The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon was created with the
adoption of Security Council Resolutions 425 and 426 on March 19, 1978,
primarily to confirm Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon and "to restore
international peace and security".
Both goals have proved elusive these
past three decades with Israel still in Shebaa Farms, the village of
Ghajar, and violating Lebanese airspace and sovereignty at will.
An
examination of 30 years of UNIFIL's presence in Lebanon reveals that
UNIFIL, like its parent the UN Security Council, has been exploited by
power politics conducted by the Untied States on behalf of Israel and
unfortunately, frequently acquiesced in by the international
community.Too often UNIFIL's guiding principles and mandate has been
replaced with the power and authority which were detrimental to the
people of Lebanon.
UNIFIL has often acted in favor of
the interests of Israel and Washington over the international community
including the people of Lebanon. As Boston University's Professor
Augustus Norton instructs us, actions taken by UNIFIL have sometimes
reflected the US dictate that UN resolutions are to operate in one of
two dimensions. Either manifesting a unified binding character which
the entire world is expected to accept or taking the form of an
inconclusive mandate "which leaves sufficient room for Israel to buy
time, alter the enforcement of the resolution and sometimes even
replace the intended policy or action with its own objectives."
A
very recent example of the Bush administration manhandling the Security
Council to the detriment of democracy in Lebanon is the December 12,
2007 US move to coerce the UN into a self destructive endorsement of
the preferred US/Israel faction in Lebanon, the Siniora government.
The
Welch Club idea is to push the Army to try to link with UNIFIL against
the opposition. During this attempt the US will provide the necessary
noise at Turtle Bay about the need for UNIFIL 'to do its duty under
UNSCR 1701'.The [assassination] of Brig. Gen. Francois Hajj on 12/12/13
could be a signal not to use the Lebanese army for Bush Administration
projects.The 12/12/07 US move, employing the new French pro-Israel
Skorsky government as pitchman, takes the form of an unusual draft of
UN Presidential Statement in support of the Siniora government.
The
Draft stresses the need to implement United Nations Security Council
resolutions which is US Bush Administration code language for disarming
Hezbollah.If the the Bush administration succeeds in pushing UNIFIL to
attempt to disarm the Lebanese Resistance UNIFIL, according to one UN
official at its HQ in Naquora, " will be forced out of Lebanon within
fewer hours than Israel needed to saturate South Lebanon with US
cluster bombs"."The first UNIFIL troops arrived in Lebanon on March 23,
1978 although a unit was sent in 1974 to observe the Golan Heights and
Israel frontier.
UNIFIL is currently primarily deployed along
the Blue Line dividing Israel and Syria's Golan Heights and southern
Lebanon. Its activities have centered on monitoring military activity
between Hezbollah and Israeli Forces with the aim of reducing tensions
and allaying continuing low-level armed conflict. UNIFIL has also
played an important role in clearing landmines, assisting displaced
persons, and providing humanitarian assistance in this underdeveloped
region.
The UNIFIL contingent was reinforced last year and is up
to more than 13,000 personnel and a tougher UN mandate under UNSC
resolution 1701.
The new resolution states that UNIFIL can "take
all the necessary action in areas of deployment of its forces, and as
it deems within its capabilities, to ensure that its area of operations
is not utilized for hostile activities of any kind."
After the
2006 July War, a UNIFIL Maritime Task Force (MTF) was established to
end the Israeli sea blockade of Lebanese ports which for months had
kept Lebanon's 3,000 year old fishing fleet in dock and without income.
This MTF was initially led by the Italian Navy. In October 2006 the
German Navy assumed the lead and is contributing the major part of the
force with five frigates and ten smaller patrol vessels.
Like
most of Lebanon, UNIFIL is under intense political pressure and a pall
of mistrust with its immediate future the subject of casino wagers from
Macau, off China's Guangdong province in the South China Sea, to Monte
Carlo, a half a world away.
