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May 25, 2013
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 Bring In the Peacekeepers?Posted on Jan 6, 2009
By Robert Fisk Editor’s note: This article was originally printed in The Independent. Do I hear the braying of the UN donkey in Gaza? On his Middle East tour, the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, may well be mentioning that well-known Eeyore figure on the East River, always so willing to send its peacekeepers on Mission Impossible. The Palestinians have been trying to internationalise their conflict with the Israelis ever since Yasser Arafat pleaded for UN forces to protect the Palestinians after the failure of the Oslo agreement. Always the Israelis have refused. The very odd observer force which the EU installed in Hebron after Baruch Golstein had massacred Palestinians at the mosque – its patrols regularly interrupted by the Jewish settlers of this very odd city – simply faded away. And the United Nations Relief and Works Agency has been throwing tents and food and school classes at the slums of Palestinian refugee camps for generations. Can it be that yet another Israeli failure in Gaza will change the dynamics of “peacekeeping” in the Middle East, that at last the ghost of Arafat will watch the “internationalisation” of the Israeli-Palestinian war? The cliché, in both senses of the word – both the tired phrase and the matrix for any future UN force – is, of course, UNIFIL, the so-called United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. It arrived in southern Lebanon in 1978 after Israel’s hopeless “Operation Litani”, which was supposed to “destroy” the Palestinian guerrilla forces north of the Israeli border. The UN mandate insisted that the Israelis retreat to their international frontier – which they refused to do – eventually leaving the UN with an Israeli occupation force to the south of them and Palestinian units with bases inside the UN force and to the north of them. When Israel staged another hopeless invasion in 1982 – like its unrealistic Hamas operation in Gaza as well as the 1978 Lebanon invasion, it was supposed to “destroy” their Palestinian enemies – the UN found itself operating entirely within an Israeli occupation zone, even allowing Israel’s intelligence officers to travel through UN checkpoints to arrest or assassinate members of the latest Lebanese militia to oppose the occupation in the south. Advertisement The UN force, it should be added, was constantly abused by Israel. It was accused of being “pro-Palestinian” (whatever that is), in league with “terrorists” (it was never explained how), weak, anti-Israeli and – of course – anti-Semitic. Israelis even accused a local UN Fijian commander of spreading Aids. So could there be yet another UN force in the region? Originally, there was a UN observer force on the Lebanese-Israeli border. It arrived in 1948 and still exists – unarmed, on the frontier to this day, within the UNIFIL zone – and this, in reality, could be the framework of a new UN force in Palestine. In other words, an unarmed observer group rather than a peacekeeping force, which could add an international voice to ceasefire violations between Israel and Hamas. But be sure, the Palestinians would then ask for the same institution to be placed on the West Bank-Israeli border – and therein lies the problem for both Israel and the UN. For which “frontier” would the UN then patrol? The UN border of the 1940s, the pre-1967 ceasefire lines – in which a pre-annexed East Jerusalem belonged to the Arabs – or the post-1967 border in which Israel claimed “annexed” Jerusalem, or the massive walled “frontier” which now bites deeply into yet more Palestinian territory – illegally in international law? And would the UN also have to “observe” the equally illegal Jewish settlements built on Arab land within the West Bank? Gaza sounds an easy option. The UN could place some international troops around Gaza. But it would only be a matter of time before they would be required around the West Bank. That would be a Palestinian dream – and, for those Israelis who wish to continue their expansion into Palestinian land – a nightmare.  TAGS:
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By thebeerdoctor, January 8, 2009 at 9:28 am Link to this comment
re: cyrena
Another link you might want to look at, is Jonathan Cook’s piece “Bombing to make the Gaza prison even more secure for Israel”, at:
Report thishttp://electronicintifada.net/
By cyrena, January 8, 2009 at 9:00 am Link to this comment
beerdoctor,
Thanks so much for the link to the Robert Fiske piece. Now *that* is one of his better pieces of work, (like back in the old days) at least from my own particular needs. He provides a great deal of information, like say the list of all of these massacres, all of which we KNOW are true, or can at least be verified by those who are either unaware of misinformed.
