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Arab nations have begun to rally behind the idea of a multinational peacekeeping force for Gaza and the occupied West Bank as they seek to develop a viable postwar plan for the region.
The draft proposals forwarded to the US are among numerous options currently being discussed as Arab and Western states desperately seek an end to the conflict and struggle to find a path to regional stability and the establishment of a Palestinian state .
Arab officials have previously said they would not support an advance by an international or regional force into the Gaza Strip and insisted it should be run by Palestinians. Many capitals feared being accused of riding Israeli tanks and being involved in an uprising.
However, an Arab diplomat said reservations in some capitals had eased in recent weeks, raising the possibility of Arab involvement as countries sought to show their “commitment to the peace process.” “We know that Israel has security concerns [a Palestinian state]“So that means we are ready to help,” the diplomat said.
Another Arab diplomat said any force must be approved by the U.N. Security Council and deployed for a transitional period to give Palestinian authorities time to build up their own “capable” security forces.
Despite greater openness to such an operation, it remains unclear which states would be willing to participate. A third Arab official said it was an Egyptian-backed initiative and that other regional powers, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Qatar, opposed the deployment of Arab peacekeepers.
Another official said there was agreement that an alternative to keeping Israeli troops in the strip needed to be proposed. But they added the key question is: “What is the force?”
The idea was raised by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken when he met Arab counterparts in Cairo in March. Arab states have been trying for months to lay out a comprehensive “vision” to deal with the crisis triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and Israel’s retaliatory offensive in the Gaza Strip.
Their core demand would be that the West and Israel take “irreversible” steps toward a two-state solution to the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They want the US and other Western states to recognize a Palestinian state and support its full UN membership, arguing that this should be part of the process rather than an outcome.
But postwar planning for Gaza is undermined by uncertainty about Israel’s intentions, including how long it will keep troops in the devastated strip; who it would accept as an administrator; and how long their offensive will continue.
Even if a ceasefire agreement can be negotiated, Israel has insisted on maintaining overall security in the strip. Benjamin Netanyahu has also ruled out the Western- and Arab-backed Palestinian Authority – which drove Hamas out of Gaza in 2007 – playing any role or taking any steps toward establishing a Palestinian state.
Some Israeli officials, such as Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, have expressed support for the idea of an international presence in Gaza after the war, but Netanyahu’s far-right government will most likely reject such a move in the West Bank, where hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers live.
Michael Wahid Hanna, an analyst at Crisis Group, said Israel was “actively creating the scenario of chaos.” [in Gaza] and do absolutely nothing to fill that vacuum.”
“People are stuck and throwing out a lot of ideas, there’s a lot of churn and desperation,” Hanna said. “It’s hard to imagine what [an end to the war] It practically looks like that, so you come up with these ideas that seem very far-fetched.”
At a conference in Riyadh this week, Arab foreign ministers gave largely ambiguous answers to questions about the peacekeeping mission.
Prince Faisal bin Farhan, Saudi Arabia’s top diplomat, said it was “very difficult” to engage on the issue without “clarity on the other elements.” Ayman Safadi, his Jordanian counterpart, warned that any peacekeeping force would risk “giving the impression that it is perpetuating the misery that this war has caused.”
Egypt’s Sameh Shoukry said Cairo was “ready to play our role to the fullest extent” depending on “risk and benefit” and “the overall assessment of the final result.”
The Biden administration’s primary focus has been advancing a deal that would see Saudi Arabia normalize relations with Israel in hopes of persuading the Jewish state to make concessions to a Palestinian state. Before Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, it had been moving toward a deal that would have included the U.S. agreeing to a defense pact with the kingdom and supporting its nuclear ambitions.
Washington and Riyadh have continued to negotiate an agreement. Prince Faisal said this week they were “very close” to an agreement on the US element. However, he reiterated that there must also be “a path to a Palestinian state” that is “credible and irreversible.”
“Nobody has a clear plan,” Hanna said. “Beyond the rhetoric, there is no real concrete thinking about how to deal with the Palestine issue.”