TwistofFate, I don’t think impartiality would be a problem in the Middle East.
Any impartiality the British Army shows in it’s dealings with Ireland and Northern Ireland (be it perceived or real - Jesus, we don’t want to start debating that here) comes about because of the complicated historical goings on between the two countries.
No group of Israelis or Palestinians want to be part of the UK, and the UK has no strategic interest in the area, so I don’t see why the Brits would get over-involved or act impartially.
Mind you, as I’ve said earlier, I don’t think the idea will work…
First and foremost is the fact that much of the Arab world has NOT accepted Israel - the right if Israel to exist. The best they can do is ignore it for a while when it suits them, then go right back to supporting all efforts to wipe it out. How can you have talk of any buffer zones, or any such thing, when you know there can be no zone big enough today (look how far the terrorists reached on 9/11)? I don’t care how many moderates you can parade to make your case, they don’t seem to have the power within their own nations to stop those who disagree.
There can be no success with buffers is people are willing to kill indiscriminately, or die if necessary. Since they are not interested in true sustained peace (tried that for fifty years, didn’t we?), only force will keep aggressors in check. Can we get them interested in true peace and co-existence? Perhaps. Edwino offered some ideas, but I have no comment one way or another without some further thought. I do know what you are offering as a real solution is not workable under the current circumstances.
Further, when there is such suspicion of the West by so many in the Middle East, it’s hardly fair to say that a Western power should dictate the solution to the problems. Many countries see Israel as a Western-style nation (I think it is as well), and therefore hardly something they want in their back yard. Until that changes, good luck with your buffers and things.
My plan hinges on getting the support of the very people who commit terrorist acts - Hamas, Islamic Jihad etc. Of course it will need the support of the moderates but that can be taken for granted. What we really need is the support of the extremists.
And I think that may be possible. Britain carries somewhat more respect than the US amongst the Arab nations.
You say:
I would say we have been trying force for the last 50 years and it hasn’t worked. The one thing we haven’t tried is peace. It’s about time we gave it a try.
edwino:
It will if the people want it to.
I agree with your suggestions and I think my plan is the best way to establish a long period of peace between the two peoples. This will enable trade etc to commence.
Eventually, once things have calmed down a bit, Israel may recognise the Palestinian state.
sirjamesp:
Its the hardliners and their core support that we need to be talking to. There wouldn’t be a crossfire if all parties agreed to it.
What would the Palestinians gain by making the British withdraw? They would then be immediately faced with the Israelis once more. I think they’d rather deal with the British Army than with the Israeli Army.
coosa:
I hear what you say but, amazingly, the Arab nations do actually view Britain as more even-handed than the US. The Arab countries are in support of US action against al-Qeada (however half-heartedly) so they are not surprised that Britain also supports the US. They do not condemn Britain for doing so because they themselves also support the US.
The fact that Britain is supportive of the US in this action is not seen by the Arabs as a reason to think that Britain has lost its ability to form its own independent viewpoint on any given situation.
This plan, like any plan, will only work if the people involved want it to. If we’ve learnt one thing from the Israeli/Palestinian conflict its that a solution cannot be imposed by force.
A solution can only be found through agreement and calm negotiation.
A British presence there could lead to cooler heads prevailing. The Palestinians will no longer feel like they are in mortal danger of attack every day. And the Israelis will be more secure knowing that there is another line of defence between them and their enemies. It will also prevent the Israelis from launching attacks on the Palestinians even if they wanted to.
“If you kill one Israeli, we’ll carpet bomb your home town”
OK I know they don’t actually carpet bomb but this kinda sums up their attitude - if the enemy commits an act of violence against us then we will commit a much greater act of violence against them.
Whilst this has been an interesting military strategy: the idea of imposing your will upon the people by dint of military force. I would have to say that it isn’t working.
Maybe you can’t impose your will on people by bombing them.
Sadly, since the Israelis do not seem to realise this, I think someone needs to go in and show them.
Your assessment of the Israeli action is incorrect, IMHO.
The Israeli view is that all terrorists need to be rooted out and apprehended, as the Palestinian Authority is doing nothing to protect the security of Israelis. To this end, they have used assasination of key members of terrorist organizations, raids to apprehend terrorists and prevent further attacks, and military targeting of terrorist apparatus, for instance the Jenin police station. No carpet bombing or indiscriminate killing there. These actions IMHO have been relatively successful – more botched attacks, more apprehended bombers, and more “work accidents.” Unfortunately, it is in my opinion a temporary fix which cannot prevent terrorism completely or indefinitely. That would take peaceful coexistence, as I pointed out above.
