NATO in the West Bank.(International Edition; MIDDLE EAST)

Byline: Kevin Peraino

Israel has long been allergic to foreign troops meddling in its affairs. That's now changing.

Israelis have traditionally scorned the idea of international peacekeepers in their region. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion once dismissed the U.N.--"Oom" in Hebrew--as "Oom, shmoom." Arab leaders have also shown disdain: on the eve of the 1967 Six Day War, Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser peremptorily expelled 1,300 blue helmets from Sinai before rolling through. Palestinians have feared that an armed international force would infringe on the sovereignty of their incipient state.

So it's striking that a recent proposal to deploy NATO forces in the West Bank as part of any Obama-era peace deal is quickly gaining advocates in Washington and the Levant. Former U.S.anational-security advisers Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski both recently endorsed the idea.aThe president-elect's nomineeato head the National Security Council, Gen. James Jones, is also said to favor such a force. Israelis and Palestinians have raised tepid protests, but even they seem to be realizing increasingly that a strong international presence will be critical if any deal is to be struck--and if it's to stick. "A principle that appeared to be out of bounds I think is now in bounds," says Tony Blair, the Mideast envoy of the Quartet (made up of the United States, the EU, the United Nations and Russia).

Negotiators have long struggled with a frustrating Catch-22. Israelis argue that they can't make a deal until Palestinian troops become competent enough to control militants. Palestinians complain that they can't do so until the Israelis withdraw. A robust international force could solve that conundrum, reassuring Israelis on security while freeing the Palestinians from their hated occupiers.

The idea has been floated before. The deal that President Bill Clinton proposed at Camp David in 2000 called for "an international presence." But Aaron David Miller, a U.S. negotiator at the talks, says Israelis insisted that the troops be American. Clinton's plan also would have allowed Israeli forces to remain in the Jordan Valley for up to three years "under the authority of the international force." The NATO mission being proposed today would have a wider mandate and might even preclude Israeli troops in areas it would patrol. "People are increasingly going for the maximalist version," says Daniel Levy of the New America ...