Israel Has Had Its UNIFIL Of UN Peacekeepers

The mandate of UNIFIL, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, ends on July 31st--and many do not see any reason to renew it.

The Bellmont Club notes that UNIFIL's mandate has 3 components:

• Confirm the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon;
• Restore international peace and security;
• Assist the Government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority in the area.

Based on the press releases that UNIFIL has been releasing over the past week, Belmont Club concludes that UNIFIL has not been doing their job at all:

Instead it has become a kind of ambulance and relief service for the killed and injured on the Lebanese side of the border. The releases are peppered with accounts of UNIFIL personnel escorting what are described as civilians and villagers to places of safety. This is not really part of its mandate, which is not to say that it is immoral or wrong.

Claudia Rosett, who has written extensively about UN scandals, writes that the issue is not just what UNIFIL has been reduced to, but what its irrelevence has allowed to happen during the past six years after Israel kept its part of the agreement in leaving Lebanon:

The "peacekeepers" of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, called UNIFIL, sat passively looking on, costing about $100 million a year and doing nothing to stop Hezbollah from trucking in weapons, digging tunnels, and running the armed protection rackets with which it has kept a grip on swathes of Lebanon, including the southern border with Israel, parts of the Bekaa, and southern Beirut.

Sometimes UNIFIL has not been so passive. On October 7, 2000, Hizbullah kidnapped Israeli soldiers (see: Will the UN Protect Hizbollah Kidnappers--Again?). According to Israel Insider:

An Indian soldier who served in the UNIFIL brigade on the Israel-Lebanese border reportedly told interviewers in Israel that the soldiers in his brigade "could have prevented the kidnapping" of three Israeli soldiers last October, Eitan Rabin of Maariv reported in an exclusive report Friday.

Dozens in the UNIFIL brigade reportedly watched the kidnapping but did nothing. Moreover, at least four Indian soldiers reportedly had been bribed by the Hizbullah to offer active assistance in carrying out the abduction.

...The Indian soldier said that at least four UN soldiers collaborated with the Hizbullah to help them reach the ambush location, and to assist them in locating the IDF soldiers.

Some of the collaborators later returned to India and reported what happened. Israeli officials went to India to investigate. Senior Indian sources also conducted an investigation and seriously criticized the soldiers' behavior.

The Hizbullah had made intimidating threats against the Indian contingent. But at the same time, they had bribed several soldiers in the Indian contingent with liquor, Lebanese women and money.

...Originally the Israelis thought the money was just a small-scale payoff to keep the UN soldiers quiet. But later they were shocked to discover that the sums exchanged were hundreds of thousands of dollars. "The money took care of all the assistance that Hizbullah was given during the kidnapping."

The buddy-buddy relationship between Hizbollah and UNIFIL is well established and has been noted and documented. Jed Babbin, deputy undersecretary of defense in the George H.W. Bush administration and the author of Inside the Asylum: Why the U.N. and Old Europe Are Worse Than You Think, writes:

The U.N.'s years-long record on the Israel-Lebanon border makes mockery of the term "peacekeeping." On page 155 of my book, "Inside the Asylum," is a picture of a U.N. outpost on that border. The U.N. flag and the Hezbollah flag fly side by side. Observers told me the U.N. and Hezbollah personnel share water and telephones, and that the U.N. presence serves as a shield against Israeli strikes against the terrorists.

Rich Lowry of The Corner writes about his own experiences when he was in Israel:

When I was in Israel three weeks ago we went up to the northern border to look at some Hezbollah bunkers and observation posts (it was quiet then, and everyone assumed it would basically stay quiet). One of the Hezbollah observation posts—where you could see a Hezbollah guy moving around it was so close to the border—was right next to a U.N. post. I'm talking right next to. When I was peering over there with binoculars, at one point I thought the U.N. guy was actually talking to the Hezbollah guy. Hezbollah obviously did this so if things got hot, there would be a chance that Israel would hit the U.N. post by mistake.

This of course brings us to the death of the 4 members of a UNIFIL unit as a result of Israeli weapons--which Annan came out condemning as deliberate. One of those who defended Israel was Retired Canadian Major General Lewis MacKenzie, who was interviewed on CBC Toronto
radio 26 July 2006:

...the tragic loss of a soldier yesterday who I happen to know and I think probably is from my Regiment. We've received e-mails from him a few days ago and he described the fact that he was taking within - in one case - three meters of his position "for tactical necessity - not being targeted". Now that's veiled speech in the military and what he was telling us was Hizbullah fighters were all over his position and the IDF were (sic) targeting them and that's a favorite trick by people who don't have representation in the UN. They use the UN as shields knowing that they can't be punished for it. [recording of MacKenzie can be heard here]

Left unanswered is why the UNIFIL unit was not given orders to leave the area.

Also unanswered is who exactly would act as a peacekeeping force when the time comes.
Not unexpectedly, there are no takers.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Hizbollah and Hezbollah and UN and UNIFIL and Lebanon.