Future of the Middle East Peace Process

[The_BlauerDragon]

The Middle East has come a very long way in the last few hundred years... I fear that it may take as many additional years before they will ever be able to find peace, but I hope and pray that it will happen within my lifetime.

[The Stranger]

Ok I dont want to detract from the thread but this point is just silly. There is no fundemental difference between using a weapon that has submunitions and one that doesnt. Both weapons kill people and both weapons have about 10% dud rates.

The only real difference between a standard munition and a Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munition (DPICM) is the DPICM is more bang for the buck.

cluster bombs used by IAF in 2006: casuistry aside, legal or no?

btw, I think that claiming "both kill people" and then using jargon isn't much of a fig leaf.

ETA: less combative than it used to be.

[Lummel]

1.Where do you see the peace process go from here?

I don't see any driver for the political situation to change at present. Is it desirable for Israel and Palestine to make peace? The damage done by the two sides signing a peace treaty which is then broken, within say ten years, would probably be greater internationally than if the two sides never sign a treaty. If the two parties can achieve and maintain good and peace-like relations, ie co-habiting rather than getting married, that would be a pretty signficant accomplishment.

2. Do you think that a lasting peace may be achieved within the next decade or so?

The potential gains from a permenant peace have to outweigh the personal risks for the political elites for them to commit to a lasting peace.

International pressure, the international community is going to be largely pre-occupied with the financial crisis and the domestic political need to demonstrate they are making savings - so who is going to be in a position to provide financial incentives for peace and to fund the re-housing of the settlers within the 1967 borders? Yes European Union & North American governments could increase pressure on Israel but why risk the potential loss of face if they fail? There are safer ways of playing the great statesman than getting involved in the Middle East.

3. If so, what will this peace deal look like?

4. If not, what do you think the consequences of failure will be?

Not necessarily bad if the two parties can co-exist in a peaceable manner. If the two sides can co-operate Israel is in a position to improve or allow the improvement of the standard of living in Palestine.

Tensions over land and water have the potential to sour the relationship with or with a peace treaty and unless those tensions can be resolved there will always be a casus belli.

[snake]

1.Where do you see the peace process go from here?

Nowhere. I think the peace process is dead.

2. Do you think that a lasting peace may be achieved within the next decade or so?

No. If peace ever comes to the ME it'll be long after I'm dead and gone and I plan on living for 4 0r 5 more decades.

3. If so, what will this peace deal look like?

4. If not, what do you think the consequences of failure will be?

Continued violence and death. Eventually the Palestinians will realize their only hope is to demand to be included in a larger Israeli state and that's going to lead to another slew of problems for both sides.

Here is an article that sums up how I feel fairly well.

[gladius]

1. Where do you see the peace process go from here?

Nowhere.

2. Do you think that a lasting peace may be achieved within the next decade or so?

If Israel wants it.

3. If so, what will this peace deal look like?

Two or three states with an even further reduced Palestine

4. If not, what do you think the consequences of failure will be?

Status quo, with a few escalations of violence from time to time.

[the silent speaker]

Well yeah. What else would you expect? It's not like the Settlers have been all nice adn kind to their neighbors or anything.

My understanding is that settler-on-local-Arab violence occurs at about the same rate as Israeli-Arab-on-local-Jewish violence.

I have yet to hear any moderate Palestinian (that is, any that actually participate in peace talks) make the removal of all Jews an express condition of a peace settlement.

Really? Because I haven't heard of any who express anything less than outrage at the idea of a peace deal that doesn't include "all the settlements go".

Also, this isn't an exact parallel to what you're asking, but Mahmoud Abbas is a well-known Holocaust denier.

[Max the Mostly Mediocre]

Ok I dont want to detract from the thread but this point is just silly. There is no fundemental difference between using a weapon that has submunitions and one that doesnt. Both weapons kill people and both weapons have about 10% dud rates.

No.

Given that each cluster bomb can contain hundreds of bomblets and be fired in volleys, even a small failure rate can lead each strike to leave behind hundreds or thousands of UXOs scattered randomly across the strike area. For example, after the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, UN experts have estimated that as many as one million unexploded bomblets may contaminate the hundreds of cluster munition strike sites in Lebanon.[37]

(snip)

During the 2006 war in Lebanon Israel fired large numbers of cluster bombs in Lebanon, containing an estimated more than 4 million cluster submunitions.

The proposition that there would be just as many unexploded weapons lying around if cluster bombs hadn't been used is simply absurd. Because, y'know, 10% of 4 million is a fuckton more than 10% of whatever the number of bombs/shells used would have been had they all been GP or HE or whatever.

[RWHamel]

I think the point he's trying to make is that to achieve the same effectiveness the IDF will fire more standard munitions. There's no doubt in my mind that that would be exactly what they would do.

[Max the Mostly Mediocre]

I think the point he's trying to make is that to achieve the same effectiveness the IDF will fire more standard munitions. There's no doubt in my mind that that would be exactly what they would do.

I'm sure they would. A CBU-87 has 202 submunitions. Is the IAF going to drop 202 Mk84s in place of one CBU (I have no idea if they use these specific weapons, but...)? I seriously doubt it, and unless they do, replacing cluster munitions with other weaponry will in fact reduce the number of duds. Like, by a lot.

[RWHamel]

I'm sure they would. A CBU-87 has 202 submunitions. Is the IAF going to drop 202 Mk84s in place of one CBU (I have no idea if they use these specific weapons, but...)? I seriously doubt it, and unless they do, replacing cluster munitions with other weaponry will in fact reduce the number of duds. Like, by a lot.

