July 6, 2006
Half-assed mediation rarely resolves difficult conflicts
Bubbles are foaming over the sides of whatever pot’s been holding the long simmering conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and the United Nations is quickly springing to resolutionary action. Israel’s heavy-fisted response to the Palestinian attack on an Israeli army outpost and subsequent kidnaping of 19-year-old Cpl. Gilad Shalit is drawing diplomatic fire from the Islamic world, and rightfully so.
Unfortunately the one-sided resolutions being put up in the Security Council and already approved by the Human Rights Council do little besides add venom to this already ceaselessly obscene conflict. The Human Rights Council is condemning Israel military actions in the Gaza Strip for punishing the civilian population with assaults on the power plant and combat in populated areas. The Security Council is considering a resolution calling on Israel to stop it’s military incursion into Gaza. That resolution doesn’t bother to ask the Palestinians to stop shooting rockets at Israeli villages or kidnaping soldiers.
Like most UN resolutions, these are likely to be at best marginalized and at worst completely ignored and forgotten, but in their creation they do nothing but add extra heat to an already boiling kettle. If the United Nations were to ever fulfill its mission as international conflict mediator, it needs to be able to rise above politics and prejudices of a situation and take its cosmopolitan perspectives into account so it can see and react to the clearest possible picture of what is going on.
In this war both sides carry heavy burdens of fault. At this violent juncture neither side shows any inclination to back down. The Palestinians hold their lone hostage and demand the release of more than a thousand prisoners as ransom. They continue their mostly symbolic but potentially deadly rocket assault on Israeli towns, launching their assaults from populated areas, while decrying the civilian toll from Israel’s responses.
Israel is far superior in military might and continues to flex this power. The Palestinian’s living conditions aren’t great when Israel isn’t busy bombing them and militarily suppressing the population. I’m not sure why after all this time they still think they can convince their cornered and hopeless enemy to quit just by showing them how the odds are stacked against them. Sadly ironic since Jewish history is filled with similar struggles and triumphs by outnumbered, outgunned and often long-downtrodden Jewish communities.
Both sides continue to in their violent cycle of punch and counterpunch with little changing and no sign that either side truly hopes to end the conflict. The United Nations has a spotty record at resolving conflicts and reactionary, and one-sided political actions that seek to quickly blame and punish will not help to improve that record. Bringing an end to the conflict in Israel is going to be difficult enough. It’s not going to happen while people seeking to mediate don’t recognize the pain inflicted and felt by both sides.
Criticism of the UN aside, I think you made one of the most even handed and poignant comments about this long standing conflict.
“Israel is far superior in military might and continues to flex this power. The Palestinian’s living conditions aren’t great when Israel isn’t busy bombing them and militarily suppressing the population. I’m not sure why after all this time they still think they can convince their cornered and hopeless enemy to quit just by showing them how the odds are stacked against them. Sadly ironic since Jewish history is filled with similar struggles and triumphs by outnumbered, outgunned and often long-downtrodden Jewish communities.”
I don’t want to downplay such a serious international situation, but I can’t help but equate this to some sad high school scenario where the gawky unpopular kid spends his summers torturing woodland creatures, or his little brother, because he was beat up by some bully during school. (As a side note those are the kids that eventually pull a Columbine).
No one wins here, the Palestinians are forced to use tactics that label them terrorists and militants. They just don’t have the military might to stand up to Israel in a conventional way. If some one rolled a tank down your street you might resort to militant or terrorist action. Israel, on the otherhand comes off looking like a big bully, and you have clearly stated, here at Aptcoot, the irony of Israel as the oppressor.
Thank you for pointing out what the UN should be bringing to the table, a little history lesson. The tragedy as I see it is that these two people are really not so different from eachother as they would like to believe.