andrewducker

It increasingly feels like the only medium-term solution in Palestine is a large UN peacekeeping force. Both to protect the people in Gaza and to prevent attacks from Gaza on Israel. And it's going to have to be in there for decades.

Any solution that doesn't at least attempt to prevent all of the attacks on Israel isn't going to work. Anything which lets Israel come in to Palestine and cause destruction isn't going to work.

You can argue all you like about whose fault is what. Or who has what rights. Frankly, I'm not interested in much of that, and I don't think it helps to find a solution, so you can argue about it somewhere else.

But any solution will require both sides to stand the hell down, and be prevented from going quickly back to constant attacks on each other. And I don't see a way of making that happen without a peacekeeping force to both police Gaza and protect it.

I'm not convinced that this will work either. But I've not seen any other suggestions that would work better than it. It would absolutely require the US to be on-board with it, and basically tell Israel that they will need to accede to it in order to keep US support.

(I'm going to be keeping a stricter eye than usual on this post. If you cannot be polite to people who are quite possibly coming in with very different viewpoints than you, then don't comment at all. And, as I said above, arguments about fault and rights can go in your own blog.)

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

rhythmaning

I don't disagree. But unfortunately I don't think it is in the interest of either of the belligerents "to stand the hell down". By continuing to fight, Netanyahu can claim to be protecting the people of Israel, and the fight gives Hamas a reason to exist (as well as providing many young Palestinians a reason to join Hamas).

It is undoubtedly in the interests of Palestinian and Israeli civilians, though, and I hope pressure from the outside pushes this through.

From:

aldabra

The US needs to be on-board with it, but it can't organise it and it can't provide the troops because from the Gazan viewpoint the US is entirely aligned with Israel and would be seen as just more Israeli occupation.

Europe, if it had an army, and if it wasn't already at full stretch over Ukraine, might have been workable.

I don't see who would be simultaneously neutral enough and close enough to feel it was in their national interest to put their people in the middle of it. Britain obviously likes seeing itself as an international policeman but is categorically ruled out by historically having set this whole thing up to begin with. China doesn't want the hassle. Australia?

From:

andrewducker

A combination? One group that Israel would accept, one group that the Palestinians would accept?

From:

nancylebov

I like the idea, but I have no idea whether UN peacekeepers are capable enough.

From:

andrewducker

Depends whose making the forces up.

A lot of it will come down to "Will Israel fire on UN troops?" (you'd really hope not) and "Can UN troops in Gaza prevent a significant proportion of attacks on Israel?" (Hopefully with the right support and training)

From:

drplokta

I do not see any prospect of getting terms of reference for a peacekeeping force that both the US and Russia would vote for.

From:

andrewducker

I'd love to know more - can you expand?

From:

drplokta

What will the peacekeeping force be expected to do about the existing hostages? Weapons and fortifications currently existing in Gaza? Hamas leaders and members in Gaza? The import of goods into Gaza that could have military uses? Movement of people in and out of Gaza through its airspace, territorial waters and border with Egypt? There are no answers to those kinds of questions that will be acceptable to everyone who would have to agree to such a peacekeeping force.

From:

sobriquet9

Under that scenario, what happens when Hamas repeats the October 7 attack, as they publically stated they are planning to do?

From:

andrewducker

Either they are prevented by the people tasked with keeping peace in Gaza (the UN force), or they are arrested shortly as soon as possible and tried for murder.

Fundamentally it becomes the job of the peacekeeping force to keep the peace. (While bringing in proper institutions and supporting them to the point where they can run themselves.)

From:

andrewducker

Gotcha. I can see that being problematic.

From:

danieldwilliam

Perhaps an African taskforce - specifically Sub-Saharan Africa.

From:

danieldwilliam

I think there a potential problem with the number of non-state and quasi-non-state and psuedo-non-state actors involved.

Would the IDF fire on a properly mandate UN peacekeeping taskforce - almost certainly not.

Would some private citizen from the Israeli religious right fire on the taskforce - they might.

Could some IDF troops pretend to be a member of an Israeli far right group and attack the taskforce, or pretend to be Hamas militia - it's possible.

How do you reliably tell the difference?

From:

danieldwilliam

I think in order to make this work in practice you would have to put a Green Line type buffer zone in place.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Buffer_Zone_in_Cyprus

From:

i no longer believe the 2-state solution can work. even at the "proper" borders, i don't believe palestine would be a viable state, being chopped in two and resource-poor. and it doesn't resolve the palestinians' grievances/displacements since 1948, so there'll always be agitation because of that.

but then a single non-"jewish state" country wouldn't work either, because there are so many factions that simply wouldn't work together, even within the 2 main sides... it would need all sides to believe in peace and cooperation, and the surrounding arab states to be on board, in a process that would make the NI peace process and south african end of apartheid look like a fucking tea party.
oh, and if everyone could magically stop being religious too, that'd be nice...

From:

danieldwilliam

I'm not advocating this but another medium-term stable situation is that the Israelis force all the Gazans to leave.

From:

andrewducker

That would certainly work in some ways.

Although that then fills the surrounding countries with people that hate Israel even more, and turns a lot of people who are already teetering on the brink of "Hey now, isn't that a bit harsh?" at Israel into not supporting them at all.