Debate over UNIFIL's neutrality
UNIFIL
has fallen out of favor with both Israel and many in Lebanon. Israel
has criticized the force for, among other things, maintaining a
dialogue with Hezbollah, which it views as a terrorist organization,
for treating Israeli and Hezbollah ceasefire breaches equally, and of
complicity in the capture of three Israeli soldiers in 2000.
The
imaginative and truly gifted temptress, Lori Lowenthal Marcus of the
Zionist Organization of America has accused UNIFIL, in a September 2006
Weekly Standard (!) article, of providing Hezbollah with 'real time
intelligence' concerning Israeli troop movements via its website during
the July 2006 War.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert: "We
didn't like very much UNIFIL which was very useless and very helpless.
Look what happened. Did you hear of any particular efforts of the
United Nations UNIFIL force in the south of Lebanon to prevent the
attacks against Israel in the first place? So they were not useful and
that is why we were unhappy with them."
Former Israeli
ambassador Itamar Rabinovich on the 20 July 2006:"UNIFIL, I'm afraid,
is a joke. They've been there for 29 years and since then, there have
been so many skirmishes [along the border]."
Former UNIFIL spokesman, Timur Goksel disagrees:
- "UNIFIL
came here in 1978. We were, because at that time there was no Hezbollah
here, accused of being sympathetic to Palestinians. A peacekeeping
force does not come here with pre-set enemies. There is no enemy in a
peacekeeping force and UNIFIL is a peacekeeping force. It's not an
Israeli combat force or an anti-terror force, as they would like it to
be. As long as we don't serve their direct interests, they are going to
denigrate it as much as they can." (Sept 26 2006)
One example of
UNIFIL's image problem can be found in Sibqin, a small remote village
overlooking Tyre and the Mediterranean, a few miles from the Lebanon
border.
During the July 2006 War, which destroyed 60% of
Sibqin's homes, the local hospital and its grounds were not just
targeted but saturated with US-made cluster bombs. This carpet bombing
was done in the last 72 hours of the conflict after the long delayed UN
sponsored cessation of hostiles agreement was finally allowed to be
signed by the Bush administration. UNIFIL reckons that nearly one
million unexploded US bomblets still constitute a deadly infestation of
the surrounding countryside of South Lebanon.
Recently a young
Shia mother from Sibqin brought her son who had a serious cut on his
hand for emergency treatment to the gate of the newly arrived Italian
regiment, called the 'Savoia Cavalleria' which is part of a six month
rotation with responsibility for this village.
According to
villagers, the boy and his mother were coldly turned away without
treatment, further endangering the lad: "We learned during the long
Israeli occupation to expect such inhumanity from the Zionists, but it
hurt our community for the Europeans to behave in this way towards us.
We did not invite them to become the new occupiers. And anyhow is it
not true that Bush and Rice sent UNIFIL to protect the thieves of
Palestine, not to protect us Lebanese".
Soon, other complaints
against UNIFIL surfaced. "We liked the Nepalese but they left in 2000",
one woman said. Another added, "Italian UNIFIL doesn't even talk to us
anyone, they just stare at us from behind their dark glasses inside
their armored vehicles. My children are afraid of them."
Sensitive
to their image, the Italians apologized for not helping the boy and
have set up a Friday morning free clinic for Sibqin, and as has been
their annual custom, are currently busy arranging for Santa Claus to
deliver Christmas gifts to the precious, and war-traumatized children
in their area. The Italians also plan to do foot patrols with an
interpreter and 'try to connect more with the people'.
But
doubts persist on both sides in Zibqin as in the more than 200 villages
of South Lebanon. The other 28 country contingents around the South
have had similar experiences to the Italians.But increasingly UNIFIL
respects the Lebanese villagers they are assigned to protect.
A
Spanish soldier explained recently near Fatima Gate, while studying a
new Israeli bunker across the blue line cyclone fence and with Israeli
binoculars focused on him reflecting the bright sunlight from the hills
in the distance:
- "When I am on patrol in a village and I see
an old woman walking along the road I become emotional sometimes. I
don't see a Muslim woman, a supporter of Hezbollah, a 'terrorist'. I
see my deceased sainted mother or my aunt who lives in a village near
Barcelona. These Arab people are exactly the same as us. Why can't
people understand that?"
