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everything goes according to plan, retired general-turned-special
emissary Anthony Zinni will arrive in Israel on Thursday with a
dozen or so CIA agents in tow. The latter will have an assignment
unprecedented in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
They will be charged with monitoring that conflict and whatever
brief hiatus in or tempering of its violence that General Zinni
is able to call a "ceasefire."
The reason
such U.S. monitors (not to be confused with American peacekeeping
forces that have been whiling away the past few decades far from
any battle lines in the deserts of the Sinai, or the limited role
previously played by CIA officials discussing joint Israeli-Palestinian
security arrangements) have been spared heretofore insertion into
the middle of the uprising (or Intifada) is simple: It is a seriously
bad idea. Bad for the monitors themselves; bad for the United States's
most important regional ally, Israel; and bad for American interests
in the region.
Let's start
with the monitors. The small number are too few to do much of anything
but get the United States committed to putting in more. They are
defenseless and likely to be high-value targets for those who wish
to kill Americans out of blood lust (as with Wall Street Journal
reporter Daniel Pearl) or to inflame U.S. public opinion against
Israel (who some will then blame for causing the monitors to be
in harm's way in the first place).
Inevitably,
there will be pressure to provide protection for the U.S. monitors.
As their numbers increase when, not if, the violence escalates further
around the West Bank, sizeable contingents of American military
personnel will likely be assigned to assure the CIA folks' security.
Such a scenario
would result in the realization of one of the Palestinians' longest-held
goals — the "internationalization"of the conflict
via the installation of foreign troops to run interference for them.
If the experience in Lebanon — where multilateral forces were
supposed to separate the Hezbollah guerrillas from the Israeli security
zone and forces there — is any guide, the insertion of American
troops will not prevent terrorist attacks from being launched against
Israel. It will, however, create real impediments to Israel's ability
to preempt and retaliate against the attackers, lest U.S. personnel
get hurt in the crossfire.
In this fashion,
Israel will be rendered less able to provide for her own security.
As a de facto Palestinian state is carved out of areas behind American
positions, the capacity for terror and even paramilitary operations
against the Jews will grow. Lest there be any doubt about this trend,
compare the levels of violence associated with the pre-Oslo "peace
process" Intifada I (i.e., stones and the occasional suicide
bomber) and that now being inflicted on Israel from territories
under Palestinian Authority (PA) control in Intifada II (i.e., automatic
weapons, deadly snipers, rockets, and virtually daily suicide bombings).
It is not in
America's interests, either, to inflict such a fate on Israel. In
1934, Winston Churchill said "I cannot imagine a more dangerous
policy" than one that deliberately weakens an ally to whom
one's own security is tied. The United States' war on terrorism
will suffer a serious reverse if, by our actions, we embolden or
abet Palestinian ambitions to liberate not only the West Bank and
Gaza Strip, but the rest of the territory Yasser Arafat (to say
nothing of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah) considers "occupied":
namely, all of pre-1967 Israel.
Arafat's intentions
in this regards are in evidence wherever his official map of "Palestine"
appears (e.g., in PA offices, on their "police" uniforms,
at PA-sponsored cultural and social events and in the textbooks
used to inculcate hatred for Israel in the next generation). On
this map, there is no Israel. Should this ambition be realized
— or even the conditions created which encourage the Arabs
once again to believe they can wage war to achieve it — the
United States would find its defense posture in the Middle East
weakened and the security value of its alliances dangerously diminished.
It is not too
late to pull back from the brink of this slippery slope. It is bad
enough that the Bush administration has resumed its earlier effort
— briefly suspended after the covert shipment to the PA of
Iranian arms aboard the Karine A was discovered — to euchre
Israel into making further political and, in due course, territorial
concessions to Yasser Arafat. That mistake need not be further compounded
by putting American monitors and, in due course, others into the
line of fire, with all that portends. For the sake of the monitors
themselves, Israel and the long-term U.S. interests in the region,
the right answer should be "Hell no, they won't go."
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