Trump’s excitement was understandable. It took two years of war and tough negotiations to reach “phase one” of his peace plan: the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas and the return of the hostages. But to move from a cease-fire to a sustainable peace, negotiators will need to disarm and dethrone Hamas. And so far, the group has largely refused to give up its weapons. In fact, Hamas is reasserting its authority across much of the Gaza Strip by killing off its competitors and repeatedly firing on the Israel Defense Forces. As a result, the IDF cannot pull out of Gaza. Billions of dollars in reconstruction aid remains tied up. As long as Hamas remains in power, establishing a new governing body for the enclave comprised of Palestinian technocrats, as Trump has called for, will achieve little. The odds of renewed war will only increase.

There is no easy way to keep Hamas down. The IDF wants more time to rest, refit, and re-equip, and Israel would likely suffer from additional political and diplomatic repercussions if it launched a renewed ground offensive in Gaza. The Palestinian Authority’s forces are not strong enough to fight Hamas, nor are they interested. And the states willing to join Trump’s proposed international stabilization force for Gaza do not want their troops fighting against the group.

But there is a fourth option: private military contractors. Operating under the right rules of engagement and in accordance with Western best practices, private contractors have a track record of successfully operating in difficult environments. Many contractors, for example, helped the U.S. military during its war on terror. In Gaza, such forces, if properly supervised, could effectively and responsibly clear areas of Hamas militants and infrastructure. Contractors, in other words, could successfully limit Hamas’s power over Gaza and its populace. Gazans might then get the new day they so desperately deserve.

WRONG RESUME

Hamas was battered by Israel’s military operations, but it was by no means destroyed. It still controls much of its extensive prewar tunnel network and a multitude of booby-trapped buildings. It retains the capacity to make improvised explosive devices and the ability to resupply via drones flown in from Egypt’s Sinai peninsula. On the first day of the cease-fire, Hamas mobilized around 7,000 fighters in order to reassert its authority over the enclave. It is both rebuilding and reasserting itself across the half of Gaza that isn’t occupied by Israel, which is where almost all of the strip’s two million residents live. The organization is thus jeopardizing what is already a very fragile cease-fire. If Hamas continues to gain strength, Israel may need to ramp up its military operations by conducting more airstrikes and renew ground operations—an outcome everyone should want to avoid.

In theory, United Nations forces could move into the western half of Gaza instead of the IDF. UN forces have been employed to maintain and enforce other cease-fires in the region, and they could try to displace Hamas, particularly after the UN Security Council has endorsed Trump’s peace plan. But given the political constraints under which UN forces have traditionally operated, such peacekeepers would likely prove ineffective—much as they have in Lebanon, where they failed to stymie the rearmament of Hezbollah and halt its military deployments south of the Litani River. Israel would also be reluctant to accept UN forces after some of the organization’s aid workers played a role in the October 7 attack and because of the risk that UN troops will come under friendly fire when the IDF inevitably needs to carry out operations. And even if all these obstacles were to dissipate, UN peacekeepers are just that—peacekeepers. They are not equipped to handle a situation in which Hamas becomes powerful enough that intensive military action is needed.

Israel has more experience working with the Palestinian Authority’s security forces than with UN peacekeepers. But PA forces would be extremely wary of fighting against Hamas in Gaza, where they would be seen as Israel’s agents. Even if the authority’s security forces were willing to operate in the enclave, they, too, would be unlikely to succeed. The PA, after all, was pushed out of Gaza by Hamas and has failed to stop terrorist groups in the West Bank, which are all much weaker than Hamas is.

The International Stabilization Force will not materialize in the way it has been envisioned.

The Trump administration is aware of these issues; that is why it proposed an international stabilization force. The UN Security Council resolution endorsing the U.S. president’s peace plan authorizes an ISF and gives it a wide-reaching mission, including “demilitarizing” Gaza and assisting with border security, humanitarian aid, and other assorted needs. The resolution also states that the ISF will work with Egypt, Israel, and “the newly trained and vetted Palestinian police forces” to carry out its mandate. Multiple countries, most of them majority Muslim, have said they are interested in participating.

But these states have been clear that they will not join the ISF if it means fighting Hamas. Egypt has signaled it is open to sending troops, but only for keeping a peace that is already established. Jordan is willing to train a Palestinian police force, but Jordanian King Abdullah declared in October that the country would not send in troops of its own. “We hope that [the ISF mandate] is peacekeeping, because if it’s peace enforcing, nobody will want to touch that,” he added. Indonesia offered to send up to 20,000 troops, but strictly for noncombat health and construction roles. The United Arab Emirates, one of Israel’s closest regional allies, has said it will not provide any soldiers. Azerbaijan says it will not send troops, either. Turkey has offered soldiers, but it supports Hamas, and it has proposed that the ISF focus on separating Israeli soldiers from Hamas rather than disarming the latter. Israel has thus rightfully refused to let Turkey join.

