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A Disarmed Palestinian State?

[Jerusalem Post] Amitai Etzioni - During an off-the-record meeting in Washington on Nov. 10, one of Obama's senior foreign policy advisers stated that pushing a two-state solution on Israel and the Palestinians had to take place with great urgency. One element of the plan the U.S. was to push involved a disarmed Palestinian state with U.S. or NATO troops stationed along the Jordan River. I suggest that this is a dangerous trap. First, Abba Eban once compared a UN force stationed on the Israeli-Egyptian border, which was removed just before Nasser attacked Israel, as an umbrella that is folded when it rains. A future American president could reverse the decision to deploy such troops. Second, American troops in Iraq, and the NATO ones in Afghanistan, are unable to stop terrorist bombs and rocket attacks in those parts. There is no reason to hold that they would do better in the West Bank. Third, there are very few precedents for demilitarized states. A two-state solution means two sovereign states. A sovereign state is free to import all the arms and troops it wants. One second after the Palestinian state is declared, many in the Arab world, Iran, and surely in Europe will hold that "obviously" the new free state cannot be prevented from arming itself, whatever it says in some treaty. A two-state solution better be based on the Palestinians developing their own effective forces and an Israeli presence on the Jordan River. Neither can rely on the U.S., beleaguered as it is, or conflict- and casualty-averse NATO to show the staying power for peacekeeping which neither mustered in Kosovo, Bosnia, or Haiti, and which they have never provided in Sudan and the Congo. The writer is professor of international relations at George Washington University.
2008-11-25 08:00:00
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