Building Bases for a Non-Existent Force
The United States is planning to establish a large, $500 million military base in Israel near the Gaza border, intended to house an international force tasked with monitoring the fragile ceasefire, according to a report published jointly last week by Ynet and the Shomrim website.
However, this plan is emerging amid a total deadlock in negotiations over the next phase of the truce, known as stage 2, as Washington seeks to put together a tangible International Stabilization Force (ISF) for the stated mission of disarming Hamas in the parts of Gaza that the terrorist organization still controls.
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Blaise Misztal, the vice president for policy at the Washington D.C.-based Jewish Institute for National Security of America, told JNS in recent days: “The United States should absolutely have a base in Israel. But it should be an air base aimed at giving U.S. forces greater freedom of action and easier access to multiple theaters in the Middle East, Europe, and Africa than they get from any of their current bases in Arab states.
“Such a U.S. base makes sense both because of the strategic benefit to both Israel and the United States and—since a suitable base already exists and wouldn’t have to be built—the low cost.”
Misztal contrasted that strategic concept with the current Gaza-centric plan, which he argued misses a fundamental problem. “Constructing a massive, expensive base for the purpose of administering the Gaza ceasefire, on the other hand, makes much less strategic sense, at least right now,” he cautioned.
While the United States is right to focus on the need to secure the Gaza Strip, he added, unless Hamas is disarmed and Gaza is demilitarized, “as President Trump’s 20-point peace plan calls for, there can be no peace. Each day that goes by without demilitarization, Hamas grows stronger and bolder.”
The core issue, Misztal explained, is “the lack of clarity—and good candidates—for troops that would make up the ISF and undertake the dangerous mission of disarming Hamas.”
That absence of an ISF is unrelated to the issue of a base, and entirely related to the fact that such a force, “to fulfill its mandate, would almost certainly have to engage in hostilities with the terrorists, take losses, and cause civilian casualties. No country, other than Israel, is willing to sign up for that,” he said.
Unless a realistic template for an ISF is formed, noted Mistzal, “building bases for a non-existent force appears to be an exercise in keeping the ceasefire on life support rather than seriously grappling with the difficulties of implementing its second phase.”
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Read the full article in JNS.