A few directed responses:
Neither side wants it. The Palestinians don’t want further “colonialism” by anyone. This probably even would include the Jordanian or Syrian governments, let alone the British ones. The Israelis don’t want to be handcuffed in their efforts to act against terrorism. They view a international force as a reward for terrorism, as it will put the onus of enforcing a cease fire not on the Israelis, but on the international force, which can’t possibly have as much of a stake in the matter as the Israelis. It also has not worked in the region – in Lebanon in the 1980s and in the past two years on the northern border of Israel. Also, the international observer force in the Sinai was politely told to leave before the 1967 military buildup of Egypt which led to the Six Day War.
The point is moot, though. No buffer or observer force can work. No observer force can prevent Tanzim snipers in Beit Jalla from firing into the windows of Jewish families 100 meters away in Gilo. No buffer can prevent surface to air missiles from being fired at planes landing in Tel Aviv (well within the range from the West Bank). Buffer zones will probably be more leaky than militarized borders, since the buffering force has less incentive to use lethal force.
A better alternative is a militarized border with a wide “dead zone” established by Israel until tensions calm down. Kind of a Berlin Wall. Of course, this still leaves lots of problems, namely mortars and missiles and people who are set to get across by any means necessary.
These remedies still avoid the issues – what is needed is to address the issues head on, with a political solution leading to peaceful coexistence. This is what Oslo tried to do. This is what was tried at last year at Camp David. There are many issues that have thwarted all attempts – the Palestinians are unable or unwilling to stop militant activities. The Israelis cannot feel secure in such a state. The Palestinian leadership also has clung to unrealistic goals, namely the ceding of all of Jerusalem and the right of return for 1 million or more violently anti-Israeli refugees. IMHO this points to a serious failure in Palestinian leadership, in that they cannot (or do not have enough power to) bring themselves to stop fighting and start building a country. While Oslo did a lot to work against this perception, Camp David and the following year of violence has brought them right back. It has forced the Israelis to stop being proactive and made them establish reactionary policies towards terrorism. Israel cannot move forward until it finds some peace and room to move proactively in negotiation. Palestine has not let them do that.
A buffer zone is not likely to be the answer. As others have said, the source of debate is the fact that this is the Holy Land we are talking about. Thousands of years of history have shown that this land cannot be shared and will be in conflict as long as factions continue. One option is integration of Jews and Palestinians, which we all know is impossible because it would involve one side sacrificing their identity/religion to the other. The same is true with forcing one side out.
Back to the land, who gets Jerusalem? One might come to the conclusion that we just take the Jews out of Isreal, many of their neighbors are ready to kill them and just lead to international strife. We created their nation, lets put it somewhere else.
Obviously, this is a ludicrous argument, but my conclusion is that peace will not come without sacrifice by one or both parties. History has shown that few people in that region have been able to sacrifice at will. Unfortunately onflict may be a fact of life in the Holy Land as long as human nature prevails and one side is unable to agree with the other.
The only argument for a buffer zone is to stop the two sides kicking seven shades of sh*t out of each other - whilst this is going on, the UK won’t want to sit in the middle.
When it is not going on (i.e. the hardliners agree to talk), we won’t need a buffer zone.
Back in late 1990, when Bush (Sr.) was trying to find a convincing reason why we should go beyond protecting Saudi Arabia against a potential Iraqi invasion there (Desert Shield) to regaining Kuwait by force (Desert Storm), an idea came to me.
At the time, the Kuwaitis had a country only in theory. We hadn’t taken it from them; Saddam had. We were under no obligation whatever to get it back from them. We could have offered the Kuwaiti leadership a deal:
We could have offered to get them their country back, on the condition that they set aside a significant part of it (including a significant part of its oil-producing land) to the Palestinians. They could either accept this deal, or join the ranks of royalty-in-exile that the world had already been long bored with.
Meanwhile, our deal to the Palestinians would be that that had to be their land, because we were going to recognize Israel’s right to the West Bank and Gaza. They could choose to live in poverty in the West Bank, to be indefinitely subject to Israeli whim, or they could move to Kuwait and be rich. But as far as we were concerned, any Palestinians remaining would be affirmatively choosing to be Israeli subjects, and we’d do zilch to keep Israel in any sort of negotiations with them. We’d maintain an active role in preserving international access to the Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem, but other than that, we would do nothing to interfere with Israel’s use of its territory as it saw fit. In particular, we’d support the right of Israel to deport to the new Palestinian state any troublesome Palestinians who stayed behind.
And then we’d be telling Saddam, “Hey, you’re all that stands in the way of a permanent Palestinian state!”
RTFirefly, has the recent history of the Middle East not included similar attempts to have Palestinians settle in other Arab nations? Many did years ago, others decided to stay in their homeland. Even if Kuwait agreed, I’m not sure Palestinians would. Also, there are many people living in wretched conditions in other nations in that region who would also demand the right to live in Kuwait and be “rich”. You’de have more trouble on your hands, not less.
Is there any evidence to show that anything less than the disapperance of Israel would satisfy Syria, Hezbolla, Iraq, Hamas, etc.?