The ISF will not materialize in the way it has been envisioned, which is as a multilateral force that would serve as Gaza’s “long-term internal security solution.” And even if it does come together in this manner, it will probably be ineffective. The ISF’s rules of engagement, for example, might not permit it to disarm Hamas. It might struggle to deconflict its operations from the IDF’s, and thus avoid the awful diplomatic consequences that would follow bouts of friendly fire. The ISF’s sponsors have yet to decide who gets to provide oversight and who gets to be in command. The ISF, in other words, is unlikely, impractical, and poorly defined. It is a catch-all solution that catches nothing.

LAST, BEST CHANCE

Together, these pitfalls might make it seem as though the IDF and Hamas are on a collision course and that a lasting peace in Gaza is unattainable. Hamas, after all, is as unyielding and belligerent as terrorist groups come. But before sending Israeli forces back into the western part of Gaza, there is another option worth attempting: calling on private security contractors to demilitarize Gaza and clear areas of Hamas fighters and infrastructure.

Top-level security contractors are a viable but overlooked option for ridding postwar Gaza of Hamas. They are staffed by well-trained, highly capable military personnel with experience serving in elite units. They will not shy away from potential conflict with Hamas terrorists. In fact, they are perhaps the only force besides the IDF itself willing to directly confront Hamas and do the hard work of demilitarizing Gaza. A demilitarizing force composed of private contractors could also come together quickly, particularly compared to the ISF. That would allow it to push Hamas back before the group gains even more power.

Contractors also have a strong track record. Many have long reliably, responsibly, and effectively supported American military operations. They have successfully trained foreign military forces in Croatia, Georgia, and other countries; in Afghanistan, they successfully provided security for former President Hamid Karzai in a highly dangerous environment. They have been used with relative success to combat piracy off the Horn of Africa, as well. The degree of difficulty in Gaza is undoubtedly higher, but with sufficient numbers and strong backing by Israel, the United States, and Arab countries, contractors stand at least as good a chance of success as an international stabilization force willing to take on Hamas.

Compared with an ISF or UN peacekeepers, contractors could also prove easier to manage. The United States Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority—the U.S. government team charged with improving the Palestinian Authority’s security capabilities and facilitating its cooperation with Israel—would command these forces and ensure they are deconflicted with Israeli forces. Doing this would likely prove easier than it would with the ISF or UN peacekeepers, given that private contractors have substantial experience coordinating operations with the national military force in control of a given area. The U.S. Central Command should keep the civil-military coordination center recently created in the Israeli city of Kiryat Gat, which has facilitated the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza and helped plan the next phase of the cease-fire. But having Central Command run contractor operations could risk fraying U.S.-Israeli cooperation: CENTCOM could end up overseeing IDF operations, pulling it in multiple directions and straining U.S. military and political relationships with Israel. The U.S. Security Coordinator, by contrast, has decades of knowledge and experience with multilateral policing. The recently created Board of Peace established by Trump’s UN-backed plan and charged with overseeing Gaza’s reconstruction could provide further oversight.

Contractors have a strong track record.

Such supervision would help ensure that contractors maintain discipline and avoid harming civilians. The U.S. Security Coordinator could, for instance, make sure that the companies properly vet prospective contractors. The Board of Peace could give these contractors clear mandates and rules of engagement to ensure that they disarm Hamas while minimizing risks to civilians. Contractors who did not follow these standards could be fined, fired, expelled, lose their licenses, or forced to forfeit investments. When accidents or wrongdoing by a contractor does occur, as is inevitable in dense urban conflict against an enemy that uses civilians as human shields, such remedies will be relatively easy to impose. Privately hired personnel can be efficiently investigated and disciplined. It will be much harder for any overarching organization to penalize an independent country’s forces.

As private contractors disarm Hamas, the Board of Peace can create an ISF to keep the peace. This force would be charged with ensuring that Hamas fighters do not regain control of hospitals and other infrastructure. It would also protect border routes and secure food delivery. A new Palestinian police force, meanwhile, would support the ISF and help it maintain the rule of law. To create this force, the European Union and the United States should scale up existing programs in Jordan and Egypt for training Palestinian police. Together, private contractors, the ISF, and Palestinian police officers would create a large enough combined force to actually stabilize Gaza. (According to Pentagon guidelines for stabilization operations, Gaza needs 40,000 to 50,000 security personnel overall for such a mission.)

In the meantime, the Board of Peace and Gaza’s interim civil administration should encourage civilians to move to the part of the enclave currently controlled by Israel, where organizations can more easily offer assistance. The IDF should let these civilians cross in. Meanwhile, the Board of Peace, Arab partner countries, and aid groups should lead an initiative to start clearing out rubble and building infrastructure in the Israeli-controlled half of Gaza, including temporary housing, schools, hospitals, and more food distribution sites.

