Hacker News Reader

Comment by mark_l_watson | Hacker News Reader

Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this, but something has confused me for a long time: why aren’t there permanent international observers in Israel and Gaza to help protect innocent civilian populations on both sides? The UN should do its job.

And it is not my intention to pick on the Israelis and Palestinians here: there are many hotspots in the world that should have permanent international observers. I don’t see the downside, and if it would reduce civilian casualties, then well worth the money and resources.

View on HN

this is easy:

Israel has basically never been hit. There was no expectation for there to be a ground assault from Gaza. Occasionally missiles from Gaza reach the ground, and a UN observer on the Israeli side would not be able to help with that.

Gaza is dense and all the UN observers would routinely get killed in Israeli retaliations. The modus operandi from Israel is precision missile strikes on specific buildings, but all buildings are targets because Hamas uses human shields, not like there is any military specific area they could go in Gaza as its too dense and would also get bombed immediately if there was. So, this 'human shield' observation has no limits and there is no appeals process. There is generally no ground operation from Israel.

you're speaking from the future because that's all changed now.

edit: and as others pointed out, there are UN operations in other areas not related to the Gaza conflict. because there are other conflicts

> Israel has basically never been hit.

It seems like I recall Egypt and Syria invading in 1973, right?

Invading is very interesting description of what happened in 1973 considering that Egypt attacked Isreal in Sinai to liberate Egyptian lands. While Syria attacked Golan Heights which is Syrian land. The attack weren't even in Palestinian territory.

How much land do you consider Isreali? Everything except Alaska??

This article addresses the question of land very clearly:

https://robertjprince.net/

....

>> There was no expectation for there to be a ground assault from Gaza

Many homes were equipped with safe rooms -- concrete and steel reinforced boxes inside the house where people could retreat, lock the door, and be safe from attackers.

Yes, safe rooms might also protect against rockets, but underground shelters are more resilient.

If you build a safe room into every house, people must have envisioned the possibility of armed attackers.

Invading is quite strong. Egypt dumbly tried force to get back its De Jure territory. I'm pretty sure at the time Egypt could have just put enormous diplomatic pressure and that would have been enough.

by Gaza. The question is about UN observers around Gaza strip and that conflict, and so is the answer.

Got it, got it. Agreed.

>There was no expectation for there to be a ground assault from Gaz

there were expectation that there will be. this is why there is fence, undeground wall, seismic and acoustic sensors to detect tunnels (there were multiple attempt to attack Israel through them) and some observation towers .

there were multiple army and police exercises for dealing specifically with what just happened. There were multiple people who predicted that it will happen

Genuinely curious; could you be more specific in what you're looking for in an international observer? There is UNRWA, which has been there for a long time. Not sure how effective they've been in reducing civilian casualties. There is also the UNDOF in the Golan Heights.

I was asking a question, so I was looking for an explanation. Honestly, I am not sure what form international observers would take.

Observers in China, perhaps on the US/Mexican border, and wherever oppression against civilian populations occurs would be difficult, often impossible, but seems like it would be worth the effort.

China and the US would never allow foreign troops on their soil, even if they're from the UN. As superpowers and permanent security council members, they're the ones who dictate where UN peacekeepers go.

If you're talking about a non-militarised observer, I'd say that role is supposed to be filled by journalists. But all of these countries go to great lengths to keep journalists away from their atrocities.

Why weren't there international observers at birkenau? Why aren't there any in xinjiang concentration camps? Same answer to all three.

As I think about my original question: yes, local governments would have many reasons to not want local observers, but my feeling is that these reasons are dark reasons.

Certainly. But those are the reasons. And the other entities with the power to force it have their own reasons for not wanting to.

take a look at unifil. they are mix of been useless at least and serving as human shields at most.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com