There is scepticism around US President Donald Trump’s 20-point “Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict” endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 2803 adopted last November. Not least because the toxic political and security issues that embroil the wider region remain unsettled.
But, from the humanitarian perspective, stage one of the Trump Plan did get the remaining Israeli hostages and nearly 2,000 Palestinian detainees freed. And more life-saving aid flowing into Gaza as well as enabling urgent medical evacuations.
However, 1.9 million displaced Gazans are barely surviving amid the near-total destruction of their homes and livelihoods, even as thousands continue to be killed and injured in ongoing Israeli security operations. Aid flows have stagnated.
Nevertheless, the best chance to relieve ongoing suffering remains with the Trump Plan to which both Israel and Hamas have reluctantly agreed. How is implementation?
Its architecture is taking shape. A Board of Peace to which nearly 30 countries have signed up met in February, chaired by Mr Trump. It logged $17 billion in pledges for future reconstruction needs estimated by the UN at $71.4 billion over a decade. On Wednesday, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, the board proposed a six-month $2.45 billion plan to begin the rebuilding process.
At least five countries are expected to provide troops for the proposed International Stabilisation Force that may eventually number 20,000. But Israel has initially approved just 200 for pilot deployment near Rafah. There will also be 12,000 vetted local police of which 5,000 have been selected, pending training.
Also appointed is a technocratic Palestinian-led “National Committee for the Administration of Gaza” that remains exiled pending Israeli permission to enter the territory.
Knitting this together is a 15-point roadmap by guarantor states – Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and US – covering important dimensions of transitional governance, and economic and social recovery. Core to this – and somewhat ironically – is the board’s adoption of a 2005 slogan from Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, “sulta wahida, qanun wahid, silah wahid” that encapsulates the idea of “one authority, one legal framework, and legitimate use of weapons only by official security forces”.
Accordingly, point one of the Trump Plan calls for Gaza to be terror-free; point 13 demands full demilitarisation under independent supervision; and point 16 ties Israeli military withdrawal to related milestones.
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Palestinian Mohammed Al Hasanat shows his inked finger after voting in the Gaza municipal elections at a polling station in the city of Deir Al Balah. Reuters -
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas casts his vote at a polling station in Ramallah on the occupied West Bank. AFP -
Palestinians wait to vote in the municipal elections at a polling station in the occupied West Bank town of Yabad near Jenin city. EPA -
A Palestinian assesses a candidate list at a polling station during municipal elections in Deir Al Balah. AFP -
An officer of the Palestinian security forces on duty at a polling station in the village of Beit Furik, south-east of the occupied West Bank city of Nablus. AFP -
Palestinian electoral workers begin counting votes after the close of polling at a makeshift voting station during municipal elections in Deir Al-Balah, Gaza. AFP -
Palestinian electoral employees begin counting votes for the municipal elections after the close of polling stations in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Al Bireh. AFP
This makes good sense but sets up a conundrum: who gives up their guns first? Hamas has agreed to a phased surrender over three years of the arsenal it spent decades assembling, only if Israel withdraws from Gaza. But Israel, which controls more than half the enclave behind its “yellow line”, says it will not withdraw until Hamas is totally disarmed.
Can the impasse be broken by lessons from the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration – or DDR – components of other conflict-to-peace transitions? This means fighters surrendering weapons, leaving their armed formations and finding a civilian living.
It is not a new idea. Post-colonial settlements in Asia and Africa as well as post-apartheid South Africa disarmed their resistance movements or absorbed them into national armies.
The modern DDR template was born in 1989 in Central America, with the UN going on to support such schemes in more than 30 countries and 20 peace operations. The World Bank also had multi-country programmes in Africa’s Great Lakes region.
The doctrine has been codified into hundreds of pages of “Integrated Standards” but, unfortunately, very few of the numerous DDR exercises over the past half-century delivered durable peace. Between 1945 and 2009, 57 per cent of civil wars relapsed and nine in 10 civil wars this century broke out in places that had already had one.
Neglected DDR bites back. Kosovo’s KLA fighters won in 1999 and became the rulers but cached enough arms to fuel insurgencies in Serbia and Macedonia. In Iraq, the US-led occupation dissolved the army in 2003 with no DDR at all, releasing 400,000 armed and unpaid men into the insurgencies that produced ISIS. Turkey’s current PKK process, weapons-burning notwithstanding, is stuck on Gaza’s question: law first or guns first?
Gaza’s peace promoters can learn from both failed and successful DDR efforts.
The first lesson is that the silencing of guns follows politics and not the other way, because nobody likes disarming into a vacuum. Northern Ireland’s IRA decommissioned seven years after the Good Friday Agreement, once its members sat in government. The Free Aceh Movement handed over weapons as Indonesian troops left in matching tranches. That is why the almost worldwide recognition – however symbolic – of an independent Palestine is important.
Second, reciprocity is crucial. Nepal’s Maoists and its national army both locked their rifles in UN-monitored containers. El Salvador and Mozambique provide other examples. Fighters recoil from one-sided disarmament seen as surrender. That is why Israel’s reciprocal withdrawal from Gaza is a crucial dealmaker.
Third, trusted and confidential verification is essential. Northern Ireland and Mindanao in the Philippines had independent decommissioning bodies, and the Spanish Basque Country’s homegrown commission was chaired by a Sri Lankan. Common features were unarmed and non-threatening third parties, foreign participation that was impartial, acceptance by disarming parties, and discretion so that disarmament was not projected as humiliation. Verification by an adversary, or a body that an adversary can veto, as currently in Gaza has never held elsewhere.
Fourth, fighters must have somewhere to go. Kosovo’s KLA became a civil protection corps, El Salvador’s FMLN got land and a political party, Colombia’s Farc got seats in Congress. Generosity from victors towards losers pays rich dividends as shown by Nigerians towards Biafrans after their bitter civil war. Conversely, where reintegration incentives failed, such as with Nicaragua’s “Recontras” or Democratic Republic of Congo’s M23, the guns came back. Gaza’s militants must get positive future alternatives, not simply disallowed from governance roles or despatched into exile, as currently proposed.
Fifth, spoilers must be proactively managed. Angola’s Savimbi and Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge showed the naivety of hoping that peace momentum alone can isolate rejectionists. For Gaza, it means handling the extreme poles of opinion among Israelis and Palestinians as well as backlash from the broader conflict affecting the West Bank, Lebanon, Iran and Yemen.
Meanwhile, Gaza’s nearest precedents are the 1982 evacuation of Palestine Liberation Organisation fighters from Beirut, rifles in hand, followed by the massacre at Sabra and Shatila of the civilians they left behind. And the 1989 Taif Agreement that exempted Hezbollah from disarmament. Subsequent history warns about what happens without proper DDR execution.
In short, it is a tall order asking Hamas to disarm before a political settlement to an adversary that maintains a security and economic stranglehold, with the process verified by a body hardly seen as neutral and whose sequencing Israel has already rewritten, into a parachuted-in authority yet to gain public acceptance. Especially, when there is no weapons buy-back decommissioning scheme, amnesty offers are not trusted, and the end point of a viable Palestinian state is regressing.
Yet, the Trump Plan remains the most promising framework available not just because of its broadly sensible principles. But because its lack of prescriptive detail allows flexibility on putting its directions into practice. The key here is to convince Gaza’s protagonists – both Hamas and Israel – that their guns are worth less than what comes next. That can happen only if third-party peace sponsors are wise to learn from other experiences.
