Can the Palestinian Authority Govern Gaza?

At some point, the explosions and gunfire will stop, and the war in the Gaza Strip will end. Someone must then govern Gaza, but the options are poor. Hamas certainly will not be left in charge, since Israelis vow they will never allow the group to rebuild its military capacity and again threaten Israel. Israel could decide to take over the strip itself, but it has little desire to rule over two million hostile Palestinians who would undoubtedly wage a low-level insurgency while Israel’s tottering international legitimacy declines further. Others have proposed an international force composed mostly of troops from Arab states, but the potential Arab participants have declared that a nonstarter.

The best bet, and the preferred approach of the Biden administration, is for the Palestinian Authority to take the helm. Rule by the PA—the governmental body that currently controls parts of the West Bank and that ran Gaza before 2007—is better than a lasting Israeli occupation, chaos, or other options, since the PA favors peace with Israel and has the support of much of the international community. But it is hardly without problems. Because of its corruption, poor track record of governing with the West Bank, and perceived complicity with Israel, the organization lacks legitimacy among Palestinians. In the West Bank, it is increasingly losing the ability to suppress Hamas and stop violence without significant help from Israel. And then there is the problem of the current Israeli government’s lack of enthusiasm for the group: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that expecting the PA to solve Gaza’s problems is “a pipe dream.”

For lasting stability and better governance in postwar Gaza, Israel, the United States, and the world need to bolster the PA and otherwise strengthen moderate Palestinians—a process that should begin now but will take at least several years to complete. In the short term, the PA and its backers should identify plausible technocrats who can help run Gaza in the name of the PA but who enjoy more credibility than the group’s leaders in the West Bank. Meanwhile, the United States should work with Arab countries to train thousands of PA security forces, an effort the Biden administration is already beginning. In the medium term, the governments in the West and the Arab world that fund the PA should use their leverage to encourage the PA’s current generation of sclerotic leaders to retire and push for a new generation of vibrant leaders to replace them.

One of the biggest challenges will be persuading Israeli leaders to support a role for the PA in Gaza, since many, including Netanyahu, portray the PA as untrustworthy or even supportive of terrorism. This task is doubly difficult given that the PA’s success in Gaza hinges on whether Israel will build up the group’s credibility in the West Bank by rolling back settlements, stopping violent settlers from attacking their Palestinian neighbors, and providing greater respect for Palestinian autonomy in everyday life. The Israeli government was moving backward on all these issues before October 7, and any perceived concessions to the Palestinians are now more politically difficult. But despite these real problems, Gaza must be governed, and the PA is the least bad choice for the job.

WEAKNESS IN POWER

The PA has ruled the West Bank since the end of the second intifada in 2005, and it has a track record there of corruption and weakness. The PA’s security forces are particularly problematic. They include a multifaceted array of competing organizations, each with its own specific responsibilities. For example, the Palestinian National Security Forces patrol the border and provide internal security, while the Preventive Security Force is an internal intelligence and security agency that focuses on countering espionage, monitoring political activity, and preventing internal dissent. These forces work with Israel to crush Hamas in the West Bank, and they are often brutal in suppressing legitimate Palestinian dissent.

For years, the PA has worked closely with Israeli intelligence and the Israeli military, keeping a lid on violence in the West Bank. The PA, however, is becoming weaker and weaker. In July 2023, Israeli military forces raided the refugee camp in the city of Jenin, claiming that the PA was unable to arrest militants there, even when Israel provided it with precise information. Violence on the West Bank was soaring before October 7, and in the months since, more and more Palestinians are turning to local militias for security rather than relying on PA security forces.

On paper, the PA has some presence in Gaza. As a Carnegie Endowment report notes, before October 7, the PA spent a third of its budget in the strip. It paid the salaries of almost 40,000 Palestinian civil servants in Gaza—including 19,000 police officers who had not been working for well over a decade, having been fired by Hamas when it took over in 2007—and paid Israel for water and electricity there. The PA also has a shadow cabinet that claims authority over the economy, education, and security in Gaza.

In the West Bank, the PA is losing the ability to stop violence without help from Israel.

Yet the writ of these officials is nonexistent, and the police officer payments are simply a form of patronage, with Hamas exercising full control over the lives of Palestinians in Gaza before October 7. Israelis rightly ask a question: If the PA cannot provide security in the West Bank, where it is strongest, how could it provide security in Gaza, where it is weak?

