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July 27, 2001/Av 7, 5761, Vol. 53, No.42
Push for Mideast monitors is empty gesture
JONATHAN FRIENDLY
Jewish Renaissance Media
The leading industrial nations got together in Genoa last week to say, among other things, that Israel and the Palestinians ought to invite "international monitors" into the strife-torn areas of the West Bank and Gaza.
The question is: What in the world would they monitor?
They obviously couldn't monitor a cease-fire because the firing hasn't ceased, not for a single day in the two months since the Mitchell Commission first proposed that stopping the violence was a necessary step before talks could resume between the combatants. The Palestinians have continued their intifada (uprising) with suicide bombers, drive-by shootings and mortar attacks on residential neighborhoods; Israel has retaliated with guns and missiles aimed at terrorist leaders, but often harming civilians.
Thus, the monitors would have to concern themselves with the incidents of violence. Perhaps they could station themselves in flash point places like Hebron or Beit Jala and run to investigate whenever they heard explosions and gunshots, which would keep them busy if not productive.
It is not likely that they could convince Palestinian terrorist groups like Hamas and the Tanzim or Israeli terrorists such as the Committee for Safety on the Roads - a settler group that took responsibility for the drive-by shooting that killed three Palestinians - to let them know in advance where they intend to strike from day to day.
It is not clear to whom these international observers would report what they saw or how their accounts might differ from the ones provided by news reporters. The Palestinian Authority is hardly likely to let the monitors visit the burned out ruins of some ham-handed bomb-makers when it is so much more in the PA interest to describe those accidents as Israeli assaults.
Even assuming the monitors did an accurate job, documenting, for example, the Palestinian mortars shelling of Israeli neighborhoods or disproving the charge that Israel is using depleted uranium artillery shells, it might not be very helpful. The people who can stop the violence are those who are causing it, and the Palestinian media aren't likely to broadcast the findings of international observers when they contradict the propaganda lines.
Monitors can serve a useful purpose if the time and place are right. They have, for example, been an accepted and a valuable part of peacekeeping in the Golan Heights and Sinai for decades. But the failure of the UN observers in Southern Lebanon to help Israel capture the Hezbollah guerrillas who kidnapped three IDF soldiers has made it plain that Israel should only agree to U.S. monitors, such as those currently working in Hebron, and then only after a sustained period of non-violence.
Nor should the world expect monitors to achieve miracles. If the two sides aren't ready to reach a peace accord and to observe it, all the monitoring in the world isn't going stop the violence.
It was ironic that while the group of eight industrial nations, the G-8, were taking time at their meeting to tell Israel and the Palestinians - neither of them a G-8 member - how to move toward peace, one of the anarchist demonstrators was shot to death while threatening Genoese police with a fire extinguisher.
The incident was eerily reminiscent of so many of the confrontations that have taken place since the intifada began, where Palestinian demonstrators threatened the armed Israelis positioned against them and paid the price.
Given the increasingly large and strident anti-globalization protests that surround the G-8 conclaves, maybe it is appropriate to suggest that the industrial leaders need international monitors just about as much as Israel does.
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