What Not to Do in Gaza

Oct. 19 2023

While Jerusalem has made clear its intention to end Hamas’s control of the Gaza Strip, it’s not at all evident what is supposed to replace Hamas—short of the unwelcome possibility of an Israeli reoccupation. Robert Silverman suggests the answer might be the introduction of a “multinational force and observers” (MFO), such as is deployed in the Sinai Peninsula to keep the peace between Egypt and Israel. I have to admit my skepticism that such a force could be up to the task of imposing order on the unruly territory and overseeing the creation of a new regime—except for the fact that every other option seems even worse. More importantly, Silverman has some thoughts about what not to do:

One lesson from past failures in Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere is to avoid the well-educated, English-speaking expatriates whom Americans feel will be welcomed by the locals. Everyone recalls Iraq’s Ahmed Chalabi or Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai, but more relevant here is the PLO return to Gaza in the mid-1990s. They replicated their Tunis seaside-villa lifestyle in the midst of Gaza. They set up armed guards on the corniche to prevent the average Gazan from entering the exclusive residential zone of their new rulers. When the Gazans got a chance, they voted the PLO thugs out of power (and instead got the genocidal maniacs of Hamas.)

Read more at Jerusalem Strategic Tribune

More about: Gaza Strip, Gaza War 2023, Israeli Security

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023