Any more harebrained schemes involving “U.N. peacekeepers"? - by Ken Cohen

...bear in mind that the once-promising U.N. of yesteryear has become the corrupt and inept U.N. of today—and has betrayed Israel time after time. Harebrained schemes involving “U.N. peacekeepers in the Jordan Valley” or, even more outlandish, “the internationalization of Jerusalem under U.N. auspices” are guaranteed to be disastrous for Israel and for any hope of a peaceful Middle East.

Ken Cohen..
JNS.org..
10 September '19..

Last week, Israel came within hours of a full-scale war on its border with Lebanon. This horrific situation was made possible through the malignant incompetence of the United Nations.

On Sept. 1, Hezbollah launched anti-tank missiles from Lebanon at an Israeli military vehicle near the border, damaging it slightly. Fortunately, no Israeli soldiers were killed or wounded. Had there been significant casualties, Israel would have had to respond much more aggressively than it did, which would have triggered a full-scale conflict.

And how is it that Hezbollah was able to maintain its missile arsenal in southern Lebanon? The answer is the utter failure of the United Nations to disarm the terrorist organization.

Despite its primary purpose of preventing war, the United Nations has consistently been its enabler in the Middle East. This most recent betrayal of the U.N.’s peace-keeping mission is just the latest in a seven-decade string of U.N. failures to maintain peace in the Middle East and globally.

(Continue to Full Column)

Ken Cohen is co-editor of the Hotline published by Facts and Logic About the Middle East (FLAME), which offers educational messages to correct lies and misperceptions about Israel and its relationship to the United States.

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

(Video) Why Israel Opposes International Forces in the Jordan Valley

Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs..
14 October '13..

Israel's national ethos is one of self-reliance. International peacekeepers have been proven unreliable in the Middle East in every instance. The Israeli army has been deployed along the steep slopes of the Jordan Valley since 1967, allowing it to thwart terrorist infiltration and deter potential attacks. This critical zone cannot be turned over to international forces with an abysmal track record in Gaza, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt. Israel must defend itself by itself.



Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06F4zWz6k5I

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Check-it out! 

Bar-Ilan Address – Autonomous Or Sovereign State?

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
10 January '13..

In the 14 June 2009 Address by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Mr. Netanyahu described the security requirement for a Palestinian state as follows:

"The second principle is: demilitarization. The territory under Palestinian control must be demilitarized with ironclad security provisions for Israel."

At the time, MKs and even ministers in his party suggested that it is virtually impossible to have "ironclad security provisions" if a Palestinian state is truly a sovereign state.

Why not?

Because even if a sovereign Palestinian state was actually created as a result of an agreement that included security provisions that on paper sounded workable, that Palestinian state would continue to be a sovereign state even if it opted to renege on the agreement.

So much for "ironclad".

There were, of course, those who opted to ignore this fundamental problem and still saw the Bar Ilan Address as an endorsement of a truly sovereign state.

This week Mr. Netanyahu tightened the requirement.

International promises? A chimera that Israelis no longer will rely on.

Evelyn Gordon..
JINSA Fellow..
09 January '13..

In an interview with The Jerusalem Post last month, Czech Ambassador to Israel Tomas Pojar was asked to comment on recent remarks by Israel's then-foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who compared European countries' oft-proclaimed commitment to Israel's security to their commitments to Czechoslovakia in the 1930s. Pojar replied, correctly, that the parallel isn't exact; there are many differences between Israel's situation today and Czechoslovakia's in 1938.

Nevertheless, Pojar warned, there is one important similarity: "There are parallels about how much guarantees you can get from outside, and how much you should rely on them."

Judging by the results of a new poll conducted by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs in late November, it seems the Israeli public has internalized this warning. When asked how the country could best ensure its security, 61 percent of Jewish Israelis (and 52 percent of all Israelis) said that defensible borders were preferable to a peace treaty - i.e., a document enshrining commitments by another country or countries. Just 26 percent preferred a peace treaty. This constitutes a noticeable shift from 2005, when only 49 percent preferred defensible borders.

