrew and Chinese styles of poetry (and script) have also been generated experimentally with the aid of AI. These have been tentatively mapped onto separate icosahedra as being suggestive of other forms of aesthetic coherence.

In contrast with previous experimental use of AI, rather than pose the same questions to each AI in order to compare responses, in this case a distinctive pattern of questions has been used with each of the AIs (Perplexity, ChatGPT-5, DeepSeek, Claude-4). Clearly all the responses could be edited or combined to avoid duplication, and the whole set could also be reduced in length. The pressure to do so is reduced by the technique of hiding the responses — as “working notes” — unless specifically requested.

Although this experimental exploration has been variously enabled by AI, many of the responses of AI have been framed as grayed areas in the text. Given the length of the document to which the exchanges gave rise, the form of presentation has itself been treated as an experiment — in anticipation of the future implication of AI into research documents. Many responses may be irrelevant to the outcome (rather than of interest to the process), and can therefore be readily ignored. Only the “questions” to AI are rendered immediately visible — with the response by AI hidden unless specifically requested by the reader (a facility not operational in PDF variants of the page, in contrast with the original). The responses included many references to sources; many have been deleted for reasons of space, especially since they can be elicited by the curious by repeating the question. Reservations and commentary on the process of interaction with AIs to that end have been discussed separately (Methodological comment on experimental use of AI, 2024). Readers are of course free to amend the questions asked, or to frame other related questions — whether with the same AI, with others, or with those that become available in the future. In endeavouring to elicit insight from the world’s resources via AI, the process calls for critical comment in contrast with more traditional methods for doing so.

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