Dr. Aaron Lerner: Diplomatic Initiative Fantasies?

by Dr. Aaron Lerner


Let’s not fool ourselves:  the very same Arab leaders who are rooting for us in our conflict now with Hamas and consider the regional concerns they share with the Jewish State to be of magnitudes greater importance than their true interest in the Palestinians will set this all aside when attending an international conference dealing with Palestinian affairs.

Have an international conference and to a man they will support the Palestinians and oppose us.  Ditto for the Europeans, the Russians and I don’t care to speculate what Washington will do.

Foreign security forces deployed in the Gaza Strip will be driven by a clear hierarchy of interests:

#1. Completing their tour of duty in one piece.
#2. Serving their own national interests.
#3. Performing the role assigned to them subject to #1 and #2.

The one certain outcome of the deployment of foreign security forces in the Gaza Strip is that they become human shields for terrorist activity while at the same time Israel is subject to severe restrictions on its ability to either monitor or react to developments in the Gaza Strip.

It is mind boggling that the same week that we learned that the PA security forces were unaware of the existence of a huge Hamas operation in the West Bank to overthrow Mahmoud Abbas there are people suggesting that we can somehow rely on the efficacy of the same clueless PA security forces in the Gaza Strip.

And what of international involvement in demilitarization?

It is clear from the Lebanon experience that the most that foreigners in the Gaza Strip can be realistically expected to do is document the destruction and/or removal of contraband that is willingly relinquished by Gazans.  The challenge in this case would be to create circumstances that compel the Gazans to hand over contraband.

Simply put:  it is one thing to have some foreigners with clipboards signing off that some numerical quota or goal for contraband destruction was met. It’s a fantasy to expect foreigners to take the initiative and effectively search for contraband rather than just go through the motions and file reports that no contraband has been found.

As tempting as it may sound, we simply cannot afford to subcontract our security.


Dr. Aaron Lerner

Source: http://imra.org.il/story.php3?id=64696

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