So I’ve saved that reference to my always growing piles of various projects. For me, it’s helpful to create ‘time lines’ and put ALL of the information there together, so it can all be seen in the full context.
It’s the only way for so many people who aren’t there, in the midst of it, to actually comprehend the situation in real time. Some of us just need more ‘visual’ learning aides, and it doesn’t help that the Zionists and the Power Mongers have done an incredibly efficient job of Propaganda Management. The ‘ability’ to perpetrate these multiple lies and various myths on how this all came to be is probably THE most amazing part of it all.
How does one get away with such perverted explanations for such a SERIES of Crimes Against Humanity? Only a seriously effective Propaganda Ministry can manage that for as long as the Israelis have.
Anyway, thanks again. I’m saving that all of the good stuff that brewerstroupe has been providing. So much of that information WAS new to me….like the Zionist collaboration with Hitler and the Nazis. Jews quite willing to sacrifice other Jews for their ‘cause’ of a Zionist state.
Report thisBy felicity, January 8, 2009 at 8:08 am Link to this comment
Cyrena - I wonder why Sharon marched on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem - to provoke the Muslim world? I wonder why Sharon or one of his high henchmen went to India to sell her armaments - to provoke the Muslim world? Masochistic? Seems like it.
I wonder why our media don’t mention, let alone question WHY Hamas is lobbing missiles at Israel which speaks indirectly to your questioning the ‘reports’ on Hamas attacks.
Report thisBy cyrena, January 7, 2009 at 7:00 pm Link to this comment
By Felicity
• “…For some reason I keep remembering that during Iran/Contra it was Israeli middle-men who supplied arms to Iran (actually ‘old’ arms Israel had which we then, of course ‘replaced’ with updated versions etc.) And now, according to some, Iran is supplying arms to Hamas? Wonder if Iran got them by way of Israeli middle-men. Seems a clear case of not having to take responsibility for one’s actions…”
I remember this as well. What I’ve yet to be convinced of though, is how ‘some’ are claiming that Iran is supplying Hamas, just as they claimed that Iran was supplying Hezbollah 2 and ½ years ago. IF that is the case, then they need to prove it, at least to me. I’ve been watching this too long to believe this same stuff over and over again.
Fool me once? It won’t happen again.
Now if Iran IS supplying weapons of any kind to Hamas, it might be worth discovering where they came from, IF that’s even possible. Israeli middle-men wouldn’t surprise me at all…they’ve been all over the Middle East and the West, doing Israeli middle-men type duties for decades. (including targeted assassinations – their specialty.)
Meantime, I STILL don’t believe that Hamas is engaging in nearly the level of ‘damage’ that Israel is claiming. Israel is a serial lying rogue state. Sometimes I think they just can’t help themselves.
Report thisBy Samson, January 7, 2009 at 2:00 pm Link to this comment
Readers of Howard’s comments should know that the rocket and mortar attacks virtually stopped in Sept and Oct during the cease-fire. There were three rocket and two mortar attacks in Sept, and just one rocket attack in October. This is according to this wikipedia page ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rocket_and_mortar_attacks_in_Israel_in_2008
The cease-fire ended when Israel launched an attack into Gaza that killed six in November.
Seems like Israel had a solution where the rocket and mortar attacks had stopped, but it was Israel that broke that peace. And remember, the current attack has been planned by the Israeli military and government for at least six months according to accounts from Israel. So its odd to claim that its a response to the rocket attacks that only restarted a month before the attack after Israel broke the cease-fire.
Report thisBy Samson, January 7, 2009 at 1:46 pm Link to this comment
“Does anyone else think that cutting off US government money to Israel should be considered?”
Does anyone think that maybe we could use an extra $5 billion to $10 billion a year here in the US, now that we are broke and in a financial crisis?
