By Henry Srebrnik, Fredericton Daily Gleaner
As negotiations continue among the United States, Arab states, Israel, and the UN about the fate of Gaza, much of the focus has been on establishing an international security force, reconstruction, and the disarmament of Hamas.
At the same time, Egypt is trying to negotiate a deal between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas that would pave the way for the setting up the “technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee” that, according to U.S. President Donald Trump’s twenty-point plan, would be responsible for the “temporary transitional governance” of Gaza. The committee itself would be under the supervision of the Board of Peace, an international body whose members would include Donald Trump and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The second phase of the agreement will be far more difficult to implement. It envisages an international stabilization force for Gaza, a further pullback of Israeli forces and the demobilization and reintegration of Hamas and other militant groups such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
The idea that Hamas will voluntarily disarm, that international forces will deploy in the Gaza Strip, and that the process of building a Palestinian government by people like Tony Blair, in which a disarmed Hamas does not participate, are false hopes, if not fantasies. But does this mean Trump’s peace plan was useless? Of course not.
Hamas is participating in the Egyptian-led process because it sees it to legitimize its role in the future of Gaza and Palestinian politics generally. Even if the group does not directly participate in Gaza’s governance, its formal participation in creating and authorizing the committee is itself a political achievement, casting the terrorist organization as a legitimate actor in postwar Gaza and Palestinian politics. The PA, for its part, is wary of Hamas participation but is not in a strong enough position to prevent it.
Trump understood the necessity of bringing the war to an end. But he also believed that endless debate among experts or, worse, historian and lawyers, would never produce an agreement. He presented an offer – actually, an ultimatum – to Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas that neither could refuse: immediate, unconditional and complete release of all hostages and missing persons, something the Israeli public longed for, in exchange for a final end to the war, which a humbled Hamas needed.
Two years of war has left Hamas weaker than it had been in decades. Israeli bombardments had shattered the group’s military capabilities and depleted its arsenals. In many neighborhoods, control had drifted to local clan networks and tribal councils. To prevent this, Hamas has been ruthlessly murdering all potential rivals in the areas of Gaza it still controls. They have publicized photographs and videos of their forces murdering the victims.
Hamas still has more soldiers and weapons than all its rival factions in Gaza combined. It has managed to redeploy approximately 7,000 militants to reassert control over the territory.
The ceasefire is a temporary reprieve for Hamas: a chance to regroup, rearm, and prepare for the next round of fighting. In Islamist political thought there’s a word for it, hudna -- a temporary truce with non-Muslim adversaries that can be discarded as soon as the balance of power shifts. Then the time for jihad will arrive again. Hamas was established in 1987 and isn’t going to disappear.
In fact, Hamas also wants an interim authority to hire 40,000 Hamas employees, and Hamas spokesman Basem Naim said he expects its fighters to be integrated into a post-transition Palestinian state.
Still, Trump has succeeded in ending the current war in Gaza, where Joe Biden failed. Instead of sitting Israelis and Arabs in a room and expecting them to negotiate an outcome, Trump’s approach has been to exert leverage through other players in the region, especially, Egypt, Turkey, and – most importantly – Qatar.
In Jerusalem, they call Qatar “the spoiler state.” Israelis describe the emirate as two trains running behind the same engine. One, led by the Qatari ruler’s mother and brother, supports the Muslim Brotherhood and is an unmistakable hater of Israel. The other, led by the prime minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, and other notable figures, seeks rapprochement with the West.
The Qataris were shocked when Israeli jets on Sept. 9 conducted an airstrike in Doha targeting the leadership of Hamas. They then signed onto Trump’s peace plan at a meeting in New York Sept. 23, hosted by Trump and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim Ibn Hamad Al Thani, and attended by the leaders of eight Arab states, along with members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
Netanyahu was then browbeaten into accepting the plan and also forced to apologize to the Emir for the airstrike. It was somewhat ironic that the airstrike made the peace plan possible. As well, Trump’s attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in June gave this negotiation some very sharp teeth.
In a sense, both Israel and Hamas had accomplished their goals. Israel had broken the Iranian axis of terror by eliminating Hezbollah and Hamas as a fighting force, along with the Iranian nuclear threat. Hamas had succeeded in luring Israel into a trap that led it to become hated and isolated around the world. This included the labelling of Israel as genocidal and the global call for a Palestinian state.
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