Most of the cluster bomb ordnance used in 2006 was from 155mm artillery projectiles. Either U.S. made M483A1's or Israeli made M395/M396. That would be 88 submunitions in the U.S. round, and 63, and 49 in the Israeli ones. So, if it took 60 rounds of standard 155mm munitions to do the job of 5 cluster rounds, how many civilians would die? How many buildings would be destroyed? Which do you think would cause potentially more casualties, 6 155mm standard munition duds, or 44 submunition duds?

My feeling is that civilian causalities would be higher with standard rounds. However that's probably what the real agenda is, to capitalize on the additional bad press for Israel.

[RWHamel]

How about that Hezbollah fired into Israel Chinese-made artillery rockets called Type-81s. The Type-81 is a 122-mm cluster munition rocket that contains 39 submunitions. Or this isn't worth mentioning because it doesn't bash Israel.

[Max the Mostly Mediocre]

However that's probably what the real agenda is, to capitalize on the additional bad press for Israel.

...The real agenda? What, my agenda, or the Stranger's, or our shared agenda, or...just what is it you're insinuating, RW? C'mon, be explicit.

[RWHamel]

Well, if the shoe fits wear it.

[Shryke]

...The real agenda? What, my agenda, or the Stranger's, or our shared agenda, or...just what is it you're insinuating, RW? C'mon, be explicit.

He's insinuating the standard. You must hate Israel because you are criticizing it in even the smallest way.

My understanding is that settler-on-local-Arab violence occurs at about the same rate as Israeli-Arab-on-local-Jewish violence.

Alot?

[Werthead]

How about that Hezbollah fired into Israel Chinese-made artillery rockets called Type-81s. The Type-81 is a 122-mm cluster munition rocket that contains 39 submunitions. Or this isn't worth mentioning because it doesn't bash Israel.

Hezbollah and Hamas are world-recognised terrorist organisations with little international support (Syria and Iran aside) who use violence and murder against civilian targets to fulfil their goals.

Israel is a democratic state under the rule of law. Its actions are, and should be, held to greater scrutiny and account.

[Usotsuki]

Israel is a democratic state under the rule of law. Its actions are, and should be, held to greater scrutiny and account.

It's possible that I am misinterpreting your post but I don't think that's quite true, accountability shouldn't vary according to the nature of the actor.

Whilst the levels of expected behaviour I think reasonably differ, consequences shouldn't.

[Ser Reptitious]

the silent speaker,

Really? Because I haven't heard of any who express anything less than outrage at the idea of a peace deal that doesn't include "all the settlements go".

There's a big difference between demanding the dismantling of the settlements in their current incarnation (i.e. heavily fortified "Jew only" zones, if you will) and demanding that every single Jew leave a newly created Palestine. Can you find me any quotes from moderates such as Abbas insisting upon the latter?

Also, this isn't an exact parallel to what you're asking, but Mahmoud Abbas is a well-known Holocaust denier.

I have never heard of that, but I suppose anything is possible. Do you have a link, by chance? I'd actually be interested in finding out more about that.

However, even if he indeed turns out to be a holocaust denier (which would be very unfortunate IMO, since he seems to be a respectable person), I don't think that would automatically mean that he is a raging anti-semite who would insist on expelling every single Jew from his turf.

[Usotsuki]

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian prime minister, was forced yesterday to publicly confront allegations that he was a Holocaust denier. Israeli critics have repeatedly accused Mr Abbas, better known as Abu Mazen, of saying that there could have been fewer than 1 million Jewish victims of the Nazis.

Muslim critics, meanwhile, have suggested that he is a member of the Bahai faith, which they see as heretical.

Abu Mazen, in his first major newspaper interview, said that in his thesis on the links between Nazism and Zionism, written in 1982 in Moscow, he did not address the question of the number of victims but cited historians who said the victims ranged in number from one million to 12 million.

"I have no desire to argue with the figures," he told the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz.

"The Holocaust was a terrible, unforgivable crime against the Jewish nation, a crime against humanity that cannot be accepted by humankind. The Holocaust was a terrible thing, and nobody can claim I denied it.

And

In 1983, in an early public example of denial from an indigenous Middle Eastern source, a Palestinian named Mahmoud Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen) wrote The Other Side: The Secret Relationship between Nazism and the Zionist Movement. In the book, Abbas suggested that the six million figure was "peddled" by the Jews but that in fact "the Jewish victims may number six million or be far fewer, even fewer than one million."

[Ser Reptitious]

Hakujingomi,

Whilst the levels of expected behaviour I think reasonably differ, consequences shouldn't.

I must admit I am a little bit confused by your statement here. So assuming for the sake of argument that both Israel and Hezbollah during the war of 2006 lobbed illegal weapons at each other, what exactly should the consequences be for both of them? If you simply mean to say that both sides should be equally condemned for it, then I completely agree.

However, once we move beyond mere words into actual consequences, things start to get complicated. Hezbollah (as pointed out by Werthead) is already listed by many nations as a terrorist organization, being a member of which could result in severe difficulties for you in such countries. I don't think you mean to say that Israel should suffer a similar fate, so can you please clarify for me what exactly you did mean with your statement?

[Ser Reptitious]

Hakujingomi,

Thanks for the quotes on Abbas. In fairness, though, it sounds to me like he may have questioned the number of holocaust victims in the past, but I don't get a sense that he persists with that line of thought today. In fact, in your own quotes he point blank states that "the Holocaust was a terrible, unforgivable crime against the Jewish nation, a crime against humanity that cannot be accepted by humankind." He also apparently has no (longer?) a desire to argue about the figures. This doesn't sound like an unrepentant holocaust-denier to me!

In other words, even if he perhaps was sceptical about the scope of the holocaust in his younger days, there's no indication that he holds such beliefs now. Anyone insisting otherwise (at least simply based on the evidence you provided alone) looks to me more like someone who wishes to damage Abbas' reputation, rather than being honestly concerned about him being a potential closet anti-semite.