After Israel’s war: US urges plan for governing Gaza Strip after Hamas is eliminated
WASHINGTON – With Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza well underway, US officials and veteran Middle East watchers are scrambling to figure out what will — or should — happen if the Israel Defense Forces succeed in removing the Hamas terror group from power.
With American prestige yet to recover from the disastrous US withdrawal from Afghanistan — which saw the Taliban come back to power 20 years after their overthrow by NATO forces following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the Senate Appropriations Committee Tuesday that “we are very much grappling” with the next phase of the seemingly perpetual regional conflict.
“This is a very active, ongoing deliberation, both within the government as well as with allies and partners, including in the region,” America’s top diplomat said.
So far, the only thing everyone seems to agree on is that neither Hamas nor Israel will be in charge once the shooting stops.
“We can’t have a reversion to the status quo, with Hamas running Gaza,” Blinken said this week. “We also can’t have … Israel running or controlling Gaza. That’s not their intent, it’s not what they want to do and it’s not something that would be supported.”
“In between those … are a variety of possible permutations that we’re looking at very closely now.”
Those permutations include allowing the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank, to govern Gaza as it did for 12 years prior to Hamas’ ascendance; inviting Arab nations with ties to Israel to oversee the territory; or enlisting international agencies such as the United Nations to “help provide for both security and governance.”
“Ultimately, though, beyond that is what we come back to – what this administration believes – which is the imperative of getting to two states for two peoples,” Blinken said. “That’s where you finally get the kind of sustained security that a Jewish and democratic state of Israel needs and must have, and you also get the state that the Palestinians are entitled to.”
Option No. 1 – Palestinian Authority
Of the three options, according to the secretary of state, convincing a revamped Palestinian Authority to retake control of Gaza is the most natural choice. The PA exercised limited self-government in the Strip following the signing of the first Oslo Accord in 1993 and held power until 2006, when it lost legislative elections to Hamas after years of internal political wrangling.
“At some point, what would make the most sense would be for an effective and revitalized Palestinian Authority to have governance and ultimately security responsibility for Gaza,” Blinken told the committee. “Whether you can get there in one step is a big question that we have to look at.”
However, it is unclear whether the PA would either want or have the capacity to take on such a mission – at least in the near term, according to an Oct. 17 report by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a pro-Israel think tank.
“The ultimate goal should be for the Palestinian Authority to return as Gaza’s legitimate government,” the Washington, DC-based institute wrote, agreeing with Blinken. “Yet the PA lacks the will and ability to do that job in the foreseeable future.”
The WINEP explained that the PA “does not want to be seen as reentering the Strip on the backs of Israeli tanks,” in part because it would undermine whatever remaining legitimacy the group has as a resistance organization.
Additionally, the institute said the PA “is not in any shape to take on additional governmental responsibilities in Gaza given its failings in the West Bank,” which has been run by Mahmoud Abbas for nearly two decades following the death of Yasser Arafat in 2004
Option No. 2 – Pan-Arab approach
Some experts have suggested enlisting other nations in the region to govern Gaza until the remaining residents can rebuild and establish a new government of their own.
The temporary arrangement would have to be with a country or countries in the Middle East that are not hostile to Israel.
While that sounds like a near-impossible task, there are a handful of nations that fit the bill thanks in party to the Trump-era Abraham Accords.
“Public safety and law enforcement could be directed by a consortium of the five Arab states who have reached peace agreements with Israel – Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco,” according to WINEP. “Only those Arab states would have Israel’s confidence, which is essential for this effort to succeed.”
Option No. 3 – International agencies
There are a number of global governance organizations that may be able to play a role in securing Gaza’s future, at least for a time.
The UN, for example, has an established peacekeeping program, which may require American diplomatic, humanitarian or military personnel.
It’s unclear how long such an operation in Gaza would last, but most peacekeeping missions take years, if not decades.
The UN currently has 12 active peacekeeping operations – including one in the West Bank, with a force of 380 personnel “monitoring ceasefires, supervise armistice agreements, prevent isolated incidents from escalating” in the Middle East, according to its website.
As of February, there were no Americans staffing the West Bank operation. Rather, a coalition of civilians and mission experts from nine European nations and China are assigned to the initiative.
Feasible goals
Though US officials are urging Israeli help to determine the future of Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far said his country is focused on crushing Hamas before discussing what the endgame will be.
However, lawmakers are worried the Jewish state’s one-step-at-a-time approach will further destabilize an unstable situation.
“The worry that I have – and I’ve heard it around bouncing around the halls of the Capitol – is that when we ask about what the end state is, what I’ve heard is, ‘Well, we didn’t ask what the end state was in World War II, we just went ahead and fought the bad guys and let us sort it out later,'” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) told Blinken Tuesday. “I’m not sure that’s satisfactory in this instance.”
“I think the question of what the end state is ought to be wrestled with at least simultaneously and, in an ideal situation, precede the military strategy,” he added, “because what are we even fighting towards if we don’t know what the what the political objective is?”
Schatz also warned about the prospect of America getting sucked into yet another decades-long foreign conflict based on Netanyahu’s choice of words.
“I think ‘eliminating’ is a rhetorical flourish that puts us in a position where we will never stop fighting against some offshoots – some first cousin of Hamas – some place on the planet,” he said, adding that the objective should be “to disable them to the point where they cannot pose a threat.”