Israelis also fault the PA for radicalizing Palestinians. They note that PA-produced textbooks glorify anti-Israeli violence and otherwise create fertile ground for militancy. PA-run parks and public buildings bear the names of militants who have killed Israelis. Mahmoud Abbas, the PA’s leader since 2005, has given money to the families of jailed Palestinians and those who have died fighting Israel.

But the argument that the PA is radical often rings hollow. Abbas himself has embraced peace negotiations, and the PA security forces in the West Bank have proved willing partners for Israel. The Netanyahu government, in contrast, has actively allowed the flow of aid from Qatar and other sources to the far more radical Hamas, part of a deliberate strategy of keeping Palestinians divided and thus creating an excuse to avoid peace negotiations with the PA. In the West Bank, Israel expanded settlements and declined to punish settlers who launched pogroms against their Palestinian neighbors. This policy demonstrated to Palestinians both the futility of negotiating with the Netanyahu government and the inability of the PA to provide basic security. Unilateral Israeli raids against suspected terrorists deepened this perception and created a vicious circle: the weaker the PA was perceived, the more Israel acted on its own, which in turn further undermined the PA’s credibility.

The PA’s security forces are often brutal in suppressing legitimate Palestinian dissent.

Abbas himself does not seem fit to lead the PA, and Netanyahu’s accusations of moral cowardice have validity (although the Israeli prime minister himself is hardly a profile in courage). Abbas is an 88-year-old chain smoker, and under his leadership, independent Palestinian courts and civil society groups have withered. Not surprisingly, the mix of corruption, incompetence, and weakness have led many Palestinians to look on Abbas with scorn. In its October 7 attack, Hamas demonstrated its commitment to fighting Israel in contrast to a dithering PA. According to a December poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, a staggering 90 percent of Palestinians want Abbas to resign. In part to offset this weakness, the Biden administration has pushed the PA leaders to expand their ranks and include new faces.

Finally, Israeli politics make it difficult for the PA to play a role in Gaza. Since the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000, Israelis have been skeptical of anything that smacks of a concession to Palestinians, and the October 7 attacks have almost certainly enhanced this concern. Since the attacks, Israel has barred the 150,000 or so Palestinians who live in the West Bank and work in Israel from returning to their jobs, worsening the already difficult economic situation in the territory. Israel has also blocked payment of the salaries of PA officials in Gaza. All this shows the PA cannot deliver for its own people, making it difficult for it to make the case that it can effectively play a far bigger role for Palestinians in Gaza in the face of Israeli pressure.

Already, Netanyahu and his allies have tried to undermine their political opponents and counter U.S. pressure to give the PA a major role in Gaza by claiming that allowing the organization to take charge would be tantamount to putting a new batch of terrorists in power in the strip. “I will not allow the entry into Gaza of those who educate for terrorism, support terrorism, and finance terrorism,” Netanyahu vowed in December. Itamar Ben-Gvir, Netanyahu’s far-right minister of national security, has even declared that the PA “is not an alternative to Hamas, it is an ally of Hamas, and that it is how it should be treated, both now and after the war.”

THE LEAST BAD OPTION

To state the obvious, the primary objective of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza is to ensure that Hamas does not return to power there—ever. If Israel simply departs Gaza after leaving it in ruins, Hamas will resume its control there. Its leadership is still mostly intact, and it has thousands of fighters at its disposal. It has also ruled the strip for almost 20 years, and even before that, it had deep educational, religious, and social welfare networks there. Deeply enmeshed in Gaza, it will be difficult to extirpate.

One option is simply for Israel to become an occupying power in Gaza. Understandably, Israel has no desire to expand its rule over another two million Palestinians, most of whom have long hated Israel, have celebrated the October 7 attacks, and now loathe the country even more for its bloody and destructive war in Gaza. Israel would face a low-level insurgency, adding to the casualties it has suffered and the considerable damage to its international reputation it has endured. Not surprisingly, Netanyahu has asserted that becoming a long-term occupier is not a goal.

Israel might also put a government composed of unaffiliated technocrats with experience in international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund in charge of Gaza. In theory, this government would be less corrupt and more efficient than the current PA leadership, focusing on providing services, establishing law and order, and otherwise building institutions to replace those established by Hamas. In practice, however, the technocrats by themselves lack a power base: both the PA nomenklatura and Hamas would oppose their rule. Israel would be forced to provide security, and the technocrats would quickly be seen as a façade for Israeli rule, further damaging their legitimacy. Technocrats are necessary, but they cannot rule without support.

