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Allen security plan stuck in start

Will Gen. John Allen’s ideas about the US role in addressing Israel’s security concerns help or hinder the Israeli-Palestinian talks?
U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Gen. John Allen (R) waits to testify, as he sits next to Navy Vice Admiral William McRaven (C) and Army General James Thurman (L), before the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on his nomination to serve as the next commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, on Capitol Hill in Washington June 28, 2011. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS MILITARY) - RTR2O7DR

Many have long wished for a US plan to challenge Israel’s power and end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. They should watch what they wish for, because it just may come true. The findings of the US security team headed by Gen. John Allen, who has recently presented US ideas on how to address and solve Israel’s security concerns east of the 1967 line — the so-called Eastern Front — give the most recent example of the promise and the peril of US intervention.

There is still no public or authoritative detailing of the ideas Allen, and now Secretary of State John Kerry himself, have briefed to Israeli and Palestinian leaders. They reportedly include continuing US support for Palestinian security forces but no international monitoring or enforcement “boots on the ground,” an “invisible” but controlling Israeli presence at Palestine’s border crossings to Jordan, Israel’s long-term control of both the Jordan Valley and the Jordanian-Palestinian frontier including early warning stations and a continuing Israeli role in Palestine’s electromagnetic spectrum and sovereign airspace. We can only infer by the responses of Palestinians and Israelis — and here the news is entirely predictable, and not good.

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