The shaky ceasefire in Gaza gives opportunity for limited accords on structuring a longer truce. The core need is for an honest partner to reach the first steps.
The vital immediate step is establishment of an administrative, policing and monitoring structure to ensure that weapons and related materials do not enter Gaza at border crossings with Egypt or a planned new harbor.
There is no honest partner whose credibility is accepted by the warring sides for these purposes. The United Nations is the closest, despite its many shortcomings. The US cannot play this role since Palestinians fighting in Gaza believe it can never be evenhanded. Right wing Israelis are also wary because they question the strength of President Barack Obama’s commitment to their country.
President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s Egypt cannot be that partner because it is an enemy of the military wings of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and others in the resistance. Its abiding interest in Israel’s security is also doubtful.
The West Bank’s Mahmud Abbas, to whom Hamas has apparently surrendered political authority over Gaza, does not have the required capabilities. He can also not be trusted to act with enough integrity and firmness to satisfy Israel’s security needs.
An alternative would be monitoring by an international military force that nobody, including Israel, dares to shoot at. This would have to be from NATO. But Hamas will not trust its impartiality since almost all major NATO members have declared Hamas to be a terrorist organization. Israelis may also not trust it because anti-Semitism continues to lurk in most European NATO member countries.
The UN could help by providing legitimacy and ensuring neutrality since most of the international community, including Hamas, still sees it as even handed compared with Washington, Cairo or any other intermediary. Its decisions continue to carry unparalleled legal influence.
Involving the UN would also make the wider international community a part of the solution to the grievances of both Israelis and Palestinians. It groups the entire family of nations through 193 member governments representing over 7 billion people. It has the respect and ear of most of those governments and people. Snubbing it is a mistake, however much some Israelis and their American supporters disparage UN politics.
However, the UN would have to use unprecedented procedures different from the operations of its usually blemished peace keeping missions. One path might be to put blue UN helmets on NATO soldiers chosen only from major member countries because no warring faction would risk killing any of them.
The NATO contingent’s authority would come from the UN Security Council but command and control would remain in NATO hands. That would be unusual for the UN but the conflict’s nature is also more exceptional than others.
Political control would be vested in a joint group comprising the UN and the Abbas administration, since it is the local authority. A panel including the US, Israel and Egypt would advise and guide them.
Israelis should allow the UN to help. Many Israelis and their friends regularly denigrate the UN, especially its Human Rights bodies, but it is the only legitimate representative of all countries in the international community.
The United States, Britain and France created it after wars that killed over 60 million people, mostly civilians, and brought unimaginable calamity upon Jews. Its founding motivation was “Never again!”
An early UN success was establishment of the State of Israel, after millennia. It is still the guarantor of Israel’s legal legitimacy among nations. Without UN intervention, Jews would have been as stateless as Palestinians are today.
Currently, UN agencies have a lot of useful local expertise and knowledge since they have been present in the region since Israel’s beginning. They participate closely in the daily lives of Palestinians and it would be a mistake to treat them like outsiders or self-important irritants.