\n<\/p>\n
In August 2014, after a serious Israeli-Hamas conflict, ideas were floated about what to do with Gaza, in a confidential options paper provided to The Times. It stated, presciently, that \u201ca return to the status quo ante will produce a new war\u201d and that the Palestinian Authority is \u201ctoo weak and divided to govern.\u201d<\/p>\n
The best solution, the paper suggested, was authorizing United Nations forces to control Gaza\u2019s borders while Palestinian militias are disbanded and disarmed and the Israeli and Egyptian blockade of Gaza is gradually lifted. In 2014, the paper presumed that Hamas would still control Gaza but might agree to moderate its behavior in return.<\/p>\n
The paper also pointed out that the existing U.N. Truce Supervision Organization, founded in 1948, retains a legal mandate to patrol Gaza, even though it left in 1996 after the Oslo Accords. Under a reconfigured mandate, UNTSO could both patrol Gaza\u2019s borders and help disarm militias, while another existing international committee would coordinate donor aid.<\/p>\n
Nine years later, the paper may serve as a starting point. If Hamas and similar groups are destroyed in Gaza, as Israel vows, perhaps UNTSO could help keep the peace inside Gaza too as a kind of supplementary police force while the status and credibility of the Palestinian Authority are somehow resurrected there.<\/p>\n
The 2014 discussion was real, said Robert Serry, a Dutch diplomat who served as the U.N. Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. \u201cWe had hoped that the Palestinian Authority could be brought back,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
While that may be as unrealistic now as then, each time \u201cwe allowed the situation to go back to the status quo,\u201d with a fragile cease-fire and \u201cminimum arrangements to keep Gaza afloat,\u201d Mr. Serry said.<\/p>\n
Now, he said: \u201cI hope Israel learns a lesson. If they keep ignoring the Palestinian question, it will from time to time explode, it\u2019s just a question of when.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n