Near the village of Al-Sultaneh, a French paratrooper volunteered:
- "Sometimes
I arrive to a young man on his motorcycle. I assume for sure he is
Hezbollah. We are friendly and correct in our conversation. Do I want
to arrest him or question him? Non, Pas de tout! I have no right to do
that. C'est interdit. Truly I would like to play football with him
because all UNIFIL troops know that Hezbollah are also very good on the
sporting battlefield. But if we invited them for a match Israel would
maybe react completely fou [crazy] and cause an international crisis.
So our commander tells us to keep our distance. Malheursement also from
the Shia mademoiselles qui bien sur sont plus belle et chamrment que
lesquelles nous avons en toute de France!
- " Don't tell my girlfriend in Lyon that I said that!" he adds to shrieks of laughter from his friends.
The
June 24, 2007 attack on UNIFIL which killed six peacekeepers from the
Spanish contingent near Khiam shook UNIFIL resulting in even less
direct contact with the local population as UNIFIL hunkered behind
protective barriers and in armored vehicles.
Some Hezbollah
supporters, but not the organization itself, has accused UNIFIL of
siding with Israel, especially since the passage of Resolution 1701
which they view as one-sided.On October 16, 2006 the much respected
senior Shia cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah declared that "the
UN force has come to protect Israel, not Lebanon." Many agree with the
Sayyed, whose social service projects are second only to those of
Hezbollah in areas where the Government of Lebanon has never functioned
for average citizens and which today does less for Lebanese in need
than the Bush administration has done for post Katrina New Orleans's
lower ninth ward and St.Bernard Parish.
The anti-Hezbollah
salafist organization, Al Qaeda in Lebanon, has declared UNIFIL its
target and is widely believed to be behind the June attack. Hezbollah
is watching UNIFIL's back and has foiled more than half a dozen
operations against it.
Slowly and discretely, a growing bond is
forming among the Lebanese Resistance (led by Hezbollah), the Lebanese
Army and UNIFIL. This quasi-entente cordial does not please the Welch
Club whose first question to each of Lebanon's Presidential aspirants
over the past months is reported to be "how are you going to disarm
Hezbollah?"
UNIFIL Casualties
To date, UNIFIL has
suffered 258 fatalities: 249 military personnel, 2 military observers,
3 international civilian staff, and 4 local staff.
More than two
thirds were killed by Israel in what has been three decades of
accidents, wrong firing logs, out dated maps, terrorists operating near
UNIFIL, mistakes, faulty equipment etc.
Citing Israel's frequent
'errors', deep concern from contributing countries has pressured UNIFIL
to largely withdraw to bunkers in times of 'blue line' tension. This is
what Israel wants to happen to those who would presume to monitor their
actions.
Military pressure on UNIFIL
During the 1982
Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Israel ordered UN positions overrun,
primarily by its de facto forces under Phalangist Saad Haddad and later
Antoine Lahad who reportedly still plots against the Lebanese
Resistance from his current Israeli-commission based in his Tel Aviv
Restaurant.
The aftermath of the 1982 invasion saw the
establishment of what was to become Israel's 22 year occupation. And it
forced UNIFIL to quit its military mandate, only sporadically allowing
it to provide humanitarian aid to needy Lebanese in their area.
According
to UNIFIL documentation, there have been scores of attacks against
UNIFIL by Israeli forces since its arrival in Lebanon and dozens of
incidents of UN posts coming under Israeli fire during the 2006
Israel-Lebanon conflict.
The first Qana Massacre, on April 18
1996, was another Israeli-claimed 'accident' that saw a UNIFIL post
attacked. A hundred and thirteen (113) civilians were killed having
sought safety at the UN base as Israel had bombed and flattened 17
nearby villages in the areas shortly before. In addition to those
killed, more than 300 of the 800 seeking safety were wounded.
A
UN investigation concluded that Israel's explanations of sustained 14
shells per minute firing over a 30 minutes period and that it was all a
regrettable accident was disingenuous.
