ABSTRACT
The United Nations (UN) played a constructive and virtually exclusive role in third-party peacekeeping between Israel and its neighbors. Since 1948 military observers of the UN Truce Supervisory Organization, including US officers, have monitored armistice lines, supervised ceasefire arrangements, and verified arms-limitation zones. The peacekeeping landscape was altered by another event in 1982 when the UN Interim Force in Lebanon was swept aside and made to look ineffective during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June. But peacekeeping has the greatest prospect of succeeding when it rests on an agreement, whether a peace treaty or disengagement accord, rather than on a mandate perceived as externally imposed through the Security Council. Some Israeli academics and diplomats contend that Israelis have been so traumatized by the drumbeat of invective and the double-standard applied to Israel in UN forums, that no UN operation is trusted to be either fair or effective.
