Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s recent threat to shutter the office of the U.S. Security Coordinator in Jerusalem would be a reckless move that would endanger both Israeli and Palestinian security. What may appear on the surface as a symbolic or cost-cutting gesture would, in practice, dismantle one of the few functioning mechanisms of cooperation between two sides sliding toward unchecked instability.
Founded in 2005 in the aftermath of the second intifada, the USSC was designed to be a quiet but critical strategic coordinator, helping to professionalize the Palestinian Authority’s security forces while building channels of cooperation with the Israel Defense Forces. It was never intended to be an attention-grabbing operation. And it has never been a central component of peace efforts. Instead, it has been a quiet workhorse — training thousands of Palestinian security personnel, helping prevent terrorist attacks and keeping open back channels between two sides that often refuse to talk directly.
If the Trump administration follows through on the threat to eliminate the USSC, it would be discarding a significant instrument of U.S. leverage in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. More importantly, it would create a dangerous vacuum. As a result, whatever money would be saved through shutting down the operation would come at an incalculable cost in blood, instability and lost influence.
The USSC has been led by a rotating team of senior U.S. military officers, typically at the three-star general level, with direct access to Israeli and Palestinian leadership. Its neutrality and professionalism have earned it rare trust on both sides. Israeli officials, including defense and intelligence leaders, have repeatedly praised the USSC’s role in facilitating security coordination with the PA — coordination that has often foiled attacks before they happen and defused crises before they escalated.
Despite the erosion of political will for a two-state solution, security cooperation brokered through the USSC has survived — and in many ways, kept the prospect of future diplomacy alive. Although the Palestinian Authority’s political legitimacy has weakened, its security forces, trained under the USSC, still operate as a buffer against lawlessness and extremism. Eliminating USSC support would effectively cut the legs out from under these forces, emboldening more radical factions and accelerating the PA’s decline.
Critics of the office frame it as a relic of a failed peace process, or a needless bureaucracy ripe for elimination. But that view misunderstands the USSC’s purpose. The USSC is not a peace negotiator — it is a crisis preventer. Its success is measured in the violence that doesn’t erupt, in the attacks that never happen and in the quiet maintenance of a fragile status quo that still, somehow, holds.
The USSC has been an unsung success story in an otherwise bleak landscape. Shutting it down now would not only betray that legacy of success but also invite new chaos. We urge the administration to double down on the success of the USSC — not discard it for political points.
