What happened?
On Monday, November 17th, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) voted in favour of a US-backed plan for a coalition of Muslim majority countries to occupy the Gaza Strip to disarm Hamas and its allies. The now-passed proposal would see troops from Muslim, though likely not Arab, countries deployed under the command of Tony Blair’s “Board of Peace”, which was initially accepted by Hamas and its allies in the October ceasefire agreement. For those in Washington and Tel Aviv, part of the calculus of this plan was the idea that peacekeepers who share a language and culture with the locals will be more successful than those seen as outsiders. However, within this logic lies the question: does Washington think that Palestinians speak Indonesian or that Indonesians are just really good at making Shawarma?
Who is going to be in Gaza?
It was initially understood that the force would include forces from other Arab countries, which would have some control over its behaviour, but as of October 22nd, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates all refused to commit troops to the plan. The Arab states are wary of possible public opposition to the plan and reluctance in their militaries towards fighting the Palestinians. The only possible Arab contributor would be Egypt, which has committed to training a new Palestinian police force for the Strip, but deployment of troops appears unlikely due to commitments in Libya and attempts to support Sudan against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Turkey was also expected to be involved, who was seen by Hamas as a more reliable peacekeeper, due to its historic allyship with Palestine, but this was vetoed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Meanwhile, Indonesia, a key US ally and the world’s most populous Muslim nation, has readied 20,000 troops for deployment as part of the Force. The other main contributing country is Azerbaijan, Israel’s only Muslim ally in the region and primary energy supplier, has a history of military cooperation with Israel through its occupation and subsequent ethnic cleansing of the Armenian region of Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh. Pakistan has also publicly expressed support for the force, though recent clashes with separatist groups and the Taliban government in Afghanistan make such a deployment unlikely.
Who voted and why?
The final vote among the UNSC had thirteen in favour and two abstentions, with the US, UK, France, Algeria, Denmark, Greece, Guyana, Pakistan, Panama, South Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, and Somalia in favour, and China and Russia abstaining.
France, Pakistan, Guyana, Slovenia, and Algeria all were tepid in their endorsement of the plan prior to the vote due to its lack of specificity in its support for a Palestinian state, the short mention of which was only included by Saudi Arabia at the last minute.
Russia and China, who both hold veto power on the Security Council, declined to vote in favour after a counterproposal submitted by the two states calling for Palestinians to have a larger role in the governance of the Strip. However, neither vetoed the proposition and while Russia criticised the proposal as rushed, it was generally supportive of the intentions of the scheme. China, who has a long history of supporting Palestine, is Israel’s second largest trading partner and sees the decision by the US to bring the proposal to the UN at all as a win, as it sees it as a step towards greater multilateralism and multipolarity.
Will the troops really be deployed?
While the US does appear committed to this deal, due in no small part to the public centrality of President Trump to the deal’s success, it exists now in a situation where neither Israel nor Hamas appear committed to the deployment of these troops.
For Israel, the deal is seen by the far-right members of Netanyahu’s government as a capitulation to Hamas, with the war having failed to secure the destruction of the group and Israeli media starting to turn against the deal. Public opinion of Netanyahu’s Likud party has not recovered after the ceasefire deal, with the opposition and Netanyahu’s coalition partners eating away at his support base as his corruption trial continues despite President Trump’s best efforts to secure a pardon. Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, head of the second largest party in the coalition, has begun calling for the assassination of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and a restart to the war on Gaza. This puts Netanyahu in a complex situation, where doing nothing could lead to his personal fall from power and possible imprisonment, while scrapping the deal would further damage US-Israel relations and would mean facing a much stronger and better organised Hamas than prior to the ceasefire. The implementation of the Stabilisation Force could also lead to Israel having to stop its violations of the ceasefire agreement, which it has been able to continue daily.
For Hamas and its allies in Gaza, the deal is seen as nothing short of a profound betrayal. First Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, then Hamas itself and now the entire coalition have declared that any foreign troop deployed to Gaza will be treated as enemy combatants and occupiers. While this is primarily meant to be democratic posturing, as no Arab or Muslim country wants to be at war with the Palestinians. While attempting to predict the future is always a bad idea, it appears extremely unlikely that any Arab or Muslim country outside of Azerbaijan will end up with any troops on the ground.
