ISRAEL - IRAN - SYRIA - HAMAS - HEZBOLLAH - WWWIII?

The United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon, or UNIFIL, was created by the United Nations, with the adoption of Security Council Resolution 425 and 426 on 19 March 1978, to confirm Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon (following its incursion a few days earlier in Operation Litani), restore the international peace and security, and help the Lebanese Government restore its effective authority in the area. The first UNIFIL troops arrived in the area on 23 March 1978; these troops were reassigned from other UN peacekeeping operations in the area (namely UNEF and UNDOF).

When Israel invaded Lebanon again in 1982 (1982 Lebanon War), U.N. positions were overrun. During the occupation, UNIFIL's function was mainly the provision of food and aid to locals in Southern Lebanon. Beginning in 1985, Israel scaled back its permanent positions in Lebanon, although this process was punctuated by brief invasions and bombings, as in the 1993 Operation Accountability and the 1996 Operation Grapes of Wrath. In 1999, it undertook a full withdrawal, which concluded in 2000 and enabled UNIFIL to resume its military tasks. The Syrian and Lebanese governments claim that the Shebaa Farms area, which Israel and others in the international community view as part of the occupied Golan Heights, is Lebanese territory. They contend that this dispute gives continued legal sanction to armed anti-Israeli groups in Lebanon (though the UN has officially certified that Israel has fully withdrawn from all areas it occupied after 1973). At the request of the country of Lebanon in January 2006, the UN extended UNIFIL's mandate to expire July 31, 2006.

UNIFIL is tasked with achieving the following objectives:

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.
Additionally, the 2006 mandate extension required assisting the Lebanese government in establishing a "monopoly" on military action, adding impetus to disarm Hizbullah guerillas.

UNIFIL is currently primarily deployed along the U.N. drawn Blue Line dividing Israel (and the Israeli Golan Heights) and southern Lebanon. Its activities have centred around monitoring military activity between Hezbollah and the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) 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.

UNIFIL currently (30 April 2006) employs 1991 soldiers, some 50 UNTSO observers and 390 civilians.[1] The force includes troops from China, France, Finland, Ghana, India, Ireland, Italy and Poland. Its annual budget is about US$100 million. UNIFIL is led by French Major General Alain Pellegrini, formerly French military attache in Beirut and head of the mideast division of the French military intelligence.

To date UNIFIL has suffered 261 fatalities (of which 12 civilians) during the course of its deployment.

Debate over UNIFIL presence
UNIFIL forces have fallen out of favour in Israel and claims that little regard has been given to their safety by the IDF[2][3] following accusations that it was complicit in a fatal abduction of IDF soldiers in October 2000. Suspicions persist although the UN has published a report denying complicity[4].

Prior to the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict of July 2006, Israel had been lobbying for UNIFIL to either take a more active role vis-a-vis Hezbollah (for example, preventing Hezbollah from setting up military posts adjacent to UNIFIL's in the hope this will deter Israel from attacking them), or to step out of the region (thereby voiding the Lebanese government's excuse for not deploying its army along the border).[5]

With the eruption of open warfare, UNIFIL's utility has been called into question over accusations that it has failed to fulfill the terms of its mandate. There is currently some debate over the need for a replacement UN Peacekeeping force. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has also asked the UN to enforce UN Resolution 1559, which calls for "the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias," as one of its prime considerations in accepting a cease-fire.

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Conflict with Israeli forces
According to UNIFIL Press Releases, there have been dozens of such incidents of UN posts coming under fire, mainly from the Israeli side, during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. [6]

An Israeli tank shell hit a UNIFIL position in southern Lebanon on Monday 24 July 2006, wounding four Ghananian soldiers. Additionally, Israel's efforts to hamper Hizballah resupply were countered when UNIFIL engineers from China repaired a road connecting Tyre and Naqoura.[7]
Shrapnel from tank shells fired by the IDF seriously wounded an Indian soldier on July 16, 2006[8]
On 25 July 2006 four UN peacekeepers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland were killed in an Israeli air strike on a UN observation post in southern Lebanon. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said he was "shocked" at the "apparently deliberate targeting" of the post. According to the UN, the four had taken shelter in a bunker under the post. The site was shelled a total of 14 times by Israeli artillery[9] throughout the day, in apparent defiance of ten requests for ceasefire made by the UN troops via telephone. Later, a rescue team was also shelled as it tried to clear the rubble. "I am shocked and deeply distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defence Forces of a UN Observer post in southern Lebanon," Mr Annan said in a statement from Rome. [10]

Lebanon's prime minister, Fouad Siniora, made what Ms Rice described an "impassioned appeal" to the summit. "Is the value of human rights in Lebanon less than that of citizens elsewhere?" he asked. "Are we children of a lesser god? Is an Israeli teardrop worth more than a drop of Lebanese blood?"

Mr Siniora also pleaded for an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire. "The more we delay the ceasefire, the more we are going to witness more being killed, more destruction and more aggression against the civilians in Lebanon," he told the press conference. "For the past 15 days, we are being pounded every day. The country is being cut to pieces."

It was Israel's fault for fighting back. Walter, have I got this all correct in my understanding of the situation?

Israel not only needs to land a crippling blow to Hezbollah, but they should, to at least slow them down a bit and give them pause to seriously consider the consequences of their action.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al Zawahri warned his group would not stand by and watch Israel bombard Lebanon and the Palestinians, calling on Muslims in a video aired on Thursday to fight attacks on their countries.

Zawahri, in the tape aired by Al Jazeera television, did not say how al Qaeda would respond to the fighting.

"How can we remain silent while watching bombs raining on our people," he asked. "Oh Muslims everywhere, I call on you to fight and become martyrs in the war against the Zionists and the Crusaders," Zawahri said in the statement which was entitled "The Zionist-crusader war on Lebanon and the Palestinians".

Zawahri's statement was the first comment by the Sunni Muslim-dominated al Qaeda against Israel's war on Lebanon which was sparked by the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Shi'ite Muslim guerrilla group Hizbollah.

The summit fails. War rages

I have not suggested the UN obsservers were underachieving. I asked what their mission was.

foxfyre wrote

Quote:

I have not suggested the UN obsservers were underachieving. I asked what their mission was.

Please. Let us procede with as much honesty as we can muster, acknowledging that we'll both have some blind spots or prejudices coming out of our differing ideas.

All of this conversation sits within a larger disagreement regarding the value of the UN. We are both well aware of the position held generally by the 'modern american right' (and acutely by this administration) and the history of this position going back through Shafley and earlier. We are both well aware that you share this notion, at least in the main. Also, that I don't share it. What non-Americans do share it? In as little as two or three decades, China may very well be both wealthier and more militarily powerful than the US. The present administration's policies bent on disempowering the UN and other internationalist bodies will appear deeply imprudent when the US is surpassed - an inevitability.

That you even posed the questions re that UN force in Lebanon stems less from a concern about tax dollars than from your notions about the value of the UN in the world. That is so, yes? Even if the UN was funded by everyone other than American citizens your concerns here would be much the same, true?

All we know is that is that is that they failed to disarm the non Lebanese militants in Lebanon which was one of their mandates. We do not know if they failed to report ECT... once again you inject your own suppositions. Blatham is right; you do have a well known pet peeve (along with many others) with the UN so about anything you say about the UN can be taken with that in mind.


Personally I think you are waste of time in talking to after having responded to something that you have said once or twice; you just go around in circles.

I don't know whether the UN people in Lebanon have done their job or accomplished anything useful.