Today, a visitor finds
the targeted UNIFIL base untouched for the past 12 years, the
devastation permanently documenting a heinous war crime.
By May
24, 2000, Hezbollah forced Israel into a nearly full withdrawal, which
allowed UNIFIL to resume its military tasks and last summer the UN
Security Council has extended UNIFIL's mandate until August 31, 2008.
Recent casualties from Israeli fire
On
Monday 24 July 2006, an Israel tank shell hit four Ghanaian soldiers.
Earlier, UNIFIL engineers from China were fired at while repairing a
road connecting Tyre and Naqoura which had previously destroyed by the
Israeli airforce.
A week earlier on 16 July 2006 shrapnel from
Israeli tank shells seriously wounded an Indian soldier.A UNIFIL
international staff member and his wife were killed after an IAF
airstrike on the Hosh area of Tyre where they lived on July 17. Their
bodies were recovered from the rubble on July 26.
On 25 July
2006 four UN peacekeepers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland were
killed when an Israeli aerial bomb struck a UN observation post over
looking the blue line into near the former Khiam concentration camp.
Again, the Israelis claimed were responding to "Hezbollah fire from
that vicinity," and the four had taken shelter in a bunker under the
post.
The area around the site was shelled a total of 14 times
by Israeli artillery throughout the day despite more than a dozen
communications via telephone between the UN liaison and the IDF during
which the UN demanded Israeli shelling of their post cease. Following
the direct bombing of the post and deaths of the UN observers, a rescue
team was also shelled as it tried to recover the four bodies from the
rubble. One UNIFIL office angrily surveying the carnage stated that
Israel was better at finding and bombing UNIFIL than it was Hezbollah.
Israeli planes continue to harass UNIFIL and Lebanon
On
October 3, 2006, an Israeli fighter penetrated the 2-nautical mile
defense perimeter of the French frigate Courbet, triggering a
diplomatic incident.
Three weeks later six Israeli F-16's flew
over a German vessel patrolling off Israel's coast just south of the
Lebanese border. The German Defense Ministry said that the planes had
given off infrared decoys and one of the aircraft had fired two shots
into the air. The Israeli military accused the Germans of launching a
helicopter from its vessel without having been given permission by
Israel, and denied vehemently having fired any shots at the vessel and
said "as of now" it also had no knowledge of the jets launching flares
over the German vessel.
The "as of now" wording is signature
Israel military speak, often used to give it an out, after an incident
recedes from public attention, to allow for a later qualified admission
of responsibility.
On 31 October 2006, eight Israeli F-15s flew
over many areas of Lebanon, including Beirut.The IAF jets also flew
over a French peacekeeper position in Lebanon. According to the French
Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, the planes came in at what was
interpreted as an attack formation, and the peacekeepers were "seconds
away" from firing at the intruders.
Dating back to Roman and
Mamluk days, foreign troops have never had an easy mission in
Lebanon.As college students in Portland, San Diego, and elsewhere
continue to represent France and other countries in Model United
Nations, UNIFIL's Real World mission in Lebanon to some extent
represents France, Italy, Spain, Germany and the other contributing
Nations as well as the international community's mandate. It has done a
creditable job despite some doubts from those for whom it risks and
loses its lives to protect and despite Israeli criticism and
harassment. Ultimately Lebanon's future and its political sovereignty
depend on its people and hinges upon the intent and actions of the
community of nations and their willingness to resist Israeli aggression
in Lebanon and through out the region.
A period of hoped for
calm in Lebanon has now shattered by the latest assassination and the
apparent selection of General Michel Suleiman as Lebanon's new
President, is in doubt, Lebanon's best hope for a national consensus
may be the growing Lebanese Army, Hezbollah and UNIFIL cooperation.
That tripartite cooperation may well lead to Lebanon being able to
secure and safeguard its Southern border, airspace, and help rebuild
the Country.
Writings 
In Lebanon, almost nobody, and certainly not UNIFIL, drinks the local water and I have not seen anything remotely resembling Tijuana; certainly not in my Hezbollah neighborhood, Dahiyeh.
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