I Don't Want to Keep Up with This Jones

Of all the cockamaney ideas!

Retired Marine General James Jones was selected by President-elect Barack Obama to become his National Security Adviser.

He's for deployment of international forces to the Palestinian territories.

It's reported that:-

...he argued against having Israel keep full security responsibility for the West Bank after an agreement is reached. Jones proposed that an interim international force led by NATO would take over until Palestinian forces are prepared to maintain security.

...“The idea wasn’t to give over all security issues to NATO, but rather to reassure Israelis that their security concerns would be taken care of even after withdrawal,” said an Israeli official who was briefed on Jones’s work.

Still, Israelis saw the proposal as a warning signal and turned it down immediately...the Jerusalem Post on December 2 quoted an unnamed senior IDF officer calling Jones’s idea of deploying NATO forces to the West Bank “very bad,” arguing that “NATO will not want to endanger its soldiers on behalf of Israeli citizens.”

...Jones himself did not go back to the idea in a lengthy interview he gave last month to “Inside the Pentagon” — a professional newsletter tracking the business and politics of the defense establishment. Jones did, however, stress in the interview the need for the next administration to build on the success of his work in Jenin, saying, “nothing is more important” than continuing to lay the groundwork for a two-state solution.

See here for more details.

Israel has had enough outside interference. The country is too small for an interventionist force. Bad idea.