Washington DC – U.S. officials are increasingly suggesting that the Palestinian Authority (PA) should govern Gaza once Israel achieves its goal of eliminating Hamas, the group that currently controls the territory.
But analysts warn that this proposal may be unrealistic and premature, as the war between Israel and Hamas approaches the start of its seventh week.
US President Joe Biden and his top aides have repeatedly expressed full support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza, but Washington has nevertheless given indications of what it would like to see after the conflict.
The Biden administration has said it does not support an indefinite Israeli military presence in the territory and opposes shrinking the besieged strip or permanently displacing its population.
But if Israel succeeds in dislodging Hamas from Gaza – an objective which is far from guaranteed – the return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza would face many obstacles, notably Israeli opposition.
Earlier this month, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas appeared to make the return of authority to Gaza conditional on a “political solution” to the conflict being found, which would include statehood. Palestinian with East Jerusalem as its capital.
“On many different levels, this is just a pipe dream,” Osamah Khalil, a history professor at Syracuse University, said of the handover of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority.
Why is the United States pushing for this?
Khalil said the Biden administration faces growing pressure over its support for Israel, due to the atrocities it is accused of committing in Gaza. At least 11,500 Palestinians have been killed so far, with UN experts warning of a “grave risk of genocide” in the territory.
The Biden camp is therefore trying to shift the focus towards ending the conflict, arguing that the Palestinians must ultimately govern Gaza themselves, Khalil explained.
“This is for the domestic audience because there is an absolute absence of political will in the United States – especially heading into an election year – to hold Israel accountable,” Khalil told Tel Aviv Tribune.
He added that there is “an absolute lack of new ideas in Washington,” leading to a policy of “avoiding conflict resolution and focusing on conflict management.”
The United States and Israel have ruled out the possibility of dealing politically with Hamas after the war.
How did we get here?
The PA – which is controlled by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and its dominant faction, Fatah – was established in 1994 as part of the Oslo Accords, which aimed to bring the occupied Palestinian territories from Israeli military control to civilian control.
Oslo promised an eventual Palestinian state, but the so-called peace process never resulted in a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Over the next decade, the Palestinian Authority continued to oversee a limited form of self-governance over the West Bank and Gaza, coexisting with the Israeli occupation which had near-total control over security matters in the Palestinian territories. .
In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew its military forces and dismantled its settlements in Gaza, but it maintained control of movements in and out of the coastal enclave.
A year later, Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections, dealing a major blow to the Palestinian Authority.
While Hamas engaged in armed struggle against Israel and Fatah stuck to the peace process, the two sides failed to reconcile their differences.
Meanwhile, Hamas faced increasing international pressure and fighting broke out between the group and the Palestinian Authority. In 2007, Hamas took control of Gaza and has maintained control of the territory ever since. For its part, the PA remained in the West Bank while Israel expanded its settlements there.
The divide has effectively divided the Palestinian national movement. Repeated attempts to bridge the gap through reconciliation agreements have failed.
With the peace process frozen, Israel blockaded the Gaza Strip while strengthening its military occupation of the West Bank with US support, in violation of international law.
What did American officials say?
Assuming that Hamas will be eliminated by the end of the current Israeli offensive, the United States is now looking to the Palestinian Authority to once again govern Gaza.
Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf told lawmakers last week that the Palestinian Authority is “the only Palestinian government resulting from the Oslo Accords.”
“Whatever its shortcomings, it is the government of the Palestinians in the West Bank,” Leaf said. “We believe that ultimately Palestinian voices and aspirations must be at the center of post-conflict governance and security in Gaza. »
She added that “the Palestinian Authority is the appropriate place to seek governance.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken also suggested that the PA would eventually take control of Gaza. He said earlier this month that lasting peace “must include Palestinian-led governance and the unification of Gaza with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority.”
Biden and his aides have also talked about reviving the two-state solution to the conflict.
However, Khalil Jahshan, executive director of the Arab Center Washington DC think tank, said that until the United States calls for a ceasefire, talking about what happens after the war will be a “loss of time”.
He added that the Palestinians should have a single authority in the West Bank and Gaza – but after a ceasefire and democratic elections.
“But reducing a dysfunctional authority in the West Bank to a pile of rubble in Gaza is a recipe for disaster,” Jahshan told Tel Aviv Tribune. Israeli bombings damaged almost half of the residential buildings in the territory.
Khalil, the history teacher, echoed Jahshan’s comments about the infeasibility of the US proposal.
“Israel has no intention of accepting a Palestinian state,” Khalil told Tel Aviv Tribune. “And in the end, the Palestinian Authority cannot come back on the backs of Israeli tanks and say, ‘We are the new authority.’
What did Israel say?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose right-wing Likud party opposes the creation of a Palestinian state, has all but dismissed the claims of his American allies, saying Israel will maintain its security control over Gaza.
“Gaza needs to be demilitarized and Gaza needs to be deradicalized,” he told NBC News last week. “And I think so far we have not seen any Palestinian force, including the Palestinian Authority, capable of doing that.”
Jahshan said the United States was unlikely to put significant pressure on Israel for a broader resolution to the conflict anyway.
“This administration has proven that it is incapable of demonstrating the political, moral or diplomatic will to move us closer to this idea,” Jahshan told Tel Aviv Tribune. “So he preaches it, but only as a defense mechanism against his diplomatic failure in the region. This is not a realistic option.
Khalil also suggested that the United States was not serious about resolving the conflict. He said the United States was considering the return of the Palestinian Authority to ease internal divisions over Western support for Israel.
Discussing future governance, Khalil added, also gives Israelis more time to achieve a previously elusive victory in Gaza.
Khalil noted that after more than 40 days of incessant bombing, Israel is still far from neutralizing Hamas. The Palestinian group continues to target Israeli troops.
Israeli forces also failed to free prisoners captured in the October 7 Hamas attack, and they did not kill senior political or military leaders of the Palestinian group.
What did the AP say?
Yet President Abbas, 88, has expressed his desire to bring the PA back to Gaza, but only as part of a broader solution.
“We will fully assume our responsibilities as part of a comprehensive political solution that includes the entire West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip,” Abbas was quoted as telling Blinken by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa earlier this month. .
But for some analysts, the PA’s shortcomings in the West Bank and its increasingly aging and isolated leadership make it impossible to lead the Palestinian national movement.
Adam Shapiro, advocacy director for Israel-Palestine at Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a U.S.-based rights group, highlighted Israel’s deadly raids and settler violence that are occurring almost daily in the West Bank: right under the nose of the PA.
“It’s really mind-boggling,” Shapiro said of the Palestinian Authority’s suggestion as a solution for Gaza. “It raises the question of whether these officials think we’re not paying attention, or whether they just aren’t.”