USA Today Op-Ed on Israeli ‘Buffer Zone’ Needs Remedial Thinking
In a USA Today commentary, “Do Buffer Zones Deter Wars?” (Dec. 29, 2014) Lionel Beehner writes that such zones “maintain the uneasy peace between Israel and Egypt and Syria over the past few decades.” But “the one place in the Middle East with no real buffer … is within Israel itself, which is partly why violence with the Palestinians rekindles every few years.”
Are there “real buffers” in Syria? Iraq? Yemen? Libya? Never mind.
One hundred and twenty miles of largely unpopulated Sinai Desert, hosting a U.S.-led multinational observer force, does buffer Israel and Egypt. Israel occupies the Golan Heights, separating it from and looking down on a relatively unpopulated part of Syria.
But anti-Israel violence by Palestinian Arabs rarely comes from “within Israel itself.” Israel’s West Bank security barrier, which was a response to suicide bombers of the second intifada, plus checkpoints, good intelligence and occasional raids usually buffer Israel against terrorism from the well-populated territory that begins where suburban Tel Aviv and eastern Jerusalem stop.
What periodically rekindles Israeli-Palestinian violence? Contrary to Beehner, it’s not the lack of a buffer zone. At fault are the genocidal intentions of Hamas, which dominates the Gaza Strip, and repeated rejections of a “two-state solution” if it means peace with Israel as a Jewish state by the Fatah rulers of the West Bank.
Though not without its critics, Edward de Bono’s influential and commercially successful book Teaching Thinking appeared 39 years ago. Beehner, a member of USA Today’s board of contributors, Ph.D. candidate at Yale University and editor of the start-up online journal Cicero, apparently hasn’t read it yet.
(USA Today declined to publish a shorter version of the above as a letter to the editor.)
More from SNAPSHOTS
Double Standards: Boycotts and Discrimination in MassLive
May 16, 2025
Anti-Israel activists, including Harvard University’s Lara Jirmanus, a clinical instructor, seem to struggle with the concept of “discrimination.” Quoted in a May 14 MassLive article, “Harvard ‘failed to respond’ to 450 discrimination complaints. Staff hand-delivered [...]
Swarthmore Students Are Learning: It Was Never About Palestinian Rights
May 14, 2025
Students at Swarthmore College are so close to understanding the conflict. An article in the Swarthmore Phoenix details the frustrations of student activists with the college’s Students for Justice in Palestine. The gist of their criticism is [...]
AFP Arabic Stops Mislabeling Northern Israeli Communities ‘Settlements”
August 10, 2021
A view of Metulla, northern Israel (Photo by Hadar Sela)After failing to set the record straight last May when Agence France Presse's Arabic service repeatedly referred to Jewish communities in northern Israel as "settlements," the [...]
NY Times Praises Ilhan Omar’s Book While Glossing Over Her Antisemitism
August 19, 2020
A recent New York Times book review boosts Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) autobiography while glossing over her antisemitism. In the paper’s Aug. 16, 2020 edition, NYT reporter Christina Cauterucci writes: The memoir offers breathing room [...]
When TV Interviews of Ilhan Omar Constitute Journalistic Malpractice
August 11, 2020
Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) documented animosity toward Jews and Israel was ignored in recent interviews by MSNBC and C-SPAN. MSNBC’s The Beat for July 23, 2020 included host Ari Melber’s 10-minute conversation at 6:16 [...]
Boston TV Station WCVB Teamed Up With Terrorist Supporter CAIR
July 7, 2020
WCVB-TV (channel 5) (Boston’s ABC network affiliate) recently misled area viewers about a matter involving antisemitic propaganda. This occurred on its local Sunday show Cityline hosted by Karen Holmes Ward who is described by the [...]
Harper’s Magazine Echoed Palestinian Propaganda Condemning Israel And America
June 2, 2020
Writing in Harper's, Kevin Baker condemns the U.S. Middle East peace plan [“The Striking Gesture,” Easy Chair, May 2020], mischaracterizing it as, “Give up all your [Palestinian] hopes and your holiest places, embark on a [...]