Israel not invited: Can outside forces forge peace in Gaza?

In Doha on December 16, behind closed doors and without the usual diplomatic fanfare, the US – via CENTCOM – convened representatives of around 45 Arab, Muslim, and Western states to discuss what official language renders blandly as an International Stabilization Force (ISF) for Gaza, but what in practice is an attempt to work out who will assume responsibility for the combustible ‘day after tomorrow’ in the Middle East – and how. Israel was neither invited nor involved in the discussions – a detail that in and of itself became a political statement, even if it can formally be attributed to the need for a ‘working atmosphere’ and confidentiality.

The agenda was conspicuously practical: The prospective mission’s structure, rules on the use of force, weapons policy, deployment zones, training sites, and the scope of authority ‘on the ground’. In other words, this was not a conversation about principles and slogans, but about the things soldiers and lawyers usually settle – who answers to whom, what constitutes a threat, when firing is permitted, how incidents are prevented, and who bears responsibility if incidents occur anyway. It is precisely this ‘technical’ frame that carries the political meaning: Once parties are arguing not about an abstract ‘peace’ but about rules for using force, they are implicitly accepting that forces may actually be deployed, and that conditions on the ground will be harsher than any declaration.

Yet the real nerve of the story lies not in the word ‘stabilization’, but in what is meant to be stabilized. By some reports, one of the key fault lines runs through the question of the mandate. Would this force serve merely as a buffer, facilitating humanitarian logistics and maintaining basic security – or would it have to brush up against the task politically framed as the disarmament of Hamas? At the same time, media coverage suggested that the ISF concept does not envisage waging war on Hamas directly, immediately creating the classic peacekeeping dilemma: The mission is expected to enforce order, yet is given neither the political authorization nor the military model for confronting an organized armed actor determined to challenge that order.

Equally revealing is the dispute over the geography of responsibility. Many potential contributors, it was reported, are far more willing to discuss a presence in areas under Israeli control than in districts where Hamas’ influence persists – or could quickly reconstitute itself. In essence, this is a debate about where ‘stabilization’ ends and the genuine risk of combat begins – a risk that neither parliaments, nor public opinion, nor the participating countries’ military leaderships are eager to assume.