Israel/Palestine

from my post. Did I speak of the Golan Heights? No I spoke about the West Bank and Gaza. Did I speak about whether DMZss have worked anywhere else? No I did not.

The other point you seem to miss is your idea of some "other" force acting as the peacekeeping force. The West Bank and Gaza are territories under UN authority occupied by Israel. What happens there is what does or does not go through the UN. Usually anything Israel wants is rammed through by the US and anything the rest of the UN wants is blocked by the US. Possibly one of the worst mistakes the UN had rammed through it was to make the US the big dog in mediation/negotiations regarding the territories and the remaining questions from 1948. 75 years later and there is still no progress or willingness to seriously discuss Right of Return and Compensation for example but that is another discussion for another day about refusal to conduct oneself in the UN according to commitments made.

A third point is I don't care a thing what former CIA spooks have to say about much of anything and I'm reasonably sure that if we really dug into his entire conduct and the Middle East it would be less honorable in nature than duplicitous and horrible. I wouldn't advise anybody to turn their back to him.

A fourth point is that as densely populated and narrow as Gaza is, 3 to 7 miles wide for most of it, and the statement by Israel that the zone would be "deep" there is no way it does not call for displacing people from Gaza. One of the stated aims by the way of several hardliners in the Israeli leadership.

The entire proposal amounts to forced displacement of people and de facto taking of land. It fits a familiar pattern.