Israel/Palestine. Peacekeepers. Why Not?

a reply to: intrepid
Canada has a brave history of peacekeeping...but the key word is history. Steve would never allow our Blue Helmets in the Middle East. I suspect he figures it would slow down his timetable for the Rapture.

a reply to: JohnnyCanuck

Our PM may have forgotten that past but the Forces haven't. Oh, and he'll do whatever he's told to do by whoever is running Washington.

a reply to: intrepid

Yes. I didn't want to be the one to say that.

That's the only iron that'll work. There's only one nation on Earth that has the muscle necessary for this to work.

The US can't be the face of the peacekeeping mission...that simply won't work. Strictly behind the scenes. Tell the Israeli's straight up, this is how its going to be. Israel is tough, but they aren't the big dog, and deep down, they know it, or should.

Canadians. The Swiss. Norwegians, perhaps. Japan, maybe. The Aussies, and Kiwi's. Those are the only one's right off the top of my head, who can be the face of a peace keeping force.

I got a feeling peace will only come if both sides are tired of all the death they cause. Perhaps a major tragedy on both sides would accomplish this. At this point there's too many people on both sides of the fence who enjoy seeing their hated neighbor's blood spilled. I'm afraid peace talks or peace keepers won't work. Hamas will target & kill anyone while at the same time not giving any credence to peace negotiations.

The first step for to peace is removing Hamas. Hamas endorses and enforces violence. Their rockets of fail accomplish nothing but death & destruction for the Palestinian people which in turn creates more hatred towards Israel, who btw doesn't help when being baited into killing Palestinians. It's a never ending cycle of death Hamas creates. So Hamas either needs to change everything about themselves or be removed, & bombing them isn't going to remove them, ever.

Ironically though, as I post this I got a news alert on phone that Hamas & Israel agree to a cease fire via the UN.

a reply to: intrepid

Don't forget Sanctions too. If we can Sanction the Russian Federation, we can Sanction Israel.

Edit: Silly history error. sorry.

originally posted by: seagull
Canadians. The Swiss. Norwegians, perhaps. Japan, maybe. The Aussies, and Kiwi's. Those are the only one's right off the top of my head, who can be the face of a peace keeping force.

Tough one and all with untarnished records. Except our. Tough, yes. Untarnished? Not lately.

I believe the Peacekeeper idea was tried in the Sixth Season of The West Wing and it kinda fell apart when, I believe, US soldiers were killed.

There have been many attempts at peace in the ME....as far back as 1919.
listverse.com...
en.wikipedia.org...

Actually, modern unrest in the Arab world seems to have started when WW1 ended:

World War I may have ended in 1918, but the violence it triggered in the Middle East still hasn't come to an end. Arbitrary borders drawn by self-interested imperial powers have left a legacy that the region has not been able to overcome.

www.spiegel.de...
And we know there has been less than peaceful relations for centuries in the region.

We're talking GENERATIONS of not getting along with one group or another.
So, I have to cynical here, but I don't think it will work.

a reply to: intrepid

Peacekeeping isn't a bad idea. It has worked to at least some degree all over the world.

But that is the stick....the carrot would be my first inclination. Another poster mentioned it: remove funding.

The Fed gives "incentives" for states to enact laws/legislation. A prime example: highway funding in exchange for moving the legal drinking age to 21 from 18. Why can we not just work through the funding issue.

If they don't have money for bullets, maybe they'll stop making war?

So are these "peace keepers" gonna be pro-Israel or can we guarantee they will be neutral? How would that be monitored? That's the problem. I would rather see some moving vans be sent there for the Israelis.

After what the British gov and American gov did in 1947 with the illegal forming of Israel, it's hard to find a solution. It's sort of like having a thorn in the finger that you can't remove. All you can do is keep trying to treat the inflammation. Or cut the finger off instead of removing the thorn. Very complicated situation and many are to blame outside of the conflict. I don't think "peace keepers" is the answer. Israel has enough soldiers and US military tech.

