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Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Weekly Commentary: Diplomatic initiative fantasies?

Weekly Commentary: Diplomatic initiative fantasies?

Dr. Aaron Lerner Date: 21 August 2014

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, Director IMRA
IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis

Since 1992 providing news and analysis on the Middle East with a focus on Arab-Israeli relations

Website: www.imra.org.il

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