Also, we were in no mood to offer the Palestinians jack squat after or during the Gulf War cause these were the people out in the street violently protesting for Saddam Hussein and against the American-led coalition. To the victor go the spoils, eh?
Also, IIRC, Oslo called for negotiations on Jerusalem and the refugees to be postponed till a later date. At no point was Oslo supposed to be a final agreement – it contained no information about the formation and operation of a Palestinian state. It was just a document which set up an interim Palestinian Authority, a semiautonomous body in Gaza and the West Bank which would be responsible for establishing a rule of law and peace and order. It also contained provisions about Israeli and Palestinian behavior which could lead to further negotiations. Most of these provisions were unfortunately broken, either by the PA (in refusing to arrest militants or condemn suicide bombers or recognize Israel’s right of existence or cooperation with Israeli security forces) or later by the Netanyahu government (no expansion of settlements, normalization of trade and borders).
Nope. For evidence of this fact, see this site, which, in part, states:
Granted, the quotes contained on that site are from a couple of years ago, but rest assured the sentiments remain the same to this day. They will not be happy until Israel ceases to exist - period.
In fact, go straight to the source and they don’t deny it. Check out http://www.palestine-info.com/hamas/ and read the link describing their emblem (following the “About Hamas” and “The movement’s emblem” links), where it states very clearly:
You will notice that the map of “Palestine” on their emblem is actually a map of the whole of Israel.
And from their “Hamas’ position regarding the political settlement” link:
They don’t want land in Kuwait, they don’t want land in Jordan, or Syria or Saudi Arabia. They want Israel. All of it.
I really appreciate your consideration in avoiding stepping on my penis - Spiny Norman
Jeg elsker dig, Thomas
They won’t get Israel. And in their heart of hearts they know this. The best they can hope for is a peaceful, stable Palestinian State.
The existence of the State of Israel is not in question.
Hamas need to be marginalised and this can best be achieved by dialogue with all the factions involved (including Hamas).
We need to create room for this dialogue by creating a non-agressive buffer zone.
edwino’s suggestion that we should create a militarised buffer zone patrolled by the Israelis would be counter-productive - it would make things worse.
We need less Israeli military involvement not more.
edwino raises two (perfectly reasonable) objections:
that neither side would want a buffer zone
that terrorism would continue despite the buffer zone
As regards 1. I say we do it anyway. Both sides may be reluctant but they’d go along with it.
As regards 2. terrorism wouldn’t continue - thats the whole point. Before establishing the zone we would need to secure the agreement of all parties (including those that carry out terrorist acts).
What I am suggesting is that we all take a break from the violence. Both sides in this conflict have seen enough death and destruction to last them a lifetime.
We “freeze” the situation for 10 years or so. We put a neutral (but militarily powerful) force in place to police the zone.
If it doesn’t work then what have we lost? We just go back to the situation we’re in now.
But imagine if it works. There has to be at least some chance that it would work.
The longer the period of time that goes by without violence, the more chance there is of creating a lasting peaceful soultion.
xanakis, hon, your interest in peace and offer of suggestions are noble indeed. But did you read the website I linked to? Please do. They are not interested in compromise, now or ever. In their heart of hearts, this is what they know:
You cannot create room for a dialog with people who do not wish to compromise. They are against any and all settlement offers that don’t include ALL OF ISRAEL.
Please, read their website and learn a little bit about the people with whom Israel is dealing. You might find yourself truly enlightened.
For the most part, no. When the West Bank was part of Jordan and the Gaza was part of Egypt, for the most part, the Palestinians there were forced to live in refugee camps. Neither the Jordanian or Egyptian governments wanted them to settle in Egypt or Jordan. Remember, Arafat tried to overthrow King Hussain. Historically, the countries neighboring Israel neither like nor trust the Palestinians, and don’t for the most part want to see a peaceful solution to the Palestinian problem. They want to see the violence increase, they want Israel to be destabilized, and they want the Israelis to crack down hard on Palestinian unrest. That way they can go to the U.N. and condemn Israel for its “human rights violations”.
No such thing. No matter how effective any campaign may be, history shows us mankind will always mankind will always revert to it’s hatefull ways.
I use the Babylon Five Versus Star trek analogy. We hope it’s going to be Star Trek but we know it’s going to be Babylon 5.
Want a temporary solution? An effective one?
Form a world coalition of anti terrorist countries. Give a position in Afghanistan 24 hours to evacuate. Take American nuke, place it on a British bomber flown by a Saudi Pilot. Destroy the target with said nuclear weapon.
Notify next terrorist host nation. Repeat.
Far feched? Not really, what happens if one of those old soviet nukes shows up in a major city, especially outside of the US?
This is what terrifies me the most. If we are less than effective than effective in our current “war” this may be what we face.
