Return to sender

No, this one isn’t about Elvis. It’s about the first part of the Real Clear Politics blog posted below, which is also worth reading, although I think its recommendations are misguided. RCP suggests a package-deal under which the U.N. would send 50,000 peace-keepers to Iraq and 25,000 to Gaza in exchange for some unspecified amount of control over policy in both places. Putting aside my objections to any appreciable U.N. involvement or say in Iraq, and putting aside the implausibility of thinking that the U.N. could be induced to help us in Iraq by virtue of any real concern with solving the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, I’m hard-pressed to figure out what role U.N. peacekeepers are supposed to play in Gaza. The road-map contemplates that the Palestinian Authority will curb terrorism on the part of Hamas and others. If the PA is unwilling or unable to do so, then the road map has no future. Trying to paper-over the PA’s dishonesty and/or impotence with U.N. peacekeepers seems like a non-starter to me.