How R2P might be used against Israel
I've discussed the possible use of R2P ('responsibility to protect') against Israel a couple of times already. R2P is the doctrine behind the current intervention by the 'international community' in Libya. This is probably the simplest scenario for its use against Israel (Hat Tip: Lisa Graas).Might R2P also be invoked by Israel’s enemies to target the Jewish State in its war of national survival against the Palestinians? This has already become a reality. Michael Rubin, writing at Commentary Contentions, reports that the Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arnç said last week, “We wish that the United Nations had made such resolutions and countries had taken action in the face of incidents in Gaza, Palestine and the other regions.”So how do we fight against this? I would say that when we have to go into Gaza (and it's when, not if), we go in quickly, we get everything we can done quickly and then we withdraw quickly, before the UN has a chance to deploy troops against us. I'd guess we have no more than a day or two.
Does this explain the surprising decision of the Arab League to allow for R2P to be invoked for Libyan intervention? Recall that the Arab League, the African Union, and numerous other regional developing world organizations originally opposed the concept of R2P. Could the prospect of a UN intervention in Gaza have encouraged the Arab League to back the Libyan adventure?
Even if it didn’t, you can rest assured that the next time Israel feels compelled to defend itself by going into Gaza and taking out terrorists who are attacking it, the League will be crying out for an international response to the “atrocities.” It will contend that Israel is not living up to its “responsibilities” to protect Palestinians. Such an argument will convince many — especially those who are predisposed to hate Israel in the first place. The US will then be in the unenviable position of being forced to veto such action in the Security Council, opening itself up to charges of hypocrisy.
Would we veto such a resolution? With NSC adviser Samantha Power‘s influence on Obama, it is highly questionable. Power is an avid R2P advocate; her 2002 book on the issue, A Problem from Hell, so affected Obama that he invited Power to join his Senate staff as a foreign policy fellow. She also briefly served on his campaign foreign-policy brain trust.
Power is also credited with influencing the president to adopt R2P as part of his foreign policy. But it is her views on Israel that should concern us most of all. She has a long record of antipathy toward the Jewish State. In a widely scrutinized interview with UC Berkeley’s Institute of International Studies, Power said that “a mammoth protection force” through an “external intervention” were “required” to impose a settlement between Israelis and the Palestinians. Her rather rambling and convoluted statement on the conflict clearly accused Israel of human rights violations, which warranted (R2P) intervention in the same way that the Rwandan genocide did. Such an action “might mean alienating a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import” and would involve sacrificing billions the U.S. spends “servicing” the Israeli military to “invest” in a Palestinian state. Clearly, Power is someone who would readily impose a R2P solution on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But with her anti-Israeli disposition so apparent, one shudders to think what this would actually look like.
Scary stuff.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Barack Obama, George Soros, Hillary Clinton, Libyan no-fly zone, Libyan regime change, Muammar Gaddafi, Samantha Power, Susan Rice
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:41 PM
7 Comments:
Remember, too, that the infamous Goldstone report was deliberately set up to accuse Israel of committing most of the required factors that can be used to invoke R2P against Israel, including war crimes and ethnic cleansing. Any new actions that Israel might carry out in Gaza to protect her civilian population will already have been "documented" in Goldstone's pack of lies.
Such intense Jew-hatred is very frightening.
I am optimistic that neither NATO nor the U.S. would militarily challenge Israel.
These entities challenge weak opponents that are relatively safe to challenge. Israel is not weak. Such a challenge would simply expose challengers for their hypocrisy. Those that propose such actions will be proven to be fools.
The US and NATO shares with Israel: routinely undertakes joint military training exercises with Israel; uses comparable weaponry; shares intelligence; exchanges officers with and receives training from Israel; routinely is matched in terms of air and land combat effectiveness, skill, and tactics, and otherwise has no geopolitical or strategic interest in war with Israel. It would be like attacking France or England.
The bigger threat is long term isolation. THAT is something that you can see in the tea leaves.
if we, Eretz Israel keep cool and not be provoked, the Arab enemy will destroy themselves. Intervention, Gaza or other is not necessary. Am Yisrael chai
There is an impending invasion, in addition to the enemies' rockets,
How can Israel confront this onslaught against a sovereign nation and her people? Will nations invoking R2P use this as an excuse to attack Israel militarily?
I would suggest the opposite tack, Carl, going in and going out permits Hamas to rebuild its infrastructure, is unlikely to accomplish much of anything in days, rather than weeks, and will leave in place Israeli security embargoes on Gaza that could still serve as a pretext for NATO intervention.
Better to go in with a combined military force including a healthy infantry component, minimally occupy strategic corridors, and stay. Occupying IDF forces in proxmity to vulnerable Palestinian populations but with strategic assets not determined by aerial and artillery "mowing the grass" but a traditional ground game will imo and unlike Libya not invite but deter outside intervention.
Who could project force against IDF knowing the fight would not be the pushover enjoyed against Gaddafi etc. The British public arn't thrilled with our dead being brought home in the name of nation building let alone helping bloody palis regardless of whatever the BBC may portray.
I would say that if Israel goes into Gaza, the minimal objective should be to secure the Philadelphi Corridor and annex it permanently to Israel.
Egypt cannot be relied upon to prevent a flow of arms and material to Hamas. Israel must never again place its security in the hands of foreign parties.
And its time to talk about rebuilding the Gush Katif communities there.
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