From:

andrewducker

It would certainly help if both sides didn't feel that they had a god-given right to the same piece of land.

From:

andrewducker

It was Cyprus I was specifically thinking of. Where it seems to have worked.

From:

andrewducker

You can certainly do some of that. But if it comes out (and it almost certainly would) it would make that side look very bad indeed.

From:

redbird

Finding enough UN peacekeepers would be difficult--what countries' troops would be accepted, and how does that overlap with who would be willing and able to send peacekeepers? And who is going to pay to keep them supplied, and for how long?

The Korean Demilitarized Zone is seventy years old, and the Cyprus Green Zone is sixty.

I'm sorry, I don't have a better answer.

From:

nancylebov

I'm not worried about IDF forces pretending to be far right Israelis, but I am worried about actual far right Israelis attacking UN forces. And also about Hamas and the like doing the same.

From:

sobriquet9

That's not going to happen with Hamas in control. If UN peacekeepers try to intervene, Hamas will attack them.

In the meantime, Israel will complain that UN is not doing enough, and pound Gaza like they do now.

Wikipedia says that peacekeepers monitor peace processes in post-conflict areas and assist ex-combatants in implementing the peace agreements. This will have to wait until Hamas becomes ex-combatant.

From:

andrewducker

I'm assuming a sufficiently large UN force can handle far-right terrorists. And also Hamas.

From:

danieldwilliam

I'm sure they could handle far-right terrorists, in the sense that they could tactically defeat them but a long-running determined guerilla campaign would be hard going for the peacekeeping force and there's a risk that if there are a couple of attacks by one side on the peacekeepers the other side loses trust in the process or in the good faith and start themselves and things get messy (again).

From:

aldabra

It's a piece of land which is liable to be uninhabitable in fifty years because of warming and desertification, even if nobody nukes anybody. It would be wonderful if we could organise the rest of the world to offer asylum to anybody who wants out of it, but everywhere seems to be organising against offering asylum to anybody.

From:

andrewducker

It absolutely could happen. There would need to be other approaches in parallell, I suspect, to keep things on track.

From:

ljgeoff

Perhaps complicated by the International Court of Justice claim that South Africa has made that Israel is subjecting genocide to the Palestinians in Gaza.

From:

and there's plenty of precedent for israel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Interim_Force_in_Lebanon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Disengagement_Observer_Force
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Truce_Supervision_Organization

From:

jack

Yeah, I'm trying to think. Wondering if there's any Muslim or Arab country which would be sympathetic to Palestine, but not antagonistic to Israel. Or if US/UK could FUND it, if another country was willing to peace-make. But all that sounds pretty uphill.

From:

jack

Something like that feels like the only possible solution. But I'm also worried that the Israeli government doesn't *want* to end the conflict and would rather have a nearby threat to keep the populace depending on them, and to be able to keep chipping away at Palestinian territory until it's all been turned into more of Israel. And would reject any interference, and the UN probably wouldn't be sufficiently resolute to compel them against opposition.

From:

armiphlage

"Would the IDF fire on a properly mandate UN peacekeeping taskforce"

This is a sore point for Canadians, so don't expect to see any maple leaf badges on the shoulders of any UN forces.

https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/memorials/canadian-virtual-war-memorial/detail/80003151

https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2006-07-25/statement-secretary-general-attack-un-observer-post-southern-lebanon

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/un-officer-reported-israeli-war-crimes-before-deadly-bombing-widow-1.703087

From:

cellio

A substantial, neutral peacekeeping force seems like the only path forward, but where do you find one? The UN has a big credibility problem, the Palestinians don't trust most of the west, Israel doesn't trust any of the Arab world, South Africa just blew any chance it had, Asian countries have no vested interest... who's left?

From:

doug

Something that profoundly changed my thinking about UN peacekeepers was having it explained to me that they are peace keepers, not peace makers. It works well if each side in a dispute prefers the negotiated, UN-kept peace agreement to what they think they can get from further war, but is worried about border incidents. The sort of thing it can work to prevent is someone from side A straying over the line (whether literally or in terms of infringing other rules) and then someone from side B overreacting, and the whole thing escalates until the war takes off again. With the UN rather literally in between, they are the ones who need to react, and they are both less likely to over-react out of longstanding mistrust, and if they mess up they are more likely to get the benefit of the doubt because there isn't the deep hostility.

(We've seen from previous UN forces deployed on borders that they are wholly ineffective at preventing both clandestine operations on the opposite side of the line and blatant attacks like rockets/artillery/missiles/air power fired over their heads. And that was before the era of cheap battle drones.)

In addition to the points already raised about the difficulty of reaching Security Council agreement on the composition and mandate of the force, the only way to force a belligerent who wants to fight to stop is to be stronger than them. That's really not possible with a UN force as we currently conceive of it in just about any context, never mind this one. To have a peace *making* force, it'd need to outmatch both belligerents. This is entirely possible if the circumstances are right - Russia and the US have both played this role in various places in the relatively recent past. But neither are willing and able to do that here.

At the moment both Hamas and the Israeli government appear to prefer further war to a negotiated peace agreement. I fear this is going to get much, much worse before it stops.

From:

bens_dad

Would we need peace-keepers in the West Bank too ? With all the Israeli settlements I don't know if there would be enough agreement about where the green line could go.