One of Israeli PM Netanyahu's problems with both John Kerry's Hamas friendly ceasefire offer and the UN's call for an unconditional ceasefire was that neither mentioned demilitarizing Gaza, which Netanyahu rightly considers one of the prime goals of the current conflict.
But when he mentions this as something 'the international community' should be calling for, he's kidding himself. And to go even farther, even if the 'international community' agreed to do so and put it in writing, Netanyahu and the Israeli people would be incredibly naive to accept it at face value.
Does anyone remember the 2006 Lebanon ceasefire? That resulted in a binding Series 7 UN Security Council Resolution 1701 that guaranteed the disarming of a terrorist group , Hezbollah. In exchange for the IDF ending hostilities and withdrawing all its forces back over the border, UNIFIL and the Lebanese army were supposed to see to it that Hezbollah never returned to its strongholds in South Lebanon and to disarm Hezbollah and all other militias or 'armed groups' as the resolution put it.
With Syria and Iran in mind, there were even mention of specific penalties to be evoked in UNSCR 1701 in the event of any foreign entity rearming Hezbollah.Even Sheik Nasrallah of Hezbollah agreed to the resolution's terms.
So, what happened? Once the IDF pulled out all of a sudden things changed. Hezbollah refused to be disarmed, and the then United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan suddenly came up with the brand new position that the UNIFIL troops were not going to take any responsibility to do so, and that it was up to the Lebanese government..who were far too weak to disarm Hezbollah on their own.
And when Hezbollah said that it was going to ignore UNSCR 1701's provision that Lebanon south of the Litani River was to be a Hezbollah free zone, did the UN or UNIFIL say one word? Maybe 'not our job' but not much else.
And in August of that same year, when Turkish authorities intercepted five Iranian cargo aircraft and one Syrian aircraft carrying missiles to Hezbollah forced them to land at Diyarbakır Airport in southeastern Turkey, did the UN do anything about it? Uhhh, no.
That is how the 'international community' does disarmament and demilitarization. Especially when it comes to Islamist terrorists where Israel is concerned.
My point here? Expecting the US or the UN to demilitarize Gaza and disarm Hamas is to believe in a fairy tale no matter what either of them put on a piece pf paper.Especially with President Obama in charge.
The only way to disarm and 'demilitarize' Gaza and make sure it stays that way is for the IDF to defeat Hezbollah completely. And Israel can only trust Israel to actually do it.
After that, to ensure it stays that way Israel needs to annex Gaza and and remove a substantial part of the population to UNRWA camps outside Israeli territory, or to Area A, or to a combination of the two Then repopulate Gaza with Jews and watch it become a Singapore or a Hong Kong.
This would not be a solution without cost. Solutions deferred for years never are.
But in the end, peace comes from victory. And after all of the 'sacrifices for peace' written in Jewish blood forced on Israel since the Oslo debacle, I think the Israeli people would support this over these constant wars of attrition that grow more costly each time. Enough of the balagan gadol.
Cross Posted at The Times Of Israel
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