Seems an obvious ‘Yes’ to me.
Report thisBy RAE, January 7, 2009 at 10:15 am Link to this comment
No peacekeepers. All sides in this endless stupidity are committed to throwing rocks. The rest of the world should stay the hell out of it and let them go at it until the end of time.
Report thisBy felicity, January 7, 2009 at 10:06 am Link to this comment
Does anyone else think that cutting off US government money to Israel should be considered? Let the state of Israel become economically independent, socially and politically responsible for her policies and actions.
For some reason I keep remembering that during Iran/Contra it was Israeli middle-men who supplied arms to Iran (actually ‘old’ arms Israel had which we then, of course ‘replaced’ with updated versions etc.) And now, according to some, Iran is supplying arms to Hamas? Wonder if Iran got them by way of Israeli middle-men. Seems a clear case of not having to take responsibility for one’s actions.
Report thisBy thebeerdoctor, January 7, 2009 at 4:36 am Link to this comment
A more recent post from Robert Fisk:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-why-do-they-hate-the-west-so-much-we-will-ask-1230046.html
Report thisBy brewerstroupe, January 6, 2009 at 11:52 pm Link to this comment
It is almost comforting to see Howard still in there spreading his bilge. Comforting to know that the best the Hasbara can field is someone of his calibre.
Naem Giladi exploded the myth of the expulsion of Jews from the Middle East years ago.
“I write this article
for the same reason I wrote my book:
to tell the American people,
and especially American Jews,
that Jews from Islamic lands did not emigrate
willingly to Israel; that, to force them to leave,
Jews killed Jews; and that,
to buy time to confiscate ever more Arab lands,
Jews on numerous occasions
rejected genuine peace initiatives
from their Arab neighbors.
I write about what the first prime minister of Israel called “cruel Zionism.”
I write about it because I was part of it.”
http://www.inminds.co.uk/jews-of-iraq.html
Benny Morris is another Israeli who writes honest History despite being a committed Zionist. This time about the expulsion of the Palestinians:
Morris: (My book)... is based on many documents that were not available to me when I wrote the original book, most of them from the Israel Defense Forces Archives. What the new material shows is that there were far more Israeli acts of massacre than I had previously thought. To my surprise, there were also many cases of rape. In the months of April-May 1948, units of the Haganah were given operational orders that stated explicitly that they were to uproot the villagers, expel them and destroy the villages themselves….......
According to your new findings, how many cases of Israeli rape were there in 1948?
About a dozen. In Acre four soldiers raped a girl and murdered her and her father. In Jaffa, soldiers of the Kiryati Brigade raped one girl and tried to rape several more. At Hunin, which is in the Galilee, two girls were raped and then murdered. There were one or two cases of rape at Tantura, south of Haifa. There was one case of rape at Qula, in the center of the country. At the village of Abu Shusha, near Kibbutz Gezer [in the Ramle area] there were four female prisoners, one of whom was raped a number of times. And there were other cases. Usually more than one soldier was involved. Usually there were one or two Palestinian girls…. we have to assume that the dozen cases of rape that were reported, which I found, are not the whole story. They are just the tip of the iceberg.
According to your findings, how many acts of Israeli massacre were perpetrated in 1948?
Twenty-four. In some cases four or five people were executed, in others the numbers were 70, 80, 100. There was also a great deal of arbitrary killing. Two old men are spotted walking in a field - they are shot. A woman is found in an abandoned village - she is shot. There are cases such as the village of Dawayima, in which a column entered the village with all guns blazing and killed anything that moved.
The worst cases were Saliha (70-80 killed), Deir Yassin (100-110), Lod (250), Dawayima (hundreds) and perhaps Abu Shusha (70)..... At Jaffa there was a massacre about which nothing had been known until now. The same at Arab al Muwassi, in the north. About half of the acts of massacre were part of Operation Hiram [in the north, in October 1948]: at Safsaf, Saliha, Jish, Eilaboun, Arab al Muwasi, Deir al Asad, Majdal Krum, Sasa. In Operation Hiram there was a unusually high concentration of executions of people against a wall….....
