The insistence on the world of setting third-party peacekeepers between Israel and the Palestinians has been resisted for decades, and with good reason. Every time Israel entrusts its well-being to others, the others fail.
When Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, the European monitors who were supposed to prevent smuggling from Egypt at the Rafah crossing ran away. They never returned.
From my post back then:
Mind you, this won’t stop them from blaming Israel for keeping the crossing closed.
In fact, the EU monitors at the Rafah crossing actually had no authority from Egypt to do anything, and thus were completely useless.
Now let’s look at UNIFIL’s record in Lebanon.
They were warned ten days before it happened that terrorists were planning on firing katyushas into Israel, and did—nothing.
They have steadily ignored the rearming of southern Lebanon under Hezballah. When an arms depot exploded, UNIFIL could do nothing.
And let us not forget the biggest failure of international peacekeepers in Lebanon, one of Ronald Reagan’s biggest failures: The murder of 241 American servicemen in their barracks in Lebanon—by Hezballah terrorists. (I also consider this the biggest shame of the Reagan administration. It went unavenged, and Americans essentially ran away, which ultimately gave rise to the opinion that al Qaeda could succeed in driving us out of Saudi Arabia.)
The most current failure of UNIFIL: Villagers disarmed a UN patrol and attacked them with rocks, clubs, and eggs. Why? Because the “villagers” were members of Hezballah, and the UN patrol was obviously getting too close to weapons depots.
Hezbollah has urged the peacekeepers in south Lebanon, a stronghold of the Shiite movement, to stick to their mandate, following a wave of protests by villagers.
“UNIFIL should always carry out its role… in a way so as not to arouse mistrust and worry of citizens as was the case during the latest exercises,” Hezbollah’s number two, Naim Kassem, said in a newspaper interview.
[…] Kassem said the peacekeepers “must stick to their mission as prescribed by (UN Security Council) Resolution 1701. Then there will be a return to normal,” said the Hezbollah official.
Translation: Don’t come near our weapons or we’ll kill you. Was there a peep of protest by the UN? Of course not.
This is what the world wants to do with the Gaza border. The world wants to set third parties to keep weapons out of Gaza, including by searching Gaza ships. This is why Israel will never agree to it. The historic failure of the EU and the UN to stop Israel’s enemies from arming, as well as the collaboration of the UN with Israel’s enemies which resulted in the murder of Israeli soldiers, are why Israel will not allow them to police Gaza.
They have failed in every single attempt so far. Why should we believe they’d succeed in stopping arm shipments into Gaza?
There are more examples from the past: What about the U.N. peace keepers in the Sinai, first introduced after the Sinai Campaign in the late 1950s? They were ordered to leave by Nasser in 1967 an they ran.
Any examples for UN blue helmets who didn’t run away in the Arab-Israeli conflict?
True. But I was only going back a few decades. I forgot about the UN peacekeepers that were ordered out before the war. Gee, the UN is so helpful… not.