Demilitarizing Hamas will be an uphill battle no matter who is doing the fighting. It may ultimately require the IDF to reenter the parts of Gaza from which it has withdrawn. Hamas has many weapons and resources, and it will use them all in a desperate effort to maintain power. But even if the IDF does return and fight, there will eventually be a new cease-fire and new debates about how to dethrone Hamas. The world will then be right back where it is now—which is to say, in need of contractors. Disarming Hamas is essential to reaching a durable peace, and private contractors are an essential part of any viable path forward. They must be deployed, and as quickly as possible.

Elliott Abrams is a Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and is a member of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America’s (JINSA) Iran Policy Project. He has served as a foreign policy adviser to three Republican presidents, most recently as the special envoy for Iran and Venezuela for President Donald Trump.
Amb. Eric Edelman is a Distinguished Scholar at JINSA and Co-chair of its Iran Policy Project. He served as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy from 2005 to 2009.
Rena Gabber is a Research Associate at JINSA.

Originally published in Foreign Affairs.

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The Biden administration’s strategy throughout the last year of conflict has been to seek de-escalation and avoid a broadening of the conflict wherever and whenever possible. That was the import of President Biden’s warning of “don’t” in last October, telling Iran and Hezbollah to avoid joining Hamas’s savage attack. He issued the same warning in April, as Iran was preparing to strike Israel.

The administration also backed up its warnings by deploying significant military assets to the region. That might have helped prevent a Hezbollah invasion of Israel a year ago, but that is about the extent his warning’s effectiveness.

Hezbollah attacked anyway, just from the air. Just a day after 10/7, it began raining rockets on northern Israel in a year-long war of attrition that has left over 60,000 Israelis homeless. Despite Biden’s warnings, Iran now has twice fired an unprecedented amount of missiles at Israel, which could have inflicted untold damage on Israel if they had penetrated Israeli airspace and hit population centers. Fortunately, Israeli and American air defenses neutralized them.

Indeed, Biden’s commitment to Israel’s self-defense has been admirable. His U.S. deployment of military assets has critically helped Israel in its defensive actions. But it is not just Iran that Biden has been trying to deter, it is Israel, too. And in that he has been far more successful.

Repeatedly, over the past year, Biden has said “don’t” to Iran, but Iran and its proxies did; Biden helps defend Israel, then tells Israel “don’t.” The Biden administration has opposed every Israeli action that would truly deter the Iranian axis and enable actual victory, such as the ground incursion in Gaza, the conquest of Rafah, and the killing of Nasrallah. After the April 13 Iranian attack, Biden told Israel to “take the win.”

The same pattern is repeating itself again.

That Israel emerged unscathed from Iran’s barrage does not diminish the fact that, rather than heed Biden’s “don’t,” Iran did. Nor should the relative lack of damage in Israel limit what the response to Iran’s attack will be, which is what Biden seemed to be suggesting when he said he would not support an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear sites because “they should respond in proportion.” Any proportionality should be judged based on Iran’s actions—firing some 180 ballistic missiles, including at Israel’s nuclear sites—not their outcome.

All this undermines already fragile American credibility, not just in the Middle East, but globally. Russia, China, and U.S. allies and the world over see Israel’s, and America’s, adversaries disregard U.S. demands not to attack. They see that the United States is willing to help defend against Iranian attacks, but not take action to prevent them. The empty threats and false distinctions between defense and offense erected by the administration all suggest timidity in facing adversaries and reluctance in backing partners, eroding the credibility of U.S. security guarantees.

The Biden administration can both restore its credibility and advance its security interests by joining Israel in taking strong, offensive action against Iran in response to its missile attack. The imperative to do so is even after Sullivan has promised “severe consequences” and said that “we will work with Israel to make that the case.”

After all, the fight against the Iranian axis is not just Israel’s, but America’s, too. Iran and its terrorist proxies have killed thousands of Americans over the years and still actively plot to do so today. The only to stop these attacks and the threats is to inflict real pain on Iran.

Israel is defanging Iran’s proxies, but a joint U.S.-Israel effort to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities would be extremely damaging to Tehran. If that was coupled with severe sanctions on Iranian oil exports, it would force Iran to limit its aggression. It would also put immense pressure on the already weak Tehran regime, perhaps enabling the Iranian people to collapse the mullah thugocracy. With such bold action, the United States could punish Iran’s attack on Israel, deny Iran weapons of mass destruction, and bolster its credibility, all at the same time.

Iran didn’t heed Biden’s “don’t.” Now it is time for “we will.”

Michael Makovsky, a former Pentagon official, is president and CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA).
Blaise Misztal is JINSA’s vice president for policy.

Originally appeared in RealClearDefense.

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