Originally Posted by Liberal Authoritarian

It has been a short time after the ceasefire was announced and Hamas has resulted to its normal tactics of smuggling weapons into the country. It is obvious as to what will happen, Hamas will yet again fire rockets on Israel and Israel will respond heavily.
Does the middle east need a western country to see its operations and prevent the further prospect of total war?

I haven't actually voted on this because it's more a case of "it depends on the circumstances". In general I'd prefer not to see other countries jumping in and trying to 'help'; history has shown that all too often this leads to partisanship then escalation as others become involved.

In this instance though I do believe that outside involvement is needed, to an extent anyway. Israel has repeatedly disregarded the national boundaries it was give in 1947, to the detriment of the Palestinian people, and its tactics of trying to starve out the people of Gaza are quite frankly abhorrent. Yes, Hamas is firing rockets into Israel from there, but whilst very few could condone their actions, at least they're understandable in the light of the suffering the Palestinian people have been put under, unlike many other so-called terrorist attacks around the world.

The big problem is the US support for Israel; whatever the rights and wrongs I think it would be a very brave western country to step out and openly take the Palestinian cause. If anyone did though, in many respects it should be Britain; we were largely responsible for the partitioning in 1947 and we've always had a pretty good relationship with other Arab countries in the region. But I just can't see that happening.

I'm afraid this one is going to be down to the UN to sort out, but for that to happen and for a permanent solution to be found, a Palestinian State must be established and Israel will have to accept it, and stick within its own national boundaries.