Gaza’s Stabilization Force: Why Trump and Rubio Say “No” to the U.N.
The International Stabilization Force for Gaza is beginning to come together, as President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio continue to solicit partners to fill the vacuum that Hamas’ planned disarmament will leave.
President Donald Trump signs an executive order on Delivering Most-Favored-Nation Prescription Drug Pricing to American Patient at a press conference with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Monday, May 12, 2025, in the Roosevelt Room. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)
Trump and Rubio have agreed that only Muslim countries will contribute troops. The United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, and Egypt have already signed up. Azerbaijan may do so. Turkey has also volunteered troops for Gaza, though Israel has rejected any Turkish participation because of Turkey’s colonial past and terror sponsorship.
The UN Challenge for Gaza
Fair enough: The idea that Arab states let alone Israel should trust an empowered Palestinian Authority in Gaza as some think tankers have suggested is both naïve and a recipe for disaster.
So too is the insistence by both Germany and Jordan that the International Stabilization Force should have a UN mandate and follow UN rules and regulations. That is like demanding a Lamborghini replace its engine with a Pontiac’s before driving on the highway.
Germany cares less about Gaza let alone Israel’s security than about pumping up the United Nations, an institution that it believes will allow it to amplify its influence despite its lack of military investment.
Trump should reject Jordan’s input given Queen Rania’s apologetics for Hamas during her visit to Washington at the height of Israel’s fight against the terror group. King Abdullah II is more interested in appeasing Hamas in an ill-considered effort win the group’s commitment to focus its attention elsewhere than in defeating the group. His sudden embrace of the United Nations is an effort to hamstring the effectiveness of the International Stabilization Force.
While some states seek to augment UN influence, neither the State Department nor other foreign ministries should accept the fiction that UN mandates are necessary or effective. In 1981, Egypt, Israel, and the United States created the Multinational Force of Observers (MFO) to monitor demilitarization clauses of the Camp David Accords.
The MFO is among the world’s most successful peacekeeping forces, precisely because it had no UN mandate. Upon its founding, Washington, Cairo, and Jerusalem agreed to sidestep UN involvement to prevent the Soviet Union from having influence in arrangements.
By the same logic, demanding a UN mandate today is to invite both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping to influence a solution whose resolution they seek undermine. NATO likewise intervened in Kosovo without a UN mandate due to the likelihood that seeking a UN role would lead to a Russian veto.
Many countries sidestep UN involvement due to a recognition that UN rules-of-engagement and bureaucracy benefit only the lazy and malign. In Cabo Delgado, for example, Mozambique’s northern province overrun by the Islamic State, Rwandan forces deployed and succeeded where the United Nations and Southern African Development Community could not succeed because they could fight without bureaucrats tying their hands or with soldiers more interested in collecting money than defeating the enemy.
In the Central African Republic, the Rwanda Defense Force deployed in parallel to a UN peacekeeping mission so that it could fill in operational gaps left unaddressed by the United Nations.
When I visited its capital Bangui, the head of the Rwandan UN contingent at the time told me that when insurgents threatened to sack the city, the Egyptian and Pakistani contingents in the Central African force rushed to the Rwandan camp since they knew to wait for UN permission to use lethal force to defend themselves would be suicidal, but that the Rwandans would act unilaterally if need be.
The United Nations for Gaza Looks Like a Bad Idea
It is that sort of operational flexibility that any peace in Gaza will require. The UN has failed—and deliberately so—for decades. Trump and Rubio are right to build an outside force. They must keep cheerleaders for the status quo, advocates for defeat, and self-interested UN bureaucrats from any involvement in the International Stabilization Force for Gaza.
To show any flexibility is to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
About the Author: Dr. Michael Rubin
Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum. The opinions and views expressed are his own. A former Pentagon official, Dr. Rubin has lived in post-revolution Iran, Yemen, and both pre- and postwar Iraq. He also spent time with the Taliban before 9/11. For more than a decade, he taught classes at sea on the Horn of Africa and the Middle East, covering conflicts, culture, and terrorism to deployed US Navy and Marine units. The views expressed are the author’s own.
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Jim
November 3, 2025 at 10:20 am
Effectiveness is the most important criteria.
The author makes a strong case U. N. sponsorship, direction, and control will not be effective in keeping the parties separated and the cease fire intact.
Should the U. N. keep tabs on how it’s going? They will in any event, but this cease fire isn’t due to U. N. action, rather, it seems to be despite U. N. hand wringing which didn’t come close to stopping the killing… more like other drivers ‘rubber necking’ at the sight of a terrible, traffic accident, then driving on… shaking their heads, as they drive home.
It’s due to the relationship between the United States and Israel.
And Trump’s desire to stop the killing (his poll numbers were starting to erode and support for Israel was also crumbling) and his personal prestige are at stake.
It seems Trump’s will for seeing his cease fire succeed is the most notable and determinative factor in whether it will succeed or not.
Thus, Trump’s ideas, tactics, strategy should be the deciding factor in how the cease fire is preserved, along with close consultation with the Israeli government.
Swamplaw Yankee
November 6, 2025 at 3:44 am
Defeat – Jaws – Victory – are we scripting a Hollywood B special?
What is clear is that many questions about intelligence are not public and no answers seem forthcoming.
Israel needs to answer internationally what it knew and when about the 2014 POTUS Obama covert unilateral green lighting of the geopolitical loss to NATO of Ukraine’s Crimean ancient soil, Families and Black/Azov Sea jurisdictional zones to the prime vile Cold War enemy of the WEST, Kremlin ruuzzkie Putin.
It is difficult to believe that the huge financial investment in the NAZI-like FSB sabotage network inside Ukraine from 2008-2014 went undetected by Israeli intelligence. Conversely, it is more difficult to believe that the unilateral scam of POTUS Obama in 2014 to betray the WEST went undetected by Israeli intelligence.
The alteration by POTUS Obama of the geopolitical balance of the middle east in favour of Kremlin ruuzzkie Putin was obvious to the Israeli government. When and how did the Israeli government share this sellout of NATO data with all its allies? What + how did the Canadian Government react to this betrayal? The questions pour out. When we ever learn?
This land swap scam by MAGA POTUS elite bubblers uses code language similar to that used in Ukraine in 2025 by the MAGA Trump sell out artists. Will Ukraine learn the truth of when Israeli intelligence found out the intention of POTUS Obama to unilaterally green light the re-start of the 1000 year old Genocide of Ukrainians by the Kremlin ruuzzzkie Moscovy ethnic group?
The question of who assists GOG in vacationing in Israel, well, it seems quite secondary to most. Unless one reads the Bible more closely. -30-