These weaknesses are evident not just on the politically fraught Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but recently in the case of North Korea. The much-touted UNSC Resolution 1874 calls for member states to inspect North Korean ships thought to be carrying banned weapons exports, but with the almost surreal caveat that this action be “with the consent of the flag state”—i.e., North Korea itself.

Robert J. Lieber is professor of government and international affairs at Georgetown University.

The UN is no sure thing, but neither is it the complete mess Inbar suggests it is. The UN as a whole would not be involved. Instead, this would be run by the UN Security Council, which has responsibility for peace and security. And, there are now a multitude of different force arrangements, including UN deputizing of other military forces while providing civilian staff (because UN staff know a lot about transitions, a whole lot more than Americans). Would the transition be potentially violent, disruptive, and bloody? Any force would have to prepare for these possibilities. Would it be as bloody as the civil war we see between Hamas and Gaza or Israel’s shelling of Gaza and other parts of the region? I honestly don’t know. Instead of speaking as if we know categorically what the future will bring, and setting up one alternative to a doomsday scenario, we need to think in terms of probabilities and a range of possible outcomes. Does anyone really believe that the future is going to get better?

Michael Barnett is Harold Stassen Professor of International Affairs in the Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Policy at the University of Minnesota.

This suggestion shows the great gulf between diagnosis and prognosis that even respected political scientists have problems bridging. The UN is a morally bankrupt institution with automatic majorities for the most ridiculous preferences of dictatorial Third World states. Moreover, for decades the UN has shown an entrenched anti-Israel bias, singling out Israel for every type of abuse. It was the UN that declared Zionism, the Jewish national movement, to be racist, and it is the UN that hosts anti-Semitic Durban-type conferences that annually adopt hundreds of anti-Israeli resolutions.

Finally, the UN is hardly an effective organization that can issue credible security assurances. The UN peacekeeping record is very flawed. In the Arab-Israeli arena, the UN forces have played a particularly dysfunctional role. Will they fight Hamas? The recommendation to place the security of Israelis in the hands of the blue helmets vastly overestimates what the UN can do, and shows disregard for the welfare of Israelis who face Palestinian hatred and terrorism.

Moreover, the belief that a UN trusteeship would bring law and order, prosperity, and political stability to the Palestinians is divorced from Middle East realities. The Palestinians are beleaguered by problems similar to those that haunt other Arab societies, such as in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and Somalia. The UN is hardly the remedy for the emerging failed states in the Arab world. Neither UN administrators nor generous outside funding can save the Palestinians from their problems.

This is probably the main reason for the Israeli desire to disengage from most of Judea and Samaria, but if the choice is between the status quo and a UN-controlled PA, a huge majority of the Israelis, including most of the Israeli Left, will prefer the uncertainties of the current predicament to the certainty of a deterioration in the security situation under a UN mantle.

Efraim Inbar is professor of political studies at Bar-Ilan University and director of the Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies.