There was something pathetic in the knee-jerk reactions of both Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to the Hamas takeover in Gaza last month: “Bring in an international force. They ignored at their peril the most basic lessons that all of us, Israelis and Arabs, should have learned from the past 60 years’ experience with international forces in our midst.
First, an international element should be inserted only when both belligerents concur with its rules of engagement. For example, the mandate of the United Nations Disengagement Force (UNDOF) on the Golan Heights was agreed in 1974 between Israel and Syria even though they remained enemies in a state of war; whereas the mandate of the first United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL I, prior to last summer) was agreed to by Lebanon alone; Israel was not consulted. This is one key reason why UNDOF has been so much more successful than was UNIFIL I.
Second, ideally the international element should be little more than “icing on the cake, in other words it should complement and reinforce the will and desire of two viable and credible local parties to honor their agreements. This means that if at some point the international element is removed, the peace does not necessarily collapse. The Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) in Sinai is a successful example of this principle at work. In contrast, when its predecessor, the United Nations Emergency Force, was arbitrarily removed by then UN Secretary General U Thant in May 1967, it helped precipitate the Six-Day War in June.
Third, the deployment of international forces in the Israel-Arab context has had a greater chance of success when they have genuinely separated Israelis and Arabs. Here again, the MFO and UNDOF have worked relatively well, whereas UNIFIL I generally failed because at least until May 2000, when Israel withdrew from Lebanon, the international force did not separate the belligerents, but rather mixed in among them.
If we apply these lessons to the prospects for an international role in the current Israeli-Palestinian context, the following considerations emerge. Considering that the international force’s mandate should be agreed between the two sides, and given Hamas’ resolute rejection of an international force, the idea of an international force in Gaza is a non-starter. As for deploying an international force in the West Bank, the failure of Abbas to lead and Fatah to reform itself, so painfully evident in Gaza last month, calls into question the movement’s credibility as a viable partner anywhere.
Some would argue that this state of affairs reinforces the need for third-party intervention. One option mentioned in this regard is an international nation-building force similar to those that have been deployed in recent years in Bosnia and East Timor. From Israel’s standpoint this, too, is problematic. The introduction of a genuine international force under current circumstances, where settlers and Palestinians occupy the same geographical space, the Israeli armed forces patrol most of the territories, and Palestinians still seek to carry out attacks from the West Bank, would probably be disastrous. Moreover, the force itself would encounter armed Palestinians, thereby reducing the likelihood that the international community would volunteer to put its soldiers in harm’s way.
Thus, in the case of Palestine – both Gaza and the West Bank – from the Israeli standpoint there really is no “cake of agreement with a viable partner upon which to put the “icing of an international force.
But there is another side to the story to Israel’s current and prospective interaction with international forces. It reflects two Israeli dilemmas. First, that of combating non-state actors such as Hizbullah and Hamas, engaged in asymmetrical warfare with Israel and targeting its civilian population from neighboring territory – southern Lebanon and Gaza – that is not ruled by a responsible or even responsive state actor. And second, a growing reticence, even revulsion on the part of the Israeli public to occupying such neighboring territory, for reasons reflecting both demography and the absence of a negotiating partner for peace.
Under these evolving circumstances, wherein there are neither obvious military solutions nor easy exit strategies, Israeli security planners and politicians appear to be increasingly ready to risk introducing international forces under less than favorable circumstances.
This explains Israel’s eagerness to introduce an international force into southern Lebanon last summer, despite the problematic nature of the “cake. The jury is still out regarding the wisdom of deploying UNIFIL II. If, as could happen in the coming months, the international force is denied the backing of a viable and moderate Lebanese government, the situation in the South could quickly become even worse than before from Israel’s standpoint, with 13,000 UNIFIL troops denied Lebanese state support for neutralizing a resurgent and aggressive Hizbullah and becoming more of a hindrance to Israeli security than a help.
Conceivably, a similar sense of exasperation as that during last summer could impel Israel to weigh the introduction of some sort of international state-building force into the West Bank. Without a viable “cake of agreement with a credible Palestinian partner capable of enforcing its sovereign will, this too would be a very risky enterprise.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, we can hardly expect the international community to volunteer to fight Hamas on Israel’s behalf. Yossi Alpherwas director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University and an adviser to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. This commentary first appeared at bitterlemons.org, an online newsletter dealing with Israeli-Palestinian issues.
