Response to Comment

David posted a quite intelligent comment to the post below labeled "Lamentations." I'll respond to it out here because it's a lot neater than trying to do that in a comment form, and I don't necessarily think comment-blogging is the greatest way to go about life.

how the heck is a peacekeeping force going to stop Palestinians from blowing themselves up and killing Isrealies? If it were accepted by both sides it could carry out punitive actions without escalating the violence. I'm not saying it'll stop crime, which includes the occasional low-scale bombing, but it might stop the open war and high-scale, high-tech bombings which have happened increasingly in the past month or two. A peacekeeping force would take Israeli soldiers out of high-profile checkpoints where they are targets, and would be a source of fairly unbiased information on the situation on the ground.

Also, you should know that peacekeeping forces "technically" are not suppossed to get involved in problems within a states soveriegn territory. That's not true. It is only supposed to get involved if Israel permits that, but the Occupied Territories have never been claimed as sovereign territory by Israel anyway, though it's not as if the UN is going to launch a war against Israel. But the idea is to get both sides' approval. Remember, except for the Occupied Territories and Western Sahara, just about every square inch of land on earth is recognized as someone's sovereign territory, so peacekeeping are allowed under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to enter sovereign territory, even against the will of the sovereign, though that is rarely constructive.

Until Palestine becomes a recognized state, I doubt the UN will ever send a peacekeeping force in. Almost certainly the UN will deploy observers at least to ensure the transition to a Palestinian state when one is created. I just wonder if that will ever happen in the absence of peacekeepers or something.

Arafat and Sharon are directly to blame for most of this mess... Neither of these men are interested in peace. The sooner they get thrown out of power the better, although there doesn't seem to be any other Palestians who want peace to take Arafat's spot. Well, they're not interested in peace, but I wonder who would be better than Arafat? Marwan Barghouti, a charismatic young Fatah leader who seems to have the popularity to take over when Arafat dies, is associated with the belligerent factions of the PLO, including the now-infamous Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. I think ousting Arafat before there's someone else to take his place would be a mistake. Israel, on the other hand, has a number of more peaceful leaders, and even Netanyahu would be an improvement over Sharon simply because he knows how to speak without making people hate him (and he doesn't own the biggest piece of land in Gaza).

I'll let you have the last word Dave, because you say it better than I could:
What a mess.