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Source: https://www.jns.org/opinion/eyal-dror/a-gaza-stabilization-force-could-end-up-stabilizing-hamas
A Gaza Stabilization Force Could End Up Stabilizing Hamas
(JNS) Lt.-Col. (res.) Eyal Dror - The International Stabilization Force for Gaza is supposed to support demilitarization, assist vetted Palestinian police, secure humanitarian aid, and eventually help enable further Israeli withdrawals based on verified progress. Yet the central question remains unanswered: Who will compel Hamas to disarm, and what will happen when it refuses? Hamas has controlled Gaza since 2007. For nearly two decades, it has prevented meaningful political alternatives from developing and crushed potential challengers. There is no reason to assume that, after retaining its coercive power through a devastating war, it will voluntarily allow a technocratic committee or a new police force to take away its real authority. Hamas will seek to retain what truly determines who rules: weapons, tunnels, operatives, intelligence networks, intimidation and the ability to veto decisions by force. Transferring civilian responsibility is not necessarily a transfer of power. It may simply improve the Hamas model as it continues to rule from behind the scenes. After the 2014 Gaza war, Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the UN established the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism to facilitate rebuilding while tracking construction materials and preventing dual-use supplies from reaching Hamas. As head of the Operations Branch of COGAT (Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories) at the time, I dealt with this mechanism daily. I saw how Hamas learned to exploit it. Needs were inflated during data entry and approval, allowing quantities greater than those actually required to be authorized. High-quality materials entering from Israel were diverted to the black market and terrorist infrastructure. International organizations produced databases, tables and monitoring procedures. Hamas produced a different reality. The mechanism functioned administratively but failed to achieve its security purpose. The experience of UNIFIL in Southern Lebanon provides an additional warning. On paper, the UN force was supposed to help create an area free of weapons and armed forces other than those of the Lebanese state. In practice, Hizbullah spent years building military infrastructure within UNIFIL's area of operations and, in some cases, close to its positions. Will contributing countries risk their soldiers to dismantle Hamas's military power? Or will they report a "temporary difficulty" and refer the matter to a coordination mechanism? If so, this will not be a demilitarization force. It will become a Hamas-preservation force. A stabilization force can be useful only if it enters Gaza to dismantle Hamas's military power, not to learn how to live alongside it. The writer, founder and commander of "Operation Good Neighbor" on the Syrian border, has served in the Israel Defense Forces for more than 30 years.