Al-Monitor quotes Rafik Hariri Center Senior Fellow Frederic Hof on US policy for ending the current crisis between Israel and Hamas and what can be done in the future to prevent similar outbreaks of violence:
Regarding a possible UN/Lebanon-type plan for Gaza, former State Department Middle East adviser Frederic Hof said he was somewhat skeptical that the Netanyahu government would endorse a Lebanon-type solution as a satisfying outcome to the latest confrontation with Hamas.
Hof, now a scholar at the Atlantic Council, told Al-Monitor: “To me the likelihood of the [Israeli government] accepting a formula that it would use to justify the current round of fighting by saying ‘Hey, the expense, the casualties and the criticism were all worth it because we got something just as good as we got in Lebanon eight years ago’ is low.
“But I suppose Israeli agreement to lift the blockade of the Gaza Strip, work with the [Palestinian] unity government, facilitate Gazan economic reconstruction, etc. could be paired with a demilitarization understanding involving periodic UN inspections and memorialized in a UN [Security Council resolution],” Hof said. “I’m not aware of such a formula being at all attractive to the current GOI, but if I’m wrong then the idea being circulated may have some practical merit.”