Window to disarm Hamas is short, warns Mike Pompeo

Former US secretary of state tells The National new 'security model' for Israel and Gaza cannot wait

Former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo has warned that the window to disarm Hamas and build a “new security model” for Israel and Gaza will close within a matter of months.

Speaking to The National, Mr Pompeo said the cornerstone of any lasting peace would be a model that “gives Israel the confidence it needs that Hamas is not going to re-arm”. He said it should also “deliver confidence for the people who live in Gaza that Hamas is not going to come kill them too”.

Mr Pompeo, who led Donald Trump's foreign policy team during his first term as US president, dismissed the prospect of American troops deploying to Gaza to protect the fragile ceasefire deal. Instead, he said assembling troops from Muslim-majority nations, such as Egypt and Jordan, is the “most likely outcome to deliver the maximal results”.

He said Hamas’s “political control has to be zero” and that a new “security apparatus” should prevent it from digging new tunnels under Gaza. He added: “There’s still going to be the odd AK-47 … but there can be no Hamas militia. That has to be completely eradicated or we’ll end up right back in the soup again.”

Reflecting on lessons from Northern Ireland, where decommissioning took years after the conflict, Mr Pompeo said the process must move far faster in Gaza. “We have months to actually deliver this maybe, maybe a couple of years to get that model to transition appropriately,” he said.

But he said non-government intermediaries could play a role in Gaza’s peace process, as church groups did in Northern Ireland. “You could imagine a model that doesn’t look dissimilar to that,” he said.

Mike Pompeo said Gaza should be disarmed down to 'the odd AK-47'. Reuters

The next stages of Mr Trump's ceasefire deal would see the international force helping to stabilise Gaza, while a Palestinian committee takes over control of day-to-day affairs from Hamas. It would offer amnesty to Hamas leaders if they agree to hand over weapons.

The first stage, though, still requires the ceasefire to hold and Hamas to hand over the remains of more than a dozen hostages. Israel killed dozens of people in weekend strikes and has delayed opening aid routes into Gaza, with the UN's World Food Programme warning that not enough supplies are arriving.

On the Abraham Accords, which Mr Pompeo helped to draw up in 2020, the former secretary of state said their expansion “should continue to be top of mind for everyone working in the region”. He also noted that “the largest Muslim populations in the world aren’t actually in the Middle East, they’re in Asia.”

Mr Pompeo said progress on Saudi-Israeli ties depends on Israel’s restraint. “They need to appreciate that Israel’s going to not conduct expansion … that’s probably the most important element for them,” he said.

Turning to Syria, Mr Pompeo said President Ahmad Al Shara has “begun to deliver Syria on the global stage” and described his recognition by the international community as a “massive, massive” setback for Iran. The US, he said, will play “mostly a political” role, with “American private sector embrace” likely to follow.