Another alternative is simply chaos, with a Gazan version of Somalia on Israel’s border. Various clan leaders, municipal figures, and other local power brokers would come to the fore, at times cooperating and at times fighting each other. Israel would back or suppress a given leader based on his willingness to keep Hamas down and otherwise stop anti-Israeli violence. Gazans, of course, would continue to suffer as constant low-level fighting would endure.

Some observers have also broached the idea of an international force, perhaps composed in part of troops from Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, or other Arab states that have friendly relations with Israel and are hostile to Hamas. But these countries have little appetite for getting involved in Gaza. Although their rulers oppose Hamas, their people do not, and the countries do not want to be seen as Israel’s partner in oppressing the Palestinians. Ayman Safadi, Jordan’s foreign minister, left little doubt about Arab interest: “Let me be very clear, there will be no Arab troops going to Gaza. None. We’re not going to be seen as the enemy.”

Indeed, to avoid the appearance of abetting an Israeli occupation, Arab states are likely to demand a greater role for the PA if they are to contribute to Gaza’s reconstruction. Saudi Arabia, for its part, will want Israel to make concessions to the PA so it can show that it is not abandoning the Palestinians—a far more politically salient issue than it was before October 7—if it is to proceed with normalizing relations with Israel.

A PLAN FOR GAZA

Every answer to the Gaza governance question is unsatisfying. But in the words of one Israeli security official who spoke to me on the condition of anonymity in December, “It’s obvious to all that the PA will be back in Gaza, except for the people in the Israeli government.” Several steps can be taken now to make the task more feasible, especially several years out.

First, a much more massive program of recruiting and training PA security forces needed to begin yesterday. The Biden administration is considering plans to reactivate what is left of the deactivated but still present-on-paper PA security forces in Gaza, perhaps retraining around 1,000 of them as the nucleus of a larger future force. Some proposals also envision U.S. support for the training of an additional 5,000 PA security forces in Jordan in counterterrorism. But far more officers will be needed.

Second, Israel, the United States, and interested European and Arab countries need to identify Palestinian technocrats from outside the PA who could play a limited role in governing Gaza when the fighting stops, or at least diminishes. These technocrats could help provide basic services, set up a new education system, and build institutions such as courts and local governments. But these leaders will have to nominally be associated with the PA as part of the process of bringing new, uncorrupted figures into the PA—and to ensure that the PA does not use its power to undermine them.

Arab states are likely to demand a greater role for the PA if they are to contribute to Gaza’s reconstruction.

Third, to succeed in Gaza, the PA needs more credibility, and that requires delivering progress for Palestinians in the West Bank. The fates of Gaza and the West Bank are tied together: it would be humiliating for the PA in the West Bank if it played no security role in a postwar Gaza, and it will be necessary for the PA to succeed in the West Bank if it is to succeed in Gaza. The 150,000 Palestinians in the West Bank who work in Israel but who have been barred from entering after October 7 need to be allowed to return to their jobs, albeit with careful security screening, in order to preserve a modicum of economic stability in the West Bank. Whenever possible, Israeli security forces must partner with PA security forces when fighting Hamas or other terrorists in the West Bank, making it clear publicly that the PA is in the lead. Israel also needs to stop expanding settlements and crack down hard on settler violence, both of which are political impossibilities given the current Israeli governing coalition.

Finally, greater PA credibility will also require a leadership change, a prospect U.S. officials are indirectly referring to as a “revitalized” PA. Younger leaders with more nationalist credibility are needed. Abbas is too damaged, both in Israel and among Palestinians, to expand the role of the PA in Gaza. Neither is he respected in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other countries that might aid the Palestinians. These countries should use their diplomatic and financial muscle to push Abbas and other PA leaders to bring a new generation into senior PA ranks.

Thinking about the PA’s role in governing Gaza may seem premature as the fighting still rages. One lesson from Afghanistan, Iraq, and other conflicts, however, is that removing a hostile regime is often the easy task. Far harder is building a new government that can provide for its people and ensure long-term peace. If Israel and its partners avoid the hard decisions about governance until after the fighting stops, by then it may be too late.