Fundamentally, Israel is now led by a coalition that is quite willing to countenance what we would call ethnic cleansing of Gaza, and certainly wishes to annihilate Hamas. Hamas states as a premise of its existence that its purpose is the annihilation of Israel. There isn’t much of a foundation for even a ceasefire.
If a ceasefire were to come about, I think yet another utterly thankless UN peacekeeping deployment would be an absolute necessity, and I am not sure either party would accept that.
I pity such peace keepers. They would be targeted by both sides, both in propaganda and indeed militarily.
Thankless indeed.
Yep, UNIFIL is a pretty crappy duty cycle, Gaza would be worse.
Hamas has increasingly treated its founding charter (one written by people with an insular world view created by essentially being cut from the outside world) as a historical document that does not represent their modern position. I understand there is academic debate over the interpretation of the new charter and what it means to not explicitly disavow the language in the founding one, but while the the updated charter of 2017 does not explicitly recognize Israel it does only call for the establishment of a Palestinian State within the 67 boundaries.
What I see a lot out of these conversations is a demand that those who speak for the Palestinians change and moderate, and then when they do in attempt to find some common ground they are denied and held to old standards. See the PLO downing their weapons to become the partners in peace negotiations that was demanded of them and then never being treated as such.
I do think it would be in Palestinian interest to ask for UNPKF to be deployed.
But as you said , Hamas wouldnt accept that and neither would the Israelis.
It is somewhat hard to give much credibility to an argument that Hamas has somehow become moderate, having launched a massive, bloody attack six months ago and sustained resistance in the midst of a civilian population ever since.
Point taken about the PLO, albeit that was in large measure a function of the fact they could not deliver as partners in those peace negotiations after the second intifada began. But certainly, corrupt though they may be, Fatah has tried for the best part of 20 years to be a state actor of sorts, and are not treated accordingly.
Without a doubt it would be in the interest of the civilian population of Gaza.
I do think UN would have to do that though. Probably ask some of the Arab countries to contribute w.r.t troops as well.
Which country would want to send their troops to that place is another matter though. I’d expect US troops in there as well too.
I don’t think Arab countries would work. It would probably have to look a lot like UNIFIL, with possibly exclusion of some of the countries that Israel now is borderline hostile with.
…which probably means some Indian troops in Gaza.
edit: no way US troops would be trusted, and the US military are not big fans of peacekeeping missions anyway. They are hard, everybody is a bad guy and an innocent, and superior firepower is never the point. Some of the serving Canadian forces I know would do it, but I am not sure that Canada would be well-received. A lot of the West is definitely not seen as neutral, although the Israelis won’t have a lot of trust for many of the non-Western countries.
Not a bad call.
The Saudi regime is interested in moving ahead with the relationship with Israel.
India sending the troops (in a hypothetical scenario) wouldn’t be a bad idea.
But that depends on the resolution by the UN.
That is sort of the whole point, it is in the job description - though as I noted above, definitely not Arab countries. Even the best trained and disciplined won’t be perceived as capable of being neutral.
The reason why I would want Arab troops coming in is because both Hamas as well as Israel would behave.
That doesn’t leave a lot of countries that fit the description.
The problem with that is that is geopolitically true, but it isn’t boots-on-the-ground true. Incidents almost always flare up with low-level encounters, as trivial as conversations that go wrong. I would not reasonably expect an Arab soldier to be capable of facing down deliberate provocations.
Which is why it would have to look a lot like UNIFIL, so many countries that it has an identity of sorts all its own. I think the two largest contributors to UNIFIL are India and Indonesia, with Ireland being the longest-serving contributor.
India and Indonesia do contribute quite a bit.
Any UN force whether it’s UNIFIL or otherwise has to go in with a temporary mandate. A Mandate that’s designed to enforce a standing peace even after the troops are withdrawn. Otherwise it’s just more soldiers being lost.
UNIFIL has been there for 46 years, could not tell you how many casualties over the years, but if they had not been there I think the consequences would have been awful.