President Biden Sends $206 Million for a Peacekeeping Force to Keep a Peace That Does Not Yet Exist

WASHINGTON — President Biden's administration notified Congress that it would provide more than two hundred million dollars to equip and operate an international force to keep the peace in Gaza, a peace that as of press time had not been agreed to by any of the parties expected to keep it.

The notifications, dated in late July, allot two hundred million for infrastructure, vehicles and operations and another six million to repurpose armored vehicles, on behalf of a stabilization force whose final composition was, the paperwork conceded, still being negotiated.

Five countries have pledged troops and two more have offered to train police, which is more than can be said for the underlying plan, which remains a plan. The Press notes that funding the enforcement of an agreement before the agreement exists is a bold sequencing choice, roughly equivalent to hiring the referees before writing the game.

The Press's foreign-aid desk observes that wiring hundreds of millions abroad for a peace force is either far-sighted statesmanship or blank-check adventurism, depending entirely on which party signs the notification, and that the opposing party's identical check is always a reckless foreign entanglement.

"We remain encouraged by the steady progress," a spokesman said of a process both sides had declined to advance.

At press time the cash stood shrink-wrapped on pallets, the armored vehicles stood under dust cloths, and the peace plan stood rolled up against a pillar, awaiting either a signature or a change in which party finds this prudent.