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In reply to the discussion: UN says 14,000 babies could die in Gaza in next 48 hours under Israeli aid blockade [View all]moniss
(7,720 posts)to own up to their own shenanigans since the early 1900's in the question of Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq etc. is long overdue. The US never will. But on the subject of Israel and the IDF it is also long overdue for a strong military force to stand up to them. Actually it's so late now that it would likely never happen. The reason I say this is that the areas in question are legally under the control of the UN but the radical right wing government in Israel, like various governments before it, treat the UN as something to ignore or demonize.
The Israeli government should never have been given the authority to be a presence in the West Bank or Gaza for any reason. However the US worked it's leverage to see to it that the "security" of those areas would be under Israeli control and also that the US would be the main power regarding status negotiations etc. The US, UK and France have a long history of jockeying factions against each other for their own purposes of geopolitical influence and oil. The UK and France during their Mandates and after were focused on harming each other in the region and having "control".
The partition being done in the way it was demonstrated to most people the bullying of the US at the UN and was predicted by many to be a constant conflict if the terms were not agreeable to all parties or if it was enacted unilaterally for the benefit of one party. But that is what happened and now here we are. The UN should have, but was prevented, extended the Mandate and continued on with efforts to get an agreement that both main parties could accept. If they had and would have deployed a true peacekeeping force with actual power to go after radical terror groups from both sides then we might have a better chance of success.
Instead one side was favored and unilaterally declared acceptance of the proposed partition plan and declared independence. The UN should never have recognized the country on such a basis. The Nakba, the cleansing was underway already before then, was now on steroids. Obviously the Arab world felt that it was clear that the UN and the Western powers were far less than "honest arbiters" given how it all went down. However the Arab countries were emerging from a mix of the Ottoman Empire hangover and the colonialist approach of the UK and France in dealing with their separate Mandates. By constantly using factions in that world against each other and switching horses all the time there was little sincere effort at creating unified countries. So of course that blunts political or military power in those countries for responding to anything or asserting themselves.
So these various factions in those countries, like the Druze for example, were like their own little armies and the fact that some would become "terror" groups is a predictable outcome and in fact are used by outside parties to this day. For the Western countries to decry violence and factionalism when it is what they predictably cemented in place by their maneuvers in the Middle East, and Palestine in particular, is disingenuous nonsense. The Western countries set it up, they fed on it and they still do.
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