61 years of vicious circles

January 12th, 2009 – The Israeli-Palestinian conflict enters a third week as the Israeli army has begun encroaching on heavily-populated urban areas. Until now, the fighting was restricted to long-distance missile strikes by the Palestinian Hamas on Southern Israel (9 last night) and to strategic air strikes by the Israeli army on the Palestinian Gaza Strip (12 last night). Although the Israeli gouvernment denies its escalation of the conflict, a spokesman (Mark Regev) admits they are currently training thousands more infantry for a possible ground invasion of Palestinian territory. Furthermore, Mr. Regev insists that Israel’s military campaign into the Gaza Strip is purely defensive and aims to stop the Hamas missile strikes on its own land. Meanwhile, 15 Israelis have perished in the fighting and as many as 900 Palestinians, as much as a quarter of them being civilians, have lost their lives.

The human crisis provoked by the perpetual Israeli-Muslim conflict remains difficult to ascertain because the Israeli gouvernment has not allowed the international press access to the affected regions. It is also impossible for international aid workers to assist the damaged zones or for the local emergency services to possibly deal with the massive amount of casualties in Gaza therefore the casualties can only increase from here on out. The International community and especially the UN representatives to the Middle-East (former British Prime-minister Tony Blair), are promoting an immediate ceasefire yet both the HAMAS and Israeli heads of state have categorically refused to abide by the calls of peace: “Nobody should be allowed to decide for us if we are allowed to strike” claimed Israeli Prime minister Ehud Olmert.

We can seldom predict the future when analysing armed international conflicts yet this particular context provides us with an impressive amount of history. Indeed, we can observe several repetitions of brief, armed conflicts at regular intervals since the creation of the Israeli state in 1948. Additionally, one can observe the inefficiency of international mediation, especially by the United Nations who have been involved since the very beginning.

The UNTSO or United Nations Truce Supervision Organization was the very first peacekeeping mission attempted by the United Nations. Still operational today, it is therefore the oldest peace mission by the UN and has little or nothing to show for it.

Not 24 hours after the State of Israel was proclaimed (May 14th, 1948), a conflict broke out when an Arab league (Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine) began attacking Israel. The UN quickly mediated a truce and the Middle East has been politically stable and peaceful ever since.

End.

…actually, you may have guessed that the truce lasted but a few days and the UN mediator was assassinated. The following decade was host to constant or even increasing blood shed as the Arab world reviled the Israeli presence on their ancestral lands and as the unarmed UN garrisons of UNTSO only had the mandate to observe and report possible violations of the successive cease-fire agreements. From their headquarters in Jerusalem and from their eventual observation posts across the Middle East, the UNTSO soldiers took note of Arab and Israeli complaints about the opposing side. You may again have guessed that this secretarial role played by the UN was largely reactionary to the conflicts of 1948 yet to this day; the mandate of the UN in the Middle East remains static and has never truly confronted the relational and diplomatic problems between the countries concerned. They have rather consisted of a minimal presence that observes and reports; it DOES nothing.

Further on in history, the Suez Crisis of 1956, the six-day war of 1967 and the Yom Kippur war of 1973 represent only three major examples of escalating tension, outbreak of war and international-community mediated truces. Again with the Israel-Lebanon conflict of 2006, the United Nations were completely powerless, and seemingly unwilling to intervene if we consider the unchanging nature of UNTSO’s mandate, to prevent Arab-Israeli violence and could only help evacuate tourists.

This weekend, Olmert confirmed that a renewed cease-fire was close and thus we will once again have a UN mediated agreement that will really only be upheld and eventually broken by the warring factions and in no way influenced by the limp-wristed interventions of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation.

(Pictured: Israel/Palestine in 1948 - Israel/Palestine in 2009)

Happy new year; now go and repeat history.

End.