That can’t be chance. It’s a pattern. Apparently, various officers who took part in the operation understood that the expulsion order they received permitted them to do these deeds in order to encourage the population to take to the roads. The fact is that no one was punished for these acts of murder. Ben-Gurion silenced the matter. He covered up for the officers who did the massacres.
http://www.logosjournal.com/morris.htm
How dare Israel begin again the massacres designed to expel the legal owners of this land?
Report thisBy P. T., January 6, 2009 at 9:47 pm Link to this comment
Right now, I think all that Hamas is demanding is that an end to the blockade be included in any truce. I don’t think they are demanding anything with regard to the West Bank.
However, it would make Abbas and the P.A. look ridiculous if Hamas can get Israel out of Gaza and an end to the blockade, while the P.A. cannot accomplish anything regarding an end to the occupation in the West Bank.
Report thisBy Howard, January 6, 2009 at 8:54 pm Link to this comment
You have it backwards. Arabs live in large numbers in Israel. In the Knesset, doctors, nurses , teachers, etc.
Arab countries booted out all the Jewish people decades ago with nothing on their backs. None can live there anymore or are even allowed.
Only genocide is that which is threatened against Israel.
Stop the rockets from gaza into Israel. Been going on 6 months every day. About time world listened to what caused this warfare.
Report thisBy Fadel Abdallah, January 6, 2009 at 8:52 pm Link to this comment
People with brains are invited to reflect on the following:
“They don’t repair a tire on the Sabbath, but starting a ground terrorist offensive and massacring children, women and men is no problem!”
Peace upon warriors for peace!
Report thisNo Peace for supports of Israeli terrorism!
By Martin, January 6, 2009 at 7:44 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Remember Szebrenicza where the Serbs slaughtered 13,000 Muslim boys and men? The UN was watching and helpless. Ten years later the war crimes tribunals.
Report thisThe Palestinians in Gaza will die in large numbers and never give up the right to oppose the illegal siege they live under with rockets and whatever means they have. Gaza looks more and more like the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw 1943, where some desperate fighters kept attacking the Germans; And the Israeli justification for their atrocities sounds more and more like Heinrich Himmler, instigating the masses to view the enemy with total disgust. Once the enemy was so de-humanized, hardly anybody complained anymore when the only exit out of the camp was through the chimneys of Auschwitz.
The Jews in power in Israel have such a low opinion of Arabs, they treat them like varmint and dream of exterminating them, so that their insane Bronze age religion is satisfied. There is still a lot of talk of “relocation”, ethnically cleansing Israel of all Arabs by expelling them and make them some other countries problem.
Once Gaza looks like Falludja and we have a million refugees and uncounted dead, and the world wakes up in shock and horror, then let the legal proceedings begin.
By Howard, January 6, 2009 at 7:19 pm Link to this comment
Stop the rockets from Hamas is all ya’ need. Nukes YOU can keep….perhaps swallow ‘em. Shame on you for suggesting where to drop them, though.
And peace will come, btw, when Israel is accepted intead of shunned and the object of hatred and extirmination.
Report thisBy Fadel Abdallah, January 6, 2009 at 6:17 pm Link to this comment
Robert Fisk’s own documentation of the history of peace keepers in the area is a proof that Israel never respected these forces and worse yet that Israel continued its state-sponsored terrorism when it felt like doing it.
In my frustration, anger and despair for peace, I have a more practical solution: A few tactical nuclear devices one to be dropped at the Israeli Knesset, another on the Israeli Ministry of War, a third on the Israeli-occupied American Congress, and a fourth on the Pentagon. Only then, this world may have some peace!
Report thisBy ib, January 6, 2009 at 4:49 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Brilliant interim solution
Report this