Moreover, they don't believe the world's preferred formula for an Israeli-Palestinian deal - the 1967 lines with "minor adjustments" - provides such borders: Fully 72 percent said Israel should not agree to such a deal, even if Palestinians agreed to declare an end to the conflict in exchange, and 73 percent opposed ceding the Jordan Valley in particular. That's a logical corollary of the fact that they don't believe the risks of doing so could be mitigated by stationing international forces there, as various peace plans have proposed: Only 16 percent said Israel could trust international forces to ensure its security; 78 percent said security had to remain in the hands of the Israel Defense Forces.

In part, of course, this emphasis on self-reliance stems from overwhelming skepticism about Palestinians' willingness to make peace with Israel: Fully 83 percent of Israeli Jewish respondents thought that even withdrawing to the 1967 lines wouldn't actually end the conflict (most polls aren't quite so lopsided, but all have shown a majority of Israeli Jews holding this view for years).

But it also reflects the lessons Israelis have learned - or relearned - in recent years about the value of international guarantees.

Medad: There Went Another 'Bright' Idea

Yisrael Medad
My Right Word
26 April '11

http://myrightword.blogspot.com/2011/04/there-went-another-bright-idea.html


Every once in a while, some clever person suggests the idea that Israel, if it withdraws from Judea & Samaria, surrenders its natural defense lines and submits to the establishment of an independent second Arab state in the territory of the former Mandate of Palestine could do so without danger if international military forces would be in place to protect Israel if... (and even Iran suspects that)

Well, after reading this poor showing, I don't think that's a good idea:

Libya: Misrata port shelled despite Nato effort


Misrata has come under attack by Libyan government forces attempting to retake the besieged city. Three people were reportedly killed as missiles slammed into the city's port, a lifeline for those seeking to escape to the rebel stronghold Benghazi.


Nato is enforcing a UN resolution to protect civilians in Libya amid a two-month revolt inspired by other uprisings in the Arab world. A Nato air strike earlier damaged Col Gaddafi's compound in Tripoli.


That attack followed big explosions at the Libyan leader's sprawling Bab al-Azizia compound early on Monday, which government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim called "an attempt to assassinate the leader and other political leaders of this country".

If NATO can't beat Gaddafi, they are not going to secure Israel's existence.

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The Trouble with International Forces

Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Commentary
14 July '10

The latest argument by Palestinian flacks like Haaretz reporter Akiva Eldar is that with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas having agreed to host an international force such as “UNIFIL or NATO” in the West Bank following an Israeli withdrawal, Israel has no more security worries and therefore no excuse for any delays in reaching an agreement on such a withdrawal.



But anyone who actually believes that Israel can or should rely on “an international force to defend Israel’s well-being” should consider the latest news on UNIFIL’s mission in south Lebanon.

As defined by UN Security Council Resolution 1701, this mission is, inter alia, to “assist the Lebanese armed forces” in making the south of the Litani River “an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the Government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL.”

But a few weeks ago, something dreadful happened: a French contingent of UNIFIL actually tried to carry out this mission. It began using sniffer dogs to detect illegal weapons and explosives and insisted on searching homes and yards where it had reason to believe Hezbollah was stockpiling such arms.

The immediate result was a series of clashes apparently either staged or encouraged by Hezbollah between Lebanese villagers and UNIFIL troops. In the most serious incident, villagers hurled stones at the peacekeepers, seized their weapons, and vandalized their vehicle.

The second result was that, at the end of last week, UNIFIL agreed to stop using sniffer dogs and refrain from entering homes and yards – or, in other words, to stop carrying out its mission of detecting illegal Hezbollah weapons. Its commander, Maj. Gen. Alberto Asarta Cuevas, followed that up with a fawning apology for the “mistakes,” published in the Lebanese press as an open letter to the Lebanese people.

(Read full post)

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