Everyone wants an end to the fighting in Gaza. The United States backs ‘an immediate and sustained ceasefire’. The European Commission urges ‘an agreement on a ceasefire rapidly’. The Brits demand ‘an immediate pause in fighting, then progress towards a sustainable ceasefire’. So eager is the Biden regime for a cessation in hostilities that the most senior Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, was sent out last week to advocate the removal of Israel’s democratically elected prime minister. The urgency is understandable. The Gaza death toll is, according to Hamas, just under 32,000. An NGO says starvation is ‘imminent’ in the northern parts of the enclave. Israel has launched a fresh operation against Hamas stronghold al-Shifa hospital and is planning an incursion into Rafah, which is likely to see casualty numbers rise considerably.

On the face of it, there is no obvious way forward. Israel intends to continue fighting until it has a) freed its hostages or their bodies and b) sufficiently incapacitated Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad to delay a repeat of 7 October in the near future. Hamas understands that Operation Al-Aqsa Flood was its greatest ever success, killing 1,200 Jews, turning the West against Israel and derailing progress towards Israeli-Saudi normalisation. The Palestinian Authority has been sidelined and is seeing support for Hamas surge in the West Bank, territories where the ‘moderate’ Fatah has hitherto been stronger. Little wonder the PA accuses Hamas of a ‘nakba [catastrophe] even more horrible and cruel than that of 1948’ and having brought about ‘the return of the Israeli occupation of Gaza’.

There is, however, a way to break this impasse. Not by removing Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel is a strong, stable state in a precarious Middle East. Destabilising that state would be dangerous folly and likely counterproductive. Not by removing Hamas. Hamas isn’t going surrender its position as the de facto government of Gaza, a position it secured in the 2006 legislative elections which election monitor Jimmy Carter deemed to be ‘honest, fair and safe’. Not by some new political arrangement. The Palestinian Authority is too weak to govern Gaza and yet there is no prospect of a factional truce that could bring an enduring, united government to the West Bank and Gaza.

So, how do you bring about a ceasefire that leaves all of the parties in place and allows the international community to satisfy itself that Palestinian humanitarian needs are being met without compromising the security of Israel? You look to history. With the collapse of the Ottoman empire in 1922, the League of Nations created a mandate for the British administration of its former territory of Palestine. For the next quarter century, the Brits were responsible for governing Palestine and facilitating the creation within its borders of a national homeland for the Jewish people. The League of Nations is long gone and with it Britain’s appetite and capacity as a world power, but the basic concept is still sound. If the international community wants Israel to stop bombing Gaza, the international community should take over Gaza and stop Hamas attacking Israel.

The global community, with its cherished norms and spottily applied international law, much prefers to chastise Israel from afar

How would this work in practice? Well, first you’d need a name: the International Protectorate of Gaza, or something like that. Then you’d need a coalition of countries prepared to take on this humanitarian crisis. Given the number of nations lining up to condemn Israel’s handling of the war, or wring their hands over its failure to minimise Palestinian civilian casualties, there will be plenty of volunteers to show Jerusalem the proper way of doing things. Since Israel rightly does not trust entities such as the UN and the EU, the protectorate would have to be run by the United States in concert with other states concerned about the plight of the Palestinians, such as the UK, France, Canada, Australia and the like. This coalition would then make an offer to the Israeli government and the Hamas leadership in Qatar: Israel’s military operation ends immediately, all hostages are released, Gaza is rebuilt, Hamas continues to govern the strip, but the protectorate assumes responsibility for security.

The international community says the killing must stop. That would be the overriding aim of a Gaza protectorate. The international community says humanitarian supplies must get to the people on the ground. A Gaza protectorate would give the Hamas government and its NGO partners breathing space to do this. The international community seemingly regards Israel’s operation as out of proportion to the level of force required to subdue Palestinian terrorism and safeguard Israeli civilians. A Gaza protectorate could exercise exactly the correct proportion of force to maintain security and stability in the strip. It would also give the international community an insight into the enemy Israel is up against. It is all-too-easy to disbelieve Israel when it warns that large numbers of Palestinians support terrorism; that Hamas uses hospitals as terror bases; that Palestinian terrorists fire rockets from the vicinity of schools and mosques and use civilians as human shields; that Hamas loots humanitarian aid; that UNRWA cannot be trusted; and the rest. By assuming security control of Gaza, the international community could dispel these myths and show them up as unfounded Israeli propaganda. They could at last prove that Israel, not the Palestinians, is the root cause of the conflict.

Which is why the International Protectorate of Gaza will never happen. The global community, with its cherished norms and spottily applied international law, much prefers to chastise Israel from afar. Get any closer and it would have to confront some unpleasant truths about those it caricatures as villains and those it fetishises as victims. It would find itself in Israel’s shoes, learning on the job that messy and ill-judged as Jerusalem’s military strategy sometimes is, it is based on bitter experience of the enemy and a necessary ruthlessness that matches the nature of the threat.

The international community disapproves of Israeli boots on the ground in Gaza. Fair enough. It should put its own boots there instead.