(JNS) The Palestinian Authority isn’t capable of disarming the Hamas terror organization and governing Gaza, as US President Donald Trump’s peace plan prescribes, according to Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations.
“Let’s be honest,” Danon told the UN Security Council on Monday. “The truth is that the PA has no willingness and no ability to confront Hamas.”
“Some colleagues have suggested that the Palestinian Authority could be the one to disarm Hamas and rebuild Gaza,” the envoy added, during the council’s monthly briefing on the Israel-Palestinian file. “This assumes the PA will suddenly do something it has never done and has never been able to do.”
A US-drafted Security Council resolution, which passed unanimously last week with two abstentions, calls for a “pathway” to a Palestinian state. That would happen, per the resolution, once the Palestinian Authority undergoes reforms, which aren’t specified, to ready to govern Gaza.
The past 18 years, since Hamas seized Gaza violently from the Authority, “have given us the answer: Hamas rules Gaza, because the PA could not and would not stop them,” Danon told the council.
The Israeli envoy noted that Trump’s plan calls for an international force to stabilize and secure Gaza during a transitional governance period.
But the Authority’s “weakness” is clear in Judea and Samaria, its home base, where terror groups, including Hamas, operate freely and where Israel is the only one to intercept weapons shipments from Iran, according to Danon.
“This is the consequence of PA inaction,” he told the council. “Israel is left to dismantle the terror networks they refuse to confront.”
Jennifer Locetta, alternative US representative to the global body for special political affairs, told council members that the “international community must move quickly to deny Hamas any chance to reconstitute.”
She urged member states to “step up” and pledge people, equipment and funding for the stabilization force.
“Stability will require burden sharing,” she said. “The force will help create a Gaza free from terrorist rule and safe for aid and investment by protecting civilians.”
Paris will contribute more than $115 million to Gaza, and it is “paramount” that the stabilization force deploy quickly, Jérôme Bonnafont, the French ambassador to the United Nations, told the council.
Some 100 French police officers will train Palestinian security forces at the European Union Border Assistance Mission at the Rafah Crossing Point and at the EU Police Mission in the Palestinian Territories, the French envoy said.
Vassily Nebenzia, a frequent critic of the Jewish state, said that there must be more attention to frequent violations of the ceasefire, which he blamed largely on Israel. He also said that Palestinians across the “yellow” demarcation line were like “residents of divided Berlin.”
“The lack of details in President Trump’s plan” was “precisely what allowed the parties to reach agreement, whereas at this stage, without candid and concrete answers, peace efforts may get bogged down in endless mutual accusations of violations of the provisions of the agreement,” he said.
Greece, France and China were among those who criticized Israel for violence against Palestinians in Judea and Samaria.
Danon said that some council members “speak as though every Israeli living in Judea and Samaria is a violent extremist.”
“That narrative is false,” he said. He said that Israeli officials have decried violent acts which are “criminal, unacceptable and do not represent Israeli society” and which were “carried out by a small fringe that does not represent the majority of law-abiding families who live there, work there and serve their country.”
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