topic by
DAVID NEWMAN
4/30/2002 (22:54) |
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Yes to international intervention
DAVID NEWMAN
The symposium organized by the Steinmetz Peace Research institute in Tel Aviv on Monday threw up some interesting new data as part of their ongoing Peace Index. Over 40 percent of the country’s Jewish population (an equal number of Labor Party and Likud voters) said they were prepared to have international intervention in the conflict while, even more surprisingly, 35 percent of the interviewees said that such intervention could even be in the form of troops who would physically separate Israel from the Palestinian Authority.
In the past, any mention of the introduction of international peacekeeping forces usually sends us into spasms of paranoia. From an Israeli perspective, the introduction of such troops is tantamount to an admittance that we are no longer able to control the situation. There is also the feeling that the handing over of some control functions to outside powers is yet another step in the ultimate transfer of all powers to the PA on its way to becoming an independent state. And, we believe, that any form of international intervention will automatically be anti-Israel and biased in favor of the Palestinians.
The truth is, however, that we lost control in the West Bank and Gaza after the outbreak of the first intifada in 1987. And as for the transfer of daily administration, that is precisely what we did when we implemented the Oslo Agreements. We knew then that once transferred, it was highly unlikely that Israel would ever retake control – not that in military terms we aren’t capable of doing so but because we did not want to be responsible again for their daily welfare.
While Israel may have proved its military might during the past few weeks, it is clear that we have no ability, or desire, to re-control the Palestinian towns and villages. Neither are we able, despite all the fences and borders we construct, to prevent every crazed suicide bomber from slipping in.
FOR THE Palestinians too, having been subject to the almost total destruction of their administrative infrastructure (including many institutions which had absolutely nothing to do with terror and suicide bombers), they are unable to regain control over daily life without some major outside intervention and assistance, some of it the most basic humanitarian aid meted out by refugee agencies. In the long term they require major assistance from international agencies and governments who can put a working system of daily administration back into operation.
Given the present situation, Israel should be the first government to invite, and welcome, substantial international monitoring and patrolling of the conflict. Recognizing the fact that a Palestinian state will, sooner or later, be back on the international agenda, there is every reason why this should now take place through the aegis of international forces and aid agencies.
This is far preferable to the direct transfer of power and the confrontations which will occur when each side begins to accuse the other (yet again) of breaching agreements.
At the very least, Israel would no longer be the party to blame whenever anything went wrong, while the Palestinians would have to begin to take responsibility for their own affairs rather than always blame Israel for whatever went wrong.
A peacekeeping and peace-building force (both components are necessary) would have to be perceived by both sides as not being biased, and it would also have to have some real powers and teeth to implement agreements it believed were not being implemented. Israel is unlikely to accept any UN- or European-led force, while the Palestinians may not be prepared to accept an American-led force (although there is probably more likelihood of the latter).
First it requires Israel to accept the need for such a force, rather than automatically see it as being anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian. Once we begin to realize how it serves our own interests and can help us undergo disengagement without the pitfalls of another Oslo, it should not be too difficult to reach an agreement over its composition.
Now is the time for third-party intervention as a means of implementing peaceful, rather than violent, separation between the two peoples and their respective territories.
The writer is chairperson of the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and editor of the International Journal of Geopolitics.
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