Here we go again. The "international community," led by Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff of the Trump administration alongside the EU and a panoply of questionable Arab "allies," is rushing in to stabilize the Middle East. A convoluted and fantastical array of "technical" and "security" structures is supposedly going to bring good governance, deradicalization, and demilitarization to Gaza.
Poppycock. Especially the part about disarming Hamas. Nobody but the Israeli army is truly going to clear the Gaza Strip of weapons aimed at Israel, from guns to rockets to terror attack tunnels. Nobody but the IDF is going to confront and crush Hamas's remaining 30,000 or so troops.
Nobody but the Israeli military can prevent Hamas from rearming or reimposing its reign of terror on Palestinians in Gaza. And nobody but Israel can thwart the flow of money to Hamas, whether from Turkey, Qatar, or Iran.
In fact, the fanciful Kushner concept of a "Riveria" in Gaza, an Eden-like oasis of high-tech progress and high-end living, may already be serving as conduit for a surge of cash to the same corrupt and venal Palestinians who have occupied and destroyed Gaza over the past generation.
THROUGH US President Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza, Israel has been presented with gobbledygook – a dazzling and dizzying assortment of new/old guarantors of stability with serious-sounding acronyms: EUBAM, GAC, NCAG, ISF, PSF, CMCC, DDDR, and more.
The European Border Assistance Mission (EUBAM), and its counterpart EU Mission for the Support of Palestinian Police and Rule of Law (EUPOL COPPS), is meant to guard the Rafah crossing from Egypt into Gaza and prevent bad guys and bad goods from entering.
It is convenient but reckless to forget that EUBAM officers (along with Palestinian Authority policemen) hastily fled Rafah with their pants around their ankles – when Hamas violently grabbed Gaza in 2007.
There is no reason to believe that these European cops will today show any more spine in the face of Hamas threats than they have in past.
The Gaza Administrative Committee (GAC), also known as the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), is theorized as a "non-partisan, technocratic body to manage civilian affairs" in Gaza, made up of "non-affiliated" Palestinian bureaucrats, i.e., people who don't owe their lives and livelihoods to Hamas, even though these will be the same Palestinians who worked in the Hamas-ruled administration before October 7.
There is no reason to believe that such "non-affiliated," fearless Palestinians exist in Gaza.
The International Stabilization Force (ISF) is posited on troops from countries around the world (there are currently no serious volunteers for this other than the evil Turks) who are to train and oversee the Palestinian Security Force (PSF) drawn from Mahmoud Abbas' various armies and militias in the West Bank as well as decommissioned and deradicalized Gazan fighters.
There is no reason to believe that such an international force (if it ever materializes) or such Palestinian forces will act to strip Hamas fighters of their weapons or oust Hamas leaders from their de facto nodes of control (even if behind the scenes) of Gaza.
No officer in such forces will dare intercept aid and money streams to Hamas or expose a new Hamas terror attack tunnel being dug under Shifa Hospital or the Philadelphi Corridor.
The Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC), already operating in Kiryat Gat with hundreds of US army officers and representatives from other countries too, is expected to oversee all the above plus the provision of humanitarian aid to Gaza, the planning of Gaza reconstruction, and the implementation of Disarmament, Demobilization, Deradicalization, and Reintegration (DDDR) in Gaza.
This all sounds nice. It amounts to imagined paradise. But it is claptrap.
It is ridiculous to expect that Hamas will melt away in the face of this alphabet soup of international do-gooders. Rather, Hamas will bamboozle, threaten, buy-off, or bump-off any EU cop, American monitor, or Egyptian overlord that stands in its way.
And Hamas will have Qatari and Turkish officials – its increasingly assertive Moslem Brotherhood backers – embedded in Trump's grand "Board of Peace" (BoP) and its Gaza Executive Board (GEB) to run cover for Hamas when needed and to fill-out Hamas coffers as needed.
EGYPT STANDS as a good example of double-dealing which explains why Israel must never rely on Arab actors or the international community for its core security.
Egypt has a peace treaty with Israel and claims to be a Western partner in stabilizing Gaza. But Egypt is one of the fiercest purveyors of anti-Israel and utterly antisemitic messaging in the Arab world, and Cairo is a great enemy of the Palestinians too.
Egypt did nothing to stop Hamas from staging a coup against the Palestinian Authority and seizing control of the Gaza Strip. Egypt has allowed the Sinai Desert under its control, which adjoins Gaza, to become the Middle East mecca for local and international terrorist group operations, and for weapons and drug smuggling into Gaza and Israel.
By turning a blind eye to, nay benefitting from, the massive smuggling industry, Egypt significantly contributed to transforming the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip into a major base for Islamist terrorism, paving the way for the October 7 attack on Israel.
Over the past two years, the IDF has discovered more than 100 smuggling tunnels under the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. There is no way in the world that Egyptian police, army, and political officials did not know and approve of this.
It is important to remember this too: Egypt cares about Palestinians even less than it cares for Israel. It has kept Palestinians locked-into Gaza for decades, even refusing medical treatment in Egypt for wounded Palestinians over the past two years of warfare, not to mention any refuge in Sinai for Palestinians seeking to flee the fighting.
So, the idea of once again placing the Gaza border (specifically the Rafah Crossing and the Philadelphi Corridor) under Egyptian supervision, alongside some flimsy-flabby EUBAM monitors with only a token Israeli presence, is both preposterous and dangerous.
Only full-scale and permanent IDF control of this border area will guarantee Israeli security.
Overall, only the obliteration of the Hamas military as well as its governing mechanisms might bring some respite to Gaza and long-term security to Israel. And only the IDF can accomplish this. All the fancy-shmancy mechanisms now being introduced will only get in the way, or yet worse – will further fortify Hamas.
David M. Weinberg is a senior fellow at the Jerusalem-based Misgav Institute for National Security & Zionist Strategy and the David Institute for Security Policy. The views expressed here are his own. His diplomatic, defense, political, and Jewish world columns over the past 30 years are at davidmweinberg.com.
