Netanyahu’s Poison Pill
This Monday, Prime Minister Netanyahu sat down with CBS news to discuss his most recent speech, an address in which he finally agreed to a two-state solution but simultaneously imposed a few punitive conditions that will likely serve to scuttle any peace plan before it gets off the ground. One of these conditions was Netanyahu’s insistence that the new Palestinian state be ‘demilitarized,’ an incredible demand that led the interviewer to ask if Netanyahu really believed a regulated Palestinian military would resemble “terrorists lobbing rockets at random opportunities from Gaza.” Netanyahu’s answer, unsurprisingly, was less than satisfactory:
There– there are two questions about this. One is– what is the military force that we face? And obviously we don’t wanna see a– an army with rockets– tanks, mortars, artillery– because the Palestinians don’t really need that to govern themselves. To govern themselves or even to– deal with terrorists internally you don’t real [sic] anything– need anything beyond– small arms and– rel– relatively– simple– security measures.
Well, yes. One can very well argue that Palestinians “don’t really need [a military] to govern themselves,” but it’s also true then that no nation really needs a military to govern itself. Indeed, there are a few nations in the world that really do go without standing armies such as Nauru and Iceland; however, it’s also important to remember that this is because these nations have their security guaranteed by other nations or bodies (Australia and NATO defend Nauru and Iceland respectively). If Israel really insists on living next to a demilitarized Palestine, what country will guarantee Palestinian security? The United States, Israel, the Arab League, the Vatican?
Short of a Tom Clancy novel springing to life, all of these options are extremely problematic. The United States can’t defend Palestine because there’s a good chance that this would lead to some sort of awkward and armed confrontation with our ally Israel. Likewise, putting Palestine under the wing of the Arab League is a terrible idea, because really, does anyone want to make this new state a protectorate of Israel’s historic enemies? And, for reasons that should be obvious to all, the Palestinians will not be totally cool with being protected by a state which has violated their borders and killed their citizens scores of times.
Netanyahu’s demand for a demilitarized Palestinian state is unreasonable. Even without delving into the emotionally charged issues such as respect, legitimacy and humiliation which go along with depriving a people of their means of self-defense, Netanyahu’s plan fails because it lacks a mechanism to guarantee Palestinian security. Even if Netanyahu could convince the Palestinians to sign a treaty stripping them of their ability to defend themselves (as far as I know, no people have ever agreed to such terms), he would in all likelihood, be unable to find a nation to safeguard the new state. In the end, Netanyahu’s ‘equitable formula for peace’ seems to come with a crippling poison pill.