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* Khaled Abu Toameh: Gaza: Can 'Peacekeepers' and 'Monitors' Succeed Except in Wishful Thinking?
* Andrew Ash: Broken Britain


** Gaza: Can 'Peacekeepers' and 'Monitors' Succeed Except in Wishful Thinking? ([link removed])
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • December 15, 2025 at 5:00 am
* Hezbollah used UNIFIL's peacekeepers as "shields" to deter any Israeli military activity and prevent compliance in case a peacekeeper might be hit. Israel was forced to just sit and watch while Hezbollah put countless tunnels and weapons in place.
* The disastrous model of UNIFIL is about to be copied to the Gaza Strip. Hamas will undoubtedly exploit a similar, weak UNIFIL-style "nanny" force to rearm and operate with impunity, exactly as Hezbollah did in Lebanon.
* Hamas leaders have repeatedly stressed their opposition to laying down their weapons. They have also emphasized that the role of any international force in the Gaza Strip should be limited to being present on the borders to prevent clashes -- meaning firing on Israel should it try to prevent them from rearming -- merely to "keep" peace, not impose it.
* [Senior Hamas leader Khaled] Mashaal, living comfortably far from Gaza, pointed out that Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey -- all three longtime supporters and enablers of Hamas -- share its position regarding the role of the proposed international force.
* According to Israeli officials, Qatar and Turkey are working to dissuade Hamas from disarming.... Behind both proposals lies the aim of preserving Hamas's influence in the Gaza Strip, as well as the ability to launch another "October 7" massacre at a convenient date.
* The Arabs and Islamic countries clearly do not want to be part of any force that could be drawn into confrontation with Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups.... These leaders are afraid of being labeled traitors working on Israel's behalf to disarm the Palestinian armed groups.
* The Gaza Strip does not need "peacekeepers" or "monitors." Instead, it needs an extremely strong security force whose members would engage the terrorists, confiscate their weapons, dismantle their military capabilities, and eradicate the terror infrastructure. It is deranged to assume that any UN-authorized force would forcibly disarm terrorists, destroy tunnels, stop rocket fire, or perform counterterrorism operations.
* As Trump himself repeats, "peace through strength" is the only way to achieve stability and peace in the Gaza Strip and prevent countless more deaths of both Israelis and Palestinians.

The Gaza Strip does not need "peacekeepers" or "monitors." Instead, it needs an extremely strong security force whose members would engage the terrorists, confiscate their weapons, dismantle their military capabilities, and eradicate the terror infrastructure. It is deranged to assume that any UN-authorized force would forcibly disarm terrorists, destroy tunnels, stop rocket fire, or perform counterterrorism operations. Pictured: Hamas terrorists in Jabalia refugee camp, in the Gaza Strip, on December 1, 2025. (Photo by Omar Al-Qataa/AFP via Getty Images)

As part of US President Donald J. Trump's plan for ending the Israel-Hamas war, international troops could be deployed in the Gaza Strip as early as next month, US officials told Reuters on December 12. According to the unnamed officials, the proposed International Stabilization Force (ISF) would not fight Hamas, the Palestinian terror group that sparked the war by invading Israel on October 7, 2023 and murdering more than 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals and wounding thousands more.

In mid-November, the United Nations Security Council endorsed Trump's 20-point "Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict," welcomed its establishment of a "Board of Peace" and authorized the Board Member States working with it to establish a temporary ISF in the Gaza Strip.

The resolution gives the ISF "a wide mandate, including overseeing the borders, providing security and demilitarizing the territory."

According to the text of the resolution:

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** Broken Britain ([link removed])
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by Andrew Ash • December 15, 2025 at 5:00 am
* [M]y father did not move to England in the expectation that its denizens were fluent in Muslim culture, or that there would be a mosque on every street. He did not feel that his human rights, by not being specifically catered to, were being violated. It was quite enough to find accommodation and work, rather than inventing grievances.
* The thought of complaining, or being a victim, would have seemed incongruous to him -- presuming there had been anyone to complain to – because, he said, at last he felt free.
* Playing a "victim card" would have been deemed not only impolite and unappreciative, but woefully narcissistic.
* In many of the Arab countries from which the friends of our family had migrated – from Egypt, to Jordan, to Syria, and Tunisia – being deeply religious was a job. It was for scholars. He was not in the slightest bit offended by the predominantly Christian culture around him.
* Certainly, if people wish to discuss the impact of the out-of-control immigration system that has led us to this point, the authorities do not seem to be even slightly interested. Instead they are told that they are not entitled to play the victim card, so freely utilised by the minority groups. Their "white privilege', supposedly precludes them from sympathy.
* Strange, then, that this huge swathe of allegedly "privileged" people, continues to become increasingly disadvantaged – deprivileged -- as the ever-expanding Muslim communities of Britain prosper.

There is a curious sense of minority entitlement which seems to have grown exponentially in recent years. It was absent when my father migrated from Egypt to England in the last century and met my mother. Although he considered himself a Muslim, he had a somewhat lackadaisical approach to his inherited faith – as did many Westernised Muslims of the time. He was proud of his faith, but he did not place being a Muslim at the forefront of his identity. Like many of his fellow émigrés, he wanted to escape the more oppressive religious aspects of his home country.

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