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Add The New York Post on Google Fine, Hamas has said it’s agreed to lay down its arms as per that 15-point plan from President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, but color us skeptical.
We absolutely hope it proves to be a genuine step toward bringing permanent peace to Gaza, but before we deem it a “historic agreement” as the prez announced, we need some questions answered.
For starters, who decides that Israel and Hamas and its allied terror groups have ceased “all military operations”?
We guarantee that some terrorists will keep shooting at Israel forces (and even more so, at any Gazans who defy them).
It seems a new International Verification Committee needs creating, but who’ll be on it, where will the staff come from, how long will it take to set up — and what happens when one side insists the IVC is wrong about the other side complying?
One enforcement arm is supposed to be the International Stabilization Force, but it’s meant to have a mere 5,000 troops — and so far only seems to actually have 200 or so even pledged by a few countries.
Also: What is the “Palestinian law” the plan mentions repeatedly?
There’s never been an actual Palestinian state to have any laws; are we talking about statutes created by the Palestinian Authority? By the rump government Hamas has run in Gaza? Something else?
And what judges are to interpret this “law”?
More generally, what parts of the Hamas-controlled government will transfer over to the new one under the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, and again who does the vetting of these “civil servants” selected by various gangs of terrorists?
Above all, how can any “existing police structures” possibly be trusted?
Look: It’s not even clear who will take custody of any weapons that Hamas turns over, nor what “personal arms” the various terrorists will get to keep.
Ones that are legal under that mysterious “Palestinian law,” apparently: Does that include AK-47s?
And how the heck is anyone to know that Hamas hasn’t kept secret stockpiles?
It’s not like anyone’s done an independent inventory of the multiple terror groups’ various arsenals, depots, bomb-making shops etc.
Does anyone have a full map of the hundreds of miles of tunnels to be destroyed?
Or a roster of every terrorist who’s to give up his arms, from the several independent groups known to operate in Gaza?
It’s over 10 months since the original 20-point peace plan got signed on Oct. 20, and very little has changed on the ground.
Hamas hasn’t surrendered, renounced its commitments to armed resistance and Israel’s destruction or done anything really except reassert its bloody rule of all Gaza inside the Yellow Line.
And the new 15-point plan doesn’t seem to come with actual mechanisms that can change any of that; the only force in the region able to make the terrorists do anything remains the IDF.
We guess there’s some progress: The plans are down from 20 points to 15, after all.
Clearly, Trump is still pushing hard for real solutions, and he’s not a guy who gives up; we’re eager to see the diplomats actually deliver at least some hard achievements in the months ahead.
