For the past eighteen years, the U.S. security coordinator (USSC) has played an important role in mediating between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, making possible the cooperation that has allowed the IDF to stymie terrorism in the West Bank and prevent the Palestinian Authority (PA) from being toppled by Hamas or other groups. But because of 2017 legislation requiring the Pentagon to reduce its overall number of generals, the U.S. plans to replace the three-star general currently in the position with a colonel. Shira Efron and Ghaith al-Omari caution against such a move:

Since its establishment in 2005, the USSC has been one of the rare successes of U.S. Israeli-Palestinian policy. It helped rebuild the Palestinian security sector after the second intifada, elevated Israeli-Palestinian security coordination to unprecedented levels, and has advised the PA on security-sector reform. Part of this success can be directly attributed to the fact that the mission has been led by a succession of three-star U.S. generals, whose seniority allowed them access to civilian and military officials in Washington, Jerusalem, and Ramallah.

In a region where symbolism is highly important, where U.S. partners are anxious about being left behind, [it] should not be underestimated—nor should the negative symbolism of downgrading the mission. Beyond symbolism, the core aspects of the USSC’s mandate require engagement by a high-level officer.

In addition to mediation, the USSC needs to be of sufficient seniority to be able to engage on a peer-to-peer level with Palestinian and Israeli security and military leaders and their civilian superiors. Put bluntly, an American colonel would not command the requisite level of deference and would not be able to engage effectively either an Israeli or a Palestinian military leader, such as the IDF chief of staff, let alone relevant ministers.

For the past 36 hours, I’ve been reading and listening to analyses of the terms and implications of the recent hostage deal. More will appear in the coming days, and I’ll try to put the best of them in this newsletter. But today I want to share a comment made on Tuesday by the Palestinian analyst Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib. While he and I would probably disagree on numerous points about the current conflict, this analysis is spot on, and goes entirely against most arguments made by those who consider themselves pro-Palestinian, and certainly those chanting for a cease-fire at all costs:

When a cease-fire in Gaza is announced, Hamas’s fascists will do everything they can to frame this as the ultimate victory; they will wear their military uniforms, emerge from their tunnels, stop hiding in schools and displacement centers, and very quickly reassert their control over the coastal enclave. They’ll even get a few Gazans to celebrate and dance for them.

This, I should note, is exactly what has happened. Alkhatib continues:

The reality is that the Islamist terrorism of Hamas, masquerading as “resistance,” has achieved nothing for the Palestinian people except for billions of dollars in wasted resources and tens of thousands of needless deaths, with Gaza in ruins after twenty years following the withdrawal of settlements in 2005. . . . Hamas’s propaganda machine, run by Qatari state media, Al Jazeera Arabic, will work overtime to help the terror group turn a catastrophic disaster into a victory akin to the battles of Stalingrad and Leningrad.

Hamas will also start punishing anyone who criticized or worked against it, and preparing for its next attack. Perhaps Palestinians would have been better off if, instead of granting them a temporary reprieve, the IDF kept fighting until Hamas was utterly defeated.