Good idea .. unfortuneatly one thats overlooked or most likely due corruption and politics one that wont be implemented ..

a reply to: intrepid

The New Zealand government would likely sign up to such a policy providing it had the right backing from the UN.
I would argue against the deployment of Kiwi troops because we would be reliant on the Australians to provide tanks and other capabilities that the NZDF doesn't have at its disposal. Unlike in Afghanistan where our PRT team was welcomed in Bamyan province by the locals our troops would face hostile local population and the Israeli military.

Look at how voters and politician's in western countries have the tendency to demand that a nation troops cut and run from an oversea's deployment when a small number of causality's are in incurred. Besides as the Afghanistan fiasco demonstrates today western political leaders have failed to heed the lessons of post war period that thanks to the Marshall Program Japan and West German society's transformed from to militarism/dictatorships to consumerism and western style democracies. Unless the Palestine people were to under go the same kind of generational transformation there West German and Japanese counterparts did , none of the current issues will be resolved.

Once your peacekeeping force was withdrawn for the reasons stated above, the situation that would develop would be worse than what you see now as the extremists on both sides would be able to claim a victory. Crucially the extremists would also have to back up there promises of some very undesirable outcomes. If you want to further understand my logic look at how the withdrawal of peacekeepers from Egypt has a contributing factor to the Six Day War breaking out.

Well if they're going to keep the peace, they'd better break out the time machine.

IDF forces have begun operations across the border into Gaza.

Special Forces. Airstrikes. Massive artillery barrage. I'm sure armour will soon follow.


Fox and CNN confirm. So, too, does sky and BBC.

Honestly Intrepid I don't think it's workable unfortunately.

Where do you put the peace keepers?........... Gaza ?..................Israel ?.......................Both ?

Ordinarily Israel responds to attacks, they have little or no interest in attacking for the sake of attack since Rabin was prime minister I could be wrong................ So we send the peace keepers into Gaza and they find this.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA says it is investigating after finding 20 rockets hidden in one of its vacant schools in the Gaza Strip.It condemned the incident as a 'flagrant violation' of international law and said the rockets had been removed and the 'relative parties' informed.'Yesterday, in the course of the regular inspection of its premises, UNRWA discovered approximately 20 rockets hidden in a vacant school in the Gaza Strip,' the agency said in a statement on Thursday. - See more at: www.skynews.com.au...

LINKY

And mark my words they will, also in the hospitals.

What do they do ? The article says they were removed, so do we now put peacekeepers in all the schools, hospitals, old folks homes etc. in Gaza ?

If we put them Israel what mandate do we give them ? As seagull said peace keepers that can't shoot back are just observers. It was the same in the old Lebanese 'security zone', we had peace keepers there, did sod all apart from observe.

So now we have peace keepers on both sides and let's assume they have a mandate to shoot to kill if necessary.

I'm trying to stay as neutral as I can here, so I'll start the scenario with Israel at fault:

This current insanity is at an end

The borders are open for work and the Palestinians are working in Israel. An Israeli loses the plot, walks into a mosque and opens fire. It's happened before.

Baruch Kopel Goldstein (Hebrew: ברוך קופל גולדשטיין‎; December 9, 1956 – February 25, 1994) was an American-born Israeli physician and religious extremist. He is known for being the mass murderer who perpetrated the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre in the city of Hebron, killing 29 Palestinian Muslim worshipers and wounding another 125

LINKY

Gaza takes exception to such an heinous act and starts firing rockets into Israel.

Israel responds in kind

What do the peace keepers do ? Shoot the guys launching the rockets? Shoot the guys flying the F16's (my daughter included this time next year).

I'm sorry I just can't see it working.

This generation of Gazan Palestinians has known nothing but hatred, they have no idea of peace to fall back on, How do you teach trust and peace to a people that have known nothing but hatred ? Sit there and take attacks ad infinitum ?

There is no trouble per-say in the west bank, protests for sure maybe the odd riot, and rightly so, but no rockets being launched.

I'm afraid IMHO peace will only break in one of two ways, firstly (and unfortunately the most likely) Israel wipe out Hamas ................. Not the Palestinian people, but Hamas.

Secondly, and I don't care what God/Gods/Entities you believe in or how powerful you think they are, I can't see this happening. Hamas decide they genuinely want peace, accept Israel as an equal entity and start to preach peace to their people.

Just my opinion

Cody