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A “Peacekeeping” Puzzle

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said countries that don’t have diplomatic relations with Israel should not be permitted to contribute troops to an international peacekeeping force for southern Lebanon. That would eliminate Indonesia, Malaysia and Bangladesh — among the only countries to have offered front-line troops for the expanded force. ~AP Via Antiwar The […]

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said countries that don’t have diplomatic relations with Israel should not be permitted to contribute troops to an international peacekeeping force for southern Lebanon. That would eliminate Indonesia, Malaysia and Bangladesh — among the only countries to have offered front-line troops for the expanded force. ~AP

Via Antiwar

The tenuous cease-fire in Lebanon continues to erode, which I suppose is not very surprising considering the half-baked nature of the cease-fire in the first place, but what continues to surprise me is the Israeli resistance to having peacekeepers from any countries with which it does not have diplomatic relations.  That would, unless I am very much mistaken, include most of the Islamic world.  Many of the nations willing to put their soldiers into Lebanon (even though they will assuredly be no more effective than any other U.N. force of any composition) are Muslim nations that do not recognise or do not have relations with Israel–yet arguably this is precisely why they are considered acceptable donors by the Muslims of Lebanon.  Were they not Muslim nations with some interest in the conflict, they would be hemming and hawing over committing ground forces in any sizeable number–like Germany, France and the rest of Europe.  I can appreciate why it would be less than desirable from an Israeli perspective to have soldiers from these countries, but if Israel objects to the participation of the three largest Muslim nations in the world–including Bangladesh, which has always contributed to virtually every major peacekeeping operation for the last twenty years–it seems to be a signal that it now objects to any U.N. force, because it has already ruled out the only nations that have made it realistically possible to assemble such a force in any reasonable period of time.  A U.N. force probably will be incapable of carrying out the mandate it has been given in Lebanon, but then it causes us to ask why Israel agreed to the force only to refuse to accept it in the form that it was always likely to take (i.e., including a large number of Muslim peacekeepers).

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